Communism is destroying China
And people are desperate to escape
A new trend called “Run Philosophy” sweeps the country
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
Communism has completely failed China. And now people want out.
A few weeks ago, we did an episode about how China’s youth have essentially given up.
They began the lie flat movement
Then things escalated to the let it rot movement.
As you can see, there’s a lot of optimism in Chinese society right now.
But now things are reaching a breaking point. The latest trend is called run philosophy.
And no, it doesn’t involve listening to
Socrates while on a treadmill. Nothing gets my heart rate up like denouncing moral relativism.
No, run philosophy means simply getting the heck out of China.
And it’s taking China by storm.
Or, more accurately, it’s trying to leave China by storm.
On Chinese social media app WeChat, “Chinese users searched for the term emigration
more than 100 million times on a single day in May.”
“Millions have viewed a question about ‘run philosophy’ on Zhihu, China’s version of Quora.”
All over the Chinese internet, “Forums have been set up to exchange tips
about how to maximise the chances of being admitted to overseas academic programmes.”
And considering how controlled China’s internet
is, the answer posted to these online questions was probably,
“The immigration office is located right inside of this prison cell. Come on in!”
Now this is a pretty big turn around.
A few years ago, people were saying China’s youth were trapped in a cult of nationalism.
“They grew up as China rose to become the world’s second-biggest economy.
They trolled critics of Beijing’s human rights records
and boycotted many Western brands for perceived slights of their motherland.”
And now they’re talking about fleeing the country.
This would be like if Americans who called French fries “Freedom fries”
and yell “‘Murica!” at everything suddenly started Googling “nice places to live in Paris.”
What happened?
I’ll tell you more after the break.
Welcome back.
So how did China’s youth go from “loving the motherland”,
to trying to flee the country?
Well, they realized the Chinese Communist Party is actually not so nice.
Which, coincidentally enough, is the slogan for this show.
Things are pretty bleak for young people in China. Youth unemployment has reached a record high,
nearly 20%. That’s double what it is in the United States.
But it was China’s Zero Covid Policy, with the mass
lockdowns and quarantine of major cities like Shanghai that were the final straw.
One person told the Guardian that when the Shanghai lockdowns began,
“I started to think harder about it: people’s rights can be so easily taken away, even
in the most outward-looking city like Shanghai.”
Basically, they’re saying
There’s only so much Tiger King you can watch in lockdown
before wanting to overthrow the government. Relatable.
Another said, “When I came back to China two years ago I was planning on a life and
career in the country. I was very optimistic … But Covid seemed to have revealed the rotten core of
Chinese politics and turned the country upside down—in a short span of two years.”
Wow, Chinese politics is rotten? The government doesn’t care about people’s rights?!
Shocking! Shocking, I tell you!
Now you might be tempted to mock their ignorance, but remember, the Chinese Communinst Party has
made sure these people have never even heard of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
After the massacre, the Party basically forbade any mention of it,
and launched a “patriotic education campaign”
specifically designed to indoctrinate China’s youth into a nationalistic cult.
What kind of indoctrination? One thing they learn is that there
is no way to separate the Chinese Communist Party from themselves.
Like in this propaganda article about why Chinese people love the Communist Party so much.
It basically says that no one can separate the Chinese Communist Party from the Chinese people.
So when you’re taught your entire life to identify with the Communist Party,
and someone criticizes the Party, you take that really personally.
And it’s easier to believe that things like the genocide of the Uyghurs isn’t real,
it’s just a lie told by Western powers who want to keep China down.
Mocking their ignorance on this would be like yelling at a 2 year-old,
“You actually believe what your parents tell you about Santa? What are you, an idiot?!”
But now the Chinese Communist Party has gone too far.
You see, Communism works by dividing society into different groups,
and having them struggle against each other.
One group is always singled out as the guilty class for whatever made-up reason,
and you get everyone else to help persecute them.
But now, with the Zero Covid lockdowns and mass testing,
the Communist Party made the mistake of targeting everyone. Especially China’s middle class.
According to a former professor at Shanghai University,
“The middle-class group expected a decent life, before they exchanged
freedom for security, but now they have neither freedom nor safety.”
What was it that Ben Franklin said about exchanging liberty for safety?
Another Chinese youth said, “No matter how much money you have or how big your house
is...you may get a knock on the door and be taken away in the middle of the night.’”
When it was some Chinese dissident, or Falun Gong practitioner, or Uyghur Muslim
getting carted away in the middle of the night, no one batted an eye.
But now that the Communist Party is going after them, suddenly things feel a little different.
What was it that German guy said about how he should have spoken up for others,
before there was no one left to speak up for him, and now he’s trapped indoors forever watching
Tiger King? I might be paraphrasing a bit.
Anyway, this whole situation is terrible for the Party.
China’s on the verge of a demographic crisis. There literally aren’t enough young people to
keep the country going. That’s why they’ve been, shall we say, encouraging people to have kids.
And they do not want young people—or really anyone—leaving the country.
That’s why to prevent Covid, you understand, China said it will “strictly restrict non-essential
exit activities of Chinese citizens.” Last year, it said it would suspend
issuing passports to people with “non-urgent” reasons for leaving the country.”
Yeah I bet.
There’s even been rumors about authorities destroying people’s
passports so they can’t leave the country.
Although I guess that’s better than destroying people’s bodies so they can’t leave.
They do that, too.
But even if the Party does manage to prevent them from leaving the country,
China’s youth are so fed up they’ve started calling themselves the last generation.
Last generation is now also a viral movement in China. It came from this video, where a young man
stands up to a police officer who threatened that his family would be punished for three generations
if he refused to go to a quarantine camp. He responded, this is our last generation.
It’s brilliant, really. The Communist Party loves using people’s families against them.
If you don’t have a family, they can’t use that as a threat.
Plus, now people who are pushing 40 with no kids and no relationship
aren’t sad losers. They’re rebels.
Obviously censors began scrubbing last generation memes off the Chinese internet.
But the sentiment is still out there.
One Chinese woman told the New York Times,
“I like children, but I don’t dare to have them here because I won’t be able to protect them.”
One person on Weibo wrote, “Not bringing children to this country, to this land,
will be the most charitable deed I could manage.”
Another said, “As ordinary people who’re not entitled to individual dignity,
our reproductive organs will be our last resort.”
The Chinese Communist Party has quite literally destroyed China. For many people,
extinction is a better option than living under the Communist Party, who wants their babies.
If you’d like to learn more about Run Philosophy,
including the incredible story of a Chinese man who flew to Ecuador, and walked, hiked,
and canoed his way up through Mexico to apply for asylum in the United States, we covered it
on this week’s China Unscripted podcast.I’ll put a link below. Check the podcast out, Matt,
Shelley and I have a chance to go into way more depth, often with really exciting guests.
And China Uncensored would not be possible without the support from viewers like you.
As a thank you to fans who contribute on our crowd funding platform on Patreon,
or our exclusive social media platform on Locals,
I answer their questions at the end of each episode. Today’s question comes from
Ian Pendleton: “I'm fully willing to bet that the CCP is going to collapse in on itself
sometime in the 2030s. The big question is how much damage they'll do to the world by
trying to drag everyone else down with them.” That’s a very scary question, Ian. The CCP
has made it very clear that they do not value human life.
What would they do in an existential crisis? Invade Taiwan? Launch a nuke?
Release the Harvey Weinstein nudes?
But one thing is clear, when the Chinese Communist Party collapses, and I do say when, not if,
countries or companies that are still invested in and supporting the regime
are going to take a major blow.
Wall Street firms like Blackrock continue to push idiotic ideas like
tripling your investment in China.
This is going to come back to bite them.
Meanwhile there’s a looming property crisis so bad
that many people have stopped paying their mortgages in protest.
Covered that one earlier this week.
The point is, if you’re tied to the Communist Party, you’re going to get burned.
That’s what today's episode was about, really. China’s middle class is realizing
the Party is coming for them too. Support the Chinese Communist Party and you’ll regret it.
Thanks for your question and your support, Ian.
And if you want to be like Ian and support the show, visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
Contribute a dollar or more per episode. We rely on you to help us keep making episodes like this.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.