The CCP’s ‘Fractured Fairy Tales’

An aerial photo shows deserted villas in a suburb of Shenyang, in China's northeastern Liaoning Province, on March 31, 2023. China's real estate industry is in a record-breaking slump. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

“The Bullwinkle Show” (originally titled “Rocky and His Friends”) was an early 1960s cartoon show that was a staple for American children in that era. It contained a segment called “Fractured Fairy Tales.” These parodies of traditional and well-known fairy tales conveyed messages to which most children could relate at the time. Other such parodies have been turned into literary stories, movies, or television shows over the years, with the “Shrek” animated feature series being a good example.

Whether consciously or not, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has a habit of conveying the equivalent of fractured fairy tales to Chinese citizens and the world.

Let us examine that thesis.

Fractured Fairy Tales and Parodies

An excellent “Fractured Fairy Tale” from “The Bullwinkle Show” in Season 2 was “King Midas,” which parodied “the Midas touch” (the consequences of being granted a wish that everything touched would turn to gold), with the original written version provided here. The parody explained how turnips replaced the gold standard in Midas’s mythical kingdom due to the king’s greed.

The second Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition of parody is this: “a poor, insincere, or insulting imitation of something.”

Xi’s periodic pronouncements that are reduced to slogans appear to fit that definition to a tee.

Here are a few of them to contemplate.

The Fractured Fairy Tale of the Year 2023

From Xi’s New Year’s address, as quoted from Xinhua on Dec. 31: “We have marched forward with resolve and tenacity,” “with solid steps,” “with robust steps,” “in high spirits,” and “with great confidence.”

Hmmm. That “resolve and tenacity” waivered at the beginning of 2023 when Beijing abruptly reversed Xi’s signature zero-COVID policy, which was summarily dropped down the memory hole and never spoken of again. Never mind the damage inflicted on Chinese citizens and their economy by this unscientific policy that could be the poster child for arbitrary and unscientific CCP policies.

Those “solid steps” somehow didn’t include the fact that the Chinese economy is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy due to over $12.6 trillion of unsustainable local government debt accumulated through decades of communist mismanagement.

Do those “robust steps” associated with the achievements cited by Xi also include the massive theft of intellectual property that made many of those accomplishments happen? Xi and the CCP are silent on that, of course.

One wonders who is in “high spirits.” While that might include the 98 million members of the CCP, it is highly doubtful that the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, Falun Gong adherents, and other minority groups express similar sentiments after suffering through another year of persecution at the hands of the communist apparatchiks in the local public security bureaus (公安局; gōng'ānjú).

Lastly, with Chinese consumers pulling back on domestic consumption, Xi’s “great confidence” would appear to be a mirage. Happy and confident people spend money.

The slogan from Xi’s speech might well be “stick with the CCP; communism works because I say it does.”

The Fractured Fairy Tale of Building a Community With a ‘Shared Future for Mankind’

Xi has preached this slogan since assuming power in 2012. It is tied to selling his various global initiatives, and his soothing pronouncements typically include the magic word “cooperation,” as in “economic, financial, infrastructure development and capacity-building cooperation” and “investment cooperation.” He urges that “cooperation” (undefined) is required to achieve that amorphous goal of a “shared future for mankind.”

Does “cooperation” in building that community mean allowing the CCP to debt-trap a country to obtain control over natural resources, transportation infrastructure, and even the government?

Does “cooperation” mean that nations around the world must cooperate with China’s national security law and bow to Chinese leadership in all global security matters?

Does “cooperation” mean that the future global civilization must conform to the CCP’s authoritarian model that surveils, monitors, and enforces adherence to arbitrary communist diktats?

Oh, by the way, anyone living at the time will automatically be included in mankind’s future, so what does that gobbledygook really mean other than just a throwaway phrase of nice-sounding words intended to put the world at ease?

The Fractured Fairy Tale of Xi’s Concern for the People

As reported by state-run media China Daily, Xi’s 2022 New Year message contained this claim: “The concerns of the people are what I always care about, and the aspirations of the people are what I always strive for.”

The truth is that Xi’s concern about the persecuted Chinese minorities mentioned above extends only to their assimilation and conversion into the communist definition of a “good citizen.” Apparently, Xi presumes that Chinese people don’t aspire to the liberties and freedoms enjoyed by people in other nations, but rather they “aspire” to the continuation of CCP boots on their necks ad infinitum.

Concluding Thoughts

Xi has his own fractured fairy tales. Unfortunately for the Chinese and the world, they are not humorous like those from “The Bullwinkle Show” in the 1960s. His versions conform to the lesser-used definition of parody, for example, a poor, insincere, or insulting imitation of something.

Is Xi serious with all of his soothing pronouncements and slogans that generally mean something entirely different than the literal definition of his catchword phrases, or is he merely laughing at us? They are fractured fairy tales without humor. More precisely, they are fractured fairy tales “with Chinese characteristics.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.