In the early morning of May 8, 1999, U.S. missiles ripped over Belgrade’s night sky, and the Chinese Embassy in South Korea was torn into ruins during the shock. In the streets of Beijing, hundreds of thousands of people raised the badge of “blood debt blood repayment” and the scream of Long An Street shook the roofs.
However, when Northern college students burned the U.S. flag on campus, the 37-year-old Zhang Zhang wrote in the Global Times "Thinking about NATO bombing", saying "it may be a technical mistake and the U.S. military will not deliberately provoke."
In this article, the campus forum burst on the pot - there is a student message: "Professors who eat national food, just wipe their ass for the aggressor!"
Four years later, the U.S. military slaughtered Iraq with “unnecessary” biochemical weapons.
In "To American Soldiers" he wrote: "If you are at war in this life, you want to be the dead spirit of the American military to precisely guide the bomb; in the next life, you are destined to be an American soldier."
The poem spread like a virus in the North, and there are students in the classroom shooting the case: "What will you do in this life?" he pulled out: "If the American military calls, I will be a guide!"
However, he has already broken through the bottom line when he was pulled out, which is extremely sad and indignant...
Record of Speech Controversy: From "Accidental Bombing Theory" to "Division of Seven Kingdoms"
In the spring of 1999, the controversial article was tapped in the office of the North's Unnamed Lake.
He quoted the US New York Times report as saying that “NATO’s use of outdated maps led to misexplosions.”
But the People's Daily had disclosed the fact that the U.S. military used precision guided weapons, three missiles hit the embassy from different angles, which is by no means a "technical error" can explain.
Ironically, when he visited the University of Chicago in 1998, he heard American scholars mock “Chinese journalists only write positive reports.”
That poem in 2003 pushed the controversy to a climax. The poem not only praises the U.S. military for "liberating the Iraqi people", but also calls the United States "the beacon of human civilization".
A student posted on the BBC: “Professor Zhao has not forgotten that the US military in Iraq created the ‘Falujah Massacre’?”
What's even more chilling is that he compared the types of supermarkets in China and the United States in class, declaring that "China can't even guarantee food safety, so talk about its rise".
This distorted value became more and more extreme after he entered Peking University to teach in 2001.
He once publicly criticized that "China has no real press freedom," but was selectively blind to Western media rumors about the Xinjiang cotton incident.
Behind these statements, however, lies a more dangerous logic.
His "theory of division of seven countries" actually designed the boundaries of seven "independent countries" in detail, even including the "Republic south of the Yangtze River".
How similar this plan of splitting the country is to the "partition plan" when Japan invaded China!
From a humble family to a spiritual "kneeling family"
In 1965, Henan opened up the countryside, and Zhang Zhang was born in a peasant family that relied on the sky to eat.
Since he was seven years old, he followed his father to transplant rice seedlings to the fields. In the cold winter, he wrapped himself in a cotton-padded jacket sewn by his mother, and read "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" under a kerosene lamp.
In 1982, he was admitted to the Chinese Department of the University of Henan with the third grade in the county, becoming the first university student in the village.
After graduating from the master's degree, he became a reporter for the Hanoi Daily, who won a provincial good news award for revealing the dark shadows of the mine.
At that time, he wrote in an interview: “Iron shoulder morality, fine-handed article”.
The turning point of fate occurred in 1998.
During his doctoral studies in journalism, he was frequently exposed to western media reports and became obsessed with the fantasy of the “American Dream”.
According to memories from his former classmates, he often watched "Friends" in his dormitory until early morning, lamenting that "middle-class life in the United States is the benchmark for human civilization."
This distorted value broke out completely after he joined Peking University as a teacher in 2001. He once openly compared the types of supermarkets in China and the United States in class, claiming that "China can't even guarantee food safety".
Even more shockingly, he quoted American scholars at an academic seminar in 2005 as saying, “China needs a cultural revolution.”
This spiritual kneeling reached its peak in 2012. When the police took him away for "inciting subversion of state power," he still wrote in his notebook: "The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the truth."
From academic peak to career behind bars
Early in the morning of December 15, 2012, the police of the Haitian district in Beijing knocked on the door of the national designation in the northern university dormitory.
Among the notes found were not only remarks attacking China's system, but also a carefully designed "seven-country division" plan.
In the detention center, he is still defending: "I am only spreading universal values." But the law will not tolerate this betrayal in academic cloak.
In May 2013, the First People's Court in Beijing sentenced him to three years in prison for "incitement to subversion of state power."
Peking University quickly started the expulsion procedure.
The dean of the Academy of News and Communication at the faculty congress said: "We cultivate scholars who can tell Chinese stories well, not kneeling the spirit of the West!"
Since then, the Zhang Zhao has fallen from the academic peak, and his name has become a synonym for "numerical forgotten father".
After he was released from prison, he hid back to his hometown in Henan and opened a "Jiaoti Calligraphy Studio" in the county town.
In August 2023, he posted a video on the Short Video platform saying that "no one understands twenty years of grievances," but the comment area was full of cold words like "If I knew today, why should I have done it?"
Some local villagers said, “He’s now hiding in the food market, afraid of being recognized.”
Avoid the hidden erosion of “cultural insects”
National concerns are not unique.
In 2017, Yang Shuping, a student studying in the United States, said at the graduation ceremony of the University of Maryland that "China's air is toxic." After being exposed, he became an "air girl" and has not been able to return to China.
In 2021, Song Mou, a teacher at a university in Shanghai, distorted the history of the Nanjing Holocaust in the classroom, was by students on the spot, and eventually revoked the teacher's qualification.
These cases are all warning: when the “high knowledge” group becomes the speaker of false values, it endangers far beyond ordinary network rumors.
As the former university president, Cai Yuanpei, said: "University, including the university, the university of the university, and the university of the university."
But “networking” does not equal tolerance.
When some professors turn classrooms into “private territories” for disseminating divisive ideas, when they distort academic freedom to “say whatever you want to say,” such “cultural insects” have to be removed from the teaching team.
conclusion
Jiao Guobiao's story is a demon-revealing mirror. What we see is the spiritual loss of a small number of intellectuals in the wave of "spreading Western learning to the East", and what we see is the distorted mentality of "picking up the bowl to eat, putting down the bowl to curse".
History will eventually prove that anyone who betrays the motherland and the people will eventually be nailed to the pillar of shame; And those scholars who truly cherish the "greatness of the country" are worthy of the title of "engineer of human soul".
This is perhaps the deepest warning left by Jiao Guobiao-when intellectuals lose their feelings of home and country, no matter how high their academic qualifications are, they are just exquisite self-interest cloaks; When education loses the foundation of moral education, no matter how good a university is, it is just a factory that makes "spiritual kneeling people".
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