Evan Osnos offers some precedent for the unexplained public disappearance of the to-be president of China, Xi Jinping:
Most plausible, for the moment, is that Xi’s people are managing the optics. If, in fact, he is hobbling around with a slipped disc, or had a mild heart attack, they will almost certainly prevent him from being shown in public looking frail. In modern Chinese history, physical robustness has always been used as a proxy for political health; when Chairman Mao was locked in battles with internal foes in late 1965, he sequestered himself for months of plotting and then burst back on to the scene to show his vigor by swimming the Yangtze. By then in his early seventies, Mao showed that he was very much alive and, to those who chose to see it that way, challenging old Confucian principles of physical modesty and humility. (The propagandists overegged the pudding a bit and said Mao swam nine miles in sixty-five minutes that day, which, as Time noted, would have been a world-record pace.)
Premier Li Peng similarly left the stage for several months in 1993 after he suffered a heart attack, and the exact reasons for the disappearance of Mao's heir-apparent, Lin Biao, remain unclear. Meanwhile, Jeremy Page explains the ramifications of Xi's disappearance for the leadership transition, set to take place in early October:
If he reappears within the next week or so, it is unlikely to affect the personnel changes at the 18th Communist Party Congress, when Mr. Xi is expected to take over President Hu Jintao's most powerful post as general secretary of the party, they said. But if Mr. Xi is out of the public eye for much longer than that, his absence could influence the succession plans….
Malcolm Moore reports on the recent speculation among prominent Chinese commentators:
"Although people have said he suffered a back injury, he actually had a heart attack, a myocardial infarction," said Li Weidong, a political commentator in Beijing and the former editor of China Reform. The magazine is influential among Chinese policymakers and under the aegis of the [government]. Other unnamed sources have also suggested that Mr Xi, 59, suffered a heart attack, while Willy Lam, the former editor of the South China Morning Post, believes China's president-in-waiting had a stroke and is currently unable to show his face in public.
Meanwhile, China Digital Times rounds up the terms that the government is now blocking on China's Twitter-like Weibo:
back injury (??): One rumor has it that Xi has disappeared to nurse a hurt back.
crown prince (??): A netizen nickname for Xi….
XJinping (X??): A combination of pinyin and Chinese characters invented to get past the censors.
Jinping + car accident (??+??): Another rumor has spread that Xi and Politburo Standing Committee(PSC) member He Guoqiang were in a car accident on September 4. This has yet to be verified….
Vice Chairman (???): Xi’s current position.
impose martial law (??)
The Dish 