Since everyone’s eyes are on Ukraine, let’s talk about the response from China. If you remember, in our newsletter 45, at the very start of the invasion, we talked about the official response and the internet censorship.
As usual, there are two faces of the official response: the English face and the Chinese face. It was interesting to see how different they are, isn’t it. To this day, facing the mounting international pressure, the international face is moderate, trying to stay neutral (or stick to facts). But domestic Chinese media is all Russian.
For example, someone took this screenshot of CCTV news app on Feb 26th, saying:
(rough translation) Newest update | Chairman of Russian Duma: Ukrainian president Zelensky has fled Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Xinhua English twitter is “neutral”: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on social media, showing him and other government officials in front of the parliament building in Kiev, refuting claims he had fled the city.”
Of course, most Chinese can not go to twitter to know the truth.
While the censorship was focusing on pro Ukraine and pro West content, sometimes unintended consequences forced them to censor the other side.
The misogyny of young horny male pinkies went international. You can follow this twitter thread on the event in English:
(selected tweets) Many male social media users are, maybe half-jokingly, talking about wanting to “shelter” Ukrainian women from war.
Some have even suggested that more Chinese men should marry Ukrainian women to solve China’s imbalance of male-female population.
There has long been an obsession of Ukrainian women on the male dominated sections of China’s internet. To some Chinese men, blonde White women with blue eyes are considered the preferred type of women. The perception that Ukrainian women are “easy to get” fueled their obsession.
There is also a lot of condemnation of these “sheltering Ukrainian girls” posts, with some, mostly female users, quick to point out that it was also this kind objectification of women that led to the tragedy of the “chained up woman” in Fengxian (Xuzhou) “.
Supposedly it got international attention and was reported in Ukraine and created a backlash against Chinese students in Ukraine, so, CCP does what it knows to do: censorship.
Update: Weibo has since taken down over 500 such posts and punished over 70 accounts to various of degrees..
But some Chinese being Chinese, they think they were the victims:
But what’s also interesting is that people are more mad about these jokes being screenshotted and posted on 外网 (websites outside China’s firewall) than what the jokes are about, with some nationalist males saying this is “anti-China” media’s tactics to smear China.
Recently, New York Times, Washington Post both had articles analyzing why Chinese social media are pro Russia. I am no expert, but I can show you how some Chinese people think.
First, someone posted and translated a video from Weixin. The guy has 10 million followers, so it is worth listening these 2:16. If he sounds far fetched in his logic, of course he is. There is no logic in backing Russia, except that CCP wants to.
Why CCP wants to? One, they hope to see Ukraine returns to Russia the same way as Taiwan returns to China. They are watching very closely. For two, do you know that CCP was sponsored and controlled by USSR until they broke up in the late 50s? It is all documented in the movie Kungfu Panda:
Do you know that the foster father of Po, Mr. Ping is a goose?
Do you know that goose is pronounced Er in Chinese?
It is exactly the same pronunciation as Russia.
And Russia’s nick name in Chinese is Goose-Daddy (Er-die). Of course the Panda (China) has a Goose daddy. And Kungfu Panda is one of the pet projects our dear Supreme leader signed up right before he ascended to his current position.
(the meme is trending on Chinese twitter)
This one is being circulated on Twitter, and on Weixin also:
This was in Chongqing, the fourth largest city in China.
According to New York Times, “Swedish Olympic Star Gives Away Gold Medal to Protest Beijing’s Abuses”: “In a rare rebuke of Beijing, Nils van der Poel, a speedskater, handed one of his gold medals to the daughter of Gui Minhai, a book publisher imprisoned in China.”
But Gui Minhai is not an ordinary bookseller. He used to run a bookstore in Hong Kong selling to people from Mainland China books that are banned in China. Among those banned books, the ones that particularly annoyed our dear supreme leader are those that told juicy stories of his sex life. Supreme leader was so enraged that he had five people of the bookstore abducted from Thailand and Hong Kong, in 2015. Mr. Gui has lost his freedom since them, despite the effort from Swedish government trying to free him. The book titles you are looking for are “The General Secretary’s Eight Love Stories”, “Secrets of Wives of Chinese Communist Party Officials”… way better than Chuck Tingle.
And you can buy the T-shirt I am Gui Minhai.
According to Bloomberg, “Hong Kong Abandoning Key COVID Zero Measures as Cases Surge”: “One by one, Hong Kong’s government is being forced to move away from key pillars of its strict COVID Zero strategy as a surge in new cases overwhelms the under-prepared health-care system.”
Daily new cases number is climbing up: as of Monday Feb 28th, a local lawyer reported on twitter:
HK saw a record 26,026 new cases on Sun & 83 deaths… Hospitals are inundated & the city’s morgues are nearly full, with bodies of those who died from COVID left in emergency wards & hallways. HK will report more than 34,000 confirmed cases Monday…
With the news on Russian invasion of Ukraine dominating the social media, less and less news on the chained woman. Maybe the government is getting away this time.
We spent three newsletters to cover the complicated fight between two famous activists over the property dispute. Before Feb 10th, Zeng made an announcement, Hu had to respond to her demand on the property issue publicly by Feb 10th. If no response by then, she will consider Hu denying their daughter financial help.
By Feb 10th, Hu did not make any response.
One Twitter User, who is respected in the pro-democracy crowd with 19,000 followers on Twitter, reached out to Zeng to ask to talk to her privately. Later he disclosed the following:
(rough translation): At the beginning, I did not take side. I hoped to see evidence of the accusations from Zeng.
Then I saw the attack on her, especially from those people who used to know her and those anonymous accounts. I was against it (the attack),
I read carefully of her testimony, and started to understand her accusation. I then contacted a close friend of her who actually knows the situation, to know Zeng’s personality and feminism ideas.
After talking to Zeng, hearing from her the details of her accusations, I think she is credible. If disclosed, it will completely destroy Hu’s reputation. I support Zeng’s decision to stop responding.
From my personal point of view, I don’t want to see someone’s reputation destroyed.
To be honest, I have met and known many famous people. By my standard, their personal morality is not watchable.
That is why I don’t like to discuss the life style of others, especially after I know the inside stories.
Shortly after, Zeng suspended her own twitter account to focus on her academic and private life.
Then came a shocking news. Hu Jia’s girlfriend, Xingya, a young poet who loves trekking in far away mountains died in a tent in a trekking trip.
People who supported Hu quickly blamed Zeng, and people who supported Zeng felt that Zeng was very wise to get off social media.
You can read some of her poems. The tech support likes twenty magpies.
In spring they make wine out of the magpies’ voices
The voices of twenty lively magpies
Healed the mutes in the village
Part of their breasts glowed green like a funeral bell
All are middle-aged magpies