How China can gain from clearing the air over freedom of speech

Audrey Jiajia Li says the backlash sparked by one young student’s graduation address cannot obscure China’s shortcomings on clean air or free speech, and airing such so-called dirty linen can only help society improve

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Audrey Jiajia Li

Published: 5:43pm, 30 May 2017Updated: 7:44pm, 30 May 2017

Thanks to the rise of government-led ultra-nationalism in China, fewer and fewer people are tolerated for “washing their dirty linen”. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Whenever a Chinese student gives a commencement speech at a major US college, it tends to draw tremendous interest back home, for the gratification of national pride it offers or simply as excellent English-learning material.

Unfortunately for Yang Shuping of the University of Maryland, the graduation speech she delivered, drawing a parallel between the air pollution in China and the country’s restrictions on free speech, became a nightmare for her.

Recalling her delightful first impression of America’s clean air, Yang expressed her appreciation for having the freedom to speak up. That saw China’s hawkish nationalist tabloid, the Global Times, label her an unpatriotic traitor who had belittled her homeland. Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily also weighed in, accusing her of “bolstering negative stereotypes about China” and thus setting off a storm of online backlash and abuse.

Watch: Yang Shuping on fresh air and freedom in the US

After all her private information, including even the home address of her family, was dug up and posted online, through ways the angry netizens proudly called “human flesh hunt”, Yang apologised, deleted all her posts, disabled both her Weibo and Facebook accounts and disappeared. No one knows just how traumatised she has been by such cruel cyberbullying.