25 Facts About Kong Qingdong

Kong Qingdong was born on September 22,1964 and is a controversial Chinese academic, author, talk show host, and social commentator.

Kong Qingdong has often been portrayed in the media as a figure of the Chinese New Left, calling for a reversal of Chinese economic reforms and a return to Mao-style policies.

Kong Qingdong was born to a worker's family during the Cultural Revolution era, and was devoted to studying Lu Xun early in his academic career.

Kong Qingdong proclaims himself as a 73rd generation descendant of Confucius.

Kong Qingdong first achieved fame as the author of various books describing his graduate student life in Peking University, in which the self-described "Drunkard of Peking University" commentated on many Chinese social issues.

An avid reader and researcher of Chinese wuxia fiction, Kong Qingdong briefly lectured on wuxia author Jin Yong on CCTV's Lecture Room series, as well as giving a talk on the Chinese essayist and language reformer Lu Xun on the same series.

Kong Qingdong has praised the North Korean government on various occasions, claiming that the Koreans "would surely die off", if not for "the great leader and his Workers' Party".

Additionally, Kong Qingdong has organized study groups on Juche, the official ideology in North Korea, at Peking University; some sources, such as Southern Metropolis Daily, accuse the group of providing intelligence to North Korea.

Kong Qingdong has been involved in the Confucius Peace Prize, a Chinese prize set up in response to Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo amid China's protest.

Kong Qingdong was a supporter of quasi-Maoist political figure Bo Xilai prior to and after the politician's disgrace.

Kong Qingdong has criticized the Chinese government, calling it "shameless", ostensibly for its pursuit of capitalist-style policies.

Kong Qingdong is notorious for numerous forthright and expletive-ridden rants against a number of groups and individuals, and his polarizing views have frequently generated controversy, but have rallied supporters.

Kong Qingdong has repeatedly criticized China's liberal media, particularly Southern Chinese journals and newspapers, as "hanjian media".

Commentators pointed out that Kong Qingdong's popularity is a symptom of the widespread resentment of the elite liberal media, which often run editorials critical of poor people and make economic arguments to justify the increasing wealth gap.

Overseas media speculated that Kong Qingdong's remarks was merely part of a much larger battle between the political left and right in China.

Kong Qingdong's singling out of Wang Yang by name was cited as evidence of the intensifying struggle for China's future political direction.

In November 2008, Qian Liexian, a journalist at New Beijing, a newspaper affiliated with Southern Daily at the time, alleged in his blog that Kong Qingdong has been interrogated by the Beijing police for spying for North Korea.

Kong Qingdong has expressed admiration for the North Korean Juche ideology, in addition to its late leader Kim Jong-il.

Kong Qingdong has supported a boycott of the film Kung Fu Panda 2, calling it an instrument of cultural invasion by the West.

In January 2012, Kong Qingdong commented on a viral video on his talk show.

The remarks circulated widely on social media sites in Hong Kong Qingdong and became the focus of controversy and protests in the territory in early 2012, causing further tensions in what were already strained Mainland Chinese-Hong Kong Qingdong relations.

Several days later, Kong Qingdong fired back at the criticism leveled at him, saying that the media and internet users were on a witch hunt to "cherry pick" his words in order to attack him, asserting that he did not mean to say that Hong Kong Qingdong people are dogs, or that non-Mandarin Chinese-speakers are dogs.

Kong Qingdong said that he was confident the "majority of Hong Kongers" were not critical of him and that the internet backlash to be part of a well-executed conspiracy by fringe activists to silence him.

In early 2014, during the US First Lady Michelle Obama's state visit to China, Kong Qingdong alleged on his Sina Weibo account that Michelle Obama was successfully confronted and rebuked by a Peking University student while giving a speech supporting free speech.

Kong Qingdong was widely panned for having fabricated the entire story, which critics have noted can subject him to arrest under the same criteria with which the police had arrested hundreds of people accused of spreading rumors online in mid-2013.