Very few people outside China heard of the power couple Wang Fang and Zhou Xiaoping. Zhou Xiaoping, like the president of China, exited formal education at middle school level. But he did not make it to Qinghua University because his family was too insignificant to help him with that. Born in 1981, he was talented enough to become an internet celebrity though.
Since 2009, he has written many controversial internet articles that made him famous. For example, he predicted the real estate collapse right at the beginning of a spectacular market boom. He also wrote many articles exposing the miserable life in the USA that often got published in newspapers like the Global Times. He became so famous that in 2014, in the early years of Xi Jinping ruling, Zhou was invited to a conference chaired by Xi. The conference was widely considered the start of the dominance of propaganda in arts and literature pushed by Xi Jinping, to capture the control of ideology, which was practised by Mao shortly after CCP controlled the country. Xi especially praised Zhou for his “work”. This gave him the power to purge any critics of him on Chinese social media. Other internet celebrities who argued that he lied were banished.
Zhou has a nickname, “Cutlassfish Zhou”, because in one of his articles, he argued that cutlassfish were farm-raised on the coast of China, while cutlassfish live in the deep ocean and could not be farm-raised.
I rapidly heard of him when I joined Chinese social media, often because friends in China would send his articles about the USA and ask me “Is it true?”. It used to be easy to find an article debunking the article already on the internet to send back (writing a debunk would be a full-time job because the lies were usually all over the place). But then his critiques were all gone. And then, he did not even need to write those lying articles anymore, his work that Xi praised so much has been carried on by many young people who wanna join his good fortunes. Now, it is not an exaggeration to say that what Chinese people read on Chinese social media is a parallel universe to the one I live in. No one bothers to debunk anymore. Often, on Twitter, people are just saying: “Look, this is what they believe now!” The attitude is like watching a horror movie.
Zhou has dropped out of public attention for a few years now, because he has become the hands behind what is happening on social media. He even became a member of the National Committee of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference. Lately, his name resurfaced on social media because of his wife, Wang Fang, a singer famous for singing red songs on TV.
On 16 March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces bombed the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine. It was used as an air raid shelter during the siege of Mariupol, sheltering a large number of civilians. […] The attack has been classified as one of the Russian invasion of Ukraine war crimes by both the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Amnesty International.
Wang Fang went to the Mariupol opera house, and sang a soviet union era patriotic song Katyusha, which is also the name of rocket launchers.
Of course, the Ukrainians reacted promptly with indignation:
“People died there, among them children. To turn the theatre into a tourist destination and to sing on the bones of the dead is incredible cynicism and disrespect for the memory of the dead civilians.”
Although this is considered a diplomatic disaster, and mentions of the incident were quickly erased from Chinese social media, the couple were defiant and went on to Russian media to defend their actions, repeating Russian propaganda.
Many people were puzzled by the couple’s action, and the Chinese government’s lack of action (apart from internet censorship).
Mr. Shen lives in Canada, he graduated from a top university in China, specialized in technology, created a few companies and made lots of money in the golden age of China’s economic boom. He can be considered a business elite. His social circle in China are people like him, people with good education and benefited from the past 30 years of economic policies.
Shen left China because he has two kids and he thinks the education in China is too exhausting for the children… and the parents.
He left in 2020, shortly after the COVID break out, when everyone around him was still full of hope and ambition for China. When he was in Canada, the progress China made on chips, renewable energy, and EV, were all exciting news for him. He came back to China in April to see for himself. His friends, who are still active in these industries, were expecting new economic policies from the government because 2022 was a very bad year. They were all hoping to expand their business and do IPOs. Shen also visited top hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai, and comparing them to his medical experience in North America, he thinks that China is very good. So, by July, his confidence in China was at its peak.
This was when Mr. Shen became famous on Twitter: he tweeted to say that all the negative news about China was fake and lies. He even asked people to report to him those Twitter accounts. Now, he did not just sound like a pinky, he sounded like the all-menacing CCP, without knowing it. Many Twitter users who are critical of China fought against him.
But, something strange happened: his friends who were telling him all the good news were asking him about how to immigrate to Canada. He was shocked. He asked his friends: why do you want to leave China? His friends replied that because under all the rosy export data, is a China with too much redundant productivity, too weak domestic demand, and an unsustainable outlook. Yes, they were exporting a lot, but all at losses. The more they export, the more they lose. The EV ecosystem heavily depends on Tesla, and they don’t know how long they can rely on Tesla’s technology which is available to them for now.
His own business idea, to source products in China and sell them to North America, also turned out to be impossible due to the decoupling of trade between the USA and China. He said, because Western countries are shunning away from products made in China, Chinese manufacturers are also moving to countries like Mexico, Vietnam. So the people who know best how to organize mass production are going to other countries, along with their skills, and compete in the global market against China. To Mr. Shen, this is not political, but purely technical. And when trade is gone, all is gone for China.
Mr. Shen also criticized the tightening control of Chinese society, the anti-corruption campaign that has destroyed the education business and is now doing great harm to the healthcare industry. He sees the very top of government has made many serious mistakes but no one person wants to bear the responsibility. He is planning to get his siblings and employees out of China.
Mr. Shen represents the young generation of Chinese who benefitted most from the China economic boom. I thought his view is particularly telling of how the group that most supported CCP’s ruling a few years ago has turned.
The above paragraphs were a summary from an interview of him by Bumingbai podcast, you can read the transcription in Chinese here.
Last year in Newsletter 67, right around June 4th, we told you about the melon of Li Jiaqi. Mr. Li recovered from the fallout, returned to his glory three months later and continued to sell products online.
But lately, he is in hot water again.
On September 10th, during a live stream, Li scolded one of his fans who complained that the eyebrow pencil he was selling was too expensive (about $11). Li said:
“How is it too expensive? It’s been the same price for so many years. Don’t talk nonsense with your eyes open. It’s difficult for domestic brands.” He said.
Seemingly still angry, he added: “Sometimes one should look for one’s own fault. Like, my salary has not been increased after so many years. Have I worked hard?”
Li’s fans were outraged: you made money from us and you despise us? Li lost a million fans shortly after. This prompted Li to personally apologize twice, with tears in his eyes.
Chinese social media reacted to Li’s criticism that they did not work hard enough with personal stories on how hard they had worked and yet their income was diminishing. The discussion on why everyone is getting poorer was flooding the internet.
Many were joking that last year, Li Jiaqi taught young people of June 4th, this year he is telling everyone about the economic downturn.
Li, making 250 million USD a year, going out with a team of bodyguards. It is not surprising that he had no idea that $11 USD is a lot for ordinary people, many of whom are his fans. Meanwhile, according to some internet information he takes 80% of that 11 dollars for selling the products.
The influencer economy in China is a very strange phenomenon.
And then there are AI-generated clones of the real streamers.
Xi Jinping is appearing in public for various events. Some of them caught the attention of the public.
For example, did you know that when he attended the BRICS in South Africa:
Xi’s security team swept his South African hotel so thoroughly it even took local police by surprise. The Chinese flew in their own beds, curtains and carpets on a cargo plane, South African Police Minister Bheki Cele told local media.
Xi also arrived in Hangzhou for the Asian games. On September 20th, some people spotted him (with very heavy security details) visiting the Yiwu wholesale market (the largest in the world). If visiting Yiwu is a signal that Xi cares about economy and trade, Xi also visited the Museum of Fengqiao, a place where Mao introduced the mass movements for class struggles 61 years ago. Using mass movement to prosecute “enemies” eventually became the main tool of the cultural revolution. So, it seems that Xi wants both: tight control of Chinese society and economic development through trade.
Xi seems to agree with Mr. Shen that patching up relations with the West is the key to economic prosperity, on September 19th, CCP mouthpiece newspaper published a story: “Xi: Spirit of Flying Tigers should live on”:
Flying Tigers was the 1st American Volunteer Group of fighter jet pilots who came to fight the Japanese along with the Chinese national army during World War II.
Some observer commented:
This story appeared above the fold today in the People’s Daily. To me, it’s a clear indicator from Xi Jinping that he wants the bilateral in San Francisco in November. There is a long history of this kind of subtle signaling.
But before the possible meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in November, Xi is welcoming Assad in Hangzhou
The Chinese government sent an Air China flight: it took 11 hours to fly Assad from Syria to Beijing, to avoid “hostile” airspace and to ensure Assad’s safety
FlightRadar has the details of the flight CA67 from Damascus to Hangzhou
One of the places he visited in Hangzhou was the famous Lingyin temple. To everyone’s surprise, Assad went in through the main gate.
Legend has it that since the temple was built, only emperors can enter and exit the temple through its main gate. All other visitors have to go through the side door. But one day, Emperor Qianlong came to visit disguised as a civilian, and the temple let him in through the side door. Since then the main gate has never been opened to guests. The treatment of Assad is perplexing to many people: why give a murderer of his own people so much prestige?
Before maybe going to SF, Xi is planning to talk with Putin in October in Beijing.