![]() "The red second generation have probably spotted overall trends of opinion among the new administration and in Chinese society as a whole," Jiao said. "It's a fairly enlightened trend, and I think the fact she has come out and apologized has to do with her very powerful family background," Jiao said. But he said Song had likely decided to follow a growing trend towards openness on the subject. He saw Song's apology as a precursor to more official expressions of regret from high-ranking Communist Party leaders. "How are we to pursue it? It's a political topic," he said. ![]() "The Cultural Revolution has been a forbidden zone that no one can touch upon, whether in conversation, in academia, or in movies and television," Jiao said. "It's the law of the jungle masquerading as politics."īian's widower Wang Jingyao has already spoken out publicly against Song's continued association as a high-profile alumna with the Beijing Normal College Girls' High School, saying her Red Guard armband was "soaked with his wife's blood."įormer Beijing University journalism professor Jiao Guobiao said Song's apology highlighted how politically sensitive any public mention of the Cultural Revolution has become in today's China. "It's just that the way it's expressed is slightly different," he said. Yu said state-sanctioned violence has simply changed its name. "The so-called 10-year Cultural Revolution has never really ended, because there has been no, and neither has the anti-rightist movement." ![]() "An apology can't exist verbally it must amount to a confession of a crime," he said. "The suffering that Bian Zhongyun went through is being re-enacted today," Yu said. "I hope that all of those who made mistakes during the Cultural Revolution - all those who did harm to their teachers and classmates - can face themselves, reflect on the Cultural Revolution, ask for forgiveness, and achieve reconciliation."Ĭhina has yet to authorize any national event in memory of this period in the nation’s history, and many still bear privately the scars of a time when neighbors, colleagues, and families denounced, attacked, and even killed one another in a frenzy of mass political "struggle."īeijing-based constitutional affairs scholar Yu Meisun said Song had been a powerful student leader during more than a decade of political in-fighting and summary justice sanctioned by late supreme leader Mao Zedong, and that her apology meant little in the context of continuing state-sponsored violence. "If we don't reflect on things, it is hard to get close to the truth," she told the Beijing News. It is still unclear whether Song played a physical part in the killing, however. In June 1966, Song authored a "big-character poster" denouncing the leadership of her school, which sparked mass political "struggle sessions" against teachers and administrators and culminated in Bian's death. "I failed to protect leaders of the school, and this has been a source of lifelong pain and remorse," Song said. ![]() "Please allow me to express my everlasting grief and apologies to.Bian," Song, who is now 64, said during a tearful apology on a recent visit to her former school, official media said on Monday. Song Binbin, daughter of veteran ruling Chinese Communist Party revolutionary Song Renqiong, said she felt an 'everlasting grief' over the beating to death of teacher Bian Zhongyun by her teenage pupils at the height of the chaos in 1966. A former Mao-era Red Guard and daughter of a high-ranking People's Liberation Army (PLA) general has apologized over the killing of a teacher during the political violence of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
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