(TibetanReview.net, Jan04’22) – In what must surely be an act of desperation borne of helplessness, authorities at China’s Renmin University have supposedly sacked outspoken retired professor Zhou Xiaozheng, a former director of the school’s institute of sociology, for his continued stinging rebuke of the communist party leadership of his country. Zhou, who lives in the US, had in a Jun 2021 Radio Free Asia interview described the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a criminal organization engaging in fraud, with Mao Zedong as its leader.
Zhou, 75, has been retired for more than a decade. However, on Dec 28 he received a call from the university, telling him that he was being fired him from his post.
“I said I’m retired, so how can I be fired?” rfa.org Dec 30 quoted Zhou as saying.
Zhou has said he was likely fired for “seeking truth from facts,” a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expression under the Deng Xiaoping leadership, denoting a more realistic approach to governance than was seen under late supreme leader Mao Zedong.
The report said the Renmin University move came after Zhou, who still spoke with like-minded people back in China via the social media platform WeChat, had two social media accounts shut down by government censors.
“They want to block any dissenting voices, and they have denied me my right to freedom of expression and information,” the report quoted Zhou as saying. “They are clearly acting out of a guilty conscience.”
“They cut off your oxygen, cut you off from the Internet, and leave you in a vacuum, so that even if you do say something, nobody else can hear you,” Zhou has added.
Zhou has never drawn any pension that was otherwise due to him from his university post. “I don’t want their money; I’ve never even looked at it.”
“I told them ages ago that I would donate it,” he has said.
In his June interview with Radio Free Asia, Zhou had also said of his country’s situation, “It has always been a one-party dictatorship, and now it’s a one-person dictatorship, too.”
“There is no leadership of the CCP any more: there is only one leader, and that’s Xi.”
