Source: China Media Project (9/20/22)
“We Must Wake Up!”
The fatal crash of a quarantine transport bus in Guizhou province over the weekend has galvanized anger over China’s Covid policies. One private post from a well-known journalist yesterday was shared widely on social media before being deleted. It spoke of 1.3 billion Chinese held “in bondage” over irrational fears of contagion.
By David Bandurski

An image widely shared on China’s internet shows the quarantine transport bus in Guizhou on the night of the fatal accident, the driver in full hazmat gear.

As anger flared across Chinese social media yesterday following the deadly crash in Guizhou of a passenger bus transferring positive Covid cases, Gao Yu (高昱), the deputy executive editor and head of investigations at Caixin Media, posted a reflection on the tragedy to his WeChat friend group that was subsequently shared outside the chat.

In his post, Gao urged an end to China’s zero Covid policy, which he argued was unscientific, pursued out of unnecessary fear, and out of step with the rest of the world. “We must wake up! We must return to normalcy!” he wrote. Continue reading →

Source: NYT (9/21/22)
‘We’re on That Bus, Too’: In China, a Deadly Crash Triggers Covid Trauma
A bus heading to a quarantine facility crashed, killing 27. The Chinese public saw themselves in the victims: a country being held hostage by the government’s harsh policy.
By Li Yuan

Waiting in line for a routine Covid test in Beijing. China has faced nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines under its “zero Covid” policy. Credit…Andy Wong/Associated Press

After a bus accident killed at least 27 people being transferred to a Covid quarantine facility on Sunday, the Chinese public staged a widespread online protest against the government’s harsh pandemic policy.

It was a moment of collective grief and anger, with a heavy dose of shame, guilt and despair. After nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, people asked how they could give the government the power to deprive them of their dignity, livelihood, mental health and even life; how they could fail to protect their loved ones from the “zero Covid” autocracy; and how long the craziness would last.

They quoted a 1940 poem by Bertolt Brecht, the German poet and playwright.

This is the year which people will talk about.
This is the year which people will be silent about.
The old see the young die.
The foolish see the wise die.

They shared on social media an old article with the headline, “Evil is prevalent because we obey unconditionally.”

They asked themselves, “What can I do so I will not end up on that bus?” Continue reading →

Source: NYT (9/6/22)
Battling Violence and Censors, Women in China Become ‘Invisible and Absent’
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The Chinese Communist Party has long promoted gender equality as a core tenet, but as cases of gender abuse make headlines, Beijing has tried to squelch dissent and control the narrative.
By Alexandra Stevenson and Zixu Wang

Government censors tamped down support for Zhou Xiaoxuan, a woman in China who accused a famous TV anchor of sexual harassment. Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

HONG KONG — When a prominent woman in China’s #MeToo movement took on a powerful man in court, it was the accused, not the accuser, who was held up as the victim. When several women were savagely beaten by men after resisting unwanted advances in a restaurant, the focus of the story pivoted from gender violence to gang violence. And when a mother of eight was found chained to the wall of a doorless shack, it was her mental fitness — not her imprisonment — that became the talking point.

Each incident went viral online in China, initially touching off a wave of outrage over violence against women. But in every case, the conversation was quickly censored to minimize the ways in which women had been abused.

China’s Communist Party has long promoted gender equality as one of its core tenets, yet as such cases continue to make national headlines, Beijing has done little to address calls for accountability. Fearing social unrest, the party has instead used social media censors to stifle criticism and amplify comments that support the government’s preferred narrative of social harmony.

When a story becomes popular online, the party’s propaganda department will send guidelines to managers at large social media companies for how to handle the topic, said King-wa Fu, a professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Center of the University of Hong Kong. Censors then remove popular comments or accounts that voice opinions that stray too far from the party line. Continue reading →

Another article on sexual violence in China, and again it astonishes — for two reasons: First the awfulness of the endemic violence against women, and of the way the regime fails to respond, no doubt to protect itself in its cocoon of enforced silence. Secondly, the utter absence in the article, of even a hint that a massive, systematic, government-directed violent campaign hurting and humiliating millions of women in ethnic minorities, is going on at the very same time, at the other end of the country. Not sure if the Chinese feminists are afraid to mention the elephant in the room, perhaps restricting their reactions only to majority Han Chinese situation, or if the explanation is that even the feminists really are also swept up in the same rabid ethno-nationalism and racism that drives the Xinjiang genocide.–Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>

Source: The New Yorker (8/29/22)
The Censorship Machine Erasing China’s Feminist Movement
This summer, a viral video of a group of women being viciously attacked in a restaurant sparked national outrage. The response has been quashed.
By Han Zhang

In June, a thirty-one-year-old woman named Wang was eating with three female friends at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, about a hundred miles east of Beijing. It was late at night. At around 2:40 a.m., a man came up and put his hand on Wang’s back. She pushed it away and protested, loudly: “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?” He reached for her face and she pushed him away again. “Get lost,” she said. Then the man slapped her. A struggle ensued. Wang was about to fall off her chair when one of her friends picked up a beer bottle and hit the attacker. Several men rushed over to the table. One of them held Wang by her hair and dragged her into the street. The group stomped on and struck her repeatedly. Wang, whose white short-sleeved shirt was covered in blood, begged for them to stop. One of her friends tried to rescue her, and was pushed to the ground. Her head hit the pavement, making a heavy noise. Other patrons at the restaurant looked on, stunned. Some were crying and one started to vomit. In a corner, a woman tried to intervene but was held back by her companion. Continue reading →