China Hard-Liners Flex Ideology

BEIJING — China’s guardians of Marxist ideology on Tuesday announced a new campaign against pornography and Western liberalism and said they will press on with an anti-crime drive in which hundreds have been executed.

The announcements in the party newspaper People’s Daily indicated that the hard-liners who have dominated Chinese politics since June, 1989, have no intention of relaxing their hold.

Liu Zhongde, who headed an anti-pornography drive last year, said a new campaign will clean up the remaining “spiritual pollution and cultural garbage.” In last year’s drive, pro-democratic publications as well as pornography were seized and burned.

Liu said that 12% of the country’s newspapers, 13% of its social science periodicals and more than 7% of its publishing houses have been closed since June, 1989. He said that 32 million books and magazines have been destroyed and nearly 80,000 people convicted of illegal publishing.

“This is still just a good beginning,” he said.