Cristy Li

China Censorship
Image: David Mulroney@Twitter

(SCMP) A Chinese literature scholar fears overzealous China regime education officials could ban all foreign textbooks following a call by the Education Minister (Yuan Guiren) for tougher ideological controls.

“Once the top official speaks, local officials in charge of implementing his directives often get carried away” trying to impress their superiors. This could lead them to implement a blanket ban on all foreign textbooks, said Wang Benchao, Dean of Southwest Univ School of Literature on Wednesday.

Yuan also reportedly told universities to free classrooms from remarks that ‘defame the rule of the Communist Party, smear Socialism,’ or violate the China regime’s so called constitutional liberties and laws.

In December I wrote here that subsequent to Michelle Obama’s ‘Mooch Trip’ to China promoting student educational exchanges, China President Xi Jinping called for greater ‘ideological guidance’ (propagandizing) students at universities saying:

Universities have to “shoulder the burden of learning and researching the dissemination of Marxism” calling on authorities to step up the totalitarian party’s ‘leadership and guidance’ in universities as well as to ‘strengthen and improve the ideological and political work’ as the country tighten control of Western values.

Flashback: Following Obama’s trip in November to the APEC Summit in Beijing and his call for a free and open Internet, China Digital Times reported the China regime issued a directive to all media forbidding them to report on Obama’s appeal.

Wang Benchao said it wasn’t realistic for universities to scrutinize every utterance an instructor made, “If we recorded all classes or asked students to file complaints, about defamatory speech, teachers wound not dare to say anything but the words printed in textbooks.”