How President Xi Is Facing Pushback From Within the Communist Party

A highly significant essay, "A Thousand Yes-Men Cannot Equal One Honest Advisor," appeared recently on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which is in charge of Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign. It was signed under the pen name Lei Si and was widely seen as pushback against a range of Xi's recent policies, though elliptically cloaked through recalling tales of emperors and their advisors in China's long past. As China scholar Andrew Nathan wrote in an online discussion about the post on ChinaFile:

The CCDI document ... is an act of remonstrance: although it emanates from a posture of loyalty to the leader, it presents a more serious challenge. Chinese political tradition gives great value to 'loyal remonstrance' (jiàn), in which one warns a powerful figure as a way of serving him, at the risk of one's head. Remonstrance comes from within the leader's camp, rather than from opponents. And, as the historical and literary allusions in the document suggest, it comes about when the leader is in great danger -- from himself.

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