The Sina Weibo account of the former chairman of the Taiwan-based Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was deleted one day after he opened the account.

Hsieh Chang-ting's account was promptly erased on Thursday. Though when he was in office, he held a stance supporting independence for Taiwan, he did not write such information in his Weibo posts.

"Real freedom of speech means to still enjoy freedom after criticizing the authorities, not just only having the freedom to question and criticize," Hsieh posted, which has been reposted over 5,000 times before his account was deleted.

Liu Qi, Sina's spokesperson, told the Global Times that he did not know whether Hsieh's account was erased. By late Wednesday, a Weibo search for his account showed no result.

"Usually, netizens may fail to find someone's account through keyword searches, and it is quite likely that only the posts rather than the whole account gets deleted," Liu was quoted by the paper as saying.