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 Qiushi Journal 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 Qiushi's 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.