On this episode of China Uncensored,
there are some pretty shocking rumors
about what’s happening inside Chinese preschools.
Let’s just say,
this episode is not suitable for children.
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Over the past 40 years,
China has seen stunning economic growth.
And for some people in China’s growing middle class,
it can feel like everything is great
and there’s absolutely no downside
to living a country where they’re allowed to make money
as long as they keep their mouths shut on politics.
I mean, does politics really affect our lives?
So it comes as a shock to many in the middle class
that the same authoritarian regime that’s ok with
arresting anyone who speaks out
and savagely torturing Falun Gong practitioners
is also ok with letting horrible things
happento the people they love.
Like their children.
I take you now to the RYB Kindergarten and Daycare
in Beijing—
an expensive school targeting
upper middle class families.
According to the school motto,
it’s where children take their
“first step to a colorful life.”
Why, look at all the eager parents
flocking to enroll their kids!
Except, that’s not why they’re there.
They’re protesting.
“Police are investigating allegations
of horrific abuse that went on inside,
the youngest victims only three years old.
Parents are accusing teachers and staff at RYB Kindergarten
of sexually abusing their children,
making them stand naked as a punishment,
stabbing them with needles,
or making them swallow suspicious white pills.”
Wow.
And when I was in kindergarten,
I complained about nap time.
“After hearing from other parents,
I asked my child,
my child said they take two white pills
after lunch every day.
They go to sleep after taking the pills.”
I wish I could say that was the worst of it.
But besides those accusations,
“The most troubling accusation comes from
the mother of a 3-year-old who spoke with Tencent News...
The parent says that her child told her
that kids at the kindergarten were given
regular ‘health checkups’ by
an ‘uncle and grandpa doctor’
in which they were made to stand naked
while one of the doctors was nude as well.”
Wow.
That makes Harvey Weinstein seem practically
like a normal...sexual predator.
And even a kindergartener knows that when
“uncle doctor” starts taking off his clothes,
that’s not how you play doctor.
According to one allegation,
a teacher threatened a student by saying,
“I can hear whatever you say
and see whatever you do
because I have a very, very, very long telescope
that can reach your home.”
I mean, it is kind of believable.
China is a surveillance state after all.
And you know what?
I wish I could say those horrible allegations were it!
But there are also allegations
that the Chinese military was involved.
Which sounds outrageous.
But it struck enough of a nerve
that the Chinese military actually responded.
And they never respond!
“A Chinese military commissar
issued an extraordinary statement
adamantly denying rumors
that People’s Liberation Army officers
were implicated in the alleged sexual abuse.
Those who spread the rumors, he warned,
would be pursued for ‘legal culpability.’”
Now I wish I could say that was it.
But, no, there’s more.
See this Chinese official visiting
an RYB Kindergarten in November 2016?
That’s Meng Jianzhu.
He was China’s top security chief,
and a powerful member of Jiang Zemin’s political faction,
which opposes Xi Jinping.
Meng Jianzhu had praised RYB Education,
and there are rumors he may have even
profited from it somehow.
So there are rumors floating around
that all the negative publicity about RYB
is actually part of a strategic political takedown of Meng Jianzhu,
and that it’s tied to high-level CCP power struggles.
But even that’s not all of it.
Because authorities have reacted to all of this by—
you guessed it—
telling the media to cover it up.
As if that would make the problem disappear.
Really.
“If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”?
I think someone needs to go back to kindergarten.
But there’s a silver lining to all the sharp needles.
At least authorities have arrested two people in the scandal.
Wait...what’s that, Shelley?
Oh.
Ok.
Apparently one woman who was arrested
was not some teacher accused of stabbing her students
with needles,
force-feeding them pills,
or making them play doctor.
She was actually detained for
“spreading rumors” about the abuse.
As state-run media The Global Times writes,
“Rumormongers and those that maliciously spread their rumors
must face punishment and be held accountable
according to law.”
Now I know what you’re thinking.
Spreading rumors doesn’t really seem like
the worst part of all this.
Well, here’s where it gets even more complicated.
After days of investigation,
the Beijing police released a statement
saying that they found no evidence of sexual abuse
at the kindergarten.
They said they arrested one teacher
who had been pricking kids with needles
when they wouldn’t take naps.
Yeah, what kind of horrible teacher thinks that
poking children will sharp objects
would help them sleep?
But police also said the rumors of children being fed pills
and forced to “play doctor”
were fabricated by parents,
who are now willing to apologize.
Sounds like the police are covering up something, right?
But in this case,
they might actually be...correct.
Some of the disturbing accusations,
like the kids being injected with unknown substances,
are commonly seen in Chinese urban legends.
Like how when you were a kid,
people always warned you about someone passing out
apples with razor blades in them during Halloween.
And this wouldn’t be the first time
that fear about child abuse in preschools
triggered mass panic.
It even happened in America.
During the 1980s and 90s,
there was a string of highly publicized cases
about daycare child abuse.
It made the national news.
Accusations of sex abuse,
satanic rituals,
even drinking giraffe blood in front of children.
“Authorities now believe that at least
60 young children were victimized,
and that the ultimate number
could well be much greater.”
The evidence was based primarily
on interviews with the children.
Several daycare teachers were thrown in prison—
only to be found innocent
and released years later
with a big fat apology
and millions of dollars in compensation
for wrongful imprisonment.
It turns out,
child testimonies are unreliable,
because kids often tell you the answers
they think you want to hear.
I mean, adults do that too, I guess.
But when bad stuff might be happening to your kids,
you freak out.
It’s what you do.
Which is why,
when it comes to RYB Education in China,
even a seed of truth can quickly snowball
into mass hysteria.
And some of the accusations are apparently true.
The needle stabbing part, for example.
I mean, there’s photos of the needle marks.
And this is not the first scandal the RYB has had.
RYB Education operates 1,800 kindergartens
and day cares across China.
It’s worth over 750 million dollars.
It’s also listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
And as they say,
“Mo’ money, mo’ problems...
with rampant child abuse.”
“In 2015,
four teachers at an RYB Education kindergarten
in Siping, northeast China,
were charged with using sewing needles
to jab more than 20 children on their heads,
mouths and limbs.”
Ok, seriously,
what is it with the sewing needles?
And earlier this year,
at another RYB Education kindergarten,
a teacher was caught on video kicking a child.
So there’s already widespread public sentiment
that something might be wrong at RYB Education.
But with some of the more recent accusations,
the evidence is harder to find.
There was video of a toddler telling his parents
that his teachers gave him white pills
to make him sleep.
But that video has been taken offline.
And it was only a child talking to his parents,
not firsthand evidence.
That doesn’t mean it’s not true.
There’s just a lack of evidence.
And the allegations of sexual abuse—
at this point—
are also still just allegations.
Ones that police are now dismissing.
Police say that independent doctors found
no physical evidence of sexual abuse in the kids.
And, according to state-run media,
“The police checked the 113-hour-long
recovered surveillance footage,
and didn’t find any evidence
of anyone committing child sexual abuse.”
Of course,
I don’t exactly trust state-run media.
And neither do a lot of people in China.
And that is exactly the problem.
Under the Communist Party,
authorities have covered up
so many scandals for so long,
and issued so many censorship directives,
that Chinese citizens area little skeptical
when reporting on an issue is suddenly squashed
and any online discussion is heavily censored.
In the environment the CCP has created,
it’s almost impossible tell what is true
and what is false.
So it’s basically like one of those
“choose your own adventure” novels.
Except it’s “choose your own conspiracy.”
Do you believe there was sexual abuse?
Turn to page 61.
Do you think the military was involved?
Turn to page 84.
Did this involve high-level power struggles
within the CCP?
Go directly to jail.
The public outcry over all this
is totally understandable,
because there’s so little trust
that authorities will expose abuse
even if they find it.
Since the story became public,
the Ministry of Education has vowed
to put an inspector in every kindergarten in Beijing,
plus launch a much larger investigation.
But that’s just not very comforting to the parents, who,
understandably, now believe the authorities
are constantly lying to them.
And child abuse does happen in China.
“Since 2010, news media and internet sites
have reported more than 60 such cases
of physical abuse at Chinese kindergartens
and child care facilities.”
State-run Xinhua has reported,
“968 cases of sexual abuse against children
were recorded nationwide between 2013 and 2015,
involving at least 1,790 children,
with many remaining unreported.”
In 2013,
the LA Times reported that
in just three weeks,
“Nine cases of sexual abuse in Chinese schools
involving more than 30 children
have brought the neglected crime to light.”
And while those reports also caused outrage
at the time,
a lot those cases happened to poor people.
But this time,
it’s happening to the upper middle class—
people who for a long time
were pretty happy with the system
that let them make money
and live comfortable lives.
And there’s a widespread belief
that if anyone gets in trouble with the authorities,
well, it’s because they did something wrong.
Just keep your head down,
and trust the system.
But now there are rumors of terrible things
happening to their own children.
Authorities tell them they’re investigating,
but the parents think they’re covering it up.
And maybe they are—
it’s impossible to know.
And who can they turn to now?
This is what the CCP’s system
of censorship and control does to society.
The question is,
is this scandal enough to actually affect their rule?
Or will it all blow over next week?
Too bad we can’t flip to the end to see.
That would be cheating.
So what do you think?
Leave your comments below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.
Every time we cover a controversial topic like this,
YouTube reduces our ad revenue.
So to keep China Uncensored afloat,
we rely on direct support from you,
our viewers.
Please click the orange button to visit Patreon,
where you can pledge a dollar or more per episode.
And you’ll get cool rewards, too.
Go there now and support China Uncensored.
Thank you!