China deletes over 2 million posts on 'historical nihilism' ahead of CCP's 100th anniversary

"For a while, some people have disseminated harmful information with historical nihilism on the internet, under the guise of reflection and declassification," said Wen Youhua, a division director at the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC), during a press conference in Beijing on Saturday, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Stressing that the deleted posts had "polluted" the online environment, Wen added: "Since the beginning of the campaign, we have lawfully dealt with a large number of [social media] accounts that disseminated historical nihilism. [We] have urged various websites to delete more than 2 million posts that violated laws or regulations." The Chinese government refers to all discussion or research that challenges its official version of history as 'historical nihilism'.

According to SCMP, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated in February this year that the party opposed historical nihilism as he ordered a campaign to study party history before the July 1 centenary. The CAC's website invites people to report posts that "distort" the history of the party, or China since the party's rule began in 1949. Other criteria given include "attacks on the party leadership", "slandering heroes" and vilification of traditional Chinese culture.

In February, Xi said that the campaign to educate members and the public about China's history will cover party history since its 1921 origins, but focus heavily on "historic successes" achieved since 2012, when Xi became the CCP's leader. In a 2013 address, he had accused unnamed "hostile forces" of undermining the party's rule by challenging its official account of the past, SCMP reported.

Xi has described uncontrolled public discussion of such events as a threat to the party's rule, and said it was partly responsible for the collapse of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Although the President acknowledged the party has made mistakes in the past, including the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political upheaval ordered in 1966 by former Chinese President Mao Zedong that lasted until his death.