The upshot of the previous post is that Chinese rulers are always on alert against challenges to their authority. And when I say challenges, I don’t mean in the verbal sense. I mean bottom-up revolts or coup attempts that end up in their deaths and the deaths of their entire clans. One of Mao’s wives ended up literally losing her head.
http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/11/14/1930-yang-kaihui-mao-zedong-wife/
Jack Ma is now rich enough ($57b) to finance Xi’s challengers with a small portion of his wealth. Xi must therefore cut him down to size, both to neuter the threat and as an exemplary measure against those who might be thinking of funding Xi’s rivals. One of Jack Ma’s publications, the English language South China Morning Post, whose audience is primarily American and British expats, cannot be accessed in China. That might provide an indication of some of the passive aggressive things Ma has been doing against Xi, in a world in which anything less than groveling submission is nothing short of lese majeste against Xi, the reigning King of China https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/politics/trump-xi-king-of-china-intl/index.html in all but name.
“The upshot of the previous post is that Chinese rulers are always on alert against challenges to their authority.”
Isn’t that true of everybody? The Roman empire was just as full of those sordid events. Yoy either are ruthless against your enemies or soon they will have your head.