Taiwan fires at Chinese drones near its islands Hollywood and China may be heading for a breakup
And China locks down a city of 21 million
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Taiwan’s military is hitting back at China. Literally.
This week, Taiwan fired warning shots at several Chinese drones that were
flying over its islands nearest to China. Taiwan reported this week that several drones
flew near Kinmen, a group of small islands off the coast of China.
We actually went there back in 2018.
Hi, welcome to China, it’s right over there. I’m standing on the island of kinmen,
just a few miles off the coast of China’s Fujian province. Yes, that’s Jinmen with a K.
That was a fun trip.
Anyway, it wasn’t clear who was flying the drones, but they were civilian and not military models.
After the warning shots, Taiwan’s military said the civilian drones then flew back to China.
But when one of the drones flew into restricted airspace and ignored the warning,
Taiwan shot it down into the sea.
This isn’t the first time Chinese drones have flown near Taiwan’s outlying islands.
“Taiwanese officials reported at least 25 drone incursions in August.”
This comes after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen ordered the island’s Ministry of Defense
to respond firmly to China’s grey zone warfare tactics. Grey zone warfare refers to moves that
don’t reach the level of war, but that are meant to provoke the other side.
Tsai said Taiwan “will not provoke disputes…yet that does not mean we will not counteract"
Millions of people have been put under new Covid lockdowns across China.
“According to Capital Economics, 41 cities, responsible for 32% of China’s GDP,
are currently in the midst of outbreaks – the highest number since April.” (
This sure isn’t helping China’s economy, especially since it’s dealing with a big
heat wave, power shortages, and in some parts of the country, flooding.
Speaking of places that can’t catch a break, the city of Chengdu got locked down on Thursday.
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province,
where they’ve been hit hard by that heatwave and power shortages.
Chengdu also has 21 million people, making it the biggest city to be locked down since Shanghai.
The government announced the lockdown on Thursday, saying people would be restricted to their homes
and the city would go through four days of mass testing. Chengdu residents took the news calmly.
By frantically rushing the markets…
And buying as much food as they could fit in their cars.
I don’t know what’s behind that counter, but everyone wants one.
Buy the pig!
Buy the entire pig!
Or enough meat to assemble a pig equivalent. That seems…unhygenic.
Clearly everyone believed Chengdu officials when they said the lockdown would last for four days.
The effect of China’s zero Covid policy on the economy has gotten so bad that one Chinese
thinktank is risking the Chinese Communist Party’s wrath by calling for less strict covid policies.
“Anbound Research Center said preventing ‘economic stall’
should take priority over virus elimination.”
And surprise, surprise, its posts on WeChat and Weibo were both deleted within a day.
I expect Anbound will either be shut down or “reformed,” and forced to write apologies saying
that Covid zero is actually *helping* the economy. Or that there’s nothing wrong with the economy
in the first place, because even admitting there’s a problem is politically sensitive.
According to state media, China’s economy is actually on the up and up!
Meanwhile, China’s Covid lockdowns have made investors extremely wary of China.
A survey of 117 companies showed half had delayed or canceled investments there.
Their main reason, they said, was China’s extreme zero covid policy.
As I’ve said many times before, foreign money pumping into China
has been the secret to the Chinese Communist Party’s success for decades.
Now as investment levels are falling, Chinese authorities
are having to actually convince people to throw money into China.
Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua said recently that it’s “necessary”
to “make great efforts to attract new foreign investment.”
I guess it’s time to see whether foreign investors are finally wising up.
And after the break, the US is selling more weapons to Taiwan.
Welcome back. According to anonymous sources,
the Biden administration wants to sell $1.1 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.
“The package would include as much as $650 million in continued support for a surveillance radar sold
earlier, about $90 million for roughly 100 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles as well as
about 60 additional anti-ship Harpoon missiles” Biden hasn’t formally made a request to Congress
and Congress still needs to sign off on it, but if this does happen,
this could be a major show of support for Taiwan. Chinese state-media called it an “ill-intended
provocation that will only escalate tensions” but said that it wouldn’t affect the outcome
in a war with Taiwan because of the “absolute superiority” of the PLA.
Yeah, sure. Speaking of continued American support for Taiwan,
last week another US official visited: Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Senator Blackburn met with President Tsai.
And she even called Taiwan a country. On purpose.
On the same trip, Blackburn also visited Pacific Island countries like Fiji,
the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.
All places where the Chinese Communist Party has been growing their influence.
And speaking of China’s influence in the South Pacific, the Solomon Islands refused
to let a US Coast Guard ship dock there last week. Earlier this year, China signed a 5-year security
deal with the country’s Prime Minister Sogavare. One that would let Chinese military and security
forces into the country.And it’s likely that China is looking to build a naval base there.
Sogavare was also responsible for switching diplomatic relations from
Taiwan to China three years ago. The US Coast Guard ship was in the
area patrolling for illegal fishing. And it was looking to make a routine stop to dock and refuel.
The Solomon Islands also refused to let a British patrol ship dock there last week.
After that news broke, the Prime Minister issued
a statement saying that there was a delay in communication.
And that they would stop all visits from all foreign military ships for the time being.
Sounds like US diplomacy is doing well.
If you’ve seen our previous videos about China’s banking scandal,
you know the local government has pretty much been on the bankers’ side from the beginning.
After people were locked out of their accounts for weeks,
local authorities made sure protesters either weren’t able to get to the protests,
Or made sure they were rounded up once they did.
Apparently now the authorities are trying to redeem themselves by arresting the people they say
were responsible for the banking scandal in the first place.
Henan police said they arrested 234 people. They blamed the banking scandal on “a criminal
gang … [that] took control of four rural banks … luring depositors with promises
of annual returns as high as 18%.” So it was criminal gangs the police
were protecting from protesters?! I’m not sure these arrests made the police look any better.
And after the break, Hollywood’s romance with China
may be ending. Welcome back.
For years, China was a trove of gold for Hollywood. The kind of gold, though,
that Jack Sparrow found on Isla de Muerta: cursed. Getting into China often required movies to be
censored, and even when they were, there was no guarantee they would get in.
Well China and Hollywood may be heading for a breakup.
In other words, they finally realized the gold is cursed. Maybe.
“American entertainment and leisure industries are facing an unsettling reality:
China’s wallet is getting harder to access.” The reasons range from “repetitive Covid
lockdowns to censorship and political headwinds”.It looks like studios are
finally learning to stop depending on Chinese box-office revenue, since
they can’t guarantee whether a movie is going to be approved in China.
And maybe to some extent, they’re also facing pressure over their censorship.
When the poster for Top Gun: Maverick was rolled out in 2019, the flags from Taiwan and Japan on
Tom Cruise’s jacket had been replaced But by the time the film premiered, the flags had returned.
I’m sure it helped that Chinese company Tencent dropped out as a backer of the film.
But it also caused a big outcry in the US that such a patriotic film
was kowtowing to Chinese censorship. According to Erich Schwartzel the author
“Red Carpet” Paramount took a lot of flak for trying to appease Chinese censors.
He argues that “it’s become more of a political liability in the United States
to acquiesce to Chinese censors than is worth it for a lot of studios”
And China’s not showing any signs of backing away from its strict censorship.
A top Party official warned Hollywood filmmakers this week
that if they want to get their films into China, they’ll have to learn to respect Chinese culture.
What he really means is that they’ll have to learn how to better kowtow to Chinese
Communist Party censors, but that doesn’t sound nearly as nice as respecting Chinese culture.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan who supports China Uncensored on
the crowdfunding website Patreon, or the exclusive social media platform on Locals.
Dahoover asks on Locals: I know of at least 2 major examples of dissent in the party:
the longer telegram and the open letter by party elders recently published.
Are there any more? Could you guys recap the major story before the next plenum?
Thanks for your question, Dahoover. So for those of you who need a recap,
the Longer Telegram was an essay written by an anonymous former foreign official,
who is probably former Australian PM Kevin Rudd.
Among other things, it argues that countries should not target the Chinese Communist Party
as a whole, but instead target Xi Jinping. That way, if the factional struggle takes down
Xi, any Party official who replaces him will probably be more moderate.
Wishful thinking.
That open letter from Party elders that you are talking about is a little confusing.
It’s not from Party elders, as in former officials who had positions of power in the CCP.
It’s from three older Party members.
But according to the Party, there are 91 million members.
So it’s not an indication that the Party leadership is turning against Xi Jinping. But we
will be covering all of this factional infighting stuff ahead of the Party Congress in October.
In fact, we have another episode of General Hostility coming out tomorrow! Stay tuned.
Thanks for your question, Dahoover. And for supporting us on Locals.
We could not do this show without direct support from viewers like you.
If you’d like to support the show, join us on the exclusive social media site Locals
to help us keep making great episodes. Once again,
I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.