The opening paragraph claimed that from Feb 17th to 23rd, the provincial government has visited 4600 people and read 1000 documents. Already, netizens are laughing at the numbers. It implied that the investigation sees 658 people a day, and you need a huge team to work around the clock to get information out of them.
Then the provincial government repeated the fourth announcement and claimed that people from Xiao Huamei’s hometown think the chained woman is Xiao Huamei, and DNA from the half-sister and the mother’s old clothes proved that she was indeed Xiao Huamei.
Meanwhile, the two investigative reporters who did a very good report on the hometown of Xiao Huamei was summoned by Yunnan police. They were told not to accept interviews and not to go out.
As for the photo,
the government forensic lab confirmed that they are the same person. They look different because the chained photo has been processed and Xiao Huamei has changed with time. This became the focus of public backlash, we will describe it later.
The government then explained how Xiao Huamei was sold to Xuzhou, and how Mr. Dong have her married to him. In 2000, Mr. Dong retroactively made the marriage certificate, backdated to 1998. Similar errors were made on her birthday on the marriage certificate. That was when she was given the name Yang Mouxia. The government just took Mr. Dong’s words.
The government then claimed that doctors agreed the chained woman has mental disorder and could not communicate and is currently receiving treatment with the companionship of people sent by the government and her eldest son.
Online psychiatrist countered that every mental patient he had seen knows his/her name. Why not ask the chained woman her name? Why did the government go with Mr. Dong on her information?
Dentists commissioned by the government also agreed that her teeth were lost to gum disease. However online dentists disagree. They watched the CCTV footage in which the x-ray of the gum was shown and found that there was a root canal done to one molar tooth, and they inferred that Mr. Dong could not be the one that paid for that expensive operation, so she must have had it done before he bought her. But the village she was from is too poor and remote and she could not have got it in the 1990’s when she lived there.
The government once more have proved that all eight children are hers. After the first birth, she took contraception for birth control. But since 2011, the contraception became ineffective.
The government said that there are two people in the village with the same name as her first son, previously netizens have found the wrong one when they challenged the time when Xiao Huamei married Mr. Dong. The first son was born in 1999, the other one was born in 1997.
Again people don’t believe it, because the name of the first son is: Hong Kong. It made sense to give your son that name in 1997, when Hong Kong returned to mainland, but not in 1999.
After explaining away all the holes netizens poked in the previous four announcements, the government announced demotion of 17 government officials, at the county and village level.
If you want to, you can read the entire announcement in Chinese.
The reaction from the public was just disbelief. Many people who have been following it closely were silent on this case until the 5th announcement. Now they protested on their Wechat moment. People in China that I talked to told me that they were so angry that they could not sleep.
Some netizens found out that even Xinhua reporters do not believe it :
When publishing an interview of the investigation team leader, the author used the name “Yang Mouxia”, the name Mr. Dong gave to the woman on their marriage certificate. The name was changed quickly, but not before netizens took the screenshot.
Whether chained woman is Xiao Huamei or not, the government has no credibility.
There are many reasons for it.
- They silence the public. Remember that many university graduates were publishing open letters with signatures? Many people who signed open letters were asked to have tea with the police.
“Having tea with the police”, or being invited for tea by the police: it’s a common intimidation tactic, you are invited for a talk and a warning from the police. This time they are nice, but they know who you are.
A photographer posted video of himself visiting Xiao Huamei’s uncle. He said that the uncle is now very reluctant to say anything. The local government put a lot of pressure on the photographer and he does not feel safe in the village.
Many rumours that the investigation team was looking for the person who leaked the photo of the marriage certificate to the reporter on Weibo. People think the government is more into cover up than finding the truth.
People found a new video of the chained woman. Some says that the person who posted the video that started this case posted it on Weibo. In it, she said: “I am like a prostitute.”
The most contentious point is that the photo from the marriage certificate and the photo of the chained woman are from the same person. People feel that their sense of reality has been insulted.
So they use the same official jargon to argue that two photos are of the same person, we give a few sample below:
The person on the left is Hu Xijin, former chief editor of global times. We introduced him in newsletter 45, quoted him in news letter 38 and 43.
Trump and a corn:
A famous Chinese beauty portrayed in a movie and a comedian
Many people say the announcement is not to convince you with evidence but to dominate you with government power.
Many people, especially women, feel helpless. The whole saga exposed one thing clearly to them: the fact that the government doesn’t care at all to save this woman. One tweet explains that very well:
(rough translation) What scares me is the following:
They say you are crazy, you must be crazy. If you disagree, they will get doctors to prove that. How do they prove it, no one knows!
They kidnap you, jail you, rape you, abuse you, it is all legal because of that marriage certificate. Whether that marriage certificate is legal, whether you yourself want it, whether the one on the certificate is you or not, it does not matter.
The children born from rape are crime evidence. But now that the rapist became the dad, the dad-country will protect him at all cost. So your family is a wonderful family, so he can abuse you as your husband and you become his spouse. Do you accept it? You have got children, you have to accept it.
It is possible one day, when I walk on the street, this will happen to me.
If I have a daughter, it could happen to her one day.
Remember Wuyi? She is the brave woman who went to the village trying to see the chained woman and was detained by the local police and released later. Her Weibo account was suspended, as expected. But she did wake up some young people who were shocked at the brutal treatment she received from the police.
If you think about it, the danger Chinese women are facing, and the fact they have been silenced and unable to organize themselves to change the society, there seems to be no hope. However, one woman on twitter offered an analysis:
In summary, she analyzed the fact that so many have been kidnapped and forced into marriages and the marriages were all made legal in the Chinese system. She said, let’s call it what it is: this is a modern slavery legalized by the government.
She compared it to the slavery system that American had and abolished hundreds years ago. Once we realize this, she said, an abolition movement will start.
Remember the absurd internet censorship? It strikes again:
A phrase that means: Caocao massacred the city of Xuzhou, became Cao[oral][oral][oral][oral].
