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China Media Bulletin Issue No. 135: April 2019 CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN Headlines ANALYSIS The Chinese Communist Party’s Latest Propaganda Target: Young Minds P2 IN THE NEWS • Authorities escalate crackdown on Twitter and virtual private networks P5 • Surveillance updates: Uighur faces, prisoners, street cleaners, rental homes P6 • Censorship updates: ‘People’s Daily’ innovations, streamer purges, music and drama culls P8 • Hong Kong: Amid Umbrella Movement convictions, new threats to free speech emerge P9 • Beyond China: Australia and Taiwan meddling, 1989 ad, Uighurs trolled, Zambia broadcasting P10 FEATURED PUSHBACK Chinese engineers mobilize on GitHub P11 WHAT TO WATCH FOR P12 TAKE ACTION P13 IMAGE OF THE MONTH Cancelled camera ad In mid-April, a promotional video for camera-maker Leica was released that culminated with this image of a photographer capturing the famous “Tank Man” scene from June 4, 1989. The cinematic ad titled “The Hunt” follows the journalist and his encounters with aggressive Chinese police until he is able to snap the photo. Almost immediately, the ad was met with blanket censorship in China and any post containing the keyword “Leica” in English or Chinese could no longer be published on Sina Weibo’s microblogging platform. Execu- tives at Leica--which has extensive business in China and with tech giant Hua- wei--sought to distance the firm from the video, which had not been officially approved, and expressed regrets for “any misunderstandings”. Despite the restrictions in China, the ad survives online and has garnered extra attention. As of April 24, two videos of the ad on YouTube had accrued over 300,000 views. Visit http://freedomhou.se/cmb_signup or email [email protected] to subscribe or submit items. CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN: APRIL 2019 ANALYSIS The Chinese Communist Party’s Latest Propaganda Target: Young Minds By Sarah Cook Indoctrination, censorship, and surveillance are robbing a generation of their Senior Research right to free thought. Analyst for East Asia at Freedom Chinese president Xi Jinping wants children and students not just to obey, but to love House. Director the Communist Party. At an April 19 conference organized by the Politburo to mark the of its China Media Bulletin. 100th anniversary of the student-led anti-imperialist May Fourth Movement, he said, “We need to … strengthen political guidance for young people, guide them to volun- THIS ARTICLE WAS tarily insist on the party’s leadership, to listen to the party and follow the party.” ALSO PUBLISHED IN THE DIPLOMAT ON Political indoctrination has long been a required component of the curriculum at all APRIL 25, 2019. levels of education in China. Under Xi, however, new steps are being taken to tighten the Communist Party’s ideological control over universities, schools, teachers, and students. Disciplining teachers The party’s system for influencing students depends in large part on their teachers and professors. In a speech at a Beijing seminar attended by teachers from across the country in March, Xi called on educators to instill patriotism in the country’s youth and reject “wrong ideas and ideology.” He also emphasized that teachers themselves “should have strict self-discipline, be consistent in class and out of class, online and offline, should consciously carry forward the main melody and actively convey positive energy.” In recent months, a number of teachers have faced dismissal, detention, and other penalties after falling short of these expectations. On March 25, the Financial Times reported that prominent constitutional law professor Xu Zhangrun had been barred from teaching at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. He had written numer- ous essays that sharply and eloquently criticized the top leadership’s decisions, often drawing on ancient Chinese philosophy, literature, and political theory to make his arguments. Xu was subsequently stripped of his other positions and teaching respon- sibilities. On April 8, scholar Yu Jianrong, known for his research on China’s peasants, had his Sina Weibo microblogging account, which had 7.2 million followers, silenced such that he could no longer post comments, only read others’ messages. In two other cases, educators have faced jail time for sharing information about the persecuted Falun Gong spiritual group in their private capacities. In January, Zeng Hao, a business professor at Tianhe College in Guangdong Province, was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison after posting images related to Falun Gong on Tencent’s QQ messaging platform. On April 15, Amnesty International issued an urgent action for high school chemistry teacher Chen Yan, who is expected to face trial for handing out a calendar with information about Falun Gong to someone on a Beijing street. www.freedomhouse.org 2 CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN: APRIL 2019 In early March, the Washing- ton-based Uyghur Human Rights Project published a report outlining the details of 386 Uighur scholars, students, and other intellectuals who have been swept into deten- tion amid a massive reeduca- tion effort targeting Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Surveillance inside and outside the classroom Children in an elementary school in Zhejiang wear brainwave- In an April 8 article, Radio Free reading headbands that reportedly monitor their attention levels Asia noted increased efforts in class. Credit: SupChina to monitor Chinese university students. Reporters found on- line documents showing how institutions like Wuhan University of Science and Tech- nology are continually recruiting students to act as informants on their classmates and teachers, typically submitting reports to authorities every two weeks. One former pro- fessor said the recruitment began in earnest in 2014, shortly after surveillance cameras began being widely installed on campuses in 2013. More recently, surveillance cameras linked to facial recognition software and brain- wave-detecting headbands have appeared in elementary and secondary schools, pro- voking nervousness and anger among some pupils. Although the monitoring is osten- sibly for the purpose of tracking students’ focus and study habits, it could also be used to detect ideological transgressions by teachers or students. Universities, government agencies, and private companies are increasingly trying to gain access to students’ social media accounts and other online information. Officials at universities in Beijing and Anhui Province have reportedly asked students to register the details of their private and public accounts on Tencent’s WeChat and QQ platforms. In February the company China Youth Credit Management (CY Credit), working with the Communist Youth League, launched an application called “Unictown,” which aims to serve as the foundation for a specialized social credit system for China’s youth. The app is meant to track young adults’ behavior and incentivize activities that are consid- ered positive or socially beneficial. TheSouth China Morning Post reports that the firm has already collected data from 70 million people, is building a database of 90 million youth league volunteers, and aspires within a few years to cover all 460 million Chi- nese aged 18 to 45. Curriculum controls and direct indoctrination The Unictown app is not the only new party-linked mobile application targeting Chi- na’s youth. When the “Study Xi, Strengthen China” app was launched in January by the party’s propaganda department, a corresponding version for young people also sprung up on the website, mobile app, and social media accounts of the party’s media mouth- www.freedomhouse.org 3 CHINA MEDIA BULLETIN: APRIL 2019 piece, the People’s Daily. According to the South China Morning Post, the app requires “schoolchildren to study texts related to Xi’s political ideology.” In Xinjiang, young Muslim minority children are more directly exposed to indoctrina- tion. Those whose parents have been detained for “reeducation” are themselves placed in state-run orphanages, where they are reportedly required to speak Chinese, eat pork, and read slogans like “I’m Chinese; I love my country.” In some instances children are being used to inform on their parents. An April 4 multimedia report by the New York Times on conditions in the ancient city of Kashgar included a chilling account of kindergarteners being interrogated. As one interviewee described it, “My daughter had a classmate who said, ‘My mom teaches me Quran.’ The next day, they are gone.” In addition to indoctrinating students on Communist Party ideology, the authorities are clamping down on access to alternative ideas, including those associated with democratic governance. Over the past year, China’s Education Ministry has conduct- ed countrywide audits of constitutional law textbooks, and books by reform-minded professors have reportedly been removed from online booksellers. A series of foreign academic publishers have come under pressure to remove certain articles from collec- tions available in China, and at least some have complied. Global reach The Communist Party’s watchful gaze also follows Chinese students who study abroad, whether through student informants, consulate-linked Chinese Student and Scholar Associations, or monitoring of WeChat accounts. One 2018 survey by Cheryl Yu, then a graduate student at the University of Washington, found that among 72 Chinese respondents from at least 31 American universities, 58 percent were aware of potential Chinese government surveillance in the United States. Yu also found that 80 percent of the students reported self-censoring (whether or not they demonstrated awareness of official surveillance) by choosing not to attend university events on politically sensitive topics, discuss such topics with large groups of fellow Chinese, or even admit to a will- ingness to learn about the issues. Students who overstep the party’s redlines while abroad risk serious reprisals. On April 10, Mirror Media published an emotional account by Li Jiabao from Shandong Prov- ince, who had criticized China’s authoritarian system in a live-stream broadcast while studying in Taiwan. Soon afterward, he found that his QQ, WeChat, Taobao, and Alipay accounts were all deleted. As he counted down the days before he had to return to Chi- na, he reported having nightmares.
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