Tom Phillips - 'Dictator for life': Xi Jinping's power grab condemned as step towards tyranny // China bans the letter N from the internet as Xi Jinping extends grip on power
The news broke at
three minutes to four on a chilly winter’s afternoon in a
two-sentence bulletin.
“The Communist party
of China central committee proposed to remove the expression that the president
and vice-president of the People’s Republic of China‘shall serve no more
than two consecutive terms’ from the country’s constitution,” Xinhua, China’s
official news wire, reported. “The proposal was made public Sunday.” It was a typically
dreary communique from the party-controlled propaganda agency. But to those who
have spent their lives battling to decrypt the enigma that is elite
Chinese politics, the text’s historic significance was unmissable.
“A bombshell,” said
Susan Shirk, one of the United States’ foremost China specialists. “I wasn’t anticipating
such an open declaration of the new regime … I thought maybe he would stop
short of this.” “He” is China’s
64-year-old leader, Xi Jinping, a man who, after Sunday’s
sensational and unexpected announcement, appears poised to lead the world’s
second largest economy and one of its largest military forces well into next
decade and quite possibly beyond. “It means that for a
long time into the future, China will continue to move forwards according to
Xi’s thoughts, his route, his guiding principles and his absolute leadership,”
said Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor from Beijing’s Renmin University.
Bill Bishop, the publisher of the Sinocism
newsletter on Chinese politics, said the move confirmed Xi’s mutation into a
species of “Putin-plus” – only Xi was “much more effective, much more powerful
and, frankly, much more ambitious” than his Russian counterpart. Shirk, who was US deputy assistant
secretary of state under Bill Clinton, said: “What is going on here is that Xi
Jinping is setting himself up to rule China as a strongman, a personalistic
leader – I have no problem calling it a dictator – for life.” The first five years of Xi’s reign, which
began after he was named the Communist party’s general secretary in late 2012,
have seen what many call the worst political crackdown in decades. Activists,
dissidents and intellectuals greeted Sunday’s move with trepidation... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/26/xi-jinping-china-presidential-limit-scrap-dictator-for-lifeChina bans the letter N from the internet as Xi Jinping extends grip on power
It is the 14th letter in the English alphabet and, in Scrabble, the springboard for more than 600 8-letter words. But for the Communist party of China it is also subversive and intolerable character that was this week banished from the internet as Chinese censors battled to silence criticism of Xi Jinping’s bid to set himself up as ruler for life. The contravening consonant was perhaps the most unusual victim of a crackdown targeting words, phrases and even solitary letters censors feared might be used to attack Beijing’s controversial decision to abolish constitutional term limits for China’s president. The Communist party has painted the move - which experts say paves the way for Xi to become a dictator for life - as an expression of overwhelming popular support for China’s strongman leader. However, there has been widespread online push-back in China since it was announced on Sunday on the eve of an annual political congress in Beijing. In a blog post, Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania China expert, said censors had taken “quick, drastic action” after “the internet was flooded with complaints”.
According to a
list compiled by the China Digital Times website, search terms blocked on
Weibo, China’s Twitter, included:
- ‘Ten thousand years’
(万岁), which is China’s way of saying: ‘Long live!’
or ‘Viva!’
- ‘Disagree’ (不同意)
- ‘Xi Zedong’ (习泽东) - a hybrid of the names of Xi and Chairman
Mao Zedong
- ‘Shameless’ (不要脸)
- ‘Lifelong’ (终身)
-‘Personality cult’ (个人崇拜)
-‘Emigrate (移民)
- ‘Immortality’ (长生不老)
The name Yuan Shikai,
a Qing dynasty warlord who unsuccessfully tried to restore monarch to China, was also banned as
were the titles of two George Orwell books, 1984 and Animal Farm.
Less clear is why
censors took issue with the letter ‘N’. Mair speculated it was “probably out of
fear on the part of the government that ‘N’ = ‘n terms in office’, where
possibly n > 2”. Charlie Smith, the alias of the
founder of GreatFire.org, a group which helps users track and bypass
Chinese censorship, said he found that explanation plausible. “[Censors]
probably determined it was sensitive and then moved to add that content to the
blacklist so others would not be able to post something similar,” he said,
noting that the seditious symbol had now been emancipated. “I doubt that they
actually put that much thought into it so sadly, the letter ‘N’ was a temporary
victim of this rash decision.”
On Wednesday, Beijing
accused the west of reacting “hysterically” to the scrapping of presidential
term limits. “No sooner had [the party] made public its proposal … than the
Western media began bad-mouthing China in their usual and various ways, the
party-run Global Times tabloid said in an editorial. “It is
worth noting that for some time the Western media have been growing strident in
their abuse of Beijing, almost using curse words,” the newspaper added,
claiming those behind the criticism hoped to see “China crumble”.
Smith said he believed
Beijing had underestimated the outrage its decision would cause. “The response
from Chinese netizens indicates that Xi may have miscalculated how this would
be received by the general public. Hence, he has asked the censors to put in
overtime and things like the letter ‘N’ end up as collateral damage.” For now,
censors might feel they had the situation under control. “But if the momentum
continues to build and netizens continue to look for other ways to express
their displeasure with Xi, we could reach a critical point where the
authorities might have to consider ‘turning off’ the internet, however they
might do that,” Smith added. “Now, more than any
other time in recent history, those who are in a position to help Chinese
netizens freely express their opinions and freely access information should
step up and lend a hand.”
