China’s not so free speech

Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, Beijing’s primary mouthpiece to the world, pretended on Friday that he wants greater government tolerance for free speech.

Hu called on local Chinese governments and organizations to show a little more latitude to those who disagree with them. And he proclaimed himself a courageous example here, noting with not-so-much humility that he had recently criticized a university in an online social media post. “But,” Hu continued, “[the university] didn’t use its influence to seek for my post to be scrapped. My post has had millions of views on several platforms.” Hu says that other government bodies could learn from the university’s experience.

Not so fast.

Hu was quick to disabuse any notion that he’s calling for a new birth of freedom. He wants only a very Communist Party of China-style birth of freedom. “What people say must be in line with the Constitution,” he continued, “and must not seriously disrupt the country’s line, principles or policies. This is a hard rule.”

This rather important caveat slightly undermines the foundation of free speech. Even Hu recognizes as much with his desperate, ensuing effort to persuade skeptical readers that they still have some freedom. “Beyond that,” he says, “there is still a lot of room to maneuver. We need to strike a balance between maintaining order in the field of public opinion and making public opinion influencers feel respected.”

This is pretty amusing stuff, but it’s also informative. On the one hand, Hu is saying that the public opinion influencers need to be able to speak and engage with China’s 1.4 billion people. On the other hand, Hu is simultaneously claiming that public opinion influencing not necessarily extend into a countervailing political sphere, which is kind of like saying that NFL commentators are allowed to talk about anything, just as long as they don’t talk about the NFL. But that’s Communist China for you: A land where all speakers are equal, just as long as they all bow to Xi Jinping.

Hu’s gall doesn’t stop there. He says that China is fair to those it restricts, pointing to threats that lurk in private social media groups. “There are people in some of these groups who worship everything about the US while criticizing everything about China. Their attacks on the Party and the government go against the Constitution and cannot be made public. But these people can entertain themselves in their small groups. I think the fact that our society has been able to allow the existence of such haters to be against the country may have more advantages than disadvantages,” he said.

How kind. So private speech is okay just as long as no one else gets to hear it, right?

Don’t kid yourself, the only reason China tolerates this private speech is so that it can identify, corral, and, if necessary, disappear speakers that the Communist Party regards as unsanitary. It’s an absurd definition of free speech. Americans should thus pay heed to Hu’s words. They speak to the world that Xi Jinping seeks to build, and to the truth that, for all our present domestic political acrimony, American democracy is flourishing where China continues to embrace oppression.

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