Pepe the Frog in Hong Kong?
The chosen one appears
And Social Media actually stands up to China
That and more on this week’s China Uncensored.
This is China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This week’s China news headlines!
Hong Kong has been in the midst of two months of nonstop protests.
1.7 million people took the streets last Sunday.
They’ve been protesting an extradition bill that would allow
Hong Kong authorities to send people to mainland China for trial.
The people of Hong Kong say they’re fighting for their freedom.
China calls it a color revolution backed by the US.
The truth?
Hong Kong protesters are a bunch of white supremacists!
Yes, that’s Pepe the Frog.
As the New York Times says,
“Pepe the Frog is a hate symbol,
a cheerleader of racism and anti-Semitism,
a friend of alt-right extremists.”
Yes...clearly that describes the Hong Kong protesters
that have adopted him.
Some even spray painting him around the city.
There’s even a Hong Kong Pepe themed sticker pack for Whatsapp.
So are the Hong Kong protesters a bunch of Nazi white supremicists?
Um...no.
It turns out that Pepe symbolizes
something else to Hong Kongers.
One protester said,
“It just looks funny and captures the hearts of so many youngsters.
It is a symbol of youth participation in this movement.”
Or my personal favorite,
the protester who said,
“To me, Pepe is just a Hello Kitty-like character,”
Hello Pepe!
Yes, that image will haunt your dreams.
Just like Pepe the Pooh.
You’re welcome.
But in some ways, perhaps Hong Kongers
have the purest understanding of Pepe.
Pepe was created more than a decade ago—
long before he was adopted by the alt-right on 4chan.
And as Pepe’s creator says,
“In the end, Pepe is whatever you say he is,
and I, the creator, say that Pepe is love.”
Pepe is love.
An employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong
has been detained in mainland China.
Simon Cheng traveled to Shenzhen on business for the consulate
where he was picked up for...well,
at first no one knew,
because the police refused to say why Cheng was in detention.
But then they told my favorite state-run media the Global Times
that they detained Cheng for soliciting a prostitute in Shenzhen.
To which everyone said, suuuuuuure.
Yeeeeaaaaah.
Especially concerning was that fact that Cheng
was apparently detained after he already left Shenzhen
and was on his way back to Hong Kong on the high-speed rail.
That means he was most likely detained by Chinese police
while he was already in Hong Kong at the West Kowloon Rail Station.
Last year, Hong Kong and mainland Chinese authorities
struck a deal to put part of the train station under Chinese law,
instead of Hong Kong law.
At the time, people were worried about Chinese law
being implemented on Hong Kong soil,
but as this case clearly shows,
they had absolutely nothing to worry about,
everything’s fine.
In fact, Cheng’s mysterious detention
will probably make Hongkongers even more enthusiastic
and reassured about the extradition bill to China.
Everything is fine.
And since Simon Cheng was an employee of the UK consulate,
obviously the UK is up in arms.
And by that, I mean
they apologized profusely to the Chinese government
for the inconvenience,
before retiring for afternoon tea.
Meanwhile, US Vice President Mike Pence
says Beijing needs to honor the treaty they made with the UK r
egarding Hong Kong,
or else people might think China won’t honor any deal.
Well, someone who worked on that deal for China
had this to say on the UK’s Channel 4 news.
“Let me get this clear then,
the joint declaration is dead.
Correct?”
“No the joint declaration terminated
when the British government handed sovereignty back to China
midnight June 30th, 1997.”
Which shows you just how difficult
a lasting trade deal with China will be.
Only a very special person would be able to do it.
Well, here’s US President Donald Trump talking to reporters
about the Trade War and standing up to the Chinese regime.
“Somebody had to do it, I am the chosen one.”
Surprised?
Well actually, this was prophesied back in 2014.
“You are the most talented,
most interesting and extraordinary person in the universe.
And you are capable of amazing things,
because you are the Special.”
Yes, I’m saying that Donald Trump is President Business.
Think about it.
“We got a hugger.”
Maybe.
In China’s often-forgotten special administrative region—
Macau—
things aren’t going so well.
It’s time to vote for a new leader!
But don’t worry;
you won’t have to sit through endless campaigning
that drags on for two years.
Because in Macau,
there is only one candidate: Ho Iat Seng.
He’s the only person the Communist Party approved to run.
He’s “a Beijing-backed former legislator
who is expected to cement China’s control
over the special administrative region
and distance it from escalating protests in neighboring Hong Kong.”
Democracy in Macau is so much more harmonious than in Hong Kong.
But some people are still standing up to the Chinese Communist Party.
Like the mayor of Prague.
He’s been fighting against Beijing’s influence in his city.
“He reinstituted the practice of flying
the Tibetan flag from city hall.”
“He allowed an exhibition on city property
commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.”
“He hosted the leader of Tibet’s exiled government
and made an official visit to the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.”
“And he has called for Prague to renegotiate
its 2016 sister-city agreement with Beijing,
removing the acknowledgment of the one-China principle,
which states that China, Taiwan and Tibet are a single country
that should be ruled from Beijing.”
FYI, he’s a member of the Czech Pirate Party.
And speaking of, and I can’t believe I’m saying this,
Twitter and Facebook have also
stood up to the Chinese Communist Party.
Both social media giants said they discovered fake accounts
spreading disinformation about Hong Kong.
Those accounts have been deleted.
YouTube also disabled a bunch of channels
for spreading fake Hong Kong news.
Twitter also said it would block state-controlled media outlets
from advertising on its site.
If only the New York Times and the Washington Post
and the Wall Street Journal could hold themselves
to the same journalistic standards as Twitter.
But no, they’re very happy to have Chinese state-run media
advertise in *their* publications.
The Chinese regime was quick to condemn
Facebook’s and Twitter’s actions,
saying that overseas Chinese have the right to express their opinions.
And the irony caused the internet to explode.
15 papers from Chinese scientists have been retracted
because they may have involved involuntary organ donation.
That is, killing innocent people and harvesting their organs.
The Chinese Communist Party was quick to defend them,
saying it’s fine to murder Chinese people as long as it’s for science...
or politics, or any other reason.
And then remembered they had meant to
cover the whole thing up.
Oops.
What China should defend is the rail lines
of the Belt and Road Initiative.
That’s Chinese leader Xi Jinping's trillion dollar infrastructure plan
to bring the world a little closer to China.
A big part of that was a massive rail line connecting China and Europe.
Well, China’s state-run China Railway has now admitted
that most of the train cars have been empty.
“In one extreme case only one of 41 containers
on a particular train actually carried goods.”
Widespread waste and fraud in a state owned enterprise
of a communist nation?
I’m shocked.
Shocked!
And finally, in China, love is not always love.
“China ruled out legalizing same-sex marriage on Wednesday.
A parliament spokesman said China’s legal position on marriage
will remain between a man and a woman.”
That is so incredibly hypocritical.
Because the Communist Party once allowed
a human woman to marry a toad.
And remember, Pepe is a frog, not a toad,
so Pepe still gets to be love.
And that’s it for this week’s China news headlines!
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from one of you—
a fan who support China Uncensored
with a dollar or more per episode,
by contributing through Patreon.
Daniel Ortman asks,
“Could [the Trade War] break the CCP?
If so, why didn't we do it before?
Well, obviously, we didn’t have the chosen one before!
Or as President Business would put it,
“I do blame past administrations for allowing
this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow.”
But it’s not just “past administrations.”
Because those presidents felt pressure from the big US companies
that funded their political campaigns.
The China market seemed big and full of gold
and a lot of people and businesses thought they could get a piece of it.
And so for many years, the US leadership
turned a blind eye to all the Chinese intellectual property theft,
WTO violations,
and currency manipulation.
In fact, companies would sometimes
complain to US officials about China,
but then ask them to not say anything,
because they still wanted to do business there.
It eventually got so bad, though,
it couldn’t be ignored.
But even today, companies like Google and Microsoft
partner with Chinese military universities on research
that may be used in persecuting Chinese citizens.
Thanks for your question, Daniel.
And if you have a question for me
you want to hear answered on the show,
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we would have to shut down the show
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And to everyone,
thanks for watching!
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.