Social Stability - 88. page

On Friday October 13, the university’s Party committee disciplined  Zhao Siyun, deputy dean at the School of Liberal Arts of Communication at the University of Zhejiang, also known as Zhejiang University of Media and Communications (ZUMC), with a “severe warning,” for mentioning the social responsibility of citizens and intellectuals in his speech at the commencement ceremony.

According to the disciplinary decision from the ZUMC Party committee, Zhao Siyun’s commencement speech at the College of Liberal Arts on September 30 contained inappropriate words. In addition, between 2013 and 2015, Zhao reposted and made “wrong statements” that had a negative impact.

At the welcoming ceremony for new students on September 30, Zhao Siyun delivered a speech in which he encouraged the students to embrace an independent personality. He also inspired qualities such as self-discipline, self-respect, human dignity, critical thinking and a moral obligation, and called for the students to shoulder responsibility for the country and the nation. Zhao later posted the speech to his personal blog on his WeChat account. On October 8, a local newspaper Qianjiang Evening News also carried the article.

In recent years, China has continued to cleanse colleges and universities under a left-wing ideology. So far, several scholars including Yang Shaozheng from Guizhou University and Tan Song from Chongqing Normal University have been expelled from school. Since the beginning of this year, students have reported several college teachers who were punished for delivering speeches that were out of line.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 12, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/university-10122018071015.html

Epoch Times published three reports with embedded videos on the violent suppression of veterans in Pingdu City of Shandong Province. The veterans were appealing for their rights so they would receive a fair retirement settlement from the government. On October 4, officials from Pingdu City ordered the police to stop the veterans from traveling to Beijing to appeal. On October 6, the incident escalated and the local police dispatched thousands of police officers, including fully armed riot police, to suppress the veterans group. The veterans used wooden sticks and fire extinguishers to fight against the police. Nine veterans were injured, and two of them were seriously injured. Meanwhile Veterans from around the country took trains or buses to Pingdu to lend their support. The police managed to intercept many of them and they closed the highways to Pingdu temporarily. On October 7, the police guarded the main intersections in Pingdu. The police drove anti-riot vehicles and armored vehicles to the scene and used pepper spray and batons to chase the veterans away violently. Between 500 and 600 veterans in Pingdu were arrested and detained at the nearby Primary School and Middle School. Some of them were sent home. According to Epoch Times, veterans from around the country decided to go to Beijing instead. It is expected that a large number of veterans will flood into Beijing in the next few days.

Source: Epoch Times, October 5-8, 2018

1. http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/10/6/n10765657.htm
2. http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/10/7/n10766445.htm
3. http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/10/8/n10770309.htm

The Chinese government issued a notice before the October 1 National Day holiday requiring local schools to strengthen their control over elementary and middle school teachers’ travel abroad. The regulation also applied to kindergarten and retired teachers. Some provinces and municipalities have already collected the passports from the teachers and some places require teachers to go through a review and approval process by education authorities before leaving the country.

At present, at least the teachers from Fujian, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia have received notices that they require the approval from the authorities when leaving the country. Places such as Xiamen in Fujian and Tai’an in Shandong have requested teachers to submit their passports and travel permits to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Whoever violates the regulations will be severely punished.

Teachers in Xinjiang and Tibet were already placed under intensive control years ago.

Radio Free Asia interviewed some teachers in Xiamen City, who are very unhappy about the new measure, as many Fujian residents have a number of overseas relatives.

One local education bureau official said, “We don’t understand it. I also handed in my passport. We were told to turn in our passports and we have to hand them in. We don’t dare to do anything. Sometimes we just go out to visit some relatives, and we feel very confused. This is the way the current situation is and we do not dare to disobey the leaders and the policy.”

Ever since 2012, China has gradually tightened its control over the people’s travel abroad. The scope of the civil servants and workers in public institutions who are required to submit passports has increased from the division level and above to everyone. Approval is required before leaving the country. However, the new regulation to control elementary and middle school teachers, including retired teachers, is the very first time over the past 40 years.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 1, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/teacher-10012018100715.html

A professor from China now living in the United States paints a very disturbing picture of the information control in Chinese universities.

Tan Song, an associate professor at Chongqing Normal University investigated the truth about the “land reform movement,” the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Because he did so, the school expelled him and the police arrested him. Another charge was that he taught about the 1989 Student Movement and the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre. In 2017, he was forced to leave China and is currently living in exile in Los Angeles.

Tan said that in Chinese colleges and universities, the “Tiananmen Square protest of 1989” is an absolutely untouchable topic. He once tried to understand how much his students knew about what happened in 1989. Not a single student knew about it. He said, “I later found out that these students, from kindergarten to elementary school, junior high school, high school, and through the university, not a single teacher ever told them about the 1989 protests. One cannot blame the teachers. Nowadays the university is very sensitive to this topic. If any teacher dares to speak the truth about the incident in the classroom, the lightest punishment is that the teacher will leave his teaching position. He will either be expelled or be sent to the police station. I know a teacher at the Sichuan Foreign Languages College. Because he taught about the June 4th incident, the police immediately took him away.”

Tan said that, in today’s Internet age, some students do not know it from the classroom but learned about the June 4th 1989 incident and the persecution that followed from the Internet. “A student received a short video from his friend about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He uploaded the video to the campus network and was quickly discovered. At the time of discovery, thirty-six students had already downloaded the video. Each of the thirty-six students was taken away and the police came to talk to them one by one, with a warning as the punishment. The original student who uploaded the video was taken away and no one knows his whereabouts.”

Tan added that in today’s Chinese universities, surveillance cameras are widely installed in the classrooms, and the authorities hire informants among the students. “The teacher’s every move in the classroom is monitored. Nowadays one does not need to come to the classroom to monitor the teachers. It’s just like the police monitoring traffic. When you want classroom 305, the computer will get it for you. How could the university teacher give a lecture in class? The informant’s job is to report on the teachers and students. What the teacher said in the class, the informant will report. The informant officers contact each other on a one-to-one basis and the students will not know they do so. Of course, those who work as informants will benefit in the future such as in placement and becoming a Party member. Under current circumstances, in Chinese colleges and universities, no one dares to say anything.”

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 28, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/ck-09282018095416.html

Hong Kong Central News Agency quoted Sing Tao Daily and reported that, on March 19, 2017, Hong Kong billionaire businessman Liu Xiyong allegedly died during an interrogation while he was in custody. Liu was arrested in March of 2017 for bribery. A copy of the court indictment paper circulating on the internet cited seven prosecutors who were involved in Liu’s case. They were accused of “extorting a confession by torture, negligence of duty, and intentional assault.” The case is currently being tried in the Tianjing Intermediate Court. The court paper stated that, during the four days while Liu was in custody, he was only allowed to rest for two hours. He spent the rest of the time tied up in the interrogation chair. The autopsy report indicated that a number of torture methods were used on Liu. He suffered a broken sternum and fractured ribs and he died of suffocation.

Liu Xiyong, 60 years old, was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. He was among the first group of students in the mainland to have studied abroad where he attended Harvard University. He obtained a permanent resident status in Hong Kong and became the agent representing three major US chain stores on the mainland:  Walmart, JC Penney, and Sears. He was also the clothing supplier for JC Penny. Liu owned the Hong Kong Junyi hotel and the Hong Kong Xin Liji International Group and was a “financial crocodile” with billions of dollars in assets. In November 2016, Liu Xiyong was wanted for making fraudulent loans from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for more than 200 million Hong Kong dollars (US$25 million). He was detained in Beijing initially and was secretly transferred to the Yanbian Prefecture Detention Center in Jilin Province in March 2017. On March 19, Liu died during the investigation of the Jilin Yanbian State Procuratorate. Liu’s death is speculated to have had deep political connections. Liu’s wife, Li Fangfei, is a famous TV host for CCTV. An online posting also disclosed that the media has been instructed not to report, forward, or comment on the trial.

Source:
1. Central News Agency, September 8, 2018
http://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/201809080059-1.aspx
2. Have8.TV, September 9, 2018
http://news.have8.tv/18/0909/2065175.html