A thread running through many dictatorships is leaders’ total certainty that they know what’s best for people. With a monopoly on political power, control over the use of force and dominance over communications, they impose decisions about what people can see, hear and — to the extent the regimes can manage it — think. China’s President Xi Jinping appears to be steering toward a period of intensified control by pushing the nanny state into people’s personal lives.
On Sept. 2, China’s television regulator banned effeminate men on the screen, saying that broadcasters…
