Source: China Digital Times (1/19/23)
Xi Jinping Invites You to a Video Call
Posted by Alexander Boyd

A screenshot of the video call shows a color photo of Xi Jinping against a red background, a green “incoming phone call” icon, and the Chinese message: “Xi Jinping Invites You To A Video Call.”

A novel propaganda method—a “video call” from Xi Jinping delivering Lunar New Year’s well-wishes—inspired titters after China Central Television (CCTV) shared it on Weibo. The Weibo link sent users to a faux WeChat incoming call page notably lacking a “reject call” button. Clicking “answer” pulled up a short video of Xi’s recent livestream address to grassroots cadres, spliced with shots of rapt audiences around the country applauding his speech. Less a phone call than a directive from on high, the video was met with mockery online, forcing CCTV’s Weibo page to lock and censor the comment section. CDT captured and translated a selection of comments before they were erased:

ihc3sqw：Straight out of “Ring” [A Japanese horror film in which mysterious phone calls play an important role.]

whyworld：Just watched the video. What stylish packaging. They didn’t even pretend to have someone on the line with him. The point being that our only role is to listen.

华国锋 [The username is “Hua Guofeng,” Mao’s oft-forgotten successor who proclaimed a “Two Whatevers” policy, following whatever Mao did and whatever Mao said.]：Xi Jinping must seize control over the economy. We all believe in your ability—whatever you control will surely go up in smoke.

啪啪啪WN：Hello, Piggy. If Tencent could be bothered to reintroduce the “end call” button, that would be nice. I do not wish to speak with you, thanks. Scram.

YiiPerona：Who the fuck started this “Xi Jinping invites you to a video call” thing? My first belly laugh of 2023. [Chinese] Continue reading →

Source: China Digital Times (1/12/23)
The Year 2022 in Censorship: A Selection from the ‘404 Archive’
Posted by Alexander Boyd

Chinese

The ten censored essays collected below are a first draft of an unauthorized history of the extraordinary year 2022, compiled by CDT Chinese editors. Toward the end of the year, discontent over the zero-COVID policy burgeoned into contention over the Party’s right to rule. In 2015, the journalist Jiang Xue, whose essay “Ten Days in Chang’an” heads the list below, told an interviewer, “I’m not a particularly brave person, but I can weigh my choices and decide what cost I’m willing to bear for the sake of freedom and independent expression.” This past year, tens of thousands across China joined Jiang Xue in “weighing their choices” and decided to risk grave danger to voice their opinions. Censorship was but the first punishment many of the authors below were willing to endure as the price of speaking up. Arranged together, the essays are modest rather than incendiary, still less revolutionary: a pandemic diary, a compilation of visual art, a list of those who died during Shanghai’s lockdown, an archive of 33 attempts to disguise a censored video, a report on a bank depositor, a poem about cicadas, a policy proposal, a cri de coeur, a list of 10 questions, and a photo essay of a vigil. None passed censors’ muster. These essays are not the “most censored” essays of the year, but rather a selection of notable pieces that were scrubbed from the web. A selection of each has been excerpted and translated into English below. Continue reading →

Source: NYT (12/22/22)
Without a Covid Narrative, China’s Censors Are Not Sure What to Do
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The end of “zero Covid” has undermined years of official propaganda, and the vast censorship system is struggling to catch up.
By John Liu and Paul Mozur

A testing booth in Beijing that was shut down after China ended its “zero Covid” policy earlier this month. Credit…Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Since China dropped its strict “zero Covid” policy, a joke has been making the rounds on social media about the sudden shift.

Three men who don’t know each other sit in a prison cell. Each explains why he was arrested:
“I opposed Covid testing.”
“I supported Covid testing.”
“I conducted Covid testing.”

The joke has yet to be broadly censored. It is a sign of just how much the Chinese Communist Party, usually a master of messaging, is struggling to come up with a coherent explanation for the policy shift and a clear directive for what to do with an explosion of cases now threatening the country’s medical resources.

So dizzying was the switch that even two weeks later, the state’s powerful propaganda and censorship system has yet to catch up to the flood of confusion and criticism seeping through the country’s typically tight internet controls. Continue reading →

Source: NYT (12/15/22)
Traumatized by Covid, but Ruled by a Party That Never Apologizes
Gripped with grief, anxiety and depression, many in China want a national reckoning over the hard-line “zero Covid” policy. Holding the government to account may be a quixotic quest.
By Li Yuan

Credit…Elaine L

They posted photos of their positive Covid tests on social media. They described their symptoms as if it were something to be celebrated: fever, cough, fatigue, body ache, loss of taste and smell. They talked about how wonderful it was to no longer be afraid of being sent to quarantine camps for infections and to no longer have to worry about neighbors being locked down for weeks as a result.

“Savor the moment when we are able to get sick,” an independent bookstore owner in Beijing posted on her WeChat timeline. “Let’s protect this most humble right.”

Since the government abruptly dropped its stringent “zero Covid” restrictions last week in the face of rare nationwide protests, much of the Chinese public has embraced a new life. They have been eager to gain back some of their basic rights, even if it means the virus is now spreading quickly.

But beneath the relief is a collective and profound trauma that will not be easy to heal. Gripped with grief, anxiety and depression, people want a national reckoning of what went wrong. Many are now on an almost quixotic quest in the belief that the government should acknowledge its harsh policies were a severe mistake and should apologize for the harm it has caused. Continue reading →

Source: China Digital Times (12/12/22)
Protest Songs: “Urumqi East,” “If You Won’t Take the Lead,” “Can’t Imagine What Your Pain Was Like,” and “Down with Tyranny … No More Emperor Xi!”
By Cindy Carter

The recent protests commemorating victims of the November 24 fire in Urumqi and criticizing harsh pandemic measures and repressive government policies employed a wide variety of protest themed slogans, artwork, poems, essays, and songs. Some of the songs, such as “Do You Hear the People Sing?” or “The Internationale,” are familiar from previous protests, whereas others are new, referencing specific protest events from the last two weeks.

Over 130 years after it was written—and nearly a century after its lyrics were translated into Chinese—the “The Internationale” continues to resonate as a powerful message of defiance. It has been performed by symphony orchestras and heavy metal bands. Videos of hundreds of Tsinghua University students singing those stirring lyrics (“Nor gods, nor emperors on which to depend”) in Beijing on November 27 called to mind Shanghai’s locked-down residents blasting the song from their windows last April, and the Tiananmen Square protesters singing the same anthem back in the spring of 1989.

In terms of musical style, the four protest songs below range from folk ballads to marching anthems to Sichuanese rap, but all make reference to some of the various demands articulated by protesters: allow public mourning for the victims of the Urumqi fire, loosen COVID restrictions, respect citizens’ rights, put an end to heavy-handed policing, and oppose the unchecked power wielded by Xi Jinping. Continue reading →

Source: NYT (12/7/22)
China Eases ‘Zero Covid’ Restrictions in Victory for Protesters
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Beijing’s costly policy of lockdowns has pummeled the world’s second-largest economy and set off mass public protests that were a rare challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
By Keith Bradsher, Chang Che and Amy Chang Chien

A Covid testing booth in Shanghai. The city said recently that it would no longer require residents to show a negative P.C.R. test to ride the subway or buses or to enter outdoor parks. Credit…The New York Times

Over the past three years, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, staked his legitimacy on “zero Covid,” making it an ideological campaign aimed at demonstrating the superiority of centralized control over democratic rule. He declared a “people’s war” against the coronavirus that used lockdowns and quarantines to eliminate infections.

In a remarkable pivot, the Chinese government announced a broad rollback of those rules on Wednesday, an implicit concession to public discontent after mass street protests in late November posed the most widespread challenge to the ruling Communist Party in decades.

The party appears to be attempting a tactical, face-saving retreat that would allow Mr. Xi to change tack without acknowledging that widespread opposition and economic pain forced his hand. China’s state media depicted Wednesday’s move as a planned transition after Mr. Xi’s zero-tolerance approach secured a victory over a virus that has now weakened.

The move could very well assuage protesters. But the party is expected to confront a surge of infections as lockdowns lift, schools reopen and people try to resume normal life. The government must now place much greater urgency on vaccinations, which had been neglected in recent months, experts say. Continue reading →

Source: NYT (12/5/22)
China Stems Wave of Protest, but Ripples of Resistance Remain
Students, residents, lawyers and workers are still challenging the country’s Covid-19 restrictions, even though the intensity of the political chants has been dialed back.
By Chang Che, Chris Buckley, Amy Chang Chien and Joy Dong

A demonstration in Beijing last month against strict coronavirus measures. The recent unrest has been the boldest and most widespread in China since the pro-democracy movement of 1989. Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

In central China, students chanted demands for more transparency about Covid rules, while avoiding the bold slogans that riled the Communist Party a week earlier. In Shanghai, residents successfully negotiated with the local authorities to stop a lockdown of their neighborhood. And despite pressure from officials, a team of volunteer lawyers across China, committed to defending the right of citizens to voice their views, fielded anxious calls from protesters.

The recent wave of demonstrations that washed over China was prompted by frustration about pandemic restrictions, but the unrest also sometimes resulted in calls for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to resign. Since then, the police have been out in force to prevent a resurgence, and the mass protests have subsided. In the aftermath, a low-key hum of resistance against the authorities has persisted, suggesting that the big rallies emboldened a small but significant number of people, including students, professionals and blue-collar workers.

None of those local acts amount to a major challenge to Mr. Xi and the Communist Party. But they suggest that residents are less afraid of challenging officialdom, albeit in more measured, tactical ways. They often invoke China’s own laws and policy pledges, an approach that is less likely to draw the wrath of Communist Party leaders. Continue reading →

Source: CNN (12/2/22)
Opinion: The comic ingenuity of Chinese protesters
By Christopher Rea and Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Protesters in Beijing hold up white pieces of paper during a demonstration against China’s zero-Covid measures on November 27. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Christopher Rea is a professor of Chinese and former Director of the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of “The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China.” Jeffrey Wasserstrom teaches Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine, and is the author of “Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink” and editor of “The Oxford History of Modern China.” The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

CNN–It transforms the most powerful man in the country into a teddy bear.

It adds to the calendar the imaginary date of May 35 to invoke a people’s uprising that government censors seek to erase from memory.

It mobilizes the public to expose sexual predators with the unlikely affirmation, “Rice Bunny!”

We refer, of course, to a quality as widespread among China’s people as it is absent among its leaders – comic ingenuity.

May 35 stands in for “June 4,” Chinese shorthand for the 1989 massacre commonly known in English as “Tiananmen,” and a phrase the People’s Republic of China censors have tried to scrub from the internet. Continue reading →