I frequent the Chinese forums and Weibo; some stuff I think that might contribute to the conversation:
ON XIAOZHAN & HIS STUDENTS
Back when Xiao Zhan got moved to coach the women's team there was talk of him losing a power struggle against Qin Zhijian, who is thought to have been backed by Liu Guoliang; his not supporting LGL and the protest could stem from this.
Another potential factor is that Xiao Zhan's father is Sichuan's Chairman of the Table Tennis Association. The government is going to come down pretty hard on the Sichuan TT gov officials (btw Qiu Yike is also a member of Sichuan's TT gov body) for letting such a huge and embarrassing shitshow happen on their territory, so it could be that Xiao Zhan stopped his students from joining in on the protest to try to control the situation on behalf of his father & student. He's also officially part of the women's team as a coach now, so he could just be trying to distance the woman's team from the protesting men's team.
ON LIU GUOLIANG
About Liu Guoliang, there are suspicions that he isn't clean either, similar to his bro KLH. Back when KLH's fiasco and later when he got "promoted," there were fans who theorized that the gov found out he was doing shady shit too but were saving face (for both him and the gov) by just stuffing him into a position with a pretty name but no real power.
There are also some people who feel like getting rid of Liu Guoliang isn't necessarily a bad thing, because he has been continuously consolidating his power in the Table Tennis team to the point where he's starting to become a "dirt-emperor," which is a situation ripe for potential corruption and nepotism. According to older fans (back from before the London Olympics), the Chinese table tennis scene has always been pretty gross (mostly among the upper workings, not the players), which is why some of them support the government's reform attempts this time. Prior the Head Coach was basically free to make any sort of decision regarding the team or anything TT-related; supposedly the reform this time removing the Head Coach and only having individual coaches who focus solely on training and technique (and not all the other stuff) was aimed at reducing this sort of power consolidation.
There also seems to be constant talk about power struggles (for instance, between regional factions, although this seems irrelevant here other than Shandong players being notably missing from the protesting list; could be a coincidence, or not, idk), with the losers ending up sent back to province teams to coach (old Yin Xiao, against Cai Zhenhua, who is in essence LGL's boss) or to positions with name but no power (Lv Lin, against Liu Guoliang). Since LGL is from Bayi he got a lot of support from his fellow Bayi bros, but as part of the army, doing shit like this may get them worse punishments.
DISCLAIMER: Of course, take the above with a grain of salt, as it's coming from a lot of Chinese netz who like to gossip; accuracy not guaranteed. I also didn't bother detailing the positive things/reactions by the fans (which have been numerous), since this thread is overwhelmingly positive and in favor of LGL and the protesters; you guys seem to have that covered, so I figure it's unnecessary for me to rehash it again haha.
