Starting on December 9, Yu Youjun, a former government official who is now a professor at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, gave a series of lectures in which he reflected on the Cultural Revolution. He started on December 9 and planned to finish the 8-session lecture by December 25. However, he shortened it to 7 sessions, which he completed by December 16, because he needed to go to Beijing once he finished.

This lecture is a rare public discussion on the Cultural Revolution in China. In the past, this has been a taboo topic and no one has dared to voice any criticism.

The Paper, a media with close ties to Wang Qishan, Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) published a lengthy report on Yu’s lecture, but it was later removed. The following is based on Phoenix Online’s republication of the article.

What made this lecture a high-profile event is Yu Youjun’s background. He was a minister-level official, holding top positions in Guangdong, Hunan Province, and Shanxi Province. He served as the Party Secretary and Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture from 2007 to 2008. In Yu’s words, "I want to (make this) low-profile but I can’t."

Though the lecture was limited to students and professors in the university, a lot of people came and Yu had to move from a classroom to the auditorium to accommodate the audience.

Yu stated, "The evil spirit of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ is still looming, eroding the body of the people and the Party …"

Yu gave a set of statistical numbers to show the damage that the Cultural Revolution had done:

– According to incomplete statistics, 17.2 percent, or 2.3 million, of the 12 million total officials in China had been investigated.

– 16.7 percent, or 30,000, officials of the central state organs and ministries had been investigated. 75 percent of officials with the rank of deputy minister or higher or deputy provincial governor level were investigated or taken down. 80,000 people in the military were persecuted.

– The economic loss was 500 billion yuan (U.S. $79 billion), which is equal to 80 percent of the sum of China’s total infrastructure investment from 1949 to 1976. That sum exceeds the amount of the total fixed national assets for the same nearly 30 years.

– There was little or no increase in people’s living standard during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966, each person could receive 189.5 kg of rice or wheat, 1.7 kg of oil, and 7 kg of pork for consumption. In 1976, the corresponding numbers were 190.5 kg, 1.6 kg, and 7.2 kg.

In Yu’s view, "to assess Cultural Revolution from the perspective of the results it brought to China, there is only one sentence – (We) must negate it generally and fundamentally."

Source: Phoenix Online, December 20, 2015
http://news.ifeng.com/a/20151220/46757474_0.shtml

On December 16, 2015, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPC) issued a directive to fully implement and standardize inspection and supervision of law enforcement involving criminal sentences. 

On December 15, 2015, Beijing’s High People’s Court decided that Gu Kailai, wife of an imprisoned former corrupt higher official (Bo Xilai), will no longer have to die for having murdered British businessman Neil Heywood due to the fact that she did not deliberately commit any crimes during the two years she was in prison. In August 2012, Gu received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. The court commuted her sentence to life in prison.

The Beijing High People’s Court has also pardoned another suspended death penalty prisoner, Liu Zhijun, China’s ex-railway minister, for his obedient behavior in prison. In 2011, Liu was arrested on corruption charges after 40 people died and 192 were injured in the Wenzhou train collision. The court commuted Liu’s death sentence to life in prison.

[Editor’s note: Bo Xilai, Gu Kailai, and Liu Zhijun were followers of Jiang Zemin, the former top leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China.]

Sources, People’s Daily and QQ.com, December 15 and December 14, 2015
http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2015/1215/c1001-27929045.html
http://news.qq.com/a/20151214/036226.htm

Since 1999, when the Communist China started to suppress popular Qigong meditation exercises, the authorities have been promoting a new type of exercise called “Square Dancing” in China. The purpose was to replace Qigong. The songs and music that loudly accompany the dancing are revolutionary red songs which were popular during the ten year period of the Cultural Revolution and which had the effect of brainwashing people with Communist ideas and fervor. The children and young people during the Cultural Revolution period are now old people. Many elderly Chinese women love to dance in masses every evening in public squares in tune with the thundering red songs.  

On December 12, 2015, a group of men had a big fight with a group of what has come to be called the “square dancing grannies” in Shanghai. The men refused the women’s demand to move away their cars, which were parked next to the restaurant. Several square dancing grannies were injured.

The high volume of noise from the square dances severely disturbs the nearby residents’ daily life. Few people want to buy the residential apartments near the places where the grannies hold their square dancing, even at the reduced price of 120,000 Chinese yuan (US$18,510) lower than the regular price.

In March of 2015, the Chinese authorities decided to set up guidelines to regulate square-dancing across the country, such as the dance movements, permissible times, and the volume of music. However, the authorities still encourage Square Dancing, even though more and more people find its craziness annoying.  

Sources: VOA, Guangming Daily, 163.com, March – December of 2015
http://www.voachinese.com/content/VOAWeishi-ProandCon-20150911-why-does-the-chinese-government-support-the-controversial-public-dancing/2959820.html
http://www.voachinese.com/content/chinese-government-20150323/2694360.html
http://edu.gmw.cn/2015-12/10/content_18048284.htm
http://view.163.com/special/reviews/commiedance0424.html

BBC Chinese reported on its website that the Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) had concerns that press freedom in Hong Kong will be further compromised when China’s Internet giant Alibaba takes control of the South China Morning Post (SCMP).