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FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
9 Jun 2021
Chinese social media users launched an online attack on 144 Chinese intellectuals last week after learning they participated in a Japanese government-funded cultural exchange program in Japan from 2008-2016, Reuters reported Wednesday.
“Two netizens, operating under the pseudonyms Diguaxiong Laoliu and Guyan Muchan, who each have more than six million followers on their Twitter-like Weibo accounts, accused the intellectuals of currying favour with Japan for financial gain,” Reuters reported June 9. “They joined an online ‘name and shame’ campaign to brand the intellectuals as traitors.”
“Netizens” is China’s preferred term for social media users. The Chinese Communist Party strictly censors all opinions it does not approve of on the few legal social media platforms in the country, so the continued existence of the comments that remain suggest approval from Beijing – particularly those allowed millions of follo
June 09, 2021
Twitter/Reuters
Nearly 200 Chinese intellectuals who took part in a Japanese government-affiliated exchange programme have been branded traitors on Chinese social media, reflecting rising nationalistic sentiment in China.
They were sponsored to visit Japan by the Japan Foundation, which is overseen by the Japanese foreign ministry and funded by government subsidies, investment revenue and private sector donations.
The programme was started in 2008 to improve exchanges between the two countries, with 196 Chinese intellectuals having been sponsored as of 2019, the ministry said.
But participants have been criticised by some people online, after the visits recently came to their attention. He Bing, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, writers Jiang Fangzhou and Xiong Peiyun, and journalist Duan Hongqing were among those targeted.
Foreign ministry says they are ‘common practice’ and conducive to developing relations between the two nations
Chinese intellectuals who took part in a programme partly funded by Tokyo have been attacked on social media