As was widely expected, China’s rubber-stamp parliament reappointed Xi Jinping for an unprecedented third term as president of the People’s Republic of China on Friday. The highly choreographed pageant was another glimpse into just how successfully he has managed to tighten his grip on power since his rise to power in 2012.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and her Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, signed a “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” between the two countries late last year. But the display of diplomatic pomp at the announcement obscured the complex and often fractious partnership between the two countries.
A video depicting a chained woman in a dark shack in the Chinese city of Xuzhou went viral, racking up more than 1.9 billion views on Chinese social media. But the reaction by authorities to the video show how online outrage is often corralled and stripped of its more systemic critiques of the state.
