China is outraged by a Taiwanese video game
Unexpected side effects
to Chinese genetically engineered babies
And facial recognition technology—
it’s not just for humans anymore!
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
This is China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
for the latest China news,
and click the notification bell
so you get an alert
each time we publish a new episode.
This week’s China news headlines.
A video game is causing tensions
between China and Taiwan to get...
even more tense.
This is Devotion,
a Taiwanese psychological horror game.
You can tell it’s really scary
because you have to do math.
It’s set in the 1980s,
in a creepy run down apartment
of a family of religious devotees.
And you need to figure out what happened.
Speaking of figuring out what happened,
people were trying to figure out why the game
suddenly disappeared on Steam.
That’s a website where you can buy video games.
It has to do with an ancient curse.
The ancient curse being China’s plan to take over Taiwan,
by force if necessary.
You see, sharp-eyed Chinese gamers spotted this.
Spooky, eh.
It’s called a Fulu talisman.
Daoist priests
would draw talismans to ward off evil spirits
or give instructions to spirits.
This one is a curse spell.
In traditional Chinese culture
this is considered very evil.
It’s the equivalent of stabbing a voodoo doll.
And this one has written on it,
Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh Moron.
Chinese players were not happy.
If you don’t know,
Xi Jinping has often been compared with
the lovable Pooh bear,
which oddly makes Xi Jinping, not happy.
So Chinese players responded by flooding the game’s page
with thousands of negative reviews.
And then at some point,
it was taken down from Steam.
By the way, Valve, the parent company of Steam,
is trying to open a local Chinese version.
Though apparently Chinese netizens aren’t happy about it.
They can already access
the global version of Steam with a VPN.
And they’re concerned that if there’s
a separate Chinese version of Steam,
it would have all the good games censored.
Really?!
Well, anyway, after the Devotion game
disappeared from Steam,
the company that made it wrote a public apology.
And they said the game was pulled
because of technical issues.
Well, I guess in a sense that’s true,
since this did cause the game to crash and burn.
Now Red Candle Games is creating a patch
that will remove the cursed talisman,
but there’s another problem.
“Chinese players have downloaded
a pirated version of Devotion
that couldn’t be patched
and still continued to offend Chinese users.”
LOL.
So yes, US warships just recently
sailed through the Taiwan Strait.
But it’s a video game that’s really upsetting
cross-strait relations.
But the youth of China might have
a bigger problem to worry about—
internet censorship.
Of themselves, not of others.
This year alone WeChat has blocked
more than 40,000 accounts.
Pretty good for only two months.
And a new target is sang culture.
According to Tech in Asia,
“It loosely translates to funeral or mourning,
but it can also mean hopeless or dispirited.”
Working 12 hours a day at a job
that won’t even cover rent in Beijing?
That’s sang.
Weibo has also blocked accounts
that “peddle anxiety.”
So don’t look to these web platforms
as an outlet for your existential angst anymore,
Chinese millennials.
Because you can’t have Communist Party spirit
if you’re so sad.
Not to worry though!
Teenage angst
will soon be a thing of the past in China!
Because, well, teenagers may also be
a thing of the past.
Birth rates are falling in China.
Like, a lot.
Even though the Communist Party ended the One Child Policy
by implementing a slightly more liberal Two Child Policy,
“There were 15.23 million new births in 2018,
down by more than 11 percent from the year before.”
And the downward trend has been going on
for a couple of years now.
In fact, birth rates started dropping in the 1960s,
well before the One Child policy even started.
So why was the One Child Policy necessary in the first place?
Good question.
China’s overall population growth is slowing,
but it hasn’t yet started to actually shrink.
But China is rapidly becoming a country of old people,
as birth rates go down and life expectancy goes up.
Now to be fair, old Chinese people can be amazing.
But they’re also not necessarily economically productive—
especially when so much work
is still farming or factory work.
So this puts more of a burden
on those young people who do work.
And according to the New York Times,
“Should China increase welfare benefits
in line with high-income countries—
a stated aspiration of the Chinese leadership—
[welfare benefits] could take up to 32 percent of
the gross domestic product by 2050.”
But hey, it’s the same Communist Party
that felt just fine with a One Child Policy
that resulted in hundreds of millions of abortions.
So I’m sure they could “solve” the problem
of too many elderly people with a brand new snack food
that’s truly of the people—Soylent Red.
One more reason not to eat food that’s made in China.
So birth rates are down.
But there’s been a dramatic increase
in the number of genetically engineered super babies!
There were zero a year ago,
and now there are two.
In November,
a Chinese scientist announced
he had successfully created GMO babies,
which was very against the rules
according to Chinese authorities.
The scientist behind the experiment, He Jiankui,
deleted a gene in the fetus’s DNA.
And in doing so,
he may have granted the twin girls immunity to HIV.
But there could be another upside, too.
According to this MIT Technology review,
this may have also enhanced their brains.
New research seems to show that removing that gene
not only makes mice smarter,
but also improves stroke recovery in humans
and has been linked to success in school.
So...the genetically modified twins
will do better in school
because part of their DNA was removed?
I feel bad for all of their schoolmates,
whose parents will ask them why they didn’t have
their genes illegally edited to be smarter.
In other tech news,
the Chinese Communist Party has created
an unparalleled surveillance state,
complete with AI facial recognition technology.
So that’s done.
What next?
Turn it on the pigs!
That’s not a slur.
I’m being serious.
Yes, China is creating
“A database of every pig’s face.”
Supposedly, it’s to fight swine flu.
China has been hit hard by it.
So by mapping pigs’ faces
and installing voice recognition software,
no more swine flu.
Wait, I feel like there’s a step missing somewhere.
Supposedly the idea is you’ll be able to predict
if a pig is getting sick.
And there are several Chinese companies
working on the technology.
But a lot of Chinese farmers are skeptical
that this technology could even work,
saying it won’t happen until pigs can fly.
Which has prompted another Chinese tech company
to work on a cutting-edge pig aviation app.
Speaking of flying pigs,
Chinese telecom company Huawei
has been on a PR tear,
trying to convince other countries
that Huawei is a private company
that has nothing to do with the Chinese government.
Have you ever given
any information to the Chinese government
in any way, shape, or form?
For the past 30 years, we have never done that,
and in the next 30 years to come,
we will never do that.
And then my favorite state-run media the Global Times
tweeted what looks like a propaganda video
of children singing about how much they love Huawei.
Huawei is good
Huawei is beautiful
Huawei makes me more intelligent
Teacher teaches me to love the motherland
Made in China cellphone, love Huawei
Huawei then came out with a statement
that this video was done independently
by Chinese netizens who just really love the company.
Because Huawei is a totally private company
that has nothing to do with the Chinese government.
And finally, relations between China and Canada
may not be so hot after Canada detained
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou,
But things are at least warming up a bit,
now that China will be getting its first Tim Horton’s.
And really, isn’t that the best news you’ve heard all day?
And before you go, it’s time when I answer a question
from a fan of the show who supports China Uncensored
on the crowd funding website Patreon.
Raunak Chhatwal asks,
“I saw an advchina Video where they said China
knows vpns are operating inside the country
and are allowing them to exist.
Why do you think they’re doing this?”
Well you see, the Chinese Communist party
worked hard to build the massive system
of government surveillance and internet censorship
for the good of the people.
The Great Firewall of China is there for a reason—
to keep the Chinese internet walled off
from the rest of the Internet.
But then people just use VPNs to get around it.
So irresponsible.
That’s why the Party started a major crackdown on them.
And decided to replace them with state backed versions.
It’s all to create a more harmonious internet,
without all the pollution of alternative facts,
such as the truth.
Another reason is that the regime knows
that if it completely blocked VPNs,
foreigners and foreign companies wouldn’t stand for it,
and they’d leave China.
So they’d rather just let people use VPNs,
but only the kind the Chinese government can control.
And maybe monitor.
Thanks for your question.
So why am I answering questions on the show?
It’s because a lot of advertisers don’t dare to work
with a show that criticizes the Chinese Communist Party.
So we rely on support from viewers like you
on the crowdfunding website Patreon.
Answering your questions on the show
is one of my ways of saying thank you.
So head over to patreon.com/chinaucnensored
to find out how you can keep China, uncensored.
Thanks for watching.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.