Terry Sarten: China reacts to subversive power of the humble letter 'N'

With Chinese leader Xi Jinping, one must choose one's words very carefully

I hope the New Zealand government is not taking notes as the Chinese leadership moves to make themselves into rulers for life.

Although we complain about the short-term thinking of the three-year NZ electoral cycle, we are not keen on our leaders taking it upon themselves to declare they are going to be in charge indefinitely.

Experts on the politics of China are watching the moves by Xi Jinping, general-secretary of the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party, as he manoeuvres to set himself up as president for life and observing the ruling Communist party's attempts to stifle dissent by imposing censorship on aspects of public comment on the internet.

Censorship moves have included removing any references to historical names, phrases and even specific words from posts on the internet that hint at dissent. Examples being the word "disagree" - presumably because people cannot be allowed to utter any opposition to the notion of a lifetime dictatorship.

Putting together the names Xi and Chairman Mao Zedong is being banned as another subversive undermining of the leadership by linking notions of dictatorship.

Mentioning "life-long" or "personality cult" is being culled from the internet as the government moves to dampen resistance to the power grab being made by the party leaders.

Initially, even the use of the letter 'N' was silenced by censorship as a mischief-making alphabetic symbol of rebellion.

It was not clear what exactly had prompted the sudden fear of 'N'. It is thought by China watchers that the 'N' was linked in some obscure way to talking about the terms of office as the Communist Party proposes abolishing constitutional limits for Xi, allowing him to be President for Life. This created fear and panic amongst the ruling party that the 'N' might in some way incite others to voice opposition.

A move to ban the 'N' was surprising. It seems odd that the leaders of a great nation such as China would feel threatened by a little letter in the English alphabet, but clearly 'N' has more power then we imagined.

It seems the regime did look at this element of their censorship campaign and decided it was bit daft, but they have remained firm in their banning of any mention of George Orwell or his books Animal Farm and 1984, as these contain scathing and direct challenges to dictatorships and authoritarian forms of government.

If Chinese politicians believe they can censure the opinions of 1.388 billion people in order to get their way, then in theory it should be very easy for our New Zealand government to stop us thinking all kinds of dissenting things that might require a response.

The previous government tried very hard to prevent any talk of a housing crisis. Families lived in cars and the poverty word was banned from the lips of MPs thus negating any need to do anything.

The Chinese attempt to ban the 'N' does leave us contemplating the letters MP in the NZ context. These two letters often appear to stand for "Me" and "Privilege" rather than anything to do with accountability and governance.

We are now seeing an unravelling of poor decision-making by government ministers across a range of areas with no sign that any of them feel at all responsible for what they have left in their wake.

The Opposition talk of opposing the government on every move is ridiculous - this is being deliberately destructive rather than constructive at a time when the need to work together to tackle inequality and its effect on the nation's children is more important than jockeying for power and scoring points in Parliament.

■Terry Sarten is a writer, social worker and musician - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz