Dewi Sukarno
Mrs. Dewi is Sukarno’s fourth wife. Sukarno was the first President of Indonesia and was committed to the struggle for national independence. From Wikipedia, “Sukarno organised the Bandung Conference in 1955, with the goal of uniting the developing Asian and African countries into the Non-Aligned Movement to counter both the United States and the Soviet Union”. He was overthrown by the later President Suharto in 1965, who discriminated against Chinese-Indonesians, “creating a systematic cultural genocide” (Wikipedia).
Political Position
From comments on 813, many netizens were misled to think Sukarno and Mrs. Dewi were responsible for the Chinese-Indonesian genocide, confusing him with Suharto. This confusion was exacerbated by edits made on Dewi Sukarno's Baidupedia page on August 13 by top level editors, changing the name of her husband from Sukarno to Suharto and indicating that she was anti-China and aligned with Japanese right-wing persons. References to her friendship with North Korea (a country allied with China) and her actions against Japanese right-wing were deleted. The change was made by a member of the Baidu Kedou team.
Dewi Sukarno's page before and after editing
Edit history of Dewi Sukarno's page
Netizens attacking ZZH over his association with Dewi Sukarno
Liu Tong, secretary general of the China Association for Social, Economic and Cultural Exchange, led a team to visit Japan on March 11, 2019 and took a photo with Mrs. Dewi.
Mrs. Dewi and her husband also previously took a photo with former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Li Xuezheng posted this photo in December 2021 and wrote "Who made Mrs. Dewi Sukarno into a 'right-wing figure'? Who is suspected of using Japanese right-wing capital? Even I’m amazed by how thrilling this Justice of the People is turning out to be! Who dares to come out and slander our Premier Zhou also took a photo with right-wingers! Who is this group of traitors who have harmed our country and people?"
Wang Gaofei, the CEO of Weibo, reposted Li's post and commented, "Dewi Sukarno is not anti-China???" Considering Weibo's complicity in 813, netizens generally believed his apparent surprise to be feigned.
Relationship with Zhang Zhehan
A photo of Zhang Zhehan and Mrs. Dewi was used to claim that they were close associates. Zhang himself in his interview with Li Xuezheng clarified that he did not know Mrs. Dewi personally and did not in fact know who she was on the day of the wedding. She was introduced to him as a person in the entertainment industry and he agreed to take a photo with her out of respect for her age.
So now I also see that, you have another photo that is causing controversy, with Mrs. Dewi Sukarno (ZZH: Yes). Mrs. Dewi Sukarno according to my investigation, she is not anti-China, that is my feeling. As to whether she has said things before that insult China as a Japanese person, I can’t be certain, but I saw that she has taken a photo before with our respected Premier Zhou Enlai.—Li Xuezheng, ZZH audio interview with LXZ
At the time it was at my friend’s wedding, my friend introduced her as a Japanese entertainer. Since my friend knew that I was an entertainer in China, he suggested if I could take a picture with this old lady. So out of our Chinese tradition of respect for our elders, I took a picture with her. Actually I myself didn’t know her and didn’t have any way of contacting her, so all the controversy about her, I don’t have any understanding, nor did I know her personally.—Zhang Zhehan, ZZH audio interview with LXZ
This is also apparent in Mrs. Dewi's own blog post about the wedding, in which she did not know Zhang's name and criticized his informal attire[1]
