China's censorship of Demon Slayer ruins Doma and Mitsuri - "Previously when Demon Slayer: Entertainment District arc was released in China, the anime got heavily censored due to its partial nudity. Several characters like Tengen Uzui's wives - Makio, Suma, and Hinatsuru - and Upper Moon 6 Daki got some makeovers. While Makio, Suma, and Hinatsuru's clothes were modified to cover their bodies more, Daki received an all-new pair of pants. In addition, China often censors blood in anime by recoloring them to other colors like white and black, which often causes some stir in the anime community... Fans found the censorship for blood to be senseless as the anime was about slaying demons. Thus, the bleeding of characters is somewhat guaranteed. In addition, the demons use Blood Demon Art techniques. However, with China's censorship, the techniques would no longer make sense."
A Tik-Tok-ing Timebomb: How TikTok's Global Platform Anomalies Align with the Chinese Communist Party's Geostrategic Objectives - "● The Network Contagion Research Institute analyzed hashtag ratios between Instagram
and TikTok across topics sensitive to the Chinese Government.
● While ratios for non-sensitive topics (e.g., general political and pop-culture) generally
followed user ratios (~2:1), ratios for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were
much higher (>10:1).
● We found these anomalies consistently between hashtag ratios on China sensitive topics for both national/regional and international issues.
● Though more research is needed, NCRI assesses, given this data, a strong possibility
that TikTok systematically promotes or demotes content on the basis of whether it is
aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government"
Opinion | Beijing needs to come up with a better strategy to defend Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre | South China Morning Post - "The Hang Seng Index has dropped below its level on July 1, 1997 – when China resumed sovereignty over the former British territory. While stock prices always have their ups and downs, the chronic decline of equities in Hong Kong looks increasingly unusual, lending support to a narrative that the city has become the “ruins of an international financial centre”, a term that has circulated on Chinese social media recently. The weakness cannot be justified by economic fundamentals. China’s economic boom in the last quarter century is probably the most spectacular growth story in human history... In Hong Kong’s central business district, many investment houses are trimming their China teams, and it is not unusual to benchmark a portfolio on “ex-China or ex-Hong Kong” indices... As Beijing’s strategies and policies are key to Hong Kong’s future, the central government needs to be clear on its commitment to the city’s financial role. When Zhu Rongji, China’s former premier, declared two decades ago that Beijing would support Hong Kong “at all cost”, the world got the message. A worrying sign in recent years is that Beijing’s attention to Hong Kong has been dominated by national security and law and order issues, and discussion about the city’s role as a financial centre has been relatively quiet."
Clearly, it's the fault of the counter-revolutionaries and traitors
Meme - "Average Uyghur home vs Average American home
PhD in Engineering/ Born & raised in Xinjiang/ Ethnic Han-Mongolian/ Lived in China, US, Germany, Japan/ Anti-imperialist/ Anti-racist/ Defend Xinjiang Urumqi"
Dealing with an ambiguous world - "growing economic ties with China were changing calculations of interests in Southeast Asia and even in US allies such as Australia. China’s relationship with the overseas Chinese communities of Southeast Asia is a closely related issue. Two years ago, the Seventh Conference of Friendship of Overseas Chinese Associations was held in Beijing. President Xi Jinping’s speech at that conference was entitled “The Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is a Dream Shared by All Chinese”. The specifics of the relationship of overseas Chinese communities to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) narrative of “The Great Rejuvenation” beyond the obvious contributions to China’s growth were not, undoubtedly deliberately, defined in detail. But the boundaries of the concept of “nation” are wide enough and vague enough to leave a lot of room for what was left unsaid. At the end of his speech, President Xi called upon the overseas Chinese to “better integrate themselves into their local communities.” But the emotionally charged language of the speech made clear enough that the CCP also has other expectations. President Xi described overseas Chinese as “members of the Chinese family”, rejuvenation as a “shared dream”, enjoined them to “never forget… the blood of the Chinese nation flowing in their veins” and called upon them to promote “understanding” to “create a better environment for achieving the Chinese dream”. Historically, China’s approach towards the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia has waxed and waned according to China’s shifting objectives. Southeast Asia was once an area of intense competition between the CCP and Kuomintang (KMT) for the allegiance of overseas Chinese. By the mid-1950s, with the KMT penned in on Taiwan and wanting to cultivate friends at the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference, China disavowed responsibility for overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, telling them to be good citizens of the countries in which they resided. That did not stop the CCP from using “United Front” tactics during the 1950s and 1960s to advance the interests of the Southeast Asian communist parties it supported, notably the Malayan Communist Party which consisted mainly of ethnic Chinese. When Vietnam with the support of the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Cambodia in 1979, the imperatives of Sino-Soviet competition and rallying ASEAN against Vietnam took priority. China ceased all support for Southeast Asian communist parties. The Cambodian issue preoccupied China in Southeast Asia throughout the 1980s. The priority was consolidating official relations with the ASEAN governments. From the 1990s, with Cambodia out of the way, China turned its attention to deepening and consolidating economic and diplomatic ties with Southeast Asia. The overseas Chinese communities were then largely regarded as a source of investment and economic expertise. In 1998, vicious anti-Chinese riots broke out in Jakarta during the run-up to Suharto’s fall. China issued a mild admonition to Jakarta to treat Indonesian Chinese better and punish those responsible. Mild as it was, this broke with the practice of 40 years. Last year, shortly after racially fraught demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur, the Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia made his way to Chinatown and close to where police had to use water-cannons to break-up a potentially violent anti-Chinese demonstration, pronounced the Chinese government’s opposition to, among other things, any form of racial discrimination, adding for good measure that Beijing would not stand idly by if anything threatened China’s relations with Malaysia. What was the Ambassador trying to do? Was he really trying to help the Malaysian Chinese? If he was, I don’t think he did them any favours. Or was he trying to highlight China’s clout in the context of rising competition with the US? I think so. The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson defended his actions as “normal”. This apparent shift towards positioning China as the protector of Southeast Asian Chinese has created many uncertainties with direct implications for Singapore. If anti-Chinese violence should again break out in Indonesia or Malaysia – a possibility that unfortunately cannot be ruled out – how would Beijing respond? Since China has associated the overseas Chinese with the CCP’s narrative of the “Great Rejuvenation”, can Beijing still respond in as carefully calibrated a manner as it did in 1998? Will its own people let it do so? In 1998, the internet was in its infancy in China. There are now some 700 million netizens in China, easily aroused through social media. How will China’s response affect our neighbours’ attitudes towards us? How would non-Chinese Singaporeans react? After 50 years does our collective Singapore identity now override ethnic identities? Chinese leaders and officials refer to Singapore as a “Chinese country” who should therefore “understand” China better and hint at their generosity if we should “explain” China to other ASEAN countries. We politely but clearly and firmly point out that Singapore is not a “Chinese country”. We know all too well what they really mean by “understand” and “explain”. But they persist. The idea of a multiracial meritocracy is alien to China which seems incapable of conceiving of a Chinese majority country in any other way than as a “Chinese country” and a potential instrument of its policy. This mode of thought is deeply embedded in Chinese culture and political practice and will not change. As China becomes more confident and assertive, it will probably become more insistent. It would be prudent not to underestimate the resonance that the idea of Singapore as a “Chinese country” linked to a rising China could have with some sections of our population. We are not immune to these visceral seductions or to the economic inducements that some other ASEAN countries have eagerly embraced. There are many potential avenues through which China could bypass the government to try and directly exercise influence on our people. China still has a United Front Work Department under the CCP’s Central Committee."
Why foreigners who endured China’s Covid lockdowns are now leaving | South China Morning Post - "Some spoke of an increasing wariness, even hostility, towards foreigners while others said they were worried about a repeat of their lockdown experiences. Their exits come against a backdrop of heightened tensions between China and the West, which some suspect may be influencing everyday attitudes towards them, and a heightened focus on national security that emphasises the threat from malign foreign forces... “All of a sudden, strangers would start telling me to go home. People would see me in a lift and wait for the next one. When DiDi [a ride-hailing app] drivers I ordered arrived and realised I was a foreigner, they’d refuse to take me,” the 30-year-old said... China had already seen an exodus of foreigners during the three years of the coronavirus pandemic, owing to frustrations about the country’s strict anti-Covid policy that saw severe restrictions placed on domestic and international travel and included a months-long lockdown in Shanghai, the city with the largest international population. In the decade leading up to November 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the number of foreigners living in Shanghai fell by more than 20 per cent to 164,000, and by 40 per cent in Beijing to 63,000, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics... James Campion, a British translator and proofreader who left China last July, said he sensed a subtle shift in Chinese people’s attitudes and found it was becoming harder to make new friends. “It wasn’t as easy to strike up conversations, and there seemed to be a subtle hesitation from some locals, perhaps reflecting a growing awareness of geopolitical tensions,” he said... “People are afraid to repeat the same experience. Nobody wants to stay away from their family for three years. That’s a long time. Who knows if there’ll be another Covid?” James Zimmerman, a partner at the international law firm Perkins Coie and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the factors behind individual departures – which he described as “a combination of a weak economy, compliance risks, and geopolitical tensions” – were also driving away businesses... The Covid pandemic prompted a number of companies that had relied on Chinese manufacturers to start diversifying their supply chains by seeking alternatives in other countries. He added: “Separate from geopolitical tensions, foreign business has lost much faith in Beijing’s ability to manage the business environment and economy, ranging from an unworkable reaction to the pandemic by putting into place unreasonable restrictions that adversely affected supply chains, an environment where an emphasis on national security overrides common sense, and an inability to address downward trends in China’s economy such as the real property meltdown that remains in free fall.”... “Policies directed at retaining the expatriate community should keep in mind the bigger issues as noted above. No tax break or preferential treatment will bring them back if the bigger picture issues are not addressed”... “Now that many overseas [news] channels are available in some hotels, can we take it a step further and allow foreigners to use the hotel’s internet to access overseas websites smoothly? This will help to further increase their attachment to China”"
US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi Jinping to Purge Military - Bloomberg - "US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war... The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case... The US assessments cited several examples of the impact of graft, including missiles filled with water instead of fuel and vast fields of missile silos in western China with lids that don’t function in a way that would allow the missiles to launch effectively... In a potential warning for Beijing, Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine have been publicly hobbled by corruption, a problem that PLA researchers as far back as 2014 called “the number one killer that impairs the military’s ability to fight.”"
Opinion: India Should Let Maldives Learn The Cost Of A Chinese Embrace - "like all nations in South Asia and the wider Indian Ocean region, it is also well-accepted in New Delhi that China will be a key economic player for most nations. Often these nations will play Beijing against New Delhi and vice versa in order to get the best possible deals for them. Unlike China, India is often part of the domestic political landscape in most of its neighbours, thereby suffering from an inherent disadvantage. Yet when it comes to the crunch, it is India which is the first responder. Sri Lanka's economic crisis saw China maintaining a distance with India reacting fast and delivering help in real time... If 80-odd Indian soldiers are seen as a greater threat to Maldivian independence than 37 per cent share of China in Maldivian total debt, then it is for the people of the Maldives to take a call on Muizzu's priorities."
'Kung-Fu Panda' (2008) was so successful in China that it caused a national debate on why Westerners made a better film about Chinese culture than the Chinese themselves - "Many here blame a lack of imagination that comes as a result of tight government controls over the film industry and hypersensitivity over how China is portrayed to the outside world... "Chinese are giving up the traditional culture left to us by our ancestors, that's why no one cares about what we have," says Wang Huamin, 26, a money manager. "Directors don't cherish the culture, and audiences want to watch Western things, so people don't think there's a big market for films about Chinese culture. Our education system only focuses on students' ideology instead of encouraging them to be creative. If we only watch ourselves from our position, we can't get the whole picture."Wang says he did not regret that Americans had come up with "Kung Fu Panda" first. "Why shouldn't we allow foreigners to make these kinds of movies? Sooner or later, Chinese people will realize that the best things we have are the things we already have."... "I was looking for flaws, but it was very authentic," Huang says. "Kung Fu Panda's" filmmakers consulted experts on Chinese culture to shape the content and look of the film, according to DreamWorks Animation... Even an advisory body to China's parliament debated why China hadn't been first with such a big hit using Chinese themes. "The film's protagonist is China's national treasure and all the elements are Chinese, but why didn't we make such a film?" the president of the National Peking Opera Company, Wu Jiang, told the official New China News Agency last Saturday. Wu was speaking at a meeting of the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee, which in the end urged the government to relax its controls to further open China's cultural market. "I cannot help wondering when China will be able to produce a movie of this caliber," award-winning film director Lu Chuan said in an essay in the state-run China Daily newspaper last week. Lu is known for his 2004 film "Mountain Patrol," about efforts to save the Tibetan antelope from extinction. He said he had been invited to make an animated film for the Olympics, but eventually quit because of too much government interference... Chinese animated films tend to be more educational in nature and heavy with significance, but short on entertaining detail, "Kung Fu Panda" viewers say. Local directors would not have had the imagination to make Po's father a duck. Nor would they dare to portray a panda -- a cultural icon in China -- as lazy and fat as Po when "Kung Fu Panda" begins. Foreigners who make cultural missteps are often accused of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. "If you asked a Chinese to make this movie, the panda needs to be lovable but in a perfect sense," said Sun Lijun, a professor of animation at the Beijing Movie Institute, in the July 10 issue of Oriental Outlook magazine. "In the end, he would be so perfect he would be unlovable.""
And this was before Xi Jinping
Meme - Chingxiao Shao Founder and Managing Partner at Red Gate Asset Management: "As a China manager, we are not scared by Western sanctions. We accept that it is a process allowing China to learn and to grow. We follow the logic of the sanctions and exclude the related sectors/companies from our investment universe. However, we are frightened by our own policy changes. No one wants to live and work in an environment of uncertainties, with policy crackdowns in week one, followed by 5 supportive methods in week two. We don't expect Chinese ministries and commissions to operate as precise as PBOC, but given the size of Chinese economy, please don't behave as if you are running a small village."
Damn CIA!
China accused of condemning Robert Schellenberg to death in retaliation for Huawei executive’s arrest - The Globe and Mail - "Mr. Schellenberg had originally been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for this offence in November, 2019, but just weeks after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request his case was reopened. He was ordered to face retrial, after prosecutors, citing the emergence of new evidence, alleged that he was involved in organized international drug trafficking, a crime whose maximum sentence is execution... The abrupt revision to Mr. Schellenberg’s sentence in early 2019 and the seizure of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in late 2018 – all apparently linked to Ms. Meng’s case have drawn protests from Canada. Robert Oliphant, a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has called the arrests of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor “targeted abductions.”"
From 2021
Unexplained exclusion of sci-fi works for top award raises issue of Chinese censorship - "A recent revelation that four science fiction and fantasy works and writers have been declared ineligible for the prestigious literary Hugo Awards has raised concerns over censorship by the Chinese authorities. The international literary community has been up in arms over the unexplained disqualifications, revealed on Jan 20, which include works involving Chinese history by two authors who were born in China and now reside overseas. The Hugo Awards in 2023 was co-administered by members of the Chinese sci-fi industry. The awards were part of the World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, which was held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, in October 2023. Chinese-American author R. F. Kuang’s book, Babel: Or The Necessity Of Violence, was one of the four nominees in four categories that was marked as “not eligible” when delayed full voting results for the Hugo were released online on Jan 20... When pressed by angry fans on his Facebook page, Mr Dave McCarty, the co-head of the Hugo Awards Selection Executive Department, denied that the Chinese authorities had any role to play in the exclusions. Mr McCarty leads the department alongside Professor Jiang Zhenyu, a Chinese sci-fi expert from Sichuan University. “There was no communication between the Hugo administration team and the Chinese government in any official manner,” wrote Mr McCarty, which only sparked more responses speculating about self-censorship. The Hugo team of the Chengdu Worldcon did not respond to ST’s e-mail query by press time. But its previous statement was that “after reviewing the Constitution and the rules we must follow, the administration team determined those works/persons were not eligible”. Chinese sci-fi author Chen Qiufan described the controversy as frustrating and disappointing, and believes it has undone years of hard work by the Chinese sci-fi industry, including writers, fans and publishers, to promote the genre... Analyst Adam Ni, who runs China Neican, a prominent newsletter on Chinese current affairs, said that, in general, censorship in China has been on the rise in the past decade. But not every instance of censorship would be coercive, such as outright bans. The authorities only need to make a case or two to provide examples, he said, such as issuing a fine to a media company or a platform to send a message. He added: “Often the pressure is indirect, in the form of illustrated cases, announcements, commentary or informal discussions between officials and media actors.”"
China CPI: Consumer prices fall at fastest rate in 15 years - "China’s consumer prices slid deeper into deflationary territory last month, suffering their biggest drop since the global recession in 2009 and underscoring the huge challenges facing the economy. The country’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped by 0.8% in January from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday. It was the steepest fall since September 2009 and marks a fourth straight month of decline... Beijing is scrambling to revive consumer and investor confidence as it fights fires on several fronts, including a real estate slump, stock market meltdown and weaker exports. It fired its main stock market regulator Wednesday as anger grew over trillions wiped off shares in recent years."
U.S. nears half of global stock market cap as Alibaba, Tencent falter - "As Chinese tech companies struggle with an economic slump and fall behind in artificial intelligence, U.S. corporations now account for nearly half of global stock market value, the highest level of concentration in two decades. Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong companies have shed the equivalent of $1.7 trillion in value since the end of 2023"
Shanghai Covid-19: Video shows health worker beating dog to death after owner tests positive - "The clip, which appears to have been filmed by a resident of a nearby building, shows a Covid prevention worker – dressed head to toe in protective gear – chasing the corgi down a street and hitting it three times with a shovel. It then shows the dog lying motionless... The corgi’s owner was in quarantine at the time of the attack, according to state-run magazine China News Weekly, and had released the dog onto the streets after being unable to find anyone to care for the animal in his absence... He claimed a neighborhood committee had declined to help care for the dog, the magazine reported. The committee said it was concerned the corgi could have been infected too... This isn’t the first time a pet has been killed for fear it carries the virus. Three cats met the same fate last September, and another corgi last November. However, at the time, reaction on social media was mixed – though some expressed sympathy and anger, others argued killing the animals was necessary given the pandemic. This time, the reaction appears vastly different, with most comments online condemning the killing – perhaps a sign of the public’s thinning patience as living conditions deteriorate under lockdown... One Weibo user mocked the neighborhood committee’s response: “It’s been two years, and they still think (the corgi) has the virus. Are these people not from Earth?” Another user put it more bluntly: “We would rather coexist with a virus than with this vicious and perverted person.”"
From 2022
Richard Hanania on X - "Social scientists asked Chinese and Americans what made them most proud of their countries. We're told western societies are superficial. But when given a list, Americans mostly chose values, while Chinese talked about recent economic and technology progress. Even though the US is much richer! The gap was even larger when the researchers didn't provide choices but asked people to write something down. Over 80% of Americans chose an ideational answer, while over 70% of Chinese picked something material. This is a common story, where America beats other countries with regards to living standards. Anti-American types then cope by arguing other countries have better values or something, but that's usually not true either. Chinese are not only poorer than Americans, but less idealistic and have basically stopped reproducing. 🇺🇸"
The sources of national pride: Evidence from China and the United States - "National pride relates to nationalism, one of the most powerful forces in modern politics. Many surveys have shown that most citizens are proud of their countries, but few have directly examined the underlying reasons for why people are proud of their countries. Using parallel national surveys in China and the United States, we investigate the sources and contents of national pride in the two most powerful nation-states in the world. Our results reveal clear differences between citizens in the two countries. While the sources of American national pride are largely ideational, the sources of Chinese national pride tend to be material. The evidence provides a first set of insights into the sources of national pride and challenges conventional depictions of nationalism as a monolithic concept."
Australia's participation in Malabar Exercise upsets China, Beijing warns of economic damage (2020) - "Australia's decision to take part in Malabar Exercise has outraged China, who has warned Canberra of "economic pain" if it continues to be part of US administration "roughneck gang". In an editorial piece, Communist party mouthpiece China Daily chided the Australian government for 'aggressively sending warships to China's doorsteps' as part of Exercise Malabar... The first phase of the Malabar naval exercise has culminated recently in the Bay of Bengal with the participation by Indian Navy, United States Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force, and Royal Australian Navy."
Beijing says don’t ‘hype up the so-called China threat narrative’ after Australian criticism (2023) - "The Chinese government has urged countries not to “hype up the so-called China threat narrative” after a major Australian defence review criticised its activities in the South China Sea. The Australian government’s defence strategic review, released on Monday, labelled the intense competition between China and the United States as “the defining feature of our region and our time”."
Clearly China is not a threat, since everyone else just needs to do what China tells it to do, and they will be safe
Obviously the whole of the Pacific and Indian oceans are out of bounds if you don't want to "provoke" China
China’s Security Agreement with the Solomon Islands: Wider Implications for Geopolitics in the South Pacific (2023) - "This article explores the leaked security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, which has significant implications for the geopolitical landscape of the South Pacific region. China’s first-known bilateral security arrangement in the area enables potential deployment of its forces near vital shipping lanes, raising concerns about a future Chinese military base. The agreement’s leaked details reveal provisions for Chinese personnel to assist in maintaining social order and providing humanitarian aid. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States have expressed apprehension, with Washington reopening the US embassy in the Solomon Islands and negotiating exclusive military use rights with other nations. This move by Beijing expands China’s maritime strategic presence and bolsters its hard power in the region, while also enhancing its soft power through similar agreements with other Pacific Island nations. The establishment of Chinese naval bases in the Solomon Islands would be a significant development with far-reaching implications for the Indo-Pacific. Urgent proactive measures are needed to mitigate potential conflicts and uphold regional stability."
China owns the whole of the Pacific Ocean, so nothing it does in there is aggression
