The Puzzle Surrounding a Father’s Day Photo of Jailed Chinese Politician <PERSON> and His Son · Global Voices
<PERSON> changed his profile picture on the Father's Day. From <PERSON> Facebook.
<PERSON> was born into an elite Chinese Communist Party family. His father, disgraced top official <PERSON>, was only a few years ago a rising political star who promoted far-left Maoist policies and led a strong-arm crackdown on organized crime in Chongqing.
On Father’s Day, June 21, of this year, <PERSON> changed his profile photo on Facebook to a childhood snapshot in which his father teaches him Tai Chi beside a lake. Some would consider it pretty normal for a son to miss his father on the special day.
Coincidentally, on the same day, party-affiliated Beijing Times dismissed the younger <PERSON> as the “deceitful second generation of a government official” (坑爹官二代) in a widely circulated article published on the newspaper's official WeChat account.
The article, titled “Father's Day: Let's talk about the ‘deceitful second generation of a government official”, mocks the children of corrupt politicians:
今天是父亲节，一些人只能待在「四面高墙」或是异国他乡，追思昔日的「父愛如山」和富贵荣华。这群人有共同特点─坑爹。
Today is Father's Day. Some people can only greet this day enclosed by four walls [in jail] or in exile, dwelling on the “father's love” and wealthy life of the past. 341
These people share the same characteristic — deceitful.
Without any public comments from <PERSON> to go on, Chinese netizens were left to figure out the exact motivations behind his Facebook photo change. As to the Beijing Times‘ commentary, a number of overseas Chinese media outlets speculated if it implies the next round of authorities’ anti-corruption campaign would target the children of corrupt officials.
During his time in power in Chongqing, <PERSON>'s father <PERSON> staged campaigns “praising red communism and striking criminal gangs” — including arranging people to sing red songs, showing propaganda films on local TV channels and arresting some gang-affiliated officials — and promoted the concept of the “red GDP.” Most local people viewed the campaigns as strengthening public security, but some suspected <PERSON> was using them to purge the dissident subordinates from the Party.
<PERSON> has enjoyed more privilege than most ordinary Chinese. He attended the prestigious Harrow School in England, and later studied at Oxford University and Harvard University. In 2009, he was nominated as one of “Ten Outstanding Chinese Young Persons” in the U.K. His luxurious life overseas — clubbing, partying even as his father faced trial, and allegedly driving a red Ferrari (although details of this story are conflicting) — has frequently been fodder for public gossip.
In an address at Peking University in May 2009, <PERSON> responded to the perception that he has a sense of superiority due to his elite family. Below is an excerpt of a report by mainland China media Southern Weekly:
家世再度成为现场无法回避的话题。一位同学问：“虽然说人人生而平等，但是像你可以从小到外国去深造，还可以在父亲的帮助下去部队锻炼，这些都是普通人不敢想象的。 341