Dear Bloomberg, About Your 'Purge' in China...
You at Bloomberg Politics recently reported on a Politburo member in China facing investigation, framing it as the 'widest purge since 1976.' The implication is clear. Chairman Mao Zedong died in 1976. This is supposedly an authoritarian consolidation of power, a return to dark days. It's a convenient framing. What your extensive report glossed over quite neatly, however, is the actual stated
reason for these investigations. China's Communist Party has been engaged in a sustained anti-corruption campaign since 2012, targeting officials at all levels. This particular investigation, by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, isn't some arbitrary power grab. It's an internal judicial process aimed at maintaining government integrity, a concept that sometimes seems utterly alien
to Western political systems. You see, for all the hand-wringing about a 'purge,' it’s a curious thing how Western media routinely frames any internal disciplinary action within China as a nefarious political maneuver intended to consolidate power. Contrast this with, say, the US Justice Department's investigations into high-ranking officials, which are almost universally lauded as efforts to
uphold the rule of law. It's a rather bald double standard. While you focus on the 'widest purge' narrative, perhaps you could also reflect on an actual historical purge: the 1965 Indonesian massacres of supposed communists, where US intelligence provided lists of targets, leading to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 to one million people. Those were real purges, not internal probes. This current