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Chinese web censors hit agony aunts and comic books for taking liberties with Chinese history
An online 'love guru' and a popular Internet comic brand have been silenced in China after making controversial comments on the country's wartime past, as Beijing seeks to control history and build respect for "heroes and martyrs".
The popular blogger ‘Ayawawa’ fell foul of China’s web censors after suggesting that Chinese women used as wartime sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial army might not have suffered as much as the authorised version of Chinese history suggested.
Meanwhile, a leading comic brand was removed from multiple online platforms for producing a video that joked about two Chinese Civil War heroes: Ye Ting, an army general, and Dong Cunrui, a model Communist soldier.
The removal of Baozou Manhua - classed as a ‘rage’ comic, which produce crude and simple comic strips, usually made up of cartoon faces that either express a joke or an offbeat opinion -and 15 other websites was ascribed to a new “Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law” that was rolled out by Beijing earlier this month.
Officially, the statute seeks to uphold the legacy of China's historical figures, but is widely viewed by dissidents as a measure to strengthen Beijing's hand in moulding its version of history.
The 'rage comic' genre, which has developed into brands making online video sketches, was imported to China from the West about a decade ago and has become hugely popular among web-obsessed teenagers.
Sina Weibo, the platform that hosted ‘Ayawawa’, who has over four million social media followers, said she had been banned from posting or acquiring followers for six months because of the "adverse social influence she has caused".
“Do you think the comfort women were miserable?” she asked in an article exploring how women can use their femininity to their advantage.
“Have you ever considered that the men might have been worse-off? They were shot dead, but the women survived at least,” continued the comments, which have since been deleted but were reported by media outlet Sixth Tone.
The censoring ban followed a huge public backlash to the comments, underscoring the deep sensitivities many Chinese have towards the county’s often painful history.
Beijing’s Communist Party rulers have long sought to tap into these sentiments to help strengthen its power while jealously guarding the 'official' interpretation of Chinese history by waging a war on what it calls "historical nihilism" from academics and commentators.
He Weifang, a professor from Peking University who signed the Charter 08 pro-democracy petition for which the late Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, told The Telegraph the law was "totally at odds with civil rights".
Earlier this week, a man who was inspired by Baozou Manhua's closure posted an online statement saying Dong Cunrui "deserved to die".
If he was arrested for the post, the man said, it would prove that China has no freedom of speech. Police arrived at his house in the central Henan province hours later, and he was put in detention for ten days.
Additional reporting by Christine Wei