Newsletter 112 - A Few Updates

Fireworks are winning

It seems that the Chinese people are determined to set off fireworks, because it means to get rid of the bad luck of 2022. Fireworks were invented in China in ancient times to scare away some frightening and evil (imaginary) animal. So, the urge to do firework, especially for the (bad) year 2022, is very strong among ordinary people.

For example, in Nanyang city (in Henan province), people were lighting fireworks at 12 am on Jan 8th. Special police units were watching closely nearby. One young man was arrested, the crowd tried to rescue him but failed. The police also confiscated the fireworks of an old lady, and throw the fireworks into the river while the old lady was pleading them not to.

As Chinese New Year is approaching, local governments are announcing their policies on fireworks. Some governments allow residents to set off firework, but Beijing and Shanghai, as usual, completely forbid fireworks.

COVID death toll

Since the “let it rip” policy replaced the COVID-zero policy, how many people have died of COVID? Chinese government said 35. (In our newsletter 110, we reported 7 deaths on Chinese official report by Dec 22nd.)

Meanwhile, many anecdotal accounts by Twitter users suggest that many old people have died after contracting COVID. Hospital beds were full of patients, funeral homes were overwhelmed with long waiting time for the bodies to be cremated. Some people have to pay tens of thousands of yuan if they want to speed up the cremation for their loved ones.

On social media, relatives of people died of COVID posted a video of the doctor who refused to attribute the death to COVID on the death certificate. To be qualified to be a COVID victim, the patient has to have CT Scan of the lungs, and his blood has to be sent to a centralized centre to be tested again. Only when that test result is positive then it will be recorded as a COVID death. Another internet report tells a story of a doctor who reported a COVID death and got a phone call from the security department of the hospital and had to change it.

Of course, the world does not believe the official statistics. Many countries started requiring negative PCR tests for people in provenance of China entering their countries . Chinese government complained and wants to retaliate, as they just relaxed their own entry requirement ( which for the past three years required people to be quarantined for four weeks (two weeks at the point of entrance and two weeks at the destination location, all paid by the travellers) with PCR tests tracking their COVID status). So far, Chinese government has decided to pause issuing entrance visa for the Koreans and Japaneses.

Paxlovid negotiation

The Chinese government has negotiated on the prices of medicines treating COVID patients with foreign pharmaceutical companies. The negotiation with Pfizer lasted 4 days. And the price was not accepted by the Chinese government, so the cost of Paxlovid will not be covered by the government for Chinese patients. This sparked a round of rumours and criticism on social media. Original rumour said that Pfizer agreed on 600 yuan for a box and the Chinese government wanted 200 yuan instead. Later Chinese media debunked the rumour and saying that the asking price is much higher. The media blamed Pfizer for not lowering their “attitude” and make it sound like Pfizer have lost a good deal. But on Twitter, many users criticized the Chinese government for not willing to pay for a medicine that can reduce chance of severe symptoms and death by 90%, while wasting so much money in mandatory PCR tests and building Fang Cang style hospitals. Now the medicine is only available for ordinary residents in Beijing and Shanghai, with very strict requirements. Many people are willing to pay 20,000 yuan for a box. The price Pfizer is selling in China is 2300 yuan, but it is impossible to get.

Workers protest continues

In our Newsletter 104, we described the Foxconn worker protests that shocked the country. On January 6th, a major manufacturer of PCR test kits in Chongqing decided to fire half of its workers. The factory employed 20,000 workers. According a message from Weibo, it started at the morning of January 6th. The factory sent a temporary worker to tell the workers that their holiday (Chinese New Year is coming) started right now. This is just a way to say that they are fired. The workers asked about the salary payments, the rate calculated was much lower than what was agreed upon with the agents that hired those workers. Later, a manager came out and say that only workers with a contract can get the salary. As most of the workers had no contract, workers started to rebel. They assembled as a huge team and smashed everything in the factory. When they recognized a manager, they beat him up badly. When they saw a hiring agent, they beat him up too.

Eventually, police were sent in. But with thousands of workers on riot, the police did not enter the factory. The government sent in someone to negotiate, but then left without any follow-up. The workers spread out to the city, jammed the traffic for hours. Eventually, the government ordered the hiring agents to pay the salary. But the agents are not in any position to satisfy workers demand and some of them were badly beaten and sent to ICU. More fully armed police were sent in. All that lasted 24 hours. Eventually, maybe, the government caved under pressure, and in turn pressured the factory and/or the agents, who had to negotiate the salary with the workers. Half of the fired worker got their pay. A few agents were dragging their feet and waiting for the crowd to shrink. But, the crowd actually grew larger and eventually they broke the police defence and started beating up some of the agents. In the end, everyone got compensated.

Teacher Li had posted a few video on Twitter as the protest developed. Here is one when the workers were lighting up fires to keep themselves warm at night.

Chongqing was not the only city that had some uprising. Around the same time, workers from a factory in Hangzhou also faced the same situation and they also rebelled. People say that the factory hired people with promise of high pay when government demands for PCT test rose up last year. And now, of course the demand just collapsed, which results in mass layoffs with no compensation plans.

In both cases, the workers got the compensation they fought for.

Sony got banned on Weibo

It is a story about business environment in China. I am quoting tweets from WSJ reporter Liza Lin directly:

1/ Sony becomes the latest foreign company to be hung out to dry in China for nationalistic reasons. The company’s social media account (Weibo) was shut last week, and it was over a post from Oct 12, in which nationalists singled out for insulting China’s war heroes and martyrs.

Global Times: Sony should be held accountable for defaming Chinese hero on 8th January 2023.

2/ Last week, astute Chinese netizens realized Sony’s Weibo had been shuttered, for “running afoul of related rules and regulations.”
3/ Wang Gaofei, the CEO of Weibo, dropped clues to Sony’s closure in a public social media entry last week. The block was delayed punishment for a public post by Sony on October 12.
4/ Netizens were left guessing what was the offending post (some accurately guesses) but it wasn’t till Saturday, when CCTV ran a Wechat post explaining Sony’s offence. This was the post that triggered the suspension: a black dog hiding in a sea of red autumn leaves.

(The photo is from Sony Instagram in 2021 @ilonazuest.animals is the actual photographer.)

5/ The post also featured a line written by Mao Zedong about the beauty of plum blossoms. Nationalists jumped on the post. CCTV explained that plum blossoms were a sign of Party members overcoming adversity. Sony, they said, had been mocking a war hero from the Korean War.
6/ Nationalists said the post Sony had uploaded mocked Qiu Shaoyun, a Chinese soldier who had sacrificed himself to protect his troops on Oct 12 - 70 years earlier. And that the photo of the dog in the bushes resembled this picture.

7/ For background, Qiu had burned to death after the area around him was hit by a petrol bomb and he refused to leave the spot for a nearby water body as it would give away the position of his troops. Oct 12 - the day of Sony’s post - was the 70th anniversary of his sacrifice.
8/ Sony was punished under the “Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law” from 2018, which protects the group from defamation. Enforcing control over Chinese history has been a priority for President Xi, who often talks about restoring the Party to greatness.
9/ CCTV’s post also singled out another faux pas by Sony. The Japanese electronics maker had chosen July 7, the anniversary of the start of the Sino-Japan war to launch new smartphones in China in 2021. Sony was fined 100 million yuan.
10/ China, once seen as an easy & attractive market for sales, has become a lot more challenging for foreign brands. Nationalistic boycotts have hit brands, with 90 incidents between 2008 and 2021, data from the Swedish National China Center shows.
11/ The last time a foreign company was openly shamed was Walmart over supposedly stripping Xinjiang products from its shelves (more than a year ago), and Swedish retailer H&M, and sportswear firms Nike and Adidas were also boycotted because of their stance on Xinjiang in 2021.
12/ Businesses and diplomats say that Xi’s reign on power has only resulted in much more opacity and unpredictability.

Chun Han Wong and Liza Lin wrote about the changing winds in WSJ: China’s Opaque Decision-Making Confounds Business, Governments

Update on the chained woman

It has been almost a year now since the story of the chained woman with 8 children became viral on Chinese internet (see Newsletter 39). Many people list her story as one of the top 10 story of 2022 for China.

How is she now?

Today, a famous lawyer published a report on his attempt to visit her in the village where she was found. The report spread fast and wide on Wechat and Twitter.

The main subject of the report is unfortunately not the chained woman, but the village officials who make sure that no outsider can get into the village. The officials installed a container office at the entrance of the village with a sign-in book that records everyone arrival. After filling out the information asked for the book, the lawyer was denied entrance into the village. Then the lawyer found out that even the road for him to leave the village was blocked by the village officials as an intimidation tactic. He had to call the police to be able to get out.

How is she now? We still don’t know.