September 27, 2016
BEIJING — Once again, a Beijing court has ruled that tampering with the official narrative of a Communist hero is off limits.
The hero this time is Qiu Shaoyun, a young soldier celebrated in Chinese textbooks for choosing to burn to death during the Korean War rather than betray his comrades’ positions. According to that account, written by a fellow soldier, Mr. Qiu was hiding in high grass before a planned attack in 1952, when an American incendiary bomb fell nearby. Instead of escaping, he held his ground and died a martyr. “This great soldier, till his last breath, did not move or even moan,” the account reads.
The offender is Sun Jie, a blogger who has attracted more than nine million followers with his often-sarcastic social commentaries. In 2013, he wrote a post on Weibo that mocked the story of the unwavering Mr. Qiu.
“Because Qui Shaoyun lay in the fire without moving, consumers refused to pay for meat grilled on just one side,” he wrote. “They preferred the barbecued meat of Lai Ning.”
Lai Ning was another martyr, declared a “heroic youth” by the Communist Youth League because in 1988, at the age of 14, he was said to have fought a mountain conflagration for hours until he, too, burned to death.
Within hours, Mr. Sun, who publishes on Weibo under the name Zuoyeben, or Exercise Book, deleted his post, but it had already gone viral. Then, last year, the issue re-emerged, when an herbal drink producer, Jiaduobao, posted an appeal to Mr. Sun, saying, given his barbecue fame, “We support you becoming the C.E.O. of a barbecue shop,” and offering to supply the store with 100,000 cans of herbal tea.
Mr. Sun replied: “Thank you. I’ll certainly open a barbecue shop. But I haven’t decided when. Anyone who leaves a comment here can drink it for free.”
Commenters were quick to make the connection with Mr. Sun’s earlier joke about national heroes as grilled meat, and some vowed to boycott Jiaduobao. The company, which is based in Hong Kong, quickly said that it was unaware of that joke and that it had asked many celebrities to promote its products. Mr. Sun published his own apology, saying his original remarks were inappropriate.
Too late.
The brother of Mr. Qiu filed a lawsuit against Mr. Sun and Jiaduobao, claiming that the posts had infringed on Mr. Qiu’s reputation and demanding “the immediate cessation of the infringement” as well as an apology and payment of the symbolic compensation of 1 renminbi, or about 15 cents.
This week, the Daxing District People’s Court in Beijing agreed, saying the posts had “undermined the public interest” and “caused Qiu’s family psychological trauma.” Mr. Sun and Jiaduobao were ordered to pay the brother 1 renminbi and to issue public apologies for five consecutive days.
Shortly after the ruling on Tuesday, Mr. Sun posted that he accepted the verdict and apologized. “I was wrong,” he wrote. Jiaduobao did the same. On Friday, Mr. Sun’s Weibo account had been taken offline.
The case comes after another court in Beijing punished a challenge to some of the most celebrated heroes of the Communist pantheon.
In August, the Xicheng District People’s Court in Beijing ruled that a historian, Hong Zhenkuai, had defamed five Communist soldiers who, while fending off the Japanese invaders in 1941, leapt from a mountain — three to their deaths — rather than surrender. Mr. Hong had published two scholarly articles raising doubts about the tale of what are known as the Five Heroes of Langya Mountain. The court said he had “damaged the Chinese nation’s spiritual values” and ordered him to publicly apologize to the sons of two of the five men.
On Wednesday, Zhang Li, one of the lawyers who represented Mr. Qiu’s brother in his suit against Mr. Sun, said in an interview that Mr. Sun’s post in 2013 constituted “very bad behavior.”
“No matter how Qiu Shaoyun died, his family wouldn’t want him to be insulted like this,” Mr. Zhang said.
But Qiao Mu, a journalism professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said that while Mr. Sun’s posts contained words that were derogatory, the real issue was whether challenging the Communist Party’s official heroes was permissible.
“He used inappropriate words,” Mr. Qiao said of Mr. Sun. “But does that mean historical figures can’t be questioned or ridiculed? The question is whether there is any freedom of speech on this.”
Court rulings that punish comment stifle the search for historical truth, he said. “It doesn’t resolve anything. We don’t know what truth really is. But the trend of politicizing such cases is worrying.”
Online, reaction to Mr. Sun’s apology has been divided. Some commenters said that Mr. Sun crossed a line by not showing respect for the war dead. Others wondered whether North Korea would exist today if Chinese soldiers had not come to its aid after it invaded South Korea in 1950.
“All the dead should be respected. This is the bottom line,” a user who identified as Shiyang Comments wrote on Weibo. “But the problem with propaganda is that it grossly exaggerates and beautifies heroic models and only allows one voice.”
“Why do we praise cannon fodder?” asked a person with the handle Roaring Lion, adding that the party needed “to manipulate ordinary people to continue serving as cannon fodder.”
Another user, Yidiechihen, wrote, referring to the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un: “Thanks to Qiu Shaoyun, who made possible another nuclear test today by Fat Kim.”
