Friday 28 January 2022

Australian PM Fumbles WeChat Account in Election Season

As the Australian public discovered earlier this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison no longer has access to his WeChat account. Morrison had opened his account in 2019 to court Chinese-Australian voters before the federal election, and the account has now been transferred to  the ownership of a Chinese tech company based in Fujian. Lawmakers from Morrison’s conservative Liberal Party have presented the story as one of malicious censorship by the CCP, while critics have attacked lax management of the account and questioned the use of a Chinese social media app in a democratic election strategy.

David Winning from The Wall Street Journal reported on the initial revelation this week: 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has lost access to his account on the Chinese-owned WeChat service, prompting a senior lawmaker to accuse Beijing of political interference ahead of an election due within months.

Mr. Morrison has been denied access to the account since July, which his supporters say deprives him of a key tool to communicate with a Chinese community in Australia of more than 1.2 million people. Earlier this month, the account was rebranded as Australia-China New Life after being taken over by a company from Fujian province in southern China.

The 76,000 followers of the account were told in a written post that “Scott Morrison, the official account you followed before, has transferred all business and functions to this official account.”

Mr. Morrison’s earlier posts to the account haven’t been deleted from WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. [Source]

Upon hearing the news, the government mobilized in defense of Morrison: James Paterson, Liberal Party senator and chairman of the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee, accused the CCP of “shutting down” Morrison’s account; finance minister Simon Birmingham encouraged citizens to reconsider their use of WeChat; treasurer Josh Frydenberg called on WeChat to restore access to the prime minister’s account; and Labor leader Anthony Albanese announced that he would meet with Morrison to discuss the national security implications. Some media outlets amplified the fiery talking points and declared that the account was hacked. Frances Mao from the BBC described how some media outlets and Liberal Party members lashed out at China:

On Monday, an Australian newspaper sparked a storm by reporting that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was thought to have had his official WeChat account “taken over” by a “pro-Beijing propaganda outfit”.

“China’s Web” read the front page headline in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

[…O]n the latest news, one of the government’s most strident anti-China critics quickly called for a WeChat boycott.

Senator James Paterson labelled the incident a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempt to “[interfere] in our democracy and silence our free speech”.

The sole Chinese-Australian MP, the government’s Gladys Liu, said she would stop her own WeChat use. She added “there are serious issues here” given an Australian election is due by May. [Source]

However, the backstory to Morrison’s lost account reveals the shaky foundation upon which he initially set it up. WeChat’s platform rules stipulate that only Chinese citizens can open “public” accounts under their own name (unlike personal/private WeChat accounts, for which the rules are not as stringent). Therefore, in order to set up his account from Australia in 2019, Morrison registered through a Chinese intermediary. As Xinhua’s Zichen Wang noted on his Pekingnology blog, according to screenshots that circulated online, Morrison’s account did not appear to be verified or linked to his real identity, unlike most other official accounts. Without direct ownership of the account, Morrison eventually had problems accessing it—as early as July 2021, according to Mr. Paterson. Yan Zhuang and John Liu from The New York Times explained the ownership change that took place:

The name of the account suddenly changed in October 2021 from ScottMorrison2019 to Aus-Chinese New Living, according to publicly viewable information. In November, Tencent verified Fuzhou 985 Information Technology, a computer software and information technology company based in Fujian Province, as the new commercial owner of the account, according to the viewable information. The account now says it provides information to Chinese abroad about living in Australia.

Tencent confirmed the transfer. “The account in question was originally registered by a P.R.C. individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company,” it said in its statement, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China.

Huang Aipeng, a legal representative for Fuzhou 985, said in a phone interview that the company was now, indeed, the owner of the WeChat account. But he insisted he had no idea its previous owner had been the leader of Australia. [Source]

On January 5, WeChat issued a notice to the account’s followers that “all business and functions” of the account had been transferred to Fuzhou 985 from the original owner, a man surnamed “Ji.” Despite claims this week that the new account was repurposed as a Chinese propaganda account, it has not posted anything since that notification, and old posts from the account dating back to 2019 were still viewable. Tencent stated that “there is no evidence of any third-party intrusion,” and concluded that the current dispute is merely over ownership of the account. 

Still unresolved is the question of why Mr. Ji, the original owner of Morrison’s account, decided to sell it when he did. Fergus Ryan, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) who has closely followed Morrison’s activity on Chinese social media, provided several possible explanations in ASPI’s online publication The Strategist:

A couple of possible scenarios as to Ji’s motivation come to mind. First, it’s possible that he decided that the risk he was being exposed to was outweighed by the prospect of cashing out and selling the account and the access to the mostly Chinese-Australian followers it had accumulated.

This individual had been put in an invidious position. By having his name connected to Morrison and his WeChat posts, Ji was running the risk of being detained by Chinese authorities. For what it’s worth—and that’s not much considering the reputation of the rag—one propagandist at the Global Times, citing an unnamed source, claimed there was a falling out between Ji and the agency.

Second, it’s possible that Ji and the unnamed agency he works for were leaned on by one or more organs of the Chinese party-state to offload the account in order to embarrass the prime minister and hamper his efforts at re-election.

On balance, it’s this second scenario—that a decision had been made by the Chinese Communist Party to deplatform Morrison—that seems much more likely. How else can we explain WeChat parent company Tencent’s intransigence when the PM’s office reached out to it to try to regain control of the account? [Source]

The upcoming federal election plays an outsized role in Australian lawmakers’ hawkish narrative about Morrison’s inaccessible account. His fellow Liberal Party members Paterson and Liu both referenced the “election year” timing as a particular reason why “foreign interference” was unacceptable. However, ASPI’s Ryan had publicly warned the government back in 2019 about the risk of being kicked off Chinese social media for being registered under someone else’s name. Morrison had ample time to decry foreign interference, Ryan noted, calling into question the timing of the Liberal Party’s outburst. 

This is not the first time that Morrison has tried to leverage Chinese social media for electoral success. In December, just before the upcoming Australian elections, Morrison joined TikTok, despite having previously considered banning the app in Australia, and having criticized it in the past for “connecting right back to China.” Some observers also criticized his decision to disable comments, duets, and mentions on his TikTok account, and to only permit likes and follows. 

While Morrison and his party may have made media hay out of claiming that his account was censored, the incident has revived concerns about the potential threats that Chinese social media apps could pose to democratic elections. A 2021 survey found that over 50 percent of Chinese Australians use WeChat as a news source, and Chinese Australians comprise up to 15 percent of voters in battleground districts of Sydney and Melbourne. WeChat is known to spread pro-CCP propaganda and misinformation, which carries the potential to sway voters’ opinions and influence electoral contests. In October, WeChat told an Australian parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference that it would appoint an Australian counsel to tackle the issue of misinformation, but that measure may not be enough to help WeChat avoid further government scrutiny. 

As for other Australian politicians, opposition leader Athony Albanese still has access to his official WeChat account, but as ASPI’s Ryan points out, the registered account owner is a Chinese national in that case too, meaning that Albanese is not the official owner of his own WeChat account. Asked about the CCP’s preferences for the upcoming Australian election, Australian National University research fellow Graeme Smith stated: “They really couldn’t care less who wins the election … They don’t care who wins as long as people don’t trust democracy.”



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/australian-prime-minister-fumbles-wechat-account-in-election-season/
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Photo: Warmup, by Jeff Knezovich



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/photo-warmup-by-jeff-knezovich/
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State Council Reports Henan Officials Covered Up Summer Flood Deaths

An investigation by China’s State Council has found that Henan officials covered up the death toll caused by severe flooding in July 2021. In August, local officials reported 302 confirmed deaths and 50 people still missing—the State Council’s tally puts the total number of dead and missing at 398, the majority of them in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital. While the disaster was unfolding, local departments gave false reports to the central government, the State Council report said. Official acknowledgement of a government coverup is a rare occurrence. At The Wall Street Journal, Liyan Qi reported on the State Council’s report, continued dissatisfaction with official transparency, and the arrest of officials deemed responsible for the deaths:

The State Council didn’t make clear how many deaths or cases of missing people were reported for the first time on Friday, but said that officials in Zhengzhou, who were supposed to make daily reports of casualties, had at different stages either concealed or delayed reporting 139 cases of deaths and missing people, the statement said.

[…] One Zhengzhou resident, who had voiced doubts around the death toll, said on the Twitter-like Weibo platform after Friday’s news that the government should release names of the people missing or dead on social media. “Without the names, the numbers are just hollow numbers,” said the resident, who identified himself as a young man, in his post.

[…] Eight officials, including those in charge of the construction of the subway line and the highway tunnel, have been detained by the police, while another 89 officials are facing Communist Party disciplinary action, the State Council said. [Source]

Zhengzhou’s Party Secretary Xu Liyi was demoted for his failures in flood prevention, six months after the disaster. A source told The South China Morning Post, “Xu’s demotion is just the beginning. More heads will roll after the final verdict is announced.”

Cover-ups of the scale and death tolls of accidents and natural disasters are an endemic problem in China. In 2017, Professor Jeremy Brown of Simon Fraser University told CDT: “You have incentives to cover up and not get caught. That’s the option that a rational official is going to take. That still hasn’t been solved, really.” In this case, some officials used disaster relief funds to compensate the families of victims. Although it went unstated in the report, the compensation was likely a form of hush money.

Foreign journalists who attempted to report on the 2021 flooding were harassed after the Communist Youth League Weibo account directed residents to obstruct their work, and an official censorship directive ordered domestic media to avoid an “exaggeratedly sorrowful tone” in their coverage of the disaster. Shortly after the flooding, the Henan provincial government commissioned a facial recognition surveillance system to track journalists entering the province. Local residents who attempted to document the tragedy or gather in remembrance were also subject to harassment from “Zhengzhou’s mysterious men in black.” An impromptu memorial at the gate of a flooded subway station where 14 people drowned was barricaded by police. Posts critical of the disaster response or skeptical of the publicly released death tolls were heavily censored on Chinese social media at the time.

The rainstorm that triggered the flooding was truly historic. A weather historian told The New York Times that it was the heaviest hour of rainfall ever measured in a major metropolitan area. Yet official negligence played a part as well. Officials in Zhengzhou’s emergency management bureau failed to respond appropriately to five red alerts warning of heavy rain. The Guardian quoted this section of the State Council report, focusing on various deficiencies: “Although the disaster was triggered by extreme weather, many problems and deficiencies were exposed. The weaknesses also exist to varying degrees in many parts of the country, [the investigation] noted, urging close attention and solid deeds to rectify them.”

Poor city planning was also a culprit. Zhengzhou has fewer than 1,500 miles of storm sewer pipelines, half the norm for cities of a comparable size. During the floods, a number of people expressed skepticism over Zhengzhou’s much-vaunted status as a “sponge city” expressly designed to absorb rainfall: “Those corrupt officials are just like sponges, soaking in Maotai. If they hadn’t drunk tens of billions, wouldn’t the ‘sponge city’ be built by now?” Although the “sponge city” plan failed to avert the disaster, The Economist explained the concept of “sponge cities” and argued that the urban planning initiative likely did save lives during the flooding:

About one in ten Chinese people lived in cities in 1950. Now six in ten do. About 70% of those cities are in floodplains. “We overbuilt, and we built it wrong,” says Yu Kongjian, a landscape architect at Peking University. Mr Yu was among the first to urge that urban areas become “sponge cities”, meaning they must be capable of absorbing rain without creating floods. He drew inspiration from old Chinese irrigation systems, such as “mulberry fish ponds” that act as natural reservoirs. He estimates that urbanisation has resulted in a third of farmers’ ponds and half of all wetlands disappearing.

[…] Experts agree that Zhengzhou has not disproved the effectiveness of the sponge-city programme. They point out that the government had required sponge projects to cover only 20% of the city’s urban area by 2020. So it may be difficult to evaluate Zhengzhou’s efforts at least until 2030. Kong Feng of the China Agricultural University in Beijing says that more subterranean spaces need to be used to collect floodwater. For example, he suggests, the lowest levels of underground car parks could be adapted to serve as emergency reservoirs. Such a backup “may not be needed for ten years. But use it just once and it will be life-saving for the city,” says Mr Kong. He has been involved in China’s first nationwide survey of risk from natural disasters, which was launched last year.

[…] Many critics overlook the fact that in Zhengzhou, too, water levels fell more swiftly than they would otherwise have done, says Mr Kong (it may have helped that Zhengzhou’s flood-prevention efforts had also included the building or refurbishing of over 5,000 kilometres of drains). City officials recently called on Mr Yu and his team to help them make Zhengzhou more absorbent. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/state-council-reports-henan-officials-covered-up-summer-flood-deaths/
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After “Being Mentally-Illed,” Teacher Li Tiantian Chooses Self-Exile

Li Tiantian, the pregnant Hunan elementary school teacher forcibly committed to a psychiatric ward after voicing support for a fired Shanghai professor, has been released from the hospital—and chosen self-exile. In December 2021, a surreptitious recording of Song Gengyi, a professor at Shanghai’s Aurora Vocational College, began circulating online. In the clip, Song questions the official death toll of the Nanjing Massacre, pointing out that the number of dead cited by Chinese authorities (over 300,000) is not a product of rigorous historical inquiry. Song was fired after online mobs denounced her “historical nihilism.” Li Tiantian defended Song repeatedly on WeChat, until her speech was reported to local authorities who forcibly committed Li to a mental hospital, inciting outrage across China when the case went public. Upon her release from the hospital, Li—a prolific poet and essayist—wrote a “Letter to My Hometown: I’m Leaving in Order to Live with Dignity” and published it on WeChat. The essay was soon censored. CDT has translated excerpts from Li’s letter, below: 

I was 21 years old when I graduated from college, full of hope for the future. I expected that I would live in western Hunan for the rest of my life, and had a romantic vision of teaching in a rural school while continuing my own writing. I even found a man who was willing to accompany me as I held fast to my ideals, willing to give up a more privileged life in a northern provincial capital to come teach with me at a rural school in western Hunan.

[…] But ultimately, we underestimated how unforgiving reality is to “idealists.” Like the little boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” we sadly found ourselves at the mercy of so-called “realists.” After the unexpected tempest that capsized our boat, my life was transformed into that of a castaway on a desert island, tormented by an unpredictable future. In my moment of need, even some of my closest relatives cut anchor and left me adrift, saying and doing unconscionable things for fear that my sinking ship might drag them down with it.

[…] Had it not been for all that came after, I believe my life would have been dedicated to Taozixi [Peach Creek] Elementary, dedicated to the dream of rural education in China. I would have been like a “fairy teacher,” using my magic to warm children’s souls. I would have reveled under my hometown stars, using poetry to immortalize the souls of the people living deep in the mountains of Western Hunan. But in the here and now, I somehow cannot find respite for my own soul. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I think only of escape! Forgive me for not having the fortitude to go on—I’m simply too battered and bruised.

[…] Never once, from the scandal that hit the news in 2019 [her criticism of local education officials] to this latest incident, has a single person in my hometown dared to speak up for me. When friends did send me WeChat messages, it was only to scold, “You don’t deserve to be a teacher here anymore!” Even some members of my own family have sold me out, or believe I’ve brought shame on the family, or can’t distance themselves from me fast enough. I understand their predicament: even if they disown me, cut me off completely, I’ll never bear them a grudge. [Chinese] 

“To be mentally-illed” is one of the many “involuntary passive” tools the Chinese state uses to silence critics, alongside “to be johnned,” “to be touristed,” and, in extreme cases, “to be suicided.” The Chinese writer Gao Jian, who has written a book on the subject, told The New York Times, “This tool of treating someone as mentally ill is still quite a useful one for local governments […] It’s a way of completely skating around the law.” Nor is Li’s self-imposed exile unique: those who have fallen afoul of the Party often find it difficult to remain in their communities or reintegrate into society after they’ve been made examples of. In early 2021, the formerly incarcerated labor activist Lu Yuyu wrote a similar letter (“Goodbye, Guangzhou!”) after local authorities forced him to leave the city, his second such expulsion in a period of six months. 

Li’s comments in support of Song Gengyi were especially fraught, given the Party’s renewed focus on history ahead of the 20th Party Congress in September. In November 2021, the sixth and final plenum of the 19th Party Congress concluded with a resolution on history, only the third such resolution passed since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Since the Sixth Plenum, the Party has promoted “historical confidence” and urged vigilance against “soft historical nihilism,” a label condemning opinions that are even slightly out of line with the Party’s approved version of history. The student who recorded Professor Song’s comments can be heard mentioning “500,000,” a slang term derived from the reward for turning in spies—the top prize for which is 500,000 yuan. “A walking 500k” is a term applied to anyone caught making comments that might be construed as anti-China or anti-Party, and thus eligible to be reported to the authorities (for a lucrative reward.) It is so ubiquitous that one Zhihu user parodied it by repurposing the “scripted homicide” games popular among Chinese youth to have the detectives tasked with finding who “the walking 500k” is, rather than the killer. At China Media Project, David Bandurski explained the background to the Song Gengyi controversy that would later engulf Li Tiantian: 

The storm began on December 15 as a short video circulated online – apparently shared by a student “informant” – of a lecture in which Song Gengyi (宋庚一) questioned the 300,000 official number given by the Chinese government for the number of victims in the Nanjing Massacre, a tragedy that unfolded on December 13, 1937, as the Imperial Japanese Army captured the capital city of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Song made the remarks during her December 14 “News Interview” (新闻采访) course at Shanghai’s Aurora College, held the day after nationwide commemoration of the massacre’s anniversary.

On the afternoon of Thursday, December 16, the official Weibo account of the People’s Daily, the CCP’s flagship newspaper, weighed in on Song’s remarks. The tone of the post, which called the 300,000 number “iron-clad fact” (铁证如山), was severe. It said that Song was “errant as a teacher” (枉为人师) for “questioning historical truth,” and that she was “errant as a compatriot” (枉为国人) for “forgetting hardships and denying the evil deeds of another country.”

[…] But Friday, however, voices in support of Song Gengyi were swelling too. Protests against the injustice of Song’s treatment grew in volume as a full version of the classroom video was circulated, giving her remarks fuller context. It clearly showed Song discussing the verification of historical facts as possible and important, characterizing the 300,000 figure as arising from a particular historical and political context – and making the point that more could probably be discovered, with proper research, about even the specific identities of the victims. Nothing seemed to show Song in any way minimizing the Nanjing Massacre or its historical importance. A number of media veterans in particular voiced their support for Song. Pursuing the facts, they said, was the first rule of journalism, and Song’s attitude showed a strong respect for academic rigor. [Source]

While Li’s committal and Song’s firing are, in part, stories related to nationalist paranoia about history, they are also stories of the burdens that Chinese educators bear in the Xi Jinping era. In 2019, Li Tiantian earned minor national acclaim and local notoriety for an essay criticizing the ways in which excessive bureaucracy and red tape bled resources from rural students and teachers. Her departure from Taozixi Elementary comes just as Premier Li Keqiang leads a new push to have recent college graduates teach in rural schools. Premier Li has said that “cultivating the ranks of teachers in rural areas” is a “weak link” in China’s current educational system. China’s recently cowed tech giants have also joined the effort to improve rural education. After new regulations forced the private tutoring giant New Oriental to close 1,500 offices and locations across the country, the company donated 80,000 sets of desks and chairs to rural schools. Since his battle with regulators in late 2020, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has stayed mostly out of the public eye—except for his highly publicized visits to rural schools. Li Tiantian might have been a model practitioner of these national priorities—her poetry is imbued with an obvious love for her young charges: 

They Will Grow Up in My Stead

In winter, you have to see at least one snowfall,
 hold one pair of beloved hands,
 stand beneath a frozen tree
 and share one blazing kiss.

But I’ve done nothing
 except raise my eyes to the sky.

What could be sadder than
 a faded sunset, a dried-up stream?
 What could be more worrisome than
 a seven-year-old forgotten by his own parents?
 Yet here I am in this village primary school
 playing a mother’s role. 

They will grow up in my stead,
 put on my shoes,
 and walk into a springtime field.

My Students

Zhang San’s folks are divorced
 Li Si’s folks are divorced
 Wang Er’s folks are divorced
 Mazi is a left-behind kid

In this homeroom, misery has company
 but their essays proclaim how ardently
 they love the Great Era in which we live [Chinese]

With translations by Cindy Carter. 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/after-being-mentally-illed-li-tiantian-chooses-self-exile/
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Thursday 27 January 2022

Citizens Resist Hong Kong Hamster Hunt

In their efforts to trace and contain a rapidly growing coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong, authorities have identified a prime suspect of transmission: hamsters. After one employee of a pet shop tested positive for COVID-19 in mid-December, the government swiftly closed in on the rodents, to the detriment and fury of many pet owners. Helen Davidson from the Guardian reported on the Hong Kong authorities’ decision to round up the hamsters:

Hong Kong has ordered thousands of hamsters be surrendered for “disposal” after traces of Covid-19 were found on 11 animals in a pet shop.

[…] Authorities announced on Tuesday that traces of the virus were detected on 11 hamsters out of 178 hamsters, rabbits and chinchillas tested at the Little Boss pet shop and associated warehouse in Causeway Bay while investigating the city’s first untraceable Delta variant diagnosis in more than three months, in a 23-year-old store employee.

Two employees were also confirmed to have the disease, including one who cleans out the animal cages and handles the hamsters.

In response, they ordered the immediate suspension of hamster sales and imports of all rodents. An estimated 2,000 hamsters, including any bought since 22 December, must be handed over, local media reported, and the owners must report for testing. [Source]

Officials forced all 35 licensed pet shops that sell hamsters in Hong Kong to temporarily close, and executed a mass culling. The subsequent order for pet owners to hand over their hamsters applied only to those who purchased them on or after December 22, when a local pet shop received a batch of hamsters from the Netherlands, an alleged source of the COVID-19 contamination. The order was not mandatory, but officials described it as a “strong recommendation” that could have consequences if unheeded, prompting over one hundred pet owners to relinquish their hamsters. Spooked by the news, some even handed over hamsters that had been purchased months ago. Among the 104 hamsters surrendered to the government, only one tested positive for the virus. 

Though some noted the tiny scale of Hong Kong’s hamstergeddon compared with episodes such as the controversial culling of 17 million mink in Denmark, the extermination of household pets strikes a deeper chord than the slaughter of animals that would, in any case, soon have been slaughtered for their fur. Many citizens viewed the policy as a cruel and unnecessary measure. Anguished parents described taking hamsters away from crying kids. “I need to process my own emotions before I know what to say to my kid,” one father said. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it was “shocked” and “concerned” by the government’s plan, “which did not take animal welfare and the human-animal bond into consideration.” Agence France-Presse described the impassioned reactions of many Hong Kong hamster owners:

One owner — who bought her pet on Jan. 1 — reacted in defiance.

“No one can take my hamster away unless they kill me,” she told the Standard newspaper yesterday.

She pushed back on the government’s mass cull, recalling a recent birthday party attended by officials that resulted in multiple COVID-19 infections and left Hong Kong’s leadership red-faced.

“Will they also kill all infected COVID-19 patients and their close contacts?” she said. “If all people who attended the birthday party are culled then I will hand my hamster to the government.”

A grim humor settled on Hong Kong-centric social media accounts, with people publishing illustrations of hamsters wearing surgical masks or facing off against the Grim Reaper. [Source]

Within a day of the government announcement, over 11,000 people signed a petition calling on authorities to stop the hamster cull. Animal rights groups urged people not to surrender their hamsters in compliance with the government order, arguing that hamsters are legally considered personal property and cannot be taken away unless voluntarily given up. Some highlighted hamsters’ elevated moral status as companion animals, in contrast to livestock such as chickens, to demonstrate the ethical offense of culling them in the name of epidemic prevention. Shibani Mahtani and Theodora Yu from the Washington Post described how defiance turned into active resistance:

Resistance groups have assembled on the Telegram messaging app to share updates, drawing on methods used in anti-government protests in 2019. Nearly 3,000 people have volunteered to house the affected hamsters. On social media, concerned residents have shared photos of abandoned hamsters in the hope of enlisting rescuers. Many garnered responses in seconds.

[…] For many pet owners, the response [to the cull] was a resounding “no.” Alice, 36, said she would never turn in Siu Ding, purchased from Little Boss for her 6-year-old daughter after the cutoff date. She spoke on the condition that only her first name be used, for fear that the authorities could trace the pet.

“Their sins are too deep,” she said, referring to the government as she held back tears. “I don’t want my hamster killed.”

[…] Hamster supporters are mobilizing in creative ways. One, who is skilled in Photoshop, has offered to amend hamster purchase receipts to indicate the pets were bought before Dec. 22.

[…] “I told my mother, ‘I won’t throw you out if anything happens to you, as you are my family. Same goes for my hamster; it is my family,’ ” [a woman with the last name Yuen] said, withholding her full name out of security concerns. [Source]

Xinmei Shen from the South China Morning Post described other creative ways citizens were organizing to support the hamster-loving community, notably through a NFT hamster project to “stand up” to the government’s culling policy: 

The NFT project, called Carries Hamsters – named after Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam – was launched on Thursday as hamster owners in the city started dropping off their pets at a government facility.

“We will not stand for the euthanising of our little hamsters,” read an Instagram post from the team announcing the project on Thursday. “To stand up, spread [the] word and positivity – 2,000 hamsters will be resurrected on the Solana blockchain with proceeds being directly donated to an animal charity combating the euthanising of animals,” the post said. The group’s profile specifies that only part of the proceeds will be donated to local charities. [Source]

Some citizens went so far as to spend thousands of dollars in private airfare to save their pets from the misery of lockdown and the threat of government seizure: 

With the city’s zero-Covid regime leading to soaring cargo rates and flight cancellations, people are grouping together to use private jets at a cost of about HK$200,000 ($25,665) for each owner with their pet, companies and individuals say.

[…] Steve Pheby, a senior consultant at Ferndale Kennels and Cattery, said that before the pandemic his business was usually evenly balanced between importing and exporting pets, but it was now 90-95 per cent based around exports. […] He noted it could cost up to HK$150,000 to transport a Labrador and its owner to the UK. [Source]

Anne Marie Roantree and Karishma Singh from from Reuters described the government’s obstinacy in the face of public criticism: 

Thousands of people have offered to adopt unwanted hamsters amid a public outcry against the government and its pandemic advisers, which the office of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam called irrational.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said any effort to try to save hamsters would be dealt with, even if that meant calling in the law.

“If the people concerned continue with such action, or fail to return the hamsters taken away, the AFCD will stringently follow up and hand it over to the police for handling,” said the department, which has also advised people not to kiss pets. [Source]

Much of the criticism stems from the government’s flimsy scientific justification for the cull. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stated that there is “no evidence” that animals play a significant role in spreading the virus, and City University of Hong Kong’s Center for Animal Health and Welfare said the risk of contracting the virus from pets is “negligible.” (As mobilizers have pointed out, hamsters are stuck in their cages, so it is often humans that spread the virus to hamsters in the first place.) Moreover, findings from a study by Hong Kong University’s medical school in the journal “Nature” show that “golden hamsters would stop shedding the virus through respiratory secretions after six days of isolation,” indicating that quarantine might have been a safe alternative to execution. 

Phoebe Zhang and Holly Chik from the South China Morning Post noted the bad optics of the Hong Kong government’s policy, given the fact that hamsters across the border in Shenzhen are still running free:

But across the border, it was business as usual. As of Wednesday, hamsters were still being sold at the Shenzhen-based Rabbit Mall shop, affiliated to Hong Kong-based franchise Pet-Link.

[…] Shops on e-commerce platform Taobao, owned by the Post’s parent company Alibaba, also continued to sell hamsters.

The Post checked with at least 10 shops listed on the platform selling breeds including the popular Syrian hamster, all of which indicated that their hamsters were bred domestically and not imported. [Source]

Granted, the hamsters in mainland China are local breeds, unlike those imported into Hong Kong from the Netherlands. But local governments in China have previously cracked down hard on pets in their anti-pandemic purges. Last fall, after videos surfaced of health workers infiltrating households to beat dogs and cats to death, some local authorities attempted to justify the actions by suggesting that the virus could spread from pets to humans. Hong Kong’s hamster-harvesting policies may have been inspired by Beijing: a mere day after central government authorities began propagating their recent and highly dubious theory of COVID-19 transmission via international mail, Hong Kong began rounding up its hamsters. 

The severity of the outbreak in Hong Kong may explain the government’s hardline approach and desperate search for a COVID-spreading culprit. Over the past few weeks, the government has imposed strict lockdowns on various parts of the city, imposed a 6 p.m. curfew on restaurants, and suspended incoming flights from 150 countries. The EU Chamber of Commerce recently predicted that due to Hong Kong’s strict policies, the city may not reopen until 2024. The policy of culling hamsters is but the latest failed attempt to avert the “tsunami-like” outbreak of COVID-19 afflicting the city. Despite the challenges and harsh measures, the Global Times nonetheless claimed that China has the high ground when it comes to the treatment of pets:

It must be pointed out that China is undoubtedly the most humanitarian country in the fight against the pandemic.

[…] It’s no exaggeration to say cat lives matter more in China than COVID-19 patient lives matter in those Western countries. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/citizens-resist-hong-kong-hamster-hunt/
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Wednesday 26 January 2022

Photo: Context Separator, by Reassembling Visions

Red and yellow lights illuminate the criss-crossed metal girders of a bridge, prominent in the foreground, against a backdrop of brightly lit skyscrapers and red neon signs.

Context Separator, by Reassembling Visions (CC BY-NC 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/photo-context-separator-by-reassembling-visions/
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Australian Open Stifles Support of Peng Shuai, Reverses Position After Public Outcry

Over the weekend, the Australian Open became mired in controversy over its decision to forbid spectators from displaying messages supporting Peng Shuai. Peng, the Chinese tennis star who accused former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault in a November 2 Weibo post, has been missing from the public spotlight, despite a few forced reappearances and a strange interview with a state-media reporter. Matt Walsh from ESPN described the incident that sparked the ban, in which two spectators wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan “Where is Peng Shuai?” were ejected from the venue:

On Saturday, a TikTok user uploaded a video in which fans at the Australian Open were approached by security and asked to remove the shirts with the slogan [“Where is Peng Shuai?”] on them. A banner was also seen in the hands of a member of security.

In the video, police later arrived at the scene and confirmed the security crew’s position. An officer is heard saying: “The Australian Open does have a rule that you can’t have political slogans … it’s a rule that it’s a condition of entry.”

[…] “Under our ticket conditions of entry we don’t allow clothing, banners or signs that are commercial or political,” a spokesperson [for Tennis Australia] said. “Peng Shuai’s safety is our primary concern. We continue to work with the WTA and global tennis community to seek more clarity on her situation and will do everything we can to ensure her well-being.” [Source]

News of the ban spread across social media and incited widespread criticism of Tennis Australia, the body that oversees the Australian Open. Those speaking out ranged from major tennis stars to government officials. Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton stated that Peng’s safety “is not a political issue” but “a human rights issue,” and Foreign Minister Marise Payne added that she respected Peng’s “strength in making those disclosures” about her sexual assault. Tennis Head reported on the blistering critique by 18-time grand slam singles champion Martina Navratilova, who called the Australian Open’s decision “pathetic”:

She then spoke on the Tennis Channel to discuss the matter further. Navratilova said “sport has always been on the forefront of social issues, pushing them forward, and we are going backwards I feel … I find it really, really cowardly.

“This is not a political statement, this is a human rights statement. And chances are Peng Shuai may be playing here but, she couldn’t get out of the country? Anyway, I think they’re wrong on this.

“The WTA [Women’s Tennis Association] has been so strong on this issue … and the players, really taking a chance on their pocket book. The ATP [Association of Tennis Professionals] was pretty weak on this. The IOC [International Olympic Committee], well we know where they are.

“And just really capitulating on this issue from the Aussies, letting China dictate what they do at their own slam. For their own player, a player who has played there before. I just find this really weak.” [Source]

The Australian Open’s lucrative agreements with various Chinese corporate sponsors could be one motivating factor for its incursions on free speech. One partnership, with Chinese liquor manufacturer Luzhou Laojiao, is reportedly worth approximately 53 million dollars. Tennis Australia has been more restrained in its public comments on Peng Shuai than other groups such as the Women’s Tennis Association, which decided to cancel all of its future events in China. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported, Tennis Australia “can scarcely afford to lose a massive financial backer after a difficult year with COVID,” during which it lost 100 million Australian dollars and took out a 40-million-dollar loan from the government. Ben Church and Angus Watson from CNN described Tennis Australia’s enthusiasm for one of its major Chinese sponsors:

One of the Australian Open’s three “associate partners” is liquor company Luzhou Laojiao, which organizers said was the largest Chinese sponsorship deal in the history of the tournament when the sponsorship deal was announced in 2018.

“We are delighted to welcome Luzhou Laojiao to the Australian Open partner family, a significant event in the history of our organisation,” Tennis Australia’s Chief Revenue Officer Richard Heaselgrave.

“We’ve made no secret that China and the region are a major priority for the Australian Open, and that we take our role as the Grand Slam of Asia-Pacific seriously.” [Source]

Under mounting international pressure, the tournament organizers ultimately reversed their position. Cindy Boren and Des Bieler from the Washington Post described how Tennis Australia changed its stance and attempted to clarify what constitutes an infraction: 

On Tuesday, Tennis Australia chief executive Craig Tiley clarified that a pro-Peng banner displayed by fans was specifically at issue.

“We’ve said that if anyone comes on-site with an intent to disrupt and use the Australian Open as a platform for themselves and really disrupts the comfort and the safety of our fans, then they’re not welcome,” Tiley told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“However, if someone wants to wear a T-shirt and make a statement about Peng Shuai, that’s fine.

“But what’s not fine,” he continued, “[is] if that someone brings in a big banner, and it’s got big poles attached to it and it’s used as something [which is dangerous], it really takes away from the comfort and safety of the fans.” [Source]

More T-shirts are expected at upcoming tournament matches. A fundraising campaign to print and distribute one thousand T-shirts bearing the slogan “Where is Peng Shuai?” to fans at the women’s final this weekend has raised over 20 thousand Australian dollars, twice its original goal, much of which was raised in the days after the initial T-shirt banning incident took place. 

Many athletes at the Australian Open have voiced concern over Peng Shuai’s current situation. Tennis Threads reported on recent statements by Ash Barty, Garbiñe Muguruza, Naomi Osaka, Alize Cornet, and others who called for more information on Peng’s whereabouts and well-being. Osaka stated, “I feel like if I was in her position, I would want people to care for me too,” adding, “I imagine myself in her shoes, and in that way, it’s a little bit scary.” 

Peng Shuai is not the only #MeToo figure who has faced retaliation by the Chinese authorities. News emerged this week that activist and independent journalist Huang Xueqin has been transferred from residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) to an official detention center in Guangzhou, after authorities “forcefully disappeared” her in September of last year. During her detention, Huang has been prevented from being represented or visited by lawyers, and she has been charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” The charge against Huang was likely motivated by her extensive work documenting sexual harassment against women in the workplace and in educational institutions. Also confined to a Guangzhou detention facility is labor- and disability-rights activist Wang Jianbing, who was detained with Huang in September and now faces the same charge. 

 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/01/australian-open-stifles-support-of-peng-shuai-reverses-position-after-public-outcry/
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