Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently published a long article in the Macao Herald to commemorate his mother. The article mentioned that, for him, to work inside the Zhongnanhai leadership compound was like walking on thin ice. At the end of the article, he wrote, “In my mind, China should be a country that has complete fairness and justice,” but the article was banned from being shared on WeChat citing violations of WeChat policy. The contents shared on Phoenix.com and other media were also deleted.
Many people are shocked that Wen’s article was blocked from being shared and wondered why. Cai Xia, a CCP party school professor currently living in the U.S. said that Wen did some self-reflection in the article. There was no mention of democracy or the rule of law but it was still banned from being shared. This suggests that the ruling party fears the rights of the people. @LifetimeUSCN commented on its twitter account that Wen’s mentioning the danger and risk that he faced while working inside the Zhongnanhai CCP leadership compound might have upset Xi Jinping.
When Wen Jiabao was the prime minister and Hu Jintao was the general secretary of the CCP, people referred to them as the “Hu-Wen Administration.” It was considered by many to have been a stable period. Wen Jiabao was regarded as a moderate and open-minded leader because of his advocacy of universal values in party newspapers. He also repeatedly expressed the hope of promoting political system reform.
Some netizens believe that there is another important reason why Wen Jiabao still got attention in China. The Hu-Wen administration is considered to be much better than the current “new era.” Although it was also a one-party communist dictatorship, at least it was not like the current stage where everything is determined by the “Supreme One” [Xi Jinping] who amended the constitution and became a self-proclaimed emperor. SARS didn’t spread to the world and became a worldwide epidemic. Hong Kong was not like what it is now, and there was no trade war between China and the U.S.
Source: Radio France Internationale, April 19, 2021
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD/20210418-%E6%B8%A9%E5%AE%B6%E5%AE%9D%E5%BF%86%E6%AF%8D%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0%E5%BE%AE%E4%BF%A1%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2%E5%88%86%E4%BA%AB