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Two Hundred Million Chinese Face the Risk of Being Locked Down

Nomura Securities estimated that by October 24, 28 cities in China, including Guangzhou, Wuhan, and others had various levels of lock down control, impacting a possible 200 million people living in these cities.

Instead of locking down an entire city, China has been locking down sub-regions inside the city based on where the COVID patients live and where they have been. About 1 million people in Wuhan were locked in at home. After reporting 73 cases on October 27, Guangzhou intensified its lockdown. Fuzhou City, Fujian Province locked down 36 colleges and universities.

Xinjiang and Tibet continue to be the major disaster areas. Many hotels have refused to take visitors coming from Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia as hotel guests.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 28, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/huanjing/gt2-10282022051054.html

 

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Student Informer Reported on Chinese University Professor

On October 27, Xu Songyan, a professor at China’s Southwest University (SWU) located in the city of Chongqing, posted on Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese microblogging platform, that a student informer who, after secretly sitting in his class, told him that Xu will be questioned (by the authorities). The post, which was subsequently deleted from Weibo, received attention from millions of Chinese netizens.

Chinese universities have what are called “information officers,” who are students appointed by the school to collect information on teaching activities, and who regularly file reports with the university. These student “informers” also report faculty members’ views and opinions to the university’s Communist Party and administrative authorities. The academic fields are under close watch including programs of literature, history and philosophy.

Xu Songyan is currently a professor at SWU’s School of History and Culture, where he teaches ancient Greek and Roman history. Recent years have seen criticism of the promotion of ancient Greek culture in mainland China, as ancient Greece was known as the birthplace of western democracy. Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping once said that the “path to socialism with Chinese characteristics must be deeply rooted in the fertile soil of Chinese culture, that one should have a firm confidence in Chinese culture, and that one should not ‘always talk about Greece.’”

This is not the first time that a student “information officer” reported a professor. In May 2018, Zhai Juhong, a professor at the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, was reported by a student informer and expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by the CCP Committee of the university. She was also dismissed from her position and disqualified as a teacher because of her comments on constitutional amendments, the state-owned enterprises and the institution of the People’s Congress.

Source: Ming Pao (Hong Kong), October 28, 2022
https://news.mingpao.com/pns/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/article/20221028/s00013/1666895213286/

Briefings | | |   @CS Social Stability

China’s Central Bank to Establish a “Credit File” on Every Economic Entity

On October 10, the Credit Bureau of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, published an article entitled, “Building a Credit System that Covers the Whole Society.” The article claimed that China would establish a “credit file” on every economic entity.

The article pointed out that, as of the end of August 2022, the PBOC’s personal credit system had access to or information on 4,081 financial institutions and logged information on 1.15 billion natural persons. At the same time, the enterprise credit system had access to 3,811 financial institutions and included information on 98 million enterprises. The PBOC is also set to promote cross-field and cross-platform sharing of personal and corporate credit information.

China’s credit system has been criticized as being a mechanism for social control. According to the Chinese official media, the system will score a person or an entity based using four major areas: personal business activities, social behavior, administrative affairs and judicial records. Individuals who make sensitive comments on social media, for example, may have points deducted and may even be blacklisted.

Source: Radio Free Asia, October 11, 2022
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/3-10112022101217.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Chinese Consumers Slashed Spending on National Day Holiday

Well-known Taiwanese news site Anue recently reported that Mainland consumers slashed spending on travel and movies during the National Day holiday week as government Covid control measures led to fewer people going out. Data from the China National Railway Group shows that from September 28 to October 8, the number of railway passengers nationwide was estimated to be 68.5 million, mainly for family visits, short-distance travel and tourism. This represents a sharp drop of about 38 percent compared with the same period last year. According to statistics of Maoyan Entertainment, the Mainland movie box office has also fallen sharply, with sales reaching only 1.4 billion yuan (around US$197 million) as of October 7. This number is less than one-third of last year’s National Day holiday box office. It is also not comparable to the nearly RMB 4 billion (around US$562) in 2020. Weak spending data is a big bear for a pickup in Chinese consumption amid heightened risks to economic growth. The housing slump has yet to ease, global demand for Chinese goods has cooled, and the Chinese currency has depreciated. Still, economists say the chances of Beijing loosening its Zero-Covid policy in a short period of time remains low. Goldman Sachs expects that the government’s Covid control measures are expected to continue until the end of the second quarter of next year. Many economists have lowered their growth estimates on the Chinese economy.

Source: Anue, October 7, 2022
https://news.cnyes.com/news/id/4972972

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources Social Stability

Xinjiang Is Locked Down Due to 97 Infection Cases

The communist regime in China has been taking a strict “zero-COVID” policy and locks down any city where there are some infection cases. Last week it locked down Xinjiang. The authorities forced the 22 million people living there to stay at home – if they had not yet been put in “reeducation camps.” It also stopped running public transportation. It cancelled 97 percent of out-bound flights and 95 percent of in-bound flights at Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital city and largest city. It also cancelled all out-bound flights except two to Urumqi at Kashgar, Xinjiang’s second largest city.

On October 5, the authorities reported that it has only 97 infected cases.

Many analyses have pointed  out that the communist party’s COVID control and lockdown allows it to control the general public and practice precision control over its targeted people.

Source: VOA, October 6, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/china-s-vast-xinjiang-hit-with-covid-19-travel-restrictions-20221006/6778421.html

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Lianhe Zaobao: China Plans to Require Online Concerts to Be Licensed

Singapore’s primary Chinese language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism has issued a draft of a new regulations about online concerts and performances. The plan will tighten up requirements for online live broadcasts and will mandate delayed live programs so that inappropriate moments can be blocked in a timely fashion. The planned regulations require that those engaged in the business activities of online performances (or programs) should apply to the local provincial cultural and tourism administrative department for an online cultural business license. To provide imported or international online performances, they should report to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for content review. They can provide content to consumers only after the content review has passed. For domestic online performances, the provider should report to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for record, within 30 days from the date of providing them to consumers. The plan also requires the online business to establish and improve the content management system, setting up a dedicated content management unit, and assign professional content reviewers to monitor the content as well as the consumer comments.

Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) also reported that the licensing, content review and monitoring with delayed broadcasting requirements triggered a widespread criticism among Chinese netizens. With the Covid controls in place for the past three years, online performances and live programming became really popular among Chinese viewers. Many netizens complained, saying, “It will be too difficult just to listen to concerts.” “Live shows will no longer be live.” “Foreign enemy penetration is too strong. Why don’t we cancel everything.” and “As usual, gradually regulate first, then completely ban.”
Sources:
(1) Lianhe Zaobao, September 26, 2022
https://www.kzaobao.com/shiju/20220926/125029.html
(2) CNA, September 26, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202209260103.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

China Has Collected Millions of DNA Samples in Tibet

According to a Citizen Lab, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto, China’s police have conducted a mass DNA collection program in Tibet. It is estimate that between June 2016 and July 2022, police have collected DNA samples from between 1/4 to 1/3 of Tibet’s total population, targeting men, women and children and even including Buddhist monks.

In early September, a report released by Human Rights Watch disclosed that Chinese police had collected DNA from people in Tibet in at least 14 locations. Procurement documents on the Chinese government’s official website show that the Tibetan police authorities conducted a public tender for “DNA database construction” back in July 2019, with a budget of RMB 10 million ($1.43 million).

Chinese authorities have justified mass DNA collection as a tool to fight crime, find missing people, and ensure social stability. There have been media reports on a mass DNA collection campaign in the Xinjiang area and a police-led national program of male DNA collection. Since the Y chromosome in males is rarely mutated during genetic transmission, having the Y chromosome DNA data of a male is equivalent to having the data of multiple generations of paternal members of his family. While in other countries this collection is primarily used to assist in criminal investigations, China has been collecting samples of male DNA on a large scale.

Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 15, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202209150352.aspx

Briefings | | |   Social Stability

Lhasa, Tibet Suffered a Severe COVID Outbreak

Recently, Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, suffered a severe COVID outbreak. The Epoch Times interviewed residents there. One interviewee said that people were telling each other that a quarter of the total 800,000 residents have already been infected. When a city reported COVID cases, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a strict “Zero-COVID” policy and took drastic measures to quarantine people including even many who were not infected. On the other hand, the authorities reported low infection counts to make things look good and to hide the real situation.

The numbers released by the authorities are at a low one hundred or even lower. There were 86 cases on September 14, 95 cases on September 13, 137 cases on September 12, and 122 cases on September 11.

The interviewee said that authorities conducted PCR tests every three or four days and each time an additional person in the community would be reported as positive. Then the authorities sent loads of buses at night to take all the people in the same building to quarantine them in a centralized location.

Another interviewee mentioned that Lhasa has three big modular hospitals, each of which can hold 10,000 people and a dozen smaller ones, each with a capacity of one or two thousand. All of them have been filled. The authorities are building new modular centers in suburban areas, but that’s not fast enough. So they started to take buildings from schools and construction sites, most of which were not completely finished yet, as quarantine sites.

Source: Epoch Times, September 18, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/9/18/n13827559.htm

 

Briefings | | |   Social Stability