Veteran Chinese journalist Gao Yu said two domestic security officers came to her Beijing home after work hours on Aug. 14 and told her not to write about former Premier Zhu Rongji, as authorities imposed visible controls on public mourning following his death.
“Zhu Rongji—don’t write about him,” Gao quoted one of the officers as saying, in an Aug. 14 post on X.
Zhu died in Beijing on Aug. 12 at the age of 98, according to the official obituary. He served as China’s premier from 1998 to 2003.
Gao said the officers who visited her specifically referred to an Aug. 12 post in which she noted that Zhu had once been labeled a “rightist” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a period in his political history omitted from the official obituary.
In her Aug. 12 post, Gao wrote that Zhu was the only person among the top-ranking Chinese leaders she counted since the beginning of the People’s Republic of China to have had a history of being labeled a “rightist.”
The obituary, authorized by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, traces Zhu’s career from the 1950s through his rise to Shanghai mayor and later premier, but does not mention the rightist designation.
Two days later, Gao said, the officers asked whether she had written about Zhu being a “rightist.”
Gao wrote in her Aug. 14 post that she agreed not to post more about Zhu. Before leaving, one officer warned that if she did, “we would have to come even in the middle of the night.”
She also said a piece she had prepared involving Zhu would remain unpublished.
Mourners Gather at Ancestral Home
After Zhu’s death, people traveled to Tianyuan, his ancestral residence in Heping village, to leave flowers and pay their respects.
A video posted on X on Aug. 14 by Chinese exiled citizen journalist Li Ying shows mourners arriving with flowers at Zhu’s ancestral home, known as Tianyuan, in Changsha County, Hunan Province, as scores of plainclothes personnel stand around the property.
Barriers kept visitors back from the residence, while bouquets left by mourners were moved into another building.
A local official told the Financial Times that the flowers were being moved because Zhu’s family wanted the mourning kept low-key.
By contrast, the outlet also quoted a police officer as saying the bouquets were moved to prevent roaming chickens from damaging them.
Online Tributes Face Restrictions
Controls were also reported online.
A Chinese X user critical of the CCP, posting under the handle @queeruo, said on Aug. 15 that direct search suggestions for Zhu Rongji had disappeared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
A screenshot posted by the user instead showed the name of a Ming dynasty emperor whose Chinese name resembles Zhu’s in writing but refers to a different person.
Chinese authorities have restricted public mourning for other former senior officials.
Li Keqiang had long been seen as politically sidelined under CCP leader Xi Jinping, and speculation about tensions between the two made spontaneous mourning particularly sensitive to authorities, wary that tributes to Li Keqiang could take on a broader political meaning.
Zhu’s remains are scheduled to be cremated in Beijing on Aug. 18, when official mourning ceremonies are also set to take place.
