The Yellow Emperor Strikes Back

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The Communist Party’s most liberal, reform-minded publication is a modest monthly called Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黄春秋 for you purists), usually translated as the Annals of the Yellow Emperor. As I remarked in a previous post, the magazine’s publisher, 85 year old Du Daozheng is a redoubtable, no-nonsense figure who won’t be intimidated by any jumped up Party official trying to ease him out or get him to tone down the magazine’s articles, which try to dispense with propaganda (up to a point) and look back at recent history with a clear eye. It seems that he has indeed been ordered to step aside but, as I predicted, he’s having none of it. John Garnaut of the Sydney Morning Herald has a nice interview with Du here on the issue. Money quote is Du recounting his response to the official who visited his home to order him to resign: “I said the government’s official retirement age doesn’t apply to non-government enterprises like us; if I work until I’m 120 that’s got nothing to with you.”