The Beijing authorities have arrested a former investigative journalist and limited private investment in particular in the media.
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The same day when two journalists were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – Past information in China – Beijing took, on Friday, October 8, two decisions aimed at further restricting freedom of expression. The authorities arrested Luo Changping, a former investigative journalist who preferred to change jobs after the arrival of Xi Jinping in power. His crime? Having dared to criticize on social networks the great Patriotic movie The Battle at Lake Changjin, which makes rooms attic.
Distributed on the occasion of the National Day of 1 October, this blockbuster returns to a decisive episode of the War of Korea (1950-1953): the encirclement for seventeen days , by the Chinese troops – from the rescue of the North Korea – of the UN troops led by the Americans who were, until then, in the process of conducting a victorious counter-offensive against the army of Pyongyang which had Previously invaded the south. Led in the winter, in an extreme cold, the Battle of Changjin had forced the Americans to withdraw from North Korea.
China has always been a victim of the United States. The war is known only under one name: “The war of resistance to American aggression and to help Korea.” That it was initiated by the dictator Kim Il-Sung, after receiving the fire Stalin’s green, does not appear anywhere. The “volunteers” sent by Mao are heroes, dead in martyrs. The lesson of the film, according to one of its scriptwriters, is explicit: “China is not intimidated.” In a week, the film has made more than 3 billion yuan (more than 400 million euros) of recipes.
The “stupidity” of Chinese troops
In a posted comment on social networks at the beginning of the week, Luo Changping described the Chinese troops of “stupid”. Rather than debating the war, it is enough to compare the development levels of North Korea and South Korea to realize it, “he noted. The commentary was censored and the author arrested. We can now read on his Weibo account an official text explaining that “heroes and martyrs should not be dishonored and [that] Cyberspace is not a place out of the law. Public security bodies will severely investigate and treat insults, slanders or attacks on the reputation and honor of the martyrs, in accordance with the law. “.
Since 2018, defame or criticize the martyrs is a crime. For suggesting that the number of Chinese soldiers who died in 2020 during the border conflict with India was higher than the four officially recognized deaths, a blogger was sentenced in June to eight months in prison.
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