With nearly 30 million followers on Chinese social media site Weibo, real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang is well-known for his controversial and outspoken online writings about Chinese politics, society, and economics. The tweeting tycoon has lately confronted regime-controlled media about its intensified anti-Western rhetoric.
Multiple recently published opinion articles appearing in state mouthpieces such as the People’s Daily and Global Times have levied sharp criticism against “Western” values, such as human rights and democracy, placing emphasis on their incompatibility with China’s “socialist society.”
Early this February, Chinese Education Minister Yuan Guiren stated at a conference that “spreading Western values in Chinese universities was definitely prohibited.”
Not everyone agrees. In a scathing speech made on Feb. 14 at an annual national economic forum in Beijing, Ren Zhiqiang, who is often referred to casually as “Ren the Cannon,” rebuked the government for being too obsessed with its political power.
“[The Chinese regime’s] positioning itself against Western values looks like something out of the Cultural Revolution,” Ren said.
According to Ren, what the regime defines as expressing “Western values” is arbitrary and serves as a political weapon. For example, the protection of private property could be easily typecast as a Western notion, while state-run enterprises, as “socialist” operations, get a free pass.
