China deploys its military as Biden comes to Asia
A massive leak reveals the shocking secrets of Chinese police
And China’s economy is fracturing
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Matt Gnaizda, filling in today for Chris Chappell.
So this week, President Joe Biden departed on his first trip to Asia,
making stops in South Korea and Japan.
Biden met with other leaders of the Quad—an alliance between the US,
Australia, Japan, and India aimed at countering China.
And as Biden arrived, China began military exercises in the South China Sea.
And Russia and China conducted their first joint military operations since the Ukraine invasion.
It was meant to intimidate the US and its allies.
But that’s not all!
While that was happening, “The Chinese and Russian air forces performed
aerial operations over the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea,
and the western Pacific. Nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets from both nations were present.”
Japanese forces scrambled as the Russian-Chinese forces approached Japanese air space.
But that’s not all!
While that was happening, South Korea also had to scramble its jets as at
least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes entered its air defense identification zone.
But that’s not all!
As Biden left Asia, North Korea released this footage of a new missile test.
Now I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but I’m starting to think there are
authoritarian powers in the world that would like to destroy freedom and democracy.
Speaking of democracy, the thriving democracy of Taiwan.
It lives under the constant threat of invasion from an authoritarian superpower.
The Taiwan issue came up a lot on Biden’s Asia trip.
Not that anyone from Taiwan was actually there. We do love talking about Taiwan behind their backs.
But then Biden dropped the bombshell.
Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
Yes. You are?
That's the commitment we made.
That’s incredible! A clear statement vowing to defend Taiwan from the Chinese Communist Party.
That breaks decades of US Taiwan policy. Strategic Ambiguity—where
the US won’t say one way or the other whether we would defend Taiwan. Except, then this happened.
In a statement afterwards, a White House official insisting that Biden was not suggesting any
change in existing US policy. And that the president was referring to a commitment under
the Taiwan relations act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself.
This is not the first time White House officials have tried to walk
back what Biden himself has said. Here’s President Biden at a CNN Townhall last October.
Audience member: China just tested a hypersonic missile. What will you do to keep up with them
militarily and can you vow to protect Taiwan? Biden: Yes and yes.
The White House quickly followed up with this.
Well there has been no shift, the president was not announcing any change in our policy
nor has he made a decision to change our policy. There is no change in our policy.
Then in November, Biden said “[Taiwan is] independent. It makes its own decisions.”
But what he meant to say was this.
Can you clarify what the policy is because you said today independence and in the past…
No no. I said that they have to decide. They. Taiwan. Not us.
So clearly, Biden has broken with strategic ambiguity,
in favor of a policy of strategic confusion!
No no, hear me out. Donald Trump constantly
praised Xi Jinping , but he was the toughest president on China ever.
And now Biden, “After saying for a third time now that the U.S. was committed to coming to Taiwan’s
defense, it seems clearer the president is leaning into a more assertive U.S. stance
that differs with decades of U.S. policy—and not just misspeaking.”
It’s brilliant! Trump played the role of an egotistical mad man,
and Biden plays the role of a confused old man. The Chinese Communist Party has spent
decades studying the US, but you can’t predict the unpredictable! At least, that’s what I hope.
During his Asia trip, Biden announced a new 13-nation economic pact.
It’s “designed to counter China’s influence in the region”.
But....Taiwan is not among those 13 nations.
Biden also announced he may reduce Trump-era China tariffs.
That’s it, Mr. President! Keep ‘em guessing!
Here’s something that might clarify things. This week, Secretary of State
Antony Blinken gave a speech outlining the Biden administration’s China policy.
Blinken started out strong, criticizing China for undermining the international order.
“China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order
and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”
And then he pulled out the old, “we have to work together” line.
“China is also integral to the global economy and to our ability
to solve challenges from climate to COVID.”
Look, working together sounds great. But like my mother always said, it takes two to tango.
The Chinese Communist Party does not want to work with us. It wants to defeat us.
And the Biden administration doesn’t seem to be aware of that. Diplomatically speaking.
“We are not looking for a conflict or a new Cold War.
To the contrary, we are determined to avoid both.”
Good luck with that.
We’ll have more on the Biden administration’s China policy in an upcoming episode.
And coming up after the break, the secrets of Chinese police exposed!
Welcome back.
A leak has revealed thousands of photographs of prisoners in China’s Uyghur concentration camps.
Oh my gosh, all those ethnic minorities in tears…of happiness over how much they love
the Chinese Communist Party. Truly there is no new China without the Communist Party.
Must be why there’s “a shoot-to-kill policy for those who try to escape”.
Yeah, that’s also something we found out from this data leak.
These are being called the Xinjiang Police Files.
We’re talking tens of thousands of files from internal police servers in Xinjiang.
And they document the persecution of the Uyghurs that’s gone on since 2017.
Some of the stuff is just insane.
Take this woman. Yes that’s a guard with a batton standing next to
her ￼
Guess what she was arrested for? Because her son was jailed for 10 years on terrorism charges.
What terrorist activities did he commit?
“Documents describe her son as having
‘strong religious leanings’ because he doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke.”
That’s right, she’s in a concentration camp because her son doesn’t drink and smoke.
The youngest inmate was
15 years old when she was taken. ￼ The oldest was a 73 year old woman. ￼
“The source of the files claims to have hacked,
downloaded and decrypted them from a number of police computer servers in Xinjiang.”
They were then passed to Dr Adrian Zenz , a scholar at the US-based
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Now here’s the best part. These files became public
as UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet arrived in China earlier this week.
She’s going to be given a state tour of Xinjiang. Yes, the propaganda tour.
Speaking of propaganda, the Chinese regime
released a readout of Bachelet’s virtual meeting with Xi Jinping.
The Chinese version claimed that Bachelet said she “admired China’s efforts and achievements
in eradicating poverty, protecting human rights, and realizing economic and social development.”
If you think that this sounds shady, even for the UN, you would be right.
The UN claims Bachelet didn’t say anything about admiring China’s human rights progress.
Not that she exactly criticized it, either.
And of course, for Bachelet’s protection from Covid,
she’s kept in a closed loop, to strictly limit who has access to her.
In that video call, Xi Jinping reminded her there’s "no need for
'preachers' to boss around other countries."
Speaking of totally not preaching, when she arrived in China, she was given a copy of
Xi Jinping’s newest bestseller, “Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights.”
We could try for weeks and never write a joke that good.
I can’t wait to see what her tour of Xinjiang reveals.
And coming up after the break, 1 million Chinese people can’t access their own bank accounts.
Welcome back.
Nearly 1 million Chinese people have been unable to access their bank accounts for over a month.
It happened at four rural banks in Henan Province.
And I know when you think of rural banks, you don’t think 1 million people. But this is China.
After a few days of people not being able to access their accounts,
the banks said it was because they were upgrading their systems.
Then China’s Central Bank said it was because of an investigation.
And as you can imagine, people started getting nervous about their money.
Protests broke out in front of the provincial Banking
and Insurance Regulatory Commission office.
Protesters were demanding their deposits back.
After days of protests achieved nothing,
protesters decided to march to the Henan provincial government offices.
Where the police were already waiting for them.
But protesters refused to leave. After a brief standoff…
The protest ended the way all protests do in China:
with plainclothes police officers dragging protesters away.
And shoving them onto buses.
Meanwhile, Chinese premier Li Keqiang is warning that the Chinese economy
is actually worse now than in 2020, at the initial peak of the pandemic.
And remember, this is a guy who said China’s GDP numbers are man made and unreliable.
So if he’s saying things are bad then you know they’re actually even worse.
There’s an obvious solution though—rework
the entirety of the Chinese economy to be geared around the pandemic. PPE’s, testing stations,
quarantine camps. Do you know the fortune you can make on Covid testing babies?!
If that doesn’t work, there’s always this sure fire trick to deal with economic downturn—bump
up the ideological education.
This is an article of the New Curriculum Review,
a weekly magazine that provides Chinese language tutoring for high school students.
It contains a story supposedly from 1949,
about a husband executing his wife for the good of China’s communist revolution.
Beneath the story, the editor of this state run publication wrote,
“Anyone who reads this story cannot help but be moved by the noble character and love of
family and country” of this “revolutionary man,” who personally executed his wife.
Apparently though, a lot of Chinese netizens were kind of freaked out by the story. But this
isn’t new. The Party has always been telling people to put the Party ahead of human life.
Like, this was an official banner hung outside a court in Henan province.
The first line says “Party nature over human nature,”
So I really don’t know why people were upset. After all, that’s real communism.
The Chinese Communist Party is paying college students
to spy on and report classmates who violate Covid restrictions.
This is The Paper, a Party newspaper.
It talks about a school offering a 740 dollar reward for reporting on students
who try to leave the school. And if you don’t report them, you’ll be placed on probation.
Real Communism folks!
You may remember back in 2019,
the before times—before Covid, when a trailer for Top Gun 2 came out.
And it became pretty apparent some changes were made for China. The Japan and Taiwan
flags were replaced with nonsensical symbols on Maverick’s bomber jacket.
Well I’m happy to say for the final release, it looks like that error has been corrected.
It’s nice to report some good news for a change.
And now it's time for me to answer a question from a member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army,
fans who support our fight against Communism on the crowd funding website Patreon
or our exclusive social media community on Locals.
Today we hear from, SiliconValley Stoic. “Chinese submarines are untested but more so is their
military. If China attacks Taiwan they will be like Russia, defeated, embarrassed and broke.
Well Silicon Valley Stoic, I’m sure China is definitely paying attention
to how Russia has fared in Ukraine. Russia on paper has a vastly superior military,
but Ukrainians have managed to foil Russia’s attempts at a quick and easy victory.
Now on paper, the Chinese military too looks superior to Taiwan’s.
But there are actually a lot of factors going against it. As you mentioned,
China’s military is untested. Unfortunately, as far as a naval battle goes, the US navy is
also pretty untested when it comes to the type of operation we’d need to stop an invasion of Taiwan.
So we need to find a balance. China’s victory over Taiwan is far from inevitable,
so there’s no point in surrendering now.
But China’s military is also a threat that should be taken seriously.
Thanks for supporting the show, Silicon Valley Stoic.
We can only make this show because of the support of viewers like you. All it takes is as little as
a dollar per episode over at the crowd funding website patreon. You’ll get some cool perks,
including the chance of having me answer your question at the end of an episode.
Once again I’m Matt Gnaizda. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.