A dull moderate centrist, I mostly post about China, but also authoritarians in general. I hate extremists on both the left and the right.
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Tbf, there are plenty of transnational reserves already in the world. Brazil and Argentina both have NPs around the Iguazu Falls. China and Russia have bordering NPs that protect Amur leopards and Siberian tigers. Kenya and Tanzania have an NP and national reserve in the Serengeti. And many others.
Just been to my friend’s dad’s compound in south Jiading. Christ. I hope he doesn’t pay a management fee because no maintenance is being done. 🐈 and 🐕 shit everywhere. Paint peeling. 🌳 overgrown. 🗑️ overflowing and stinking. Potholes in the road. Paving slabs missing. The other side of Shanghai.
Spoke to two other Miao people who also can’t speak their native language. One was a woman in her 40s, the other a young man in his early 20s who couldn’t even tell me how to say ‘hello’. “My parents didn’t teach me.” I asked “Don’t you learn it at school?”, knowing the answer ofc, and he said no.
The Miao were once the most rebellious group in China, so much so that Uyghurs (!) were once sent to put down one of their uprisings. They fought the Ming and the Qing multiple times to resist forced assimilation. Clearly they have now given up on that.
My tour guide on holiday is a Miao woman. She was impressed by my kid’s multilingualism. “Surely Miao kids are bilingual?” my wife asked. “No, kids rarely speak their minority languages these days, only Mandarin.” She wasn’t being political about it, just casually said it like it should be obvious.
In 2012 when foreign media was regularly reporting on China’s poor air quality, China used to get upset about the negativity. It even banned a documentary about smog in 2015 called ‘Under the Dome’. Now it wants you to remember so it can make a positive comparison. Interesting to observe the shift.
“A lot of” rather than “most”.
Tbf, plenty of the Chinese coverage of this also emphasized the poor economy and struggles of the young to find work.
Being able to link to a Chinese article on the same topic often shuts them up, makes them realize their ignorance and that there’s a whole Chinese media landscape they don’t read, and also shows them that the BBC has credibility as the story is corroborated by a source they can’t really dispute.
It’s a good thing that a lot of western news stories have origins in Chinese media, Stephen. It helps to fight accusations of propaganda. I saw people calling this ‘pay to work’ article “typical made-up BS by the BBC”. Clearly they don’t know that it’s also been reported on in China.
As a regular user of the em-dash, I was very confused to see people using this as an identifier of AI writing.
People are even getting too lazy to reply to Twitter messages now. I see people just “@Grok” and get the bot to write back. Attention spans were already bad, but now people can’t even be bothered to write a paragraph (although it can be funny when Grok doesn’t say what they wanted it to say, lol).
I feel like a lot of westerners don’t realize that a lot of western reporting on 🇨🇳 actually originates in 🇨🇳, esp about social phenomena. I see people say “CNN lies!” or “BBC propaganda!” about stories that are basically translations of viral Chinese news. Shows how little people read Chinese media.
I’ve seen this discussed. The line now is ‘Tibetan’ is okay because ‘Tibet’ still refers to the historic area and culture, while ‘Xizang’ is only for the modern AR. It didn’t escape my attention that it took a while for this to be addressed, so clearly there was a decision made that filtered down.
It coincided with the 50th anniversary of China-Brazil diplomatic relations.
The Laos one is about how the railway from China has helped Laos. The Brazil one he clearly filmed on holiday and covered all sorts. You can judge from this picture that China was obviously a focus.
Of course that’s what he’d say. Not sure what his excuse is for not speaking Portuguese in his Brazil documentary or Lao in his Laos documentary though.
I can’t think of a more cringe title than this play on ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, a film that remains banned in China. 🙈 Btw, I assume Andy learnt Tibetan and did all his pre-approved interviews in it, given it’s the official language there and he always insists reporters speak the local language?
Only one fish is following the duck. The others are following the fish in front of them.
An earthquake that caused a tsunami and now a volcanic eruption in Russia? Putin has clearly lost the Mandate of Heaven and needs to go.
Jason Smith—comfortably one of the dumbest laowai propagandists out there—suddenly discovers he hates censorship after all. Begs the question why he goes to bat for a government that pretty much pioneered internet clampdowns then.
Not all men are to be able to afford their own hookers. A charity that helps disadvantaged men pay for sex is doing vital work!
Not unique to Andy, but I really loathe the popular idea that “respect is earned”. It implies one party is superior and the lesser party has to win them over. Respect is not earned, it’s given by default. We begin from a position of mutual respect. It can be lost thereafter, but we start as equals.
I just love how he frames it as his language being “too spicy”—implying he used some naughty words too hot for TV—because clearly he’s a) too cowardly to admit he actually altered the content and b) he wants people to think he’s tough and talks tough. What a loser. 😂
Yes, rural Jiangsu. I said my father-in-law should write it all down before it’s forgotten, which is exactly what the Party hopes to happen.
*Sorry, great-grandma
Also learned that while still a teenager my father-in-law was used as slave labour in his village, forced to carry things around on a pole across his shoulders if he wanted to eat. His dad, working in Shanghai, smuggled rice to his wife and son in rural Jiangsu just so they could survive.
Been hearing some family history tonight. Some I knew, but I’d never been told that my wife’s grandma committed suicide to “not waste food” so her kids could eat after her family were refused enough for everyone due to having once been petty landlords.
Continuing the tradition of all great hip-hop artists by, erm, happily complying with censorship demands from a government that’s not even his own. Stick it to ‘em, Xiangyu. You’re so brave. What’s next “Love the Police?”?
Is this diplomacy? 🤔
It was a cold-blooded killing.
Maybe, though even Chinese news is reporting on it and they aren’t following the same agenda!
Am I the only one who finds it odd that major international news sites are giving headlines to this Coldplay/CEO cheating nonsense? Like … why? It’s not news. Its internet gossip that should have died within 24 hours. Is it just that it’s a story they can fill space with without needing journalists?
Two of the most hardcore Party faithful, who make pro-Party content for Party media, are apparently the “bravest” kids in media. Yeah, it takes so much courage to say exactly what you’ve been approved to say. Stick it to the man! 😂
Only the people of Islington get to vote for Corbyn though. The real thing to monitor will be the kinds of issues that get most exposure and also whether there’s any impact on topics that matter to China.
Now that the UK plans to let 16-year olds vote, it’s going to be interesting to monitor TikTok for political content. That’s now a huge battleground. If there’s any truth to the fears about Beijing’s control over the app, China could now have big influence in UK elections.
Read it again. Parse it slowly. The claim is that of all the people in the world who are in prison, 22% of them are in prisons in the US. It’s not saying that 22% of the world is in prison.
Its claim is that 22% of the world’s PRISON population is in the US, not that 22% of the world is in prison.
Many breweries serve food and the OP simply said “where alcohol is being served”. It’s a safe bet that in any restaurant there is some alcohol at every table.
Kids don’t belong in restaurants?
I have tweeted that very point several times.
Mandarin, yes, though the UN resolution refers to “Chinese”. It’s a resolution on the system of Romanization that the UN will use itself. It’s not a ruling on what names must be used and it’s not even enforceable outside the UN.
In other words, it’s still okay to use names like Tibet, Inner Mongolia, the Yangtze, the Pearl River, Yellow Mountain, the Gobi Desert, etc, but if you want to write the name of the capital, it’s Beijing not Peking. That’s it.
I looked up this 1977 resolution and guess what? Andy lied. It doesn’t say that Pinyin must be used for “English”. It says that when Chinese place names are *Romanized*, Pinyin is the system to use, i.e. it was a decision to agree to use Pinyin over Wade-Giles to standardize Chinese place names.
Btw, it wasn’t that long ago he was using “Tibet” too. It’s so transparent that he’s switched after being trained on the latest style guide (a style guide I’ve also been forced to follow in communications over the last two years).
This is actually an own goal, because why is the “central government” deciding how Uyghurs spell their own ethnonym? Surely that’s exactly the kind of low-stakes decision you can safely devolve to the supposedly “autonomous region” of Xinjiang?
Same reason he started with the “it’s CPC, not CCP” thing and now insists on calling Tibet “Xizang”—he was told to. Interestingly, seeing that UN resolution thing there, he’s never insisted we call Inner Mongolia “Nei Menggu” or China itself “Zhongguo”. Love the consistency.
And remember how Andy used his public profile as a ‘journalist’ and social media platforms, including his show ‘Reports on China’, to demand the release of the report on the crash of MU5735 and that he hasn’t stopped campaigning for it and has been relentless in his pursuit for truth? No? Weird.
Remember when Flight MU5735 mysteriously crashed in Guangxi in 2022 and the government didn’t release its findings about the cause and the belief was the pilot crashed it deliberately and Andy B agreed and tweeted the conspiracy theory all over X? No? Weird.
youtube.com/watch?v=sRz5... 【匿名中国】I’m trying something new. Many China stories just don’t get told. Not because they aren’t worth hearing, but because people are afraid of speaking out. So, I’d like to try to offer a platform through which people can anonymously tell their China stories well.
Gave my seat to a lady with a newborn just now and realized it’s been ages since I’ve done that. It’s wholly anecdotal, but I do feel like I don’t see many new mothers on Shanghai Metro these days, which chimes with what we hear about the birth rate. Ten years ago I was constantly giving up my seat.
For kids today, you’d have to reframe is as ‘The Bus Replacement Service Children’.
FM spokesperson reposting a 2017 video of Xi telling the clapping sea lions around him to just work hard for a better life. The part where he told the villagers to buy fewer takeaway coffees and eat less avocado on toast was cut off.
Blown to pieces, which suits Beijing just fine.
I don’t agree with the quoted tweet—Muslims coexist with others in many places—but it’s funny Andy forgot the XJ crackdown was justified as a ‘War on Terror’ after violence by Uyghur Islamists against Han. Schrodinger’s 🇨🇳: where Uyghurs live in harmony with Han but also don’t til they’re made to.
I hadn’t realized City News Service was related to Shanghai Daily, but now Shine.cn redirects to CNS and it seems SD may be returning to its former role as a local paper with a focus on Shanghai news and lifestyle. I wonder how the bitchier and more toxic propagandists fit into the rebrand.
I really don’t understand people—especially foreigners—who insist that it’s straightforward to get VPNs in China. It’s not impossible, sure, but why pretend it’s no more complicated than ordering lunch on Eleme? Such a weird thing to lie about.
“People attracted by the useful connections, the benefits and the favouritism shown to Party members as the economy slows and job security weakens …”
It’s almost certainly the case that he is on a guided tour and it’s also possibly that this trip is actually his personal holiday and he’s using it to make content. He does that.
LMAO. Andy pretending that he feels the altitude on the Tibet train but is “okay”. What a trooper. Did nobody tell him those trains are pressurized to mimic the pressure at sea level? He missed an opportunity for a bit of positive energy there. 😂
I’ve been wondering whether some of the world’s less legally minded governments might take advantage of the situation in the US to pick up regime opponents and take them back? It’d be so easy to scoop up a Uyghur or a Russian dissident disguised as an ICE abduction.
I’d happily see the fall of the Ayatollah’s regime so I’m definitely not on Iran’s side, but this rhetoric feels like when certain people told Ukraine to make peace after it was attacked. In this conflict, Iran was hit first. Don’t let Trump and Netanyahu gaslight you into forgetting the chronology.
Shot and chaser.
Anyone else remember when Trump’s followers liked him because he was going to keep the US out of foreign wars?
WW1 was morally ambiguous, with no clear goodie or baddie. WW2 was unequivocal: Nazis the baddies, Allies the goodies. WW3 is shaping up to be an all-baddies affair. Netanyahu and Trump vs Khamenei and Putin is a case of ‘I hope they all lose’.
I’d have gone with ‘scent’, ‘aroma’ or ‘fragrance’ in place of ‘smell’, personally.
Any chance they could be diverted to Ukraine?
Andy confusing rule BY law with rule OF law, again. I wonder if he’d feel the same if NZ passed a law criminalizing working for Chinese state media as a NZ national and retroactively applied it to him.
Ah, the now annual tradition of Andy Boreham posting about 8964 and deleting it a few hours later. He never learns. Maybe every June he tells himself, “This is the year I finally have enough credit in the bank with the party bosses to get away with it … surely?” 😂
Surely this is money to prevent war?
Complaining about a social media app becoming a cesspool of human waste … on Elon Musk’s X. 🤦♂️ Quite the stance! 😂
He forgot the accent on the é. Fail.
Always nice to see someone rush past the disabled person who was ahead of them in the line to get that empty ‘courtesy seat’ meant for the disabled person. That’s the real problem with rushing for seats: the people who most need them can’t join in with the rushing.
It isn’t and Andy is not aligned with Beijing on this one. The FM has translators and puts out info in multiple languages. They don’t care. It’s just that Chinese ability is Andy’s thing and he’s very precious about it.
By saying “foreign”, he’s telling all those reporters from places like the Arab world or Latin America who worked hard to learn the global language of English so they could work internationally, “Sorry, but start again with this language useful in only one country.”
I really enjoyed that report from Laos that Andy did in fluent Lao and those ones from Brazil where he dazzled us with his Portuguese.
The solution then is to condemn those too, not spare Israel. Although I can’t think of any other countries who are annexing land by force while driving out the native residents and avoiding criticism.
Same! I’m a regular user of them and en-dashes (as opposed to incorrectly used hyphens). It seems I now have to get sloppy with my punctuation if I don’t want to be accused of being an AI bot.
And they’d use the auditions to catch people they want to deport.
Is it me or does this look like a scene from a new movie called “Honey I Shrunk the Autocrats”?
On the contrary, it sounds like they’re always asleep.
Pretty sure penguins suck at all three.
Fun fact: China’s streets are designed so that when it rains all the water sits right at the kerb at zebra crossings to help pedestrians get the wettest feet possible. For maximum benefit, the flooding should get several inches deep and be too wide to leap over. It should be on both sides too.
And the non-Xi story still gets linked to Xi in some way.
Two tourist boats capsize; multiple dead and missing. But second to ‘Xi to meet Putin’ in importance apparently. Nothing comes ahead of the Great Leader’s diplomatic work in the state media hierarchy, especially not the lives of regular people.
Get that flag out of your username. You’re an embarrassment to it.
Should a man who beats his own wife not defend his sister from her abusive husband? As I said, being an hypocrite doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
Hypocrisy doesn’t make someone wrong.
Today I learned that if one country has fought wars, then other countries are allowed to do their own wars.
They euphemistically referred to it as ‘evacuation’.
You can’t compare generations across countries; their economies aren’t at the same point of their development. A Chinese Millennial is a Western Boomer: born at the right time in the economic cycle to benefit from cheap prices at the start and rising prices later.
Saw this just now. You can change the dates and currency and write this about 🇨🇳. It grates with me when I see Western millennials talk about Chinese peers owning homes like it’s a result of good socialist policy, not just the exact same stroke of luck and timing as their Boomer parents enjoyed.
Ah, China. Where your kid gets 90% on weekly tests and gets given D grades. Fuck you, Teacher Wang and Teacher Jiang, you sociopaths. Fuck you.
Yeah, I might, although it will add to the workload he already has which is a worry. I want him to spend less time at a desk, not more.
He’s been doing HW for 3.5 hours already today and still has an essay to write out. More or less the same every damn night. So sick of this shit.
Double Reduction was also meant to lead to less homework. It hasn’t. It’s exactly the same, only with less support. Officially the school holds catch-up classes to help but they’re more like detention where the slow kids are punished with extra work but little support.
When Beijing banned private tutoring, attention went to how it’d stop rich kids getting ahead. Less was paid to kids who needed remedial tutoring, i.e. help just to catch up. Like my kid. He’s struggling badly in math, but hiring a tutor to help is now illegal, so he falls more and more behind.
Yes, but Beijing also won’t have diplomatic ties with any country that just says Taiwan isn’t China, as opposed to Taiwan is the real China.
A thought. If Beijing is so confident of its territorial claims in the South China Sea and on the Indian border, why has it never made recognizing this a condition of diplomatic ties? If a country denies Chinese sovereignty of Taiwan, Beijing refuses relations with it, but not so for other claims.