{"id":16980,"date":"2020-04-08T11:55:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T02:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/apr\/08\/critic-xi-jinping-clown-ren-zhiqiang-covid-19-outbreak-investigated-china"},"modified":"2020-04-08T11:55:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T02:55:46","slug":"critic-who-called-xi-a-clown-over-covid-19-crisis-investigated-for-serious-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=16980","title":{"rendered":"Critic who called Xi a &#8216;clown&#8217; over Covid-19 crisis investigated for &#8216;serious violations&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ren Zhiqiang went missing last month after writing an essay criticising the Chinese Communist party\u2019s handling of the outbreak<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ren Zhiqiang, an influential critic of the Chinese Communist party who suggested president Xi Jinping was a \u201cclown\u201d over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, is being investigated for \u201cserious violations of discipline and the law\u201d, Chinese anti-corruption authorities have said.<\/p>\n<p>The retired property executive, who remains a well-connected and vocal member of the ruling party, went missing last month after writing a critical essay about the outbreak. In mid-March, Ren\u2019s friends told Reuters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/15\/chinese-executive-who-called-xi-a-clown-over-coronavirus-response-is-missing\">they had not been able to contact him<\/a>, and they were \u201cextremely anxious\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/apr\/08\/critic-xi-jinping-clown-ren-zhiqiang-covid-19-outbreak-investigated-china\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ren Zhiqiang went missing last month after writing an essay criticising the Chinese Communist party\u2019s handling of the outbreakCoronavirus \u2013 latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageRen Zhiqiang, an influential critic of the Chinese Communist party&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,1069,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-coronavirus-outbreak","category-xi-jinping"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16981,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16980\/revisions\/16981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}