China reverses Zero Covid
Xi Jinping meets with a former Russian leader to talk about Ukraine
And Hong Kong pushes “national education” for adults.
That and more on this week’s China News Headlines.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
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Covid is getting really bad in China. And what better way to
deal with it than...telling people to get back to work!
The Chinese Communist Party has a glorious history of completely reversing major policies,
purely for political reasons. Like Mao saying “kill the landlords” and then Deng Xiaoping
saying “let people get rich”. These days, the Zero Covid policy is a lot like that.
The Communist Party has made a complete U-turn on Zero Covid.
The propaganda machine is now saying, haha, we’re not fighting
a war with Covid! You’re fine! Get back to work. Seriously. Get. Back. To. Work.
Some employers are even giving *priority* to people who had tested positive for Covid,
on the grounds that they’ve probably got natural immunity now.
This has big “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” energy.
The reason for the reversal, of course, has nothing to do with medical science. It’s
that the Chinese economy has been tanking, what with so many things being locked down.
The Chinese Communist Party can’t make money if the workers don’t return to the factories.
But there’s a problem. People are dying. China’s crematoriums are “packed” as Covid cases soar.
One crematorium worker in Chongqing told AFP that they’d run out of space to put dead bodies.
AFP asked workers at several crematoriums and funeral parlors if they thought this
was related to Covid, but their responses were cagey—unsurprising in a country where
no one trusts the government, but no one wants to go on the record telling the truth, either.
One worker said, “It’s three or four times busier than in previous years.”
When pressed, another crematorium worker said,
“We are not sure (if it’s related to Covid), you need to ask the leaders in charge.”
And a third one said, “What do you think?”.
I think that last guy is from Brooklyn.
Some estimates suggest that more than a million people in China could die from Covid now.
I’ll have a lot more on that in tomorrow’s episode of China Uncensored. So stay tuned.
There’s also another widespread problem: Three years of Covid lockdowns in China
have taken an enormous mental toll on China’s 1.4 billion citizens.
A lot of Chinese people are experiencing anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
And according to one estimate, “as many as 20% of health workers,
patients and members of the public may be suffering from [PTSD].”
A lot of people are now asking what the point of all that was.
“For this, we supported all those crazy lockdowns, halting of production and business [that resulted
in] bankruptcies, suicides and fires?… [They] ignore the humanitarian disasters,
for this so-called sacrifice for the greater good. Can the victims now ask: ‘What for?’”
No, the victims can’t ask “what for?”
Or ok, technically they can, but they’ll just be censored.
But the Chinese Communist Party has moved on to bigger, more pressing issues than
people’s health. Like interfering in other countries’ internal affairs.
This week, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev met with Xi Jinping to
talk about the war in Ukraine. I mean, the, um, special military operations. Not a war.
I assume the two of them had a nice friendly chat about how to get around US sanctions.
Officially, Xi Jinping told Medvedev that China wants to lead peace talks on Ukraine. That is,
China wants Western countries to look to China as the intermediary.
That could work...if Western governments are stupid.
I actually predicted this right after Russia invaded Ukraine. That the Chinese
Communist Party would try to make Russia into North Korea and position China as the
only country that can talk sense into them. So other countries have to work with China!
Speaking of working with China, Medvedev also said
they talked about China and Russia’s “no-limits” strategic partnership.
It’s always nice to see allies coming together during the holidays.
Speaking of Russia and China uniting for the common good,
this week they held joint military exercises near Japan.
The exercises featured a Russian cruiser and frigate, two Chinese destroyers,
and a submarine—among other navy craft.
The purpose of the exercises was obviously to strengthen military cooperation between the two
countries. And promote peace. And after the break...there’s
lots of great reasons to put money into China. If you ignore all the warning signs.
Welcome back.
You know who’s stupid? Everyone who thinks it's a good idea to put money in China right now.
Well, good news for those idiots!
Investments are set to flow back into China—because US regulators have worked
out a deal that would finally allow them to audit Chinese companies listed on the US stock market.
Now you might be thinking, “Wait, the US *hadn’t* been allowed to audit Chinese companies listed
on the US stock market? And those companies were *still* listed on the US stock market for years?”
Yes.
The Chinese regime had classified Chinese companies’ financials as “state secrets”—to
prevent them from being audited. The US *asked* if they could inspect,
*pretty please?* But the answer was always no.
And the US government didn’t want to rock the boat, to avoid losing all that money.
Even after one Chinese company faked more than $300 million in sales,
which they were able to do because they didn’t allow US regulators to audit them...
...US regulators weren’t able to fix the fundamental problem.
At least until this year. Under a new deal, reached after years of negotiation,
Chinese companies have agreed to meet the same standards as every other company that lists on
the US stock exchange, and show US regulators their books to make sure there’s no fraud.
The Chinese regime finally agreed to this, because the US threatened to
actually kick hundreds of those Chinese companies off the US stock markets.
Which the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t actually want to happen.
Clearly, China responded to a serious show of force more than they did to a “pretty please.”
And that is a lesson the US government... probably won’t apply to anything else involving China.
Speaking of stupid places to put your money,
earlier this week I tweeted a link to a very unwise MarketWatch opinion article about what
Chinese stocks to buy adding the caption, “QUICK! PUMP MORE MONEY INTO CHINA!!!”
Now to be clear, that was sarcastic. Fortunately, Winston from the Serpentza
Youtube channel picked up on this ALL CAPS sarcasm. And he replied, tweeting
“These stock bros need to go jump in a lake.”
Which is apparently not a thing you’re allowed to say on Twitter. Twitter
forced him to delete that tweet, and also suspended him from Twitter for 11 hours. Why?
It supposedly violated their policy against “self-harm”.
What’s scary here is that it probably had nothing to do with what he wrote, which was pretty mild.
It was more likely the result of pro-Beijing people mass flagging that Tweet. And in this case,
using mass flagging is basically a Cultural Revolution style mechanism
where if enough people criticize you, whether you’re right or wrong,
you can get in serious trouble. That’s scary for anyone who supports free speech.
And getting suspended over this tweet?
That’s ridiculous! Because when you get too hot for Chinese investment,
jumping in a lake is actually a pleasant way to cool off.
Speaking of people who love Chinese money—the BBC. Which is the UK’s state-run media.
Well, it turns out, the BBC has been making huge profits producing
glossy tourism ads for China’s propaganda machine.
BBC has a non-news commercial arm called StoryWorks. StoryWorks makes branded content
for companies around the world. Basically, it produces high-end commercials for them.
Well, an investigation by Deadline reveals that “BBC StoryWorks has partnered with at
least 18 Chinese clients...including nine state-affiliated bodies.”
One of those state-affiliated bodies is CGTN,
which was kicked out of the UK nearly two years ago for broadcasting propaganda.
Another one of StoryWorks’ partners was Huawei, the Chinese telecom company with links to the
Chinese military. Huawei is being banned from the UK over serious security concerns.
And yet CGTN and Huawei have been two of StoryWorks’ consistent partners.
Meanwhile, “StoryWorks leans on BBC News’ reputation for impartiality
and trustworthiness” in order to get clients.
And after the break, Hong Kong is feeling very patriotic. At least, the government is.
Welcome back.
Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee has said Beijing is concerned about allowing
foreign lawyers to represent Hongkongers in cases involving national security.
Which might sound reasonable in a different context. I mean, national security, right?
But in Hong Kong’s case, publishing a newspaper criticizing the Chinese
Communist Party is considered a national security threat, with serious prison time.
That’s what’s happening to Jimmy Lai, the founder of Apple Daily.
His trial has been delayed, because even though the *court* allowed him to use a British lawyer,
the immigration department refused to grant that lawyer a visa extension, forcing him to leave.
And now Beijing is saying, “See? That’s why it’s a bad idea to
allow foreign lawyers in national security cases.”
Speaking of Hong Kong, the government has unveiled a “youth development blueprint”.
It contains 160 initiatives—things like providing affordable apartments,
and increasing internship opportunities.
Which...sounds pretty good. So, what’s the horrible, horrible catch?
The official in charge said, “We will ramp up the sense of belonging to the
country and Hong Kong among the youth, [while making sure] they
have a thorough understanding of the [Chinese] constitution and Basic Law.”
Let me translate that into normal language: it means this program will force Hong
Kong’s youth to be good little Chinese nationalists, or else they get nothing.
That was just the latest in a string of campaigns to mold the thinking of Hongkongers.
This past July, the Hong Kong government began to implement
“patriotic education” for schoolchildren.
In August, they told teachers to study Xi Jinping’s latest
speech about Hong Kong, and read it to students.
And this month, the Hong Kong government is saying even parents need to receive “National Education.”
According to new guidelines, parents in Hong Kong now have to join at least one
activity every year organized by their kids’ school related to “National Education”.
Not sure if that’s a good idea, though. It means that once a year, parents will
understand exactly what kind of brainwashing their children are subjected to every day.
Back in 2012, the Hong Kong government had tried to force national education on students—and tens
of thousands of people came out to protest. In response, the government backed down.
But you won’t see Hong Kongers protesting like that anymore.
Because now, under the new national security law,
the Hong Kong government will throw you in prison for protesting. Problem solved!
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I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.