Below find the China section of the 2017 annual report from the Network of Concerned Historians.–Kirk
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
Annual Report 2017
In 2013, historian Hong Zhenkuai, a former executive editor of the history journal Yanhuang Chunqiu (China Through the Ages), challenged in two articles the official narrative about the Five Heroes of Langya Mountain, whose reportedly heroic defense of the area against invading Japanese troops and ensuing suicide in 1941 became part of the revolutionary mythology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In August 2015, the sons of two of the five men sued him. On 27 June 2016, the Beijing Xicheng District People’s Court ruled that Hong had defamed the heroes and that he should apologize publicly on websites and news outlets to the complainants. In its verdict, it wrote that Hong’s articles failed to portray the five men positively and, “based on insufficient evidence,” cast doubt on the CCP’s narrative of events. According to the verdict, “The national sentiments, historical memories and the national spirit reflected in the five heroes of Langya Mountain and their story are important sources and components of modern China’s socialist core values … Thus, it also damages the Chinese nation’s spiritual values.” On 15 August 2016, the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court upheld the ruling. In a reaction, Hong declared that he would not apologize, saying that the plaintiffs had not provided any evidence that disproved his findings: “This is basic academic freedom, and I need to maintain my dignity as an intellectual.” The court would probably publish the verdict in the news media and order Hong to pay the publication costs. In July 2016, one of the plaintiffs, Ge Changsheng, had said in an interview that Hong’s articles negated CCP history and heroes and constituted “historical nihilism”.
Among the issues raised by Hong were whether the men jumped from the peak of Langya Mountain or a lower level, whether they leapt voluntarily or slipped off the mountain, and the number of casualties. He said that the district court verdict failed to mention where he falsified or vilified the heroes. He said he drew on published accounts by the two survivors, “who appeared in my articles as witnesses—I quoted what they said.” In one of the two articles, published on the news website Caijing.com, Hong wrote that while it was important for people to respect war heroes who resisted the Japanese invasion, historical truth should be respected too. Jiang Keshi, a Chinese historian at Okayama University in Japan who studied modern Japanese history, also said that the official Chinese version had major flaws. Based on the records that he had found in Japan, he said that no Japanese soldier died in the fighting with the five at the mountain. The Chinese version, which first appeared in 1941 in a CCP newspaper, asserted that many Japanese had died. And in 2005, an article in the CCP newspaper People’s Daily said that the five Langya heroes shot and killed or wounded at least ninety Japanese soldiers.32 In [March] 2016, Yang Jisheng (1940–), deputy editor of the liberal historical journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, finished The World Turned Upside Down, a history of the Cultural Revolution and sequel to Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 (Chinese 2008; English abridged version 2012). But officials warned Yang against publishing it and barred him from traveling to the United States to receive a journalistic award. The book was published in Hong Kong in late December 2016. An abridged English translation was expected in 2019. Yang did not have extensive access to archives for his book but he drew on hundreds of memoirs,
In [March] 2016, Yang Jisheng (1940–), deputy editor of the liberal historical journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, finished The World Turned Upside Down, a history of the Cultural Revolution and sequel to Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 (Chinese 2008; English abridged version 2012). But officials warned Yang against publishing it and barred him from traveling to the United States to receive a journalistic award. The book was published in Hong Kong in late December 2016. An abridged English translation was expected in 2019. Yang did not have extensive access to archives for his book but he drew on hundreds of memoirs, histories and studies [see also NCH Annual Reports 2013, 2016]. 33
In late April 2016, a few weeks before the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the Cultural Revolution Museum in Shantou (established in 2005; the only one dedicated to the Cultural Revolution in mainland China) was covered up without the knowledge of Peng Qi’an, a former local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official and the museum’s founder. Signs appeared, saying: “Because of the need to adjust the function of the park, repairs will be carried out.” Workers smoothed concrete over the names of victims, wrapped “Socialist Core Values” banners around the main exhibition hall, placed red-and-yellow propaganda posters over stone memorials to the terror, and raised scaffolding around statues of critics of Mao Zedong (like Liu Shaoqi and Marshal Ye). Peng Qi’an believed the order to cover up the museum was not local, but came from “higher up.”34
As in previous years, authorities were on high alert ahead of the anniversary to preempt commemorations of the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June 1989. Measures included putting under house arrest or restricting the movement of activists, including Ding Zilin [See also NCH Annual Reports 2000, 2004–2005, 2008–2009], a founding member of the Tiananmen Mothers, and Sun Wenguang [See also NCH Annual Report 2009], a retired professor of Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong Province. Journalist Gao Yu and former top official Bao Tong [see also NCH Annual Reports 1999, 2005, 2009] were required to leave Beijing for enforced “vacations.” Yu Shiwen, who spent 18 months in prison for his 1989 work organizing pro-democracy efforts in Guangzhou, has been detained since 2014 for commemorating the massacre that year. Activists who commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown continued to be detained, including Sichuan activists Fu Hailu and Luo Fuyu. Despite systematic harassment and intimidation, activists found subversive ways to commemorate it online. Four human rights defenders were arrested for commemorating the anniversary. They posted an online advertisement for a popular alcohol with a label reading “Remember, Eight Liquor Six Four”—a play on words in Chinese echoing the date of the notorious event, accompanied by the “tank man’s” picture. The action was covered widely on social media before being censored. Miao Deshun, a labor activist arrested after participating in the 1989 protests was reportedly released in October 2016 after 27 years’ imprisonment.35
In July 2016, the offices of the history magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu (see item above) were taken over by strangers, who changed the computer passwords, opened the mail and took over the running of the magazine. Among the staff purged were founder and director Du Daozheng ([1923−]), a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member and former senior editor at the state-run news agency Xinhua, and Hu Dehua, the son of reform-minded former leader Hu Yaobang. The magazine, with a reported readership of some 200,000 a month, had long offered a mild critique of the official Communist version of China’s history, including by publishing critical articles in 2008 about former party leader Zhao Ziyang and in 2013 about the Five Heroes of Langya Mountain (see item above). The original staff issued a notice that any future editions of the magazine had nothing to do with them and in August 2016 they went to court to challenge the censorship.36
In the summer of 2016, academic Wang Changjiang criticized former leader Mao Zedong in a lecture at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s elite training academy, saying that he had been unable to satisfy people’s basic wants of food and clothing. The lecture was secretly videotaped. Shortly thereafter, Wang stepped down from his position as the director of a research department at the Central Party School, citing reasons of age.37
In September 2016, Kwon Pyong (Chinese name: Quan Ping) (−), an ethnic-Korean citizen from Yanbian who had studied aerospace engineering at Iowa State University in the USA, used Twitter to mock and criticize the nation’s rulers, including posting a selfie in which he wore a T-shirt that likened President Xi Jinping to Hitler. Kwon, who on Twitter described himself as a “perpetual student, citizen, dedicated to overturning communism,” was arrested and put into police custody. On 15 February 2017, he faced trial on a charge of “inciting subversion.” Kwon’s two defense lawyers were abruptly dismissed from the case days before the trial. He risked eighteen months’ imprisonment.38
In [November 2016], new film censorship laws were decreed. Among other things, they stipulated that those Chinese films that “distorted national history or national historical figures, hurt national sentiments and undermined national unity” were to be banned. The laws were due to come into effect in March 2017.39
On 5 January 2017, the University Party committee of Shandong Jianzhu University dismissed Deng Xiangchao ([1954−]), communications professor and deputy head of the university’s School of Art, for his “erroneous remarks” about former leader Mao Zedong, posted on the Sina Weibo social-media service on the eve of Mao’s 123rd birthday (26 December 2016). Deng had written: “If he’d died in 1945, China would have seen 6 million fewer killed in war. If he’d died in 1958, 30 million fewer would’ve starved to death.” and: “It wasn’t until 1976 when he finally died that we at last had food to eat. The only correct thing he did was to die.” In the aftermath of the postings, Deng was also vilified by protesters and online, with some calling him “an enemy of the people.” His Weibo account was deleted. He was also dismissed from his jobs as a member of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and as counselor to the provincial government.
When writer Lu Yong showed support for Deng, he was threatened. Video taken hours later showed Mao loyalists parading through the campus of Jinan University with large banners while chanting “Down with Deng Xiangchao, down with traitors.” When Liu Yong, a television employee in the central city of Luohe, reposted Deng’s remarks, he was suspended from his advertising job. According to Luohe Television, Liu had made “erroneous comments and distorted the truth” on his personal Weibo account.40
On 11 January 2017, the Education Ministry ordered that history textbooks move the start of China’s war against Japanese invaders six years back to 1931, calling it the “14-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” (1931−1945), apparently to broaden the scope of the struggle from which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) derived its legitimacy. In 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Manchuria.41
On 24 and 25 March 2017, historian Feng Chongyi (−), a Chinese-born associate professor of China studies at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, who had often criticized Beijing’s crackdown on political dissent (particularly the so-called 709 crackdown on human rights lawyers which started on 9 July 2015) on overseas Chinese websites and in interviews with foreign journalists, was put on a no-fly list and barred from leaving China, first in Kunming, then twice in Guangzhou. Although he was not arrested or charged, state security officers questioned him, suspecting him of being a “threat to national security.” On 2 April 2017, Feng was allowed to return home. As a condition of his departure, Feng was required to sign a document promising not say anything about the police interrogations.
The confinement occurred while premier, Li Keqiang visited Australia to promote deeper ties. Feng had also criticized the Chinese government’s increasing efforts to exert influence over ethnic Chinese in Australia. In 2016, he had spoken out against plans for concerts to honor Mao Zedong in Sydney and Melbourne, writing that for many Australians Mao was a symbol of dictatorship, violence and political persecution. His research focused on intellectual and political developments in modern and contemporary China.42
In March 2017, Shen Zhihua ([1950–]), reputedly China’s foremost historian of the Cold War and specialist of the Korean War (1950–1953), criticized the official policy of China toward North Korea at a university lecture in Dalian. He declared: “Judging by the current situation, North Korea is China’s latent enemy and South Korea could be China’s friend.” His views and the debate about them were not reported in Chinese state news media. But his speech remained on the website of the Center for Cold War International History Studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai, where Shen worked. He restated his views in lectures in Shanghai and, in mid-April 2017, in Xian. The son of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, Shen previously used his earnings from gold trafficking business to pay for dredging archives in Russia, after serving a prison term (1983–May 1984) on a charge (reportedly groundless) of leaking state secrets.43
On 26 May 2017, Hong Kong activist Fung Ka Keung submitted a Tiananmen-themed frame (a layer of text across his Facebook page profile picture) for approval to Facebook, which rejected it the next day on the grounds that it “belittled, threatened or attacked a particular person, legal entity, nationality or group.” After it was accused of an act of censorship with political and economic motivations in Hong Kong media outlets, Facebook apologized for ‘incorrectly” rejecting the frame and approved it. The network had been blocked in China since 2009, and was thought to be keen to re-enter the market. Fung’s frame stated in a mixture of Chinese and English: “June 4 28th Anniversary,” “Vindicate June 4th” and “End Dictatorial Rule.” A second similar frame created by Fung was also approved.44
On 4 June 2017, tens of thousands of people gathered in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park for a vigil organized by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Organizers estimated that 110,000 people had gathered, while police thought that just 18,000 took part. Hong Kong remained the only place under China’s jurisdiction that allowed open memorialization of the 1989 crackdown.45
On 13 July 2017, dissident Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) died. He was one of the original signatories of Charter 08, a human rights movement established on 10 December 2008, the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Liu was a leading participant in and hunger striker during the 1989 student demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, a lecturer in literature and chairman of the Independent Chinese PEN Center since 2003. He was originally detained in December 2008 and sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” on 25 December 2009 for his role in drafting and circulating the charter. His lawyers were given only twenty minutes to present their case, in a trial that lasted less than three hours. On 10 February 2010, a Beijing court rejected Liu’s appeal. On 10 December 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He had already been imprisoned in [1989–90], 1995, and [1996–98]. He was released a few weeks before he died.
Point 19 of Charter 08 read: “Transitional Justice. Rehabilitate the reputation of and give state compensation to the victims who suffered political persecution during past political movements as well as their families; release all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and people who are convicted because of their beliefs; establish a truth commission to restore historical truth, to pursue accountability and to fulfill justice; seek a settlement of the society on this foundation.” The text of Charter 08 also included a direct reference to the 4 June events, as an example of the “long trail of human rights disasters” caused by the Chinese Communist Party power monopoly. The Charter was initially signed by over 300 scholars, journalists, freelance writers and activists (including Liu Xiaobo, Jiang Qisheng, Ding Zilin, Jiang Peikun, Dai Qing, Li Datong, Tsering Woeser, Wang Lixiong and Zhang Yaojie, and by December 2009 had over 10,000 signatories from throughout China. Chinese living outside China, including Yu Ying-shih, signed a letter of support for the charter [see also NCH Annual Reports 2009–2010, 2013]. 46
31 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights (London: AI, 2017), 117; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017: Events of 2016 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017), 181−182.
32 Kiki Zhao, “Chinese Court Orders Apology Over Challenge to Tale of Wartime Heroes,” New York Times (28 June 2016); Kiki Zhao, “Chinese Court Upholds Ruling Against Historian Who Questioned Tale of Wartime Heroes,” New York Times (15 August 2016).
33 Chris Buckley, “Historian’s Latest Book on Mao Turns Acclaim in China to Censure,” New York Times (21 January 2017).
34 Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Fate Catches Up to a Cultural Revolution Museum in China,” New York Times (2 October 2016).
35 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights (London: AI, 2017), 19, 34, 121; Human Rights Watch, “China: Tell the Truth About Tiananmen on Anniversary” (1 June 2016). See also http://www.tiananmenmother.org/ and http://www.64memo.com/html/victims.htm.
36 John Sudworth, “China Censorship: How a Moderate Magazine Was Targeted,” BBC News (17 August 2016); Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017: Events of 2016 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2017), 191; “What Was behind China Magazine Takeover?” BBC News (interview with Du Daozheng; 17 August 2016).
37 Te-Ping Chen, “History Lesson: Mao Remarks Get Chinese Professor Fired,” Wall Street Journal (10 January 2017).
38 Chris Buckley, “He Called China’s President ‘Xitler’ on Twitter—Now He Faces Prison,” New York Times (16 February 2017).
39 Stephen McDonell, “Will New Censorship Kill Chinese Filmmaking?” BBC News (26 November 2016).
40 Te-Ping Chen, “History Lesson: Mao Remarks Get Chinese Professor Fired,” Wall Street Journal (10 January 2017); “University Party Committee Makes Professor Retire after Controversial Mao Comments,” Global Times (8 January 2017); Gerry Shih, “Critics Attacked, History Revised as China Nationalism Rises,” ABC News (13 January 2017).
41 Gerry Shih, “Critics Attacked, History Revised as China Nationalism Rises,” ABC News (13 January 2017); Javier Hernández, “China, Fanning Patriotism, Adds 6 Years to War with Japan in History Books,” New York Times (11 January 2017).
42 Chris Buckley, “China Bars Professor at Australian University From Leaving, Lawyer Says,” New York Times (26 March 2017); “Australian Academic Chongyi Feng Prevented from Leaving China,” Guardian (26 March 2017); Yojana Sharma, “Sydney Professor Barred from Leaving China,” University World News (30 March 2017); Yojana Sharma, “Professor Allowed to Leave after Being Questioned,” University World News (6 April 2017).
43 Chris Buckley, “Criticism of Beijing’s North Korea Policy Comes From Unlikely Place: China,” New York Times (18 April 2017); “Shen Zhihua,” The China Story (retrieved 19 April 2017).
44 “Facebook Sorry for Tiananmen Picture Frame Rejection,” BBC News (31 May 2017).
45 Kevin Lui, “Tens of Thousands in Hong Kong Commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre,” Time (4 June 2017).
46 Human Rights Watch, “China: Tiananmen’s Unhealed Wounds” (13 May 2009); Human Rights Watch, “China: End June 1989 Massacre Denial, Free Dissidents” (1 June 2010); Ifex Communiqué (3 June 2009); Index on Censorship (2010, no. 4), 182–83, 221–22; NRC Handelsblad (9 December 2010), 3; PEN American Center, Ifex Alert (2 April 2009); Wordt Vervolgd (December 2010–January 2011) 38.