Yesterday, it was revealed that authorities on July 4 had ordered China Development Brief, a Beijing-friendly newsletter published in the Chinese capital since 1995, to cease publication. It was shuttered for conducting “unauthorized surveys,” a violation of a 1983 statistical law. Nick Young, the founder of the newsletter and the editor of its English version, had tried to keep the news secret so that he could negotiate with the authorities, but a former colleague leaked the news to the international media. Young, referring to the closing, noted in a statement, “My hope is that these actions have been precipitated by zealous state security agents, and that more senior figures in the government and Communist Party will realise that actions of this kind are not in China’s best interest.”

Of course they are not, but the Communist Party almost never does what’s good for China. And now, the Party seems intent on delegitimizing its friends—and itself. Young had often pointed to Beijing’s tolerance of his publication as proof that the one-party state was reforming. “I have spent the last decade telling foreigners that China is not as repressive and totalitarian as Western media often portray it to be,” he said in his statement. “At the end of the day, I hoped that if we had an open, intelligent conversation, we would be accepted,” he told the New York Times. “But I think we miscalculated, or they miscalculated.”

If anyone made a mistake, it is Young, for being optimistic. The mission of China Development Brief was “to enhance constructive engagement between China and the world.” How do you do that when you’re dealing with insecure autocrats? The truth is that the Communist Party has gone into reverse.

We should all be grateful to Nick Young: he’s shown that, for all of China’s efforts at mustering international goodwill, it still hasn’t let go of its deep-rooted authoritarian tendencies.