[gargablegar]

They do make all the above points in the article - including that it’s hard to verify this information.

Comparing it to Stalin is pretty apt - communist party with a figure head trying to hold onto power. Seems like more than just one person vanished and it’s all under totally opaque circumstances.

[mytailorisrich]

If the information is difficult to verify the correct way is to be measured.

My main gripe here is the sensationalist take on complex issues, starting with the over-the-top title.

This could have been a substantive and interesting discussion...

Edit: I tried to look past the clickbaity title to get to the interesting part, which I think to find the reason for specific people being 'purged'. Alas it is apparently not possible...

[foldr]

The lack of information is the point. In a Western democracy, government ministers don't just go missing without any official explanation for their disappearance. (I am not suggesting that such official explanations are always true, but they at least exist.)

[foverzar]

> The lack of information is the point. In a Western democracy...

...people aren't really used to leaving their bubble and searching for information at the source, especially when the source is a foreign culture/language/platform.

Are you sure that "lack of information" isn't just a skill issue here?

[foldr]

I'm sure that's a factor, but I'm talking about the lack of official statements. Maybe there have been such statements and I don't know about it – in which case, someone can hopefully link to a report of one of the statements.

[MichaelZuo]

Here's an example from Australia:

"On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the 17th prime minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered."

[foldr]

He went for a swim and drowned. The facts of his disappearance are known and fully acknowledged insofar as anyone has been able to discover them. That's hardly an equivalent scenario to that of, e.g., Li Shangfu.

[MichaelZuo]

Did you even read the entire comment?

It clearly says his body was never recovered, so 'the facts of his disappearance' are not fully known, by definition.

Anyways, there's dozens of examples of presidents, prime ministers, ministers, deputy ministers, party leaders, etc., who've disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances. And that's just post WW2. Which anyone can find via a quick search online.

[foldr]

>Holt loved the ocean, particularly spearfishing... On 17 December 1967, while Holt was spending the weekend at Portsea, he and four companions decided to drive to Point Nepean to watch sailor Alec Rose pass through The Rip on his solo circumnavigation attempt... Holt convinced the group to stop at remote Cheviot Beach for a swim before lunch – he had spearfished there on many previous occasions, and claimed to "know this beach like the back of my hand". Because of the rough conditions, only one other person, Alan Stewart, joined Holt in the water. Stewart kept close to shore, but Holt swam out into deeper water and was seemingly caught up in a rip, eventually disappearing from view. One of the witnesses, Marjorie Gillespie, described it as "like a leaf being taken out [...] so quick and final".

He drowned. There's nothing mysterious about it. We are not living in an Agatha Christie novel.

The point here isn't just that Li Shangfu has disappeared but that the fact of his disappearance has not even been officially acknowledged. If Lloyd Austin had been missing for months, the US government would at least acknowledge this and make some kind of statement about it.

[jevoten]

People go missing/get arrested all the time. What justifies suspicions of foul play is when those disappearances are unusually concentrated in some group, e.g. politicians, and more frequent than usual for that group.

[foogazi]

Seems like a “whatabout” comment - lame

[MichaelZuo]

Okay if that's true, then write something better and more productive?

It doesn't make sense to write something even worse and closer to random noise.

[foogazi]

Why does it matter if other regimes have had disappearances in their past ?

How is that relevant to the fact the problematic officials, billionaires, athletes disappear in Xi’s government ?

The problem is the lack of transparency, hence the comparison to Stalinist purges.

[LightHugger]

The thing that's flying over your head is that the people preventing it from being measured are the people you're giving the benefit of the doubt because it hasn't been measured.

In such cases, any rational actor has to assume the worst about the party preventing the measurement, to prevent rewarding that behavior and to encourage honest measurements.