Beijing shuts down website popular among liberal intellectuals

After Yanhuang Chunqiu, Consensus Net is inaccessible. Space for free expression is shrinking.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Consensus Net, or Gongshi Web, a website popular with Chinese intellectuals, became inaccessible this weekend. Its operator said yesterday that he had no idea whether it would be back online.

Set up in September 2009, the digital platform carried reports and analysis by both left- and right-wing scholars on topics including history, politics and economics.

Its founder, Zhou Zhixing, a well-connected publisher and political commentator, said the website had not been shut down by the authorities, but he was uncertain about its future.

“It’s hard to predict what will happen in the future but, up to this moment, there is no order to stop the operation of the website,” he said.

Ostensibly, the site was suspended for an upgrade. However, it is hard not to see its suspension against the backdrop of China’s tightening censorship against liberal media and intellectuals.

This comes several months after a massive management reshuffle at Beijing-based outspoken political magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, which sparked concern about the stifling of liberal voices in mainland publications.

A Beijing-based academic who declined to be identified said intellectuals on the mainland were losing their space to make their opinions public as the authorities tightened their grip.

• china
• religious freedom
• intellectuals
• consensus net
• yanhuang chunqiu