The autocrat of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, once styled himself the "son of the people". Yet his decade of rule has been marked by iron-fisted repression—dissent silenced, families punished for kinship, speech bound in chains—until the people, whom he claimed as his parents, could scarcely breathe beneath the weight.

Now he rechristens himself the "son of the yellow earth", as though to sever all ties with his 1.4 billion "fathers and mothers". In doing so, he aspires to the myth of the Monkey King—born not of human kin but sprung from stone, untouched by the shame of a wayward son. But one wonders: if he follows this path to its end, will it not amount to the lawful unfilial act of erasing his entire people—casting off not merely their voices, but their very existence?