Hu Xijin has seemingly been banned from posting to Chinese social media platforms. Hu, formerly the editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, appears to have run into trouble for “misconstruing” the results of the recent Third Plenum. At The New York Times, Chris Buckley reported on Hu’s silence and what may have been a veiled Party response to Hu’s apparently incorrect reading of the important political meeting:
A possible source of Mr. Hu’s trouble appears to be a Weibo post he wrote in July that extolled as “historic” the outcome of a party leaders’ meeting on economic strategy. In Mr. Hu’s view, the party used phrasing in its plan for the economy that suggested that China would reduce the status of state-owned companies, giving private companies a big boost.
[…] Speculation that Mr. Hu had crossed a line grew after the People’s Daily issued a commentary that defended the party’s commitment to the state sector. It did not name Mr. Hu. “As long as we adhere to public ownership as the mainstay,” the commentary said, China could strengthen its socialist economic system while also letting private businesses thrive.
That “mainstay” phrase stood out, because Mr. Hu, in his now-deleted post, had pointed out that the party’s economic plan had not explicitly called the state sector a “mainstay,” unlike a similar plan in 2013. Notably, too, the People’s Daily commentary appeared under a pen name, “Zhong Yin,” which sounds like “important voice,” and indicates a high-level response. [Source]
Hu himself declined to speak on the matter when reached by Sing Tao Daily, a conservative, pro-Beijing Hong Kong-based news outlet: “I personally don’t want to say anything. You can read things online, okay? Please understand.” Bloomberg reported that an unnamed source confirmed Hu was banned from posting due to his comments on the economy. At The South China Morning Post, William Zheng reported that conservative bloggers had reported Hu to the internet authorities in anger over his interpretation of the Third Plenum documents:
This interpretation immediately triggered fierce criticism from China’s conservative bloggers, who accused Hu of “blatantly violating the political discipline of the party” because the “dominant role” of public ownership was enshrined in the constitutions of both the ruling party and the country.
Some critics even shared screenshots of their complaints to internet censors regarding Hu’s commentary. [Source]
Hu is one of China’s most vocal nationalists and no stranger to controversy. In retirement, he has continued his prolific posting, commenting on issues ranging from German cannabis legalization to China’s “friendship” with the Taliban. Nicknamed “Frisbee Hu” for his dogged determination to find a silver lining for the Chinese government in any scandal, Hu has recently found himself on the receiving end of nationalist anger. In 2021, he was widely criticized by nationalists for criticizing a Weibo post by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission that compared funeral pyres for COVID victims in India to a successful Chinese rocket launch. In 2022, he was again criticized by nationalists who felt that his bombastic (and unrealized) predictions of war over Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan had undermined the prestige of Xi Jinping and China. More often than not, though, Hu has been protected by the Chinese state and embraced by nationalists. In 2023, a Weibo user had their account banned after reporting Hu for using a VPN to access the outside internet, which a local court had just held to be “considered an illegal act,” no matter the circumstances.
Discussion of the economy seems to be particularly fraught in recent months. The state has pushed back hard against viral phrases hinting at China’s economic or political decline, such as the recent “garbage time of history” meme. Online complaints about the potential raising of the retirement age were censored in July. In March, a popular Weibo blogger compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses” for their mismanagement of the economy. That post was censored. The background to this censorship is record dissatisfaction with the state of the private economy, as recorded in a since-deleted February Guangzhou public opinion poll. It is possible that Hu’s comments crossed a similar red line.
It is unclear how long Hu’s suspension will last. The silencing of a single account—no matter how influential—is, of course, common on the Chinese internet. In 2022, censors silenced and then completely erased the Weibo account of Wang Sicong, the son of one of China’s wealthiest real estate tycoons, after he questioned the efficacy of a government-sponsored traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for COVID. Wang’s account had over 40.5 million followers at the time of its deletion. Hu’s Weibo account, which boasts nearly 25 million followers, currently displays no notice that it has been suspended or placed under a “silent period,” as is typical with platform-imposed bans. Hu has not posted to Weibo since July 27. He has not posted to X, where he has over half a million followers, since July 26.
