It is five years since we announced the launching of China Heritage at the end of a speech titled Living with Xi Dada’s China — Making Choices and Cutting Deals and published A Monkey King’s Journey to the East, the inaugural article in our online journal. It is also ten years since the irresistible rise of Xi Jinping.

We mark this occasion, and the beginning of the end of Xi Jinping’s first decennary as head of China’s party-state-army, with Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium, a series written and published online in the Wairarapa, on the southern tip of Te Ika-a-Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium is the theme of China Heritage Annual 2022. This material is also included in Readings in New Sinology.

— Geremie R. Barmé, Editor, China Heritage
Distinguished Fellow, The Asia Society
1 January 2022

***

An Announcement

Due to the volume of material in the series, Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium is extended through the calendar year of 2023. See 陰魂不散 — Tedium Continued — Mao more than ever, 26 December 2022.

New work is published in tandem with chapters in The Other China, a series launched on 12 January 2023. A link to this new series can be found under Topics in the menu bar of this site.

— Geremie R. Barmé
13 January 2023

***

Communist Chinese politics are a lugubrious merry-go-round … and in order to appreciate fully the déjà-vu quality of its latest convolutions, you would need to have watched it revolve for half a century. The main problem with many of our politicians and pundits is that their memories are too short, thus forever preventing them from putting events and personalities in a true historical perspective.

— Simon Leys quoted in Watching China Watching
China Heritage, 2018

Background Reference Material

Prelude to a Restoration: Xi Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun & the Spectre of Mao Zedong, China Heritage, 20 September 2021
Geremie R. Barmé in conversation with Susan Shirk, Interpreting the Xi Dynasty, UC San Diego, January 2020

China Story Yearbook 2012: Red Rising, Red Eclipse
Under One Heaven, introduction to Shared Destiny: China Story Yearbook 2014
Living with Xi Dada’s China — Making Choices and Cutting Deals, 16 December 2016
Mendacious, Hyperbolic & Fatuous — an ill wind from People’s Daily, China Heritage, 10 July 2018
Lee Yee 李怡, et al, Deathwatch for a Chairman, China Heritage, 17 July 2018
Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes’ — a Beijing Jeremiad 我們當下的恐懼與期待, China Heritage, 1 August 2018
Ruling The Rivers & Mountains, China Heritage, 8 August 2018
The Party Empire, China Heritage, 17 August 2018
Homo Xinensis, China Heritage, 31 August 2018
Peak Xi Jinping?, ChinaFile, 4 September 2018
Homo Xinensis Ascendant, China Heritage, 16 September 2018
Homo Xinensis Militant, China Heritage, 1 October 2018
Geremie R. Barmé, Red Allure & The Crimson Blindfold, China Heritage, 13 July 2021

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium

Geremie R. Barmé

For Xu Zhangrun 許章潤

Prologue 真面目 — The True Face of Mount Lu, 1 January 2022
An Illustrated Proem 鴟 — A Winking Owl, a Volant Dragon & the Tiger’s Arse, 10 January 2022
A New Year’s Card — Greeting the Year of the Tiger 壬寅虎年, 31 January 2022
Introduction 瞽 — You Should Look Back, 1 February 2022
A Tally 單 — The Threnody of Tedium, 18 February 2022
Chapter One 比 — We Need to Talk About Totalitarianism, Again, 31 March 2022
Chapter Two 旋 — The Lugubrious Merry-go-round
Chapter Three 迴 — Turn, Turn, Turn
Chapter Four 變 — From Reform to Revival
Chapter Five 蔭 — Shadows of 1644
Chapter Six 彪 — The Tyger’s Red Genes
Chapter Seven 甦 — The Xi Jinping Restoration
Chapter Eight 曲 — The History Men
Chapter Nine 讕 — The Factory of Lies
Chapter Ten 兲 — Horses Don’t Exist
Chapter Eleven 伎 — The Theatre of Politics
Chapter Twelve 緘 — A State of Cultural Boredom
Chapter Thirteen 刁 — Thick Skin, Black Heart
Chapter Fourteen 喬 — Professional Chinamen
Chapter Fifteen 丕 — A Century of Cancellation
Chapter Sixteen 膜 — Taiwan, ROC (The Republic of Comedy)
Chapter Seventeen 聚 — China’s Highly Consequential Political Silly Season: Part I (6 October 2022); Part II (14 October 2022); and, Part III (16 October 2022). Epilogue (8 November 2022)
Chapter Eighteen 期 — Ecce Homo! — Hopium & China’s Hopioid Crisis (in three parts)
Chapter Nineteen 熬 — The Copium of the Masses
Chapter Twenty 咒 — A Hosanna for Chairman Mao & Canticles for Party General Secretary Xi, 22 October 2022
Chapter Twenty-one 醒 — Awakenings — a Voice from Young China on the Duty to Rebel, 14 November 2022
Chapter Twenty-two 官逼民反 — Fear, Fury & Protest — three years of viral alarm, 27 November 2022 (see also Appendix XXIII 空白 — How to Read a Blank Sheet of Paper, 30 November 2022; Appendix XXIV 職責— It’s My Duty, 1 December 2022; and, Appendix XXV 贖 — ‘Ironic Points of Light’ — acts of redemption on the blank pages of history, 4 December 2022)
Chapter Twenty-three — Chinese Time, Part I: 新鬼舊夢— More New Ghosts, Same Old Dreams, 1 January 2023; Part II: 忘卻的紀念 — the struggle of memory against forgetfulness, 2 January 2023
Chapter Twenty-four 楓橋 — The View from Maple Bridge, Part I: Ah, Humanity!, 5 February 2023;
Chapter Twenty-five 特 — The Blight of Yan’an — Privilege, Corruption & China’s Ongoing Revolution
Chapter Twenty-six 新民 — A Pavilion for Sick Plum Trees — Homo Xinensis & Xi Jinping’s China Dream
Chapter Twenty-seven 生西 — Jiang Zemin Goes West
Chapter Twenty-eight, Part I, 赤字 — 華表 huabiao — Red Rising, Red Eclipse, 29 December 2022; and, Part II, 檄 — As If: Australia-China at Fifty, 31 December 2022
Chapter Twenty-nine 集 — AI, the Hive Mind and the Party’s Transhuman Project
Chapter Thirty 詠 — The Garden of Forking Paths — China’s mytho-poetic historical complex
Conclusion 憬 — An Irrealis Mood & the Chinese Multiverse

Appendices

Appendix I 捌 — A Beijing Winter after the Summer Olympics, 4 February 2022
Appendix II 忌 — Beijing’s Coldest Spring — The 2022 Winter Olympics, Li Wenliang & Xu Zhangrun, 4 February 2022
Appendix III 霸— Requiem for an Autocrat — Fang Zhou on Xi Jinping’s End of Days, 10 February 2022
Appendix IV 闔 — A Valentine for M on the Bund, 14 February 2022
Appendix V 朝 — Nixon in China, 21-28 February 2022 (this appendix consists of eight sections: 蒞 — Nixon’s Press Corps; 迓 — ‘Welcome to China, Mr. President!’; 撼 — A Week That Changed The World; 鞭 — The President & The Chairman in Retrospect; 迥 — Dissing Dissent; 見 — A storied Handshake, an excised Interpreter & a muted Anthem; and, 有目共睹 — Fools with Initiative
Appendix VI 直 — Eileen Gu— Hu Xijin on Skis, 25 February 2022
Appendix VII 懼 — The Pandemic of Fear & the Angel of Dread, 6 March 2022
Appendix VIII 愬 — Wang Jixian: A Voice from The Other China, but in Odessa, 12 March 2022; I’ve Forgotten How to Kneel in Front of You, 21 March 2022
Appendix IX 蛻 — Who Goes Nazi Now? Russia, China, America …, 12 April 2022
Appendix X 敘 — A Decade of Telling Chinese Stories, 1 May 2022
Appendix XI 屈 — The Double Fifth Festival and the 35th of May 2022, 3 June 2022
Appendix XII 治 — Hong Kong — twenty-five years after the fall, 1 July 2022
Appendix XIII 罪 — The Curse of Great Leaders — the Xi Jinping decade and beyond, 20 July 2022
Appendix XIV 窺 — China Watching — old skills honed for a ‘new era’, 24 August 2022
Appendix XV 零 — Xi the Exterminator & the Perfection of Covid Wisdom, 1 September 2022
Appendix XVI 覿 — China Watching in the Xi Jinping Era of Blindness and Deafness, 28 September 2022
Appendix XVII 點 — October 1 & October 10 — Two Chinas, Whose Fatherland?, 1 October 2022
Appendix XVIII 雙十 — From One to Ten and Back Again — 10 October 2022, 10 October 2022
Appendix XIX 臺上臺下 — Exit Stage Right — Hu Jintao’s staggering departure from China’s political scene, 23 October 2022
Appendix XX 花甲 — Xu Zhangrun at Sixty, 25 October 2022
Appendix XXI 責 — ‘The Unseating Incident’ — a letter to Xi Jinping, my fellow Tsinghua alumnus, about our elder, Hu Jintao, 26 October 2022
Appendix XXII 幽 — Bao Tong — Spirit & Soul, 10 November 2022
Appendix XXIII 空白 — How to Read a Blank Sheet of Paper, 30 November 2022
Appendix XXIV 職責— It’s My Duty, 1 December 2022
Appendix XXV 贖 — ‘Ironic Points of Light’ — acts of redemption on the blank pages of history, 4 December 2022
Appendix XXVI 囿 — A Ray of Light, A Glimmer of Hope — Li Yuan talks to Jeremy Goldkorn & to a Shanghai protester, 10 December 2022
Appendix XXVII 謔— When Zig Turns Into Zag the Joke is on Everyone, 12 December 2022
Appendix XXVIII 週而復始 — In My End is My Beginning — Chairman Xi’s New Clothes, 13 December 2022
Appendix XXIX 孤傲 — Ever More Arrogant & Proud — Xi Jinping’s Rule in the End-time of Covid, 14 December 2022
Appendix XXX 缺席 — Where is China’s Intelligentsia during the Covid Emergency? — re-reading Xu Zhiyong’s Letter to Xi Jinping, 22 December 2022 (see also Less Velvet, More Prison and Elephants & Anacondas)
Appendix XXXI 人礦 — Xi Jinping’s Harvest — from reaping Garlic Chives to exploiting Huminerals, 6 January 2023 (annexure: Xi Jinping’s Harvest — an anthem for China’s disaffected Huminerals, 7 January 2023)
Appendix XXXII 虎頭蛇尾 — The Tail-end of Tiger Tyranny, 20 January 2023
Appendix XXXIII 卯兔 — Now What? — Greeting the Guimao Year of the Rabbit 癸卯兔年, 21 January 2023
Appendix XXXIV 水中撈月 — So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, 28 January 2023

***

Previous Issues of China Heritage Annual:

Extended Background Reading for China Heritage Annual 2022

Linda Jaivin, Yawning Heights: Chan Koon-chung’s Harmonious China, China Heritage Quarterly, no.22 (June 2010)
China’s Prosperous Age (Shengshi 盛世), China Heritage Quarterly, no.26 (June 2011)
Geremie R. Barmé, The Children of Yan’an: New Words of Warning to a Prosperous Age 盛世新危言, China Heritage Quarterly, June 2011
Timothy Cheek, Shengshi, Chinese Values and Han Yu 韓愈, China Heritage Quarterly, June 2011
Geremie R. Barmé, ed., China Story Yearbook 2012: Red Rising, Red Eclipse
Geremie R. Barmé, Under One Heaven, introduction to China Story Yearbook 2014: Shared Destiny
Hong Kong Apostasy, China Heritage (1 July 2017-)
Geremie R. Barmé, Living with Xi Dada’s China — Making Choices and Cutting Deals (16 December 2016), published in China Heritage, 20 July 2017
Readings in New Sinology, China Heritage (1 January 2017-)
The Ayes Have It, China Heritage, 18 October 2017
Lee Yee 李怡, What’s New About Such Thinking?, China Heritage, 5 November 2017
Lee Yee, Who’s on First — China’s Successive Failures, China Heritage, 20 November 2017
Lee Yee, China Bound — meeting and eating, China Heritage, 15 December 2017
Lee Yee, The Real Man of the Year of the Dog, China Heritage, 2 March 2018
Lee Yee, A Landscape Desolate and Bare, China Heritage, 12 March 2018
The Editor, Mendacious, Hyperbolic & Fatuous — an ill wind from People’s Daily, China Heritage, 10 July 2018
The Editor and Lee Yee , Deathwatch for a Chairman, China Heritage, 17 July 2018
Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes’ — a Beijing Jeremiad 我們當下的恐懼與期待, China Heritage, 1 August 2018
Xu Zhangrun Archive (1 August 2018-)
The Editor and Others, Drop Your Pants! Ruling The Rivers & Mountains, China Heritage, 8 August 2018
The Editor and Others, The Party Empire, China Heritage, 17 August 2018
The Editor and Others, Homo Xinensis, China Heritage, 31 August 2018
Geremie R. Barmé, A People’s Banana Republic, China Heritage, 5 September 2018, also published as Peak Xi Jinping?, ChinaFile, 4 September 2018
The Editor and Others, Homo Xinensis Ascendant, China Heritage, 16 September 2018
The Editor and Others, Homo Xinensis Militant, China Heritage, 1 October 2018
The Editor and Others, Homo Xinensis Militant, China Heritage, 1 October 2018
Robert Conquest, The Kremlin Then, Zhongnanhai Now — Watching China Watching (XXXV), China Heritage, 18 December 2018
Translatio imperii sinici — China Heritage Annual 2019
The Editor, Introducing Translatio Imperii Sinici, China Heritage, 14 January 2019
Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘China’s Red Empire — To Be or Not To Be?’, China Heritage, 16 January 2019
Liu Xiaobo 劉曉波, ‘Bellicose and Thuggish — China Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’, China Heritage, 24 January 2019
Geremie R. Barmé, The Pirouette of Time — Introduction to ‘After the Future in China’, China Heritage, 28 January 2019
Chan Koonchung 陳冠中, ‘Sic transit gloria mundi — Ten Years of a Prosperous Age’, trans. Geremie R. Barmé, China Heritage, 14 February 2019
Du Mu 杜牧, ‘The Great Palace of Ch’in — a Rhapsody’ 阿房宮賦, China Heritage, 25 February 2019
Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞, ‘Terracotta Warriors on the Rhine’ 萊茵河旁的兵馬俑, China Heritage, 18 April 2019
Xu Zhangrun 許章潤, ‘Viral Alarm — When Fury Overcomes Fear’, ChinaFile, 10 February 2020
Xu Zhiyong 許志永, ‘Dear Chairman Xi, It’s Time for You to Go’, ChinaFile, 26 February 2020
Viral Alarm — China Heritage Annual 2020
Isaiah Berlin, et al, ‘Xi Jinping’s China & Stalin’s Artificial Dialectic’, China Heritage, 10 June 2021
Jianying Zha 查建英, ‘China’s Heart of Darkness — Prince Han Fei & Chairman Xi Jinping’, China Heritage, 14-22 July 2022
Geremie R. Barmé, ‘Red Allure & The Crimson Blindfold’, China Heritage, 13 July 2021
Geremie R. Barmé, ‘The Fog of Words: Kabul 2021, Beijing 1949’, SupChina, 24 August 2021
Geremie R. Barmé, ‘Prelude to a Restoration: Xi Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun & the Spectre of Mao Zedong’, China Heritage, 20 September 2021
Namewee 黃明志 et al, ‘The Right to Know & the Need to Lampoon’, China Heritage, 18 October 2021
Václav Havel, ‘History as Boredom — Another Plenum, Another Resolution, Beijing, 11 November 2021’, China Heritage, 14 November 2021
W.H. Auden & Su Shi 蘇軾, ‘Streams Descending Turn to Trees that Climb’ — five years of China Heritage, 16 December 2021

An Announcement

Background Reference Material

Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium

Geremie R. Barmé

For Xu Zhangrun 許章潤

Contents

Extended Background Reading for China Heritage Annual 2022