China’s covid lockdowns have left some Xinjiang residents dead.
The EU’s intel chief cancels a trip to Taiwan after China finds out
And Xi Jinping makes his first trip abroad since the start of the pandemic.
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Incogni.
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just how many. Dozens, maybe hundreds—most of which you’ve never heard of. And you
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at the end.
So you may have heard the Chinese Communist Party is genociding Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Well,
for those who aren’t already in concentration camps or detention centers, they’re now
in another kind of prison—their homes.
Parts of Xinjiang have been under lockdown for over 40 days.
And as if that weren’t bad enough, there are reports some have died from the lockdown.
Radio Free Asia reports that “As many as a dozen people have died from starvation or
lack of access to medicine”.
The Campaign for Uyghurs says they have seen videos showing authorities locking Uyghurs
in their homes.
“The videos show Uyghurs asking local government authorities to let them out and to bring food
to feed their starving children as well as truckfuls of Uyghur naan bread being thrown
away as waste, and fruits and vegetables being left to rot in warehouses”.
A Xinjiang resident told the Washington Post that local officials only unlock their doors
to give them covid tests. Since they can’t go out, they’ve been relying on the same
authorities to bring them food.
One resident of Ili Prefecture, where the lockdown is happening, said “Their neighborhood
committee has been offering only to sell them food at higher-than-normal prices, and it
didn’t do so often.”
Starving the people while turning a profit. A proud communist tradition.
If this sounds like deja vu, it is. And I’m not just referring to the Great Leap Forward.
Something similar happened to residents of Xi’an earlier this year.
Protests started after reports of food being wasted as people were starving went viral
on social media.
And protests are happening in Xinjiang, too.
Authorities detained hundreds of villagers after they tried to protest the Covid lockdown.
A local police officer told Radio Free Asia that they had detained more than 600 mostly
young Uyghurs for staging a street protest against the lockdown and the lack of food.
Meanwhile, warnings aired on state-run TV said people would be punished as separatists
if they “spread rumors” about Covid in Xinjiang.
Well, people can’t spread rumors if they’re already detained, am I right?
You know another great way to stop rumors from spreading? Censorship! Another proud
communist tradition.
Chinese censors are targeting online videos and posts showing the Xinjiang lockdown.
Videos like this one, which appears to have been posted by a Han Chinese woman in a quarantine
camp in Xinjiang.
It’s a little messy, just finished eating, haven’t cleaned up.
Check out my bathroom I have electricity
I have water, more or less
Yes, in that quarantine camp, she’s literally in a tent.
“Another video showed a couple and their newborn baby outside their residential complex
at night, unable to return home after the woman had given birth in a hospital.”
But Chinese censors aren’t just deleting these videos. They’re trying to stop people
from talking about the Xinjiang lockdown at all, by drowning the topic out on social media.
That’s according to censorship instructions that were leaked to China Digital Times.
You see, the problem is that Chinese people were starting to feel sympathetic toward people
under lockdown in Xinjiang. Including Uyghurs.
That’s a problem because the Chinese Communist Party has spent a long time and a lot of effort
convincing people that Uyhgurs are dangerous terrorists who need to be locked up for the
safety of the country.
They can’t have people feeling sympathy for Uyghurs, because then they might start
to think the Communist Party shouldn’t be locking them up and genociding them.
So the leaked instructions told censors to flood social media hashtags with other content.
On any topic! Like domestic life, or parenting, or cooking.
Just don’t make it look too obvious by posting too often.
The problem is, Chinese internet users could spot the comment flooding from a mile away.
And started mocking the accounts that were doing it.
That’s the thing about the internet. It always fights back.
Xinjiang isn’t the only place under lockdown in China. About 20% of China’s population
is facing some sort of covid restriction.
Last week, “Authorities told citizens to minimize travel during the mid-Autumn festival
and National Day holidays in October …. [it also] asked local governments to test all
residents regularly for Covid, regardless of infection levels.”
With only 16 cases officially reported this week, Beijing is no exception.
“The Beijing government announced on Monday that employees and students must show a negative
Covid-19 test taken within the previous 48 hours to return to work and school on Tuesday
after the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.”
The CCP wants to make sure nothing embarrassing happens during next month’s party congress.
Something embarrassing like a covid outbreak, which would show the party’s war on covid
isn’t working. That’s why even cities around Beijing are going all out to prevent
covid from spreading.
“Authorities in Sanhe in Hebei province announced a four-day lockdown from Tuesday
morning and four rounds of mass testing after one confirmed infection.”
That meant public transportation and taxis weren’t operating
One Sanhe resident who snuck out of his complex said he had to walk an hour and a half to
get to a train station just so he could go to work in Beijing.
“He … arrived in Beijing after 3½ hours [and] he planned to stay at his workplace
for four days” to avoid the lockdown.
Instead of working from home, you can home from work! I can’t see any downsides to
having no work-life separation.
And after the break, Hongkongers are nostalgic for British rule.
Welcome back.
Germany is drawing up a new trade policy for China that’s meant to show China who’s
the boss. Germany's economy minister told Reuters that
“China was a welcome trading partner, but Germany could not allow Beijing's protectionism
to distort competition and would not hold back criticism of human rights violations
under threat of losing business.”
The policy hasn’t been unveiled yet. However the economy minister says it will reduce Germany’s
reliance on Chinese raw materials, batteries and semiconductors.
This is significant because China is Germany’s biggest trading partner. And it has been for
the last six years.
It’s also significant because as recently as 2 years ago, Germany wasn’t very clear
about the Chinese security threat.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the fence about letting China’s telecom giant
Huawei into Germany’s 5G infrastructure.
She finally caved under pressure from the US, other EU nations, and German lawmakers.
The new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has vowed to be a lot tougher on China.
Like by “reducing or even scrapping investment and export guarantees for China and no longer
promoting trade fairs”. Not promoting trade fairs! That’ll show
the CCP!
Thousands of Hongkongers came out despite sweltering heat and an air pollution warning
to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth this week
“[They waited] up to four hours in a long queue that stretched more than 500 metres
into a public park to sign the book of condolence for Queen Elizabeth II. The next day, thousands
turned up again, prompting the consulate to extend opening hours to 7pm for the whole
week.” In 1997, the UK handed Hong Kong back to China
after China agreed to let Hong Kong maintain its democratic system for at least 50 years.
Which didn’t happen.
For many Hongkongers, remembering the British monarch is a way of expressing fondness for
a bygone era. Under British rule, they had more freedom of speech and rule of law than
they do today under CCP rule.
Which is why “The Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper accused Hong Kong mourners of
‘colonial nostalgia’ and said it was proof that work on ‘decolonisation’ should be
intensified.”
Which is absurd. Since the CCP also now claims Hong Kong was never a British colony.
Hongkongers’s nickname for the queen is “boss lady” and I can imagine that didn’t
go over well in Beijing. If there’s one thing they can’t stand, it’s some else
being called the boss.
Which is why people are now apologizing for mourning Queen Elizabeth.
And after the break, an EU intelligence chief had to cancel a trip to Taiwan after China
found out.
Welcome back
The EU’s top intelligence official canceled a trip to Taiwan after his secret plans were
reportedly leaked to China.
The director of the European Union Intelligence and Situation Center was supposed to visit
in October.
Once China found out, it reportedly put pressure on the EU to stop it. And it did.
“The development calls into question whether a human or data leak from the EU was involved,
with diplomats also concerned about the EU’s change of plans after Beijing’s intervention.”
An EU official later told Politico that it was never supposed to be a trip, but merely
a phone call. That official also said it was canceled because
of how China reacted to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last month.
So basically, China has a hissy fit, everyone gets scared, and China gets its way. You would
think that by now we would have figured out a better response to that.
And Xi Jinping is finally leaving the country. It’s his first trip since the start of the
pandemic.
Xi flew all the way to...Kazakhstan.
He then headed to Uzbekistan for a summit with other Asian countries.
And he even met with Putin at the summit, which is the first time he’s seen his BFF
since the war in Ukraine began. Putin thanked Xi for his “balanced” stand
on Ukraine. And he even brought a giant table with him.
The summit is called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It’s a China-led security
and economic forum that brings together different Asian countries.
It's been characterized as China’s version of NATO.
Both India and Pakistan are core members, so it’s clear this is not a group of friends.
India is also wary of China, which has been creeping over their disputed border.
Then there’s Kazakhstan’s public pushback over Russia’s claims that all of the former
Soviet territories were historically part of Russia.
The vice president of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington said, “The [Shanghai Cooperation
Organization] has struggled to drive regional economic integration because it is neither
a trade pact nor an investment vehicle and its members often disagree about specific
infrastructure and development schemes.”
So it’s trying to be a copy of NATO, but it doesn’t work very well, and has limited
value. What we have here is clearly a Chinese knockoff.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.