The Guardian-Li Keqiang funeral in China brings out crowds despite suppression effort
November 2, 2023 3 min 562 words
这篇报道描述了中国前总理李克强的丧葬仪式，以及政府对公众悼念活动的严格控制。尽管中国政府试图压制悼念活动，但仍然有数百人在李克强的葬礼场所附近聚集，表达对他的哀思。报道提到，政府担心悼念活动可能引发社会动荡，因此对其进行了严格的审查和限制。 在这种背景下，文章引用了中国历史上一些重大事件，如周恩来和胡耀邦的去世，以及李文亮医生和新疆公寓火灾引发的公众悼念活动，这些事件都曾引发了广泛的哀思和抗议。此外，文章提到李克强的政治生涯，强调了他曾被视为对中国现任领袖习近平的一种替代者，但随着习近平加强对经济和社会的控制，李克强失去了权力。 这篇报道突显了中国政府对悼念活动的严格控制，反映了中国政治环境的紧张局势和言论自由的限制。尽管政府试图压制哀思，但仍有人勇敢地表达对李克强的敬意，这表明社会中存在着不同的声音和情感。这也引发了对中国政治权力结构和领导层动态的思考。
Hundreds of people gathered near a state funeral home in China on Thursday as former premier Li Keqiang was being laid to rest.
Plainclothes and uniformed police lined the roadway leading to the funeral home, blocking traffic and telling people to move along while watching for the presence of unofficial or foreign media.
Public tributes to Li have been strictly controlled as the government seeks to prevent a mass outpouring of grief that it regards as a possible trigger for social unrest.
But despite censorship targeting “overly effusive” comments and gatherings, in Li’s home city of Hefei, in Anhui province, hundreds of mourners laid flowers for one of their most significant sons over the weekend.
The deaths of former premier Zhou Enlai in 1976, and of Hu Yaobang, a former CCP general secretary, in 1989, prompted widespread outpourings of grief that morphed into protests.
More recently, the death of Covid whistleblower Li Wenliang in 2020, and a deadly apartment fire in Xinjiang in 2022, have triggered expressions of public grief – with the latter becoming the “white paper” protests that spread across several cities.
In Li’s honour, flags at Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing were lowered to half mast, as well as at government and party offices around China and embassies and consulates abroad.
“In memory of comrade Li Keqiang, flags were flown at half-mast at Tiananmen Square in the capital,” CCTV said in a report accompanied by a photo of the flag being lowered in front of the monumental gate against the backdrop of a foggy grey morning.
Li died last Friday of a heart attack at age 68. State media had said he would be cremated on Thursday but did not mention funeral plans. According to precedent, retired high-level officials usually lie in state briefly as top leaders pass the body and offer wreaths of white flowers, the traditional colour of mourning.
Li helped guide China’s economy for a decade before being dropped from the Communist party’s all-powerful politburo standing committee in October 2022. He left office in March 2023 despite being two years below the informal retirement age of 70.
Though his time in office was marked by numerous crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, he was seen as an alternative to the increasingly authoritarian party leader Xi Jinping. When Li became premier, the second most powerful position in China’s leadership, in 2013, he carried hopes of embracing private enterprise and allowing the free market to flourish.
But Li was left with little authority after Xi made himself the most powerful Chinese leader in decades and tightened control over the economy and society.
Xi awarded himself a third five-year term as party leader and filled the top party ranks with loyalists. The role of premier was given to Li Qiang, the party secretary for Shanghai, who lacked Li Keqiang’s national level experience and later told reporters that his job was to do whatever Xi decided.
– With the Associated Press