The Chinese Communist Party hypes up a Taiwan invasion.
By saying Taiwanese are rushing to buy wartime supplies
But then Chinese people started to panic buy And things got out
of hand
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
You should be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect yourself whenever you go online.
So, 2022 is coming up, and it’s a very important year.
Because Xi Jinping is going to be “re-elected.”
But in order to stay in power, Xi needs to maintain his image as the most bestest leader
of China.
And that includes making people believe he’ll keep true to his promise to pursue ‘reunification’
with Taiwan…
by *peaceful* means.
Even if to do that, he has to change the definition of “peace” to include sending *peacekeeping
troops* to invade from the air...
and from the sea.
It’s like when you’ve got an itch on that one part of your back that’s so hard to
get to, but the only way you can scratch it...
is to invade Taiwan.
The propaganda that Taiwan will soon be unified with the mainland is so pervasive in China
that many Chinese people just take it as a given.
And that leads to things like this trending article, which has now been removed by the
author.
It’s called “How to Buy a House in Taiwan Province After Reunification”.
It talks about ‘reunification’ as if it’s just a fact that China will succeed and other
world powers won’t defend Taiwan.
And then there’s the new viral song, “Go to Taiwan in 2035”
“Take that high speed rail to Taiwan, in the year of 2035.”
The song was almost…
Too viral
Who’s gonna tell them that they've basically been making the same song ever since 1959?
“The city of Beijing issued a solemn call.
Listen to the steel oath of the people of the whole country:
We must, we must liberate Taiwan.”
Although they don’t use the word “liberate” anymore, since an authoritarian country “liberating”
a democracy seems a bit weird.
But “reunification”?
That sounds much better—despite the inconvenient fact that Taiwan was never under the control
of the Chinese Communist Party.
That’s why in Chinese they just call it “unification”.
Chinese state-run media push the idea that taking over Taiwan in the near future is a
given.
A few weeks ago, the top trending topic on China’s social media platform, Weibo, reads
#TaiwaneseBeginToStockupOnSupplies
A state-run media called China News Service reported that “Statistics show 42.6% of
Taiwanese expressed concern about a war between the two sides of the strait.
Some people in Taiwan are even worried about a war and have begun panic buying supplies.”
This is a type of psychological warfare.
It gives the idea that Taiwan is scared of China’s almighty greatness.
Patriotic Chinese Netizens in the comments couldn’t wait to celebrate.
“Why bother, [the invasion] will be over and done in one night’s time.”
“They ought to first embroider our red flag.”
“Practice singing our national anthem.”
“The PLA won’t harm nationalists.
If you love our nation you have nothing to be afraid of.”
Oh I think they have plenty to be afraid of.
Unfortunately for people who care about accuracy, the pictures of crowded stores in Taiwan had
nothing to do with Taiwanese people buying wartime supplies.
They were just folks visiting Costco on the weekends to prepare for the holidays and spend
their coronavirus stimulus money.
Of course it was Costco.
But while this trending topic was an ego-stroke for Chinese nationalism, it backfired.
Big time.
Because Chinese people saw it, and actually began panic buying.
I’ll explain more after the break.
Welcome Back.
On November 1st, China’s Ministry of Commerce released a statement about ensuring supply
and stabilizing prices for the seasons to come.
Of course they want to stabilize prices.
China is facing massive inflation spikes.
Like the 157% increase in spinach prices due to weather and scarce resources.
To make things more cryptic, in the following days, local administrations like the Emergency
Management Department of Jiangsu Province distributed a “Recommended List of Family
Emergency Material Reserves”
Like I said earlier, people were convinced by Chinese media that a Taiwan invasion is
around the corner.
But then they put two and two together.
People began to think, “If people in Taiwan are stocking up on wartime supplies…
Maybe I should too!”
And then came the real panic buying in mainland ChinaCrowds of people stuffed shoulder to
shoulder pushing and shoving to buy basic foods like rice, flour, and oil.
Wow this makes Walmart on Black Friday look like a calm orderly procession.
People were falling left and right.
And yes, fights broke out in the supermarkets.
Stores were wiped clean by shoppers.
“Here I am at the Nanan supermarket.
All the inventory and more have been taken.
my entire store has been taken.”
Are these people all buying...entire pigs?!
I’ve never seen anything like this before.
But buying a whole pig could be seen as restrained when compared to other reports.
Some people were reported to have bought 600 kilograms of rice at a single trip to the
store.
For Americans out there, that’s more than 1300 pounds of rice.
Why would one person buy 1300 pounds of rice?
Oh right.
To jack up the price and re-sell it...
...creating exactly the type of price inflation Chinese state media were trying to avoid.
So what is the Chinese Communist Party doing to solve the problem they created?
They’re trying to take it all back.
Calling everything rumours and fabricated news.
In the end they literally said, ‘Don’t read too much into it.’
Look, CCP.
Every time you make a mistake, you can’t just hit Control Z.
You can only Control people who Disagree.
And now, the Chinese Communist Party is blaming people for listening to the propaganda they’d
been pushing in state-run media.
This feels like an abusive relationship.
But the good news is, there’s another crisis that will make people forget how badly they
screwed up the Taiwan panic buying stuff.
China has reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases in almost three months.
If you can’t solve an existing crisis, just create a new one.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.