China - World Leader.
Answered by
Le Shen
https://www.quora.com/
Oct 25
I heard of a Chinese YouTuber/Historian named Yuan Tengfei who is very critical of the CCP. Given China's authoritarian nature, how is he allowed criticize the CCP without any punishment?
Ah, the infamous Professor Yuan.


Not gonna lie; I was a huge fan of him back in the day.

And, credit where credit’s due, I probably owe my straight As in middle school history classes to him and his books.

So, first thing first, Yuan is definitely a competent history teacher and a writer; he has a way of magically making you remember the usually boring historical details and somehow also making it an enjoyable experience.

His writings are witty, funny, and super easy to read, and so were his lectures which were once widely circulated on the Chinese web.

But, as I would realize many years later, that’s the point where his competency comes to an end.

He is, by no means, a competent “historian.”

Unless you’re a middle school student with a miserable level of understanding of Chinese and world history like yours truly, it is surprisingly easy to spot errors in his analysis of historical events, which are then compounded by his tendencies to
present tales and legends as historical facts and his stand-up-comedy-like method of delivery.

Now, the parts that have caused the most controversy: his views on modern Chinese history.

He once admitted that modern Chinese history is not his field of expertise; yet, in practice, he never shied away from blabbering on the topic and often included remarks that, quite simply, do nothing other than to stoke anti-CPC sentiments.

So why isn’t he punished?

Well, to be honest, he was punished.

With his renown, he could have easily amassed an enormous fortune by publishing more books, appearing on more TV programs, holding more lectures, and proceed to spend the rest of his life scuba diving in those sweet, sweet cash.

But he can’t; no one wants to piss off the government more than he himself already did. By limiting his exposure, he effectively lost his way to the riches and his channel of influence within mainland China.

And to the government, that’s enough of a punishment for a teacher like him.

You didn’t assume that the CPC would have him arrested and shot just because he compared Mao’s son to a roasted duck, right?

(No, I didn’t just make that up, he really once called Mao’s son a roasted duck - Mao Anying was killed in action during the Korean War by an American napalm strike)

CPC can’t just leave people like him running around causing a ruckus, but at the same time, the CPC doesn’t care enough to round up everyone like him and silence them forever.

There are too many people like him in China to make that even remotely worthwhile; as long as they keep their opinions to themselves and not swing their opinions around like… well, like you know what, the CPC will just leave them be.

At this point, he’s making himself a buck by uploading videos on YouTube, which CPC also doesn’t care.

People who would watch his videos are, more often than not, Chinese immigrants who aren’t the biggest fans of the CPC, but they can’t really stir up any trouble in China, so they aren’t a problem to the CPC.

And to have Yuan completely silenced will just have the opposite effect; you don’t want figures like him turning into some sort of martyr; that’s politics 101.

So the CPC just leaves him be, do whatever he wants on YouTube, allow him enough income to feed himself, and he won’t be a problem at all.

It’s not like he has lots of other ways to survive now anyways - his reputation in mainland China has long collapsed.

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