China just celebrated a brand new holiday: Constitution Day (December 4). The government has put forth this holiday as a way to signal it’s commitment to “rule of law,” something that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been promoting with much gusto as of late.
Here’s what the Global Times had to say about the holiday:
“Constitution Day, which falls on December 4, was set up by the country’s top legislature on November 1 this year after the initiative was proposed in a key meeting of the CPC in October on comprehensively advancing the rule of law.
It is the first time in CPC history that an entire plenary session was devoted to address the rule of law as the ruling party’s policy.”
It then went on to say that nationwide activities were held to promote the Constitiution.
However, discussing the Constitution online was apparently NOT one of those activities. In fact, according the site Fei chang Dao, Baidu banned users from establishing discussion forums related to the Constitution.
In other words, “Happy Constitution Day! Don’t mention the Constitution!”
For some reason all I could think of was the classic Fawlty Towers episode where Basil Fawlty, in a failed attempt not to offend his German guests, reminds people “not to mention the war.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6Lu3xQW0
In case you’re intersested, you can read the Chinese Constitution here.