China tightens grip on discourse, ideology

Chinese authorities have shut down or frozen the microblog accounts of several prominent liberal intellectuals and harassed rights lawyers lobbying against unofficial "black jails," underlining the determination of the country's new leadership to control dissent even as it vows to root out corruption.
The moves over the last few days occurred around the time officials announced that a senior official was being investigated for graft, months after a prominent journalist accused him of wrongdoing.
The probe against Liu Tienan, deputy chairman of China's economic planning agency, was heralded by the Chinese press as proof that the battle against corruption is best fought when authorities allow public participation.

"The authorities and the people combined their strengths in this case, and it is an encouragement to the public's power in fighting corruption," said a state-run daily, the Beijing News, in a commentary.
But in other instances, the authoritarian government has shown an unwavering intent to clamp down on anyone who seeks to publicly pressure it into social or political change. The message appears to be that if any reform is on the agenda, the Communist Party will push it through on its own terms.
"The controls are tighter than ever," said Li Cheng, an expert on China's elite politics at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "The challenges are greater, so the suppression is escalating."

Small groups of activists have been detained in Beijing and other cities for holding banners calling for officials to publicly declare their assets a key anti-graft measure that the government has been reluctant to implement.

One activist, Liu Ping, has been accused of inciting subversion, a vaguely worded charge frequently used to suppress dissidents.
Authorities are also maintaining a years-long effort to quash legal activism.
On Monday, several rights lawyers attempting to visit one of China's unofficial detention centers also known as "black jails" in the southwestern city of Ziyang were beaten by unidentified men, said Beijing attorney Li Heping, who was contacted by one of the lawyers.

The efforts to police discourse are also being ramped up in the Chinese blogosphere, where users often challenge the government's version of events and its control over information.
Over the weekend, authorities apparently removed all microblog accounts belonging to the writer Hao Qun, better known by his pen name Murong Xuecun, from four different sites. His subsequent efforts to set up new accounts have been blocked, he said.