Caroline Cheng Yi, a political adviser for 10 years and renowned sculptor, said a judge who was also a CPPCC delegate was about to show her a WeChat post about [Luo's] proposal during a panel discussion but they discovered it had been deleted.
On May 30, 2016, after Chinese President Xi Jinping urged scientists to turn China into a strong country with leading technological development during the country's National Science and Technology Conference, an old scientist from the Academy of Science asked Xi to grant scientists access to overseas websites.
[…] Control over the Internet is too strict and it affects scientists. Accessing overseas websites can help scientists to learn more about how advanced countries have converted knowledge from their scientific findings into technological products. Is it possible to grant special access for scientists and researchers [to overseas websites]?
According to China Science Magazine's report, after this speech, the conference hall was silent for a second before loud applause broke out.
"China has been in touch with Google through various channels. Last year, leaders of our country's important department had further communication with Google," said Liu Binjie, a standing committee member of the National People's Congress and former head of the General Administration of Press and Publication.
Google Scholar, a search engine for scholarly literature, was among the services on Beijing's priority list for re-entry, according to Liu, who was speaking to the Sunday Morning Post on the sidelines of the China's annual plenary sessions in Beijing on Friday.
Other Google functions under negotiation included "service functions that do not involve [politically] sensitive information," according to the lawmaker.
Like the other "democratic" parties, as the non-Communist ones are officially described, Mr Luo's was founded before 1949 when the Communists seized power. One of them is called the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, a pro-Communist spin-off of the party that ruled China before Mao Zedong took over and which then fled to Taiwan. At first, Mao kept these groups alive as a way to win over people who were not hard-core Communists yet who sympathised with Mao's goals. But he lost patience with them during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of their members were jailed. Deng Xiaoping revived the parties in the 1980s to show that China was becoming more tolerant again.
By Chinese official protocols, this is heavy stuff. After all, Luo, as a vice-chairman of the CPPCC, enjoys a ranking as a state leader even though he has no real power. Still, this has made him the first senior official in recent years to speak up on a very sensitive policy which the government has strongly defended, at a politically sensitive time.
[…] Since Xi came to power in late 2012, the authorities have strengthened internet restrictions by passing laws and dismissing criticisms from the West by declaring internet security as one of the core interests of the country. In this context, the decision by Luo's party to speak up on this sensitive matter is all the more interesting as it is apparently aimed at rallying public opinion to put pressure on the government to act. Otherwise, it could have used the traditional approach of submitting its proposal without making it public.
[…] Judging by the reaction from the authorities, Luo's suggestion stands little chance of gaining traction.