Xu Zhangrun vs. Tsinghua University
Voices of Protest & Resistance (XV)

 

One of the themes of Tsinghua professor Xu Zhangrun’s essays on contemporary China is censorship, the multifaceted efforts of officialdom to silence any views that do not accord with the latest propaganda line. Xu describes the increased censorship of an already censorious government by using such hallowed, although still common, terms like ‘clamping mouths shut’ 鉗口, ‘stuffing mouths closed’ 杜口 and ’embargo and eliminate’ 封刪, short for 封殺刪除. Following the publication online of his famous July 2018 Jeremiad criticising Xi Jinping’s rule, Xu’s work was effectively purged from the Chinese Internet. He responded by publishing an essay addressing the censors titled ‘And Teachers, Then? They Just Do Their Thing!’. Zhang Weiying 張維迎, the Peking University economics professor who composed and sang a Shaanbei folk song in honour of the persecuted Xu, called it ‘There’s Just No Shutting You Up!’. (See The Xu Zhangrun Archive on this site.)

Xu Zhangrun has described the increasingly draconian rule of Xi Jinping as a modern-day reinvention of ‘Qin Rule’ 秦制, a term employed for over two millennia to sum up the tyrannical rule of the First Emperor of the Qin in the second century BCE. Put under formal investigation in late March 2019, he is also officially banned from expressing his views or publishing as a result of what is called ‘Speech Crime’ 因言獲罪. Xu has thus effectively been cast into what is historically known as a ‘Literary Prison’ 文字獄. He is by no means the only inmate in a jail that has both a boundless capacity as well as a voracious appetite.

For its part, in a validation of the criticisms of writers like Xu Zhangrun, the state media employs a term initially used to describe the despotic First Emperor of the Qin. Xi Jinping is extolled as China’s ‘Sole Source of Authority’ 定於一尊, or ‘Absolute Arbiter’. It also has declared that Chairman of Everything Xi has both the first as well as the final word regarding China’s present and its future, a concept summed up in the expression 一錘定音, literally, ‘[He who] sets the tone’.

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‘Xu Zhangrun vs. Tsinghua University — Voices of Protest & Resistance’, the series published by China Heritage, allows readers to hear some of the voices of those who refuse to be intimidated, either by the persecution of Xu Zhangrun or as a result of the larger threat to China’s intellectual and cultural life. For the attack on Xu Zhangrun, and on dozens of other less well-known men and women, symbolises that something that is faced by independent-minded academics, teachers and researchers throughout the People’s Republic, as well as confronting the international academic world with a threat to publicly avowed values. While we celebrate the articulate daring of the writers we present in this series, we are also mindful of the silence that surrounds, and constantly threatens to engulf them. Although the silence is engineered by China’s party-state, countless individuals both in and outside of China choose to collaborate.

In ‘How Censorship Works’ the artist-provocateur Ai Weiwei contemplates China’s ‘Self-silent Majority’ and the devil’s compact that this Majority enjoys with the regnant party-state:

Whenever the state controls or blocks information, it not only reasserts its absolute power; it also elicits from the people whom it rules a voluntary submission to the system and an acknowledgment of its dominion. This, in turn, supports the axiom of the debased: Accept dependency in return for practical benefits.

The most elegant way to adjust to censorship is to engage in self-censorship. It is the perfect method for allying with power and setting the stage for the mutual exchange of benefit. The act of kowtowing to power in order to receive small pleasures may seem minor; but without it, the brutal assault of the censorship system would not be possible.

For people who accept this passive position toward authority, “getting by” becomes the supreme value. They smile, bow and nod their heads, and such behavior usually leads to lifestyles that are comfortable, trouble free and even cushy. This attitude is essentially defensive on their part. It is obvious that in any dispute, if one side is silenced, the words of the other side will go unquestioned.

That’s what we have here in China: The self-silenced majority, sycophants of a powerful regime, resentful of people like me who speak out, are doubly bitter because they know that their debasement comes by their own hand. Thus self-defense also becomes self-comfort.

— quoted in G.R. Barmé,
‘Memory Holes, old and new’
China Heritage, 29 May 2017

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In early April 2019, shortly after Xu Zhangrun was put under investigation by Tsinghua University, a noted independent Nanjing-based singer by the name of Li Zhi (李志, 1978-) was also silenced (although there are also suggestions that his silence was due to ill-health). Some non-official media reports suggested that the already controversial performer was most recently condemned for ‘improper conduct’ 行為不端, presumably because of a performance of his song ‘The People Don’t Need Freedom’, which included the lines:

The People Don’t Need Freedom
These Years Are the Best of All

人民不需要自由
這是最好的年代

China Media Report offered the following account:

On April 3, Sichuan province’s Office of Culture and Tourism (文化和旅游厅) held a news briefing (新闻通气会). According to a report from Chengdu-based Red Star News (红星新闻), in February this year the Sichuan Department of Culture and Tourism (四川省文化市场执法监督局) directed culture offices at the provincial and city levels to “urgently cease plans by a certain well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct (某行为不端知名声乐演员) to give 23 personal performances in Sichuan” and to refund 18,000 tickets already purchased….

On April 4, other media confirmed that the “well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct” mentioned in the official release was indeed Li Zhi. In a subsequent interview with the Beijing Youth Daily, members of Li Zhi’s band claimed to be surprised by reports that Li Zhi was the “well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct” mentioned in the Sichuan release, and they said that the concert tour had indeed been cancelled at the time because Li was scheduled for minor surgery.

Later in the afternoon on April 4, the Sichuan Department of Culture and Tourism issued a statement saying that its actions in February were strictly in accordance with the Regulation on the Administration of Commercial Performances (营业性演出管理条例), and that no more should be read into the situation. But the case continued to raise speculation that Li Zhi has faced pressure for his outspoken political views. A number of Li Zhi’s songs, including “The Square” (广场), which deals with June 4, 1989, have tackled sensitive issues, and Li’s Weibo account has been suspended in the past.

Regardless of the reasons behind the singer’s silence, by 14 April his entire musical opus had been scrubbed from the Chinese Internet, and a WeiBo account with over one million followers deleted. It appeared that, overnight, Li had become a ‘Former Person’, to use an early Soviet-era expression. (Note: We have previously commented on the significance of the word 端 duān, as it appears in the classical Confucian text Mencius where it denotes innate moral virtues or positive human propensities. In keeping with a tradition that has tenaciously survived, and often flourished, in modern life, the moral, ethical and politically acceptable commingle; those in power reserve the right to determine when what may previously have been deemed ‘tolerable’ has become ‘[morally/ politically] unacceptable’ bù duān.)

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After Li Zhi disappeared into the ever-expanding ‘memory hole’ of the Xi Era, a fan of the singer who called himself ‘Liu Jianshu’ 柳建樹 circulated a modern song-lyric, that is a poem that could also be sung to music. Liu’s work contains oblique references to Li Zhi’s songs, recent political events, Liu Xiaobo, the Fourth of June 1989 Beijing Massacre, the Umbrella Movement, the Mao-made Great Famine of the late 1950s and even the title of a well-known essay collection by Xu Zhangrun — 坐待天明, ‘Waiting for the Dawn’ (2013). For readers familiar with the Misty Poets 朦朧詩人 who emerged as a significant literary group after Mao’s death in 1976, Liu Jianshu’s song-lyric recalls what is arguably the most famous poem by the most famous poet of that era — ‘The Answer’ by Bei Dao. The original title of Liu’s own poem is itself ‘The Answer’ 回答, although it has circulated widely in China as ‘They’re Afraid’ 他們怕了, words which could also be rendered as ‘You Will Know Them by Their Fears’.

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The Answer

Bei Dao (1976)

Baseness is the password of the base,
Honour is the epitaph of the honorable.
Look how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting, crooked shadows of the dead.

The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there still ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?

I come into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voices of the judged:

Let me tell you, world,
I — do — not — believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number one thousand and one.

回答
北島

卑鄙是卑鄙者的通行證，
高尚是高尚者的墓誌銘。
看吧，在那鍍金的天空中，
飄滿了死者彎曲的倒影。
冰川紀過去了，
為什麼到處都是冰凌？
好望角發現了，
為什麼死海裡千帆相競？
我來到這個世界上，
只帶著紙、繩索和身影，
為了在審判之前，
宣讀那些被判決了的聲音：
告訴你吧，世界，
我——不——相——信！
縱使你腳下有一千名挑戰者，
那就把我算做第一千零一名。

— excerpt from Seeds of Fire (1986), p.236

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The People Don’t Need Freedom
These Years Are the Best of All

人民不需要自由
作詞、作曲：李志

一個兄弟來看我，帶著銀子和故事，
他微笑著對我說，人民不需要自由

人民不需要自由，這是最好的年代，
人民不需要自由，這是最好的年代

有人沈默著觀望，有人懷疑著生活，
聽見他們在歌唱，人民不需要自由

兄弟喝多了在哭，愛人迷失了太久，
這時我總會想起，人民不需要自由

父親留下了一切，除了袋子和被子，
他一直想告訴我，人民不需要自由

 

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
26 April 2019

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Related Material:

• An Overview of Li Zhi’s music (Chinese)
• An Introduction to Li Zhi and his Music, China Digital Times
• Li Zhi singing ‘The People Don’t Need Freedom’, YouTube
• Fan Shuhong, ‘Where is Li Zhi? Outspoken Folk Musician Seemingly Scrubbed from Internet’, RadiiChina, 14 April 2019
• Li Zhi’s music removed from the Chinese Internet, China Digital Times, 21 April 2019
• Anon., ‘Objecting 我反對’, China Heritage, 5 March 2018
• The Xu Zhangrun Archive, China Heritage, 1 August 2018-

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Tsinghua University’s Confederacy of Dunces

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

— Jonathan Swift

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By Way of Explanation

寫在前面

Ten days ago, a singer’s name was ‘disappeared’ from the Internet. In homage I wrote a poem that included some themes taken from his songs and recited it to the accompaniment of his music.

Within two hours of having posted my poem, the public Internet address that I’d been using for four years was permanently blocked. I had been ‘disappeared’ just like that singer. Here is my poem.  

十天前，一位歌手的名字在網上消 失。 於是，我寫了一首詩，用了很多這 位歌手的意象。朗讀，配上了他的 音樂。向他致敬。 

發出兩小時後，用了四年的公眾號 被永久屏蔽——就像這位歌手一樣。 詩如下。

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They’re Afraid
他們怕了

Liu Jianshu
柳建樹

Translated by Geremie R. Barmé

 

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