Thread: The View, from China

So it's leaking then.

Middle Class in China Desperately Trying to Flee Country

Shanghai’s long shutdown by Beijing has caused food shortages and protests, prompting many to flee China where their livelihoods and lifestyles can change at a moment’s notice

n China, schools have been closed and exams have been canceled, including assessments for applying to American universities.


Alan Li says he no longer sees any future for his family in China


Mr. Li is frustrated by the fact that his son’s expensive bilingual education has mostly been online for the past two years. He is also very concerned about Beijing’s tightening oversight of his son’s curriculum.


It is a waste of our children’s youth,” Li said.


Having a fairly comfortable income, he has been able to take advantage of a European investment scheme that allows him and his family to reside in Hungary.


Using a slang phrase meaning to relax, he said, “Many people know that if they sold all their assets, they could lie flat in a European country.”


Censors in Beijing have sought to suppress the discussion of people leaving China, prompting Internet users to refer to the phenomenon as “running”.

During Shanghai’s shutdown, WeChat searches peaked for the term.


Furthermore, Beijing has tightened exit policies for Chinese citizens as more people consider ways to leave.


Outbound travel has been banned for all “unnecessary” trips. The issue of renewing passports has been put on hold as authorities blame the possibility that Covid might be carried into the country.

The Immigration authorities issued just two percent of passports in the first half of 2021 compared with the same period in 2019.

A woman who emigrated to Germany said she has received dozens of messages from Chinese people seeking advice on how to escape.


Emily, who wanted not to use her real name, tried to help a relative obtain a passport to take up a job in Europe, but their application was denied.


She said it is like being a child who wants to go to a friend’s house to play, but the parents won’t let them.


She said that passports are sold for up to 30,000 yuan ($4,500) on the black market.


Travel Documents and Passports Being Denied


According to the Post, a Chinese freelancer was turned away by immigration officers while attempting to travel to Turkey for work last October, despite having checked in.


Upon reviewing his itinerary, they found it too suspicious and took his passport into an office, where 15 minutes later they said he did not meet the requirements” for leaving.


It was “absolutely insane,” he said.


A few weeks later, he managed to leave by entering Macau on a different travel document, then catching a flight to the mainland.


Beijing’s increasing controls during this pandemic have disenchanted many people in China.


Lucy, a 20-year-old student at an elite Beijing university, said, “I just don’t want the government interfering in my personal life crudely.”


According to her, the virus policies in China have enabled the government to regulate and monitor everything.


Perhaps we should look elsewhere and create a better life, instead of accepting and adapting to this system of oppression in China.

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/news/...ss-flee-china/

Christ it was a shithole before and now they think it's worse?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Christ it was a shithole before and now they think it's worse?

Lived there setting up a JV between Shanghai Automotive and GM for a bit more than a year.
Hardly a "shithole" when I was there Harry. When were you there?

Originally Posted by Norton

Lived there setting up a JV between Shanghai Automotive and GM for a bit more than a year.
Hardly a "shithole" when I was there Harry. When were you there?

Harry tends to make shit up as he goes, hoping no one will notice.

Originally Posted by sabang

Shenzhen

Had to go there for a few business meeting in 1996 and it was even then a "shithole" imho.

^ It sure was! Check it out now though- the skyline etc. I will always remember Shenzhen as a shithole though!

Originally Posted by Norton

Lived there setting up a JV between Shanghai Automotive and GM for a bit more than a year.
Hardly a "shithole" when I was there Harry. When were you there?

I'm referring to the article talking about the reasons that are making them want to leave.

Not your shiny expat apartment.

It is hardly paradise for the average or middle class Chinese

I live in the lucky country (just not there right now). I would not say life is exactly paradise for the average person there either. Where is? But I would say the fact that life for the average person in China has just kept improving, YoY, for the past 25 years ago goes a long way to explaining the very positive attitude they have towards their government.

Originally Posted by sabang

I live in the lucky country (just not there right now). I would not say life is exactly paradise for the average person there either. Where is? But I would say the fact that life for the average person in China has just kept improving, YoY, for the past 25 years ago goes a long way to explaining the very positive attitude they have towards their government.

Yes, who wouldn't want free trampolines as an escape from their miserable, cramped labour accommodation?

Did you not read the many western polls, including the long term study by Harvard? Of course you did. So government approval rating is around 95%. Eat yer heart out Joe!

Solar power lightens load for Filipinos

By PRIME SARMIENTO in Hong Kong | China Daily | Updated: 2022-06-17 09:35

Analysts look to Beijing cooperation in Philippines' low-carbon transition

"It was his eye-popping electricity bill that pushed Filipino entrepreneur Wendell Adrian Tamayo to look for a cheaper source of energy.

Tamayo dug up a research paper on renewable energy he did in his previous job at a government agency. Then, with further research, using a portion of his back garden as a makeshift laboratory, he tapped a free and clean energy source for his home: The sun.

's success using solar energy to cut his electricity costs has turned him into a solar power evangelist. He launched GenWatt in September and has since installed solar panels in several households and at small and medium-sized enterprises in the capital region of Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

For Tamayo, using solar power will help free GenWatt's clients from economic insecurity brought about by the pandemic and other challenges.

Analysts said tapping renewable energy sources is emerging as a way for Filipinos to cope with inflation. Global oil and coal prices are rising as the Russia-Ukraine conflict disrupts supply. Using more renewables is also in line with the Philippine commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 75 percent between 2020 and 2030.

China will also have a key role to play in the Philippines' low-carbon transition, as it has the technology, financing and materials needed to take renewable energy mainstream, analysts said.
"It will be a cost-effective strategy to use solar energy because oil and coal are very expensive. Solar is a lot cheaper than coal today and in the foreseeable future," said Alberto Dalusung III, an energy transition adviser at the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, a Manila-based think tank.

Dalusung, who formerly served as director for energy planning at the Philippines' Department of Energy, said China can help his country harness solar power by modernizing the country's power lines. He notes that China's State Grid Corp has a 40 percent stake in the National Grid Corp of the Philippines. An upgraded grid can absorb more solar power and supply electricity to more clients.
"Modernizing the Philippine electric grid is crucial because it will shape future options for the country's power system," said Nazrin Camille Castro, manager of the Philippine branch of The Climate Reality Project, a US-based advocacy group. By investing in grid enhancement in the Philippines, China could invest further in renewable energy generation and storage.

Largest producer

Castro said China, as the world's largest producer of solar photovoltaic equipment, can also accelerate the "solarization" of isolated island provinces in the Philippines. Citing data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, she said it is cheaper for off-grid communities to use solar panels combined with lithium-ion batteries instead of diesel-powered generators as a source of electricity.

Cesar Carlito Baclagon, the regional finance campaigner at 350.org, an international environmental group, said that low-carbon development needs to consider how society and the economy can be organized to ensure that a country can thrive even on a warmer planet. He said China, which is moving toward a low-carbon economy, can help the Philippines in its low-carbon transition by investing more in renewable energy development and climate change adaptation.
Dalusung said the Philippines, the first Southeast Asia country to use geothermal, solar and wind power, is an innovator when it comes to renewables. For example, Cagayan de Oro City, in the southern Philippines, has been using a grid-connected centralized solar photovoltaic power plant since 2004.

Under the National Renewable Energy Program, the Philippine government aims to increase renewable energy's contribution to the power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040. Renewables now account for about 20 percent of total power generation."

Solar power lightens load for Filipinos - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

June 16, 2022 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

China doubles down on vision with Russia

"The most animating template of the West’s “information war” lately against Russia is, perhaps, its distorted projection of the China-Russia relationship in the context of the Ukraine crisis.

This dubious enterprise has practical implications for the “endgame” in Ukraine, the West’s efforts to “erase” Russia and the US’ struggle with China — above all, it is fraught with consequences for the emerging world order.

Henry Kissinger, who is responsible for the hypothesis of the US-Russia-China triangle in Cold War history, recently made a pitch to invoke the spectre of a “permanent alliance” between Russia and China to give a shock therapy to the Western audience over their craving to isolate Russia from Europe.

Kissinger advised Kiev to make territorial concessions to Moscow. The relevance of Kissinger’s hypothesis is debatable today, and, perhaps, a much bigger rationale needs to be found to explain the epochal nature of the China-Russia relationship, which is at an all-time high level historically.

Clearly, neither China nor Russia is seeking an alliance and their relationship is certainly not in the nature of a classic alliance but, paradoxically, it also goes far beyond the definable scope of an alliance. This comes out vividly from the document issued during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing in February titled Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.

Against such a backdrop, the conversation between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 15 should conclusively scatter the West’s information war. Xi Jinping chose his birthday to make this call, attesting to the deep friendship between the two leaders over a decade, which provides not only a solid foundation to the relationship but great stability, considering the nature of the two political systems and the “alchemy” of their statecraft. The centrality of this singular factor is either deliberately obfuscated or not properly grasped in the West’s discourses.

From the readouts of the June 15 phone conversation (here and here), the following salients are to be noted:

• At its most obvious level, the two leaderships have underscored beyond doubt that the China-Russia strategic partnership characterised by a high degree of trust is not buffeted by the current events or the turbulence and uncertainty in the international situation.

• China and Russia remain committed to extending mutual support on matters regarding each other’s core interests and matters of paramount concern, such as sovereignty and security. The Chinese readout emphasised Putin’s support for China on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

• The West’s efforts to create daylight in the China-Russia partnership remain futile.

• Notwithstanding the West’s sanctions against Russia, the trade and economic cooperation between China has good momentum and is poised to make steady progress. China is willing to push for the steady and long-term development of practical bilateral cooperation despite the western sanctions against Russia.
  

• On the “Ukraine issue”, China assesses the situation in both its historical context and the merits of the issue and seeks a proper settlement in a responsible manner. In a significant rhetorical departure, there was no reference to sovereignty and territorial integrity questions or to “war” or ceasefire, etc.
  

• Broadly speaking, more than 100 days into the war in Ukraine, Xi has focused squarely on his support for Russia. The big message is that the events in Ukraine have not dented Xi’s basic commitment to the Sino-Russian partnership.

The bottom line is that China doubles down on its vision with Russia as spelt out in the joint statement of February 4. It is to be noted that Xi’s call was timed shortly before a European summit is slated to put on a show of solidarity with Ukraine and, equally, as countdown begins for a NATO summit at the end of this month, which is expected to approve a new “strategic concept” that will upgrade vigilance against Russia and also mention potential challenges to the alliance from China for the first time. The leaders of Japan and South Korea will be attending the NATO summit for the first time.

The key message here is that China and Russia have no choice but to jointly resist NATO’s all-round suppression through close strategic coordination, and further maintain the balance of the global strategic situation. Indeed, the 13-hour joint air patrol in late May by a task force of Russian and Chinese strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea bang in the middle of the Ukraine conflict speaks for itself.

The fact that Tokyo has overnight breathed life into the dispute over Russian “occupation” of the Kuril Islands just when Moscow is involved in a conflict on the western front, would bring Russia and China on the same page with regard to the ascendency of Japanese militarism, with US support and encouragement, as a new factor in the Asia-Pacific.

All in all, Xi Jinping call and the vehement expression and display of Chinese support and understanding has come at a time when Putin needs it most. The Kremlin readout explicitly stated: “It was agreed to expand cooperation in energy, finance, the manufacturing industry, transport and other areas, taking into account the global economic situation that has become more complicated due to the illegitimate sanctions policy pursued by the West. The further development of military and defence ties was touched upon as well.”

To borrow the undiplomatic words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Xi may have inflicted “a major reputational damage for China” in the West. Quite obviously, Xi has ignored the repeated warnings by US officials that the “sanctions from hell” to weaken Russia would visit China too if Beijing gave support to Moscow. Curiously, Xi rebooted the China-Russia partnership although Biden Administration officials are spreading a notion lately that a “thaw” is on the cards in US-China relations.

Following the meeting on Monday between Yang Jiechi, CCP Politburo member and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor at Luxembourg, the White House characterised the discussion as “candid, substantive, and productive,” while the Chinese press release was noticeably circumspect: “The United States should put China in the right strategic perspective, make the right choice, and translate President Biden’s remarks into concrete actions that the United States does not seek a new Cold War with China; it does not aim to change China’s system; the revitalisation of its alliances is not targeted at China; the United States does not support “Taiwan Independence”; and it has no intention to seek a conflict with China. The United States needs to work with China in the same direction to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state.”

Yang warned that “The Taiwan question concerns the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and if it is not handled properly, it will have a subversive impact. This risk not only exists, but will continue to rise.” The Chinese readout described the discussion as “candid, in-depth and constructive communication and exchanges.”

Xi’s call with Putin came two days later."

https://www.indianpunchline.com/chin...n-with-russia/

Guangzhou subway now travels faster than the fastest train in US

NewsWithJingjing

No fucking fix there then

China-Laos Railway inducts Lao train drivers

Xinhua | Updated: 2022-06-20 10:30

VIENTIANE -- With all 66 Lao trainees passing an examination for assistant train drivers on Saturday, the China-Laos Railway is inducting its first group of Lao train drivers.

"According to the Laos-China Railway Co, Ltd (LCRC), which is responsible for the operation of the Lao section of the China-Laos Railway, the company has been speeding up local talent development since the inauguration of the railway in December last year.

Through the study of theories as well as one-on-one internship on the train, the trainees have mastered relevant knowledge and accumulated abundant driving experiences, the LCRC told Xinhua on Sunday.

After about half a year of intensive training, all 66 Lao trainees have respectively taken on duties on the EMU (electric multiple unit), the passenger and freight trains, and special engineering locomotives for over 10,000 km.
According to the LCRC, a joint venture based in the Lao capital Vientiane, the 66 Lao assistant train drivers will firstly go to work with Chinese train drivers, and the Lao crews will work independently in the future."

China-Laos Railway inducts Lao train drivers - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party has issued rules to further rein in the business activities of the families of senior government officials, in the latest move to fight corruption, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

Officials must report business activities of their spouses and children and those who fail to do so or seek to skirt the rules will be "dealt with seriously in accordance with regulations and laws", Xinhua cited the provisions issued by the Communist Party's Central Committee.

Officials' spouses and children must withdraw from their business activities or the officials themselves will have to step down from their current posts and "accept job adjustments" and face other forms of punishments, Xinhua said.

Such business activities include investing in enterprises, holding senior positions in private enterprises or foreign-funded enterprises, private equity fund investment, and engaging in paid social intermediary and legal services, Xinhua said.

The extended families of Communist Party cadres have become a key battleground in President Xi Jinping's war on corruption, which has punished thousands of officials since he came to power in late 2012.

Many cases of corruption have involved officials registering businesses and property under the names of relatives, allowing them to meet the letter of party guidelines while still using their influence to amass wealth.

"Strengthening the management of leading cadres' spouses, children and their spouses running businesses is an important measure to strictly manage the party and supervise cadres in an all-round way," Xinhua cited the party's rules as saying.

China Further Reins in Business Activities of Officials''' Families | World News | US News

Shafaq News / On Saturday, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the first educational project between Iraq and China.The Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi attended the ceremony.

Last December, under the patronage and presence of the Prime Minister, the Iraqi government announced that it had signed 15 contracts with China to build 1,000 schools in Iraq.

It is worth noting that the China–Iraq relations have advanced in recent years.

China-Iraq energy cooperation has been the cornerstone of their bilateral relationship since 1981, when the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation started operations in the country. Chinese companies today are involved in upstream, midstream, and downstream operations in Iraq.

On the other hand, Iraq is one of the top suppliers of crude oil to China.

China had vehemently opposed the 2003 Iraq War and had called for a withdrawal of all forces from the country.

Last year, Iraq became a top recipient of Chinese investment and a critical link in Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. Almost 20 years after the war in Iraq began, billions of Chinese yuan are being invested in assorted projects, from green energy capabilities and heavy oil plants to building roads and schools.

Fudan University’s Center for Green Finance and Development in Shanghai reported that in 2021, Iraq received $10.5 billion in investment under the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Iraq has become the third-biggest Belt and Road partner in energy engagement, after Russia and Pakistan.

China launches its 1000-Schools project in Iraq


Jerry Grey's comment-

"What's even more groundbreaking and sensational news is that not one US cent will change hands, this is a deal done for oil to the benefit of both parties with no benefit for any third party - The future of trade is with the BRI and it's innovation"

After reading a post in another thread, it is clear that someone needs a history lesson...

Who was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world? Most people probably assume that the answer is Adolf Hitler, architect of the Holocaust. Others might guess Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who may indeed have managed to kill even more innocent people than Hitler did, many of them as part of a terror famine that likely took more lives than the Holocaust. But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people – easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.

Historian Frank Dikötter, author of the important book Mao’s Great Famine recently published an article in History Today, summarizing what happened:

Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors by herding villagers across the country into giant people’s communes. In pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised. People had their work, homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them. In collective canteens, food, distributed by the spoonful according to merit, became a weapon used to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. As incentives to work were removed, coercion and violence were used instead to compel famished farmers to perform labour on poorly planned irrigation projects while fields were neglected.

A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation. But the true dimensions of what happened are only now coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party itself compiled during the famine….

What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

The basic facts of the Great Leap Forward have long been known to scholars. Dikötter’s work is noteworthy for demonstrating that the number of victims may have been even greater than previously thought, and that the mass murder was more clearly intentional on Mao’s part, and included large numbers of victims who were executed or tortured, as opposed to “merely” starved to death. Even the previously standard estimates of 30 million or more, would still make this the greatest mass murder in history.

While the horrors of the Great Leap Forward are well known to experts on communism and Chinese history, they are rarely remembered by ordinary people outside China, and have had only a modest cultural impact. When Westerners think of the great evils of world history, they rarely think of this one. In contrast to the numerous books, movies, museums, and and remembrance days dedicated to the Holocaust, we make little effort to recall the Great Leap Forward, or to make sure that society has learned its lessons. When we vow “never again,” we don’t often recall that it should apply to this type of atrocity, as well as those motivated by racism or anti-semitism.

The fact that Mao’s atrocities resulted in many more deaths than those of Hitler does not necessarily mean he was the more evil of the two. The greater death toll is partly the result of the fact that Mao ruled over a much larger population for a much longer time. I lost several relatives in the Holocaust myself, and have no wish to diminish its significance. But the vast scale of Chinese communist atrocities puts them in the same general ballpark. At the very least, they deserve far more recognition than they currently receive.

I. Why We so Rarely Look Back on the Great Leap Forward

What accounts for this neglect? One possible answer is that most of the victims were Chinese peasants – people who are culturally and socially distant from the Western intellectuals and media figures who have the greatest influence over our historical consciousness and popular culture. As a general rule, it is easier to empathize with victims who seem similar to ourselves.

But an even bigger factor in our relative neglect of the Great Leap Forward is that it is part of the general tendency to downplay crimes committed by communist regimes, as opposed to right-wing authoritarians. Unlike in the days of Mao, today very few western intellectuals actually sympathize with communism. But many are reluctant to fully accept what a great evil it was, fearful – perhaps – that other left-wing causes might be tainted by association.

II. Why it Matters.

For both Chinese and westerners, failure to acknowledge the true nature of the Great Leap Forward carries serious costs. Some survivors of the Great Leap Forward are still alive today. They deserve far greater recognition of the horrible injustice they suffered. They also deserve compensation for their losses, and the infliction of appropriate punishment on the remaining perpetrators.

In addition, our continuing historical blind spot about the crimes of Mao and other communist rulers, leads us to underestimate the horrors of such policies, and makes it more likely that they might be revived in the future. The horrendous history of China, the USSR, and their imitators, should have permanently discredited socialism as completely as fascism was discredited by the Nazis. But it has not – so far – fully done so.

Just recently, the socialist government of Venezuela imposed forced labor on much of its population. Yet most of the media coverage of this injustice fails to note the connection to socialism, or that the policy has parallels in the history of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other similar regimes. One analysis even claims that the real problem is not so much “socialism qua socialism,” but rather Venezuela’s “particular brand of socialism, which fuses bad economic ideas with a distinctive brand of strongman bullying,” and is prone to authoritarianism and “mismanagement.”

The author simply ignores the fact that “strongman bullying” and “mismanagement” are typical of socialist states around the world. The Scandinavian nations – sometimes cited as examples of successful socialism- are not actually socialist at all, because they do not feature government ownership of the means of production, and in many ways have freer markets than most other western nations.

Venezuela’s tragic situation would not surprise anyone familiar with the history of the Great Leap Forward. We would do well to finally give history’s largest episode of mass murder the attention it deserves.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...derer-his-due/

Residents say China used health tracker for crowd control



TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Angry bank customers who traveled to a city in central China to retrieve their savings from troubled rural banks have been stopped by a health app on their cellphone.


Chinese residents are required to have the health app, which displays a code indicating their health status, including possible exposure to COVID-19. A green code is required to use public transportation and to enter locations such as offices, restaurants and malls. But some depositors at the banks in central Henan province said their codes were turned red to stop them.


The incident has started a national debate on how a tool designed for public health was appropriated by political forces to tamp down controversy.


The issue started in April, when customers found they could not access online banking services. They tried to report the banks and get their money back, but didn’t get replies.


Thousands of people who had opened accounts with the six rural banks in Henan and Anhui provinces began trying to withdraw their savings after media reports that the head of the banks’ parent company was on the run. The majority shareholder of several of the banks, Sun Zhenfu, was wanted by authorities for “serious financial crimes,” according to the official media outlet The Paper.

Authorities likely feared a bank run, which is not uncommon with smaller banks in China that tend to be less stable than their larger, institutional counterparts.


Customers from around the country were connected with the rural banks through financial platforms such as JD Digits. There, the small banks sold customers financial products such as fixed deposit accounts with higher interest rates, which require people to deposit their money for a set amount of time, according to Sixth Tone, the sister publication of The Paper.


Unable to resolve the issue online, customers set out earlier this week to demand government action at the Henan province office of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in the provincial capital, Zhengzhou. But after arriving in the city, they found they couldn’t go far.


In one since-deleted account on the social media app WeChat, a woman surnamed Ai said shortly after she checked into a hotel in Zhengzhou, she was questioned by a group of police who asked her why she was there. She replied that she wished to withdraw money from the bank. Shortly after, she found her health code had turned red even though she had a negative COVID-19 test result in the previous 48 hours.


She was immediately taken to a quarantine hotel by a pandemic prevention worker.


Sixth Tone interviewed over a dozen people who said their health codes turned red after they scanned a QR code in the city.


In China, places like train stations and grocery stores have QR codes to scan at their entrances, logging people’s presence for contact tracing during the pandemic. When people are deemed to be at risk for COVID-19, their codes are turned different colors that indicate restrictions such as mandatory quarantines.

With a red health code, it’s impossible to go to any public venues, or even to board a train.


One bank customer, who gave her last name as Liu, said she saw that many people were reporting their health codes had turned red after arriving in Zhengzhou.


Liu, who did not go to Zhengzhou herself, said she tested the code change after others reported it in their shared group chat. After scanning the QR code from a photo someone had shared in the group, Liu found that her health code also turned red.


Another bank customer told Sixth Tone that he got a red code after scanning in at the train station in Zhengzhou and was taken into police custody. A few hours after police officers made him leave Zhengzhou, his health code turned green.


Jiakedao, a social media account run by the main Communist Party newspaper, criticized the Henan authorities in an editorial on Tuesday.


“Let’s be frank, no matter which department or individual instigated it, arbitrarily using the epidemic prevention and control measures for ‘social governance’ or ‘stability maintenance’ should be strictly held accountable,” the editorial said.


An official with Henan’s Pandemic Control Committee said in response to Jiakedao that authorities were investigating the reports of health codes being turned red.

Residents say China used health tracker for crowd control | AP News

Damn, that's insidious. Even George Orwell couldn't predict that shyte!

Originally Posted by DrWilly

Damn, that's insidious. Even George Orwell couldn't predict that shyte!

He would have if he'd anticipated mobile apps, GPS, etc.

Why Hong Kong’s underage trans teens want age limits for the city’s gender clinic scrapped


From a young age, Liam Mak felt that the sex he was assigned at birth was incongruous with his gender identity, but it was not until he turned 18 that he was able to receive gender-affirming hormone treatment at a public hospital.

Transgender teens in Hong Kong say they have been “cast adrift” by years-long waits for lifechanging treatment at public hospitals, as government policy bars doctors from offering transgender health services to patients under the age of 18.

“A few members who were turning 18 in a couple of days were turned away from booking an appointment at the Gender Identity Clinic (GIC),” Liam Mak, the co-founder of Quarks, a local organisation providing peer support to young transgender individuals and promoting awareness through public education, told HKFP.

Many of those who turn to Quarks are underage pupils. They speak of shared experiences, such as being unable to get a foot in the GIC’s door before entering adulthood and frustration at the long waiting times once they do.


“There was nothing I could do but to wait. That’s the policy,” said Mak, 20, with a sigh. Mak struggled with his gender identity since he was in pre-school, feeling the sex he was assigned at birth was a mismatch.

Mak began his gender transition with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) when he turned 18 in 2019, two years after he first sought treatment at a public hospital. Gender-affirming hormone treatment aims to align a person’s physical characteristics with their gender identity.

“I have always regretted not having HRT earlier,” Mak said.

Age limit

The GIC, the city’s first and only one-stop gender clinic at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, has been providing services to adults with issues relating to gender since 2016 through a team of psychiatrists, surgeons, endocrinologists, social workers, therapists and more.

Patients undergo psychological assessments, a basic physical examination and hormonal tests to establish a diagnosis. Psychiatrists may make referrals to endocrinologists for HRT, according to each patient’s clinical situation and personal wishes. And patients will experience a minimum of 12 months “real life experience,” or living in the gender role that is congruent with their gender identity, before potentially undergoing gender confirmation surgery.


However, the gender clinic has a strict age limit and will not provide services to patients under 18.




Internationally, the question of when a minor can begin to transition continues to inspire debate. Guidelines drafted by experts from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) last December recommend that adolescents not only undergo rigorous mental health assessments, but that they show “several years” of “well-documented… evidence of persistent gender incongruence or gender nonconformity/diversity” before receiving hormones or having surgery.

The document also notes the issue of “informed consent,” adding that gender affirming treatment may only be offered if an “adolescent demonstrates the emotional and cognitive maturity required to provide informed consent/assent for the treatment.” Internationally there is no agreed age limit at which minors can pursue treatment without a parent or guardian’s approval.

Additionally, changes associated with many of the procedures involved in transitioning can be long-lasting or even irreversible. As a result, doctors and health experts remain divided on when treatment of minors should begin.

FULL- Why Hong Kong's underage trans teens want age limits for the city's gender clinic scrapped - Hong Kong Free Press HKFP