In China’s political communication system, such pseudonyms are not random. They are signals, collective voices for CCP organs to articulate and test major policy directions.

On Sept. 30, as Chinese citizens prepared for a “ Golden Week ” holiday, People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), launched a carefully timed editorial campaign . For several consecutive days, its second page, reserved for authoritative commentaries, carried essays under the banner “Special Series on China’s Economy Under the Guidance of Xi Jinping Economic Thought.” Each was signed with the pseudonym Zhong Caiwen.

On Sept. 30, as Chinese citizens prepared for a “Golden Week” holiday, People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), launched a carefully timed editorial campaign. For several consecutive days, its second page, reserved for authoritative commentaries, carried essays under the banner “Special Series on China’s Economy Under the Guidance of Xi Jinping Economic Thought.” Each was signed with the pseudonym Zhong Caiwen.

In China’s political communication system, such pseudonyms are not random. They are signals, collective voices for CCP organs to articulate and test major policy directions.

First appearing in People’s Daily in 2024, the name “Zhong Caiwen” itself is a homophonous construct: “Zhong” connotes “central,” “Cai” refers to finance and economics, and “wen” means “article” or “commentary.” It likely represents the collective voice of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs (CCFEA), the CCP’s top economic policymaking body.

Similarly, unnamed sources, used in parallel with the pseudonym system and featured as interviewees in official outlets, also play a signaling role. In 2015, while then-Premier Li Keqiang was on a foreign trip, People’s Daily published an interview with an unnamed “authoritative person,” widely understood to be CCFEA head Liu He. That piece advocated “supply-side structural reform” and signaled a shift in policy emphasis toward deleveraging and efficiency for years to come.

The use of such roundabout methods reflects a long-standing culture of ambiguity and allusion in Chinese politics that shapes