China Military

Mao-Era Military Marriage Regulations Under Fire on Weibo

“The crime of destruction of the military marriage” (破坏军婚罪) apparently is not a crime if you’re cheating from within the army.

Published

4 years ago

March 20, 2021

Manya Koetse

Image via https://www.51ywwk.com/38775.html.

If you have an affair with a military spouse, it is a criminal offense. But if you’re cheating from within the military, it is not considered a crime against military marriage. On Weibo, the story of one military wife has sparked anger among netizens about the Mao-era military marriage regulations.

An online discussion regarding marriage regulations for military personnel in China has been censored following anger over supposed unequal treatment of “the crime of destruction of the military marriage” (破坏军婚罪).

The discussion was triggered by an online post of a military wife who claimed her husband cheated on her with another female army member. It concerns a Chinese serviceman by the name of Gu Yan (顾炎) and a female officer named Shen Jingwen (沈静雯). The hashtag “Gu Yan, Shen Jingwen” (#顾炎沈静雯#) soon went viral on Weibo.

The lengthy story was originally published on Weibo by Gu Yan’s wife, a medical doctor.

According to the online account, Gu Yan and his wife met each other during their junior high school days, and then each went on to study in different fields. Gu Yan trained to join the army; his wife specialized in the medical field and became an anesthesiologist. The couple got married in 2016, had a child in 2017, and their future looked bright until the husband and wife were separated for eight months during the COVID19 epidemic.

According to Gu’s wife, it was during their long time apart that Gu started seeing Shen Jingwen, an army staff member whose father also serves as a commander in the army. The affair soon became serious, and Gu supposedly became more invested in this new relationship than in his marriage, even to the point of blocking his wife, who then contacted his unit to report the affair.

Gu’s wife alleges that Shen Jingwen threatened and bullied her and that she suffered abuse by her husband. Screenshots and phone conversation recordings to prove this behavior towards Gu’s wife were also leaked online.

In her online post, Gu’s wife indicates that the situation between her, her husband and Shen had become untenable but that she had nowhere to turn to since the existing laws mostly protect those who are serving in the army. Even if she wanted a divorce, she could not get one if he would not want to file for divorce.

The ‘destruction of military marriage’ (破坏军婚罪) is a criminal offense in China, but in this case, the law did not apply because it concerned a military officer starting an extramarital relationship with another member of military staff. The law mainly focuses on non-marital acts that occur between non-military personnel and military spouses.

The law is a controversial one. As previously explained by Sixth Tone, it is a Mao-era law to prevent military spouses from straying. In 2016, one man from Beijing was prosecuted under the law for living with a soldier’s wife for two months.

In 2019, one man was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for living together with a military spouse and also fathering her child with prior knowledge that her husband was a serviceman, as reported by China Military.

Although the regulations on the protection of marriage of soldiers date back much longer, breaking up a military marriage was also listed as a criminal offense under “The Offenses Against Marriage and the Family (Arts. 179-184)” in the Criminal Law that was enacted in 1979.¹

Weibo netizens are sharing screenshots of the Baidu Encyclopedia page explaining the law, with one segment clearly stating that “if it concerns an illicit love affair between two members of the army, and their partners are not members of the army, then this does not constitute as a crime of destructing a military marriage [破坏军婚罪].”

Censorship showed the sensitivity of the topic; not only was it removed from Weibo, but also from other sites such as Q&A site Zhihu.com. The sentence from the Baidu page that was highlighted and shared online also no longer shows up on the Encyclopedia page.

A 404 page comes up when clicking on a page dedicated to this topic on Zhihu.

“The moment this hit the Weibo hot search lists, it was gone within minutes,” one person on a Baidu message board wrote.

The sensitive nature of the topic partly lies in the fact that this is about members of the military, who are usually praised as heroes for their sacrifices for the country.

“To me, the word ‘serviceman’ always sounded like a divine word,” one commenter writes on Weibo: “I’d never expected that it could also bring up loathing in me.”

Meanwhile, many alternative hashtags popped up on social media to replace the censored ones. Besides the “Gu Wen Shen Jingwen” hashtag (#顾炎沈静雯#), there are also many others including “Military Cheating Is Not Considered a Crime against Military Marriage” (#军人出轨不算破坏军婚罪#), “Gu Wen and Shen Jingwen Are Shameless” (#顾炎沈静雯不要脸#) and the creative hashtag “Female Jun People Break Jun Marriage” (#女jun人破坏jun婚#), with ‘jun’ being pinyin for the Chinese character ‘军’ (army).

A mainstream sentiment expressed online is that existing laws regarding military marriages are clearly unfair: anyone who cohabitates with a spouse of an active member of the military could be sentenced, while someone within the military could cheat on their wife without any consequences for them nor for their extramarital sex partner.

Many netizens defend Gu’s wife and condemn Gu and his military girlfriend for abusing their power and taking advantage of their position to bully the weakest party, especially while there is a child involved.

“If a military wife needs to rely on netizens to assert their legitimate marital rights and interests, it really is a disgrace to the Chinese PLA [People’s Liberation Army]”, one blogger wrote.

On the evening of March 19, the Weibo account ‘People’s Frontline’ (@人民前线), an official channel of the People’s Liberation Army, responded to the situation. Their official statement confirms that their department previously received a complaint from Gu’s wife about the living situation of her husband within the army, and that both Gu and Shen were given discipline sanctions. Gu and his wife are currently getting a divorce.

The statement also says that the PLA does not condone the actions of individual members of the army who violate social morals and family virtues. The statement was shared over 18,000 times on Saturday.

Some netizens praised the official statement, saying it showed that the army was becoming more “open and transparent.”

By Manya Koetse, with contributions by Miranda Barnes

Follow @whatsonweibo

¹ Leng, Shao-Chuan. 1982. “Crime and Punishment in Post-Mao China.” China Law Reporter 2, no. 1: 5-35.

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Manya Koetse

Manya is the founder and editor-in-chief of What's on Weibo, offering independent analysis of social trends, online media, and digital culture in China for over a decade. Subscribe to gain access to content, including the Weibo Watch newsletter, which provides deeper insights into the China trends that matter. More about Manya at manyakoetse.com or follow on X.

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China Military

“Taking Down a Tiger”: Li Shangfu Expelled from the Party

Li Shangfu allegedly “took advantage of his position to seek benefits for others and received large sums of money.

Published

3 months ago

June 28, 2024

Manya Koetse

On June 27, the news that Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu (李尚福, 1958) had been expelled from the Communist Party became a top trending topic on Chinese social media.

Within two days, the hashtag “Li Shangfu Expelled from the Party” (#李尚福被开除党籍#) had garnered over 490 million views on Weibo.

Li, a Chinese aerospace engineer, served as the Minister of National Defense and as State Councillor of China from March to October 2023. He had been under investigation for corruption since 2023.

On June 27, Chinese state media issued a press release stating that Li Shangfu was expelled from the Party. The report detailed:

“It has been found that Li Shangfu severely violated political discipline, failed to fulfill his political responsibilities to comprehensively and strictly govern the Party, and resisted organizational examination. He severely violated organizational discipline by seeking personal benefits for himself and others. He took advantage of his position to seek benefits for others and received large sums of money, and he is suspected of accepting bribes. More evidence of Li Shangfu’s serious disciplinary violations and legal problems were also discovered during the investigation.”

“As a high-level leading cadre within the Party and military, Li Shangfu abandoned his original mission, lost his Party principles, and his actions severely betrayed the confidence and great trust placed in him by the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission. He severely polluted the political environment in the military equipment field and industry, causing enormous damage to the Party’s cause, national defense, military construction, and the image of senior leadership, with an extremely serious nature, extremely bad influence, and particularly huge harm.”

Among the top replies to a post of this press release on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, one Chinese netizen commented: “Taking down a tiger.”

Notably, news also emerged on Thursday that the Party had expelled former defense minister Wei Fenghe (魏凤和) for serious violations of Party discipline and the law.

“Eradicating such people is not a loss to the Party, but a victory,” another Weibo commenter wrote.

Punishing both “tigers” and “flies” (influential leaders and minor officials) is part of Xi Jinping’s fight against corruption. Although the anti-corruption drive was already important before Xi Jinping’s rise to power, the campaign has become a central pillar of his tenure, with China’s battle against corruption setting new records.

In 2014, the arrest of China’s former national security chief Zhou Yongkang (周永康) demonstrated President Xi Jinping’s determination to crack down on high-level corruption. That same year, General Xu Caihou (徐才厚) became another target in Xi Jinping’s war on corruption. The former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission was the highest-ranked PLA military officer ever to be implicated in corruption following Bo Xilai’s arrest in 2012.

They were not the only “tigers” brought down. Guo Boxiong (郭伯雄), former vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, was expelled from the Communist Party and sentenced to life in prison in 2016 for bribery.

Other high-profile cases include the former vice chairman of China’s top political advisory body Su Rong (苏荣); former Hu Jintao aide Ling Jihua (令计划); former Chinese politician and senior regional official Sun Zhengcai (孙政才); and former senior official Wang Min (王珉). All were found guilty of bribery and sentenced to life in prison.

Although the fight against corruption campaign is generally applauded by the people, it remains a sensitive topic, leaving little room for open discussion on social media. One post about Li Shangfu’s expulsion received over 8,400 comments, but only 25 of them were visible at the time of writing.

By Manya Koetse

Follow @whatsonweibo

China Military

Saying Goodbye to “Uncle Wang”: Wang Wenbin Becomes Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia

There are thriving fan forums filled with thousands of posts and videos dedicated to Wang Wenbin.

Published

4 months ago

June 5, 2024

Manya Koetse

When China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Wang Wenbin concluded a regular press conference on May 24, he suddenly said “farewell” (“我们再见”) and stepped down to shake hands with reporters. This surprising moment quickly had his online fan circles buzzing. Was he leaving? Starting a new job? Everyone was speculating.

Wang Wenbin (汪文斌, b. 1971), the Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department of China, has been with the Foreign Ministry since 1993. His face became familiar to many both inside and outside China after he took on the role of MFA spokesperson in 2020.

Over the years, Wang has become increasingly popular on social media. There are thriving fan forums filled with thousands of posts and videos dedicated to Wang, praising his professionalism and humorous expressions.

Although there were no official reports on Wang leaving his post, hundreds of netizens began saying goodbye to their favorite diplomat.

Nearly two weeks later, on June 4th, it was announced that Wang will be starting as China’s new ambassador to Cambodia. A related hashtag went trending on Weibo (“Wang Wenbin Appointed as Ambassador to Cambodia” #汪文斌候任驻柬埔寨大使#), attracting over 130 million views within a day.

“Anhui’s Pride”

Why is Wang so popular?

First, his popularity is part of a larger trend of Chinese diplomats being admired and idolized online, a phenomenon detailed in our article here (link).

But besides being part of China’s “Diplomat Dream Team” (外交天团), Wang is admired for his conduct and character. He appears very serious but often shows a smile. He is highly professional, yet occasionally displays a playful side.

These likeable contrasts in his persona also reflect his background. While Wang represents international China, he comes from a small village. Born and raised in Xindu in Tongcheng, Anhui, Wang studied at China’s Foreign Affairs University, majoring in French and economics. He speaks several foreign languages, including English, and once sent out New Year’s wishes in 11 different languages. His success story makes him “Anhui’s pride.”

While Zhao Lijian was known as a real ‘wolf warrior diplomat,’ Wang Wenbin’s style is perceived as more “calm,” “scholarly,” and “refined,” though he remains critical, firm, and assertive. For instance, Wang rebuffed U.S. claims that China might arm Russian troops in the Ukraine war, stating, “it is the United States and not China that is endlessly shipping weapons to the battlefield.” He also called the shootdown of the alleged Chinese spy balloon “100 percent hysteria” and urged the United States to abandon its “hegemonic” approaches to international affairs.

For many Wang Wenbin fans, his assertive yet ‘refined’ (‘温文尔雅’) foreign policy resonates deeply, as they appreciate how Wang shapes China’s image abroad: “It’s the perfect interpretation of being a great and elegant great power.”

Wang’s large fanbase on Chinese social media is always creative in editing images of him and adding quotes. In response to the news of Wang’s new position, a flood of new videos popped up in Wang Wenbin fan communities. Many see Wang as relatable, likeable, and a role model, often saying that ‘Uncle Wang’ (汪叔) is just too “cool.”

“We’ve got your back”

Wang’s role as China’s ambassador to Cambodia is not entirely new to him. He has previously worked in various positions at Chinese embassies in Senegal, Cameroon, and Mauritius, and served as ambassador to Tunisia from 2018 to 2020.

Cambodia is an important regional ally to China, and Sino-Cambodian ties have grown stronger, exemplified by the two countries holding a 15-day joint military exercise in May of this year. Cambodia is a key country for China’s strategic layout in Southeast Asia.

Many netizens are pleased to see Wang Wenbin appointed to Cambodia, though some complain that his “talent is wasted on an insignificant role” (“大材小用” dà cái xiǎo yòng). However, others recognize the growing strategic importance of Cambodia and see Wang’s appointment as a reflection of his significance to China; they suggest he is the right man in the right place.

Wang’s loyal fans wish him nothing but the best in his new position. One person posted: “No matter where you are, we’ve got your back, Uncle Wang.”

Wang Wenbin will replace Wang Wentian (王文天), who served as Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia since November 2018.

Although Wang Wenbin’s online fan communities might become a bit quieter from now on, one thing is certain: he won’t be forgotten. One fan wrote: “From now on, we’ll continue to watch you shine.”

By Manya Koetse

Follow @whatsonweibo