The case of Lin Jiaxiang, the party secretary of the Shenzhen Maritime Administration, who was caught on a surveillance camera harassing an eleven-year-old girl, has been a hot topic on blogs and in Internet forums in China. But Internet discussions of the case have brought up bigger issues relating to power and relations between the powerful and the people, after Lin was quoted during an argument with the girl’s family (translated by chinaSMACK):
“I did it, so what? How much money do you want, give me a price. I will pay it!”
Arrogantly pushing and pointing at the girl’s father, he also said:
“Do you know who I am? I was sent here by the Beijing Ministry of Transport, my level is the same as your mayor. So what if I pinched a little child’s neck? You people are worth less than a fart to me! You dare fuck with me? Just watch how I am going to deal with you.”
Below are a couple of responses to the news from bloggers, translated by CDT:
Xiangyu is a blogger lives in Ninbo, Zhejiang. According to his blog, he is a government employee. From the Xiangyu Salon blog:
I don’t know whether officials are all such jerks. However, they seem to forget we are in the Era of the Internet. They can control the official media, yet information spreads quickly through the Internet. This helps us understand why so many officials are frightened by the power of the Internet, and the authorities have been using so many power resources, ie Internet police, to monitor the Internet and constantly delete information which is critical of them. Why are they scared of people’s voices? Only sufficient media monitoring can prevent abuses of power and mitigate the increasingly widespread corruption. [The party’s self-monitoring] has basically no effect, and conventional media are all strictly controlled. That’s why we need an open Internet.
After this event, Mr. Lin may inspire a new (online) hot phrase: “I was sent here by the Beijing Ministry of Transport.”
Another blogger Luo Ben (罗奔) is from Lianyungang, Jiangsu province. From his blog: In The Deepest Human Nature (人性最深处):
Mr. Lin was not bluffing. He actually told the plain truth in our society which is filled with hypocrisy… He did not deceive us with beautiful lies after hurting people… Once his evilness was caught [online], netizens who desire justice of course will beat this unlucky fellow to death. We could use an old saying to describe netizens’ motives, “killing the chicken to frighten the monkey.”
The details of Mr. Lin’s misconduct are no longer important. What matters is that this so-called “people’s servant” revealed his true nature. He told the brutal truth: Ordinary people are nothing in their eyes, they can abuse ordinary people any way they want to. When beautiful lies are exposed by the lie tellers themselves, one can imagine how angry and outraged those are who have been living under such lies.
