People are stopped from fleeing during a deadly earthquake.
China’s economy tumbles—although they have a creative solution.
And the crackdown in Hong Kong is getting so bad, it’s almost hilarious.
But it’s not.
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
Whenever you go online, especially to look into controversial topics, you should be using
a VPN like Surfshark to protect your identity.
It’s been a rough summer for people in China.
They’ve been hit with
deadly floods,
a record heatwave and drought,
and the worst power outages in decades.
And if that wasn’t enough, this week, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan province.
Dozens of people were killed, and hundreds more injured.
The epicenter of the quake was Ganzi prefecture.
It’s home to mostly ethnic Tibetans—which is to say, people whom the Chinese regime
generally keeps poor and marginalized,
and occasionally throws into prison on trumped-up charges like “inciting splittism”.
But that’s not the point.
The point is, it gets worse.
Because in addition to the earthquake, the people of Sichuan province are also dealing
with the Communist Party’s Zero Covid lockdowns.
And the Zero Covid rules prevented citizens from evacuating during the earthquake.
In one city, as residents fled down the stairs of their high-rise apartment buildings, “Many
found the exits locked or blocked by community health workers, who urged them to remain indoors.”
And this video on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, shows residents in another apartment
complex who came down to the lobby after the quake, only to discover the doors had been
chained from the outside.
This is literally my nightmare.
Obviously, people in Sichuan province are extremely unhappy.
Especially because, while large earthquakes are deadly, Covid is not.
At least according to
China’s official statistics, which claim there has not been a single Covid death in
all of Sichuan province for more than two years.
Of course, that data might be a lie, but it’s still hard to justify
locking people in their buildings when the walls could be literally collapsing around
them.
Also this week, in neighboring Tibet, it’s been reported that the Chinese regime is collecting
people’s DNA on a massive scale.
What’s the point of collecting all that DNA?
One Chinese official said that mass collection is necessary “for the public security organs
to detect various illegal cases, and to effectively crack down on illegal and criminal elements.”
Must be why “blood samples for DNA collection were being systematically collected from children
at kindergartens.”
They’ll finally get those crayon-stealing criminal elements!
And obviously everyone else, too.
This DNA collection is part of a larger program in Tibet that started in January this year,
called “The Three Greats.”
“The Three Greats” also requires police “to visit each household and question residents
about their views.”
Not sure what questions the police are asking, but I doubt they’re looking for opinions
on who should win the next season of The Bachelorette.
And after the break, China’s economy is going down the tubes.
Except for one bright spot.
Welcome back.
China’s economy is taking a hit.
This time, because Chinese companies are not exporting as many goods.
There’s a lot behind this.
The Zero Covid lockdowns have hurt China’s factory output.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is less interested in buying Chinese stuff, thanks to soaring
inflation, and also they don’t need to buy any more Chinese pandemic gear like face masks
and shields and those sort of things.
The Japanese financial services company Nomura has cut its forecast for China’s GDP growth
this year.
Again.
They now estimate China’s economy will grow just 2.7 percent this year.
That’s a massive drop from around 6 or 7 percent before the pandemic.
Nomura’s chief economist said that about 12% of China’s total GDP is affected by
Covid controls.
In other words, the Communist Party’s Zero Covid policy is messing up 12% of the economy.
And the economy is already neck-deep in a real estate crisis.
Big developers like Evergrande borrowed too much money to build apartment complexes, but
they couldn’t pay back their debt.
And now they don’t have the money to finish many of the buildings they promised.
Meanwhile, a lot of homeowners who bought apartments they can’t move into because
they haven’t been built, are boycotting their mortgage payments.
It’s a vicious cycle that’s dragging the whole property market down.
And the property sector is 30% of China’s GDP.
(source, don’t show)
But don’t worry, the Chinese Communist Party has a solution!
They’re instructing Party cadres to buy, buy, buy China’s way out of the property
crisis.
The Party secretary of a county in Hunan province told local Party officials to take the lead
by purchasing additional homes.
He said, “If you’ve already bought one, buy two.
If you’ve already bought two, buy three.
If you’ve already bought three, buy four.”
Which is actually a great idea.
Pumping money into stabilizing home prices is a great use for all that corrupt money
cadres have embezzled over the years!
And as a bonus, for each additional home a Chinese cadre buys, he now also has a place
to keep an additional mistress.
And since the Party is encouraging cadres to set an example by having more children,
why not have three children with *each mistress*?
So four homes, each with a wife or mistress, could mean four times three, for a total of
twelve children per communist official!
That’s sure to fix China’s demographic crisis while causing no additional problems
whatsoever.
But as China’s economy slows, at least one industry is seeing record profits: Covid testing!
China’s Andon Health, which supplies Covid test kits both at home and abroad, reported
that its net profit skyrocketed by more than 27,000 percent in the first six months of
2022—reaching $2.2 billion.
It was the biggest increase recorded by any listed company in mainland China.
Part of that profit is because they hit the US jackpot.
The US government signed contracts with Andon Health for $2.1 billion, mainly to buy at-home
Covid test kits.
You’re not allowed to ask what country the coronavirus came from, but you can sure ask
which country you can buy the solution from!
And after the break, just when you think things in Hong Kong couldn’t get any worse, they’re
now going after the children.
Welcome back.
Let’s go with some good news for a change.
More US officials visited Taiwan this week.
The latest is a bipartisan delegation of eight US lawmakers.
That means 28 members of Congress have been to Taiwan this year.
And something tells me they’re just going to keep coming.
For US lawmakers, visiting Taiwan is more popular than the “It’s Corn!”
song right now.
And where America leads, other countries will follow.
Even French lawmakers are visiting Taiwan.
Ok, I’m all for supporting Taiwan, but we have to draw the line somewhere.
French!
What’s next, Canadians?
What’s that, Shelley?
Ugh, even the Canadians.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that good news about Taiwan, because now we’re going to talk
about Hong Kong
...where five speech therapists have been found guilty of sedition.
For publishing children’s books.
The books are about a peaceful sheep village that’s infiltrated by wolves in sheep’s
clothing.
“Prosecutors alleged that the children’s books depicted the authorities as wolves and
Hong Kong people as sheep, implying a vulnerable populace at the mercy of a brutal regime.”
Really?
You don’t say.
The judge in the case ruled that these books had “seditious intention.”
In other words, that they could incite people to feel hatred or contempt against the Hong
Kong government.
Or I guess in this case, incite children.
According to the verdict, “‘The seditious intention stems not merely from the words,’
but from words intended to cause certain effects in a child’s mind.”
Under the sedition law, these speech therapists could be facing up to two years in prison.
In fact, they’ve already spent a year behind bars because they were denied bail while waiting
for trial.
The sedition law is actually a British colonial-era law.
No one had been charged with it since 1967, when it was used against pro-communist forces.
Until the Chinese Communist Party imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong in
2020.
Then Hong Kong authorities started using a very broad interpretation of the sedition
law to curb dissent.
Basically, if the authorities couldn’t charge people under the National Security Law, they
could find a way to charge them with the sedition law instead.
Around 60 people have been charged with sedition over the last two years.
“The scope of [sedition] cases also broadened to target journalists, civil servants and
more trivial crimes, such as simply opposing the government’s Covid policies.”
How bad has it gotten?
An elderly woman was charged with sedition for clapping in court.
Yes, clapping.
What’s next?
Being charged with sedition for smiling at the police?
“That smile was clearly sarcastic, your honor.
No one in Hong Kong would genuinely smile at the police.
Throw the book at him.”
In other signs that Hong Kong is doing really well, schoolteachers have been told to study
Xi Jinping’s speech.
The one he gave in Hong Kong over the summer.
The Hong Kong education bureau said they would be sending copies of Xi’s speech to local
schools.
And encouraged teachers to study and learn the “key messages” of the speech.
Messages like Xi’s love and care for young people in Hong Kong.
Also if any teachers lose their copy of Xi Jinping’s speech, they will be charged with
sedition.
That was just a joke.
I think.
And finally, China has come up with the worst cosplay ever: Dressing like Xi Jinping.
It’s not just for boot-licking Communist Party officials anymore.
It’s a new trend!
The communist cadre look is so hot right now.
They call it “office and bureau” style.
Basically, bureaucrat style.
On Xiaohongshu, which is kind of like Instagram, hashtags for the trend have more than 5 million
views.
Young people are posting photos of themselves in dark blue zip-up jackets, like the ones
that Xi Jinping wears.
And to finish the look, a Communist Party pin.
There are even different outfits for whatever level of Party official you want to dress
like.
This is the veteran Party official style.
Don’t forget the nylon socks!
Why are young people doing this?
Some are doing it ironically.
Others are doing it because it looks stable and boring.
Some young people want stable and boring, given the massive number of layoffs and difficult
economy they’re facing.
And one way to get “stable and boring” is a government job.
“Last year a record two million people registered to take the national government agencies’
hiring exam.”
So bureaucrat style is essentially Communist Party normcore.
Is it ironic?
Is it not ironic?
It’s both!
I decided to try out the style for myself.
Am I doing it right?
And this episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
When you go online, everything you do is being tracked and logged—by the websites you visit
and your internet service provider.
And in many cases, by your government.
And if you’re in a place like Hong Kong, and want to read children’s books online—you
definitely should be using a VPN.
Because the wolves are watching you.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.