Ever since he became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of the Peoples’ Republic of China four years ago, Hu Jintao has remained infuriatingly wooden-faced and opaque. Over the past year, however, the shroud of mystery has begun to drop. Hu’s unbridled glorification of “Mao Zedong Thought,” coupled with his suppression of dissent in the media, has begun not only to reveal a true authoritarian, but also to belie the wishful thinking of liberals, both inside and outside China, who hoped that Hu would be a reform-minded leader.
Ever since he became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of the Peoples’ Republic of China four years ago, Hu Jintao has remained infuriatingly wooden-faced and opaque. Over the past year, however, the shroud of mystery has begun to drop. Hu’s unbridled glorification of “Mao Zedong Thought,” coupled with his suppression of dissent in the media, has begun not only to reveal a true authoritarian, but also to belie the wishful thinking of liberals, both inside and outside China, who hoped that Hu would be a reform-minded leader.