On this episode of China Uncensored...
Wow, some crazy things happened in 2015.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host, Chris Chappell.
Well, it's that time of year again—
the end of the year to be exact—
the time when we all look back and try to make sense of what went wrong.
But before we crack out the leftover eggnog
and reflect on the missed opportunities that are now gone forever,
let's take a look back at the ten biggest stories from China in 2015.
Number 10
Beijing Awarded the 2022 Olympics
Remember when China promised to clean up its human rights act
ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics?
Well, they sort of did.
I mean, they cleaned up the streets—
by taking pesky citizens off the streets and locking them up.
But jailing political prisoners
didn't discourage the International Olympic Committee in July this year
from awarding China the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Not that they had many options.
The only other contender was Kazakhstan—
a country known primarily for the fictional character Borat—
and for the very real suppression of human rights.
So why not pick China?
Sure, there's almost no snow in Beijing,
but why not pick China?
Plus, China is already the gold medal champion
of making fake goods.
In fact they've already started practicing.
Just listen to their official Olympic song!
"A kingdom of isolation,
and it looks like I'm the queen"
Sorry, that was "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen.
Here's their official Olympic song.
「一幅画整装待发约定天地之大」
"It's funny how some distance
makes everything seem small"
「一个家五彩肤色绽放和平之花」
Number 9
Chinese Doctor Wins the Nobel Prize
In October, Dr. Tu Youyou
became the first female Chinese doctor to win the Nobel Prize.
It was for discovering a cure for malaria...
back in the 70s.
A little late?
Well, only for the millions of people who died each year from malaria,
for thirty years,
while waiting for the cure to be made public.
Dr. Tu found an herb that traditional Chinese medicine
used to treat malaria two thousand years ago.
So she refined it into a useable drug.
For human trials, she tested it on herself.
Number 8
The Social Credit System
That name should fill you with an Orwellian terror.
That's what the Communist Party is calling their new rating system.
It's like Yelp,
only instead of evaluating restaurants,
it evaluates people.
Every single one of China's 1.3 billion citizens, that is.
By 2020,
this national government database will judge you on things like
your credit,
whether or not you have a criminal record,
what kind of things you buy online,
what books you read,
your social media behavior.
Oh and of course, the ratings of your friends and family.
So what happens if your social credit is bad?
Well, people are going to see that when you apply for a job,
or housing, or a loan.
You don’t want to have a questionable person working for you, do you?
One who might bring down your own credit rating?
Anyway, this new Social Credit System is sure to be doubleplusgood.
Number 7
Meeting Your Doppelgänger
In November, the Chinese president met...
the other Chinese president.
And one of those presidents
people actually voted for.
In yet another linguistically confusing chapter of the One China policy—
a policy that says Taiwan is a part of China,
but doesn't specify which government is the legitimate government—
the unelected Chinese president Xi Jinping
met the democratically elected Chinese president Ma Ying-jeou.
It's the first time the two sides met
since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Number 6
The Year of Hacking
You really, really ought to update your computer's software.
Because the failure of the US government's Office of Personnel Management
to do just that opened the door to a massive cyber attack from...
some foreign entity.
The hackers stole the personal data of 4.2 million
current and former federal employees.
And then we learned the number was actually 22 million.
Yes, one in every 15 Americans is now in this hacker's database.
Information that, in the wrong hands...
well, let's just say this is not good.
So who was behind the attacks?
Well, we don't know for sure, but…
"What countries are attacking the United States as we sit here in cyberspace?"
"Well, I don't want to give you a complete list.
But I can tell you the top of the list is the Chinese."
Number 5
(Cough cough cough cough)
There's no better way to ring in the New Year
than with a red alert warning that your nation's capital
has air too hazardous to breathe.
This is what Beijing looked like at the beginning of December.
Man, those aunties won't stop dancing for anything!
This was the first official red alert from Beijing's new warning system.
And in November, in another city, pollution was even worse.
On a pollution scale of 1 to 500,
500 being really, really hazardous,
the city of Shenyang reached 1,400.
Pollution is so thick,
Chinese people can't even see the pollution documentary "Under the Dome,"
by former CCTV reporter Cha Jing.
Just kidding.
It's because the Chinese government censored it.
Number 4
Stock Market Crash
China's stock market skyrocketed early this year.
And then in June, it crashed.
In China, most stock buyers are individual people—
workers, retirees, etc.—
and a lot of them were first-time investors who put money in the market
because state-run media told them too.
And a lot of them even borrowed money to buy stocks—
something called "margin trading"—
because state-run media told them to.
When the markets crashed,
they couldn't pay back what they borrowed.
Which is why,
to help solve the financial crisis,
the government recommended people borrow more money to buy stocks.
This hasn't worked very well so far.
Number 3
The Tianjin Chemical Explosion
On August 12,
a pair of chemical explosions rocked the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.
The cause is still unknown—
and by unknown,
I mean we only know what Chinese state-run media told us:
It involved a warehouse storing toxic chemicals.
And they didn't even tell us that right away.
In fact initially, there was a total media blackout.
Censors deleted thousands of posts about the blasts on social media.
According to official statistics,
800 people were injured and almost 200 died.
Number 2
Now you can have a brother or sister!
At the end of October,
China finally repealed the One Child Policy.
The policy had led to mass infanticide and forced abortion.
Oh, and it failed in its most basic goal:
to balance China's population.
After 30 years,
China now has too many old people
that can't be supported by the younger generation.
But now that the One Child Policy has been repealed,
things are way better,
because you can have two kids instead of one!
Granted, there'll still be the same
overbearing government presence in people's lives—
like work units monitoring female workers' menstrual cycles—
and the fines and forced abortions will also continue—
but now you can have up to two kids.
And finally, Number 1
Zhou Yongkang sentenced to life
Years ago I said Chinese leader Xi Jinping
would take out his political rival Zhou Yongkang.
It would be unprecedented.
Zhou was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
You don't get much higher than that in the Communist Party.
"And that the next step could be Zhou Yongkang
facing a fate similar to Bo (Xilai)."
The fools!
They laughed at me!
But who's laughing now?!
Ahh.
You see, Zhou Yongkang held a lot of power.
He was the head of China's internal security network for years,
which meant he controlled a police force
with a budget larger than even the Chinese army.
And he amassed that power primarily through helping former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin
run his brutal campaign to suppress Falun Gong.
What's the point of a massive security apparatus
if you can't torture some religious dissidents, am I right?
Zhou was the biggest "tiger" to be hit
in Xi Jinping's "anti-corruption" campaign.
In June 2015, he got sentenced to life in prison.
Again, he was one of the 9 most powerful men in China.
Will we see something similar happen to Jiang Zemin next year?
Let's just say I don't think Xi Jinping will "let old acquaintance be forgot."
So what do you think will be in store for China
and the rest of the world in 2016?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
And thank you for making this the best year for China Uncensored yet.
You're the best audience on YouTube.
Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. Happy New Year.
Merry Christmas.
And a very merry Christmas to the factory workers in Yiwu,
a town in eastern China's Zhejiang province.
Because they've been working on Christmas since January.
The fear is this new gene will get passed around
along with other antibiotic resistant genes.
That could eventually create a pan-drug resistant bacteria.
In other words, a bacteria that can't be killed by anything we throw at it.