Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao marches after the fifth plenary meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Beijing People’s Grand Hall on March 15, 2013. REUTERS / Jason Lee
Chinese Internet companies prevented users from sharing a long article written by former Premier Wen Jiabao in honor of his late mother, censoring a senior member of the ruling Communist Party, possibly because he spoke offline.
The obituary-style article written by Wen about his recently deceased mother appeared in a small weekly newspaper called the Macau Herald on Friday and was posted on a public account on Saturday in the Chinese chat app WeChat, but was quickly restricted.
The tribute sense includes details of Wen’s mother’s struggle during periods of convulsions in China, including the Second Sino-Japanese War and the political purges of the Cultural Revolution.
“In my opinion, China should be a country full of equity and justice, always with respect for the will of the people, humanity and human nature,” said Wen’s article, which did not directly discuss the current political environment in China.
The Communist Party (CCP) of China has tried to tighten control over how netizens discuss the country’s heavily controlled Internet history in the run-up to the party’s 100th anniversary in July.
Under President Xi Jinping, the space for dissent in China has shrunk, while censorship has expanded.
Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said the article represented an “alternative voice from the party” that is lagging behind in recent years’ efforts to stifle dissent.
“The power of this article by Wen is that it challenges this, and that is the main reason he has been banned from sharing,” he said, noting the party’s sensitivity around his birthday.
Last week, an arm of China’s cyber regulator launched a hotline for netizens to report “illegal” comments that “distorted” the party’s historic successes and attacked the country’s leaders. Read more
When users tried to share Wen’s article, a notice appeared stating that the content was against WeChat rules and could not be shared, a common censorship measure in China that is one step below of the total purge of the articles.
On Weibo, the Chinese social networking site similar to Twitter, the article was little mentioned and comments and sharing features were turned off. Links to articles about Wen’s tribute posted on Weibo returned “404” messages Tuesday morning, indicating that they had been deleted.
WeChat and Weibo operators, as well as China’s Internet regulator, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Former Chinese leaders and high-profile politicians rarely cultivate public figures or share detailed biographical information during their retirement, and are expected to gracefully disappear.
Since taking office in 2012, Xi’s signature policies have been consolidated into the party’s constitution and abolished his term limits, placing him almost at the height of Communist China founder Mao Zedong. in the pantheon of its leaders.
Wen, who was the prime minister of former Chinese leader Hu Jintao, was a prominent figure in the country’s economic policies in the 2000s and left office in 2013 when he was succeeded by current Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
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