China news, memes, and shitposts

Shanghai has become Xinjiang (NY Times)

Henan Bank Depositors Hit With Red Health Codes (Sixth Tone)

Well, that was inevitable -- China's health code system, normally used to manage covid exposure risks in individuals, has been used as a tool against "troublemakers" for non-covid reasons.

High school in Liaoning Province punishes students for posting on social media during their summer holidays (SCMP)

Just the latest and most absurd example of the totalitarian culture here.

Thailand and China conducting military drills together (NPR)

It's come up before how Thailand is falling closer into China's orbit, even as the rest of the region worries about China and clings to the US. This despite considering how China's covid travel restrictions have cut off all those tourist dollars that Thailand depends on.

In the latest zero-covid absurdity:

Port city now testing caught fish for covid (Bloomberg)



In an era where food security is a growing problem, they want all the fish tested before going further into the supply chain.

Holy fuck!

Dude talks shit about traffic cops in a WeChat group of only 75 and next day is hauled in and interrogated.

Don’t we have some CCP fans here?

https://twitter.com/ccpbotslayer/status/1560693103677566976?s=21&t=Jg_GD2Lu13Lkn9YQ3HPEPw

The Economist published a podcast miniseries on Xi Jinping. He's due to get his third term and de-facto emperor's crown later this month.

https://www.economist.com/theprincepod

16 year old girl dies in a covid concentration camp quarantine facility for lack of medical attention

https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1583730201141579777?s=46&t=Q2PPrPkDTxMx2huxmPtFVQ

I thought elder statesmen were revered in China

Xi has made it clear that this is his party/government/country and his alone.

He has done away with the 68 mandatory retirement age to keep loyalists in place while at the same time removing any and everyone who could potentially rival him or even disagree with him.

It isn’t just Hu that was kicked out. The former Premier Li Keqiang is also gone.

Now 7/7 members of the Standing Committee are Xi loyalists.

Good thread:

https://twitter.com/profyangzhang/status/1583788208894414849?s=46&t=Q2PPrPkDTxMx2huxmPtFVQ

To be fair, there are analysts who think the Hu Jintao incident was about Hu's health. But any way you cut it it, it was embarrassing and emblematic of the political reality, if even accidentally.

Biden cracking down on China is what Trump was supposed to do so good on Biden for dunking on Trump and going after China. This is putting America first.

It's to Trump's credit that he was ahead of the curve, getting tough on China. Unfortunately, he was an idiot about it, like he was on everything else.

I would argue that Obama’s Pentagon’s ‘pivot to Asia’ (moving Corps level HQs to Asia) TPP, etc were all tougher on China than Trump was but just with less chest-beating.

We should have never gotten in bed with them in the first place.

I understand this all too personally.

Was she hot at least?

Covid testing now accounts for 1.3% of China's GDP (Local outlet)

Yup.

At this point, one wonders if China will even overtake the US in GDP, as had been long-predicted. But as I've claimed before, it's at the end of its road economically.

I thought that with the increasing fertility drop and flattening of China’s growth curve of the last couple years (starting pre COVID) it was already predicted that China would not overtake the US economically.

My personal conspiracy theory is that Xi rapidly removing nearly all COVID restrictions without getting the elderly vaxxed was a desperate and devious act to try and quickly give his elderly population a haircut and delay some of the economic fallout from their demographic cliff.

Recent podcast I listened to that I found informative.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dispatch-podcast/id1493229344

This has occurred to me as well.

It's unfortunate they didn't do this a year earlier. 2022 was quite painful here -- the Great Shanghai Lockdown etc. But we all predicted they were waiting for the big party Congress to give Xi his emperor's crown in October, and that turned out to be correct, with such cynical glory.

All I know is that, with China lifting restrictions, it's impossible to find hotel rooms at major destinations this summer.

Fucking Chinese tourists are like locusts.

Well I've had weeks of holiday for Chinese New Year, but I still feel like I can't go anywhere comfortably because flight prices to/from China are still multiple times 2019 standards, and testing requirements are bothersome. So fuck you.

So let’s ignore the whole ‘crossed illegally’ + ‘turned themselves in’ illogic.

Is it in US interest to encourage Chinese immigration/brain drain (a peasant from BFE Qinghai isn’t flying his family to Mexico and then crossing and asking for asylum)?

We probably should just set a court date for them and then let them go, I’m sure they’ll show back up for court.

I realize they don’t teach statistics and probabilities in HS but if you get into college and learn what those big words mean you’ll realize how fucking stupid your comment is.

Yes, they will probably turn up for ALL their court dates:

Government data revealed that 95% of nondetained individuals who filed for asylum or other forms of relief from removal attended all of their court hearings over the same time period from 2008 to 2018.

https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9695&context=penn_law_review


Now STFU Donny let the the adults talk. You’re out of your element.

Yes. East Asians generally are peaceful, hardworking, family-oriented people, so perhaps even Republicans could get on board with that. China's population is already bleeding and we should help them along that path to our advantage.