China completes a massive underwater tunnel
Brutal Covid Lockdowns in the City of Xi’an
And, is Wall Street Finally Turning on the Chinese Communist Party?
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
China has completed construction on its longest underwater tunnel.
It’s called the Taihu Tunnel.
And it’s over six and half miles long.
That sounds like a long time to spend
holding your breath. What? I want to make a wish!
Construction on the tunnel began in 2018. The total cost was 1.56 billion dollars.
It was built under Lake Taihu, in Jiangsu province.
The ceilings have been outfitted with LED lights to prevent driver fatigue.
Hopefully they set aside a lot of money for the upkeep of those lights.
The Taihu Tunnel is part of a much larger highway that links Shanghai with Nanjing,
Jiangsu's capital.
The Taihu Tunnel is China’s longest underwater tunnel, although it’s not the world’s longest.
That honor goes to the Chunnel—the Channel Tunnel that connects England and France,
which is 23 and half miles long.
But as you know, the Chinese Communist Party is a fan of massive infrastructure projects.
We’re talking about things like the Three Gorges Dam.
For one, it’s a matter of national prestige. But these massive construction projects also
give an artificial boost to GDP, which local officials need to stay in power.
But on a deeper level it ties directly to Communist ideology—the idea that man
must struggle against everything, including nature.
This is quite literally the Communist Party trying to show it can dominate nature.
Which is also the strategy China is taking with Covid.
And it’s not working out so well. More after the break.
Welcome back.
Great news! China’s zero covid policy definitely works, so you should try it in your country!
China is reporting a major drop in cases in Xi’an.
Last month, keeping to their Zero Covid policy with almost religious zeal,
Chinese authorities locked down the city of Xi’an, a city of 13 million people.
And now new Covid cases are dropping in Xi’an! As authorities…move people with Covid out of Xi’an.
​​​​Once they move everyone with Covid out of Xi’an, then there are no cases in Xi’an!
That’s not a joke. That’s what they’re actually doing.
It’s just one more way for officials to lie about Covid cases in China.
Of course, Chinese authorities have been lying about their coronavirus
numbers since the beginning. And now they’re trapped by their Zero Covid policy lie.
China has never had zero covid, but they have to keep pretending they do.
And to keep up the lie, they’re making the Chinese people suffer.
Tales of anguish are coming out of locked-down Xian.
Hospitals won’t see you if you can’t prove you don’t have the virus.
“A woman eight months pregnant miscarried
after being refused care until she had tested negative for the virus.”
She had actually previously tested negative, but her test had expired
by four hours, so the hospital made her wait outside until she got another negative test.
They finally let her in after she started bleeding heavily on the sidewalk outside the hospital.
And now those hospital workers have been fired.
This is the kind of stupid thing that happens under China’s communist system.
The hospital workers denied the woman entry because they were afraid of getting in trouble
for letting in someone who didn’t have a negative test.
Then they got in trouble *because* they didn’t let her in.
With so much riding on people testing negative,
Xi’an was thrown into chaos after its main Covid app crashed.
People had to use the app to “show their health codes—which
prove that they tested negative for Covid—to enter hospitals.”
With the system down, no one could do that.
Plus all the other things you needed that app for. No one could prove their status.
And since everyone has to stay in their homes, food supply is becoming an issue.
It’s become such an issue that residents of Xi’an have resorted to bartering to survive.
“A box of cigarettes can be exchanged for a cabbage or a used iPhone 13 mini
plus an old tablet traded for a bag of rice.”
Now you might think China’s zero Covid policy is brutal and ineffective.
But we still have Western media outlets, like the Washington Post
saying China’s zero Covid policy “has been largely effective.”
It’s almost as if the owner of the Washington Post would love a world where most people have
to stay at home, and have everything delivered to them. But, haha, that can’t be right.
And coming up after the break,
are US investors finally wising up about the Chinese Communist Party?
Welcome back.
A big reason the Chinese Communist Party
is still in power today is the constant influx of American cash.
Even as the Chinese Communist Party was openly declaring war on America,
Wall Street investment firms like BlackRock have continued to invest in China,
and convince other investors to do it, too. But that may be changing.
Goldman Sachs is now warning
China will keep its borders closed to the outside world for all of 2022.
Another part of China’s Zero Covid policy.
And it finally has some people saying China is uninvestable.
Bond King Jeffrey Gundlachsaid, “I’ve never invested in China long or short. Why is
that? I don’t trust the data. I don’t trust the relationship between the United States and China
anymore. I think that investments in China could be confiscated. I think there’s a risk of that.”
Ian Bremmer , president and founder at Eurasia Group said, “The ability to live with the virus,
an extremely easily transmissible virus that isn’t as fatal, is the exact opposite of China’s policy
of zero Covid, and zero Covid will not work for them. But they’re going to stick with it.”
And even Mad Money’s Jim Cramer says it's impossible to recommend Chinese stocks
in a hostile communist regime.
I think we should be referring to China more as a hostile Communist regime. I like the ring of that.
In fact, Cramer went a lot further than that.
He called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a terrorist dictator.
Reporter: Is there a price though at which
you would buy into any of these companies? Cramer:
Why would I do that? Why would I do that? Reporter:
I’m just asking the question. You could make the argument that at some point
the price is going to go low enough that the risk it could get lower is reduced.
Cramer: I can do that, but that’s irresponsible of
me to do that. I can’t recommend buying stocks in a communist regime that is a totalitarian dictator
who’s, not just human rights, but is doing much more than that in order to be able to solidify
his power. I think it’s irresponsible for me to come out here and say, you know what, at 108,
it’s fully discounted that the man is a terrorist dictator. I can’t…At 97 it doesn’t matter that
he’s killing a lot of people and that he’s retraining people and there’s concentration camps,
don’t worry about it. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do that. I can’t do it.
And Jim Cramer’s moral backbone grew three sizes that day.
You know, I’ve done my share of ragging on Cramer. Only a few months ago,
he was telling people to buy Chinese stocks.
But at least he’s changed his perspective. So good for him. We need more of this on Wall Street.
But not everyone is treating China like a hostile Communist regime.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has opened a showroom in Xinjiang.
You know, where there’s all the genocide?
I say if Elon Musk wants to go to the Moon, he can stay there.
Taiwan is paying it forward. Remember early last year when the Chinese regime boycotted Taiwanese
pineapples, and the rest of the world stepped up and bought loads of Taiwanese pineapples?
Well, China has now targeted Lithuania because of the country’s support for Taiwan.
So when China banned Lithuanian rum, Taiwan stepped in and bought over 20,000 bottles.
Let me be clear, the government of Taiwan just bought a literal boatload of rum.
Which is great news for
Taiwanese pirates.
But Taiwan’s support doesn’t stop there.
In addition to rum, people are buying Lithuanian beer and chocolate.
And Taiwan is vowing to invest 200 million dollars in Lithuania
as the CCP further wages economic warfare.
Even Lithuanians who live in Taiwan are getting the rock star treatment. The Washington Post
talked to one businessman who says that people clap when they find out he’s from Lithuania.
Nobody claps when they find out I’m from America. We need to work on that, America.
But one thing that America is doing right: supporting Lithuania. In a meeting this week with
German officials, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called out China’s bullying of Lithuania.
Blinken said the issue wasn’t just about Lithuania, but about countries fighting back
against China’s economic coercion. He said the US and allies would work to diversify supply chains
and counter this economic blackmail.
And the US government has already started making good on this promise.
Two months ago, the US signed a 600 million dollar export credit agreement with Lithuania.
Of course China lashed out this week at US support for Lithuania, but what else is new.
Actually, here’s something. The Chinese Communist Party usually gets mad at Western
media for covering stories. Now they’re getting mad at Western media for not covering a story.
Last month China’s ambassador to the US held a fireside chat with major US media outlets.
And then no one reported on it.
Probably because listening to a Chinese official regurgitate talking points isn’t that interesting.
But then Chinese state-run media started complaining that no one
reported on this really important story. You just can’t win with these people.
And it’s a weekly thing—the situation in Hong Kong gets worse.
Last week I told you about the police raid that shut down
one of the last independent pro-democracy media outlets in Hong Kong, Stand News.
The death of independent media in Hong Kong began with the closure of Apple Daily last year.
But Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam wants you
to know that press freedom in Hong Kong is doing just fine!
I read news about because of the closure of online media,
press freedom in Hong Kong faces extinction, or Hong Kong free press faces collapse. I just could
not accept that sort of allegations. But nothing is more important than the rule of law in Hong
Kong. And journalists and media organizations like all of us have to respect and comply with the law.
I’ve got to say I’m getting some serious Dolores Umbridge vibes from Carrie Lam.
Japan and Australia have signed a historic treaty that might just irk China.
It’s a defense pact that will see Japan’s Self Defense Force and Australia’s military
work together a lot more from now on. It definitely has nothing to
do with deterring any country in particular.
And we could not do this show without the support of viewers like you on the crowd funding website
Patreon or the community subscription platform Locals. What with YouTube Demonetization, and
many companies not eager to work with someone who criticizes the Chinese regime,
this show would have gone out of business years ago, if it were for the support of fans I call
the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army. To thank them, I answer a question at the end of each episode.
Today’s question comes from Black Label. “Let's say the CCP collapses tomorrow,
who do you think is the priority country they are gonna try to take down with them?”
Ahh, that’s a question that shows a lot of insight into the nature of the Chinese Communist Party.
If the Party collapses, they will lash out. First, the Party has collected loads
of blackmail on powerful people from around the world, through hacking, or
good old honey traps. I imagine if it came to it, the Party would use that blackmail for protection,
and if that didn’t work out, they would take them down with them.
But what country would the CCP take down with them? Probably China. They would do everything
they could to salt the Earth in the wake of their destruction. The Party always said there’s no new
China without the Communist Party. That’s not just propaganda. It’s also a threat.
Whether that comes to pass, will all depend on how the Party ultimately falls. And one day it will.
Thanks for your question Black Label, and thank you for your support.
If you like the show and want to see us keep going,
and get access to a bunch of other cool perks, check out patreon.com/chinauncensored.
Or chinauncensored.locals.com
Join the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army and stick to the Chinese Communist Party—a
hostile communist regime.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.