The Closing of the Chinese Mind

Aka "groupthink makes you stupid."  The CCP is busying itself with "thought reform."  Note too a related academic angle:

... the customarily mild-mannered American Association of University Professors called on universities to cut ties with Confucius Institutes unless academic freedom prevails there. That’s not the case at present. Notes the AAUP, “Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom.” Agreements establishing them make “unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China. Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes to advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff, in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.” These cuddly-seeming institutions, in other words, are CCP propaganda mills on American campuses.

Meet Xi Jingping: China's New Leader

The CCP holds its Party Congress and picks a new leader. So neat, so orderly, so ... OPAQUE, OLIGARCHIC, AND UNFREE. 

Beginning Nov. 8, when the Communist Party convenes its 18th Party Congress, and continuing in March 2013, Beijing will in two steps replace about 70 percent of the incumbents in its top communist party, government, and military bodies. China watchers expect Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang to ascend to the most powerful two spots on the Politburo Standing Committee, the country's highest decision-making body, but nobody outside a small circle of insiders knows who will fill the other 5-7 spots -- let alone what those individuals think about how to run the world's second-biggest economy and one of its major military powers.