In 2013, as Xi Jinping was beginning his rise to power, an internal Chinese memo known, enigmatically, as Document Number Nine or, more formally, as the “Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere,” listed the “seven perils” faced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Western constitutional democracy led the list, followed by “universal values,” media independence and civic participation, as well as “nihilist” criticism of the Communist Party.
