A video of an underage Chinese boy “advocating for his country” has recently gone viral on the Internet. In the face of sanctions imposed on the Chinese Communist Party by the United Kingdom, the United States and other Western countries on issues such as human rights and Xinjiang, he shouted, “Those who violate our country will be punished from afar. Analysts say there is nothing wrong with patriotic education in any country, but it is disturbing to see a teenager of immature mind involved in such a frenzy, advocating populism and hatred.
The video, dubbed “Little War Wolf” by netizens, has gone viral on the Internet. In the one-and-a-half-minute video, the teenager claims to speak for his motherland: “From the time when Huo went to break the Xiongnu in the Han Dynasty, to the eleventh summer of the Chinese resistance to Japan in modern times, Chinese children have never chosen to submit in history, from the British and American self-appointed judges of human rights, to the unreasonable sanctions on the Xinjiang issue, Chinese children will no longer silently fail the times, I speak for my motherland …… The era of the sick man of East Asia is long gone …… Please stop your provocations and contempt for China’s sovereignty, or else, please learn what 1.4 billion Chinese are, ‘Those who violate my China will be punished though far away’ ……”
The background of the teenager is unknown, but the endorsement was taken at a time when “Chinese people don’t eat this” continues to be a hot topic. It seems that he was watching the prompt device recording the endorsement, whether the script from his own is not clear, the video director’s intention, is also unknown.
The teenager is wearing a Chinese lapel jacket made of silk with dragon and auspicious clouds, and the style is different from another web video that appeared at the same time. In that video, a boy of just a few years old, wearing a field helmet and camouflage, is imitating the head, arm and step gesture of a parade leader entering Tiananmen Square, while a woman cheers.
Public opinion is mixed
The tweet said, “I learned to be so murderous as a child. There are many anti-Chinese and insulting people in the world, can he kill them all?”
Netizens commented enthusiastically on this. One praiser commented that the manuscript was a “good poem”. The rest included: “The Boxer Rebellion is not enough, then come the Children’s Rebellion”, “The same routine as the little Red Guards”, “He is mentally ill and his parents don’t care about it, so I guess it’s genetic”, and “The parents are not thinking. “parents lack of heart, copywriting is also disgusting, can not blame the child”, “may grow up to immigrate” and so on.
There are also messages that say: “The rulers of the awesome country are too evil to teach children to hate and treat the world they live in maliciously from a young age, this kind of rule not only ruins the normal worldview of children, but also leaves a stinky reputation in the long history of the world”, “A sharp-tongued young man is So wasted by patriotic scum”, “We received such education as children, and I wonder how long it will take to get rid of the influence of this ‘education’.”
A scholar from Henan province, who wished to remain anonymous, told Voice of America that it is a terrible thing for children to speak adult language: “Children’s minds are immaturely developed, and hateful education makes children grow up without love.”
Fujian Mr. Zhang told Voice of America that things should be seen from both sides: “Ideological things certainly can’t be avoided, and children must be caught, and foreign countries must also do this thing. As long as, however, you don’t get too wild and engage in that kind of populism, like the U.S. engaging in white supremacy is not good, Japanese militarism and right-wing madness is definitely too radical.”
Mr. Zhang was not impressed by the strong anti-American, anti-British and xenophobic sentiments of the “little war wolves. He says not everyone around him is like that. “I don’t think there is any hatred between China and the United States, and there are many young children nowadays who don’t hate the United States.”
Patriotic education starts with children
As the “Little War Wolf” video emerged, the official media People’s Daily Online reported on April 13 that the Communist Party’s education department continued to deepen education on the theme of “learning the history of the Party and following the Party forever” in primary and secondary schools to coincide with the centennial of the founding of the Party, “guiding primary and secondary school students to unswervingly listen to the Party and follow the Party, so that the red gene and revolutionary fire can be passed on from generation to generation” and cultivate the so-called “three identities”, namely political identity, emotional identity and value identity. These activities include: “the hundred years of the picture”, “learning new ideas, good successor” reading activities, “children’s hearts to the party” class meeting activities.
The above-mentioned Henan scholar said: “(CCP) for strengthening patriotic education of primary and secondary school students to grasp very tightly, in addition to the mainland, Hong Kong is also the same, instilling love of country, love of the Party patriotic education, for some Western reactionary forces, especially the so-called universal value doctrine of capitalism, and specifically related to the South China Sea, the Diaoyu Islands and other sovereignty issues, shouting loudly, which is likely to be a very significant change.”
Students at an elementary school in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China, place their hands on a Communist Party flag during a lesson on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. (June 28, 2020)
He described how China is strengthening its ideology and morality education across the board for primary and secondary schools, as well as universities. On the one hand, if a teacher makes a comment that is different from the state, the school has to dismiss him or her and deal with him or her firmly. On the other hand, students who speak or act in a way that is inconsistent with the official are also to be severely disciplined.
The scholar said that only one voice is now allowed, which has become a firm action that cannot be doubted or denied, and is carried out very firmly everywhere, which is the general trend of China’s national development both internally and externally.
However, Mr. Zhang from Fujian believes that there is no excuse for this approach of the Chinese Communist Party. If you don’t do it today, people will infiltrate your next generation tomorrow. If your next generation doesn’t love the country, how can this (Communist) organization develop? Countries and countries actually follow the ‘law of the forest’, it’s all the same.”
One netizen commented, “The children are innocent, the parents are shameful and pitiful. 30 years later, when you look back at this paragraph, what kind of feeling must you have?” The netizen “the other side of the sea” said: “Little war wolf, ow, grow up to look back on how shameful.”
Video triggered by “Huang Shuai incident” review
Mr. Guo, a parent of a student in Hubei, recalled the “Huang Shuai incident” during the Cultural Revolution and raised the issue of parents and society protecting and caring for the physical and mental health of young people.
Huang Shuai, who was 13 years old in 1973, was a fifth-grade student at Zhongguancun Elementary School in Haidian District, Beijing, when a letter criticizing his teacher’s disciplinary methods was politically exploited and involved in the then Lin Biao and Confucius criticism movement. The main leader of Beijing at that time wrote back to Huang Shuai, saying, “The issue of the relationship between you and your teacher is a big matter between two classes and two lines of thought,” and then the Beijing Daily and the People’s Daily pushed forward and reproduced excerpts from Huang Shuai’s diary. The primary school student suddenly became a national “anti-trend” model.
After the “Gang of Four” lost power in 1976, Huang Shuai herself was affected. Her eligibility for admission to university was also questioned, but she was only able to enroll after the Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang asked about it. Huang Shuai went to Japan to study in 1986 and returned to China in 1998, and died in 2017 at the age of 57.
Sohu.com quoted Wang Lingshu, a senior reporter for the former China Women’s Daily who had been associated with Huang Shuai for more than a decade, as saying that Huang Shuai “was actually a victim of the times, and for many years she kept a low profile, was very peaceful and her greatest wish was to be an ordinary person. The report said the “most famous elementary school student” and “revolutionary general” in China recalled the past, saying, “The past is a mountain, so big, so heavy.”
Mr. Guo, a parent of the student, said that both parents and society have a responsibility to take care of the fragile minds of young people in such a political environment and to reduce the risk of their children being held hostage, as Chinese Communist Party politics often change according to the perceptions of key leaders. He said, “Now, as a parent, when I encounter my child being carried out with a bang and being the target of all eyes and being linked to politics, I am definitely not happy about it and will definitely not let my child get involved and will do everything I can to make my child avoid such things.”
Mr. Guo believes that Shuai Huang lived in an era when many parents confusedly believed that their children should be like Shuai Huang and strive to be revolutionary juniors. Whether then, now or in the future, Chinese adults under the party-state system are inevitably brainwashed, and the parents of the “Little War Wolf” or the video’s planners are incapable of thinking about the next generation. However, Mr. Guo said that after many years, many people are beginning to wake up and dare to reflect on and question the views put forward by the state, leaders and the official media, which is a sign of the beginning of the public’s wisdom in China in the information age.
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