A Chinese art project goes terribly wrong
The Party preps for its 100th birthday
And, you won’t read about this in Hong Kong newspapers
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Daily Pnut.
The news can be a tough pill to swallow.
That's why Daily Pnut gives you a daily dose of news in equal parts humor and substance.
This week in China,
An art gallery in Shanghai is in hot water for a recent exhibition called Campus Flowers,
by Chinese artist Song Ta.
He secretly recorded 5000 women on a Chinese university campus.
And ranked them quote “from the prettiest to the ugliest”.
And get this, the Chinese title of this so called art piece was Campus Flowers.
But the English title was Uglier and Uglier.
After a huge backlash, the Shanghai museum shut down the exhibit and issued an apology.
“After receiving criticism, we re-evaluated the content of this artwork and the artist’s
explanation, we found it disrespected women, and the way it was shot has copyright infringement
issues.”
That’s because the women were filmed secretly.
How dare some guy do that!
In China, secretly filming people is the government’s job.
This actually wasn’t the first time artist Song Tadisplayed this piece.
It debuted back in 2013 and there was no outcry.
In 2019, he gave an interview to the Chinese language version of Vice about it.
He and three assistants sorted through hours of footage and sorted the women from “most
beautiful” to “absolutely unforgivably ugly.”
He also said the final cut didn’t include the two women he ranked the most beautiful.
He said he kept those for himself to enjoy.
That’s also, um, part of the art?
According to the New York Times, “To the accusation that he was objectifying women,
he responded by saying that everyone objectifies everyone else, regardless of gender.
He also said he saw himself as a feminist, though he admitted to not fully understanding
‘women’s issues.’”
You know, women’s issues like men secretly recording them and ranking them based on their
looks.
And this wasn’t even Song’s first “feminist” art piece.
This piece from 2013 is called “One is not as good as the other.”
He ranked 30 women from beautiful to ugly and had them walk down a runaway in that order.
“The work was part of a broader project by Mr. Song called ‘The Origin of Inequality.’”
Well, maybe not the origin, but certainly the continuation.
Next week, on July 1, the Chinese Communist Party will be celebrating its 100-year anniversary.
And like any 100 year old, it's decrepit and falling apart.
But to make sure the anniversary goes off without a hitch, China is beefing up security.
Meaning—they’re cracking down extra hard on dissidents.
Back in March, 18 of China’s top security and propaganda departments, “jointly launched
a three-and-a-half-month special campaign to suppress “illegal social organizations.”
State-run media Xinhua reported that over 500 “illegal social organizations” were
identified and placed under investigation.”
My favorite state-run media, the Global Times, says radio signals will be blocked on the
anniversary.
And airport security will be extra tight.
That airport security is good, because according to this new report...
China tops the list of countries for most millionaires moving abroad.
These millionaires must be confused.
China is obviously the best country in the world.
Anyone who says otherwise must have some serious problems.
And if they don’t, they will soon.
And after the break, China should get what it deserves for the coronavirus pandemic.
Welcome back.
So, I think it’s time we talk about China’s role in the coronavirus pandemic.
They need to be held accountable.
And by accountable, I mean, they should be awarded the Nobel Prize!
At least that’s what Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian believes.
At a press conference he said, “The team in Wuhan should be awarded the Nobel Prize
in medicine for their research on COVID-19, instead of being criticized.”
Yeah!
Instead of criticizing China for potentially engineering a virus that killed millions around
the world and spending a year covering it up, we should be honoring the contributions
the Chinese regime has made to fighting the pandemic they caused.
According to research from Oxford University , more than half of the 10 worst hit countries
by the coronavirus use Chinese vaccines!
Keep in mind, China is not donating these vaccines.
They’re selling them.
Unlike the US.
Which for instance just donated 2.5 million vaccines to Taiwan, tripling their promised
amount.
But I mean Taiwan’s not even a country.
That doesn’t even count, right?
There is also a slight problem with the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccines.
One of their main vaccines, Sinovac, has been shown in some studies to be barely over 50%
effective.
And 90 countries using Chinese vaccines are now battling Covid outbreaks.
In fact, the Chinese vaccines don’t seem to be doing much for China either, since they
just announced they’re keeping Covid border restrictions in place for another year.
And that’s partially causing a huge backlog at Chinese ports.
Which means Christmas may come late this year!
So...about that Nobel Prize.
Earlier this week I did an episode about how the Chinese Communist Party used money and
connections to influence “the science” on the coronavirus.
And now there’s a new twist.
By now you know about the badly, badly compromised scientist Dr. Peter Daszak.
He was the one largely responsible for convincing the world the coronavirus lab leak hypothesis
was a conspiracy theory.
He was also working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on making coronaviruses more dangerous
to humans.
That was through the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which studies how animal viruses
can jump to humans.
Well it turns out, Google has been funding EcoHealth Alliance for over a decade.
Here’s a 2010 study on bat flaviviruses by Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance.
It was partially funded by Google.org, Google’s charitable foundation.
And here’s one from 2014.
And 2015.
Now I just want to be clear, I haven’t seen any evidence Google was specifically funding
the EcoHealth Alliance work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But it’s not surprising that Google was funding EcoHealth Alliance in general.
Because researching animal viruses that could jump to humans was largely seen as a good
thing that could prevent the next global pandemic.
So if the global coronavirus pandemic was *caused by* a lab doing this type of research,
there’s going to be a reckoning in the scientific community.
But it doesn’t help that YouTube, owned by Google, was labeling certain ideas about
the origin of the coronavirus as “conspiracy theories”, and cracking down on them.
Like the theory it leaked from a lab.
A lab that was working with EcoHealth Alliance.
YouTube was demonetizing, age restricting, and sometimes removing episodes we made about
the coronavirus.
Even if we weren’t talking about a lab leak.
Clearly, they didn’t like us talking about the coronavirus.
Speaking of demonetization, it’s time for an ad break—that hopefully has an ad.
Welcome back.
If you didn’t see an ad, you know why we need your direct support to keep making episodes
like this.
Visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored to learn more.
More bad news out of Hong Kong.
I feel like I’m saying that a lot lately.
And by lately I mean over the past 7 years.
Pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has been forced to shut down.
Hong Kong authorities froze their assets.
The paper couldn’t continue.
Their crime?
Violating the national security law.
Authorities allege that Apple Daily “called for foreign sanctions against both China and
Hong Kong's leaders over the government crackdown on Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.”
Sure, the Hong Kong government was unwilling to specify which Apple Daily articles violated
the National Security Law.
But we all know they didn’t need a specific reason to shut down Apple Daily.
It also comes after 500 Hong Kong police officers raided Apple Daily’s offices, arresting
several of the staff.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam defended those arrests and the shutdown.
She said the national security law needs to have a, “preventative and deterrent effect.
It has to have a deterrent effect if it is to achieve its objective.”
The objective is annihilating press freedom and making everyone too terrified of speaking
up.
But it may not be working as well as the authorities hope.
Because Apple Daily printed 1 million copies of its last paper, ten times more than normal.
And Hong Kongers bought them all, in one last show of support for the paper.
They can’t march in the streets anymore, but Hongkongers are still finding a way to
protest.
In another sign of the Communist Party’s crackdown on Hong Kong, staff at Taiwan’s
de facto embassy in Hong Kong are also leaving the city.
They’ve been forced to.
The Hong Kong government “demanded [the Taiwanese] officials sign a document supporting
Beijing’s claim to Taiwan.”
They refused.
So the Hong Kong government refused to renew their visas.
Now the Taiwan office has just 1 staffer left.
And his visa will expire next month.
And if demanding diplomats sign away Taiwan’s sovereignty seems out of this world, just
wait till this next story.
Chinese astronauts are now living in China’s first space station.
The space station is still under construction.
Just a friendly reminder, China’s space program is run by the Communist Party’s
military.
So this should have everyone pretty worried.
“All three astronauts are party members, and they and other space officials repeatedly
credited [Xi Jinping] or the party for the country’s feats in space.”
Let’s see if they’re still singing that tune when an alien lays an egg in their chest.
And this episode is sponsored by Daily Pnut.
If you want more daily news—that goes beyond what we cover in our weekly headlines episode—check
out Daily Pnut.
It’s a bunch of fast, timely news stories, selected for you and available to read on
your phone, tablet, or computer.
Reading Daily Pnut is an easy way to filter out the noise and learn more about the world
news that matters.
Join more than 250,000 other readers.
Education and entertainment—delivered right to your inbox, every morning.
And the best part is, it’s free.
So sign up for Daily Pnut now.
Use the link in the Description below.
I’m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching.