Category: Free Speech

“I Wish That All Chinese People Can Have Freedom and Peace”

(p. A19) Bao Tong, who was the highest-ranking Chinese official imprisoned over the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square that ended in mass carnage in 1989, and who later became an acerbic outsider-critic of the Communist Party, died on Nov. 9 [2022] in Beijing. He was 90.

The cause was acute leukemia, said his son, Bao Pu.

For a decade, Mr. Bao was a top aide to Zhao Ziyang, the liberalizing party leader who was ousted shortly before the Tiananmen crackdown. After his release from prison, Mr. Bao — who spent the rest of his life under surveillance — used essays, interviews and Twitter to denounce China’s autocratic turn.

In the mid-1980s, he was central to devising Mr. Zhao’s political reform proposals to rein in the party’s power and expand public oversight of officials. In his later years, he saw little near-term hope that the party would reopen the way for democratic changes, yet he stayed optimistic that China would eventually take that path. And that shift, Mr. Bao said, would demand confronting the traumas of June 1989, when troops shot protesters in Beijing and other Chinese cities, with estimates of the death toll ranging from the hundreds to the thousands.

“The ‘June 4’ student democracy movement of 1989 was the great event, the one most worthy of the Chinese people’s pride, that I experienced in my life,” Mr. Bao wrote this year in an article for Radio Free Asia. But the bloodshed, he added, had “brazenly opened up a new era where state power has no constraints and civic rights have lost their safeguards.”

. . .

In 1987, Deng abruptly demoted Hu Yaobang, the party’s liberal-minded general secretary. After Mr. Zhao replaced Mr. Hu as party leader, he and Mr. Bao scored a major victory when Deng approved — and a party congress endorsed — their proposals for measured political change. Mr. Bao’s role in helping to draft the main report for that congress, a high-water mark for liberalizing hopes in China, was one of his proudest moments, his son said.

. . .

“In the past I believed in Communism; now I don’t think it’s worth believing in,” he told a foreign reporter in 2012 as security officers looked on. “Now I just think that Marx had some nice ideas. He said the poor are worth helping.”

. . .

Mr. Bao was never allowed to meet with Mr. Zhao after 1989. But in 2019, the authorities let him visit the grave of Mr. Zhao and Mr. Zhao’s wife.

“They’re finally free and at peace,” Mr. Bao wrote at the time. “I wish that all Chinese people can have freedom and peace in this world.”

For the full obituary, see:

Chris Buckley and Vivian Wang. “Bao Tong, Reformist Official Imprisoned After Tiananmen, Is Dead at 90.” The New York Times, First Section (Wednesday, November 23, 2022): A19.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date Nov. 21, 2022, and has the title “Bao Tong, 90, Dies; Top Chinese Official Imprisoned After Tiananmen.”)

Independent Bookstores Shun Wuhan Book by Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I am generally not as skeptical of the safety and efficacy of vaccines as is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But I strongly believe in the right to free speech. And I believe that truth in general, and truth in science in particular, advance fastest when we defend free speech and open discussion.

(p. B3) Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a member of the most famous political family in the U.S. and a bestselling author. But it may be hard to find his newest book at the local bookstore when it comes out next week [on Dec. 5, 2023].

Some booksellers have decided not to stock Kennedy’s latest, “The Wuhan Cover-Up and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race,” citing concerns about the author’s past positions.

. . .

Kennedy expressed disappointment that independent bookstores may not be stocking his new book. “Independent bookstores are the traditional bulwarks against corporate propaganda and government censorship,” he said.

Kennedy, the nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy and son of the late attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy, has become a vocal critic of U.S. government agencies, in particular their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

. . .

In an interview, Kennedy, 69 years old, said he thinks “The Wuhan Cover-Up” will appeal to anybody interested in learning more about the origins of Covid-19 as well as foreign-policy issues.

. . .

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Energy Department have said that a “laboratory-related incident” was most likely responsible for the pandemic, while other agencies believe natural infection was the cause.

For the full story, see:

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Eliza Collins. “Small Bookstores Shun RFK Jr.’s Coming Book.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023): B3.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date November 28, 2023, and has the title “Small Bookstores Shun Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Upcoming Book.”)

The book shunned by many independent bookstores is:

Kennedy, Robert F. , Jr. The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2023.

Bridge Man’s Courageous Protest Against Xi Kept Hope Alive

(p. B1) A protester unfurled two banners on a highway overpass in central Beijing on Oct. 13, [2022] denouncing Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor.” China’s censors went to great lengths to scrub the internet of any reference to the act of dissent, prohibiting all discussion and shutting down many offending social media accounts.

The slogans didn’t go away. Instead, they caught on inside and outside China, online and offline.

Encouraged by the Beijing protester’s extremely rare display of courage, young Chinese are using creative ways to spread the banners’ anti-Xi messages. They graffitied the slogans in public toilets in China. They used Apple’s AirDrop feature to send photos of the messages to fellow passengers’ iPhones in subway cars. They posted the slogans on university campuses all over the world. They organized chat groups to bond and shouted “Remove Xi Jinping” in front of Chinese embassies. This all happened while the Communist Party was convening an all-important congress in Beijing and putting forth an image of a country singularly united behind a great leader.

The aftermath of the Beijing protest “made me feel, for the first time, hopeful,” said an organizer of an Instagram account known as Citizens Daily CN, which posts photo submissions of sightings of anti-Xi messages.

. . .

(p. B4) For Kathy, a Chinese student in London, political apathy . . . is what upsets her the most.

. . .

When she saw photos of the protest in Beijing, she was awed by the “Bridge Man’s” courage, too. Then she started seeing people posting sightings of anti-Xi slogans in many parts of the world.

She started to cry and couldn’t stop for hours, she said.

As the photos of the protest posters kept coming in, she felt she saw a little light in the darkness. She’s not alone anymore.

“I thought to myself that there are many Chinese who also want freedom and democracy,” she said. “But where are you? Where can I find you? If we meet on the street, how can we recognize each other?”

For the full commentary, see:

Li Yuan. “A Brash, Lonely Protest in Beijing Surfaces an Undercurrent of Dissent.” The New York Times (Tuesday, October 25, 2022): B1 & B4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Oct. 24, 2022, and has the title “A Lonely Protest in Beijing Inspires Young Chinese to Find Their Voice.”)

“Muskies, Muskites, Muskrats and Musketeers” Hail Musk as “Pretty Awesome . . . Genius” and “Modern-Day Da Vinci”

(p. B1) Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are cheering for a decentralized social network. Supporters of Donald J. Trump hope that the former president will return to tweeting. Some free speech advocates envision an end to censorship. And loyal fans of Elon Musk are betting that the billionaire will innovate.

. . .

. . ., Twitter has lodged itself into the fabric of society. The platform’s future under Mr. Musk has become a symbolic receptacle of people’s desires to push the world (p. B5) in the direction they want it to go.

Few tech executives elicit the kind of blind adoration that Mr. Musk does. His fans — known variously as Muskies, Muskites, Muskrats and Musketeers — defend even his most questionable moves. His deal to buy Twitter has had plenty of critics, including the company’s employees, some lawmakers and disinformation researchers. Many fear what he will do with the platform, over which he now has more or less absolute power as its owner. But on Musk-focused message boards, Discord servers, blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels, the deal is a triumph.

“Him buying Twitter is pretty awesome,” said Bryce Paul, the host of the podcast “Crypto 101.” Mr. Paul does not consider himself a Musk fanboy but believes the billionaire is a “genius” and a “modern-day da Vinci.”

For the full story, see:

Erin Griffith. “It’s All Musk’s and All Changing: It’s a Happy Day for the Millions of ‘Muskies,’ Who Are Anticipating Less Moderation and More Innovation.” The New York Times (Saturday, October 29, 2022): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 28, 2022, and has the title “For Many, Elon Musk’s Buying Twitter Is a Moment of Celebration.” In the print version, the title “It’s All Musk’s and All Changing” covered two separate articles that each had their own subtitle.)

Communists Renege on “Implicit Bargain” to Give Chinese “Stability and Comfort” in Exchange for Lost Freedom

(p. 1) After violently crushing pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Beijing struck an implicit bargain: In exchange for limitations on political freedoms, the (p. 9) people would get stability and comfort.

But now the stability and comfort have dwindled, even as the limitations have grown.

. . .

Atop a hill in Shenzhen’s Lianhuashan Park stands a 20-foot bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping. Mr. Deng, the leader who pioneered China’s embrace of market forces after Mao’s death, watches over the city that is a living reminder of the country’s ability to change direction. Mr. Deng is shown in midstride, to honor his credo that opening should only accelerate.

Chen Chengzhi, 80, a retired government cadre who hikes to that statue every day for exercise, credits Mr. Deng with changing his life. Mr. Chen moved to Shenzhen in the 1980s, soon after Mr. Deng allowed economic experimentation here. The city then had just a few hundred thousand people, but Mr. Chen, who had endured famine and the Cultural Revolution, believed in Mr. Deng’s vision.

“At the end of the day, all good things in China are related to Shenzhen,” Mr. Chen said on one of his daily walks, adding that he cheered when China’s premier, Li Keqiang, visited the statue in August and pledged that China would continue opening to the world.

If it doesn’t do so, Mr. Chen said, “China will hit a dead end.”

But Mr. Li is retiring, even as the Xi Jinping era of rising state control stretches on.

For now, Mr. Chen continues climbing the hill — looking over the city that he helped build, that he believes in still.

For the full story, see:

Vivian Wang. “Covid Crackdowns Shake Chinese People’s Faith in Progress.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, December 4, 2022): 1 & 9.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story also has the date December 4, 2022, and has the title “The Chinese Dream, Denied.” The online version says that the title of the print version was “Beijing’s Bargain With Its People Is Shaken” but my National Edition of the print version had the title “Covid Crackdowns Shake Chinese People’s Faith in Progress.”)

Betting on Elections Is a Form of Free Speech

(p. A17) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has moved to shut down PredictIt, an online marketplace for futures contracts on the outcomes of political events, effective Feb. 15, 2023. This is a blow to investors in these contracts, such as those on the presidential election of 2024, who are left uncertain as to how their positions will be unwound. And it’s a blow to the public at large, because political futures have proven to have better predictive power than polls.

. . .

. . . in early 2020, . . . PredictIt listed a contract on whether the World Health Organization would declare Covid-19 a pandemic. According to John Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, the firm that operates PredictIt, the CFTC telephoned to complain about that contract, saying it was in poor taste. The contract had already expired.

. . .

If investors can express their opinions on the future prices of corn and pork bellies, surely the First Amendment also protects their ability to do the same on elections and other political matters. It’s a matter of free speech that you can put your money where your mouth is.

For the full commentary, see:

Donald Luskin. “The Feds Don’t Want You Betting on Elections.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022): A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date November 1, 2022, and has the same title as the print version.)

Tim Cook’s Apple Is Silent on Communist China’s Suppression of Human Rights

(p. A19) Apple CEO Tim Cook has been taking a beating over his company’s coziness with Beijing. It comes amid protests across China against the government’s strict Covid-19 lockdowns, including at a factory in Zhengzhou where most of the world’s iPhones are made. Hillary Vaughn of Fox News perfectly captured Mr. Cook’s embarrassment on Capitol Hill Thursday [Dec. 1, 2022] when she peppered him with questions:

“Do you support the Chinese people’s right to protest? Do you have any reaction to the factory workers that were beaten and detained for protesting Covid lockdowns? Do you regret restricting AirDrop access that protesters used to evade surveillance from the Chinese government? Do you think it’s problematic to do business with the Communist Chinese Party when they suppress human rights?”

A stone-faced Mr. Cook responded with silence.

. . .

CEOs can always justify their operations by pointing to the economic benefits their companies bring to the communities in which they operate. Or CEOs can go the progressive route, presenting their companies as moral paragons. But they can’t have it both ways: holding themselves up as courageous in places where the risk from speaking out is low while keeping quiet about real oppression in places where speaking out can really hurt the bottom line.

For the full commentary, see:

William McGurn. “MAIN STREET; Tim Cook’s Bad Day on China.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022): A19.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date December 5, 2022, and has the same title as the print version.)

In Xi’s Communist China: “Our Speech Is Not Free”

(p. B1) Many innocent lives were lost to tragic events in China in the past month. So far we haven’t learned a single name of any of them from China’s government or its official media. Nor have we seen news interviews of family members talking about their loved ones.

Those victims would include a coach and 10 members of a middle-school girls volleyball team who were killed in late July when the roof caved in on a gymnasium near the Siberian border. Despite an outpouring of public grief and anger around the country, the government never released their names. Social media posts sharing their names and tributes to their lives were censored.

Then there were the people — probably dozens, possibly hundreds — who died in severe flooding in northern and northeastern China in recent weeks. It was the most serious flooding in the country in decades. Posts about the casualties, and the hardships people endured, were censored.

. . .

(p. B4) “Xi Jinping has made control of history one of his signature policies — because he sees counter-history as an existential threat,” Ian Johnson, an author who has covered China for decades, wrote in his new book, “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future.”

Mr. Xi has turned the screws extra tight since the Covid pandemic. In April 2020, relatives of Wuhan residents who died were followed by minders when they picked up the ashes of their loved ones.

The government ignored a citizen demand to make Feb. 6 a nationwide day of mourning to mark the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistle-blower who had warned the public of the coronavirus.

“We have always known that our speech is not free, our voice is not free. Yet we do not realize until today that even sorrow and mourning do not belong to us,” Ms. Zhang, the independent journalist, wrote in an article that was widely circulated on WeChat and other social media platforms before it was censored.

A recent video of the bereaved father of a volleyball player killed in the gymnasium collapse in Qiqihar highlighted the cruel reality faced by family members in public tragedies: Their grief, in the eyes of the government, makes them potential threats to social stability.

In the six-minute video, the father remained preternaturally composed as he tried to reason with the police, doctors and government officials at a hospital. He and other family members wanted to be allowed to identify the bodies of their daughters.

The father said he understood why the police were at the hospital. “We didn’t cause any troubles,” he said. He said he understood why no officials bothered to talk to them. “That’s fine,” he said.

Many people said online and in interviews that they cried watching the video because they recognized his “heart-wrenching restraint” and knew why he behaved that way.

“What happens if he didn’t hold back his anger?” asked an author in an article posted on social media. “As a father who has suffered such immense pain, why did he have to reason with such restraint and humility?”

As usual, the censorship machine went into high gear. Social media posts containing names of the victims and celebrating their lives and friendships were deleted. So were photos and videos showing the entrance of their school, where the public sent numerous flower bouquets, yogurt, milk tea and canned peaches, which is a comfort food for children in northeastern China.

For the full story, see:

Li Yuan. “When Tragedy Strikes in China, The Government Represses Grief.” The New York Times (Monday, August 3, 2023): B1 & B4.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story also has the date Aug. 14, 2023, and has the title “When Tragedy Strikes in China, the Government Cracks Down on Grief.”)

Chinese Communists Detain Entrepreneur Who Exhorted Staff to “Go Forward Boldly”

(p. B1) In mid-January [2023], star Chinese investment banker Fan Bao, architect of the deals that created some of China’s most dominant technology companies, appeared at his bank’s annual party in Beijing.  . . .  He exhorted the hundreds of staffers in attendance to “Go Forward Boldly.”

A few weeks later, he disappeared.

For the past month, the 52-year-old banker—who set out to build the JPMorgan of China and successfully straddled the divide between China and the West—has been held incommunicado in a detention system run by the Communist Party’s anticorruption agency.

. . .

(p. B6) Privately, close associates of Mr. Bao have been dismayed by his detention. China Renaissance Holdings Ltd., the boutique investment bank he founded and ran, is a relatively small firm, making it unusual that it would draw this manner of government scrutiny. Colleagues, business partners, friends and acquaintances of Mr. Bao are worried about his safety and are hoping he will soon resurface publicly. “I feel utterly disillusioned,” said a person close to Mr. Bao.

The jolt to business people’s confidence also comes as anxiety over China’s direction, its curtailing of people’s rights, and the way it managed the Covid-19 pandemic is leading more middle-class and wealthy Chinese citizens to relocate to other countries. Global investors have been rethinking their exposure to the world’s second-largest economy following a selloff over the past two years that was largely caused by Beijing’s regulatory crackdowns and policy decisions.

. . .

Some Chinese entrepreneurs who previously went missing have reappeared quickly. Guo Guangchang, the billionaire chairman of Shanghai-based conglomerate Fosun Group, emerged days after a mysterious detention by authorities in late 2015. He continues to run Fosun and was never charged with any wrongdoing.

Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese financier who ran a conglomerate called the Tomorrow Group, was taken from Hong Kong in 2017 and didn’t reappear for five years. He turned up in a Shanghai court last year to face corruption charges and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

. . .

Mr. Bao believed China was on the cusp of a new-economy revolution and connected early on with young entrepreneurs who were trying to get their internet-technology startups off the ground.

. . .

Mr. Bao tried to adapt to the new environment, shifting his attention to pursuing deals in industries like semiconductors that remained in Beijing’s good graces.

. . .

Mr. Bao’s last post on Chinese social media WeChat was on Jan. 9 [2023], a few days before the China Renaissance party. He congratulated Fenbi Ltd., a vocational training provider and a portfolio company in his firm’s fund, on its Hong Kong listing. Under his personal status, Mr. Bao had written: “Dream as if u’ll live forever, live as if u’ll die today.”

For the full story, see:

Jing Yang and Rebecca Feng. “China’s M&A Star Vanishing Spurs Alarm.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, March 20, 2023): B1 & B6.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 18, 2023, was listed with the title “China’s M&A Star Tells Staff to Be Bold—Then He Disappears,” and had the title “China’s M&A Star Told His Employees to Be Bold—Then He Disappeared” at the top of the story.)

Communist China Has “Opened Police Outposts in Foreign Countries” to Arrest Chinese Exiles

(p. 10) As a lawyer in China, Lu Siwei belonged to a rare and increasingly besieged group willing to take on sensitive cases to defend rights activists and political pariahs. To stop him, the authorities put him under surveillance and barred him from practice, depriving him of his livelihood.

Mr. Lu’s wife and young daughter fled first, moving to the United States. Nearly two years later, it was Mr. Lu’s turn. He left China last month, crossing over into Laos. A few days later, as he was preparing to board a train to Thailand, he was arrested by local authorities. Accused of using fraudulent travel documents, he was in Laotian custody as of late August and facing the threat of deportation.

Under Xi Jinping, China’s most iron-fisted leader in decades, Chinese authorities have aggressively expanded their net outside the country. They have opened police outposts in foreign countries, offered bounties for critics who have fled overseas, pressured members of the Chinese diaspora to become informants, and secured the detention or deportation of exiles abroad.

For the full story, see:

Tiffany May. “He Fled Repression, but China’s Long Arm Caught Him in Another Country.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023): 10.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 26, 2023, and has the title “He Fled China’s Repression. But China’s Long Arm Got Him in Another Country.”)

Allow Us to View the “Artifacts of Human Suffering” That Enable Us to “Appreciate the Epic Achievements of Medicine”

(p. D1) The Mütter Museum, a 19th-century repository of medical oddments and arcana at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, attracts as many as 160,000 visitors a year. Among the anatomical and pathological specimens exhibited are skulls corroded by syphilis; spines twisted by rickets; skeletons deformed by corsets; microcephalic fetuses; a two-headed baby; a bound foot from China; an ovarian cyst the size of a Jack Russell terrier; Grover Cleveland’s jaw tumor; the liver that joined the original “Siamese twins,” Cheng and Eng Bunker; and the pickled corpse of the Soap Lady, whose fatty tissues decomposed into a congealed asphalt-colored substance called adipocere.

. . .

The celebrity magician Teller, a Philadelphia native, called the Mütter a place of electrifying frankness. “We are permitted to (p. D5) confront real, not simulated, artifacts of human suffering, and are, at a gut level, able to appreciate the epic achievements of medicine,” he said.

But, like museums everywhere, the Mütter is reassessing what it has and why it has it. Recently, the institution enlisted a public-relations consultant with expertise in crisis management to contain criticism from within and without.

The problems began in February [2023] when devoted fans of the Mütter’s website and YouTube channel noticed that all but 12 of the museum’s 450 or so images and videos had been removed.

. . .

Ms. Quinn had tasked 13 unnamed people — medical historians, bioethicists, disability advocates, members of the community — with providing feedback on the digital collection. “Folks from a wide background,” Ms. Quinn said in an interview.

. . .

Blowback to Ms. Quinn’s ethical review was ferocious. An online petition garnered the signatures of nearly 33,000 Mütter enthusiasts who insisted that they loved the museum and its websites as they were. The petition criticized Ms. Quinn and her boss, Dr. Mira Irons, the president and chief executive of the College of Physicians, for decisions predicated on “outright disdain of the museum.” The complaint called for the reinstatement of all web content and urged the college’s board of trustees to fire the two women immediately. (To date, about one-quarter of the videos have been reinstated.)

Moreover, in June [2023], The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece entitled “Cancel Culture Comes for Philly’s Weirdest Museum,” in which Stanley Goldfarb, a former director of the college, wrote that the museum’s new “woke leaders” appeared eager to cleanse the institution of anything uncomfortable. Robert Hicks, director of the Mütter from 2008 to 2019, voiced similar sentiments this spring when he quit as a museum consultant. His embittered resignation letter, which he released to the press, stated that Dr. Irons “has said before staff that she ‘can’t stand to walk through the museum,’” and it advised the trustees to investigate her and Ms. Quinn, both of whom Dr. Hicks believed held “elitist and exclusionary” views of the Mütter.

. . .

Dr. Hicks remains unhappy with the new perspective. “Dr. Mütter would have been confused at the dictum that the museum should be about health, not death,” he lamented in his resignation letter. “The principle emblazoned at the entrance of many anatomy theaters, ‘This is where the dead serve the living,’ is readily understood by museum visitors without special guidance by Dr. Irons.”

For the full story, see:

Franz Lidz. “Should a Hall of Human Curiosities Dial It Down?” The New York Times (Tuesday, August 15, 2023): D1 & D5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 13, 2023, and has the title “A Museum of ‘Electrifying Frankness’ Weighs Dialing It Down.”)

For more on the innovative surgeon who founded the Mütter Museum, see:

Aptowicz, Cristin O’Keefe. Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.