China completes an artificial moon
More power battles at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party
And sinister developments at the Olympics
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
China has built an artificial moon.
And—this is not a joke, it was inspired by a 20-year-old experiment that used magnets
to levitate a frog.
Maybe Chinese leader Xi Jinping is looking for waysto deal with a certain pesky toad.
Send him to the moon!
But China’s artificial moon might not quite look like what you’d imagine.
These are the schematics.
It’s a vacuum chamber housing a two foot wide artificial moon made up of rocks and
dust.
The magnets essentially recreate the gravity on the moon, a sixth of what it is on Earth.
“When the field is strong enough it can magnetize and levitate things—from a living
frog to a chestnut—against the gravitational force.”
Why are scientists so into levitating frogs?
Anyway, this artificial moon is the first of its kind according to the lead scientist
from the China University of Mining and Technology.
The artificial moon will allow Chinese scientists to simulate a testing environment very similar
to the moon, where “Rocks and dust can behave in a completely different way than they do
on Earth.
There is no atmosphere on the moon, the temperature can change quickly and dramatically, and in
low gravity, soil particles are more loosely bound to each other.”
And the Chinese Communist Party has some very ambitious moon plans.
They want to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.
And there’s some talk of a China-Russia moon base.
In other words, Space Race 2 is going to be very interesting.
Speaking of the new Cold War, Britain’s MI5 has warned that a Chinese agent has infiltrated
Parliament.
“An alert from the security service said Christine Ching Kui Lee ‘established links’
for the Chinese Communist Party with current and aspiring MPs.”
Christine Lee is a London-based solicitor.
According to MI5, she “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf
of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Lee also gave donations to politicians, with funding from foreign nationals in China and
Hong Kong.
According to the BBC, this is the result of a long-running investigation.
Now, it’s important to note that Lee has so far not been accused of doing anything
illegal.
There aren’t really laws in the UK against the type of foreign interference Lee seems
to have been involved in.
Which is one reason it’s so easy for the Chinese Communist Party to interfere in the
UK and other liberal democracies.
And after the break, Chinese leader Xi Jinping gives his first marching orders to the Chinese
military this year.
Welcome back.
It’s a brand new year.
But for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, it’s not a time for resolutions.
It’s a time for issuing his first orders of the year to the military.
As the head of the People’s Liberation Army, which is the Communist Party’s military,
Xi told troops to keep an eye on “the changes in national security and military struggle”
And “the changes in technology, warfare, and opponents”.
Xi did not specify who those opponents are.
I’ll let you speculate.
However, at the end of the year there’s going to be a major meeting of the Communist
Party.
And if you’ve been watching everyone’s favorite Communist Soap Opera, General Hostility,
you know that means internal power struggles within the Comunist Party.
“In previous years, Xi had been focused on military threats from foreign countries
and warfare preparation.”
This year, it was a lot more vague.
Almost as if some of those threats might not be from foreign countries.
Maybe, from Xi’s internal political enemies?
The day after Xi gave the military its orders, Xi’s close ally, Wang Xiaohong , secretary
of the Party committee of the Ministry of Public Security, published this article in
Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily.
It says public security departments should be guided by Xi Jinping Thought, and “Crush
all kinds of attempts to endanger political security.”
Yeah, sounds like the factional infighting in the Communist Party is going to be pretty
intense this year.
I can’t wait for the next episode of General Hostility!
Speaking of elite power competitions, the Winter Olympics are just three weeks away.
And China is making a show of opening up the internet for it.
China has the most repressive internet control in the world.
But the Chinese regime has “promised Olympic athletes free access to social media platforms
and other websites in the Olympic Village in Beijing.”
Again, just the foreign athletes and just while they’re in the Olympic Village.
But even still, “[experts] expect heavy surveillance of online activity to continue,
even for visitors who are allowed to access sites that would otherwise be blocked.”
You know, for any foreign athlete who might be thinking of taking some kind of stand for
human rights.
The Chinese internet police get word of that, and then biathlon contestants might have something
more interesting to shoot at.
Speaking of Olympic surveillance, espionage is also a concern for athletes.
Dutch athletes have been warned not to bring their phones or laptops to China for just
that reason.
“Dutch team members will be equipped with unused devices in China, to protect their
personal data from Chinese surveillance.”
As you can imagine, the Chinese Communist Party is taking the news really well.
My favorite state-run media the Global Times criticized the Netherlands by bringing up
the NSA,
accusing America of getting a Tibetan activist to influence the Dutch Olympic Committee,
and dissing the Netherlands’ Covid response.
Look, it makes sense if you work for the Global Times.
And coming up after the break, China’s zero Covid policy is in more trouble.
Welcome back.
Covid is a particular concern of the Chinese regime during the Olympics.
China has begun handing out jail terms as long as four years for people violating draconian
lockdown measures.
The sad thing is, millions of Chinese citizens have become complicit in enforcing China’s
insane zero-covid policy.
In Xian, “Hospital employees refused to admit a man suffering from chest pains because
he lived in a medium-risk district.
He died of a heart attack.”
In another case, hospital workers refused to admit “a woman who was eight months pregnant
and bleeding [because] her Covid test wasn’t valid.
She lost her baby.”
“Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care that he’d had nothing
to eat after catching him out during the lockdown.
They beat him up.”
It’s amazing what people will do simply because someone in power told them to do it.
Or paid them to do it.
However, China is ordering civil servants across the country to tighten their belts.
“Local governments across the country are cutting back on a range of perks and bonuses
as part of a drive to reduce costs.”
So maybe they’ll stop enforcing draconian policies if there’s no money in it.
Earlier this week, we did an episode on how “China’s Zero Covid Policy is Falling
Apart.”
Check it out if YouTube somehow forgot to let you know about it.
In that episode, I mentioned that China’s zero Covid policy is unsustainable, so they’re
starting to do things like call it “societal zero Covid” instead, which means…there’s
still Covid.
And as Bloomberg points out, the Communist Party is playing more word games too.
“According to the government, ‘Covid zero’ is no longer China’s policy goal.
Rather, it’s aiming for ‘dynamic clearing,’ which relies on local governments to stamp
out local outbreaks.”
And if you’re thinking that dynamic clearing sounds exactly like zero Covid, but with an
easier way to blame local governments for failing, you would be right.
I bet local officials are loving this.
Especially as outbreaks continue to spread across China.
Yet another wonderful sign for Hong Kong, the former security chief of Xinjiang, you
know, where there’s all the mass surveillance and genocide, yeah, he’s been put in charge
of the Chinese army garrison in Hong Kong.
That’ll go well.
In some good news for a change, Taiwan continues to ramp up its support for Lithuania.
Lithuania has been facing economic attacks from the Chinese Comunist Party because the
government supported Taiwan.
Taiwan this week announced a 1 billion dollar Lithuania credit fund to enhance economic
cooperation between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Lithuania’s foreign minister has called on the EU to stand up to China.
Taiwan and Lithuania: not the heroes we deserved, but the heroes we need.
China continues to encroach on the border with Bhutan, with new construction across
6 new sites.
Satellite images show a massive build up, over 200 new structures.
This area has a lot of strategic value for the Chinese military.
“[It’s at the] junction of the borders of India, Bhutan and China, where Indian and
Chinese troops were locked in standoff for more than two months in 2017.”
So expect to hear China having more border conflicts with India in 2022.
And now is the time when I answer questions from you, my loyal 50-cent army—fans of
the show who support what we do through the crowd funding website Patreon or the exclusive
social media platform Locals.
LolNo asks on Patreon, “Do you think companies are going to move outside of China and start
more factories in EU instead?
It would be interesting to see what would happen if factories would stop selling to
China and start only selling in EU/US and countries with no connection to China.”
That’s a very good question.
Actually, during the Trump Administration, we noticed a lot of companies were beginning
to move their supply chains out of China.
However, they weren’t exactly bringing manufacturing back to America, or even the EU.
Most set up shop in other Asian countries.
I’ve started to see a lot more things made in Vietnam.
Recently, the US passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
That should also encourage more Western companies to get their supply chains out of China or
else risk violating US law.
Not to mention if China keeps locking down because of Covid cases, more companies are
going to need to switch their supply chains or risk never getting their products out of
China.
Ultimately, this might mean consumers will have more opportunities to buy things not
made in China, which would be great.
We’re actually working on a new YouTube channel that helps people find products that
are not made in China.
Is that something you’re interested in?
Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for your question and your support LolNo.
And for all of you watching, consider joining the China Uncensored 50-Cent Army.
You’ll have a chance to ask me questions on the show, and there are some other cool
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Check out patreon.com/chinauncensored.
Or chinauncensored.locals.com to learn more.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.