Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao leaves after the fifth plenary session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 15, 2013. REUTERS / Jason Lee
Chinese internet companies have prevented users from sharing a lengthy article written by former Premier Wen Jiabao in tribute to his late mother, censoring an elderly ruling Communist Party member, probably because he spoke offline.
The obituary 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 the Chinese chat application WeChat on Saturday, but was quickly restricted.
The tribute from the heart includes details about Wen’s mother’s struggle during the Chinese uprising, including the Second Sino-Japanese War and the political purges of the Cultural Revolution.
“In my mind, China should be a country full of fairness and justice, always with respect for the will of the people, humanity and human nature,” said Wen’s article, which does not directly discuss China’s current political environment.
The Communist Party (CCP) of China has sought to tighten control over the way Internet users discuss history on the country’s heavily controlled Internet in the previous 100 years since the party was founded in July.
Under President Xi Jinping, the space for dissent in China has shrunk as censorship has expanded.
Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said the article was an “alternative voice within the party” that was out of efforts in recent years to quell dissent.
“The power of this article by Wen is that it causes this, and that is the main reason why it was banned from being shared,” he said, noting the party’s sensitivity around its anniversary.
Last week, an arm of China’s cyber regulator launched a hotline for netizens to report “illegal” comments that “distort” the party’s historic achievements and attacked the country’s leadership. Read more
When users tried to share Wen’s article, a notification appeared stating that the content was contrary to WeChat regulations and could not be shared, a common censorship measure in China, which is one step below the complete removal of the articles.
On the Weibo, the Chinese social networking site similar to Twitter, the article was mentioned a little, and the comments and sharing functions were disabled. Links to articles about Wen’s tribute posted on Weibo returned “404” messages on Tuesday morning, indicating that they had been deleted.
WeChat and Weibo, as well as China’s Internet regulator, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Former Chinese leaders and prominent politicians rarely cultivate public figures or share detailed biographical information on retirement and expect to gracefully escape the spotlight.
Since taking power in 2012, Xi’s signing policies have been strengthened in the party’s constitution and abolished his terms, putting him on an equal footing with China’s communist founder Mao Zedong in the pantheon of his leaders.
Wen, who was prime minister under former Chinese leader Hu Jintao, was a leading figure behind 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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