China, china, china
The one thing that gets lost when one ignores Chinese history is this pearl: China has been a BRUTAL EMPIRE since the times of First Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259-210 a.c.), a guy bent on being the first at everything (had destroyed all records of history and culture before him with few exceptions), owning the whole world and being immortal to lord over it. Yes, dynasties come and go but the Leitmotiv never left the mind and heart of Chinese rulers. The last imperial dynasty was a flop but managed to keep floating on top of the mandarin system (designed by Kongzi and implemented by the king of Lu, looooong before Qin Shi Huang) for 268 years. And how do they do it ? Keeping the proles down with violence, hunger and spiritual serfdom. We in the West are very familiar with that strategy of domination; do I need to mention the incestuous role of Christianity and State during the last two thousand years? Mao Zedong didn't want to "free" the people. He wanted to become emperor and set up a new mandarin class he could control. Thus anti-intellectualism as a pre-requisite to be a good member of the revolution. While Stalin sent anyone he didn't like to die in Siberia's gulags, Mao convinced the peasants dying of hunger (due to his own and his cronies ineptness governing the country) that the fault was of anyone who could read and write and then deported all the educated population to the countryside where they would not find anything but hate; great way to commit genocide.
Now that the country has adopted a capitalist economic model and almost one third of the proles are middle class, there is a renewed intellectual class that needs to be weeded out fast. And the proletariat collective mind needs to be shaped into obedient serfs ready to become world conquering armies. What is different from the present Emperor (sorry, first secretary of the central committee of the communist party) and Qin Shi Huang is that he raises from the masses by merit instead of a hereditary dynasty (or so they want us to believe).
Why should we be shocked by the methods? Rather we should be worried that we are willing to let them force that model onto our civilization, by indirect means as mentioned in other posts.
You Brits, stop deluding yourselves and shake your behinds. If you were able and willing to help Cromwell raise to power, letting him murder a King in the process, and to tolerate his antics long enough to leave a blood trail not dissimilar to that of Marat and Robespierre, Brexit is a trifle. You already know what's coming down the pipe with the people you raised to power as of late. And you USians, stop believing in the theory of exceptionalism that has gotten you into so much trouble and stupid wars. The only harvest you have sowed is the clown on top and that when the day of reckoning comes, all nukes will fly your way and nowhere else.