During a meeting in Beijing on Feb. 23, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) delivered a speech on coordinating prevention and control of COVID-19, and economic and social development.
“We have improved and strengthened external propaganda, using various methods to make timely statements in the field of worldwide public opinion, such as telling positive stories about China’s fight against the disease,” Xi said. “We have also promptly exposed the slander, rumors and disinformation spread by people with ulterior motives who want to create trouble. By doing so, we have created a good atmosphere of public opinion for disease prevention and control.”
Following his speech, China’s official real-time epidemic monitoring Web site showed that there were no newly confirmed cases or deaths that day. Such a miracle could only be achieved thanks to the wisdom of the great Emperor Xi.
It is clear that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) figures can only be viewed from a political perspective and not as an evaluation of data.
Five days before Xi’s speech, the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission urged all media outlets to follow Xi’s order to “increase the promotion of advanced models/outstanding individuals, and further extol a healthy social atmosphere, boost public morale and stimulate positive social energy.”
The call gave special importance to using new media platforms, such as the microblogging Web site Sina Weibo, messaging app WeChat, video app TikTok and video streaming service Kuaishou.
News reports reflecting people’s conditions were immediately “harmonized” — read “censored.” A front-line reporter, recognizing the austere atmosphere, said he had run into a similar situation during the July 2009 Urumqi riots, but that the censorship was not as strict as it is today.
Curiously, the order was not issued by the CCP’s Publicity Department. This implies that the commission has replaced the department, which no longer has the authority to make decisions in its capacity as China’s primary publicity channel.
The replacement reveals a silent transition of power inside the party apparatus. The transition suggests that Xi does not trust the Publicity Department and instead has turned to the commission, which he referred to as the daobazi (刀把子), or a knife handle that must be held firmly.
The officials sent to stamp out the epidemic in Hubei Province and its capital, Wuhan, are essentially “Xi’s army” from China’s political and legal affairs apparatus. They went there not to eliminate the disease, but to wipe out the truth.
When former commission secretary Zhou Yongkang (周永康), also known as China’s “security czar,” was brought down on corruption charges, many Chinese, both members of the public and intellectuals, cheered, as if sacking a treacherous official would restore peace to the land.
Even though I was once nearly beaten to death by Zhou’s thugs, his downfall did not give me even the slightest bit of optimism. Zhou might have been sacked, but as long as the commission — which is in charge of the public security bureau, courts and prosecutors — remains unchanged, Chinese authorities would continue to act unlawfully, and enforcement would continue to be about knowing the law to break it.
It is not surprising that Xi would refer to the commission as a “knife handle” — a blood-drenched metaphor. The political and legal affairs apparatus has become an impenetrable independent kingdom that only listens to the instructions of the CCP general secretary and fiercely suppresses civil society and dissent.
Yu Jie is an exiled Chinese dissident and writer.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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