During his more than five years in power, Mr. Xi has cultivated an image as a man of the people — a centered, sympathetic leader who lines up with workers to buy take out while also guiding the world’s most populous nation to growth and global influence.
But the move to abolish term limits, announced on Sunday, has resurrected deeper fears in some parts of Chinese society, where memories remain of the personality cult of China’s founding father, Mao Zedong, and the fevered emotions and chaos that it conjured.
Anxious to suppress criticism, and maintain an appearance of mass support, the Communist Party’s censors have scoured the internet and social media for content deemed subversive. The sanitizing has included many images of Winnie the Pooh — Mr. Xi is sometimes likened to the cartoon bear — and search terms like “my emperor,” “lifelong” and “shameless.”
For a short time, even the English letter “N” was censored, according to Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania China expert, apparently to pre-empt social scientists from expressing dissent mathematically: N > 2, with “N” being the number of Mr. Xi’s terms in office.
In Chinese slang, Chinese characters can be used along with the English letter ‘n’ to indicate when someone did something ‘many’ times. But for the Communist party of China it is also a subversive and intolerable character that was this week banished from the internet as Chinese censors battled to silence criticism of Xi Jinping’s bid to set himself up as ruler for life. Thus, China’s censors were able to thwart any criticism of Xi by banning any disagreement with his ‘n’ terms as president and the like.
The ban was temporary, as the China Digital Times reported that the letter could be in use again the following day.
The contravening consonant was perhaps the most unusual victim of a crackdown targeting words, phrases and even solitary letters censors feared might be used to attack Beijing’s controversial decision to abolish constitutional term limits for China’s president.
The Communist party has painted the move – which experts say paves the way for Xi to become a dictator for life – as an expression of overwhelming popular support for China’s strongman leader. However, there has been widespread online push-back in China since it was announced on Sunday on the eve of an annual political congress in Beijing.
Victor Mair, said censors had taken “quick, drastic action” after “the internet was flooded with complaints”.
According to a list compiled by the China Digital Times website, search terms blocked on Weibo, China’s Twitter, included:
– ‘Ten thousand years’ (万岁), which is China’s way of saying: ‘Long live!’ or ‘Viva!’
– ‘Disagree’ (不同意)
– ‘Xi Zedong’ (习泽东) – a hybrid of the names of Xi and Chairman Mao Zedong
– ‘Shameless’ (不要脸)
– ‘Lifelong’ (终身)
-‘Personality cult’ (个人崇拜)
-‘Emigrate (移民)
– ‘Immortality’ (长生不老)
The name Yuan Shikai, a Qing dynasty warlord who unsuccessfully tried to restore monarch to China.
Less clear is why censors took issue with the letter ‘N’. Mair speculated it was “probably out of fear on the part of the government that ‘N’ = ‘n terms in office’, where possibly n > 2”.
Charlie Smith, the alias of the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a group which helps users track and bypass Chinese censorship, said he found that explanation plausible.
“[Censors] probably determined it was sensitive and then moved to add that content to the blacklist so others would not be able to post something similar,” he said, noting that the seditious symbol had now been emancipated.
“I doubt that they actually put that much thought into it so sadly, the letter ‘N’ was a temporary victim of this rash decision.”
On Wednesday, Beijing accused the west of reacting “hysterically” to the scrapping of presidential term limits.
“No sooner had [the party] made public its proposal … than the Western media began bad-mouthing China in their usual and various ways,” the party-run Global Times tabloid said in an editorial.
“It is worth noting that for some time the Western media have been growing strident in their abuse of Beijing, almost using curse words,” the newspaper added, claiming those behind the criticism hoped to see “China crumble”.
Smith said he believed Beijing had underestimated the outrage its decision would cause. “The response from Chinese netizens indicates that Xi may have miscalculated how this would be received by the general public. Hence, he has asked the censors to put in overtime and things like the letter ‘N’ end up as collateral damage.”
In their coverage, China’s state-run news outlets have played down the move, as if in hopes that most Chinese simply will not notice, or care. When reports mention the change, they argue that term limits should be eliminated to ensure leadership continuity at a time when China has ambitions to challenge American dominance and reclaim its rightful place on
the global stage. “China cannot stop and take a break,” the nationalistic Global Times warned. “The country must seize the day, seize the hour.”
Despite the blanket of censorship, and the fear that many expressed in stating their actual opinions in public, some cracks have appeared in the facade of public unity behind China’s strongman.
Retirees who endured the trauma of Mao’s Cultural Revolution are warning of a return to dictatorship. University students are posting quotes from George Washington’s farewell address online. Business executives,
George Washington’s farewell address online. Business executives, concerned about the Communist Party’s growing grip on private enterprises, are hastening plans to relocate overseas.
Li Datong, a former journalist and critic of the government, has circulated an open letter calling on the Communist Party to block Mr. Xi’s plan or risk “once again planting seeds of chaos in China and causing untold damage.” He said that Mr. Xi’s power grab would overturn the very stable and predictable system for peaceful transitions of power set up decades ago after the chaos of Mao and succession struggles under Deng Xiaoping.
“It’s going to break the chains placed on the system,” Mr. Li said in an interview. “It’s going to be very dangerous.”
Chinese history, comparing Mr. Xi to Yuan Shikai, an early 20th-century warlord who briefly restored China’s monarchy with himself as emperor.
For all the discontent, analysts said it was unlikely anything would block Mr. Xi’s attempts to extend his rule.
For one, much of the frustration over the term-limits plan is limited to the urban elite. Mr. Xi remains immensely popular among farmers and blue-collar workers, as well as a new generation of young nationalists, who admire what they view as his steely drive and see him as the architect of China’s ascent in the 21st century.
“It’s not a bad thing to remove term limits, so long as the leader has strong abilities,” said one such supporter, Mou Yuxiu, 19, a college freshman in the southwestern province of Sichuan. “President Xi is such a person.”
For another, Mr. Xi already has an iron grip on Chinese society. A sweeping anticorruption campaign has ensnared tens of thousands of officials and imposed discipline on the Communist Party and other powerful institutions like the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. There have also been conspicuously public arrests of lawyers and dissidents, including Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based publisher who has been in custody for more than two years, apparently for publishing books critical of Mr. Xi and China.
While the plan to abolish term limits may be one of the most important political decisions in decades, many citizens are simply unaware of it. The decision has been buried inside newspapers and mentioned only in passing on television news shows.
“I didn’t pay much attention to the change,” said Peng Man, a worker from the countryside now living in Beijing. “It’s a good thing if they are good officials. It’s bad thing, if they are not good officials.”
But for others, Mr. Xi’s maneuvering has rekindled memories of the Cultural Revolution, the decade-long upheaval instigated by Mao that fractured Chinese society and left more than one million dead.
Many see echoes of Mao’s obsession with power in Mr. Xi, who has placed the ideal of absolute loyalty to the party at the center of everyday life. Like Mao, Mr. Xi has also filled China’s society with political slogans and used propaganda to present himself as the leader needed to guide China to its destiny..
Critics argue that by putting such a personal stamp on power and eliminating the previous collective leadership model, Mr. Xi is setting the stage for a return to the excesses of personal loyalty and fanaticism that nearly tore China apart during Mao’s time.
“Many people inside and outside the system went through the Mao era and their anxiety is intensified,” said Zhang Lifan, a historian in Beijing, whose father, a government official, was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
Others harbor nostalgia for the politics of the Cultural Revolution, which they see as a time of decisiveness and ideological purity. They dismiss criticism of Mr. Xi’s strongman tendencies, saying centralized power is a centralized power is a sign of prosperity and stability.
“Xi Jinping can explore a new mass democracy in his own way, without the chaos, disorder and blood, and without the darkness and negatives,” said Zhang Hongliang, a Maoist commentator. “Centralized power is just a tool. What matters is who holds it.”
Mr. Xi has presented himself as a singular figure who has what it takes to eliminate corruption, reduce income inequality and extend China’s influence in the world.
While gauging public opinion in an authoritarian country is difficult, surveys suggest Mr. Xi has an approval rating of more than 80 percent. In interviews, many praise him for maintaining robust economic growth at a time when more advanced nations have faltered and for challenging America’s dominance in areas like the South China Sea.
But even many of Mr. Xi’s admirers have been taken aback by his bid for indefinite rule. Some worry that he might upset the peaceful transitions of power that have brought stability.
“More mistakes can be made if the term is longer,” said Shi Jin.“As a patriotic young person, I hope our country can have fewer people who are starving, our government can think for the people and our media can speak for the people,” Ms. Wu said. “I still hope our government will make the right decision by reflecting on history.