They've gone after bloggers, journalists, artists, comedians and celebrity chefs. Now, some of China's most zealous online nationalists have a new target in their crosshairs: the country's first officially recognized Nobel laureate.
Mo Yan, a novelist best known for his earthy tales of rural life in China, sparked national pride when he became the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. A top Communist Party official sent a letter of congratulations, hailing his win as a reflection of the rise of Chinese literature and the country's "overall national strength and international influence."
More than a decade on, the 69-year-old writer is under fire from a belligerent brand of nationalism that has thrived under Xi Jinping, China's most authoritarian leader in decades.
Under Xi, the Communist Party has cracked down on dissenting views, including those seen as straying from its official narrative on history. That has spurred a growing army of nationalist commentators to wage a social media crusade against "harmful" comments about the country's past, especially depictions that cast the party in a less glorious light.
Among those leading the charge is Wu Wanzheng, a self-proclaimed patriotic blogger who goes by the online name of "Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo." For over a year, Wu has hurled attacks at Mo and his novels, accusing them of "distorting history" and smearing the Communist Party's revolutionary legacy.
His campaign drew wide attention last month, when the blogger announced he would sue the celebrated writer, whose real name is Guan Moye, for insulting national heroes and martyrs – a crime punishable by up to three years in prison under a law passed in 2018.
Wu listed dozens of alleged transgressions in Mo's books, including his acclaimed novel "Red Sorghum," a story of love and resistence spanning three generations of a rural Chinese family in the 20th century, starting from the early years of the war against Japanese invasion.
Citing excerpts of the book, Wu took issue with Mo's characters in the Communist army who didn't want to fight the Japanese. He also accused Mo of glorifying Japanese invaders by portraying some of them as handsome.
"As an upright and patriotic young man, I am outraged. Does our country tolerate such behavior?" he wrote.
Wu demanded Mo apologize and offer 1 yuan ($0.14) to each Chinese citizen as compensation. He also wanted Mo's "problematic books" to be taken off the shelves across China, according to his posts on Weibo, where he now boasts nearly 220,000 followers.
Wu's attempt to take Mo to court sparked heated debate online on the excesses of nationalism, censorship and the shrinking space for artistic and cultural freedoms.
But while many nationalist users cheered Wu on, others came to Mo's defense likening the attack to the specter of Mao's tumultuous Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals and artists were denounced, publicly humiliated and beaten by young Red Guards.
Keep reading about the controversy.
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