MCLC: Free speech gets unlikely backer

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MCLC LIST
Free speech gets unlikely backer
Source: China Real Time, WSJ (2/17/16)
Free Speech in China Gets an Unlikely State-Media Backer
By Felicia Sonmez
China’s ruling Communist Party is cracking down on internal criticism, and the editor of one of the country’s most nationalist tabloids isn’t going to take it anymore.
In a post on his Weibo microblog over the weekend, Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the Global Times, called on Chinese authorities to show greater tolerance for dissenting opinions.
“China should open up more channels for criticism and suggestions and encourage constructive criticism,” Mr. Hu wrote on Sunday. “There also should be a certain amount of tolerance for unconstructive criticism.”
While allowing greater freedom of speech can lead to some problems, it brings greater benefits, he wrote, adding that recent Chinese history since the beginning of Communist rule in 1949 shows that freedom of speech “is inseparably linked to the vitality of society.”
“As for the problems it causes, the state has ample capacity to respond,” Mr. Hu wrote, without elaborating.
The message had received more than 2,000 comments and 1,500 “likes” as of Wednesday afternoon, on par with some of Mr. Hu’s other recent posts.
The posting comes as the Communist Party is doubling down on its efforts to stifle dissent among cadres. The sacking last November of Zhao Xinyu, an editor at a state-run newspaper, drew attention to a new tool in the party’s repertoire: the punishment of members for “groundlessly commenting” on official policies.
Introduced in a set of party rules last October, the prohibition against speaking out on national policies – known in Chinese as 妄议中央, wangyi zhongyang – is likely to have a chilling effect on political discussion within China, experts say.
It wasn’t clear whether Mr. Hu’s posting was in reaction to the new regulation – although some of the comments on his post indicated that the issue is on Chinese Internet users’ minds. “Aren’t you afraid of [being fired for] groundlessly commenting on official policies?” one user wrote.
In the past, Mr. Hu and his paper’s editorial page have had sharp words for some examples of free expression outside China. Last January, the paper ran an editorial criticizing a tongue-in-cheek French publication for a cover that portrayed Chinese tourists as a “yellow peril.”
“Many issues connected to the France-advocated freedom of speech are hard to understand,” the paper wrote under the headline, “Free Speech Mania May Intensify Clashes.”
The paper also late last year attacked French journalist Ursula Gauthier for a critical article that she wrote on terrorism and China’s policies in its far-western Xinjiang region. The editorial triggered a rebuke of Ms. Gauthier from China’s foreign ministry and when her visa it expired it wasn’t renewed.
Yet Mr. Hu, whose newspaper is published by the Communist Party, has also at times surprised observers by voicing a dissenting opinion on free-speech issues. In 2011, after Google revealed that Chinese hackers had attacked its Gmail service, Mr. Hu blasted China’s leaders for not being more forthcoming about instances of the country’s own computers getting hacked.
The party was being “silent and circumspect,” he wrote on Weibo, criticizing the “insufficient transparency of information in China.”
Two years later, when China’s environmental authorities claimed that soil-pollution statistics were a “state secret,” Mr. Hu again took to his Weibo account.
“China has too many secrets, and secrets become bombs in the end,” he wrote.
–Felicia Sonmez. Follow her on Twitter @feliciasonmez.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 17, 2016
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