The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.
Find and delete the article “Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Group Head Indicates CASS Permeated by Foreign Influence.” (June 18, 2014)
Amid concurrent crackdowns on official corruption and “subversive” political ideology led by President Xi Jinping, the People’s Daily reported last weekend [Chinese] that senior anti-graft official Zhang Yingwei had accused the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a highly influential government think tank, of becoming “infiltrated” by foreign forces. The official also noted that the think tank had “ideological problems.”
Last April, an internal party memo known as “Document No. 9” warned Party members against seven “false ideological trends.” On the list were “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal values,” and the “West’s idea of journalism.” Months later, Party political theory journal Seeking Truth (求是) denounced “Western calls for political reform.” Since then, the Xi administration has put increased emphasis on ideological correctness in Party recruitment, targeted outspoken liberal microbloggers in social media crackdowns, and made training in the “Marxist view of journalism” mandatory for Chinese reporters to renew their press credentials.
In the month leading up to the recent anniversary of the June 4th crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, activists, human rights lawyers, and journalists were placed in detention—part of government efforts to prevent commemoration of the Chinese democracy movement’s quashing 25 years ago.
CDT collects directives from a variety of sources and checks them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
