Peng Shuai and Communist Regimes of Appearance

PENG SHUAI AND THE REIGN OF PURE APPEARANCE

The story is well known, widely commented on, and widely reported in all media. On November 2, 2021, Peng Shuai, a top Chinese tennis player, posted a lengthy message on her Weibo account accusing Zhang Gaoli, a former senior Chinese vice premier and high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), of sexual assault. This was the first time a member of the top echelons of the CCP faced this level of sexual misconduct allegations in public. The accusation drew attention to the #MeToo movement in China, but her post was removed within twenty minutes of being uploaded, and all discussion on Chinese social media and news outlets about the matter became subject to blanket censorship. Shuai also disappeared from public life. In reaction to growing worldwide concerns over her whereabouts and safety, official media offered some unconvincing denials and explanations that only deepened the mystery.

Now the story had another turn: Gaoli was part of a group opposed to President Xi, and it seemed as if the whole incident was staged by the president and his supporters to get rid of his opponents. We were all duped by the fake sexual scandal: Shuai’s post was removed after only twenty minutes—just enough time for the news to spread around the world.

This sad anecdote (and where all my sympathies go to Shuai) is not just about oppression of women in an authoritarian society. It also showcases a weird feature of Communist regimes: the obsession with appearances, which have to be maintained whatever the cost. When Deng Xiaoping was still alive, although already retired from the post of the general secretary of the CCP, one of the top nomenklatura members was purged. The official reason given to the press was that this member had divulged a state secret; namely, that Deng was still the supreme authority who made decisions. The irony of it is that this fact was common knowledge: Everybody knew that Deng was still pulling the strings; it was in all the media all the time.

This logic of appearance (which is untouchable even though everyone knows it’s just an appearance) recently reached an extreme in North Korea. From time to time, we read about the North Korean media’s weird claims: when Kim Il Sung died, birds descended from the sky and cried at his coffin; their leader doesn’t defecate, etc. Our reactions to such claims are either that we presume ordinary people secretly laugh at this, well aware that it is nonsense, or maybe they are so brainwashed that they really believe it. But this third reaction is more convincing: What if such stories are propagated by the regime not as literal truths, but as something like folkloric tales told with respect but with the knowledge that they are fiction?

There is, however, a price to be paid for respecting such appearances. A couple years ago, a young woman who was selling things at a (tolerated, although not legally permitted) flea market put the money she earned into a plastic bag and buried it in her garden. The police discovered it, she was prosecuted and condemned … for what? Not for black market activity or illegal financial dealings but for a wholly different reason: The plastic bag didn’t fully protect the cash and it was ruined, and because the banknotes have images of their Leader, the woman was condemned for disrespectfully treating his image.

A regime of appearances was first fully established in Stalinism—we all know how absolutely crucial appearances were in Stalinism. The Stalinist regime reacted with total panic whenever there was a threat that appearances would be disturbed (like if an accident showing the failure of the regime could be reported in the public media). In the Soviet media there were no black chronicles, no reports on crimes and prostitution, not to mention workers or public protests. Let’s just recall why it never rained during the First of May parades in Moscow. The authorities feared that if rain disturbed the parade, it would be perceived as an indication that the Party was not all-powerful, so the authorities sprayed the sky above Moscow with gases that prevented the formation of clouds. What characterizes Stalinism is precisely this combination of raw brutal terror and the need to protect appearances—even if we all know something is not true, the big Other (of appearances) should not notice it.