SILENCED:Hsu Hsin-liang’s microblogging account was shut down by the Chinese authorities less than two hours after being opened, following similar shutdowns
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Hsu Hsin-liang’s (許信良) microblogging account on the Chinese Web site QQ.com, operated by Tencent Inc, was suspended for unknown reasons less than two hours after its creation.
An aide to Hsu aide yesterday afternoon said that the account was suspended, but declined to comment on the development.
Hsu was the second senior DPP politician who holds a moderate stance toward China to have a Chinese microblogging account suspended this year, following former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), whose Weibo account on Sina.com was canceled within 24 hours of being created in February.
Hsu on Friday released a paper, titled What should Taiwan do? calling for immediate cross-strait political negotiations to rejuvenate stagnant economic exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
According to my-formosa.com, an online news Web site where Hsu serves as chairman, Hsu created the account on QQ.com on Monday afternoon and posted four messages after the account was approved at 4pm.
However, the account was suspended at about 6pm.
My-formosa.com quoted a Chinese netizen as saying that “while Hsu blasted President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) lukewarm attitude toward China, his comments were perceived as intolerable by Beijing as well.”
Several DPP politicians, including DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), Hsieh and Hsu, opened Weibo accounts after the party’s loss in the presidential election last year to try understand more about China and Chinese people.
Responding to the suspension of Hsieh’s Weibo account in February, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said at the time that the incident showed how valuable Taiwanese democracy and freedom are, and Taiwanese were advised “not to have false expectations of the Chinese government.”