Ren Zhiqiang a prominent critic of Chinese President Xi Jinping, was sentenced today to 18 years in prison on a conviction for corruption. In February he attacked the president for his response to the coronavirus and accused the Communist ruling party of hiding the truth.
In an article authored and circulated on social media in China, Ren did not explicitly mention Xi's name, but referred to a virtual conference call the president had with 170,000 senior officials and said that "I did not see an emperor present his new clothes, but a clown without his clothes insisting he was emperor."