In March 2016, an anonymous open letter, entitled ''The Open Letter about Calling for Comrade Xi Jinping's Resigning from His Leading Posts of the Party and the State'' (), purporting to be from unnamed "loyal

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

members", allegedly resulted in the detention of dozens of Chinese citizens, including (temporarily) six relatives of two overseas dissidents.

Background

Chinese media is heavily regulated; government censors often remove content on websites and social media. By 2015, China had 49 reporters in prison, according to the

Committee to Protect Journalists The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...

;

Freedom House Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...

had ranked the country as the world's worst abuser of internet freedom. In February 2016,

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...

visited state media outlets in a tour widely seen as an attempt to further rein in journalists and to eradicate freedom of expression. Early 2016 saw a spate of publicized censorship incidents and a crackdown on journalists, lawyers, and dissidents. In recent years, China has detained relatives of dissident writers living overseas to pressure the writers into

self-censorship Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or insti ...

Publication

The open letter asking Xi to resign his post of

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader o ...

(

paramount leader Paramount leader () is an informal term for the most important political figure in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The paramount leader typically controls the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), often hol ...

and

party leader In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a political ...

), was first posted on Canyu. It was republished by other outlets, most notably by the state-linked Watching.cn (also known as Wujie News), but was quickly taken down from Watching. The letter accuses Mr Xi of being a dictator and of committing serious economic and diplomatic blunders. The authors claim to be writing the letter out of concern for Xi and his family's "personal safety", which may be an implicit threat. The

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

speculates that the open letter may indeed have been penned by dissatisfied insiders within the ruling Communist Party, as unlike typical dissident manifestos, the letter uses Party jargon and contains no call for significant democratic reform. Professor Xiao Qiang of the University of California, Berkeley, agreed the phrasing is unusual: "Bluff or true, this tone sounds more like coup plotters talking to the leader they want to depose, rather than an open letter with dissenting political views." On the other hand, the letter may be an elaborate ruse; there is no independent evidence of any coup plot.

Full text of the open letter in English

Government response

Prominent Chinese columnist Jia Jia was detained for ten days. Chang Ping, a liberal Chinese writer living in Germany, stated that two younger brothers and a younger sister were "abducted by the Chinese police" after Chang criticized Jia's detention. The government also detained the parents and younger brother of another liberal Chinese writer, Wen Yunchao, who lives in the United States. All three writers deny any involvement in the open letter. On March 30, 2016,

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

reported that all the detained relatives of both dissidents had been released. Ouyang Hongliang, the president of Watching, was also detained. According to the BBC, a Watching staff member stated at least 15 other people employed at Watching or an associated technology company had been "taken away". The report that ten of the detained employees worked for the technology company spurred speculation that perhaps the letter was published on Watching by a hacker, or alternatively by some sort of web-crawling software that republishes content.

References

External links