The cover of the book seemed to be particularly problematic. The new edition was adorned with a noose wrapped around the first character of the emperor's name, with a large inscription underneath reading "the ruler whose actions brought the dynasty to ruin: he blindly made mistake after mistake, and the harder he tried, the closer the empire came to extinction."(NTD Television / Profimedia)
The analogy between Xi Jinping and an emperor with a tragic fate has multiple dimensions and has been debated among Chinese intellectuals for several years. History has a tendency to repeat itself in various permutations, and the archetypes of the ruler who refuses to listen to legitimate criticism and leads the empire to ruin, or the rejected loyal minister, are among the most common in Chinese dynastic chronicles.
This article originally appeared on the Sinopsis Project website.
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