Xi Suddenly Gets Shorter Or That s a Clone Zheng Liwen Was Humiliated 6 Times

A leader's height is usually not something worth debating, but when that number seems to shift from photo to photo, sometimes matching someone who is 178 cm tall, other times nearly as tall as someone who is 190 cm, it stops being a matter of biology. It becomes a question of identity. On April 10, Zheng Liwen flew to Beijing with ambitions of acting as a messenger of peace across the strait. What she received in return was an official shuttle bus, a period of waiting on board, a 14-second handshake without a smile, and a speech that was cut off mid-broadcast. Each detail on its own could be dismissed as coincidence. But taken together, they form a strikingly coherent narrative. What was Xi Jinping calculating with this move? And how did Zheng Liwen mislead the people of Taiwan? Let's take a closer look. On April 10, Kuomintang chair Zheng Liwen met with Xi Jinping. The meeting was reported by both domestic and international media. But observers quickly picked up on one striking oddity, and at the same time, what seemed like a clear undertone of humiliation from Beijing. According to commentator Li Muyan, the most unusual detail was the apparent change in Xi Jinping's height. Chinese state media released photos and video of the two shaking hands. From these, they appeared to be nearly the same height. If anything, Zheng Liwen even seemed slightly taller, though not by much. As many people recall, back in 2018, Zheng Liwen posted a photo on Facebook with Chan Wan'an, stating her height as 178 centimeters. Assuming nothing significant has changed over the past eight years, she would still be around that height today. In other words, based on the handshake photos, Xi Jinping would also appear to be roughly 178 centimeters tall. However, when Xi met Donald Trump in 2017, photos showed the two men as nearly the same height. Public records list Trump at 190 centimeters, about 12 centimeters taller than Zheng Liwen. Yet in photos, Xi appears equally tall standing next to both individuals. There are countless images online of Trump and Xi together, and comparisons suggest that Xi Jinping's height seems to vary. For example, when they met on October 30th last year in Busan, South Korea, photos again showed them at almost the same height. But during their two meetings in 2017, the height difference appeared much more noticeable. Take the April meeting at Mar-a-Lago. It's visually clear that Trump is significantly taller than Xi. Xi even appears a few centimeters shorter than Melania Trump. Yet by November, when Trump visited China, Xi seemed to have grown taller, appearing only slightly shorter than Trump, and even surpassing Melania Trump's height. Taiwanese netizens have mocked this as freely adjustable height, joking that the emperor is somehow elastic. The Liberty Times also poked fun. Trump is 190 centimeters. Zheng Liwen is 178 centimeters. Yet Trump equals Xi equals Zheng. So does that mean 190 equals 178? Some have joked that Xi's height is like the magical staff of Sun Wukong. It can grow or shrink at will. So what's really going on? Some suggest he might be wearing elevator shoes or lifts. Others jokingly call it the Taobao effect. In international politics, it's not uncommon for leaders to wear height-enhancing shoes to avoid appearing shorter in photos. But Xi Jinping is now over 70 years old. Moreover, his gait is not especially steady. Wearing very high lifts could increase the risk of falling. If it's not the shoes, then what? Some netizens have speculated about which clone from the warehouse this might be, raising tongue-in-cheek suspicions about whether the person meeting Zheng Liwen was a body double. There have also been recent rumors about Xi's health. Given the opaque, black-box nature of the Chinese political system, such claims are extremely difficult to verify from the outside. So what do you think? Is it unusually high elevator shoes? Or the appearance of clone number N? If it were truly a stand-in, it would represent a serious slight toward Zheng Liwen and the Kuomintang. In fact, beyond the height controversy, there are several other details surrounding this meeting that also suggest a clear sense of disregard. Even humiliation from Beijing's side. Zheng Liwen was humiliated six times. At around 10 a.m., the motorcade departed the hotel for the Great Hall of the People. Two black-led cars took the front, but behind them, Kuomintang Chair Zheng Liwen and her entire delegation were seated in a domestically produced Yutong T-7 shuttle bus. There was no motorcycle escort, no dedicated official vehicle, no protocol remotely commensurate with the rank of the person inside. To understand why this detail matters, it helps to look back. In 2005, when Lin Qian visited Beijing as KMT Chair, Chinese authorities arranged a high-end Hongqi State Sedan along with a full motorcycle escort, standards typically reserved for heads of state, not opposition party leaders. In 2024, even though Ma Yingzho had long left office, Beijing still provided him with a black official car that drove directly into the main hall of the Great Hall of the People. The message then was unmistakable. He was being treated with importance. This time, the message was just as clear, but in the opposite direction. A shuttle bus is standard transport for group delegations, not high-level guests. The contrast speaks for itself. But the reception didn't stop there. When the bus arrived, Zhen Liwen was not invited to disembark immediately. Instead, she was asked to remain seated and wait on the bus. Writer Zhao Xiaohui described this as a show of dominance from the outset, an interpretation that holds weight. Under normal protocol for high-level meetings, guests are ushered into a reception room, often the Fujian room or the Taiwan room, where they can rest, have tea, and wait for the formal talks to begin. That is the bare minimum of diplomatic courtesy. Yet here, the KMT chair was left waiting on a bus like a member of a tour group. In diplomatic language, such arrangements are never accidental. They clearly signal who controls the timing and setting of the Lhaka, and who must wait to be summoned. At around 11 a.m., Zhen Liwen was finally led into the East Hall. Xi Jinping addressed her as Chair Zhen Liwen, but his expression was cold and stern, almost entirely devoid of emotion. Zhen Liwen, by contrast, wore a bright smile. The contrast was immediate, and it didn't take much analysis to see who held the upper hand. The handshake lasted 14 seconds. On its own, that number might seem meaningless, but compared with another moment, it becomes telling. In 2016, when then-KMT chair Heng Xiuqiu met Xi in Beijing, their handshake lasted nearly 20 seconds. Xi was smiling then, relaxed and visibly cordial. This time, there was no smile. No warmth. Just 14 seconds of stiffness in front of the cameras. So was it that Xi Jinping's stand-in couldn't muster a smile, or that Xi himself held Zhen Liwen in contempt? What's more surprising is what happened during the meeting itself. After Xi Jinping finished speaking, it was Zhen Liwen's turn. But before she could finish, live broadcast reporters were abruptly asked to leave, cutting the transmission mid-speech. It is said that Zhen Liwen's prepared remarks ran over 3,000 words, meaning Xi had only delivered about a third before the cameras were shut off. Nothing like this had happened during previous visits by KMT chairs to Beijing. This was not a minor hiccup, but a serious and highly unusual disruption. The Chinese side later explained it as a routine transition to a closed-door session. But Zhen Liwen was still in the middle of her speech. How could it suddenly switch to a closed meeting at that point? The explanation strains credibility. Associate Professor Zhuang Jiayin of the National University of Singapore analyzed that cutting off the live broadcast and asking reporters to leave while Zhen Liwen was still speaking suggests that Beijing does not hold her, or the Kuomintang, in particularly high regard. In other words, they arranged the meeting, but did not allow her to speak for long, granting her face, but not substance. Even before arriving in Beijing, there was another striking scene. At the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted the slogan, Unseat the Democratic Progressive Party in 2028, a supportive, not oppositional chant. Immediately, a plainclothes individual rushed in, grabbed the person by the neck, and dragged them away. The incident unfolded in seconds, but was captured on camera. It offered a stark glimpse of what might await people in Taiwan under Beijing's control. Even kneeling is not enough. Kneel the wrong way, and you are punished. All of this makes one thing clear. The standard of reception extended by Beijing to Zhen Liwen was significantly downgraded. And lowering the level of reception also signals declining trust in her and in the Kuomintang. In other words, from Beijing's perspective, this meeting was optional at best. The Kuomintang no longer carries the same weight. Zhen Liwen had hoped to play the peace card, to counter the anti-China card of the pro-independence camp. But Beijing did not treat this as meaningful. Indeed, it went as far as cutting off her speaking time. Meanwhile, during her visit to the mainland, Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels continued their daily incursions around Taiwan. Just yesterday, they even conducted live-fire exercises in the Yellow Sea without prior notice. Taken together, these actions reflect not only disregard, but outright humiliation toward Zhen Liwen and the Kuomintang. Commentator Li Muyang concluded, if it was truly Xi Jinping who appeared, then it amounted to five levels of humiliation. If it was a stand-in, then it reached six levels. For the Kuomintang's political standing and upcoming elections in Taiwan, this is extremely unfavorable, and Zhen Liwen's personal credibility is likely to suffer significant damage. Is Zhang Liwen helping Xi Jinping mislead the people of Taiwan? Commentator Zhu Xuan wrote bluntly on Facebook, the Kuomintang and Zhen Liwen are helping Beijing mislead the people of Taiwan, and in the end, deceiving themselves. He did not use softer terms like cooperation or compromise. He chose the word deception. It's a serious accusation, but not without basis. On April 10th, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council held a press conference outlining three key points they had hoped Zhen Liwen would raise directly with Xi Jinping, that Beijing should acknowledge the existence of the Republic of China, respect the will of the Taiwanese people, and cease military intimidation through aircraft and naval activity. Deputy Minister Liang Wenqi later confirmed that none of these points were mentioned. Instead, Zheng repeatedly framed cross-strait relations as an internal matter, a formulation Beijing has long favored, as it implicitly denies the international dimension of the Taiwan issue and excludes outside involvement. The council expressed deep regret, a polite way of signaling profound disappointment. Looking at the broader picture, a striking paradox emerges. The Kuomintang, the very party that once led the Republic of China in resisting the Chinese Communist Party through two civil wars from 1927 to 1949, is now seen as the most Beijing-friendly political force in Taiwan. That historical rivalry was neither brief nor minor. In 1945, the Kuomintang commanded 5.7 million troops, more than six times the size of communist forces. Just four years later, the balance had completely reversed. Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan with his remaining forces in December 1949, leaving the mainland to Mao Zedong. It remains one of the most dramatic political reversals of the 20th century. But the Kuomintang's legacy is not defined solely by that military defeat. The party traces its roots to the Revive China Society, established by Sun Yat-sen in Hawaii in 1894 with the goal of overthrowing the Qing dynasty and revitalizing China. It was the same political force that inherited control over China following the 1912 abdication edict issued by Empress Dowager Longyu. It stood as an ally of the United States during the war against Imperial Japan, at a time when the Communist Party was still weak and operating from remote base areas. And yet today, that same party, with all its historical weight, arrives at the Great Hall of the People on a shuttle bus, waits to be summoned, and has its speech cut short mid-delivery. Its founder, Sun Yat-sen, fought against the Qing dynasty. Its most prominent successor, Chiang Kai-shek, fought against the Communists. Its current leader, Zheng Liwen, flies to Beijing to shake hands with the general secretary of the Communist Party and returns empty-handed. The question raised by Zhu Xuan, that the Kuomintang is helping Beijing mislead the people of Taiwan, points to something deeper. Does the party still know what it stands for? And if it has lost its sense of direction, what can the people of Taiwan realistically expect from such a party at truly critical moments? What do you think about this move by Xi Jinping and Zheng Liwen? Feel free to share your thoughts below. Thank you for watching and see you next time.