{"id":180438,"date":"2015-01-12T17:14:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T01:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=180438"},"modified":"2015-01-12T17:17:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T01:17:18","slug":"mo-yan-stirs-controversy-support-president-xi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/01\/mo-yan-stirs-controversy-support-president-xi\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Yan Stirs Controversy With Support for President Xi"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Chinese novelist Mo Yan\u00a0won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012<\/a>, controversy erupted\u2014while state media\u00a0celebrated\u00a0him as the first Chinese national to win the prize<\/a>\u00a0[Chinese], many were\u00a0reminded of\u00a0jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, and 2000 literature laureate\u00a0Gao Xingjian<\/a>, who had immigrated to France prior to his win. Another point of\u00a0contention was Mo’s hand-written contribution earlier in 2012 to a commemorative edition of Mao Zedong’s 1942 speeches<\/a>\u00a0at the Yan’an Forum\u00a0on Literature and Art<\/a>,\u00a0the gathering that set the CCP standard for the artistic\u00a0endeavor: creative work is ideological work, and it should serve the Party. (Xi Jinping last year echoed Mao’s\u00a0message at the Beijing Forum on Literature and Art<\/a>.) At The Telegraph, Tom Phillips reports that Mo Yan is attracting fresh criticism after\u00a0voicing support for Xi Jinping<\/strong><\/a> at a time when\u00a0the president is overseeing crackdowns on free expression in China<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cI judge that the Chinese Communist Party, more than any other party in the world, wants China to be rich and powerful,\u201d the 59-year-old author told the website for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the anti-corruption agency.<\/p>\n \u201cOur country\u2019s president, Xi Jinping, more than any other world leader, hopes that Chinese people can live well.\u201d The author also appeared to back the president\u2019s high-profile anti-corruption drive by announcing that his next book would focus on the perils of thieving officials.<\/p>\n Murong Xuecun, a rising literary star and outspoken critic of Beijing, said he had been appalled by Mo Yan\u2019s \u201cshameful\u201d comments.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are a Chinese writer, writing about Chinese life and you should know what is going on in this country,\u201d said the writer, whose real name is Hao Qun.<\/p>\n \u201cControl of news media has become increasingly harsh, more websites have been blocked by the Great Firewall, social media platforms have withered away with many accounts being cancelled or blocked [and] many activists who dared to speak out have been put into prison,\u201d he added, citing the detentions of civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, activist Guo Yushan, and Tie Liu, an 81-year-old writer who was taken from his home after criticising China\u2019s propaganda chief. […] [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more about ongoing crackdowns on Internet speech<\/a> and civil society activism<\/a>, via CDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Chinese novelist Mo Yan\u00a0won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012, controversy erupted\u2014while state media\u00a0celebrated\u00a0him as the first Chinese national to win the prize\u00a0[Chinese], many were\u00a0reminded of\u00a0jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, and 2000 literature laureate\u00a0Gao Xingjian, who had immigrated to France prior to his win. Another point of\u00a0contention was Mo’s hand-written contribution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":985,"featured_media":152058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,14744,14745,14746,100,5],"tags":[16634,15050,1442,7742,5563,1766,4674],"class_list":["post-180438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-society","tag-authors","tag-free-expression","tag-mo-yan","tag-murong-xuecun","tag-nobel-prize","tag-writers","tag-xi-jinping","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n