The following post by Chinese poet Xu Xin (徐昕) was deleted from Sina Weibo on September 21, 2012. The post, a response to calls for the boycotting of Japanese goods in the midst of the China-Japan row over sovereignty of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, is a poster calling for people to focus instead on the special privileges enjoyed by China’s government leaders. Xu Xin currently has more than 152,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
“Smashing special provisions [for Party leaders] is better than boycotting Japanese goods!”
A series of news reports in 2011 revealed how China’s leaders enjoyed special supplies of organic vegetables and other foods even as the country was racked by continuous food safety scandals impacting ordinary Chinese.
The poster’s slogan in Chinese reads:
抵制日货不如砸烂特供
“Those who eat special supplies are the true traitors and knaves in this country! The harm they do is greater than that of invaders!” one user responded to Xu Xin’s post.
NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.