The controversy is being described online as “breaking in (literally, ‘prying open the lock’) to turn on the lights” (撬锁点灯, qiàosuǒ diǎndēng; also 撬门开灯, qiàomén kāidēng). Other permutations of the phrase include “breaking in late at night to turn on the lights” (半夜撬门开灯, bànyè qiàomén kāidēng) and “smashing/forcing the door to turn on the lights” (破门亮灯, pòmén liàngdēng). Some have borrowed a more classical phrase (from chapter 77 of Cao Xueqin’s 18th-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber) to describe the perennial conflict between imperious authorities and the citizenry: “Only magistrates are allowed to set fires, while ordinary folk aren’t even allowed to light lanterns” (只许州官放火，不许百姓点灯, Zhǐxǔ zhōuguān fànghuǒ, bùxǔ bǎixìng diǎndēng.) The implication, of course, is that those in power can do whatever they please, whereas ordinary people are restricted even in their legitimate daily or business activities.

CDT Chinese editors have thus far archived about a dozen articles and essays about the controversy in Datong, as well as a variety of netizen comments. Some online commenters said the unauthorized break-in reminded them of COVID pandemic lockdowns, during which white-suited pandemic workers would sometimes break into private homes to "disinfect" the premises or "cull" dogs whose owners had been placed in quarantine facilities. Others said that it felt like a real-life version of a skit, featured in this year’s televised Spring Festival Gala, in which a noodle shop—in a misguided effort to comply with a local government initiative to make the town streets appear bustling and prosperous—forces a pair of customers to sit outside in freezing temperatures as they attempt to enjoy their noodles.

One Weibo user noted the relative impunity enjoyed by those in uniform, and mocked the “non-apology apology” issued by the neighborhood government in Datong:

When ordinary people break in: We get arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
When the government breaks in: "We were impatient for results and excessively hasty in carrying out our work." [Chinese]

Another comment, from an anonymous netizen, made reference to local authorities’ desire to promote tourism at all costs and to create the impression of economic prosperity, even if it is a sort of “Potemkin prosperity”:

Breaking into a shop in the middle of the night to turn on the lights—how could such a ridiculous thing happen? It’s because to the authorities, “false prosperity” resembles "prosperity,” and they care more about the appearance of prosperity than the “false” part. [Chinese]

A recent WeChat article from Zhao Hong, a professor of law at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, poses the following questions: "How can a voluntary ‘initiative’ become mandatory? And how do law-enforcement officers turn into scofflaws?" Professor Zhao’s article, published by Phoenix.com’s current-affairs WeChat blog Fengsheng OPINION, offers some legal insights into the supposedly voluntary local initiative asking shopkeepers to keep their lights on overnight for about two weeks during the Lunar New Year to make the historical city center appear more festive. The article also mentions the shopkeeper in question, a Mr. Yue, who had told local authorities that he couldn’t rush to his shop in the middle of the night just to turn on the lights, because he was too busy tending to his newborn child at home:

After the video surveillance footage provided by Mr. Yue was widely circulated, netizens described the scene of law-enforcement officers breaking the lock on the door and turning on the lights as an instance of “absurdly violent enforcement exposed under the glare of incandescent lights." The illegality of their behavior in this case is self-evident.

[…] In this case, Mr. Yue simply failed to keep his lights on overnight during the Spring Festival holiday, as recommended by his local neighborhood committee. His behavior was not in violation of public security enforcement protocols, nor did he fail to carry out any obligations as prescribed by the law. Public security organs are only tasked with enforcing the law, thus there was no conceivable legal basis for law-enforcement officers to break into Mr. Yue’s shop.

Merchants have significant legal property rights over their own shops. As Article 13 of the Constitution clearly stipulates, “Citizens’ lawful private property is inviolable. The state shall protect the right of citizens to own and inherit private property in accordance with the provisions of law.” And Article 240 of the Civil Code also emphasizes, "Those with ownership rights enjoy the rights to possession, use, earnings, and disposition of their own real estate and chattel.”

By forcibly entering Mr. Yue’s shop to turn on the lights without the express permission of the owner, the neighborhood committee property-management and law-enforcement departments committed a serious violation of Mr. Yue’s property rights. This violent action by law enforcement not only disrespects private property rights expressly protected by the Constitution and the Civil Code, but also disregards the owner’s right to exercise autonomy over his own business operations. It may even constitute a violation of Article 245 of the Criminal Law, which defines the crime of "unlawful entry into a private residence." According to paragraph two of Article 245, “Any judicial officer who abuses his power and commits the crime [unlawful entry into a private residence] mentioned in the preceding paragraph shall be given a heavier punishment.”

[…] From the audio [of the phone call] that Mr. Yue publicly shared, one is struck anew by the sheer arrogance of the [local] authorities: "If you don’t open the door, then the police are just going to show up and force it open. We’ll open that door for you—just see if we don’t.” “You don’t have to stay [in the shop], but the lights have to stay on.”

It is astonishing that even now, as we enter 2025, public authorities could show such blatant disregard for private property rights. Is this due to law-enforcement officers’ indifference to the rule of law, or do those in power genuinely believe that their authority supersedes the rule of law? Are those in power so protected that they can simply cast off the constraints of the rule of law?

A photo showing the shop door’s broken ground-level lock after it was cut. (source: Dafeng News)

[…] Mr. Yue informed reporters that the local propaganda department had told him that nearly 97% of the shops in the city were actively cooperating with the guideline to keep their lights on overnight for the duration of the Spring Festival holiday. Regarding the 3% of shops that decided not cooperate, Mr. Yue asked, "Do those 3% deserve to have their doors pried open?"

Surveillance video from Mr. Yue’s shop shows uniformed officers after they broke into his shop. (Source: Dafeng News)

[…] After law-enforcement officers broke into his shop, Mr. Yue called the 12345 hotline to report the incident, and also attempted to consult Pingcheng District authorities and the district’s Urban Management Bureau, but received no response to his queries.

[…] Facing tremendous public opinion backlash, the Gucheng Neighborhood Committee in Pingcheng District finally issued an apology letter early on the morning of February 7. Unfortunately, the apology letter made no mention of the legal consequences for the law-enforcement officers who broke in and turned on the lights, nor did it reassess the policy of requiring shops to keep their lights on all day and night throughout the Spring Festival. It simply attributed the problem to "improper working methods" and what it called “our impatience for quick results, a crude and heavy-handed approach, and a lack of service awareness in our work." Such an apology is undoubtedly disappointing to Mr. Yue, the shopkeeper whose rights were violated, as well as to the many netizens who have been paying close attention to the matter.

Today is only the tenth day of the first lunar month, and the traditional Spring Festival holiday is not yet over, but this incident in Datong, Shanxi province, serves as a reminder that if we wish to foster harmony, the rule of law must be our guiding light: it is only by respecting the rights of every individual that we can enjoy a fine, festive, vibrant city. [Chinese]

Another Weibo article, from the former publisher and editor-in-chief of China Blog magazine, is titled, “Breaking in to turn on the lights in Datong: Was it really just the product of ‘excessive enthusiasm?’” The author is deeply critical of both the wording and sentiment of the apology issued by local officials, and points out that local enforcers in general—whether they call themselves “chengguan” or “comprehensive enforcement teams”—frequently take a heavy-handed approach, and seem to behave with impunity:

During Chinese New Year, an utterly ridiculous incident occurred in Datong.

Local officials in the Pingcheng historic district had asked all shop owners to keep their lights on, even after closing hours, but one shop owner turned off his lights and went home. The neighborhood committee later called him up and asked him to come back to turn on the lights. As a new father trying desperately to coax his one-month-old infant to sleep, the shop owner told them he couldn’t rush back immediately just to turn on the lights in his shop.

So a group of guys wearing high-visibility jackets emblazoned with the words "comprehensive enforcement team" broke the lock on the shop’s door, turned on all the lights, installed a U-shaped padlock on the door, and left.

[…The subsequent apology from Datong authorities] expressed the superficial belief that "There was poor communication, which led to misunderstandings, which incited negative public opinion.” This was their original assessment of the situation.

Note that despite the commas used in that sentence, they are not parallel events, but a series of events. The logic of the apology is very confusing.

Later, under pressure from a public opinion backlash, they issued a new assessment.

This time, they blamed “our impatience for quick results, a crude and heavy-handed approach, and a lack of service awareness in our work.”

If you have any experience in writing official documents, you will know that when such words appear, the people who made mistakes won’t lose their jobs, nor will they even be punished. That kind of wording means: “Our intentions were good, but our execution was clumsy.”

Did the people who picked the lock and broke into that shop to turn on the lights have good intentions?

Of course not! Do well-intentioned people go around breaking and entering for no good reason? Even if you gave me lock-picking tools and asked me to break in, I still wouldn’t know how to pick a lock. If you tried to coerce me to smash the lock, I could probably manage it, but I’d still be too afraid to do it.

If you’ve ever lived in a second-tier or even lower-tier city, you’ll know that those so-called “comprehensive enforcement teams” are more than likely just thugs.

So why is Datong protecting these lock-picking thugs?

Because these thugs are loyally carrying out orders from above, and you can’t punish someone for loyally carrying out your orders. Managers and higher-ups rely on these thugs for their survival. If you start punishing them, they won’t want to work for you anymore.

[…] But we are modern citizens, not imperial subjects, so we shouldn’t just stand aside and gawk at the misfortunes of others. When things go wrong, we must employ logic to explain why things went so wrong, so that the truth eventually becomes clear.

Was Datong’s order to “keep the lights on" really aimed at helping tourists? Were they trying to prevent tourists from tripping in the dark and spraining their ankles?

No, of course not. They just wanted the city to look prettier at night. [Chinese]

Lastly, a WeChat article by Yang Naiwu for Planet Business Review explains Datong’s enthusiasm for all-night lights in terms of the increasing competition for tourist income. As local governments struggle with more debt, declining land revenues, and demands to provide more local services, there is more incentive than ever to pull out all the stops to attract tourists and generate holiday tourism income:

Why are [local authorities] making such a fuss this year? Many of my local friends say it’s connected to the Lantern Festival taking place in Datong’s historic district.

I looked into it and learned that Datong’s Lantern Festival started in 2016. In 2019, Datong’s tourism revenue exceeded 70 billion yuan, 60 billion of which was generated during the Spring Festival holiday period.

But tourism revenue hasn’t returned to the pre-pandemic level of 2019.

In 2023, Datong welcomed 1.66 million tourists during Spring Festival; during the same period in 2019, there were over two million visitors. Tourism revenue has only recovered to two-thirds of the pre-pandemic level.

Last year, due to the popularity of the video game Black Myth: Wukong, travel to Shanxi became very popular. For that reason, Datong has attached great importance to this year’s Spring Festival Lantern Festival, which started 20 days earlier than it did in previous years. The Pingcheng District environmental and commercial brigades also carried out major inspections. Datong’s entire historic district was festooned with lanterns and colorful decorations, and the government website promoted the slogan, "The lights of the ancient capital burn as bright as day, and in Pingcheng, the night is never-ending." [Chinese]

The move has ground one of the engines of the country’s geopolitical influence to a halt and created an opening for rivals like China, which Washington has long presented as an unreliable and predatory partner for the developing world.

“Trump’s actions are weakening American global leadership and influence,” New Jersey Senator Andy Kim told Bloomberg. “Our assistance abroad helps fight disease and stop starvation and famine, but it’s also a tool to stave off the expansionist reach of authoritarian leaders in China, Russia, and Iran.”

[…] “Although Beijing’s willingness to plug a multibillion-dollar hole in foreign aid is likely limited, it is already Africa’s top investor and trading partner, and the freezing of US aid means an opportunity to consolidate its economic and political influence,” according to Bloomberg Economics.

[…] One Chinese official said the US withdrawal from foreign aid is an act of self-sabotage that could cut Washington off from potential partners, while another expressed confidence that funding would ultimately return because of the importance of aid to US global influence. [Source]

Beijing may not be ideally placed to exploit any new opening. At South China Morning Post, Ralph Jennings reported on the prospect of China’s Belt and Road initiative expanding into the space left by USAID, but noted that the BRI has itself been somewhat scaled back, and that "Chinese officials have begun to use the term ‘small but beautiful’ to describe projects under the initiative."

One possible reason for the limited willingness pointed out by Bloomberg is the domestic backlash to Beijing’s past foreign expenditures. The text below is taken from the China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition ebook, which highlights and explains 104 key terms from Chinese online discourse over the past two decades. This entry focuses on a derisive nickname for Xi Jinping based on his perceived enthusiasm for liberally splashing Chinese taxpayers’ money around the world while many citizens are struggling at home. Resentment was widespread even in 2016, when China’s economic rocket engines were still blasting. Now, with the economy sputtering and associated frustrations rife—as expressed in several other Lexicon entries—a sudden expansion of China’s external spending would likely prove even more controversial, regardless of its strategic benefits.

Big Spender (大撒币 Dà Sābì)

“Big Spender” is a nickname for Xi Jinping deriding his investment in foreign countries and playing on the near-homophony between the phrases “throw money around” (撒币 sābì) and “stupid cunt” (傻逼 shǎbī). Bitter jokes about Xi’s profligate spending abroad started in October 2015, when Xi and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed on “up to £40bn” in trade and other deals during Xi’s visit to the U.K. By 2021, Chinese loans and grants for overseas infrastructure over the previous 18 years amounted to some US$843 billion.

Despite China’s status as the world’s second biggest economy and its remarkable achievements in eliminating extreme poverty, China has high levels of income disparity, and hundreds of millions of its citizens are still profoundly struggling. The government’s largesse abroad is therefore controversial: there is widespread resentment at the prioritization of China’s global standing over the needs of the people at home whose labor generated its wealth in the first place. Chinese citizens are not only unable to choose where the money goes, but are not even allowed to know, as the sums involved are not officially disclosed. In 2022, for example, Beijing hailed its forgiveness of 23 interest-free loans to 17 African countries, but did not disclose their total value.

The image of China’s government as a lavish benefactor on the global stage is incongruous with persistent warnings abroad of Chinese “debt-trap diplomacy.” That narrative is itself a red herring according to analysts such as Deborah Brautigam, who has written that the “real challenge” to developing nations from Chinese infrastructure investment comes from pervasive rent-seeking and cronyism, rather than predatory lending. These issues naturally do nothing to alleviate public frustration with money being channeled abroad.

CDT first detected that “Big Spender” was blocked from Weibo search results on January 2, 2016. “Throw money” (撒币 sābì) was also blocked from Weibo by April 5, 2016. In 2018, a censored blog post archived at CDT Chinese noted the apparent restriction of Weibo comments beneath news posts on Xi’s pledge of US$60 billion in support to Africa at a summit in Beijing. In some cases, comments were blocked entirely; in others, only supportive ones—for example, praising the aid as fair repayment for African nations’ role in bringing the P.R.C. into the United Nations—could be seen.

CDT Chinese editors have archived nearly 20 articles and essays exploring various facets of the Xiaohongshu “TikTok refugee” phenomenon, as well as numerous netizen comments. “We all know this isn’t going to end well,” wrote one Weibo user, “so let’s enjoy this ‘global-village moment’ while we can.” One online commenter, referencing China’s ubiquitous online censorship and VPN use, posed the question, “Who, after all, is the world’s largest producer of internet refugees?” When a self-described “TikTok refugee” with a Singapore IP address expressed interest in buying some Chinese A-share stocks (A-shares are quoted in yuan and generally purchased by domestic investors, while B-shares are quoted in foreign currencies and are more widely available to foreign investors), a fellow Xiaohongshu user responded jocularly, “If you buy [A-shares], you will become a true refugee." The official Weibo account for Dahongshu (“Big Red Book,” a Xi Jinping Thought study app) seized the opportunity to welcome the new Tik-Tok refugees: “We welcome all friends—new and old, at home and abroad—to download and use Dahongshu to learn and improve together!” And when a new Xiaohongshu user asked, “What does collectivism mean in Chinese culture?” one of the most trenchant answers was, “It means sacrificing some people in order to preserve the interests of some other people.”

The popularity of salary and cost-of-living comparisons among Chinese and American Xiaohongshu users has given rise to the term “Xiaohongshu balance-sheet comparisons” (小红书对账, Xiǎohóngshū duìzhàng). Also called “Sino-American balance-sheet comparisons” (中美对账, Zhōng-Měi duìzhàng) or “online balance-sheet comparisons” (网络对账, wǎngluò duìzhàng), these involve users sharing details of their weekly, monthly, or annual incomes; housing costs and other expenses; income-tax rates; student-loan and auto-loan payments; and more. For many, it is an affirmation that economic struggles are universal, despite the variance in baseline salaries and living expenses. Others approach it as a competition, an affirmation, or a way of gauging China’s relative standing in the world.

Two recent articles discuss the ongoing “balance-sheet comparison” and what it says about economic life in China and the U.S. The first, from WeChat account “A single-family home,” poses the question: “Did We Win the Xiaohongshu Balance-sheet Comparison?” The article begins with some illustrative screenshots of exchanges between Xiaohongshu users on the subject of earnings, take-home pay, and working hours. In the end, the author concludes that this sort of exchange shouldn’t be about competition, but about recognizing that each place has its advantages, and that many of the cost advantages in China are contingent on a combination of government subsidies and an overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated labor force:

A screenshot shows a Xiaohongshu user in Jiangsu commiserating with a U.S.-based user who works 70-80 hours per week at two jobs—a swing shift at a hospital, and a night shift at a casino.

Another screenshot from Xiaohongshu shows a user in Jiangsu asking how much American construction workers get paid per day. A U.S.-based user answers that as a union member, he makes about $50 per hour plus benefits, which comes out to roughly $1200 per week after taxes. A commenter from Liaoning responds, “That’s not bad,” and another person from Hebei writes, “Omg. That’s a lot.”

This screenshot shows English posts—with Chinese translations and annotations—from U.S.-based Xiaohongshu users talking about their jobs. The first is from a woman who says she works in a hospital kitchen making $21 per hour, or $31.50 per hour for overtime. The second is from a man who says he makes $300,000 per year as a junior-level employee at a New York City investment bank. The third is from a person in San Francisco who works as a nurse and makes between $200,000 and $250,000 per year, and says they plan to retire at age 55.

[…] In this world, there is no such thing as a perfect country. Ordinary people in any country, including Chinese and Americans, do not enjoy an easy life. American envy of the low cost of goods and services in China upends any perceptions of China based solely on economic data. It’s fair to say that these online interactions and people-to-people exchanges are beneficial to enhancing friendship and mutual understanding between China and the U.S.

[…] Almost all of the “resource advantages” [enjoyed by middle-class Chinese] derive from other large groups of hardworking Chinese people.

For example, the high-quality, low-cost services we enjoy—including express delivery and take-out—are essentially predicated on the labor of a group of Chinese people who labor from morning to night for meager wages.

To cite another example, Chinese prices for utilities such as water, electricity, and internet—and for services such as public transportation—are the lowest in the world, at least among countries with similar levels of infrastructure. However, these low prices are mainly due to local subsidies for public services and infrastructure, and most of these subsidies are funded by land-use and land-transfer fees, which in turn are funded by the millions of ordinary people who purchase their homes with "six wallets." ["Six wallets" refers to couples who have to pool their own savings, and the savings of their parents and in-laws, to be able to afford to buy a home.]

On the one hand, we as Chinese people must make good use of the resource advantages we currently possess; value our hard-won economic achievements and peaceful, stable environment; and be grateful to the compatriots who have sacrificed on our behalf. On the other hand, we must be adroit enough to avoid the pitfalls […] so that someday we can live an even better life.

I don’t think that this "comparing of balance sheets" on Xiaohongshu should be turned into an argument about who is winning or who is losing. Everything we do is about making ourselves and our lives better, not about defeating others. Being overly concerned about winning or losing is to focus too much on our opponents, and is a clear sign of mistaken priorities.

Comparing our household "balance sheets" on Xiaohongshu should be an opportunity for us to better understand the world and rid ourselves of illusions about bright and shiny things. We shouldn’t have illusions about any individual or any country—as I pointed out in one of my past articles, even U.S. President Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, exhibit a very vulgar, and even outright shameful, side. [Chinese]

The second article, from WeChat account “A herd of a thousand sheep are burning,” asks readers, “No One Honestly Thinks We’ve Won the ‘Sino-American Balance-sheet Comparison,’ Do They?” The author criticizes pundits such as Chen Ping who make outrageous claims about the superior purchasing power or living standards of Chinese consumers, but also cautions against those who claim that China is lagging hopelessly behind or that the U.S. is some sort of paradise. The author urges readers not to give in to an “inferiority complex” by becoming hostile or defensive, and not to buy into the illusion that “the moon is rounder abroad”:

What I want to talk about is—although the wall hasn’t collapsed from the inside, and this sort of “balance-sheet comparison” isn’t a rarity—that the commonly held, long-ossified piece of conventional wisdom about the “gap between China and the U.S.” could be so easily overturned by just a few posts. Perhaps this phenomenon is worthy of more attention.

Today people might be marveling, “Wow, everything we read in our textbooks about the ‘evils of capitalism’ turned out to be true. Lucky for us our motherland managed to protect us so well, all these decades …”

But tomorrow’s version might well be very different. If some "public intellectuals" stir things up again, who knows—there might be a brand new "awakening."

As they say, being too wrapped up in winning the game, and worrying about how to win, is a sign of an inferior player—someone who tries to bolster their own sense of superiority by making invidious comparisons to others. The “Ah Q mentality” isn’t dead, and besides, there are many different ways to win.

[…] These “balance-sheet comparisons” didn’t just arise from our information cocoon or our cultural differences; they’re an inevitable consequence of our years of failing to educate people about basic logic.

[…] It is important to be able to see our own shortcomings, as well as the shortcomings of others. But it’s even more crucial to be able to see others’ strengths—for while the moon might be theirs, the humble sixpence belongs to us.

[…] There’s no shame in admitting that we still have a long way to go. [Chinese]

“Aim the rifle an inch higher” has its origin in historical fact. In 1992, two former East German border guards were convicted of fatally shooting Chris Gueffroy as he fled across the no man’s land that divided East and West Berlin. While rendering the guilty verdict, the presiding judge of the trial stated: “At the end of the 20th century, no one has the right to ignore his conscience when it comes to killing people on behalf of the power structure.” After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, an apocryphal version of the German judge’s closing statement began to circulate on the Chinese internet: “You had the power to aim your rifle one inch higher.” The phrase’s true origin stretches back even further, to the 1954 film “Reconnaissance Across the Yangtze.” In that film, a veteran Nationalist soldier advises a new recruit not to shoot to kill at advancing Communist troops so as to accrue potential amnesty in case they are defeated and taken prisoner: “When we’re in battle, aim your rifle an inch higher; that’s how you accumulate hidden merit.”

The phrase is now ubiquitous. As rapt Chinese netizens watched South Korean civilians block the military from occupying the National Assembly in Seoul last week—scenes that brought to mind the “Tank Man” of 1989—some commentators mocked the military’s restraint. In a now-censored essay, one author hailed the South Korean military’s decision not to use force, noting it as a real-life example of “aiming the rifle an inch higher.” Some have also used the phrase metaphorically to encourage China’s domestic security forces or online censors to shirk their duties so as to allow citizens greater freedom of expression. In a note addressed to China’s internet police after authorities shut down a 2016 in-person symposium of former Tsinghua University Red Guards, organizer Sun Nutao wrote:

“As ordinary internet police, to make a living and put food on the table, you have no choice but to perform bad deeds such as surveilling us, censoring our posts, or even demanding that we shut down this symposium. But if you’ve still got any conscience left, you could turn a blind eye to our online symposium. You could ‘aim the rifle an inch higher.’ I hope that you do not fully suppress your conscience, and instead remember to aim the rifle an inch higher.” [Chinese]

Some Chinese commentators have taken issue with the "aiming high" formulation. In 2011, the late blogger Zhang Rengang argued that the concept of “aiming high,” if taken to its logical conclusion, is pernicious: "If the law requires us to weigh [the morality] of everything we do, eventually even things explicitly permitted under the law will be liable to ex post facto punishment under the hazy doctrine of ‘conscience.’ In such a society, no one apart from priggish moralists and hypocritical preachers will dare to stand up for their own inalienable freedoms." Zhang’s argument holds that liberal adoption of "aim high" actually grants more power to the state.

In another essay published in 2011, the writer Chang Ping similarly argued that while "aim high" makes sense as "weapon of the weak" used as a means of strategic resistance to authoritarian terror, it should not ever replace a true system of just laws: "As Marx once wrote, ‘The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons.’ As such, ‘popular wisdoms’ [like ‘aiming high’] should never divert us from the pursuit of clear, principled justice."

“Aiming high” has also been deployed cynically. In an interview translated by CDT in October, a Gen Z internet censor pointed out the phrase was a fiction, and argued they had no personal culpability for silencing the voices of others:

A: Yup. I’ve never felt guilty. It’s just a job. And if I’m going to do it, I should do it well. It’s really uncommon for anyone to “aim high.” I doubt that really happened. It sounds like some intellectual dreamed it up. Could anything like that happen in real life?

That phrase “aim your rifle an inch higher” must have originated from the fall of the Berlin Wall, right? All day long, those guards were trained to do this or do that. That sort of environment must have completely eroded their sense of morality. There’s no way they’d ever shoot to miss. And if a soldier did dare shoot to miss, and got caught by a superior officer, can you imagine what they’d do to him? And how few people would even care? [Source]

Although many articles and essays on the subject of these indiscriminate killings—often referred to as “Xianzhong” attacks, after the reputedly bloodthirsty Ming-era peasant rebel Zhang Xianzhong—have been deleted by platform censors, some of the more sensible mooted solutions include strengthening the social safety net and offering more services to people suffering from poverty, depression, or mental illness. Harsher measures include predictive policing tools and increased punishments, although experts and ordinary citizens alike have questioned whether these would have any meaningful deterrent effects. There have also been reports of local governments stepping up efforts to identify individuals who might present a risk of violence.

A now-censored essay from the WeChat account “Common Sense Distribution Center” discusses the implications of labeling troubled individuals, particularly when this involves shunting them into such arbitrary categories as “people suffering from ‘four lacks and five frustrations.’” For who among us, asks the author, hasn’t at one time or another fallen into one of these supposedly high-risk categories?

The “four lacks” refer to people who lack a spouse or children; a job or stable income; normal social interactions; and financial assets such as a house or car. The “five frustrations” (or “five losses”) refer to frustrations over failed investments, estranged relationships, feelings of being thwarted in one’s daily life, loss of emotional equilibrium, and suffering from mental illness.

I’ve heard that some communities have recently begun making lists of local residents thought to suffer from these “four lacks and five frustrations.” According to one rumor, “The most notable characteristic of these people is that they have no “weak spots” that can be leveraged—that is, no children or family ties—therefore they’re the ones that community workers need to keep an eye on."

Speaking of which, I can’t help but think of a poem that I wrote a few days ago with the encouragement of a poet friend. That day, I happened to see a beetle crawling along the road.

Soft Underbelly

In this urban forest of steel-reinforced concrete
It traverses canyons, rivers, sun-dappled avenues
Steering clear of vast reptilian creatures such as buses
With minute precision, it can reach even the tiniest of destinations
Watching it crawl into a clump of grass, I feel a sense of relief,
followed by a pang of sorrow—
When threatened by danger, at least it has that hard protective shell
Whereas I am all soft underbelly, exposed
for all the world to see

Truly, everyone in this world has experienced these familial or emotional bonds that make us vulnerable, that form our "soft underbelly." And of course, life can also sever those bonds at any given time. For example, the male-female population imbalance means that not too many years from now, tens of millions of unmarried men will join the ranks of those with "four lacks and five frustrations," which ought to keep community workers busy for quite some time.

I remember the online rumor about Shanghai conducting a survey to identify residents who might be prone to mental illness. Symptoms of suspected mental illness included "unexplained absences from school or work, not leaving the house, or not having any social interactions." Now, take a look at yourself in the mirror and be honest: do you think you might potentially fit any of these criteria?

[…] It’s certainly possible that individuals grappling with the so-called "four lacks and five frustrations" might pose a threat to society, and certain circumstances might increase the likelihood of them going to extremes. However, since our individual circumstances and even our individual identities are so fluid, and the population base is so vast, trying to screen and identify those with "four lacks and five frustrations" is a nearly impossible task.

[…] When a person is reduced to a label or turned into a symbol; stripped of their identity as a father, mother, son, or daughter; deprived of their status as a flesh-and-blood person; then our basic human empathy toward that person seems to disappear. When a person is killed, others generally respond with compassion, but when a person is reduced to a label or symbol, there will always be some who delight when that "label" or "symbol" is destroyed.

To maximize the safety of everyone, our society must undergo a radical transformation to restore its fundamental humanity. [Journalist] Xiong Peiyun once said that where symbols take root, reason collapses. Conversely, when the labels and symbols we attach to others are swept away, our fundamental empathy and kindness toward others are restored, and our society sees the return of common sense and reason.

If more people possessed a “soft underbelly” of conscience and reason, there’d be no need to be so nervous about the “four lacks and five frustrations” among us. [Chinese]

It has long been known that China’s public security apparatus keeps tabs on citizens thought to be potentially troublesome. In 2018, CDT reported on an anonymous leak of dozens of tags used to describe “persons of interest” in the public security database: “The […] list was posted anonymously by someone claiming to have worked for many years in China’s public security system, and to have compiled these dozens of tags used to describe individuals in public security databases after coming to see such tools as instruments of oppression. […] Some labels denote family circumstances such as single, impoverished, or poorly educated parents or variously vulnerable children; others highlight mental health issues and threats of ‘revenge on society.’”

During Brezhnev’s nearly 20 years in power (1964-1982), the New Russian Empire lashed out in all directions, and even seemed capable of taking down mighty Uncle Sam. Today, with the advantage of hindsight, it is easy to recognize that [the Soviet] colossus had feet of clay, and was a hollow shell riven with internal difficulties. The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, in particular, plunged the empire into a quagmire. It would be fair to say that the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union both began in 1979.

I am willing to state unequivocally that the “garbage time” of the Soviet Union began in 1979. Gorbachev only hastened the end of that garbage era.

[…] In [Chinese-American historian] Ray Huang’s opinion, the history of the Ming Dynasty came to an end in 1587, during the fifteenth year of the Wanli Emperor’s reign. The subtext of Huang’s “macro-historical” viewpoint is that that was the year in which all of Chinese history came to an end, as well. The rest, including the remaining three hundred years of the Qing Dynasty, had lost any historical “significance” and were nothing more than a “garbage time” in history.

[…] In history, as in all competitive sports, there will always be some garbage time. When that time comes, the die is cast and defeat is inevitable. Any attempt to struggle against it is futile, and the best you can hope for is to reach the end with as much dignity as possible. [Chinese]

The Chinese state has struck back against use of the term “garbage time.” The East is Read, a Substack blog run by the Chinese think tank the Center for China and Globalization, translated three essays rebutting the term. The first, by a former Xinhua journalist, attacked the phrase as a product of “literary youth” who “idolize bourgeois ‘universal values’ and fantasize about transplanting these values and even political systems to China.” The second, published by a prominent academic in Beijing, argued that the world is undergoing “structural subversions and epochal surpassings between the East and the West in commodities, currency, brands, information, knowledge, systems, and even race and ideology” that should not be “tarnished and distorted” by the phrase. The last, published by the official newspaper of Beijing’s municipal Party committee, held that the term is a “logical fallacy” and attacked those who would “lie flat” before the “dawn of victory.” 

Some analysts, both Western and Chinese, hold that the phrase refers primarily to economic anxiety, thus placing it in the same tradition as “Kong Yiji literature” and the viral portmanteau “humineral.” Bloomberg framed it as an expression of “rising public discontent over President Xi Jinping’s economic agenda.” State media has made a similar categorization. An essay originally published to The Intersect (交汇点,  jiāohuìdiǎn), a mobile news outlet controlled by Jiangsu’s provincial Party committee, argued that efforts to characterize China as being in “garbage time” are disingenuous and false, and specifically cited a sudden influx of foreign travel bloggers who have sung the nation’s praises: 

Over the years, Western countries have waged continuous “cognitive warfare” against China. Western media narratives about China have swung between “peak China,” “overcapacity,” “threat to the global order,” and “on the brink of collapse.” These views are inherently contradictory, and not one of them has yet come to pass. Why is that? Because the real China does not exist in some “separate universe.” This year, “China travel” has become a viral global trend. Foreign tourists are flocking to China to experience its beautiful scenery, bustling streets, and modern conveniences. These foreign tourists, who rave about China with cries of “So city!,” would never think of it as a place mired in the garbage time of history. In today’s China, there are so many stories [that encapsulate China’s economic development] like “moon mining,” and “raising fish in space.” Anyone who drones on about “garbage theory” while fixating solely on the growing pains of a developing economy in transition has made their ill intentions abundantly clear. [Chinese]

Online, the phrase has become a meme to express economic anxiety. (Of course, overt expressions of political dissent are often heavily censored.) At The Guardian, Amy Hawkins reported on how Chinese Internet users have adopted of the term as a way to express bleak sentiments about the Chinese economy:

The sentiment can be summed up by a graphic, widely shared on social media – and since censored on Weibo.

Entitled the “2024 misery ranking grand slam”, it tallies up the number of misery points that a person might have earned in China this year. The first star is unemployment. For two stars, add a mortgage. For a full suite of eight stars, you’ll need the first two, plus debt, childrearing, stock trading, illness, unfinished housing a-nd, finally, hoarding Moutai, a famous brand of baijiu, a sorghum liquor.

“Some people say that history has garbage time,” wrote one Xiaohongshu user who shared the graphic, along with advice about self-care. “Individuals don’t have garbage time.”

[…] But some social media users are sanguine about being online in such an era. One Weibo blogger, who feared his account might soon be deleted because of a post he made about a recent food safety scandal, wrote a farewell to his followers. “No matter what happens, I am very happy to spend the garbage time of history with you”. [Source]

The meme graphic referred to by Hawkins in the article above: 

While there has been a robust discussion surrounding the phrase and widespread adoption of it as a meme, some online references to the “garbage time of history” have been censored. A WeChat essay published in 2023 building on the concept was censored. At Global Voices, Oiwen Lam translated the line that may have led to the censorship of the essay: 

“Whenever history enters garbage time, the first to fall is always cultural figures and thinkers. Cultural catastrophes have recurred throughout history, marked by the disappearance of sharp criticism. Then silence is considered ill-intentioned, and inadequate praise becomes a sin. Finally, only one voice is left: Lies.” [Source]

There is also soft search censorship of the term on Sogou, according to a tool developed by Citizen Lab. Searches for the “garbage time of history” return only state-sponsored results, but are not subject to a blanket ban. On WeChat, however, there are dozens of articles and videos debating the term—and China’s relation to it.

709 case (709案 (709 àn)

Nationwide crackdown on Chinese human rights defenders and lawyers that began on July 9, 2015; also known as “Black Friday.”

Rights lawyers and advocates have long faced persecution under the CCP, but since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, his security apparatus has dramatically clamped down on dissent. Civil society’s small gains in advancing political rights under previous leaders, along with the central role of rights lawyers in supporting civil rights defense and pushing for further legal reforms, became a perceived threat to Xi’s authoritarian vision and a target for repression.

July 9 (7/09) marked the day when the first lawyers disappeared in what was later called the 709 crackdown, in which Chinese public security agents ultimately rounded up over 300 human rights lawyers, activists, and their relatives. Some of the more prominent figures detained include Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang, Yu Wensheng, Jiang Tianyong, Xie Yang, Guo Yushan, Tan Zuoren, Xia Lin, Wang Yu, Zhou Shifeng, Zhao Wei, Pu Zhiqiang, and Wu Gan, among hundreds of others. Many were formally charged with subversion and related crimes, and sentenced to years in prison; some were paraded on state television making forced confessions; some endured torture in detention; and some were held incommunicado for years before being tried.

The U.N.’s Committee against Torture stated it was “deeply concerned” by the abuses against lawyers detained in the 709 crackdown, and a separate group of U.N. Special Rapporteurs added their condemnation, stating that “lawyers need to be protected, not harassed.” Over 100 civil society organizations from around the globe signed an open letter calling for the release of those detained, and the U.S. and other governments condemned the crackdown.

During the week of the initial crackdown, Chinese government authorities issued censorship instructions ordering all media websites to, “without exception, use as the standard official and authoritative media reports with regards to the detention of trouble-making lawyers by the relevant departments.” In January 2016, after many of those detained were formally sentenced, government authorities issued new censorship instructions to the media: “Without exception, all websites must refrain from publishing special features, and must not investigate, report, or comment on the [709] case without authorization. Harmful information on Weibo, WeChat, and other interactive platforms must be deleted immediately. Take prompt action to manage and control poor quality accounts.” In October, authorities banned websites from republishing any content from Caixin for two months, after it reported on lawyers’ opposition to new government regulations reinforcing Party control over law firms and criminalizing activities for which detainees of the 709 crackdown were prosecuted. Later, in January 2019, another censorship instruction ordered the media: “Do not gather news or report, do not comment or reprint” content about the case of Wang Quanzhang, a lawyer who was detained in the crackdown and sentenced to four years in prison for subversion. Wang’s wife, Li Wenzu, became a prominent activist in her own right through her advocacy for her husband and other political detainees.

Research by Citizen Lab in April 2017 documented numerous examples of censorship around the 709 crackdown on social media apps. On WeChat, at least 42 keyword combinations related to the 709 crackdown were blocked in group chats. Most of these included the names or other references to individuals involved. Also blocked were at least 58 images related to the 709 crackdown in both WeChat’s chat and Moments features, marking the first known case of image filtering on the app. This censorship occurred only for accounts registered with mainland Chinese numbers. Moreover, when the British embassy in China posted on Weibo calling for an investigation into the torture of some of the 709 lawyers, other users were not able to comment or post, and the majority of the top search results on Baidu for “709事件” (709 Case) led to a Global Times article ridiculing Western criticism of the incident.

In July 2023, dozens of human rights organizations, bar associations, scholars, and Chinese human rights defenders signed a joint letter calling for global attention to the Chinese government’s new wave of repression against human rights lawyers, which they called the “709 crackdown 2.0.” The letter lists examples of how, in the words of U.N. experts, “the profession of human rights lawyer has been effectively criminalised in China.” For example, the licenses of lawyers taking on sensitive cases have been revoked; former detainees and their relatives who spoke out about mistreatment in detention have been detained again; dying family members and detainees have been barred from traveling to see each other; and many have faced continued harassment and arbitrary detention.

In April, Chinese Human Rights Defenders detailed the ongoing suppression of the 709 crackdown’s targets with a report focusing on the punishment of their family members. From the report’s “Key Takeaways”:

• Chinese authorities threaten and harm human rights defenders’ children, including newborns, to silence and punish their parents.
  • Children of jailed rights defenders, as young as infants and toddlers, have been detained in psychiatric wards or orphanages.
  • School-age children have been forced to drop out of school.
  • Children have been subjected to exit bans to prevent them from going abroad to study.
• The government resorts to criminal proceedings – detention, arrest, imprisonment – against human rights defenders’ family members.
• Authorities deny families’ access to detained or jailed rights defenders in order to force them to cooperate.
• Chinese police obstruct families’ communication with overseas activists in order to silence them.
• Government officials enforced family separations with exit bans, citing “endangering national security,” that lack legal basis, or detain activists or pressure foreign governments to apprehend and repatriate activists, who tried to reunite with families abroad.
• The Chinese government’s collective punishment of human rights defenders’ families appears to be a state policy; CHRD is unaware of any official having been investigated or prosecuted for such abuses. [Source]

Also in April, a letter emerged from Margaret Satterthwaite, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, expressing concern to Chinese authorities about administrative measures imposed on the legal profession since 2015. These, Satterthwaite writes, are “not in line with international standards related to the right to fair trial, and may in their application, limit the functions of lawyers in China by restricting both their work and their freedoms. […] These provisions allow for undue interference with the freedom of lawyers and law firms to exercise their legal profession and thus may open the door to systematic violations of the right to a fair trial and equality before the law by restricting lawyers from fulfilling their legal duties to their clients and creating a chilling environment for the handling of certain kinds of cases.”

From a summary of the 12-page letter by Raphaël Viana David at the International Service for Human Rights:

• China engages in a ‘pattern’ of ‘us[ing] the legal provisions to revoke or suspend the practising license of many human rights lawyers since 2017’, given that ‘the application of these Measures provides the Chinese authorities with the power to deny, temporarily or indefinitely, the right to practice to lawyers’ and that ‘without employment, a lawyer’s license to practice can be invalidated indefinitely after six months.’ These measures are taken ‘without any process for the lawyer to object to or appeal.’
• ‘China has implemented these laws to charge lawyers handling sensitive cases with national security crimes under China’s Criminal Law, in particular for “subversion of State power” or “inciting subversion” (article 105), charges that carry lengthy prison sentences.’
• These Measures ‘may in practice restrict lawyers from exercising their professional duties in defending the rights of clients, as they limit some of the methods lawyers may use, especially public activities aiming at objecting to the treatment of their clients, in the legitimate exercise of their profession.’
• These Measures ‘may also be a deterrent to lawyers considering taking on certain sensitive cases’. As a result, ‘clients, especially human rights defenders and those accused of crimes under national security legislation, may be deprived of independent legal representation if lawyers face consequences for representing them.’
• These restrictions are ‘reinforced by the sanctioning effect of the annual inspection process’ and the ‘imposition of a requirement that law firms assess the work of lawyers.’ The annual inspection system ‘may provide the opportunity to threaten and punish lawyers and law firms that are handling sensitive cases,’ in particular when the authorities ‘delay announcing the results of annual inspections, or suspend or even ban lawyers from participating.’
• The implementation of these Measures ‘risks leaving lawyers without a livelihood’ and places ‘great financial and social pressure’ on lawyers and their law firms. [Source]

Raphaël Viana David himself added:

Human rights lawyers are a cornerstone of China’s human rights movement. From Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers, to religious minorities, LGBTQI and feminist advocates, journalists, and political dissidents: human rights lawyers defend the full spectrum of civil society. They accompany and empower the most vulnerable against land evictions, discrimination, health scandals, or extra-legal detention. They embody the promise of rule of law and hold the government accountable to its commitments under China’s constitution, laws, and the international human rights treaties it has ratified. They ensure that no one is left behind. [Source]

The term “weak spot” recently surfaced in relation to a consumer backlash against sudden spikes in natural gas usage after new “smart” gas meters were installed in a number of cities. Consumers hit with exorbitant gas bills began posting their bills online, leading to an official investigation, the sacking of the head of Chongqing Gas Group, and the promise of refunds to affected consumers. A woman in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, who posted her gas bill online later received a threatening visit from the local police, demanding to know where her children attended school, where her husband worked, and other personal information about the family. The police later contacted her husband’s supervisor at work, in a further show of force. A WeChat article by current-affairs blogger Fan Dang discussed three tactics used by law enforcement to intimidate the woman into silence: (1) engaging in “threats and intimidation” (恐吓, kǒnghè), (2) leveraging her family as “weak spots” (软肋, ruǎnlèi), and (3) repressing freedom of speech under the guise of “fraud-prevention” (反诈, fǎn zhà).

“Weak spot” is also included as one of the 104 entries in our recent ebook, China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition. The full entry is reproduced below.

weak spot (软肋, ruǎn lèi)

Used metaphorically—much like “soft underbelly” or “Achilles’ heel”—to refer to someone or something that can be used as leverage against people, particularly those considered “troublesome” by the police or government authorities. 

The term gained popularity in November 2022, after a viral video revealed neighborhood committee members from Tiantongyuan, a vast suburb near Beijing, discussing how to intimidate local residents to enforce compliance during the COVID lockdown. Smiling as they discuss a certain local “troublemaker,” the committee members talk about “locking him up in a dark place for three days” and gleefully brainstorm ways to cow the man by threatening retaliation against his son. One says pointedly, “His son is his weak spot.” 

Online reaction was swift and overwhelmingly negative. Horrified viewers commented that the short video was “scarier than the scariest horror film,” and it soon became known as the “weak-spot video” and “the meeting of ghouls.” (Specifically, the committee members were being compared to a type of ghoul known as a chāngguǐ 伥鬼: the ghost of someone eaten by a tiger, who then helps the tiger to devour others.) The video was later deleted from multiple platforms including Weibo, where it garnered many critical comments evoking the pessimistic “last generation” sentiment (see entry) that arose during Shanghai’s repressive COVID lockdown: “It turns out the reason [the government] wants people to have kids is to use them as leverage against their parents.” “Fuck, and they expect us to keep giving birth to little hostages?” “Oh, my son has no future? No thank you, then, I won’t be giving birth to a child for you to persecute.” In December 2022, after the release of the film “Avatar: The Way of Water,” there was some online discussion about the “weak point” discussed by neighborhood committee members, as it related to this line about family, spoken by protagonist Jack Sully: “Sullys stick together. It was our greatest weakness and our great strength.”

In July 2023, after a school gymnasium collapse killed ten members of a girls’ volleyball team and their coach in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province, local officials pressured the grieving parents into signing away their rights before they could even view the bodies of their daughters. It was a particularly egregious example of authorities exploiting parental “weak spots” to ensure that they did not kick up a fuss or make too many demands. “Even though the kids have died, [officials] are still using them to put the squeeze on the parents,” complained one Weibo commenter. A May 2023 article by WeChat blogger Xiang Dongliang explored the various ways that teachers were roped into becoming grassroots policy enforcers, including leveraging children as “weak spots” to enforce parental compliance with COVID controls during the pandemic.

The flip side to this term can be found in a 2020 essay by retired Peking University sociology professor Zheng Yefu, who argues that the CCP’s emphasis on “maintaining social stability” is undermining China’s social cohesion. As evidence, he points to the telling trend of the children of political elites increasingly choosing to settle abroad. “Only striking them where they are vulnerable will wake them up,” he writes. “Their weak spot is their offspring. They can suppress the subjects of the kingdom, but cannot control the rational choice of their own legitimate descendents to integrate with the world and have a civilized life.”

Recently, the influential X (née Twitter) account “Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher” shared a list of over 240 topics on which Xi Jinping has pointed the way forward. The non-exhaustive list, drawn from articles published by People’s Daily and Xinhua, was compiled by volunteers and covers the years from 2015 to 2024. Topics range from the wildly ambitious (“humanity’s future development”) to the specifically political (“full implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Party Congress”) to the regional (“promoting the economic integration of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei”) to the athletic (“promoting the accelerated development of winter sports in China.”) CDT has republished and translated the list, with some added context and background links.

The phrase “pointing the way forward” is also included as one of the 104 entries in our recently launched ebook, China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition. The full entry is reproduced below.

pointing the way forward 指明了方向 (zhǐmíng le fāngxiàng)

The formulation “Xi Jinping points the way forward for/toward …” (sometimes rendered into English as “forging ahead toward …” in official Chinese government translations) has been used so often during Xi Jinping’s long tenure that it has become an object of satire, a meme unto itself

Since assuming power in 2012, Xi Jinping has steadily cultivated a form of personalistic rule unseen since the era of Mao Zedong. Hallmarks of his centralized rule include the promotion of “Xi Jinping Thought,” a long-running anti-corruption campaign that has weeded out some of his political rivals, the indefinite extension of his term of office, the cementing of his position as the “core” of the Chinese Communist Party, and frequent hagiographic coverage of his activities by government propagandists and state media (see entry for “positive energy”).

This fawning media coverage often uses the phrase “Xi Jinping points the way forward …,” encouraging the perception that Xi is taking personal charge in various government policy realms—a sort of micromanager-in-chief. Over the years, Xi has been variously described as “pointing the way forward” in the spheres of politics, economics, foreign relations, human rights, climate change, education, society, culture and the arts, and even sport. Overuse of the phrase has led some netizens to mock him as “the immortal compass.”

CDT has cataloged an extensive list of such catchphrases. Among the classics:

• “Pointing the Way Forward for Chinese Soccer” (2017)
• “Pointing the Way Forward for Chinese and Global Development” (2019)
• “Pointing the Way Forward for Our Shared Home on Planet Earth” (2020)
• “Pointing the Way Forward on the New Journey toward a Community with a Shared Future for All Mankind” (2021)
• “Pointing the Way Forward for ‘Human Rights Governance’” (2021)
• “Pointing the Way Forward for a New Chapter of China-Russia Friendship, Cooperation and Common Development” (2023)

In June 2023, state media touted Xi’s meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing with a photo of Xi sitting at the head of an enormous conference table and the headline “Xi Jinping Points Out the Correct Path Forward for Sino-American Relations.” The characterization of the U.S. as a meek supplicant in the bilateral meeting inspired derision on Chinese social media and Chinese Twitter. Comments included: “Pointing the way forward, once again,” “The immortal compass,” and “Obviously, the reason [Xi] is sitting at the center of the table is to better steer Sino-American relations forward.” One wag elevated the phrase to the level of planetary motion: “Pointing the way for the Earth’s rotation.”

In December 2023, the periodical Selected Essays (杂文选刊 Záwén Xuǎnkān) suspended operations after 35 years, suddenly and without explanation. It was widely believed that the publication was shuttered because of its final cover, which showed a suit-wearing arm pointing the way forward. Miniature faceless masses sprinted along the arm only to plunge over the end of the index finger into darkness.

(Zawen Xuankan)

A recent China Youth Daily Online article authored by Liu Changrong, Yang Jie, and Qing Zhenzi—a portion of which was translated by CDT—juxtaposed the elevated stature and decades of professional expertise of the CPPCC delegates with the timorous pointlessness of their contributions to the government’s annual work report. (One such “contribution” involved quibbling over whether a punctuation mark should be a comma or a period.)

The phrase “whole process democracy” is included as one of 104 entries in our recently launched ebook, China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition. The full entry is reproduced below.

whole process democracy 全过程民主 (quán guòchéng mínzhǔ)

Hazily defined Party term for participatory democracy without open elections. In 2021, the term briefly became a centerpiece of China’s global propaganda offensive after the United States hosted a democracy summit that included 100 participating countries, but not China or Russia. Its counterpart “Western Constitutional Democracy” remains a taboo subject in China. In 2013, the infamous official “Document 9” denounced promotion of “Western Constitutional Democracy” as “an attempt to undermine the current leadership and the socialism with Chinese characteristics system of governance.” A screenshot of a 2022 lecture given at a Shaanxi university listed “Western Constitutional Democracy” as the top “false tide of thought” in China’s ever more diverse society.

In practice, “whole process democracy” tends to involve widely derided unanimous elections (全票当选, quánpiào dāngxuǎn). In 2003, Xi Jinping warned against the unanimous election of cadres. A 2011 People’s Daily article put it even more starkly: “If the people’s will continues to be hijacked through ‘unanimous elections,’ it will fuel public resentment.” Nonetheless, Xi was unanimously elected to an unprecedented third term as President of the People’s Republic of China on March 10, 2023. This feat was enabled by a constitutional amendment abolishing the two-term limit which was passed by China’s rubber stamp parliament in 2018 with a slightly less commanding majority of 2958 to two. Xi had already secured his position atop the Party by secret ballot in late 2022. 

Objections were naturally censored online. Weibo searches for the hashtag #2952#, the number of votes Xi won, returned the following message: “According to the relevant laws, regulations and policies, the page is not found.” On Sunday evening, searches for “2952” only returned results from verified state- and Party-affiliated accounts, colloquially known as “Blue Vs.” Searches for the term, “the People’s choice,” which Party outlets used to celebrate Xi’s election, similarly only returned results from Blue V accounts. At one point, the sheer volume of propaganda related to Xi’s reelection seemingly caused Weibo’s censorship algorithms to malfunction by making Xi’s name entirely unsearchable. Online, many used the pun “Second Coming of Yuan Shikai,” a reference to the early 20th century president-turned-self-proclaimed-Emperor. The references to Yuan were tightly censored, but some still slipped through the cracks. Many started resharing a 2018 essay from Shanxi Television’s WeChat account on Yuan Shikai’s fondness for Tianjin’s famed Goubuli “A Dog Wouldn’t Touch ‘Em” steamed buns. “Steamed Bun Xi” is perhaps the longest enduring of Xi’s many censored nicknames.

While the Party speaks of “whole process democracy,” many Chinese would instead refer to the “Eye-field Clan King.”

The case has highlighted the problem of judicial and police misconduct and overreach, particularly the “criminalization of creditors”—in other words, using the machinery of state to intimidate legitimate creditors who are just trying to collect debts they are owed. 

The ever more frequently (and arbitrarily) applied crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” is included as one of 104 entries in our recently launched ebook, China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition. The full entry is reproduced below.

picking quarrels and provoking trouble (寻衅滋事 xúnxìn zīshì)

Broadly defined “pocket crime” denoting behavior that disrupts social order, often invoked by authorities as an excuse to stifle dissent and freedom of expression.

“Picking quarrels and provoking trouble” originates from the crime of hooliganism, which was outlined in the Chinese criminal code of 1979. In the 1997 revision of the code, the crime of “hooliganism” was abolished and replaced with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” an offense that applied to 1) arbitrarily attacking people; 2) chasing and intimidating others; 3) damaging private or public property; or 4) causing serious disorder in public places. In 2013, judicial authorities broadened the scope of the crime to apply to spreading false information on the internet. The crime carries a sentence of up to five years in prison for minor offenses, and between five and ten years in prison for more serious offenses.

Given its broad definition, “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” is typically used as a catch-all offense to target activists, lawyers, journalists, and petitioners, as well as those committing more mundane offenses involving gambling or drunkenness. Some notable people charged with the crime in recent years include the “Feminist Five,” who attempted to raise awareness about sexual harassment before their arrest in March 2015. #MeToo activist and journalist Huang Xueqin was also charged with the crime in October 2019, and later detained in September 2021 for “inciting subversion of state power.” Businessman Sun Dawu was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” in November 2020, likely due to his political activism. That same month, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was charged with the crime and sentenced to four years in prison for documenting the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2022, police in Suzhou accused a woman of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for wearing a kimono amid rising anti-Japanese sentiment. After the A4 White Paper protests (see entry) in November 2022, hundreds of young people were detained and some of them, including book editor Cao Zhixin and her friends, were charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Many others, including Weibo bloggers and Uyghurs in Xinjiang, have also been detained under the same charge.

Criticism of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” has been growing. Luo Xiang, a prominent professor of criminal law at China University of Political Science and Law, said in a public lecture that the crime was a “disgrace to the law,” adding that if conviction and sentencing for the crime were too vague, the police and judiciary “will use it indiscriminately, they will use it to do everything as they want, and they will selectively enforce the law.” Agreeing with Luo ahead of the 2023 Two Sessions meeting in February, Zhu Zhengfu, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference advisory body, called for abolishing the crime because it risked undermining China’s legal system and was too open to “selective enforcement” by authorities. In August 2023, the Supreme People’s Court published an investigation concluding that local officials in Zhejiang and Fujian had abused the vaguely defined crime in order to prosecute young people, migrant workers, unemployed people, and those who tried to petition higher authorities outside the normal legal channels.

A March 2023 WeChat article by law professor and legal blogger Zhai Zhiyong suggested that it might be better to do away with the offense of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” rather than try to make it less vague by tinkering with it: “In short, if a particular legal offense is frequently abused or misapplied and thus creates logical contradictions within the legal system, it must mean that there is a problem with the law itself. From this perspective, the more thorough and direct solution might be to simply abolish the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, rather than attempt to eliminate its ambiguities.”

Because Sixth Tone is published in English, it often covered topics that were deemed off-limits for most Chinese state outlets. And for six years, it succeeded in carving out a precarious, but unique space in China’s media ecosystem. But The Wire’s conversations with 15 former and current employees reveal how the publication has been neutered over the past year. Under new management, censorship ramped up, and top editors trawled through the archive, removing articles and tweaking lines that might trigger anger in Beijing and its loyalists. Pitches about social issues, such as the demographic crisis, are now rebuffed, and the newsroom was ordered to churn out at least one positive story a week about Shanghai starting in February.

“Every quote of a story is examined to determine if it aligns with core socialist values,” a current employee laments.

[…] “Sixth Tone went from being one of the most open and progressive Chinese state media to the most restricted in the last few months, even beyond the likes of Global Times or Shanghai Daily,” says a second current employee. [Source]

Former Sixth Tone staff and readers responded:

We created something really special at Sixth Tone – a kind of journalism everyone said was impossible in China. It's been heartbreaking to see it slowly butchered, even though we all anticipated it. Thank you Rachel for documenting this https://t.co/LRYGuMDmz5

— Jinghua Qian (@qianjinghua) February 26, 2024

The Wire China's story made me feel nostalgic for the good times at Sixth Tone, so I thought I'd share a thread of some of my favourite stories.

It'd be a shame if Sixth Tone ends up being remembered only for the clampdown rather than the great work that came before.

— Dominic Morgan (@dom_morgan88) February 26, 2024

Sixth Tone used to be a key source of reporting & commentary on LGBTQ/gender in China. I read it regularly & learned a lot. Now I cant remember the last time I clicked on a story. The headlines r all like “Chinese are taking fewer piano lessons” & “Check out this old phone booth” https://t.co/aVY6HlMH37

— Darius Longarino 龙大瑞 (@DariusLongarino) February 26, 2024

Describing the broader chilling of the media environment in China, Cheung noted that “fewer sources, be they scholars, businessmen or ordinary people, are willing to even speak to foreign press on the record for fear of being accused of aiding foreign forces — or di daozi (遞刀子), ‘passing the knife’, as it’s known among the public.” As Cheung notes, Sixth Tone itself has faced similar accusations. The link used in the article leads to the term’s page on CDT’s Chinese-language wiki, but an English description is included as one of 104 entries in our recently launched ebook, China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition. The full entry is reproduced below.

hand someone a knife (递刀子 dì dāozi)

“Handing someone a knife” refers to providing China’s “enemies” with ammunition by airing information that might fuel criticism of China. In April 2020, for example, news that Fang Fang’s COVID-19 outbreak memoir “Wuhan Diary” would be published in English and German was met with nationalist accusations that her writing amounted to “handing a knife” to the United States and other Western countries. The truth or otherwise of information, or the true motives for sharing it, are irrelevant: what matters is the possibility that it could be used against the perceived national interest.

These accusations have been widely criticized and ridiculed in more liberal circles. A 2020 Zhihu post argued that “so-called ‘handing of knives’ is completely imaginary”:

In terms of criticizing the U.S., Chinese media is basically in sync with American media, because that’s where the Chinese media gets its information from. From that point of view, American media is definitely “handing the knife” to us. But can this harm the U.S.? Not at all!

An American publisher releases “Fang Fang’s Diary” … so what? Is this another “knife”? The “knives” American media hand to us can’t hurt the U.S., but a copy of “Fang Fang’s Diary” is going to wound China? Is China that fragile? Don’t overthink things.

A 2020 WeChat post sarcastically detailed its author’s reassessment of the renowned Tang poet Du Fu after the BBC described him as a great poet. This triggered the realization that Du Fu’s supposedly exemplary work is actually riddled with ingratitude toward the imperial court, slander of grassroots officials, and “handing knives” to An Lushan and his rebels. In particular, the post argued, Du Fu’s use of “lake” to describe blood spilled in battle was a malicious exaggeration: based on Tang dynasty household registration records and the average adult’s four to five liters of blood, the total exsanguination of the entire Tang population would produce only a minuscule percentage of the volume of Hunan’s Dongting Lake.

“Handing a knife” should not be confused with 刀把子 (dāobàzi), or “knife handle”—a term for law enforcement and the judiciary, fallen from favor in the post-Mao era but revived under Xi’s rule, that emphasizes the Party’s control.

The terms “driving in reverse” and “driving-in-reverse Emperor” are used derisively to criticize Xi Jinping’s governance of China, particularly when referring to policies that are considered by the public to be old-fashioned, regressive, and repressive. During the years 2020-2022, such terms were often used online to criticize the more draconian aspects of China’s “zero-COVID” policy, including extended border closures, overly broad city-wide lockdowns, shortages of food and medicines, and online censorship of public discussion about the pandemic. Since the end of the “zero-COVID” policy, “driving in reverse” has also been used to criticize the party-state’s approach to the economy, particularly in light of recent stock-, property-, and employment-market woes. 

The newly published China Digital Times Lexicon, 20th Anniversary Edition, contains a more detailed explanation of the term “driving in reverse.” The full lexicon entry is reproduced below:

driving in reverse (开倒车, kāidàochē)

Derisive metaphor used to satirize Xi Jinping’s governance of China, which users of the phrase view as being regressive, or going in the wrong direction, particularly in terms of its escalating emphasis on the singular, extended rule of “core leader” Xi himself.

Several viral online incidents helped propel the phrase “driving in reverse” to popularity. In June 2016, People’s Daily posted a video to Weibo of a Volkswagen Tiguan reversing down a ramp and falling off a ledge, along with this warning: “Driving in reverse is a task that requires real technical skill!” Weibo users flocked to the comment section to draw parallels with Xi Jinping’s governance, highlighting the danger of going backwards, lest it result in a “hard landing” and the need to “step down.” One user offered this assessment: “Correct answer: Backwards drivers need to step down!” 

In November 2018, video site Bilibili was revealed to be prohibiting comments on all videos in search results for “driving in reverse.” This applied to comments on videos that had nothing to do with politics or that simply had the phrase “driving in reverse” in their title or description, as well as comments from usernames containing the phrase. When one netizen asked a customer service representative to explain the reasons for this ban, he was told that the phrase “touches on sensitive topics.”

In 2020, People’s Daily posted a video to Twitter of a man reversing a car over a bridge made only of two thin logs, with the caption: “The master of backing up a car! Can you do it?” Netizens speculated that the video was deliberately reversed because people in the background appeared to be moving backwards, but it was unclear whether this was intentional on People’s Daily’s part or not. Regardless, netizens joked in the comment section: “The driver is Chairman Xi,” and dubbed him the “Accelerator-in-Chief” (see entry) and the “Driving-in-Reverse Emperor.”

The phrase “driving in reverse” or “going backwards” is also used in reference to Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening” policies. Under the “new era” of Xi Jinping, analysts have argued that Xi is leading China in a direction that deviates from Deng’s, given Xi’s different development goals and China’s decoupling from Western countries. The slowing economy, compared to the record growth rates in the decades preceding Xi’s rule, has motivated many critics to view Xi as steering the country on a regressive course.

In the spring of 2022, amid China’s zero-COVID policy (see entry) and the months-long lockdown of Shanghai, a leaked audio recording of a telephone call between a local cadre and a Shanghai man complaining about the lockdown was widely shared (and later censored) on Chinese social media. The man was frank in expressing his concerns that the lockdown was threatening to reverse decades of economic progress:

Since reform and opening started in ’79, we’ve been working for 40 years to earn a bit of wealth, but look how this month of suffering has left us. And now you want to do it for another month? Building a city isn’t easy—building up its organization, customs, kindness, culture, economy, all that organization—it was no mean feat. It took generations. If you’re looking to destroy it, I’m telling you, it’ll be destroyed before the year is out. In the rest of the world, everyone is sprinting ahead, getting manufacturing up and running, getting back to normal life, getting back to business. But here, we haven’t come to a halt, we’re going backwards. We’ve put the car in reverse and we’re giving it gas. 

See also “The Yangtze and Yellow River won’t flow backwards” (see entry).

The “U-lock” mentality was on display in some of the rejoicing and Schadenfreude on Chinese social media after a destructive magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck western Japan on New Year’s Day of this year. Some nationalist commenters even claimed that the earthquake was “retribution” for past Japanese transgressions, from the conquest of Asia during WWII, up to and including last September’s initial release of treated nuclear wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. 

Just a week after the earthquake came the Nanning Metro “rising sun/folding fan” flap, set in motion by a nationalistic Douyin vlogger who complained that a colorful new advertisement on the Nanning metro system resembled the controversial former “rising sun” flag of the Imperial Japanese Army. Nanning Metro quickly backed down, deleting the offending imagery and promising to improve its oversight of future advertising, but a look at the entirety of the advertisement revealed that the image was not a Japanese rising sun at all, but a traditional Chinese folding fan. Some online observers chalked the incident up to nationalist trolls attempting to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment through deliberate misrepresentation or intentional misdirection (指鹿为马, zhǐlùwéimǎ, literally “pointing at a deer and calling it a horse.”) Others characterized it as an example of “porcelain bumping” (碰瓷, pèngcí)—in other words, creating a sham scenario to fool the unwary and advance one’s own agenda. (The term was coined, noted David Bandurski, “to describe a technique used by fraudsters who would wait with delicate porcelain vessels outside busy markets and demand payment when these shattered, ostensibly due to the carelessness of others.”) 

CDT Chinese editors have archived numerous social media comments from Weibo, WeChat, and X (formerly Twitter) about the rising sun vs. folding fan incident. Many of the comments were humorous, joking that from now on, the Chinese government would have to ban anything that vaguely resembled the former Japanese flag: no more circles, suns, wheels, bicycle spokes, or even nuclear symbols. But some of the responses were more thought-provoking. As WeChat blogger Song Qing Ren (送青人) noted, “This is definitely something that sends a chill down our spines, because removing one advertisement won’t be enough to satisfy these so-called ‘patriots.’ What will we have to do to satisfy them the next time they start making groundless accusations, ranting and raving about ‘hostile foreign forces,’ militarism, and fascism?”

Anti-Japanese sentiment in China sometimes plays out in the realm of clothing and costumery. Earlier this month, for example, there was a major backlash to the Pingyao County Culture and Tourism Bureau’s announcement that it would prohibit “tourist photography” shops in Pingyao’s ancient city center from selling clothing from “non-Han-Chinese” ethnic groups. Many online accused Pingyao’s tourism authorities of engaging in reflexive Han ethnocentrism. More recently, there was vigorous online debate about a viral video of a cosplayer dressed in white and lavender robes, a lavender pageboy wig, and a dark purple hat as she tried to board the Shanghai Metro. She was stopped by subway security and sent to speak to a police officer, who asked the woman to show her ID and remove her hat before getting on the subway. After explaining that her clothes were Chinese-style garments and that she was dressed as the character Qiqi from the Chinese video game “Genshin Impact,” she was allowed to board the subway, but cautioned that if she attracted too many onlookers with her flamboyant costume, she would be held legally responsible.

The Shanghai Metro cosplay controversy recalls a similar incident in Suzhou in August 2022, when a young woman wearing a kimono was interrogated by police for five hours, simply for wearing a Japanese kimono on a public street frequented by cosplayers.

The newly published China Digital Times Lexicon, 20th Anniversary Edition, contains a more detailed explanation of the term “U-lock.” The full lexicon entry is reproduced below:

U-lock (U型锁, U-xíngsuǒ)

Reference to a U-shaped metal bicycle lock used in the brutal beating of a Chinese citizen named Li Jianli during the 2012 anti-Japanese protests in Xi’an. Nowadays, the term is sometimes used as shorthand for vitriolic xenophobic (particularly anti-Japanese) sentiment.

The massive, sometimes violent protests that rocked over 80 cities in mainland China in August and September of 2012 were rooted in a long-running territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in Chinese). The protests were fueled by an escalating series of events: Tokyo provincial governor Shintaro Ishihara’s announcement that Tokyo planned to purchase the islands from their private (Japanese) owner; standoffs between Taiwanese fishing boats and the Japanese Coast Guard; activists from both Japan and Hong Kong landing on the disputed islands; and the Japanese central government’s eventual purchase of the islands, which provoked fierce diplomatic protests from China and Taiwan and accusations of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” (see entry). A protest by “baodiao” activists (保钓, bǎodiào, “defending the islands”), took place outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on September 15, days before the sensitive anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident. 

The protests spread from Beijing to as many as 80 other Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Qingdao, Jinan, Changsha, Shenyang, and Xi’an. In many places, demonstrations devolved into riots, with angry protesters burning Japanese flags; attacking Japanese factories, businesses, restaurants; and targeting the owners of Japanese-branded automobiles. The Chinese government seemed to tacitly condone the protests, although there was a police response in some places including Shenzhen, where authorities used tear gas to disperse protesters. State media sent mixed messages: a People’s Daily editorial said that while it did not defend violence, the protests were a sign of patriotism and “should be viewed sympathetically.”

Wary of the demonstrations spiraling into a broader anti-government protest movement, however, mainland authorities began to censor news of the protests. A September 15 censorship directive from the State Council Information Office, translated by CDT, instructed that all websites “clear every forum, blog, Weibo post and other form of interactive content of material concerning ‘mobilizing anti-Japan demonstrations, stirring up excitement, rioting and looting.’” Some images of the protests were removed from Weibo, and many protest-related terms became sensitive words on Weibo, including “anti-Japan” (反日 fǎn Rì, 抗日 kàng Rì), “smash + car” (砸+车, záchē), “protest” (抗议, kàngyì), “take a walk” (散步, sànbù), “demonstrate” (游行, yóuxíng), and “demonstration” (示威, shìwēi). Some bloggers and public figures, including popular young writer Han Han, denounced the violence and urged the public not to succumb to hatred.

In the aftermath of the protests, Sino-Japanese relations hit a nadir, and sales of Japanese-branded vehicles in China plummeted. One of the most horrifying and enduring images to emerge was the sight of Li Jianli, the driver of a Japanese car in Xi’an, being hit four times in the head with a heavy bicycle lock and crumpling to the ground. His wife, with the help of some bystanders, managed to get him into a taxi and take him to a hospital, where he underwent surgery. His injuries, however, were life-changing, leaving him partially paralyzed and unable to speak more than a few simple phrases. Years of physical and speech therapy later, his condition has improved somewhat, but he and his wife still struggle with daily life. The violence he endured prompted a great deal of soul-searching by many Chinese citizens. His attacker, then-21-year-old Cai Yang, was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison, putting a heavy burden on his aging parents. Nine years after the attack, Phoenix TV published a profile on the two families whose lives were destroyed by xenophobic nationalism run amok.

More recent examples of anti-Japanese incidents and sentiments—although nowhere near as violent as the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku protests—include public glee over the July 2022 assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe; the August 2022 detention of a young Chinese woman for wearing a kimono on a street in Suzhou; and a spate of boycotts against Japanese products and harassing calls to individuals and businesses in Japan following the August 2023 release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The “U-lock” metaphor is not limited to anti-Japanese nationalism. In early 2017, a wave of anti-South Korean sentiment swept through China following a plan to deploy the U.S. THAAD anti-ballistic missile defense system in South Korea. There was a public backlash and calls for boycotts against South Korean brands, such as Lotte, which used to run supermarkets and department stores in China. (By 2023, Lotte had completely exited the China market.) State media helped to stoke public anger: Legal Daily’s official Weibo account published a list of Lotte store locations in China, seemingly inviting the public to target those shops, and the Hunan Provincial Communist Youth League Committee mobilized its members to agitate for a boycott of the company. Many online were dismissive of these efforts to manipulate Chinese patriotism. As Weibo user @无关年轻 commented, “The U-lock is ready. It’s just waiting for the order to bash Lotte to death, huh?” Later that year, investigative journalist Jiang Xue blamed pernicious Chinese nationalism on the long-running suppression of free speech in mainland China. “They’ve gone from resisting Japanese goods to resisting Korean [goods], but some people say that the most urgently needed boycott is on idiots. […] Our country must admit that the existence of these idiots is related to the decades-long restrictions on speech.”

An article from WeChat account 小宋威武 (Xiǎo Sòng Wēiwǔ) notes the increase in online trolls attempting to whip up anti-Japanese or anti-foreign sentiment through deliberate misrepresentation (指鹿为马, zhǐlùwéimǎ, which literally means “to point at a deer and call it a horse.”) The author also writes that in recent years, companies, organizations, and even local governments have become more fearful about offending nationalists, and are inclined to apologize and back down first, rather than defend their actions—even in the case of such ridiculous allegations such as this one.

Another incident was an announcement from the Pingyao County Culture and Tourism Bureau that it would be prohibiting “tourist photography” shops in Pingyao’s ancient city center from selling clothing from “non-Han-Chinese” ethnic groups. A furor ensued, and the announcement was withdrawn, with one WeChat blogger suggesting that shutting down the Pingyao tourism bureau might make more sense than shutting down the sale of non-Han clothing and costumery. 

Other recent writings on the subject of anti-Japanese sentiment include a WeChat article by Huang Zhijie comparing 2024’s vitriolic reactions to the Japanese Noto Peninsula earthquake with the more compassionate responses of the Chinese government and citizenry a century ago, after Japan’s Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. A WeChat article from the account 走读新生 (Zǒudú Xīnshēng) bemoans the trend toward labeling Chinese people “traitors” for daring to express sympathy for Japan or the Japanese people. And writing for China Story, Phil Cunningham has some interesting observations on state broadcaster CCTV’s coverage of the recent earthquake in Japan, and the enormous gap between the way CCTV covers earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters in China and other countries:

“[I]f a China domestic news story cannot be spun in a positive direction, it is unlikely to merit any state TV coverage at all. The normal rules of journalism simply do not apply.

When it comes to foreign coverage, CCTV and other state media sometimes commit something akin to journalism, if only opportunistically, because the best way to buttress a worldview in which China is good and the world is bad is to air well-reported stories about bad things happening around the world.” [Source]