Thread by @FindZhehan

Nearly a year after #ZhangZhehan sakura photo incident, it is necessary to examine some of the most damaging disinformation. This thread attempts to organize the key disinformation and facts discovered by Zhang’s fans worldwide over the past months. Outline is shown below. (1/n)

Zhang Zhehan was blacklisted in August 2021 in China and across Chinese internet platforms, due to photos allegedly taken at Yasukuni and Nogi Shrines. (2/n)

Permanently banning someone who has never been convicted of any crime from a profession is, as Li Xuezheng rightly pointed out, legally questionable to say the least. But first, let’s fact-check the accusations against Zhang before diving into ethical and legal discussions. (3/n

Right before 13 August 2021, several pieces of misleading or even completely false information appeared out of thin air and started circulating widely online, building the perfect setup for the final outbreak. This suspicious move indicates high probability of frame-up. (4/n)

Part I: the Sakura Photo Incident
Disinformation 1: wrong location of Yasukuni shrine on the Baidu map
If you had looked up Yasukuni shrine on Baidu map in August 2021, it would show up in Toneri park, Adachi city, 20 km away from the shrine’s actual location. (video cr.; 5/n)

What this false coordinate did was to substantiate the allegation that the shrine was situated somewhere remote, not conveniently accessible, and that Zhang made a conscious effort to get there in order to pay respect to the war criminals. #ZhangZhehan #WordOfHonor (6/n)

The truth is, Yasukuni shrine is located in the heart of Tokyo, “a stone’s throw from the Imperial Palace.” The area attracts millions of people during the cherry blossom season each year. Outside the shrine complex is an open park famous for its benchmark sakura trees. (7/n)

Benchmark trees are designated by the government to signal the start of the sakura season in their respective areas. Some tourists happily put the park into their list of places to see in Tokyo, while many others wandered across it without even realising where they were. (8/n)

According to Zhang, he was one of the latter. His accounts are credible based on the fact that the park is within walking distance to quite a few famous attractions, such as the popular live concert spot Nippon Budokan, higher education institutes, and several foreign embassies.

The park is guarded by neither high walls nor heavy gates, and is freely accessible to the public. Many have posted online their experiences of entering the area unknowingly. (10/n)

Disinformation 2: the rumour that Zhang visited Yasukuni Shrine three times.
The only time Zhang was ever seen near Yasukuni Shrine was during the cherry blossom season in March 2018. #ZhangZhehan #WordOfHonor (11/n)

This is important since repeated visits point to intentional, premeditated behaviour, exactly what the disinformation campaigners endeavoured to tell people. (12/n)

Regrettably, even @Reuters , one of world’s leading news agencies, failed to conduct a fact-checking, and published the story stating he visited Yasukuni Shrine twice in 2018 and 2019. reuters.com/world/china/ch…
We hope @Reuters can make corrections publicly. (13/n)

Fact 1: #ZhangZhehan did not 参拝 (worship) at the Yasukuni Shrine.
The great majority of English news reports in recent years on Yasukuni shrine are about high-profile Japanese politicians “visiting” it. An example of the headline is attached below. (14/n)

The word “visit”, however, is not a very accurate translation of the original Japanese phrase 参拝. “Worship”, or "pay tribute”, would perhaps be more suitable, for this action is deeply entangled with the state Shintō religion. (15/n)

And the authors argue here lies a key fact to the sakura photo incident.
Like most rites and rituals carefully designed to impress, worship at Yasukuni shrine is carried out with ceremonial solemnity, as demonstrated in the photo below. (16/n)

After paying the mandatory tribute fee, Japan’s then prime minister Shinzo Abe and his entourage, all dressed in formal attire, were led by a priest in solemn procession to the shrine. (17/n)

And it is this type of official prime ministerial worship that sits at the core of a series of diplomatic disputes collectively known as “the Yasukuni controversy”.  (18/n)

Many postwar Japanese leaders worshipped, mostly in unofficial capacities, at Yasukuni. It had not caused diplomatic tension until 1978, the enshrinement of 14 class A war criminals (B, C enshrined by 1966). Even then, criticisms from Japan’s neighbours were relatively mild. (19/

The first fierce opposition from China came when Nakasone paid an official tribute as the serving leader of the government to the shrine on Aug 15, 1985, the fortieth anniversary of Japan’s surrender. (20/n)

Koizumi’s insistence on annual homage to the war dead during his term, starting on Aug 13, 2001, along with the history textbook controversy, finally escalated the issue into a full-blown international conflict, heated protests from China and Korea have not resided since. (21/n)

For more detailed expositions, we recommend: 
1. Takahashi, Tetsuya. Yasukuni Mondai. Tokyo , Japan: Chikuma Shobo, 2005. 
2. Ryu, Yongwook. “The Yasukuni Controversy: Divergent Perspectives from the Japanese Political Elite.” Asian Survey 47, no. 5 (2007): 705–26. (22/n)

3. Breen, John. “The dead and the living in the land of peace: a sociology of the Yasukuni shrine.” Mortality. no. 9 (2004): 76-93. doi.org/10.1080/135762…. 
(23/n)

Back to the accusations against #ZhangZhehan, it would certainly be problematic if a Chinese public figure wholeheartedly paid respect to WWII war criminals. But the existing evidence simply doesn’t support this allegation in any way. #WordOfHonor (24/n)

There is no proof of him paying the tribute fee, no proof of him performing worship inside the shrine. On the contrary, it’s hard to imagine anyone would attend the ritual in casual sportswear and sunglasses — what he was wearing in the sakura photos. #ZhangZhehan (25/n)

Here we reiterate Zhang’s statement, that he was guided to the Chidori district, which the shrine locates in, during a trip organised by friends, and definitely did not worship at Yasukuni. #ZhangZhehan #WordOfHonor (26/n)

Part II: Lady Dewi and the Wedding
Disinformation 3: the Baidu Encyclopaedia entry of Lady Dewi
On Aug 13, 2021 again, Lady Dewi's Baidu entry was manipulated to obscure several important points. The editor of the entry:
#ZhangZhehan #WordOfHonor (27/n)

(i) changed her marital record from “the fourth spouse of President Sukarno” to “former First Lady of Indonesia”, erasing her husband’s name; 
(ii) added the statement that Lady Dewi was anti-China; and 
(iii) deleted reports on Lady Dewi’s opposition to the far right. 
(29/n)

Later in the day, fake news went viral on Chinese SNS, falsely claiming Lady Dewi’s husband to be President Suharto, during whose tenure the Indonesian government suspended diplomatic relations with the PRC and adopted domestic policies aimed at curbing ethnic Chinese. (30/n)

To the ears of non-Indonesians, the name Sukarno may sound similar to Suharto. Some other people did not mention the name of Lady Dewi’s husband but simply and falsely claimed him to be a "President Who Massacred Chinese”. (31/n)

This disinformation made use of it to distort the photo of #ZhangZhehan and Lady Dewi into a “proof” of "Zhang’s close relationship to the wife of a right wing, anti-China president. (32/n)

Fact 2: Zhang has never been well acquainted with Lady Dewi.
Zhang stated that he first learnt about Lady Dewi in 2019 at a friend’s wedding, where the latter was introduced to him as a respected Japanese performing artist. He then took photos with her as a gesture of good will.

There is no evidence that the two could have met on any other occasion. In fact, Lady Dewei wrote about the encounter in her personal blog, the wording of which may serve as circumstantial evidence in support of #ZhangZhehan’s claim. (34/n) ameblo.jp/dewisukarno/en…

It would be absurd to believe political views are transmissible via wedding events. Indeed, even an actual couple may very well vote for different parties, not to mention their wedding guests.  
#ZhangZhehan (35/n)

Disinformation 4: the Baidu Encyclopedia entry of Nogi Shrine
Nogi Shrine was not previously well known in China outside the very small circle of scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Japanese history. (36/n)

In the rare times it did feature in the media, it was reported as a popular date place, or as a ceremony site for the Japanese female idol group Nogizaka46. （37/n）

The shrine’s Baidu entry was created on August 12 2021, one day before the outbreak of the event. It minutely described how the shrine was named after General Nogi, a commander in the first Sino-Japanese war, （38/n）

(cont'd) and his association with the notorious Port Arthur massacre, while de-emphasising the shrine’s current function as a popular wedding avenue and dating site. (39/n)

The content of the entry successfully misled those looking up the name after reading about it in the news to believe the full story behind Nogi Shrine should be common sense, otherwise it would be, as many netizens declared back then,  “a betrayal of our history”. (40/n)

Disinformation 5: a fake right-wing website which was closed shortly after the event 
A website using as background a photo of Yasukuni Shrine came to people’s attention during the incident. (41/n)

It was carefully designed to lure anyone ferreting into believing it was the homepage of a company owned by #ZhangZhehan’s friend, the very groom at the 2019 wedding. (42/n)

The company's real official website displays natto (fermented soybeans) as its background, presumably because it sells soybean products. Notice the subtle difference between the two web addresses. #ZhangZhehan (43/n) lenatto.co.jp

The trap was set up to leave people with the false impression that #ZhangZhehan’s friend adores militarism, and thus reinforce the association between Zhang and the Japanese far right. The fake website quickly became inaccessible after it served its purpose. (44/n)

Fact 3: #ZhangZhehan’s friend (the bridegroom of the 2019 wedding) has nothing to do with the right-wing website.
As a slight digression, we would like to ask the question, “Shall a person be responsible for his friend’s political stand?” The answer is evidently no. (45/n)

Apart from the most damaging disinformation mentioned above, piles of ridiculous rumors spread on the SNS in China and even overseas in last August, in order to falsely enforce the illusion that Zhang is a morally corrupt person. (46/n)

Due to space limitation, we will not illustrate them one by one in this thread. You may refer to the below link for an easy brief: (47/n)

https://twitter.com/justiceforzzh/status/1448380717583552512?s=21&t=QPCr-3ghi7382DlX_sfLMg

To sum up, in order to complete these false accusations against #ZhangZhehan, an unimaginable amount of disinformation was created and spread, which indicates high probability of frame-up. (48/49)

This is a rather long thread. Many thanks for your time and patience. We re-attach the outline, hoping this could illustrate the most damaging disinformation against #ZhangZhehan and facts better and assist in understanding. All errors are our own. (49/49)

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#ZhangZhehan For easier reference:
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