Tag: WeChat (Mobile App)

How China Censors Critics of the Economy

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China’s top intelligence agency issued an ominous warning last month about an emerging threat to the country’s national security: Chinese people who criticize the economy. In a series of posts on its official WeChat account, the Ministry of State Security implored citizens to grasp President Xi Jinping’s economic vision and not be swayed by those who sought to “denigrate China’s economy” through “false narratives.” To combat this risk, the ministry said, security agencies will focus on “strengthening economic propaganda and public opinion guidance.” China is intensifying its crackdown while struggling…

Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets

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The polls predicted a re-election victory, maybe even a landslide. But a couple of weeks before the vote, Kenny Chiu, a member of Canada’s Parliament and a critic of China’s human rights record, was panicking. Something had flipped among the ethnic Chinese voters in his British Columbia district. “Initially, they were supportive,” he said. “And all of a sudden, they just vanished, vaporized, disappeared.” Longtime supporters originally from mainland China were not returning his calls. Volunteers reported icy greetings at formerly friendly homes. Chinese-language news outlets stopped covering him. And…

At least 21 Dead After Fire at Beijing Hospital

Chin@Strategy

At least 21 people died after a fire erupted in a hospital in Beijing on Tuesday, forcing patients trapped inside to cram up against windows, awaiting rescue, while at least one jumped to a roof below to escape the flames and smoke. The fire appeared to be the deadliest in the Chinese capital in the past two decades. It broke out in an inpatient building of the Changfeng Hospital in the city’s south at just before 1 p.m., and firefighters had largely put out the flames within less than 40…

What Videos Show About the Extremes of China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Policy

Chin@Strategy

It has been weeks since Gao Mingjun, a 24-year-old resident of the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, saw her mother. As coronavirus cases began spreading in Zhengzhou last month, Ms. Gao’s mother, who works and lives at the city’s Foxconn industrial park — home to the world’s biggest iPhone assembly plant — told her daughter that she was barred from leaving the compound. Then, one night, Ms. Gao’s mother was ordered into a quarantine center about four miles away. She and dozens of other groggy workers were made to wait…

China’s Internet Censors Race to Quell Beijing Protest Chatter

Chin@Strategy

China’s internet censors are going to great lengths to shut down any discussion of a rare public protest condemning Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor” and denouncing the country’s Covid-19 policies just days before the start of an all-important Communist Party congress. When a column of smoke appeared on Thursday over the Sitong Bridge overpass in the Haidian district of Beijing, it drew attention to a protester who had hung banners openly bashing China’s top leader by name and criticizing the country’s “zero Covid” policy, including one calling for “freedom…

Covid, Russia and Economy Put the ‘China Model’ to the Test

Chin@Strategy

A year ago, while many countries were still reeling from Covid-19, China seemed to be one of few places prospering through the pandemic. It was also the only major economy that reported growth in 2020. Global investors were bullish on Chinese stocks even as Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on its private sector became more like a political campaign. That led some people in China to argue that its one-party authoritarian rule offered a compelling alternative to traditional liberal democracy. The United States was declining politically and economically, they said, and the…

‘Chained Woman’ Spurs Social Media Movement in China

Chin@Strategy

The Chinese government faces a quandary: how to convince its people that what it said about a chained woman is true. Since a short video of the woman chained in a doorless shack went viral in late January, the Chinese public has taken the matter into its own hands to find out who she is, whether she is a victim of human trafficking and why the apparently mentally ill woman had eight children. The public thought it couldn’t trust a government that was not truthful about her identity and that…