China continues its Zero Covid policy.
And the lockdown in Chengdu
is ruthless
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
I can’t believe I have to say it again,
but China’s Zero Covid Policy is getting out of control!
The Chinese regime’s Zero Covid policy is one of the main factors behind the
country’s severe economic downturn this year. And it’s not going away.
At the beginning of September,
the megacity of Chengdu—with a population of 21 million—was put under covid lockdown.
Of course, it doesn’t help that the city has
also been facing a tremendous heat wave and power outages.
On the bright side, parents don’t have to buy their kids
Easy Bake ovens. Since they’re now living in one.
Low river levels couldn’t produce enough hydroelectricity,
so the Chengdu government chose to go on low power mode. Not for themselves,
I mean for the average citizen. Like by making people take the subway in the dark.
It’s the perfect setting for a horror movie. Only
the bad guy who’s out to get you is your own government.
Sure, keeping the lights off in the subway saves a miniscule amount of
electricity compared to, say, not running the subway trains. But it’s
symbolic of how everyone needs to make sacrifices for the good of the people.
It’s also symbolic of policy blindly going off the rails,
but I don’t think the Communist Party meant it that way.
Here’s another example of how everyone should make sacrifices because the government tells them to:
In the beginning of September, thousands of Chengdu residents
were ordered to line up in the rain to get mandatory covid tests.
But there was a problem. Due to a system error, the workers weren’t able to actually do the tests,
but people were still required to wait in line for hours, in the dark, in the rain.
Between this and the subway thing, Chengdu is literally living in the darkest timeline.
The people in charge of that Covid testing blamed poor internet service,
but it turned out to be a programming bug in their data collection system.
But as bad as that sounds,
the people who suffer the most are the ones who go against the government’s narrative.
On August 29, a Chinese social media user named “Redaiyulin,” or “Tropical Rainforest”,
posted a comment. He predicted Chengdu would go into full Covid lockdown.
He wrote “[Sichuan province] is requiring all of Chengdu to go under static management. The
city is still disputing this, but likely the 5 main districts, Tianfu New Area,
and Longquanyi District will go under static management. Nothing is determined yet,
so far it’s only been up for discussion.”
How Tropical Rainforest came to this conclusion is not certain. But sure enough, people reacted to
his posts with images of empty store shelves and freshly slaughtered pigs. Mmm fresh pork belly.
Tropical Rainforest’s username blew up to be the second most trending topic on the platform.
But becoming a trending topic on social media in China is not necessarily a good thing.
In China, when you get canceled,
it’s for keeps.
The next day, police detained Tropical Rainforest for 15 days—for spreading rumors.
More after the break.
Welcome back.
Shortly after Chinese internet user Tropical Rainforest posted his prediction that a
Chengdu city lockdown might be around the corner, authorities fought back against
this kind of slanderous rumor… By stamping the characters for “rumor” in red across his posts.
“On August 29, in order to attract attention, Mr. She (male, 37 years old,
online name ‘Tropical Rainforest’) was spreading rumors and provoking trouble,
causing panic among citizens, and disrupting the epidemic prevention and control work.”
“According to the relevant provisions of the Public Security Administration Punishment Law,
[Tropical Rainforest] has been sentenced to
administrative detention for 15 days and fined 1,000 yuan.”
Ah, punishing someone for spreading rumors when they were actually just
making a prediction. A proud communist tradition.
This would be like arresting a Twitter user for saying that
Giancarlo Esposito and Denzel Washington would play Professor
X and Magneto in the new X-Men movie. Don’t do that. Don’t give me hope.
When the authorities announced that Tropical Rainforest was a liar and rumormonger,
he became the butt of a joke among certain Chinese netizens.
Some people even shared this poster online. It says “August 29th:
Tropical Rainforest Shopping Festival.”
Essentially Tropical Rainforest was being mocked and accused of purposely causing a
run on grocery stores, as if he were somehow profiting from it somehow.
I would love to see that business model.
It wasn’t even a very good joke. Which is why Tropical Rainforest
won’t be laughing in his detention center.
You know what happened. Authorities refuted
his lockdown rumors on August 29. But three days later, the lockdown began.
“On September 1, an official announcement was issued, ‘The city’s residents will stay
at home in principle, and they will not leave Chengdu unless necessary.’”
So, obviously they apologized and let Tropical Rainforest go, right? Of course not. They left
him in what I can only assume was a dark cell. At least that saves electricity.
This is similar to what happened last year in China’s northeastern city Tonghua. In that case,
a man was punished because he posted online how he was starving because he was ordered
to stay home, and authorities weren’t supplying enough food.
Well, the authorities did feed him.
Not food. They fed him lines for his public apology which he had to make on camera.
Fortunately, the Chinese government has a way to discourage people like him.
Several years ago, they passed a law that “Whoever ‘fabricates or deliberately spreads
on media, including on the Internet, false information regarding dangerous situations,
the spread of diseases, disasters and police information, and who seriously
disturb social order’ would face prison sentences—with a maximum of seven years.”
The good thing about the way that law is written is that it’s so vague, it can be used to punish
pretty much anyone. Even if they just ask a question, or repost information from someone else.
Or, you know… tell the truth!
Authorities arrested Tropical Rainforest for
spreading rumors—even though his “rumors” turned out to be true.
They blamed him for causing panic buying…
That he may or may not profit off of… somehow.
But really, I think seeing the Chinese regime’s
extended lockdowns in Shanghai was what caused people in Chengdu to panic buy.
In Shanghai, the government had initially said there’d be a two-stage lockdown lasting
one week. In the end, it lasted two months. And people ran out of food.
People running out of food because of bad government policy? A proud communist tradition.
But the former editor in chief of my favorite state-run media, the Global Times, wrote that
“I think it is really inappropriate for ‘Tropical Rainforest’ to spread news before Chengdu has
made a decision on whether to go under static management. That is a major decision that can
only be notified by the government. Even if individuals know relevant information, they
should not leak it without authorization, or else they will affect the government’s deployment.”
In other words, if you know something is true, and the government is hiding it,
you need to trust that the government is hiding it for your own good.
And it’s easier than ever for them to hide things,
since everyone’s now literally being kept in the dark.
But don’t worry, because now that Chengdu’s lockdown
has been extended—twice so far—no one is riding the subways anyway.
And now it’s time to answer a question from you, a supporter of the show who contributes
through the crowdfunding website Patreon, or on Locals. As a perk for supporting us,
you can get one of your questions answered by me on the show.
Today’s question comes from Weesh on Patreon:
“After being burned by so many local investments,
what stops average local Chinese people from investing their money out of the country?”
Good question, Weesh. The answer is:
The Chinese Communist Party has set up strict rules to prevent that.
In 2009, they passed a law that Chinese people
could only transfer the equivalent of $50,000 a year out of China.
Eventually the average Chinese citizen figured out how to get around that.
They could buy Bitcoin with Chinese currency, and then convert that later into US dollars.
So how did authorities respond? They banned Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
So it’s really hard for the average person to get money out of China.
Of course, for China’s rich elite, those rules are no problem. They have fancy ways of moving
money around, like through fine art, or casinos in Macau. So as long as you’re super rich,
you’ll be ok. As long as you get *yourself* out of China before they come after you.
Thanks for your question, Weesh.
And thank you to everyone else who supports China Uncensored. Your financial contributions are the
main thing that keeps this show going. Visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored to learn more.
You can also support us through Locals, which is more of a social media format.
Visit chinauncensored.locals.com.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.