Decoding the Lingo of Communist Officials in China (Part One)

A man on July 24, 2021, walks past a car park with damaged vehicles stacked on each other following heavy rain which caused flooding days earlier that claimed at least 56 lives, in the city of Zhengzhou in China's Henan Province. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Given codewords and sentences with hidden meanings, we often think about old time gangsters from Hollywood mafia movies. On the other side of the world, not only does today’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have values that are worlds apart from others, they also have a set lingo that serves their needs during internal struggles, using terms usually only understood by insiders.