BEIJING—Western values are a “ticket to hell,” a newspaper published by China’s Communist Party said in a recent editorial that held up Ukraine and some Arab countries as examples of outside ideas causing turmoil.
It was the latest colorful example of a rising level of invective targeting critics of the authoritarian government. In the two-plus years since President Xi Jinping took the helm of the ruling Communist Party, state media have become more strident in defending the one-party system and stoking nationalism.
Events of recent months have accelerated the trend.
Last fall’s pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong opened floodgates of disdain against “anti-China” forces. Last week, the party tabloid Global Times laid into well-known blogger Ren Zhiqiang for questioning official warnings against Western values infiltrating Chinese college classrooms. The newspaper pointed to turmoil in Ukraine and the Arab world to show how any adoption of Western models by non-Western countries “basically amounts to the copying of failure.”
“No matter how beautiful they appear on the surface, they are, in fact a ticket to hell, and can only bring disaster to the Chinese nation,”
the newspaper said. While Cold War brickbats—such as “running dogs of the American imperialists”—have yet to return, there’s been an overall revival of tough language laying down the party’s bottom line and seeking to undermine opposing arguments.
Some critics fear a reversion to the extreme intolerance of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, and will scrutinize the speeches at China’s annual ceremonial legislature opening on Thursday for more signs of the trend.
“Over the last two years or so, the propaganda has become less refined. There’s a big market for this kind of crude nationalism,” said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong’s Chinese University.
The exchange involving the blogger followed a stern warning in January by Education Minister Yuan Guiren against threats to communist ideological purity in higher education.
His comments, in turn, reflected an internal party document, leaked in 2013, that warned against Western values—such as constitutionalism, respect for civil society and press freedom.
A further echo was heard last week, when the president of the Supreme People’s Court, Zhou Qiang, demanded that judges stand strong against Western concepts of judicial independence and division of powers.
“Resolutely resist the influence of erroneous Western thought,” Zhou said. Such pronouncements are clearly being dictated from the highest party echelons, said Li Datong, a political commentator who has been removed from a state media senior editing job for broaching sensitive subjects.
“These people talking so harshly now were only recently espousing greater openness, not less. Clearly things have changed,” Li said.
Foreign countries and leaders are frequent targets.
The state media pilloried Britain after Prime Minister David Cameron met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by Beijing. Britain, the Global Times said in a December 2013 commentary, is no longer seen as a “big power” among Chinese, but as “just an old European country apt for travel and study.”
Especially strident outrage from Beijing was sparked by last year’s “Occupy Central” protest movement in China’s semiautonomous region of Hong Kong. Beijing rejected the protesters’ demands for open nominations for elections for Hong Kong’s top executive.
AP
Image credits: AP/Kin Cheung