Harsh sentence expected for Chinese professor over comments about Xi Jinping

A former Chinese professor is widely expected to receive a long jail sentence after being charged with subversion for demanding that President Xi relinquish power and attacking the personality cult around him.

Zi Su, who taught at a Chinese Communist Party school in Sichuan province, was arrested at his home in April last year after posting a letter online criticising Mr Xi and describing him as a dictator.

Mr Zi, 62, also accused the Chinese leader of resurrecting Mao Zedong’s dictat that human rights and judicial independence should never be discussed in public.

Human rights groups believe that Mr Zi’s custodial sentence will be a formality given that the country’s courts are controlled by the Communist party. The academic’s charge has already been upgraded from…