White terror Censorship in schools: Who’d like to see this in HK?

(03 Nov) The absurd white terror is the most unacceptable thing in China. Who would like this in the Education system of Hong Kong? PENG Wei is one of the “student informants" who monitor the professors’ views at schools. Their task is to root out teachers who show any signs of disloyalty to President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. "Our responsibility is to maintain the ‘purity’ of the learning environment" Peng said. 

"Everyone is at risk," said YOU Sheng-dong-a long time economics professor of Xiamen University in Eastern China-was expelledlast year after being reported by students for criticizing one of Xi's favourite slogans. "How can there be any innovation and invention?” YOU queried.

Tertiary Education Institutions in China announce recruitment of students to spy on their teachers. Some institutions even plan to place a student informant in every classroom. It produces chilling impact. Some people compare this with the Ideology Cleansing Movement during the 10 years long Cultural Revolution when radical students attacked those who were seen as enemiesin the eyes of MAO Zedong.

Xi Jinping is trying to prevent possible threats to social stability through suppressing opposition forces of his authoritarian policies. At the same time, student informants are increasingly playing a key role in monitoring teachers' views about Xi, the Communist Party and democracy. As rewards, they receive scholarships, higher academic grades and social credits score, and promotions in the authoritarian communist organisations.

Professor TANG Yun of Chongqing Normal University was demoted to work at the school library simply because of saying something negative about an idiom frequently used by Xi Jinping. It is part of Xi Jinping’s massive political campaign to eliminate any different viewsthrough making the most of the student monitors at schools.

In central China, a university fired a professor because students reported her for criticising Xi’s removal of the official term limitation of the State Chairman to enable his personal life tenure. In Beijing, a university professor was suspended from duties because one student complained the person saying Japanese students are more hard-working than Chinese students.

According to notices issued by the universities, many institutions nominate one student monitor in every class under Xi’s leadership. Students have to formally apply to become an informant. Many schools only accept existing Party members or those who can proof that they have ‘correct political views’ to fill the positions. During interviews, these monitors stated that some students think that their duties are broad enough to cover not only checking what the professors said in the classrooms, they have to keep track of the private lives of professors, including their choices of books and movies.

An internet notice put up by the Ankang University in the North Western part of China states that the student monitors are required to report to the authority for any professor who spreads superstitious thoughts, heresy religions, pornography, Western values and criticisms of the Communist Party. School management should respond to the complaints within 3 working days. 

In central China, Xiantao Vocational College demands student informants to monitor any action and word that violates the policy stance of the party. Xinyang Normal University calls out students to report anything the teachers said that may ‘endanger the security of the state’ or ‘ethnic unity’.

Professors indicated that student informants create terror atmosphere in the classrooms. The professor being expelled from Xiamen University, YOU Sheng-dong said that students reported that he questioned Xi Jin Ping’s ‘China dream’ slogan as a vision for a strong and prosperous China.  YOU Sheng-dong, stated that he actually told his students that Xi's big China dream is a paranoid wild imagination rather than a vision. The 71 years old professor moved to New York subsequently. His students started to say he was ‘extreme’ because he opposed the Communist Party. There is a video cam installed in his classroom, a standard set up in many universities in China. The authority warns that it is very easy to find evidences of inappropriate speeches.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/223783954322429/posts/2803573506343448/