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Professor He Weifang says he party's reputation can only be harmed by a crackdown on free speech.

China Communist Party magazine blasts professors who spread 'Western values'

Party journal's commentary targets liberal academics after President Xi Jinping calls for 'ideological guidance' for teachers and students

The Communist party's influential magazine yesterday lashed out at university professors for defaming China by spreading Western values, raising concerns about academic freedom on the mainland.

A commentary by Xu Lan, an official with the publicity office of Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and posted on website, criticised Peking University legal professor He Weifang for defaming the mainland's legal system through promoting "the rule of law" on Weibo.

Xu also assailed well-known painter Chen Danqing, who also uses his Weibo account to criticise the current state of civil society on the mainland while glossing over US culture. Chen appeared to be "inducing Chinese people to go to the US", Xu wrote.

Chen, a former art lecturer at Tsinghua University, is well-known for lampooning the differences between the legal and civil systems of the mainland and Western countries.

"It will be a disaster if we fail to set up standards and a bottom line to prevent high school and university teachers spreading Western values through internet platforms to defame our communist ideology," Xu wrote.

He Weifang said that compared with former leaders like Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who keenly promoted the concept of rule of law and constitutional government before the party came to power in 1949 after the civil war.

He said he had only made a small contribution to the debate: "How could the party be so easily defamed by the comments of a few scholars? A party's reputation can only be harmed by a crackdown on free speech."

Chen Daoyin, an associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said Xu's commentary indicated that some officials and politicians were keen to please President Xi Jinping .

"Such opportunistic comments are a legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and threaten academic freedom on the mainland," Chen said.

Last week, the State Council and the General Office of the Communist Party's Central Committee ordered universities to step up the teaching of Marxism and Chinese socialism.

Xinhua reported that this was was a "major and pressing strategic task" to fulfil Xi's call for greater "ideological guidance" to teachers and students.

In December, the a biweekly publication of carried an article by Wang Weiguang, the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who argued that "class struggle can never be extinguished in China".

State-run said Wang's idea should not be seen as the direction of the party, but agreed that class struggle had not been overcome but was being resolved through the "law and the courts".

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Professors' Western ideas 'defame nation'
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