China’s market economy with socialist characteristics rose from the ashes of Mao Zedong’s failed experiments with central planning. Under that repressive regime, private enterprise was outlawed and individuals become wards of the state. When Deng Xiaoping became China’s paramount leader, he abandoned Mao’s class struggle as the centerpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and embarked on economic liberalization. There was hope that greater freedom in trading goods and services would also lead to a freer market in ideas.
That hope was dashed when troops cracked down on protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Deng’s famous “Southern Tour” in 1992 resumed economic reform—and China has become the world’s largest trading nation—but protectionism in the market for ideas remains intact. Under President Xi Jinping, who advocates globalization but has cracked down on the free flow of information, China has become less free.
In the just released World Press Freedom Index, published by Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), China is ranked 176 out of 180 countries, just a few notches above North Korea—and President Xi is referred to as “the planet’s leading censor and press freedom predator.” In preparation for the 19th CCP Congress later this year, there has been an uptick in the war on free speech.