On June 4, 2020, the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, former China international and all-time leading national-team goalscorer Hao Haidong posted a video on YouTube titled “Declaration of the New Federal State of China,” criticizing the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian rule.
This article records his statements concerning Hong Kong, human rights, democracy, and the novel coronavirus.
2020-06-06
The Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian rule has “disregarded human rights, trampled on democracy, and perpetrated slaughter in Hong Kong”…
Using the novel coronavirus, it has “waged biological and chemical warfare against the world.”
The following is from an article published in today’s Sankei Shimbun under the headline “‘Overthrow the Communist Party’: Chinese Football Legend Issues Online Declaration.”
[Beijing—Yoshiaki Nishimi]
On June 4, the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, in which Chinese authorities used military force in Beijing to suppress students and others calling for democratization, Hao Haidong, 50, a former China international and the national team’s all-time leading goalscorer, posted a video on the U.S. video-sharing site YouTube titled “Declaration of the New Federal State of China,” appearing openly on camera and declaring that “the annihilation of the Chinese Communist Party is necessary for justice.”
YouTube is blocked in China, and reporting on Hao’s remarks also appears to have been banned.
However, the site can still be accessed from within China using special apps, and the football legend’s sudden call to “overthrow the Communist Party” has sent shock waves through some circles.
In the video, Hao asserted that the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian rule had “disregarded human rights, trampled on democracy, and perpetrated slaughter in Hong Kong.”
He also said that it had used the novel coronavirus to “wage biological and chemical warfare against the world.”
He also hinted at cooperation with Stephen Bannon, former chief strategist to U.S. President Donald Trump, and Guo Wengui, a former Chinese businessman living in exile in the United States.
When and where the video was filmed remain unknown, but Hao is believed to be staying overseas.
On June 4, the influential Chinese sports newspaper Titan Sports Weekly published a statement criticizing Hao without naming him, saying that “H, a former Chinese national-team player”—using the initial of his surname’s Mandarin romanization, Hao—had “made statements aimed at overthrowing the government and infringing upon China’s sovereignty.”
This prompted a flurry of questions on the Chinese internet asking, “Who is H?”
In the YouTube comments section, users who appeared to be Chinese expressed criticism, bewilderment, and praise.