Feng Gang is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University. Image source: Sogou Encyclopedia
Feng Gang’s microblogging remarks at Zhejiang University drew criticism from the official media. (Image source: screenshot composite)
Feng Gang, a sociology professor at Zhejiang University, has been posting articles about Chinese people and freedom on his Weibo account for several days, and has been named by some Chinese media and satirized by netizens as a “Western licking dog”.
Since March 20, Feng Gang has posted several microblogs about “freedom” and “democracy,” for example: “The true rule of law and democracy are connected… In a nation that has no faith but recognizes the law of success and defeat, the law is just a joke!”
He also retweeted a news story about London, England residents opposing strict control measures on the Epidemic, and wrote on March 28 that Chinese people have too few opportunities to enjoy freedom, “We don’t know what the value of freedom is… So of course, we, a people who do not have any sense of freedom, cannot understand the series of initiatives in the West such as protesting against wearing masks, protesting against Home bans, protesting against city closures, etc.”, attributing the different reactions of China and the West to city closures, home bans, etc. to cultural differences.
Feng Gang’s remarks have sparked different opinions overseas.
Some criticized that it is not that Chinese people do not understand freedom, but that they dare not pursue it under the dictatorial control of the Chinese Communist Party, and that “the one who dares to act differently from the government will not end up well.” “Do people have the opportunity to speak out freely? The internet is full of online police not to mention real Life” “It is interesting that this professor of a prestigious university who has a deep understanding of freedom is determined to live in an unfree China, is it to educate the Chinese who do not understand what freedom is? It’s full of doctrine, but it’s really all business.”
Of course there are those who agree with him, “This professor is right, deeply moved.”
But at home, he drew almost lopsided criticism. First, he was named by the official media. For example, on March 29, the Observer criticized Feng Gang’s comments as “anti-intellectual” in the sense that he was using the high hat of “freedom” to justify the Western public’s “anti-intellectual” behavior of not wearing masks and protesting against segregation measures. Then the network also rehashed Feng Gang’s previous comments about “freedom”, saying that Feng Gang had made many other similar “yin and yang” comments, criticizing Feng Gang for “moralizing and advocating freedom” on Weibo. However, his personal words and actions are untenable, and he was criticized for being “anti-intellectual” and “selfish” by some netizens’ critical messages.
Netizens also flocked to Feng Gang’s microblog, interpreting his comments as “Westerners don’t wear masks as freedom, while Chinese people don’t know freedom” and sarcastically calling him a “Western licker” and “who gave them so much confidence to Who gives them so much confidence to laugh at the people? Is it the so-called Western Culture?” He also followed the example of the official media in rehashing Feng Gang’s past comments, calling him “brainless” and “a publicist with the same old ways”.
Feng Gang has deleted the above-mentioned Weibo article.
According to the official website of Zhejiang University, Feng Gang is currently a professor of sociology and doctoral supervisor at the School of Public Administration of Zhejiang University, executive director of the Sociological Society of the Communist Party of China, executive director of the Sociological Society of Zhejiang Province, member of the Decision-making Advisory Committee of Hangzhou Municipal Government, and deputy director of the Research Center for Local Government and Social Governance. His classic quotes include: “The essence of state-owned enterprises is that they take the people’s money as capital and come back to earn the people’s money, to live a good life, we must abide by the rules, but the rules must be made by everyone together, not by a few people who have the power to say what they want, otherwise everyone will not abide by the rules, no one will have a good life, if the rule of law is how the ruler wants to legislate, how to legislate, what law they want to If the rule of law is how the ruler wants to legislate on how to legislate, want to make what law on what law, the essence of this is lawlessness” and so on.
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