Photo: 87962-Longsheng, by Xiquinho Silva

87962-Longsheng, by Xiquinho Silva (CC BY 2.0)

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/photo-87962-longsheng-by-xiquinho-silva/

Netizen Voices: No Egg Fried Rice Allowed In October… Or November!

Jiangsu Unicom, a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate China Unicom, incurred online anger after posting, on two consecutive days, a recipe for egg fried rice with ginger on Weibo. The seemingly innocuous recipe landed the company in the frying pan because it was published on October 23 and 24, the birthday and birthday eve of Mao Zedong’s son Mao Anying, who was killed by American bombs during the Korean War. A persistent, albeit unfounded, rumor holds that the younger Mao exposed his position by making egg fried rice on the battlefield. Some herald November 25, the anniversary of his death, as “China’s Thanksgiving,” celebrating egg fried rice as the dish that saved China from turning into a “West Korea” ruled by a Kim family-style dynasty.

Such rumors about the cause of Mao Anying’s untimely demise are officially “historically nihilist,” according to China’s top internet regulator. Those who share “historically nihilistic misrepresentations” online are subject to unspecified punishments, and “slandering martyrs” online can lead to arrest. Earlier this October, a blogger was jailed for 10 days after posting on social media: “The greatest result of the Korean War was egg fried rice: thank you, egg fried rice! Without egg fried rice, we [China] would be no different from North Korea. Sadly, there’s not that big a difference nowadays.”

Due to the offending post, Jiangsu Unicom’s account was likely issued a “soft ban.” It has not posted since October 23 (the October 24 post has been deleted) and comments and reposts on its last post are not visible—one of the tools in Weibo’s censorship toolkit. The following selection of Weibo comments on the latest egg fried rice controversy offers a case study of the fault lines in online Chinese society. On one side are the frothy nationalists, who view Jiangsu Unicom’s two posts as evidence of a plot to insult China; on the other, many feel that the whole controversy is inane:

前难友睡不醒：They deleted it after posting on October 23, but then posted it again on October 24. Is a recipe that important? Jiangsu Unicom’s business is entirely unrelated to food. Four bowls of rice, one sausage, two eggs: 412. October 24 is martyr [Mao] Anying’s birthday. Egg fried rice is a slanderous rumor about martyrs. The 412 incident. All those factors taken together…sensitive, no?

思想火炬：On the day martyr Mao Anying was sacrificed [Translator’s note: Mao Anying was born, not killed, on October 24], @JiangsuUnicom is insulting heroic martyrs by spreading the rumor that Mao Anying by American bombs because he was making fried rice. (In recent years, netizens have exposed the media for using similar methods to insult martyr Mao Anying). What’s more, posting it on back-to-back days like that is vile. They rushed to delete it after netizens exposed it. But Jiangsu Unicom somehow thinks that deleting it means it’s settled. They didn’t apologize, let alone punish whoever was responsible. They’re playing deaf, dumb, and blind, and hoping just to muddle through it! @ChinaUnicom, are you really going to turn a blind eye to this? Is the government going to let this pass unquestioned?

苍云古齿剑aa：Here’s the ironic thing: the egg fried rice rumor didn’t come from some “public intellectual,” but from Yang Di, who joined the revolution in 1938 and worked his way up to “Head of the Regiment” (equivalent to “General”), which means he’s protected by the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act and can’t be insulted.

大柳塔新一代：They should write “egg fried rice” into the criminal code.

饥渴的面包兄：Isn’t this crazy? This keeps happening, over and over. Either make a law that bans people from posting anything about egg fried rice on that day, or if there isn’t a law, who cares if they post about it? It’s a bunch of maniacs turning little quibbles into matters of principle [Cultural Revolution-era connotation].

饥渴的面包兄：So… you’re not allowed to eat egg fried rice on this day? [Chinese]

It is now taboo to post about egg fried rice on the days surrounding Mao Anying’s birthday, October 24, and the anniversary of his death, November 25. Yet the ubiquity of fried rice means that unwitting souls stumble into controversy year after year. On November 25, 2019, the Chinese Academy of History made a Weibo post reprimanding those who posted about egg fried rice and roasted apples (an alternate version of the rumor). Just 30 minutes later, the official People’s Daily Weibo account posted about eggs. In 2020, cooking blogger Wang Gang came under attack for posting a recipe for egg fried rice on October 23. The rather bewildered cook issued an apology, writing: “I was only sharing delicious food—I didn’t mean anything else by it.”

Although a minor case, the Jiangsu Telecom affair demonstrates how nationalist mobs and pliant tech companies enforce the Party’s monopoly on speech, even without overt Party intervention. Brow-beating a telecommunications company over a recipe is seemingly a condoned method of constructing an internet that conforms to socialist core values. At Reuters, Brenda Got wrote about the Chinese government’s latest effort to create a more “civilized,” i.e. more socialist, online space:

Cyberspace should be used to promote education about the ruling Communist Party and its achievements, according to guidelines published by the State Council, the news agency reported.

A clear-cut stand should be taken against “historical nihilism”, defined as any attempt to use the past to question the party’s leading role or the “inevitability” of Chinese socialism, and good moral values should be promoted, such as by publicising cases involving model workers, it said.

Behavioural norms in cyberspace should also be strengthened by cultivating ethics and rules that conform to socialist core values, it said, adding that efforts should be made to help young people use the internet “correctly” and “safely”. [Source]

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/netizen-voices-no-egg-fried-rice-allowed-in-october-or-november/

Translation: Spilling the Tea About Being “Invited to Tea” and Hearing the Police Read Aloud Your Tweets

Numerous Chinese activists, bloggers and ordinary netizens have experienced being “invited to tea” by the police—ostensibly for a casual discussion at the police station over a real or metaphorical cup of tea. At best, the invited guest leaves with a mild admonishment to behave better in the future; at worst, the “teatime” devolves into an interrogation, a confession, or even a full-blown police investigation. In Chinese, the term is often used in the passive form (被喝茶, bèi hē chá): “After the cops saw her controversial tweets, she was ‘tea-drunk.’” 

In the essay translated below, blogger @clickchicken describes the surreal experience of being invited for tea at the local police station, only to have the police read aloud her tweets, admonish her for following celebrities on Twitter, and give her a short, inadvertent tutorial on how to download a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall. Her essay was originally published in Matters under the title “My Absurd but True Chronicle of Being ‘Invited to Tea,’” and later republished by CDT Chinese.

CDT has featured extensive coverage and many personal accounts of the tea-drinking phenomenon. Li Xuewen’s “Tea-Drinking Diary” detailed his experience of being called in for tea with domestic security officers who sought to pressure him into leaving town for six months prior to Guangzhou’s hosting of the Fortune Global Forum. “Activity of the Week: Drink Tea” summarized the tea-summoning of author Murong Xuecun (for attending a gathering with friends to mark the 25th anniversary of June 4th) and online activist Liu Ermu (for his public criticism of heavy-handed government tactics against anti-smog protesters in Chengdu.) Earlier coverage includes @StonyWang: Forced to Drink Jasmine Tea and Drinking Tea and Discussing the Jasmine Revolution: A Twitter Report; student blogger Caomin’s description of being invited for tea by domestic security and grilled about his blog comments on the Shanghai World Expo; over 200 “troublemakers” bonding over being called in to tea in the run-up to a National People’s Congress session; and blogger Persian Xiaozhao’s long-form chronicle of her experiences drinking tea with police.

CDT has also chronicled long-running government efforts to impede access to Twitter, which has been blocked in China since 2009. Tactics range from intimidating activists into going silent on Twitter or deleting their accounts; detaining users of Twitter or VPNs; causing high-profile Chinese Twitter accounts to disappear from the platform for long stretches; shaming people who use VPNs to scale the Great Firewall and access Twitter; and, as you will read in the essay below, inviting people “for tea” to castigate them and read aloud their offending tweets:

For the young (and not so young) who live behind China’s Great Firewall and pay attention to politics, we all wonder to some degree or another about being “asked to tea.” We all have our own guesses, fears and questions about what this must be like. Because of the omnipresent nature of the authoritarian system in which we live, the term “national security” is sensitive and mysterious, much like the phrase “the will of the Chinese people.” With regard to being “asked to tea,” stories of questionable accuracy abound, but the practice itself cannot be discussed openly.   

Fortunately, before the pandemic began, I (who am by no means an activist) was afforded the chance to enjoy this special treatment. I was invited to the police station for a long heart-to-heart with the relevant authorities. This “delightful” experience of being “asked to tea” was completely different from what I had imagined. After thinking about it for a while and considering the risks involved, I’ve decided to write this story down. After all, it’s pretty funny and can perhaps serve as a record of our times.    

It was just a normal workday for me. I was in the office feeling a bit sleepy when my roommate suddenly messaged me on WeChat asking whether anyone from the neighborhood committee had come looking for me. I responded that they had not, and my roommate informed me that they had just called her to ask for some information about me and confirm that I actually lived at that address. I had recently moved there, so I assumed it was just the neighborhood committee conducting a routine update of their resident lists. I didn’t worry about it, and kept on with my work. Soon afterward, I got a call from a mobile phone number I didn’t recognize. When I answered, a male caller told me that he was from such-and-such police substation, and that I was to come to the station by 3:00 that afternoon.

At this point, I was jolted back to my senses and realized what was going on. As a good, law-abiding citizen, there was only one thing about me they could be concerned about, unless of course China had suddenly decided to crack down on gay people and was busy rounding up all the LGBTQ types. But what aspect of that “one thing” were they so concerned about? I quickly regained my composure, and calmly asked what it was all about.     

The caller, who sounded quite young, told me that I’d find out what it was about when I came in. Deploying every ounce of feminine charm that I possess, I kept my voice sweet and gentle: “I’m absolutely willing to cooperate with your work and don’t want to be difficult, but I’d like to know the reason you’re calling me in. That way, I can best prepare to actively cooperate. I also feel like I have a right to know.” The man on the other end hesitated for a moment and said, seemingly quite candidly, “I don’t know the specific reason either. It’s not our police substation that’s looking for you, it’s some other department. I’m just responsible for letting you know. If you don’t come, then we’ll have to do a home visit. But what are your neighbors going to think if the police show up at your door?”

Given my instinctive avoidance of the “black hole” of a police station, and my inability to predict what would happen to me if I went there, I was actually more open to having a home visit. If I was in my own home, with so many  neighbors and passers-by, I reasoned, it was unlikely that anything truly awful could happen to me. So I said to the officer, “I’ll be at home at 7:00 p.m. You’re welcome to come over then.”

Not long after I hung up, my phone rang again. The call came from a mobile phone number, like before, but the caller was a different person, with a much harsher tone of voice. I guess it was too cold for them to venture out in the middle of winter to visit my snug little abode, so they insisted that I report to the police substation before 3:00. In response to my persistent questions, the officer adopted the macho tone typical of cops in these parts. “If the police are looking for you, then there’s definitely a reason,” he said. “Why don’t you think carefully about what you’ve done? Do you think the police would come looking for you if you hadn’t done anything at all?” I repeated that I really couldn’t think of anything. I don’t steal; I pay my taxes on time; and I diligently sort my recyclables every day. The man on the other line gradually lost his patience, and yelled, “3:00 p.m. at (such-and-such) police substation—be there!” before slamming down the phone.

I stared blankly at the phone in my hand, unsure how to react. I felt depressed and anxious, but mostly just confused. Using the Telegram app, I told a few trusted friends what I’d just experienced. They, too, responded with questions: “Why?” and “What have you been doing recently?” Suppressing my annoyance, I answered that I had no idea. Maybe I had done something, or maybe I hadn’t, or maybe there was no logic to it at all. In the end, it was up to the police to explain it all, not me.

I asked my boss for leave, on short notice, and proceeded obediently to the police station. There was no use in resisting; it would only make them suspect that I resented their authority. Compliance was the only option. On the way to the police station, I conducted an emergency “political background check” on my cell phone, purging it of YouTube, Twitter, Telegram, Initium Media, and other “reactionary” apps. I erased all my conversations on WeChat, and deleted a document describing how to access VPNs. At 3:00 p.m. on a workday, the streets were fairly empty. I don’t know why, but as I approached the police station, I felt pretty empty, too.

Stepping through the doors of a police station for the first time in my life, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. A tall, thin, dour man sitting on a bench in the waiting room gave me a dull stare. Avoiding his gaze, I  found a uniformed officer and said, “Uh, this police officer called and told me to come here. Here’s his number.” The officer looked at me curiously. He asked me to wait, then turned and went into an inner room partitioned with iron bars. After a while, he emerged and led me to an empty room, where he told me to sit down and wait, then closed the door and left.

Glancing around the room, I noticed a security camera, but I couldn’t tell if it was recording or not. The words “mediation room” were written on the door, and on the walls of the room, there were several posters outlining the principles of mediation. There was also a window from which I could see into the courtyard behind the police station, where sunlight flickered through the leaves of some foliage. To be honest, the  place had a pretty decent atmosphere. 

I waited alone in that small room for quite a long time. Just as I was beginning to wonder whether they had been deluged by an influx of reactionaries and forgotten all about me, three men entered the room. None of them wore any type of police uniform. The one in the center looked to be the oldest, perhaps in his fifties or sixties. His skin was deeply tanned, and even the wrinkles on his face seemed redolent of that particular middle-aged-man cigarette-smoke odor. The other two appeared to be in their thirties. One of them held a thick sheaf of papers. I took one quick glance and immediately knew why I had been called in: the top sheet was a printed screenshot of my Twitter homepage. 

The three men sat across from me and got straight to the point, asking me if I knew the reason I had been called in. I answered that I did not. They then asked me if I had ever “scaled the wall” or created a Twitter account. I answered honestly that I had. They began grilling me about specifics: what I had used to circumvent the Great Firewall, why I had created a Twitter account, and what had I said on Twitter? At that moment, I was seized by an overpowering urge to exercise my so-called dramatic skills. Putting on a wide-eyed, pitiful expression, I claimed that my college boyfriend had helped me install software to circumvent the Great Firewall, but I personally didn’t know how to use it or what it was. (This was clearly false: as a practicing lesbian for over ten years, I haven’t been with any men.) As for Twitter, I said I created my account when I was an exchange student in the U.S. and saw others playing around with it, but I didn’t like it much and hadn’t used it in a long time. (Also false: one look at my Twitter and you’d see that I’d retweeted something just the day before.) I claimed that I never posted any real content, mostly just  followed celebrities, and couldn’t really remember what I’d written. (When in fact, I’ve written many impassioned screeds against the government.)    

The officers still seemed quite suspicious. They asked me to turn on my phone and log into my Twitter account. I pulled out my phone, which of course I had already “cleaned up,” and continued in my most obsequious tone, “Look, Twitter’s already been deleted. I haven’t used it in a long time.” The youngest-looking officer suggested, “Why don’t  you download it again.” Doing my best to look stupid, I fiddled around with my phone for a bit before asking him for help. “I don’t know how to get past the Great Firewall,” I told him, “and I don’t even have the software to do it. My boyfriend used to help me with that stuff.” He was quick to answer, “There are loads of VPNs on the internet. Just search on Baidu: there’s a lot of free software, and they even have tutorials. It’s really easy.”  By that point in the conversation, things were feeling increasingly surreal, but my fear had abated. I had come here expecting to confess my “crimes,” and now the cops were giving me a tutorial on how to evade internet restrictions? 

“Miss, stop fooling around here,” said the older officer in the middle. “Isn’t your account named such and such? We have all your posts right here.” He pulled the stack of papers toward him and began leafing through the pages with a look of disgust. “You’re awfully young to be writing this sort of stuff,” he chided me. I then endured the greatest torture to which any modern person can be subjected: one by one, he read all of my tweets aloud. 

“’Why is it that other university students get to worry about falling in love when I have to worry about the Communist Party?’” the old officer read. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question; he seemed genuinely puzzled. Although outwardly I remained calm, my toes had started to  curl like I was readying them to tunnel through the floor of my prison, à la The Shawshank Redemption. “Um, I have depression and I worry about a lot of stuff. Maybe when I wrote this, I was worried about something. It was a long time ago and I don’t really remember what I was thinking.” As I clumsily attempted to dodge the question, I had already started praying for some divine intervention to release me from this. Having your tweets or Weibo posts read out loud to you with such deadpan, painstaking clarity is unbearable. It made me want to shout, “I’m guilty, I’m guilty! I’ll confess to anything, just stop reading, please stop reading now.” 

But the gods obviously didn’t heed my prayer. “Here’s another one,” he continued, “It says ‘China—’ Oh, I can’t say that one out loud.” That tweet, I remember clearly, was “China, go fuck yourself.”

When he finally stopped torturing me with tweets, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then he turned serious. “Do you know a lot about Hong Kong?” he asked. I answered that I didn’t know much. “So why have you posted so much about the riots in Hong Kong?” “I used to really like this singer from Hong Kong named Anthony Wong,” I carried on bullshitting, making it up as I went along. “He’s super good-looking and I loved his songs. Sometimes he’d tweet some things, and I’d retweet the content without really reading it. Because I was a fan, I wanted to help his numbers by giving him retweets, but I never paid close attention to what was in the tweets—also, I’m not that great at reading traditional Chinese characters. Later, when I heard he was gay, I stopped liking him and quit retweeting his stuff.” The officer shuffled through the documents he was holding, as if he was confirming that I had in fact retweeted Anthony Wong’s tweets, and seemed to half-believe my lame explanation. And although I am deeply ashamed of selling out Anthony Wong, I felt like I had to in that situation, to save my own skin.

“Miss, I can see that you have a pretty good attitude about this,” he counseled me earnestly. “It’s usually not that big of a deal for people to scale the wall and read some of that content, and we wouldn’t normally bring you in here for that. But you’ve got to stop reading these harmful messages. You’re an educated girl and you can’t go around recklessly posting stuff just because it came from some celebrity. Don’t be so easily fooled by people, or you’ll get yourself into trouble.” “Uh-huh, Uh-huh,” I nodded, “yes, I understand.”  

By then, it was already past the time that government employees get off work for the day, and all three cops appeared anxious to wrap things up. The young officer handed me two copies of a document labeled “Letter of Affidavit.” Following their instructions, I obediently wrote down my name, mobile phone number, ID card number, and other personal information. I also wrote, “I registered and used Twitter to follow celebrities. I fell under their unwholesome influence and posted incorrect opinions.” (The young officer stressed that I had to write “incorrect opinions” because the content I’d posted was “factually incorrect.”) I pledged to delete my Twitter account and all tweets, and to never transgress again. I was then given two copies of a “Letter of Reprimand” which explained that posting “incorrect opinions” is a punishable offense. At the bottom of the letter was the question, “Do you understand?” I didn’t even have to write “Yes, I understand,” because those words were already printed on the letter. All I had to do was sign my name, after which I was allowed to leave the police station.   

When it was all over, I went out for dinner with some friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. Every day since then has been completely uneventful.

I often think of those three police officers. They were frighteningly ordinary, just a few guys working hard to meet their KPIs. They were no different from other wage-earners compelled by circumstance to do what they do. My guess is that the older officer didn’t even understand what all my random tweets meant, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like there was something dangerous about them. I’d also guess that the two younger officers didn’t fully buy into my ridiculous explanations. The fact that they didn’t call me out on it wasn’t some benevolent gesture; it just wasn’t necessary. All they were trying to do was make a living. After this ordeal, the terrifying image I’d had in my mind of “being asked to tea” vanished. Compared to what I had imagined, they were more disorganized, simple, and crude. They were also more “real” than I had imagined. Once I discovered that those who work behind the tall walls are real human beings and not cold automatons, I instantly felt much more courageous, because of my belief in human fallibility.          

I’ve told this story to a few of my friends, and every time I do, they laugh out loud. It’s too ridiculous, they say. But when I recently told it to a new friend of mine, he asked, “But at the time, weren’t you scared?” That made me stop and think, and my serious answer was, “Of course.” Of course I was scared when that cop rudely hung up on me, and when I was waiting all alone in the mediation room, and when I signed my name to the Letter of Affidavit. I was scared because I had no way of resisting. I know that I’ve probably been put on some sort of blacklist, so now I’m much more circumspect about what I do online. I don’t use Twitter anymore, and it’s gotten to the point that I care less and less about current events.

But now that I’ve written this article, that fear doesn’t seem quite so unconquerable, because when you think about it, the whole experience was actually pretty funny. I hope that everyone who reads this will get a laugh out of it.

Note: To protect myself, I have modified or obscured the time, location, content of my tweets, and the exact conversation I had with the police officers. I don’t want to be dragged in there a second time, so please keep me safe, OK? [Chinese] 

Translation by Anonymous.

Additional translation content and editing by Anne Henochowicz.

 

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/translation-spilling-the-tea-about-being-invited-to-tea-and-hearing-the-police-read-aloud-your-tweets/

Photo: 瑞丽莫里瀑布 [Moli Waterfall, Ruili, Yunnan Province], by llee_wu

瑞丽莫里瀑布 [Moli Waterfall, Ruili, Yunnan Province], by llee_wu (CC BY-ND 2.0)

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/photo-%e7%91%9e%e4%b8%bd%e8%8e%ab%e9%87%8c%e7%80%91%e5%b8%83-moli-waterfall-ruili-yunnan-province-by-llee_wu/

Hong Kong NSL Censorship Roundup: Speech Crimes, Retroactive Film Censorship, Muted Marathoners, and More

On Monday, Adam Ma Chun-man became the second person convicted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law (NSL), and the first person convicted under the law for nonviolent acts of speech. Charged with inciting secession, he faces up to seven years in prison. His conviction sets a dangerous precedent for the over one hundred individuals facing charges under the NSL—85 percent of whom were charged with speech-related crimes—and for others who risk prosecution for speech that was previously legal. In a timely example of how strict the authorities have become, the Hong Kong marathon, held one day before Ma’s conviction, barred runners from wearing “political” slogans as innocuous and ubiquitous as “Hong Kong, add oil!” 

Nicknamed “Captain America 2.0,” in reference to a protester who dressed as the superhero during the 2014 Occupy movement, Ma is known for having chanted slogans, held up signs, and given media interviews at different demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, all while sporting the famous superhero’s shield. He has been held in custody for ten months since his arrest last November.

On conclusion of 2nd #NSL trial in HK, 32-yo Ma Chun Man nicknamed Second Captain America found guilty of inciting others to commit secession by District Court. He now faces prison term up to 7 yr.

For mere use of “Hong Kong Independence” slogan in public.

PURE SPEECH CRIME. pic.twitter.com/Joa2IW6Oen

— Timothy Lee 李軒朗 (@TimothyLee_HK) October 25, 2021

W/tear gas surgical mask, pepper spray specs MT @AgnesBun
Captain America spotted: #mongkok #HongKong #OccupyCentral pic.twitter.com/gkLRjEiutj

— Phelim Kine “老 康“ (@PhelimKine) October 17, 2014

District Court Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi, who was handpicked by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, presented Ma’s conviction in a 33-page judgment after four days of judicial proceedings. Ma will be sentenced on November 11. The sentence for inciting secession normally carries up to ten years in prison, but it is capped at seven years at the District Court level. Brian Wong from the South China Morning Post described how the judge rejected the defense’s argument that Ma never intended for others to act upon his words:

Ma, a 31-year-old former food delivery driver, stood accused of promoting separatism on 20 occasions between August 15 and November 22 last year by using expressions such as “Hong Kong independence, the only way out”, “Hongkongers build their country” and the “Liberate Hong Kong” slogan – a signature chant of the 2019 anti-government protests.

[…] Ma might have enjoyed being surrounded and interviewed by “a group of reporter lookalikes” and might have lacked detailed planning in achieving independence, but he could have gradually changed people’s minds through his “human recorder-style” speeches and made them believe it was possible, [Judge] Chan said.

The judge also cited the High Court’s verdict in Leon Tong’s [National Security Law] case in finding it irrelevant to consider the impact and actual consequences of Ma’s actions. [Source]

Leon Tong Ying-kit was the first person to be convicted under the NSL, in July. He crashed into a group of police officers on his motorbike while carrying a flag emblazoned with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.” Convicted for both terrorism and secession, Tong’s use of the slogan alone earned him six and a half years out of a total nine-year sentence. This second NSL case against Ma, who unlike Tong did not engage in any violent acts, confirms that citizens can be convicted for secession under the NSL merely as a result of nonviolent speech. A recent analysis of Tong’s case by Thomas E. Kellogg and Eric Yan-ho Lai at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law shows the excessive free speech restrictions linking Tong and Ma’s respective convictions:

To be sure, the meaning of the slogan in question is not totally irrelevant: no one should be criminally prosecuted for inciting secession over speech that has nothing to do with a territory’s political status, for example. That said, the court’s unduly heavy focus on the exact meaning of the slogan is a bit of a red herring: even if Tong made a more direct and overt statement in favor of political independence for Hong Kong, under the Siracusa and the Johannesburg Principles tests, he would not be guilty of a national security offense unless his speech was both intended to incite imminent violence, and also concretely likely to do so.

[…] The court’s verdict has clear implications that could resonate well beyond Tong’s own case. Its finding that the meaning of the slogan is inherently secessionist, and to infer intent to incite others from the mere act of — admittedly provocative in Tong’s case — public display suggests that any public display of the now-forbidden slogan could be a violation of NSL Article 21. If adopted by other courts, this reasoning would have significant implications for other pending NSL trials: the police have arrested other individuals merely for displaying or chanting the forbidden slogan, as part of an apparent effort to effectively prohibit its use in Hong Kong in any public venue, at any time. [Source]

Prosecutors attempting to provide evidence in Ma’s case submitted t-shirts, seized from a raid on Ma’s home, printed with the slogans “I’d rather die speaking than live in silence” in Chinese and “Give me liberty or give me death” in English. Ma pleaded not guilty, and he chose not to testify or summon any witnesses. His senior defense counsel Edwin Choy instead argued that Ma was simply “immature” for chanting the slogans, and did so only to prove that “exercising freedom of expression is not against the law.” Austin Ramzy at the New York Times described how Ma’s conviction demonstrates that the government is intent on stifling freedom of expression via the NSL:

The activist, Ma Chun-man, had argued that he had not been calling for Hong Kong’s independence from China, but instead had wanted to show that free speech still existed under the law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020. He will be sentenced on Nov. 11.

Critics say Mr. Ma’s conviction shows that the national security law is being used to silence political dissent.

“The government is trying to use the N.S.L. to stamp out certain forms of speech,” said Thomas E. Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University. “This is a core function of the government’s use of the N.S.L. over the past 15 months. As the case against Ma shows, prosecutors continue to bring serious charges against people who say things that the government doesn’t like.” [Source]

Thank you @laiyanhoeric for joining me on @taiwanplusmedia again today to discuss yesterday's National Security Law verdict.

As Lai says, this is such a disturbing case because the conviction was based purely on speech crime and the court threw out arguments about human rights. pic.twitter.com/oe1FoUPpdX

— Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 (@rhokilpatrick) October 26, 2021

Excellent piece by @nytimesworld @austinramzy on the HK NSL, with a focus on the recent Ma Chun-man conviction. (A few comments from me on the use of the law to target political speech.) More guilty verdicts to come? https://t.co/j4myT1WV7g

— Tom Kellogg (@tom_kellogg) October 26, 2021

Restrictions on freedom of speech have been expanding under the NSL. On Sunday, the Standard Chartered Hong Kong marathon was marred by censorship. Helen Davidson at the Guardian described how right before the race began, numerous runners were prohibited from participating due to displaying “political” symbols or slogans:

Hong Kong marathon runners were ordered to cover up “political” slogans and tattoos before being allowed to compete at the first major sporting event on the island in almost two years.

According to local media reports, runners reported being told to cover up or remove slogans, including idioms like “add oil” – a phrase which was widely heard during the 2019 protests but is also a ubiquitous term of encouragement.

Hong Kong’s Citizen News reported one runner was escorted to a changing booth by police during a security check, and told to change her shorts because of a small printed slogan on the side which was deemed “political”. Another man was reportedly told to cover his tattoos in tape. [Source]

Hong Kong police tell marathon runners to cover up ‘political’ clothing and tattoos

The city has become a politically hypersensitive environment since introduction of national security law. Restricting freedom of speech & expression is now the norm in HK.https://t.co/Ld1nPhHJ8m

— Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 (@Stand_with_HK) October 26, 2021

“Hong Kong Add Oil” is deemed a “political slogan” by police, where a runner is asked to replace her shorts with that logo. https://t.co/9WWNGCVLQ4

— Alvin Lum (@alvinllum) October 24, 2021

Imagine if wearing a pair of #BostonStrong shorts became a reason to be kicked out of the BOSTON marathon!

Anyone who isn’t thoroughly disturbed by the news coming out of #HongKong #Tibet & #EastTurkestan is either wildly uninformed or simply lacks compassion. https://t.co/GamCaNrHal

— པད་མ་སྒྲོལ་མ། (@pema0_o) October 24, 2021

Marathon runners with "Hong Kong, Add Oil" tattoos are made to cover up their tattoos before continuing with the race. This year's run has transformed into an obstacle course, with a large police presence at the start and along the course. What a waste of taxpayer dollars. https://t.co/nxJvwQRrGK pic.twitter.com/sK69L8vHib

— K Tse (@ktse852) October 24, 2021

Worth stressing how generic the slogan 香港加油 is. It's basically just "Go Hong Kong!" and has been used by everyone. Here it is attributed to then-CE Donald Tsang during the Beijing Olympics and then vice premier Xi Jinping on an inspection tour ahead of those games https://t.co/O5o9W0wNM4 pic.twitter.com/UjXLlgRoET

— Austin Ramzy (@austinramzy) October 24, 2021

The chair of the marathon organizing committee, William Ko, stated, “This is a sports event and we do not wish to see any political element.” But the controversy was further inflamed when the organizers decided to cut short their post-race press conference after repeatedly deflecting reporters’ questions about censorship. Andrew McNicol and Nick Atkin at the South China Morning Post described the scene at the press conference:

Media members continued to ask questions asking what was political about the words “Hong Kong”, and whether the decision to ban them was made by the Hong Kong Association of Athletics Affiliates (HKAAA), the marathon organisers or the government.

But Ko began his response to all of the questions by repeatedly saying: “I have already said this very clearly”, before repeating his opening statement.

[…] Reporters asked again why “Hong Kong add oil” or similar slogans were deemed uncomfortable or objectionable, and if there would be clothing checks at future marathons.

[…] A public relations official became involved, saying “this question has been answered several times by Mr Ko … if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask them”.

When media members persisted to ask about slogans, the official abruptly ended the press conference. [Source]

In the wake of the press conference, Tom Grundy at the Hong Kong Free Press reported on Standard Chartered’s refusal to support free speech:

When asked if Standard Chartered supported free speech in Hong Kong, a spokesperson for the British bank said they “have no comment on this.”

The bank equally would not comment on whether it would support runners targeted by police, or whether it would sponsor the event next year.

[…] In a statement last June, Standard Chartered said it believed “the national security law can help maintain the long term economic and social stability of Hong Kong.” [Source]

Wobbling? 'When asked if Standard Chartered supported free speech in Hong Kong, a spokesperson for the British bank said they “have no comment on this.”' And the press conference was cut short when journalists asked about the slogans. https://t.co/k7wwdCM2xp

— Eric Wishart (@EricWishart) October 26, 2021

Answer unspeakable

UK bank Standard Chartered declines to say if it supports free speech in Hong Kong after Standard Chartered marathon runners were targeted by police and made to cover tattoos or change clothes bearing slogans such as "come on Hong Kong”https://t.co/9JxuUvlFrV

— Charles Mok 莫乃光 (@charlesmok) October 26, 2021

Yet another restriction on free speech emerged on Wednesday, when the Hong Kong legislature passed a new film censorship law, ostensibly to protect national security. Jessie Pang from Reuters explained the contents of the law, which includes hefty fines and even prison sentences for organizers of unauthorized film screenings:

The Hong Kong government said the film censorship law was aimed at content deemed to “endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security.”

The law empowers Hong Kong’s chief secretary, the second-most powerful figure in the city’s administration, to revoke a film’s licence if it is “found to be contrary to national security interests.”

Punishment for violating the law included up to three years imprisonment and fines of up to HK$1 million ($128,400). [Source]

The law denotes violations using a broad phrase, “contrary to national security interests.” Similarly vague or overly broad phrases have been used in an increasing number of regulations related to the NSL. While the law does not address films disseminated online, some lawmakers hope that the measures will soon be extended to online platforms. Authorities are also able to use the law retroactively to censor films that were previously granted approval. Kelly Ho from the Hong Kong Free Press noted the additional powers given to film censorship authorities under the new law:

An inspector authorised by the censorship agency may also enter and search premises without a warrant when they are trying to halt an unauthorised film screening or publication, if it is “not reasonably practicable” to obtain a warrant.

[…] Local film censors may ask for up to 28 days to review films that may involve national security considerations. Filmmakers may not challenge the censorship body’s decision, as the new legislation will bar the Board of Review from reconsidering decisions made on national security grounds. [Source]

Filmmaker Kiwi Chow, whose documentary @RoOT_film chronicles the 2019 protests and was featured at this year’s @Festival_Cannes, says the bill hurts the local movie industry by reducing “the freedom to create.”
“It will worsen self-censorship and fuel fear among filmmakers.”

— Jessie Pang (@JessiePang0125) October 27, 2021

Baking such censorship into law were “dictatorial manoeuvrings designed to undermine a vibrant Hong Kong film culture,” said Joseph Lee, director of the Global Asia Institute at Pace University in New York, who has published two papers on Hong Kong cinema.

— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) October 27, 2021

“It is hard to imagine how film directors, executive producers and actors could stay politically neutral because China’s definition of politics focuses narrowly on any opinion and action thought to be a security threat,” he said.

— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) October 27, 2021

The law is a culmination of months of intensifying film censorship in Hong Kong. Private gatherings that aired both political and non-political films have been raided by police. Film directors have fled abroad to escape the NSL. The Arts Development Council pulled a 700,000 Hong-Kong-dollar grant to an NGO run by the independent filmmakers who released “Inside the Red Brick Wall,” a documentary on the 2019 siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. For the first time since 1969, the Oscars were not broadcast in Hong Kong. In her Tuesday press briefing, as reported by Bloomberg, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam appeared satisfied with the city’s evolution, stating that the Legislative Council had “delivered a brilliant performance” and “done really well in terms of legislative amendments and proposals” this year. 

#井底之蛙 Hong Kong pro-Beijing legislator said in defence of new law censoring films on national security grounds that "for @Snowden's exposing of US govt surveillance, if his story is made into movies in the US, I think they'll be banned too." #CitizenFour got an Oscar in fact. pic.twitter.com/t86javC6Zk

— Charles Mok 莫乃光 (@charlesmok) October 27, 2021

Tonyee Chow Hang-tung, the vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, is another victim of the criminalization of free speech in Hong Kong. Chow was charged on September 9 with “inciting subversion” under the NSL for her role in this year’s June 4 vigil. She pleaded not guilty and argued that the charge violates her freedom of speech. Her case has been adjourned to January 25, 2022, until which time she remains in custody. In a speech to the court, she reiterated her opposition to a charge that stifles her right to freedom of speech:

What I am doing is passing on a tradition, giving a voice to ordinary people, doing everything that an ordinary Hong Konger would like to do at a time like this, and not allowing the regime to monopolize the truth. If the court wants to use the term “incite,” it would be better to say that the people of Hong Kong “incited” me to do this, to act according to my conscience. Even if I am to be punished for it, I have no regrets. [Chinese]

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/hong-kong-nsl-censorship-roundup-speech-crimes-retroactive-film-censorship-muted-marathoners-and-more/

Photo: Night at Mong Kok, Hong Kong, by johnlsl

Night at Mong Kok, Hong Kong, by johnlsl (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/photo-night-at-mong-kok-hong-kong-by-johnlsl/

China’s Latest School Reform Law Puts the Onus on Parents to Reduce Student Burnout

China’s education reform drive is now targeting parents. A new law passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee will hold parents legally responsible for reducing their children’s homework and tutoring burdens. They must also prevent video game addiction, a concern the Chinese government attempted to address earlier this year by limiting minors’ video game time to three specified weekend hours. At Vice News, Viola Zhou reported on the attempt by the National People’s Congress to engineer better students by mandating better parenting:

“There are many reasons the youth display bad behaviors, and insufficient or inappropriate family education is a key cause,” Zang Tiewei, a spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliamentary body, was quoted as saying by the Beijing News.

[…] Parents will be required to manage minors’ study, rest, and entertainment time in a reasonable way, he said, adding that the new law would help ease parents’ anxiety in bringing up their kids and equip them with “scientific” family education methods. The proposed law would also prevent violent abuse of children as an incorrect way of family education, Zang said.

[…] The draft legislation says family education should promote traditional Chinese culture and the party’s revolutionary culture. Parents should tell minors to love the party, respect the elderly, and have a frugal lifestyle, in a way that “combines strictness and tenderness,” according to the draft. [Source]

In August, the central government issued new regulations severely curtailing the tutoring industry. The regulations have been stunningly effective at eliminating unlicensed training centers in cities such as Beijing, where 98% of unlicensed educational centers have been closed. (Some reports suggest that the decline in training centers has been accompanied by a rise in live-in tutors masquerading as nannies or other family helpers.) Licensed companies have been impacted as well: New Oriental, once China’s premier extracurricular education company, announced in October that it will close Koolearn, a tutoring service for students from kindergarten to ninth grade. The company also announced that it will likely lay off 40,000 tutors. The crackdown has contributed to a tighter labor market for China’s nine million 2021 college graduates graduates, an increase of one million students since 2017.

Efforts to lesson student burdens have not extended to ideological education. Xi Jinping thought is now standard reading across all Chinese grade levels. In Shanghai elementary schools, it has even usurped the place of English examinations. The Economist’s “Chaguan” opinion column delved into the purpose of Xi Jinping thought in schools:

At first glance these textbooks for small children, filled with Mr Xi’s quotes about caring for the environment, and with songs such as “I Love You, China”, (sample lyrics: “I love your boundless forest, I love your towering mountains”) may not seem to settle hard questions about the country’s ruling philosophy. Arguably, though, Chinese youngsters are getting something close to the true essence of Xi Jinping Thought. The overall aim of this reform, the textbook committee explains, is for the school and university curriculum to “comprehensively introduce” Mr Xi’s views on economics, politics, the rule of law, science and technology, culture, education, ethnic policies, religion, national defence, ecological civilisation, party-building and diplomacy, among other subjects. Put more concisely, Mr Xi is to be seen as the undisputed authority on everything. [Source]

The reforms are also targeted at the Party-diagnosed “masculinity crisis” in China. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education encouraged schools to hire male gym teachers to prevent the “feminization” of boys—the campaign has dovetailed with a similar push in the entertainment industry to ban “sissy boys” from popular media. Male students celebrate “Girls’ Day,” an unofficial holiday that has, in some places, devolved into an excuse for male students to post lusty couplets about their female classmates around campus. Despite the stultifying atmosphere, women score higher in language and math than men—and have more leadership experience to boot. Yet women’s academic excellence is not recognized in China’s higher education admissions system. At The New York Times, Joy Dong detailed the systematic sexism that plagues Chinese women seeking a spot at China’s premier universities:

But her chances were even lower. When the [prestigious police academy graduate program she applied to] released admissions results earlier this year, just five out of 140 students who had tested into the program — less than 4 percent — were female, even though more than 1,000 women had applied. And the lowest-scoring woman to get in did 40 points better than the lowest-scoring male applicant who was admitted, according to the school’s admission data.

[…] Women who applied to the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering in June scored 127 points higher than the lowest-scoring male counterparts on the gaokao, the national examination that is the most important criteria for admissions to Chinese universities, according to data from a provincial education department.

[…] An informal survey of China’s 116 top universities, published by a group of feminist activists in February, found that 86 academic majors at 18 universities had gender-based admissions requirements. [Source]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is an epidemic of burnout among China’s youth. At work they “touch fish” (a euphemism for slacking off) to escape the monotony of the 12-hour workdays once common, albeit now less so, at China’s largest corporations. To escape, many have chosen to take a step away from the rat race and simply “lie down.” China’s government has taken notice—and it is concerned. Leaked censorship directives reveal that in June, the government mandated that products referencing “lying down” and “involution” be removed from shopping websites. In a major speech recently published in the Party’s theoretical journal Qiushi, and translated here by China Neican’s Adam Ni, Xi Jinping said, “We must prevent social stratification, open up channels for upward mobility, create opportunities for more people to become rich, form a development environment with participation from everyone, and avoid [the phenomena] of ‘involution’ and ‘lying flat’.”

Despite government talk about upward mobility, many young people have begun to question whether hard work and meritocratic ideals are enough to get ahead in a system so plagued by inequality. At Foreign Policy, Helen Gao wrote about Chinese youths’ disillusionment with meritocracy:

Their faith in meritocracy manifested in the massive increase in higher education enrollment, which jumped from 4.13 million to 26.25 million between 1999 and 2015. Guided by the government’s ambitious development plans, young Chinese who took the route of higher education gave up the freedom and agency they might have had as migrant workers and devoted themselves to learning the skills that they believed would give them an edge in the new economy. This was still a minority of people: While the undergraduate enrollment rate for high school graduates is much higher nowadays, at over 50 percent, the majority of those who drop out do so long before graduating high school, or even sometimes middle school. But they were also a prominent and celebrated group.

[…] Young Chinese were not wrong to believe that education has the potential to open doors to a better life. What they did not foresee is that the sudden surge of college graduates led to a glut that deflated the overall value of a college degree, while the government’s preferential treatment of universities widened the difference in quality of the education they offer. As a result, those who do not reach the top of the education ladder are unable to reap the benefit of higher education.

According to an analysis of Chinese higher education based on Chinese scholarly literature published in January, more than 70 percent of China’s higher education enrollment consists of students who are the first in their families to attend university. Yet 90 percent of those students cluster in local universities whose revenues are a fraction of national universities championed by the state. Most of them ended up joining the ranks of low-income graduates who settle for a subsistence-level life in cities. [Source]

No lying flat and no slacking off 不躺平，不摸鱼 – metro banners in Shenzhen try to inspire high tech park commuters pic.twitter.com/rGpaTXztIs

— Rita Liao (@ritacyliao) October 8, 2021

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/chinas-latest-school-reform-law-puts-the-onus-on-parents-to-reduce-student-burnout/