If youre watching this video, theres a very good chance youre not in China.
YouTube has been blocked there since 2009.
The government has always maintained control over who knows what in the country and the
rest of the world often doesnt know much more.
Sometimes though, the truth does get out - and theres nothing the government can do to stop
it.
Lets look at the most famous examples of that - my name is Danny Burke and this is the Top
10 Scary Chinese Cover-Ups.
Starting off at number 10 now we have The Explosions.
On August 12th 2015, a series of explosions at a storage station in Tianjin killed 173
people and injured 100 more.
The second explosion involved the detonation of about 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
It was a very big bang.
A later investigation found that an overheated container was to blame.
At the time though, China tried to cover up the casualties, the cause and the damage.
The governments -Cyberspace Administration- issued a directive barring any coverage of
the disaster without government approval.
The resistance was strong though.
A young Beijing reported named He Xiaoxin snuck into the area and transmitted horrific
images showing the world it was a lot worse than the government were letting on.
This caused an avalanche of clips to be uploaded.
Within two days, the government had ordered social media sites to shut down 160 accounts
permanently and to suspend over 200.
Next up at number 9 we have the Wenzhou Train Collision.
On July 23rd 2011, two high speed trains in Chinas Zhejiang province crashed in to each
other and derailed.
40 people were killed, at least 192 injured including 12 severe injuries.
Officials responded with a scrambled rescue operation in which they chose to bury the
train carriages nearby.
Obviously, thats not what most people do when theres an accident that kills 40 people - theres
usually an investigation.
Chinese media and online communities were outraged by this behaviour.
Did they apologise and reverse their decision?
No - they actually tried to cover it up.
The government issued directives to restrict media coverage - basically, everyone was expected
to not talk about it and pretend the whole thing never happened.
Most people didnt listen though - even state owned TV networks reported the full story.
The coverup failed, an official investigation was launched and China has not experienced
a major crash like it since.
Moving on to number 8 we have The AIDS Crisis.
In the early 2000s, the world was beginning to learn about the AIDS crisis that was gripping
China.
10 years before, there were thousands of people with HIV but this had now risen to two million.
UN officials predicted thatthis figured could rise into the tens of millions over the next
few years leading to almost 20 million deaths in the coming years.
The Chinese government downplayed all of this though and denied there was a crisis.
This may have something to do with them apparently being to blame for it spreading.
The New York Times reported that the government oversaw blood collection programs from poor
people who had HIV, pooled the blood and extracted the plasma, and then reinjected the blood
back into the donors.
The government arrested a leading doctor for speaking out and even banned journalists from
visiting the area.
Next up at number 7 we have The Floods.
In 2017, the Chinese government admitted to a major coverup of floods in 2012.
Authorities in two cities in Liaoning province publicly admitted that the previously released
death tolls were deliberately underreported, but did not provide updated numbers.
The municipal government said in a statemnt that an initial report that there had been
no casualties in a flood was not true and there had been a concealment.
In reality, at least 7 people had been killed.
A neighboring government admitted they had underreported their deaths, saying it was
5 when it was likely at least 38 people.
The fact that this even came out is somewhat of a success.
In the early days of communist rule, it was not uncommon for the government to cover up
death tolls from natural or man made disasters.
Moving on to number 6 now we have Sars.
In 2003, a senior Chinese doctor accused his government of covering up details about the
spread of SARS.
He said that doctors and nurses at two other military run institutions told him at least
seven deaths have occured in their hospitals and claimed there were 106 cases of the disease
in Beijing - more than 5 times the figured announced by authorities.
The Chinese government faced criticism from home and abroad about its slowness in releasing
information about the outbreak - the health ministry and other offices decline to release
details about deaths and cases of infection.
At number 5 now we have The Great Leap Forward.
This was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China from 1958 to
1962.
It aimed to rapidly transform the country into an industrialized nation.
Its arguable if its goals - but many people do feel it was responsible for the Great Chinese
Famine that followed - an event which experts think killed between 20 and 43 million people.
The Chinese government has long since downplayed that number, saying 15 million is the correct
amount.
On top of that, they still don't take responsibility for the governments policies being to blame
for the starvations of tens of millions.
They often blame it on bad weather.
To this day, there is little public information inside China about this dark event.
There is no museum, no monument or remembrance day to honor those who died.
Next up at number 4 we have The Milk.
In 2008, it was revealed that one of Chinas biggest dairy producers received consumer
complaints about its baby milk formula 6 months before it had been recalled.
The reason for the recalls was because of concerns that it had been mixed with a toxic
industrial chemical and was killing babies.
Despite knowing about this, the company waiting 6 months as 53,000 infants got sick and 4
were killed across China.
The local government had delayed acting on the complaints and warnings.
There has been much speculation that this was all because of the Beijing Olympics were
about to happen.
Its thought that government officials were attempting to cover up the scandal and pressure
journalists to not release any negative news about the country while the world was watching.
In the short term, that may have worked, but safety experts say the delays may have allowed
tainted milk supplies to spread more widely, harming tens of thousands of children.
Coming in at number 3 now we have The Smog.
In 2017, China was going through one of its worse smog periods.
As usual, local weather groups went to report smog alerts but this time - the government
stopped them.
They told them to stop issuing smog alerts, causing many to fear they were trying to suppress
information about the countrys air pollution.
The government denied this though, and said they were going to issue alerts under one
department to stop different groups issuing contradictory alerts, confusing schools and
factories on wether or not they should close.
Critics don't buy this though, and say the government simply wants more control over
what constitutes a bad smog day so they can massage the figures …
Next up at number 2 we have The Earthquake.
On May 12th 2008, a deadly Earthquake stuck the Chinese province of Sichuan.
Estimated put the death toll at an astonishing 80,000.
At least 10,000 of that is thought to be children who were in school at the time.
More than 8,000 families lost their only child in the disaster.
The official number issued by the government - doesnt exist.
In the year that followed, anger from the parents made the government go silent and
refuse to acknowledge them.
The families blamed the poor construction of the schools for the deaths.
They went on to say they were being harassed by the government for speaking out - sometimes
detained for up to 3 weeks for trying to get answers about how their children died.
The youngest detainee was just 8 years old.
And finally at number 1 we have Tiananmen Square.
Some of you may have heard of this.
In 1989, weeks of student protests against the Chinese Government came to a head on June
3rd.
The army was called in to deal with the protestors who had filled up Bejings Tiananmen Square.
They opened fire on the protests, leading to the deaths of up to 10,000 civilians.
Yes, you heard me right - 10,000.
Chinas official figure was just 218.
They arrested many remaining protestors, expelled foreign journalists and strictly controlled
the coverage of the events in the press.
Two news anchors who reported on the event were fired by their state owned channel because
they displayed -sad emotions- … despite the cover up attempt, the event has gone down
in history as an important protest for freedom and the dangers of authoritarian government.
OK, well all of that is now public knowledge so hopefully I havent upset China with any
of these stories today.
Which one did you find the most shocking?
Do you think governments should be more open, are there certain things they should always
keep secret?
Let me know.
Thanks for watching as always guys, Im Danny Burke and Ill see you all in the next video.