His T- shirt brought him trouble. Slogans on T-shirt were considered politically sensitive in China. The police repeatedly asked him why he was dressed in such a T-shirt and what the slogans meant. Liu said all the slogans had been created by the communist party.

On the front of his white shirt was the slogan "One-party dictatorship is a disaster", which Liu said was a quote from a Xinhua newspaper editorial in the 1940s. On the back was another quote by former president Liu Shaoqi : "The CP [Communist Party] opposes the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship, but the CP will not establish a one-party dictatorship."

The police said his T-shirt was disturbing the public order and the slogans were misleading the public. So they persuaded Liu to remove it and cut the shirt into pieces with scissors in front of him and they bought him a white T-shirt with no slogans from a super market before releasing him.

It was the second time in less than six months the T-shirt with same slogans landed Liu in trouble. In mid-May, about three weeks before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he was questioned by a security guard at a Guangzhou subway station and ordered to take off a shirt with the same slogans. Also campaigns against T-shirts with political slogans have intensified across the mainland last year.

Mo Zhixu , a Beijing-based columnist and activist, said there must have been instructions from the top authorities to target people dressed in clothes with controversial slogans. "But I don't understand why they worry about the T-shirts so much. Can clothes with slogans cause social unrest?" he asked. Another outspoken Guangzhou blogger, Bei Feng, said the authorities were too sensitive.

It is true one party dictatorship is a disaster for any country. The Communist party of China that coined this slogan conducting a civil war against the Kommingtang - the Nationalist Party of China, a highly centralized, hierarchical, and authoritarian party/government that ruled China from the 1930 to 1949 until ousted by the Communists led by Mao Zedong, totally acts against their own slogan since they captured power.

This is how in many countries leaders eat their words or become authoritarian after ascending the throne. Hitler who formed a government through political process turned an army dictator.

Today’s China is full of contradictions and conflicting trends with a desire to liberalise and to become an open society, but mixed with a strong strain of conservative attachment of kitsch and real splendor existing side-by-side. Inhumane treatment of detainees and abuse of human rights under the name of law and order still remains.

Though the leaders realize that they depend on the performance of the economy and want to move beyond the conventional behavior of totalitarianism, China has a tradition of oppressing social, political views that are hostile to the regime in a barbaric manner.

Let us see the story of Hu Shuli , a journalist who started the Chinese paper Caijing [Finance Magazine] in1998 with the assistance of the Stock Exchange Executive Council [SEEC]. The topics covered were financial news about micro and macroeconomics, capital and money markets. The magazine’s independent standpoint, exclusive coverage, unique perspective, sharp writing and its knack for exposing the dark side of the financial world, brought enthusiastic response from the experts in the financial industry and casual individual investors and made it a top financial investigative magazine.

The most famous investigative story was about the problems in investment funds published in 2000. These funds then made their own statements criticizing the report. Caijing's English language section, "Newsletter" has been published to summarize the most important and informative stories and sidebars from each issue of the print version. The Wall Street Journal called Caijing "The Leading Finance Publication in China".

However, some important social issues too were reported that ranged from the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [ SARS], to flooding and accidents in China. The first case of SARS was reportedly originated in Guangdong, China in November 2002 and the patient, a farmer died in the hospital and no definite diagnosis was made on his death. Despite taking some action to control it, Chinese government officials did not inform the World Health Organization of the outbreak until February 2003.

This lack of openness caused delays in efforts to control the epidemic, resulting in criticism of the Chinese government from the international community. Caijing published lengthy reports about SARS in the mainland and Hong Kong in 20 April 2003 issue – the same day the Minister of Health and Beijing mayor were fired. Caijing then sent most of its reporters all over the mainland to cover SARS by this juncture.

At the same time, just because Caijing focused on investigating the fraud and deception that damage China’s stock markets, the management faced pressure from the Chinese Central Government. For instance, after the editors of Caijing ignored the official ban and printed an expose of the real estate/loan scandal in Shanghai, Chinese officials soon blocked the distribution for the month. So exactly how much freedom exists in the current Chinese press market for a magazine with such liberal reporting remains questionable.

Further Caijing faced some court cases too. Judges in China tend to put protection of people's reputation as a top priority. Therefore facing any court case with accusations of false reporting, if Caijing could not prove that its entire article was true, and then the judge would most likely treat the article as false and side with the plaintiff. Caijing lost one or two cases because a small part of the article was "false," though the majority was true.

Though Hu Shuli won plaudits for pushing the boundaries of media freedom in China, the authorities dubbed her as “the most dangerous woman,” causing them political concern and applied severe heat on the owners. Unlike in other countries she never received any life threat by letter or phone from unknown sources. In October 2009, over two-thirds of the 100 or so staffs submitted their resignation as disagreement between Hu Shuli and the SEEC over editorial policy and financial control was apparent. Hu Shuli also departed.

As a surprise move, on 30th December 2009 Hu Shuli announced that she had taken the reins of a prominent news magazine’ New Century News’. But it remains to be seen whether the pioneering editor will receive adequate political protection from her new publisher from an oppressive government.

Once, Confucius, [ 551B.C.-478 B.C.] the greatest Chinese philosopher, and his disciples found an old woman crying beside a grave. On questioning, the woman said that a tiger had killed her husband, her husband's father and now her son.

"Why then do you live in this dangerous place?" asked Confucius. "Because there is an oppressive government there," she replied.

Confucius told his students: "Remember oppressive government is worse than a tiger."

Will Sri Lanka take note?