‘Let flowers bloom’

China's president wants the country's artists and writers to create new, monumental works — a strange request coming from the head of a government that has spent the past many months silencing writers, artists and others who dared criticize the government.

The official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday that President Hu Jintao has put out the call for writers and artists to create. For many cynical commenters online, that call was all-too-familiar, harkening back to decades ago when Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong demanded to "Let 100 flowers bloom," when he asked critics to make their ideas public. Mao then undertook a vicious campaign against those who dared criticize his policies and actions.

Hu actually used the theme "Let all flowers bloom together," Xinhua reported.

"He advised them to get close to the realities and lives of the masses, uphold the spiritual torch of the Chinese nationality, and produce a greater number of excellent works that live up to the history, the times and the people," Xinhua said of Hu's speech to a major literary gathering.

"He expected the writers and artists to create a new dawn for literature and art, and use their wisdom and power to promote the development and prosperity of the socialist culture, noting that artistic undertakings are an important part of the socialist cause with China's own characteristics and a major part of socialist culture," the report added.

Hu's words were, of course, not exactly the same as Mao's, but the similarities are interesting. His call does reopen the question of whether a repressive state that silences artists and censors writers can actually produce great works. China's censorship has often been cited as one of its great impendiments to innovation.