Former PLA engineer's appointment as new Twitter MD for China raises eyebrows/ENG

2016. április 19./Phayul.com/TibetPress

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By Tenzin Monlam

DHARAMSHALA, April 19: The appointment of a Chinese woman with past links with People’s Liberation Army as Twitter’s first ever Managing Director for China has not been received well by the small Chinese twitter users’ community, anticipating stricter measure on freedom of speech over the platform.

The main concerns for the Chinese tweeps are her connection with the communist party, which many say will result in greater scrutiny to the already highly monitored social media.

Before shifting to private sector with Microsoft and Cisco in China, she worked with the Chinese military and also for a joint venture partly owned by the China’s Ministry of Public Security.

Badiucao, an Australia-based political cartoonist called the appointment ‘a murder of free speech’ along with a drawing of a dead twitter logo pierced by a gold star.

Washington-based Chinese activist, Yaxue Cao tweeted, “So Twitter hired someone who's a user for exactly 1 day & who has deep (or should I say, unfathomable) ties with CCP's security apparatus.”

Cao in his article on ‘chinachange.org’ wrote, “Chen is without a doubt a Chinese Communist Party member, based on a common sense understanding of China. She has been through the most strict and exacting process of political examination, and has been found by the Party to be reliable.”

Official state media companies in China like CCTV and Xinhua are permitted to have Twitter accounts, but the service is blocked for others on the mainland. Since her appointment, Chen in her earlier tweets mentioned that she is looking forward to working with CCTV News and Xinhua, both state-run media houses.

Despite the limited number of Twitter users in China, it has become a platform for Chinese activists and dissidents living abroad to voice their concern about China.

According to a spokesperson of Twitter, they are not trying to become unblocked in China. “Under Kathy Chen’s leadership, we will provide more of Twitter Inc.’s enterprise offerings—such as advertising, customer service, data analytics and developer platforms—to Chinese businesses and startups to help them reach a global audience.”