In thinking about the case of the notorious Guo Meimei, one cannot help but wonder about her provenance. I don’t literally mean where she came from, of course. Rather, I mean how the sequential scandals that have surrounded her seemed almost perfectly timed to incite the public outrage necessary to start cleaning up official corruption, and then the mess that is Macau.

The rapid prominence she received in the media, her un-preternatural naïveté, and the suspect coincidence of having her involved in two major criminal enterprises in a row seem all too good to be true. Given the effects of her behavior, one cannot be blamed for thinking that if Guo Meimei had never existed, the Party would have had to invent her.

Which then leads to the question: did they?

Okay, setting my tinfoil hat aside for the day.