Mo Yan is widely celebrated in China but now faces a lawsuit accusing him of smearing the Communist party amid an increasingly febrile atmosphere online
At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common. But in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valour in cyberspace.
Last month a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan, accusing him of smearing the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China.
Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo”, is seeking 1.5bn yuan ($208m/£164m) in damages from Mo – one yuan per Chinese citizen – as well as an apology from Mo and the removal of the offending books from circulation. His lawsuit has not yet been accepted by any court.
A lawsuit that hasn’t been picked up by any court from a nationalistic zealot vs a Nobel Prize winner for an insane amount.
How is this news?
If the Nobel Prize winner was being sued or charged by his country or the CCP then yeah it’d be news but at most this is a fluff piece to stoke nationalistic fervor from people in the west against China.
Edit: Spleling
Edit 2: Or if it gets picked up by a court then it might be news but at this point it’s a nothing burger.