One of China’s ruling Communist Party’s top theoreticians and senior editor of its journal has committed suicide amid reports of rift between reformists and conservatives in the party led by President Xi Jinping.
Zhu Tiezhi, the deputy editor-in-chief of Qiushi Journal, died on June 26, the online edition of People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, reported without providing the details.
Zhu, 56, was found to have hanged himself in the office’s garage, a report on the online edition of Chinese magazine Caixin said.
Zhu suffered from depression and was concerned over ideological debates in recent years pitting reformists against a group of increasingly vocal academics in the conservative camp, his friend said.
Disillusioned by rampant corruption, the conservatives have become nostalgic for the period of rule under chairman Mao Zedong, who died in 1976.
The report said they increasingly question reform and opening policies in place since late 1970s under late leader Deng Xiaoping being followed in the last three decades by Chinese leaders including President Xi, who is the general secretary of the party.
Zhu, a famed essayist on party theories, warned in Qiushi and other publications on multiple occasions that taking such debates too far could undermine reform that is essential to tackling corruption and other pressing issues, according to this friend.
“In a nutshell, if we could not solve real problems, the ideological debates would become empty talk to undermine the mutual trust between the party, the government it leads and the people,” he once wrote.
Zhu said several times that the most horrible thing for a scholar is to lose his integrity, his independent way of thinking and unique views, the friend, who was not named, said.
Overseas Chinese media reports speculated that Zhu killed himself partly due to links with Ling Jihua, a fallen former aide to Xi’s presidential predecessor Hu Jintao.
Ling faces charges of accepting bribes and illegally obtaining state secrets and expected to be sentenced shortly.
Zhu started working for Red Flag or Hongqi, a theoretical political journal and one of three high-profile party publications during the disastrous Cultural Revolution led by Mao that lasted from 1966 and 1976.
