What China’s empty Chinese coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system

Even after declaring a crisis, Beijing was focused more on propaganda than on managing the Chinese virus outbreak 
Emma Graham-Harrison

Flowers and a photo of the whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan. 

China’s two new hospitals built in as many weeks were the official face of its fight against the Chinese coronavirus in Wuhan. 

As the city was locked down, authorities promised that thousands of doctors would be on hand to treat 2,600 patients on the facilities’ wards.
Timelapse videos tracked the fast construction of the hospitals, and state media celebrated their opening in early February. 

The only thing missing a week later? Patients.

Four days after its opening, the larger Leishenshan hospital had only 90 patients, on wards designed for 1,600, but was reporting no spare beds, Wuhan city health data, first reported by the Chinese magazine Caixin, showed. 

The other facility, Huoshenshan, had not yet filled its 1,000 beds a week after opening.
Meanwhile, the city was setting up emergency hospitals in exhibition halls and a sports stadium, and medics were still turning ill people away. 

China has the world’s largest army but it has not deployed any field hospitals to Wuhan.
The gulf between the vision of vast new hospitals created and thrown into action within days and the more complicated reality on the ground is a reminder of one of the main challenges for Beijing as it struggles to contain the Chinese coronavirus: its own secretive, authoritarian system of government and its vast censorship and propaganda apparatus.
Communist party apparatus well honed to crush dissent also muffles legitimate warnings. 

A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be relied on for accurate information. 

That is a problem not just for families left bereft by the Chinese coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in controlling and containing the disease.
“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Beijing did go public about the Chinese virus faster than during the 2002-3 Sars crisis.

But it has become increasingly clear that the local government was engaged in a concerted attempt to cover up the crisis during the early weeks of the outbreak, which allowed it to fester at a time when it would have been much easier to contain.

Two officials have been fired, Wuhan’s mayor admitted failings in a live interview on national television, and the central government has sent a team to investigate the treatment of the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang.
Security forces punished Li, 34, for trying to warn colleagues about the risks of a dangerous new disease at the end of December. 

Just over a month later he became one of the youngest victims of the Chinese coronavirus. 

His death made him a household name and triggered a rare discussion in China about freedom of speech.
In a biting essay that laid the blame for the crisis with Xi Jinping, a dissident intellectual claimed China’s centralisation and culture of silence had played a key role in the spread of the disease.
“It began with the imposition of stern bans on the reporting of factual information that served to embolden deception at every level of government,” Xu Zhangrun wrote in his essay Viral Alarm, When Fury Overcomes Fear, according to a translation by Geremie Barmé on the website ChinaFile.
“It only struck its true stride when bureaucrats throughout the system shrugged off responsibility for the unfolding situation while continuing to seek the approbation of their superiors,” Xu continued. 

“They all blithely stood by as the crucial window of opportunity to deal with the outbreak of the infection snapped shut in their faces.”

A Chinese coronavirus patient is discharged from a field module hospital after recovery in Wuhan. 

Without a free press, elections or much space for civil society, there are few ways for citizens to hold their rulers accountable. 

Instead, local officials answer only to a party hierarchy that puts a premium on stability and economic growth.
Prof Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute, said: “China is not a poor country. But the incentives are not for a health director (for example) to respond to public health crises in Wuhan first and foremost. The incentive is to do what the party wants … and not embarrass the party.”

The cost of trying to curb the Chinese coronavirus when it first emerged – high-profile moves to close the market where it originated, cull and destroy livestock, quarantine and compensate victims, cancel mass festivities for the new year – would have seemed a risky gamble for little reward.
“That might have ended it, or not,” Tsang said. 

“[But] since you stopped the virus from developing, you have nothing to show. You quashed a potential threat that may not have existed.”
Even when the government reversed course and announced a crisis, it appeared to be focused more on propaganda than on managing the disease, he said. 

It could have deployed medics and a field hospital to Wuhan almost overnight rather than building new hospitals.
It is unclear why they chose not to do so. 

But a country setting up field hospitals looks like one in crisis. 

A government expanding hospitals looks like one in control. 

“Ten days is a very long time when you are looking at a public health crisis like that,” Tsang said. 

“But a new hospital built from the ground up, that’s a world record.”

Diggers begin constructing a new 1,000-bed hospital in Wuhan.

Questions about China’s transparency still hang over efforts to manage the disease. 

Scientists are concerned about its spread in areas that have become new hubs of the disease. 

Zhejiang and Guangdong province – both industrial centres – have reported more than 1,000 cases, as has inland Henan province.
That is higher than the number of cases reported in Hubei province when the lockdown of Wuhan was announced in January. 

But with the economy badly strained by the long shutdown, Chinese authorities are urging people to start heading back to work in “orderly” fashion in these areas.
There have also been doubts about the accuracy of the tally of cases, after many families reported struggling to get testing for sick relatives.The test numbers may be accurate, and disease control measures in place elsewhere may be sufficient to control a virus that scientists already understand much better than they did a few weeks ago. 

But if China cannot address the systemic failings that allowed the outbreak to fester originally, it may struggle to control this epidemic, avert the next one and secure the global trust and cooperation needed to fight disease.
“There is no one quick fix to the Chinese system to make it respond better next time,” said Hung. “But if there is one single factor that could increase the government’s responsiveness to this kind of crisis, [it would be] a free press.”

Hurting the Feelings of the Sick Barbarians

Denmark refuses to apologise over coronavirus cartoon
Agence France-Presse

Danish Daily Newspaper Jyllands-Posten carried the cartoon on Monday 

A Danish newspaper refused to apologise to China on Tuesday over a satirical cartoon it ran about the deadly new virus that has killed dozens and infected thousands more, with the prime minister stepping in to defend freedom of speech.
The cartoon, published in Jyllands-Posten on Monday, depicted a Chinese flag with the yellow stars normally found in the upper left corner exchanged for drawings of the new coronavirus.
China's embassy in Denmark called the cartoon "an insult to China" that "hurts the feelings of the sick Chinese people".
The Chinese demanded that the paper and cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen "reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologise to the sick people".
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said freedom of expression in Denmark includes cartoons.

Sick Flag of Asia: The cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen replaced China's five yellow stars with the coronavirus.

"We have a very, very strong tradition in Denmark not only for freedom of expression, but also for satirical drawings, and we will have that in the future as well," Ms Frederiksen said. 

"It is a well-known Danish position, and we will not change that."
After breaking out in the city of Wuhan, the official number of confirmed cases of the new virus reached more than 5,000 in China as of Wednesday, with over 130 deaths.
Some 50 infections have also been confirmed elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America.
On Tuesday, Jyllands-Posten's chief editor Jacob Nybroe said they would not "dream of" poking fun at the situation in China but also refused to apologise.
"We cannot apologise for something we don't think is wrong. We have no intention of being demeaning or to mock, nor do we think that the drawing does," Mr Nybroe said.
"As far as I can see, this here is about different forms of cultural understanding."
Jylland-Posten is no stranger to controversy. 

In 2005, it published several cartoons depicting Mohammed, which later contributed to protests in some Muslim countries.

Ambassador Defends New Requirement That China's Diplomats Report Meetings In U.S.

By EMILY FENG

U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, left, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, right, after concluding a meeting in Beijing, in May.

The U.S. ambassador to China is pushing back against Beijing's criticism of a new State Department requirement that Chinese diplomats must report certain meetings they have in the U.S.
The State Department announced Wednesday that it is requiring all Chinese diplomats in the U.S. to notify them of meetings they plan to have with local and state officials as well as educational and research institutions. 

However, there is no penalty associated yet with failing to report such meetings.
Speaking in Beijing, U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad, a former governor of Iowa, told NPR that the reporting requirements were "modest" compared to how China demands all foreign diplomats ask for the Chinese government's permission before traveling or meeting with local officials and universities in an official capacity.
"The difference is we have a very open system. Unfortunately, China has a very closed system," Branstad said. 

"We'd like to see a little more reciprocity and more opportunity for our diplomats to be able to do their work here in China."
The measure is meant as a counter to the more intensive barriers American diplomats face in China. Diplomats have long complained about limited access to local officials; academics and researchers say they have been restricted; and requests to visit politically sensitive areas in China, especially the western regions of Tibet and East Turkestan, are routinely ignored or denied.
In the past year, U.S. legislation was enacted to monitor American access to Tibet and potentially sanction Chinese officials who block U.S. officials and journalists who travel there. 

China requires foreigners to receive a special permit before entering the region of Tibet, though few are granted to diplomats and journalists.
Earlier this month, a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation was denied visas to mainland China because the group also planned to visit Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province.

China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, tweeted his opposition to the State Department requirements.
Branstad called Cui's reaction on Twitter "outrageous."
"One of the real ironies is that the Chinese ambassador in the United States can use Google Facebook and Twitter, and those [platforms] are all banned here in China," he told NPR. 

China's Great Firewall monitors all incoming Internet traffic entering mainland China and blocks access to many international social media sites and news outlets.
Branstad also noted the growing ability of Chinese regulators and an increasingly nationalistic consumer base to restrict the free expression of American companies and individuals, saying such interference was of "grave concern."
Earlier this month, the general manager of the NBA's Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of ongoing anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
China's state broadcaster and the tech giant Tencent quickly dropped coverage of NBA preseason games, though Tencent quietly began streaming games again last week. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver alleged in public remarks Thursday that China asked him to fire Morey over his pro-Hong Kong tweet, a request Silver refused. 

"We're a country that believes very much in freedom of speech and association and [we] believe that this is really counterproductive," Branstad said.

'This Is a Fight.'

Meet Badiucao, the Dissident Cartoonist Taking on the Chinese Government

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG

Chinese cartoonist Badiucao standing behind his artwork titled 'Light' in his studio in Melbourne on May 28, 2019.

A giant tattoo of tiny man standing in front of an oncoming tank covers the entirety of one of artist Badiucao’s upper arms. 

It’s an inspired choice of ink for the Chinese artist who has earned both the fury of the Chinese Communist Party and excited comparisons to Banksy.
Images of the individual known to history as Tank Man flashed around the world on June 5, 1989, when the anonymous Beijing resident, clutching a shopping bag, faced down a column of advancing tanks. 

The night before, troops had rolled into Tiananmen Square and brutally suppressed a weeks-long, peaceful occupation by students and workers calling for political reform. 

Thousands are thought to have died.
“I wanted [the Tank Man tattoo] on my right arm, the arm that I use to draw,” Badiucao (pronounced ba-doo-chow) tells TIME. 

“It’s a personal reminder to keep having courage with my arm, with my hand, and with my pen.”
Born in China in 1986, Badiucao grew up in a society where all mention of the Tiananmen massacre is fanatically censored. 

He was in university in 2007, studying law, when he gathered with friends in his dormitory to watch what they thought was a Taiwanese rom com. 

In turned out that their copy had been doctored by activists intent on spreading awareness of the events of 1989—a few minutes into the film, the movie suddenly cut to a documentary about the massacre.
“It shocked me deeply,” he says. 

For Badiucao, it was the moment that started his politicization. 

He tried to find out information about Tiananmen, but was quickly stymied. 

“If I can’t see the truth about the country, how can I have hope for the country?”
Out of frustration, he started using his artistic talents to create satirical doodles. 

He had loved painting, drawing and photography as a child: now he used those skills to comment on the political situation in China, and dropped his plans to become a lawyer.
Badiucao comes from a family of artists — his grandfather and his great uncle were filmmakers in China during the 1930s and 1940s. 

As the political situation deteriorated in China in the 1950s, they both considered moving to Hong Kong or Taiwan, but ultimately decided to stay in their homeland. 

It’s a decision they paid for with their lives; both were persecuted and killed in an anti-intellectual crackdown, leaving Badiucao’s father orphaned as a young child.
“In my family, there’s a very clear message that to be an artist in China is dangerous,” he says.
So, in 2009, Badiucao packed his bags for Australia, where he got a masters degree and later naturalized. 

Today, the artist’s work encompasses all mediums, from fine to installation to performance to street art, but he says that everything he creates has a common theme.
“The message from me is always about promoting freedom of speech, advocating for human rights.”
He is best known for the cartoons he posts online, which often take aim at the Chinese government, like a drawing of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hunting for Winnie the Pooh (the fictional creature was banned on the Chinese internet after a meme comparing Xi to Pooh went viral).
“Why are they censoring such an adorable animal?” the artist asks.

A cartoon drawn by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao

The artist, who now lives in Melbourne, shares much of his work on Twitter, which he started using after censors shut down his account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo more than 30 times. Twitter is banned in China, but despite China’s Great Firewall, he’s sure that his artwork still reaches people at home who access the website via virtual private networks (VPNs).
“More and more websites, terms and photos are becoming ‘sensitive’ each year and have been added to censorship lists maintained by social media companies,” Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. 

But she says that creative work like Badiucao’s might be able to slip by the censorship apparatus.
“Netizens can still post about political sensitive topics through creative means,” Wang explains, “such as altering the images or replacing critical characters with characters that look alike or with characters that have the same pronunciations.”
For years, and even though he was no longer living in China, Badiucao attempted to conceal his identity, appearing at events in a ski mask. 

He had good reason to be fearful; others critical of the regime have faced severe punishments. 

Ai Wei Wei, who Badiucao worked for as an assistant at one point, has been imprisoned and hit with hefty tax evasion fines that were politically motivated. 

The political cartoonist Jiang Yefei was sentenced to six and a half years in prison last year for “subversion of state power.”
Badiucao finally unmasked himself on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in June, when a documentary about him called China’s Artful Dissident came out. 

It had become terrifyingly clear to him that Beijing already knew his identity. 

Ahead of a planned exhibition in Hong Kong late last year, he began receiving threats. 

When several of his family members in China were detained by the police, he decided to cancel his trip to Hong Kong and call off his show, which was going to feature artwork like an installation made from neon lights depicting the late Nobel Prize winning Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.
Despite the danger he faces, Badiucao refuses to stand down, and although he wasn’t able to have his exhibition in Hong Kong, his work is now being featured across the city in another way. 

Since early June — when Hong Kong’s anti-government protests began — the artist has spent much of his time creating artwork to comment on the unrest and the government’s response to it. 

When Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, wept on television as she spoke about the sacrifices she had made for the city, the artist released a cartoon of the leader with a reptilian arm wiping away what many Hongkongers said were crocodile tears.

A Badicao cartoon depicting Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's Chief Executive
Demonstrations have now become a near daily occurrence in the city, and Badiucao’s art can often be seen at rallies, printed out and turned into posters, or taped onto one of the colorful “Lennon Walls” of protest messages and artwork that have popped up across the city. 

It inspires the protesters to keep fighting.
“Protest art serves the function of not only spreading the necessary political messages but also connecting movement participants’ emotions, which are pivotal in sustaining a movement,” Vivienne Chow, a journalist and cultural critic based in Hong Kong, tells TIME.
Although Badiucao can’t be in Hong Kong alongside the protesters, he is happy that his artwork has finally reached the city, even if it’s via the Internet instead of a gallery. 

As the Hong Kong protests enter their third month, he hopes that his work will continue motivating the protesters to carry on their resistance against what is perceived as Beijing’s tightening grip.
“What’s happening in Hong Kong is not just about Hong Kong, it’s also about every country that values freedom and democracy,” Badiucao says. 

“This is a fight, and it’s a meaningful fight.”

'Truth is Under Threat.'

Ten Questions for Chinese Dissident Author Ma Jian
BY AMY GUNIA

Ma Jian, writer, known as the Chinese Solzhenitsyn at the Oxford Literary Festival 2019 in Oxford, England on April 5, 2019.

Ma Jian has a flair for the provocative. 

In 2012, the London Book Fair partnered with the all-powerful Chinese state agency responsible for regulating publications and the Internet—the General Administration for Press and Publication. 

In protest, the author smeared an X across his face in red paint. 

He then attempted to hand a copy of a book he had written, its cover also marked with a red X, to the head of the agency, who was attending the fair. 

The book was about one of China’s most taboo topics—the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square.
Ma had reason to be angry: his books have been banned in his homeland for the last 30 years, and he has not been allowed to return to China for the last few years as the country’s dictator, Xi Jinping, has initiated a widespread crackdown on dissent.
The author was born in the Chinese city of Qingdao in 1953. 

He started his career on a more traditional path, at a petrochemical plant in Beijing, before deciding to become a photojournalist. 

In the 1980s, he began hanging out in the Chinese capital’s underground literary and art scene and took up painting again—a childhood love that was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. 

He also started writing. 

His first book, 1988’s Stick Out Your Tongue, inspired by his travels in Tibet, caught the attention of the country’s censors, and all copies were destroyed. 

Since then, none of his books have been allowed to be published in China.
His latest work is, without a doubt, a political statement. 

China Dream—a phrase borrowed directly from Xi who commonly uses it to describe a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—is a scathing, dystopian novel that follows a fictional Chinese provincial leader as he works to replace people’s dreams with government propaganda.
But Ma says that he refuses to stand down. 

“I have never allowed myself to not write something for fear of consequences; that would be the death of literature in my mind,” Ma told TIME.
China Dream has already been released in the U.K., where he now lives with his wife and children, and it will be available in the U.S. on May 7.
Here’s what the writer-in-exile had to say about the new title and what is happening in China today.

Tell us about your new book.
China Dream was inspired by the idea that China was shrouded in a veil of lies. 

It was a strong desire to expose these lies and shine a light on them that drove me to write the book. 

I wanted to reveal the darkness that lies at the core of Xi Jinping’s sunny utopia.

Did you draw on inspiration from your own life for the book?
[The book’s main character] Ma Daode’s task is not only to suppress memories of the past but also to control speech in the present. 

My whole life has been affected by the [Chinese government’s] desire to clampdown on personal liberties and freedom of speech. 

When I was living in China in the 1980s I was continually being detained, arrested for things I said, or paintings I created. 

This has continued today where my books are still banned and I am forced to live in exile.

“China Dream” is a phrase commonly used by Xi Jinping and in Chinese propaganda. Why did you chose to call the book that?
When Xi Jinping rose to power and announced his China Dream of national resurgence, and made this the bedrock of his rule, I at once saw it as a crime. 

It is criminal for a leader to impose a dream on a nation. 

Dreams are an expression of the most unfettered realm of the human spirit.

What is your dream for China?
My dream for China is that it will become a country that respects freedom of speech, where independent thought prospers. 

This, of course, would be a time when a totalitarian regime no longer exists, where people are free to determine their own life paths and to dream their own dreams. 

It will be a country that gives dignity to every individual life, where people feel safe in their own homes, and feel that they can express their thoughts freely that go against official ideology without fear of arrest or suppression.

How do you stay attuned to what is going in China while living outside of it?
In fact, I feel more attuned to what is going on in China living in London, more connected than I did in China when my movements were monitored, when I was forbidden to meet with sensitive people, where information was blocked by the firewall. 

Here I can know real-time, through the internet, what is happening. 

Information that is restricted in China, I have full access to.

What do you want China’s youth, who have not been able to learn about what happened in Tiananmen, to know about the massacre?
My hope is that the young people of today will have an opportunity to re-connect with their own history that has been denied them. 

They need to learn the lessons of those crucial years, because the situation [in China] today is more dangerous than it has been in many decades.

Is the Chinese government succeeding in its efforts to enforce censorship?
At the moment, it looks like their system of censorship is succeeding in maintaining the Communist Party’s barbaric rule. 

The party has huge amounts of money, it has an army of censors.

What do you hope readers will learn from reading your book?
We are now in a state of turmoil, in a state of flux, where there is a loss of faith in all leaders, where truth is under threat. 

I hope that this book can show that is vital that individuals never give up asking questions. 

If you stop reflecting on the past, if you don’t question what is fed to you, if you don’t question the motives of the people who are leading you, we will all share a common fate, and that is that we will all be controlled by people that are more stupid and evil and than us.

Did any recent events in particular prompt you to start writing the book?
I only have to read the news from China; every day there is something that will fill me with rage. 

But perhaps one of the sparks for writing of this particular book was attending the London Book Fair where China was the guest of honor.

Here in the country where I had sought refuge, where I thought that the freedom of expression was one of the founding values, I saw how the red carpet was rolled out for the Chinese censors-in-chief.

A talk you were scheduled to give in Hong Kong last year was suddenly cancelled (before being re-instated). The motivation was political. Will China Dream be published in Hong Kong?
Until now, all of my books have been published in Hong Kong in the Chinese language, but the spread of the Communist party’s control beyond its borders means that no Hong Kong publisher would dare to publish this book.
Originally there was one publisher who was willing to publish it in Hong Kong, we got quite far in the process—it had been edited and the cover had been approved. 

Suddenly they said they were not going to go ahead with it, and they did not give me a clear reason. 

I can only assume that they received a message from above or they realized themselves that it could be too dangerous and they could face possible arrest as other publishers have in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong arts centre cancels Chinese dissident author event

Exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian was due to promote his satiric novel China Dream

Ma Jian, who lives in London, writes dark satirical books about life in China.

A Hong Kong arts centre hosting the city’s high-profile literary festival has cancelled appearances by exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian, said the author, as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city.
It is the latest blow to freedom of speech in Hong Kong as concerns grow that liberties are under serious threat from an assertive China.
Ma, who now lives in London, writes dark and satirical works depicting life in China and his books are banned on the mainland.
He was due to promote his latest novel China Dream later this week, a title that plays on Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s rhetoric of national rejuvenation and is described by publisher Penguin as “a biting satire of totalitarianism”.
The author announced on Twitter that his two speaking events had been cancelled by Tai Kwun arts centre, where the festival is held, not by festival organisers who he said were trying to find an alternative venue.
“Just been told that my two events at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival this week can no longer be held at Tai Kwun, where all the other events are taking place. An alternative venue will have to be found. No reason has been given to me yet,” he said in his tweet.
Hong Kong’s government says it wants to turn the city into an arts and culture hub, with Tai Kwun the result of a multimillion-dollar renovation of a colonial-era prison and police station, led by the government and the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Tai Kwun and the Hong Kong International Literary Festival were unable to immediately comment.
Hong Kong has rights that are not enjoyed on the mainland, protected by an agreement made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997, but there are fears they are being steadily eroded.

A highly anticipated art show by Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao was cancelled last week with Hong Kong organisers citing safety concerns due to “threats made by Chinese authorities relating to the artist”.

Hong Kong authorities also faced a major backlash when they denied a visa without explanation last month to a Financial Times journalist who had chaired a press club talk by a Hong Kong independence activist.
The Hong Kong literary festival attracts leading authors from around the world and this year features Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh and bestselling American author Cheryl Strayed.

Last Hong Kong bookshop selling titles banned in China shuts

The People’s Bookshop shut its doors after pressure from the puppet government
By Carlotta Dotto in Hong Kong

The recently closed People Book Cafe in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, which sold books banned by the Communist Party of China. 

The last bookshop in Hong Kong selling titles banned by the Communist Party on the mainland has closed, marking the last chapter of the city’s historic independent publishing scene.
Human rights activists and publishers have raised grave concerns over the closure of the People’s Bookstore, a tiny shop in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, known to be the last source of literary contraband in the city, in the latest example of China’s tightening pressure over the city.
The Guardian spoke to locals familiar with the matter who believe bookseller Paul Tang closed the shop under pressure from the government. 

A frequent visitor of the shop, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the city “was once the place where mainland readers came looking for the truth. But today, you’re afraid to even mention these forbidden topics.”
Fears that Beijing has hardened its policy on freedom of speech were raised earlier this month when the Financial Times’ Asia news editor, Victor Mallet, had his visa effectively revoked and the pro-independence Hong Kong National party was banned.
The closure follows the disappearance and detention of five city booksellers in 2015, who were linked to the Mighty Current publishing house that produced critical books about China’s leadership.
Joshua Wong, one of the leaders of the 2014 Occupy Movement, told the Guardian the closure “marks the definitive proof of Hong Kong’s lack of freedom”.
Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chair of the NGO Hong Kong Watch, said: “Hong Kong used to be a window onto China, a sanctuary for books that tell the truth about the mainland. But freedom of expression and of the press have been significantly eroded in recent years, and the closure of bookshops selling banned books is a further example of this.”
The former British colony has preserved much of its autonomy since its return to Chinese rule in 1997, including its own laws on liberal publication rights. 

Several publishing houses and bookshops flourished selling works that a couple of miles away were forbidden, attracting buyers from all over the mainland.
Tang discovered the niche market in 2004 and the boom came right after. 

“It was a crazy time,” said the bookseller, who attracted mainland customers with a portrait of Mao at the entrance of his shop. 

“Publishers printed a title after the other, and we were selling a hundred books a day,” he said.

Hong Kong bookshops pull politically sensitive titles after publishers vanish

High on the best-seller list of forbidden books were taboo topics such as politics, religion, and sex. From the private life of Mao Zedong to the history of the cultural revolution, mainland customers could leaf through books supporting the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement or essays on the struggles within the Communist party, as well as bluer topics such as oral sex bibles and sadomasochism guides.
When the Chinese government increased its pressure, “the industry experienced a significant turndown and banned book are not published any more,” said Malinda Ye, Acquisition Editor at the Chinese University Press.
“This is a very worrying situation,” said Agnes Chow Ting, social activist and member of the pro-democracy party Demosisto, who was recently banned from running for Hong Kong’s legislative council. 

“A lot of chained bookstores and book publishers in Hong Kong are controlled by liaison office of the Chinese government,” she said.
The closure of the shop leaves Hong Kong with no outlet that challenges censorship. 

Albert Cheng, renowned Hong Kong political commentator, said the concern was that “the ‘one country, two systems’ principle will gradually fade, while Hong Kong will become simply another Chinese city.”

Evil Tech

Google's China prototype links searches to phone numbers

By Christopher Carbone

How the Google search retrieves results is a closely guarded trade secret, but a few things are known about the mysterious algorithm.
Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers—therefore making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor its citizens’ queries.
The app-based project, codenamed Dragonfly, also would remove content deemed sensitive by China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime, including information about freedom of speech, dissidents, peaceful protest and human rights, The Intercept reported.
Previously unknown details about Dragonfly included a censorship blacklist  compiled by Google that included terms such as “student protest” and “Nobel Prize” in Mandarin.
Human rights organizations have criticized Dragonfly and seven engineers resigned in protest over the lack of accountability and transparency for the controversial project.
“This is very problematic from a privacy point of view, because it would allow far more detailed tracking and profiling of people’s behavior,” Cynthia Wong, a senior internet researcher with Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept. 

“Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”
Fox News reached out to Google for comment and received the following statement from a spokesperson on Sunday:
“We've been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools. But our work on search has been exploratory, and we are not close to launching a search product in China.”
Back in August, more than a dozen human rights groups sent Google CEO Sundar Pichai a letter asking him to explain how Google was safeguarding Chinese users from censorship and surveillance.
The search giant told Fox News at the time that it had been “been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools. But our work on search has been exploratory, and we are not close to launching a search product in China.”

In 2010, Google announced it was leaving China, mentioning the Communist country’s censorship tactics as a reason for its decision.
However, Pichai has said that he wanted the world’s most-used search engine to be in China "serving" its 800 million Internet users.

Tech Quisling

Whistleblower reveals Google’s plans for censored search in China
The search engine would filter sites like Wikipedia and information about topics like freedom of speech
By James Vincent

Google is planning to re-launch its search engine in China, complete with censored results to meet the demands of the Chinese government. 

The company originally shut down its Chinese search engine in 2010, citing government attempts to “limit free speech on the web.” 

But according to a report from The Intercept, the US tech giant now wants to return to the world’s biggest single market for internet users.
According to internal documents provided to The Intercept by a whistleblower, Google has been developing a censored version of its search engine under the codename Dragonfly since the beginning of 2017. 

The search engine is being built as an Android mobile app, and will reportedly “blacklist sensitive queries” and filter out all websites blocked by China’s web censors (including Wikipedia and BBC News). 

The censorship will extend to Google’s image search, spell check, and suggested search features.
The whistleblower who spoke to The Intercept said they did so because they were “against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people.” 

They also suggested that “what is done in China will become a template for many other nations.”

The web is heavily censored in China, with the country’s so-called Great Firewall stopping citizens from accessing many sites. 

Information on topics like religion, police brutality, freedom of speech, and democracy are heavily filtered, while specific search topics (like the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and Taiwanese independence) are censored completely. 

Advocacy groups report that censorship in the country has increased under Xi Jinping, extending beyond the web to social media and chat apps.
Patrick Poon, a researcher with Amnesty International, agreed with this assessment. 

Poon told The Intercept that if Google launches a censored version of its search engine in China it will “set a terrible precedent” for other companies. 

“The biggest search engine in the world obeying the censorship in China is a victory for the Chinese government — it sends a signal that nobody will bother to challenge the censorship any more,” said Poon.
In a statement given to The Verge, a spokesperson said: “We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com. But we don’t comment on speculation about future plans.”
According to The Intercept, Google faces a number of substantial barriers before it can launch its new search app in China, including approval from officials in Beijing and “confidence within Google” that the app will be better than its main rival in China, Baidu.
Google previously offered a censored version of its search engine in China between 2006 and 2010, before pulling out of the country after facing criticism in the US. (Politicians said the company was acting as a “functionary of the Chinese government.”) 

In recent months, though, the company has been attempting to reintegrate itself into the Chinese commercial market. 

It launched an AI research lab in Beijing last December, a mobile file management app in January, and an AI-powered doodle game just last month.
Although this suggests Google is eager to get a slice of China’s huge market of some 750 million web users, ambitions to re-launch its search engine may yet go nowhere. 

Reports in past years of plans to bring the Google Play mobile store to China, for example, have so far come to nothing, and Google regularly plans out projects it ultimately rejects.
Notably, relations between China and the US have worsened in recent weeks due to trade tariffs imposed by President Trump. 

The Intercept reports that despite this Google staff have been told to be ready to launch the app at short notice. 

The company’s search engine chief, Ben Gomes, told employees last month that they must be prepared in case “suddenly the world changes or [President Trump] decides his new best friend is Xi Jinping.”

Chinese Fifth Column

Censorship of 'Taiwan' at U.S. University Sparks Concern Over Chinese Influence
RFA

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (R) opens a Confucius Center in Britain

The recent removal by a Beijing-backed language school embedded on a university campus in the United States of a reference to the democratic island of Taiwan has sparked concern that Chinese political censorship is compromising freedom of speech far beyond its borders.
Journalism award winner Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, who gave a keynote address at Savannah State University’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, found that an entry on her biography saying she had worked in Taiwan had been removed.
"I’d listed the self-governing island as one of the places where I’d reported," Allen-Ebrahimian wrote in Foreign Policy magazine after the event. 

"But in the printed materials for the event, the reference to Taiwan had been removed."
She said the award she won was underwritten by the local Confucius Institute, whose Beijing-funded staff are trained in China and instilled with Communist Party teachings before being posted overseas.
On the day Allen-Ebrahimian accepted her award, Luo Qijuan, co-director of the on-campus institute at Savannah State, came over to criticize her for making China look bad when she spoke about Beijing's crackdown on freedom of expression and persecution of ethnic minority groups during her keynote speech.
Allen-Ebrahimian later learned that Luo was also behind the editing of her biography.
Sulaiman Gu, a Chinese rights activist currently studying chemistry at the University of Georgia, said that while Confucius Institutes should be free to promote the Chinese government's point of view, they shouldn't do so to the exclusion of all other views.
"There is a certain degree of logic to the Confucius Institute wanting to put forward its own understanding of the situation, because it is in a campus where there is freedom of speech," Gu told RFA. 

"But precisely because there is freedom of speech, it can't force others to accept that version."
"It shouldn't seek to silence all other opinions."

Nondisclosure clauses, unacceptable concessions
Once lauded as the jewel in the crown of China's "soft power" cultural diplomacy, Confucius Institutes have sprung up at hundreds of colleges and teaching institutions around the world.
Partnering with local academic centers, their stated aim is to teach people to speak Chinese, as well as broadening people's experience of Chinese culture in general.
But Confucius Institutes, which are effectively an arm of the Chinese state, also have a hidden agenda: to promote Beijing's political views overseas.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has warned that cooperation agreements underpinning Confucius Institutes feature nondisclosure clauses and unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China.
It said such political agendas are typically allowed to flourish in U.S. colleges and universities, even when curriculum choices and academic debate are restricted as a result.
In February, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida hit out at the continuing presence of Confucius Institutes in the state, prompting at least one college not to renew its agreement with the Hanban, the Chinese government body that oversees and funds them.
The University of West Florida later announced it would not be renewing its contract with the Confucius Institute, citing lack of student interest in its exchange programs.
Rubio, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote: "I remain deeply concerned by the proliferation of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in the United States."
"Given China’s aggressive campaign to ‘infiltrate’ American classrooms, stifle free inquiry, and subvert free expression both at home and abroad, I respectfully urge you to consider terminating your Confucius Institute agreement."
Rubio said Confucius Institutes hold "decidedly illiberal views of education and academic freedom."
“Topics, such as the status of Tibet and Taiwan, the fourth of June 1989 at Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong, and universal human rights, are off-limits at these institutes,” he wrote.

Growing sensitivity on Taiwan
The University of Chicago, Texas A&M University, Pennsylvania State University and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario have already shut down their Confucius Institutes.
Gu said Rubio's warning was entirely reasonable.
"Through such practices [as censoring references to Taiwan], Confucius Institutes can largely control perceptions of China among young people in the West who have just begun to learn Chinese," Gu said. 

"When they finish their studies, they [could go on to] play a pivotal role in determining those countries' policies towards China."
China has recently shown growing sensitivity to the use of the word "Taiwan," especially where its usage implies a territory that is distinct and separate from the rest of China.
Last month, Beijing's Civil Aviation Administration requested that foreign airlines to take "Taiwan," "Hong Kong" and "Macao" out of their lists of countries, or standalone destinations.
The request, which came as Xi Jinping begins an indefinite term in office with the aim of making China a global superpower, was rejected by the U.S. government as "Orwellian nonsense."
"China is more powerful nowadays, so it is bolder about wanting its say in world affairs," Gu said. Xi Jinping has been saying for a long time that he wants China to take part in global governance. 

He wants to govern, and to spread his views and Beijing's views all round the world. 

Taiwan has been ruled separately from mainland China since the nationalist government of the 1911 Republic of China fled to the island after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists in 1949.
The majority of its 23 million residents are happy with self-rule, and the island has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Liang Yunxiang, international relations professor at Peking University, said that Beijing has been stepping up the pressure on the island's government since President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016.
"Since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power, they have been unwilling to recognize the one China principle," Liang said, referring to a 1992 consensus that both the mainland and Taiwan are parts of a single territory currently under different governments.
"China is very angry about this, and is therefore constantly putting pressure on [Taiwan]."

Australia's Chinese Fifth Column

Julie Bishop steps up warning to Chinese students on Communist Party rhetoric
By Andrew Greene and Stephen Dziedzic

Ms Bishop said freedom of speech was crucial for all those living in or visiting Australia.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has issued a blunt warning to Chinese university students affiliated with the Communist Party, urging them to respect freedom of speech in Australia.
There are mounting anxieties about the way the Chinese Government uses student groups to monitor Chinese students in Australia, and to challenge academics whose views do not align with Beijing's.
Australia's security agencies are now pushing allies — including the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand — to hammer out a collective strategy to resist Chinese Government intrusions into Western universities.
Ms Bishop said Australia welcomed international students, but added that people came to study in Australia because of its "openness and freedom".
"This country prides itself on its values of openness and upholding freedom of speech, and if people want to come to Australia they are our laws," Ms Bishop said.
"That's who we are. And they should abide by it."
Earlier this year a Four Corners investigation revealed the extent of influence by the Chinese Communist Party on international students studying in Australia.
The issue came into sharp focus earlier this month, after the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Frances Adamson, warned Australian universities they need to be resilient to foreign interference.
The Foreign Minister backed Ms Adamson's comments, and said freedom of speech was crucial.
"We want to ensure that everyone has the advantage of expressing their views whether they are at university or whether they are visitors," Ms Bishop said.
"We don't want to see freedom of speech curbed in any way involving foreign students or foreign academics."
One of the most senior national security figures in Australia says there is now a "like mindedness and shared understanding" among Five Eyes allies of how China's influence has penetrated universities.
And Australia's intelligence and diplomatic organisations are increasingly concerned about the way the Chinese government uses student groups to push its agenda.
"Australia is giving China what it wants in terms of education for its students — so it's time for the Federal Government to insist the Chinese comply with Australia's values and interests," one senior foreign diplomatic figure told the ABC.

Chinese Fifth Column: The Enemy Within

Ban Official Chinese Student Organizations Abroad

• Chinese embassies finance the student organizations, including through dinners, parties and travel.
• The manner in which the CSSA controls speech of not only Chinese students, but Chinese dissidents, professors, and even the Dalai Lama, means that CSSA erodes the richness of critical Chinese and other voices, decreasing the diversity of viewpoints available on campus.
• Student members of the CSSA have been accused of espionage; this includes in Canada, and through its chapter in Belgium, from which student spies sent agents to the U.K., France, Netherlands, and Germany.

By Anders Corr

Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) seek to monitor and control the speech of Chinese students and professors in Australia, according to a report on June 3. 

Similar monitoring and control by student organizations was reported in the United States in May. Chinese student organizations not only curtail free speech, but prescribe correct speech, for example a CSSA demonstration welcoming Li Keqiang in Australia, and protests against a Dalai Lama speech at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and against a presentation on human rights at Columbia University in New York City. 

The groups have launched similar interventions at Duke University in North Carolina, and in the United Kingdom. 

In May, a Chinese graduate student, Yang Shuping, gave a commencement speech at the University of Maryland in support of clean air and freedom of speech. 

The local CSSA denounced her in a video with multiple Chinese students praising China. 

State-controlled media in China condemned her, Chinese netizen complaints went viral, and likely intimidated, she apologized.

Four student volunteers take an oath before entering the Lunar Palace 1, a laboratory simulating a lunar-like environment, for an initial 60-day stay, in Beijing on May 10, 2017. Four postgraduate students from the capital's astronautics research university Beihang entered the 160-square-metre (1,720-square-foot) cabin -- dubbed the 'Yuegong-1', or 'Lunar Palace' -- on May 10, as Beijing prepares for its long-term goal of putting humans on the moon. 

This type of control and influence of Chinese students abroad has persisted since at least the late 1980s. 

Today, there are about 150 chapters of the CSSA. All of them are officially recognized by the Chinese government.

Student members of the CSSA have been accused of espionage. 

This includes in Canada, and through its chapter in Belgium, from which student spies sent agents to the U.K., France, Netherlands, and Germany.

The targets of infiltration were large laboratories and universities. 

One student intern in France was convicted in 2005 for “database intrusion”, spent just two months in prison, and became an instant hero.
Humorously, at least one chapter of the CSSA considers “political revolutions” to be within its mandate. 

The CSSA at Michigan Technological University has a constitution that admits its connection to the Chinese embassy, and states, “However, C.S.S.A. will not participate in any political revolutions, unless in special conditions.”
Chinese embassies finance the student organizations, including through dinners, parties and travel. 

One chapter copied embassy text to its website.

Columbia University disbanded its chapter of the CSSA in 2015. 

Its website stated one of its missions as, “facilitating the perceptions of China's peaceful rise.”
Embassies attempt to handpick officers, and in the case of the Cambridge University chapter, supported the suspension of a CSSA election to keep its favored president, Chang Feifan, in place for an additional term. 

This resulted in the university disbanding the organization until it held an election, which she lost after reportedly breaking the rules against bribery by bringing up to 100 people out to formal dinners. That was one bright moment in the history of the CSSA.
Such government intervention, propaganda and strictures on freedom of speech are contrary to the principles of academic freedom. 

In Monash, Australia, the leader of a Chinese student group had an aggressive encounter with a campus pharmacy that resulted in the removal of the Epoch Times, a newspaper run by a Chinese spiritual and dissident group, the Falun Gong. 

A lecturer was suspended because of an exam question about a common Chinese saying that Chinese officials only tell the truth when they are drunk or careless. 

Similar to the saying, in vino veritas, the question nevertheless offended Chinese students. 

Firing the instructor will cause other professors to walk on eggshells not to offend Chinese students, resulting in increasingly antiseptic instruction devoid of anything that might offend. 

That will decrease learning, and increase doldrums, for all students. 

In the case of the Dalai Lama speech, UCSD caved to the CSSA and promised an apolitical speech. 

To proscribe a topic in the speech of the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is laughable for an institution of higher learning that purports to academic freedom. 

In the case of the Maryland student, the CSSA response, in conjunction with other state responses, bordered on harassment given the power that the Chinese state has on her and her family in China. She likely apologized from a sense of duress. 

There was no “safe space” for her thoughts in Maryland despite our constitutional right to freedom of speech. 

Her sad example has a chilling effect on other Chinese students who might wish to express their true thoughts while abroad.
The manner in which the CSSA controls speech of not only Chinese students, but Chinese dissidents, professors, and even the Dalai Lama, means that CSSA erodes the richness of critical Chinese and other voices, decreasing the diversity of viewpoints available on campus.

Restrictions on freedom of speech is an issue for which all students who want diversity should demand redress. 

Legitimate student-led organizations should oppose state-influenced organizations like the CSSA not because it is Chinese, but because it represses free thought and does not, because it may not, represent the diversity of Chinese perspectives. 

If a Chinese student organization does not represent the full diversity of Chinese perspectives, it is not simply Chinese, it is more particular. 

In this case, its messaging represents the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

There is a big difference between China and the party. 

Not labeling the CSSA for what it is, is not truth in advertising.

The fifth column: Local Chinese Americans greet the Chinese Navy vessels in San Diego on December 6, 2016 during Chinese Navy four day visit to California. 

These authoritarian and ultimately coercive organizations should be banned or curtailed by not only university rules, which are likely to be lax due to revenues from full tuition paid by Chinese students, but by law, in order to protect the freedoms of our democracies, the academic independence of our universities, and the personal freedom of Chinese students studying abroad. 

Protecting these freedoms is a protection for hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, including 329,000 Chinese students who study in the U.S., and 150,000 in Australia.
If Chinese students in our democracies do not feel free to speak their minds, they are akin to second-class citizens. 

That is an ethical corruption of diversity, and of our egalitarian and democratic principles. 

Whatever the Chinese Embassy tells the students in the CSSA to say about their organization, they are better off without it. 

Ask one privately over a large bottle of beer or three. 

And, don’t believe the CCP hype.

Chinese Fifth Column

The new Red Guards: China's angry student patriots
By Carrie Gracie

Ms Yang said the air in the US was "sweet and fresh"

Half a century ago millions of Chairman Mao's Red Guards gathered in rallies in Tiananmen Square to chant slogans and wave their red books of his quotations in a show of loyalty to the ideas of the "Great Helmsman".
The 21st Century successors to the Red Guards are not a physical presence. 

After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the tragedy of the Beijing massacre in 1989, young people are not allowed to demonstrate in China.
But some now hound their enemies online. 

The underlying rage is reminiscent. 

The instinct for intimidation is the same. 

Despite all its strengths and all its engagement with the world, China is once again prey to political groupthink and fear.
The latest trigger is a speech by a Chinese student at an American campus. 

On 21 May, at an official event, Shuping Yang praised the fresh air and freedom of speech she had found at the University of Maryland.
The video clip of her speech quickly went viral and triggered an outpouring of anger from fellow Chinese students in the US and critics at home. 

Shuping Yang swiftly apologised.

But that was not enough to stop the flood of "I am proud of China" posts accusing her of lies and deception, or the online "human flesh searches" to dig up incriminating information about her and her family.
Of course there are also some reasons to be proud of China.

The Red Guard was Mao Zedong's ideological youth movement to "purify" the Communist Party

But being proud of China does not mean denying another Chinese citizen the right to an opinion. 

The irony is that the very backlash against her has only served to make her point about the want of freedom of speech in her homeland. 

It has also highlighted a conflict between a commitment to free speech in Western countries that host large communities of Chinese students and the paranoid determination of the Chinese government that free speech should be limited when it comes to talking about China, even beyond Chinese borders.
Freedom of speech is any society's feedback loop. 

It means precisely the freedom to say what is different or what may even offend. 

Of course, different societies have a different view on how much of this is appropriate. 

But China's freedom of speech goes no further than parroting the leader and attacking those who dare to speak from a different script.

Shuping Yang praised the fresh air and freedom of speech she had found at the University of Maryland.

Which brings us to Xi Jinping and his style of leadership. 

Xi's power comes from being leader of the Communist Party and since taking up that role five years ago, he has collapsed the distinction between party and government and dramatically shrunk the space for freedom of speech.
All public debate, whether in the media, academia, the legal profession or online, is a shadow of what it was in 2012. 

It is now off-limits to discuss universal values and liberal democracy. 

Instead China must loudly unite around the leadership of the Communist Party and "tell China's story confidently".

In Xi Jinping's first five-year term, China has become the world's second-largest economy and an increasingly powerful military power. 

But when Xi urges journalists, think-tanks and diplomats to "tell China's story confidently" he does not mean tell it how you like and with your own nuance. 

Students abroad are a particularly important voice in this chorus. 

It is stated Chinese government policy to "assemble the broad numbers of students abroad as a positive patriotic energy".
And so when the University of California San Diego announced that it would host a speech by Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama next month, the local Chinese Students and Scholars Association consulted with diplomats and threatened "tough measures to resolutely resist the school's unreasonable behaviour". 

At Durham University in the UK, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, again with the support of the Chinese embassy, attempted to bar from a debate a critic of China's religious policies and human rights record.

The Dalai Lama frequently gives speeches at universities around the world

This week's mobilisation against Shuping Yang, complete with commentaries in leading state media, is part of this drive for "positive patriotic energy".
All of which causes some bafflement on the campuses concerned. 

Students from countries with a tradition of free speech may feel irritation with someone who criticises their homeland in a public speech, but their instinct is usually to shrug it off or make a joke. 

Likewise when Chinese state media deploy students from Western countries praising China and its policies, such individuals do not become hate figures for outraged student associations or national newspapers.

Years after the real events, China saw Cultural Revolution-themed restaurant

That's because liberal societies take differences of opinion for granted. 

In the US, in Europe and in Australia, citizens regularly excoriate their own governments and praise other countries in the media, and on satirical TV and radio shows. 

They also mount protests against their leaders.
It is vital to Beijing that these habits should not rub off. 

So in Xi's era the numbers of Chinese students studying abroad is going up but their tolerance of diverging views on China is going down.
In one respect, this is puzzling. 

At great expense, young Chinese have chosen to move from the confines of China's tightly-controlled education system to the "fresh air" of campuses which cherish tolerance and which offer all the tools to explore a range of different narratives of their own place in the world through reading and debate. But it is not so puzzling if you factor in these students' prior ideological education, the pressure on them to perform academically, and the ever-present and watchful eye of the Chinese state.

Tension is likely to grow between the liberal values of Western campuses and the "positive patriotic energy" of the growing numbers of Chinese students on these campuses. 

But the very strength of the reaction to Shuping Yang's freedom speech ensures that her words will continue to echo.
After all, it's not just Western culture which honours a loyal opposition. 

It is firmly entrenched in the historical memory of China too. 

Respect resonates down through the centuries for officials and soldiers in the imperial and the more recent Communist era who braved banishment or death for daring to speak truth to power.

Remember that in all great civilisations, the patriots whose memories endure are often those who love their country enough to point out its flaws.

Rogue Nation

China Bars Professor at Australian University From Leaving

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

Feng Chongyi, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney

BEIJING — A Chinese-born professor at an Australian university who has often criticized Beijing’s crackdown on political dissent has been barred from leaving China and is being questioned by state security officers as a suspected threat to national security, his lawyer said on Sunday.
The confinement of Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, or U.T.S., unfolded over the weekend while Li Keqiang visited Australia to promote deeper trade and diplomatic ties. 

Professor Feng’s case could cloud those ties.
The lawyer, Chen Jinxue, said Professor Feng had not been arrested or formally charged.
The professor has been staying in a hotel in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, and has been repeatedly questioned by national security officers after being stopped by entry-exit checkpoint officials on Friday and Saturday from taking flights back to Australia, Mr. Chen said from Guangzhou, where he was accompanying Professor Feng.
“He’s been told he’s suspected of involvement in a threat to national security,” Mr. Chen said by telephone, adding that Professor Feng declined to comment.

“His movements inside China aren’t officially restricted, but national security authorities have questioned him a number of times about who he’s met and that kind of thing,” the lawyer added. “They’ve told him that he’ll have to stay around for at least a couple more days to answer their questions.”
Professor Feng has been researching Chinese human rights lawyers, who have been subjected to a withering crackdown and detentions since 2015, and that work may have caught the attention of security investigators, Mr. Chen said.
Li Keqiang ended a five-day visit to Australia on Sunday, and it was unclear whether the professor came up during his talks with Australian politicians. 

But that nation’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it could not demand to see Professor Feng because he is not an Australian citizen.
“The Australian Government is aware that a U.T.S. professor, who is an Australian permanent resident, has been prevented from leaving China,” the department said in an email. 

Under an agreement with China, the department said, “the Australian government is able to provide consular assistance only to Australian citizens who have entered China on their Australian passport.”
Professor Feng, 56, was born in southern China. 

His lawyer confirmed he has permanent residence in Australia and was not a citizen. 

Even so, the case has ignited demands that the Australian government do more to secure his quick release.
“We are urging the Australian government to intervene,” John Hu, a spokesman in Sydney for the Embracing Australian Values Alliance, which has sought to promote free speech and counter the Chinese government’s influence over the ethnic Chinese community in Australia.
“Right now the excuse for their inaction is that Chongyi Feng is only a permanent resident but not a citizen,” said Mr. Hu, who is a friend of Mr. Feng’s. 

“Feng has not breached the Chinese law — his doings were not even in China’s jurisdiction, and the Chinese government has no right to persecute him.”
The university has been in contact with Professor Feng and was helping his family, Greg Walsh, a university spokesman, said by email.
The professor is probably better known in Chinese intellectual circles than in Australia. 

A historian, he has long been involved in debates about China’s future, advocating a path of political liberalization.
He has also criticized the Chinese government’s increasing efforts to exert influence over ethnic Chinese in Australia. 

Last year, he spoke out against plans for concerts honoring Mao Zedong in Sydney Town Hall and Melbourne Town Hall.
“Australia is proud of its commitment to free speech, tolerance and cultural diversity,” he wrote. “However, should intolerance be tolerated? Should lies about Mao and promotion of Maoism, which denies freedom of speech, be allowed as a legitimate part of free speech?”
With its growing ethnic Chinese population and growing economic ties to China, Australia has experienced a succession of cases of residents or citizens being detained in China, creating tensions over their legal rights and access to Australian diplomats. 

In 2011, Yang Hengjun, a writer and former Chinese official who had migrated to Australia, was detained for days in Guangzhou by security officials.
Until the 1960s, Australia excluded Chinese migrants through the “White Australia” policy. 

In recent decades, the number of migrants from China has grown drastically, and by 2015, nearly 500,000 of Australia’s 24 million residents had been born in China.
The disappearance of those seen as acting against China’s interests has stirred concerns in other territories. 

A Taiwanese activist for human rights and democratic rights, Lee Ming-cheh, has been missing since last Sunday morning, when he boarded a flight from Taipei to Macau but never emerged from the arrivals gate. 

His friends and family fear he may have been detained by the Chinese authorities.
As Xi Jinping has clamped down on dissent, Professor Feng and other advocates of political relaxation have no longer been able to write for the domestic Chinese news media. 

But on overseas Chinese websites and in interviews with foreign journalists, he has sharply criticized Beijing’s clampdown.
“Since Xi Jinping came to office, he has not only failed to lead China forward in reform and opening up and constitutional government, he has made an historical U-turn,” he wrote last year.