Posts smearing China lead to man's detention

A man was criminally detained upon his return to China recently for allegedly spreading online comics on domestic and foreign websites insulting China, Dalian police in Northeast China's Liaoning province said on Sunday.

Since January 2018, the 36-year-old man, surnamed Lu, produced a series of anti-China comics－together with a 22-year-old woman surnamed Zhang who was detained in May by police in Anhui province－and published them in more than 140 posts, according to a Sina Weibo post by the police in Dalian's Shahekou district.

The police in Tianjiaan district, Huainan in Anhui province, said in a statement that Zhang, an avid fan of Japanese comics and culture, produced comics series featuring pigheaded Chinese to distort history, misinterpret China-related news and events and smear the living habits of Chinese people. Zhang provided over 300 such pieces to Lu to spread online.

Police said these posts encouraged splitting the country and promoted nationalistic hatred, which distorted history, insulted China and its people, and incited antagonism between nations.

Lu has also been cooperating with similar communities at home and abroad to spread anti-Chinese rhetoric to young students in China and also recruited young people to join them and set up illegal organizations via the internet to advocate Japanese militarism, police said.

Such people have been referred to as a jingri, a Chinese national who is "spiritually Japanese," identifying much more with Japan than China. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi slammed them in March last year as "scum among Chinese people".

Also on Sunday, police in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, said they detained a man surnamed Dai who was inspired by jingri groups abroad and stole hundreds of Weibo accounts to spread anti-China messages, including one that said the Nanjing Massacre was fabricated.

The 20-year-old suspect also coaxed teenagers into joining jingri groups and brainwashed them with Japanese militarism. The police put him in detention on a charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble.