MOST of China’s rich try to keep their heads down and avoid offending the Communist Party. Ren Zhiqiang (pictured), a retired property developer, is an exception. He is not only wealthy, but also has a microblog account with 38m followers—roughly the number of people living in California—whom he regales with snide comments on the country’s politics. What gives these added sting is that he is a party member. Adoring netizens call him “Big Gun Ren”.

Despite President Xi Jinping’s onslaught on dissent since he took power in 2012, Mr Ren has kept up his criticisms. This makes him all the more extraordinary. In recent days his microblogs have taken on Mr Xi himself, commenting scornfully on the president’s inspection tour on February 19th of the party’s main mouthpieces: the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television. Mr Xi reminded them to toe the party line, or, as he put it, to keep “the surname ‘Party’”.

Mr Ren took issue. “When all media have surnames and do not represent the people’s interests, the people will be cast aside into a forgotten corner!” he complained on his microblog hosted by Weibo, a Chinese social-media site. In another post Mr Ren asked: “Since when has the people’s government been turned into the party’s government?” He said that taxpayers’ money should not be wasted on things that do not provide them with services.

Mr Ren’s posts were quickly deleted. A website run by the party committee of Beijing’s city government published a commentary that accused him of displaying “brazen anti-party spirit” and of representing a “capitalist troublemaking faction” trying to create Western-style government in China.

Mr Ren appears unfazed. Another of his posts hinted that he would like to take the website and its owners to court. Plenty of other bloggers have fallen foul of the law for taking digs at the party. But Mr Ren’s prominence may afford him (and even his Weibo account, to which he has posted more than 90,000 times) some protection. He even remains an adviser to the capital’s government—one of the few worth listening to.