‘Censors have gone too far’: Influential voice of Deng Xiaoping era accuses China’s propaganda chiefs of too much intervention
Zhou Ruijin, also known as Huang Fuping, calls for more careful use of censorship, arguing different public views must flourish for the reform vision to succeed
An influential voice for reform on the mainland says propaganda chiefs are overreaching and their intervention runs counter to rule by law.
The commentary by Zhou Ruijin in Ifeng.com, an online news arm of Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, came as authorities further tighten their grip over the media and intensify political ideology across the spectrum. The piece was taken from a collection of his commentaries published on the mainland last month.
Zhou agreed with President Xi Jinping that propaganda work needed to be stepped up but said censorship chiefs had gone too far, saying it was now “a mismatch to the whole picture of reform”.
The 76-year-old writer emerged as a leading progressive figure in the early 1990s writing under a shared pen name Huang Fuping, backing Deng Xiaoping’s reform efforts in a deeply conservative political climate. He went on to become the deputy editor of People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, and stayed for five years into his late 50s.
“To be frank, some leaders in the party’s propaganda department were managing the press like how they would manage a train schedule, directly intervening in the approach and procedure of news reporting. Some propaganda chiefs ... even give out orders just as if they were the chief editors of a newspapers,” Zhou said in the article published on Tuesday.
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The newspaper ran a speech on Wednesday by the propaganda chief for northeastern Liaoning province ordering the media to toe the line of the central leadership. Fan Weiping said news outlets must downplay the region’s economic woes and instead reflect confidence in development.
