Netizen Voices on Ukraine: “In Our Imaginations, We Are Kings; Once War Begins, All of Us Are Pawns.”

The Chinese government has studiously avoided explicit criticism Russia for invading Ukraine. Foreign Ministry spokespeople even refuse to label Russia’s actions an “invasion,” preferring the euphemisms “Russia’s operation” or the “current situation.” Before the invasion, a Beijing news outlet posted an internal memo to its Weibo page, apparently by mistake, instructing its social media team: “Do not post anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western.” These corporate instructions may reflect broader official orders—official directives against negative coverage of Russia have been seen in the past. While the influx of news favorable to Russia has engendered widespread sympathy for Russia’s war aims across China—even creating “Russians in spirit” (a play on “Japanese in spirit” or “Taliban in spirit”) in the words of one WeChat essayist—all manner of opinions on the conflict have been voiced across Chinese social media. CDT has translated a selection of these diverse voices below. 

A common theme of viral posts is the devastating toll that war takes on average citizens. One popular essay, “All Those Cheering for War are Idiots,” chided those who welcomed the war from afar:

You applaud Qin Shihuang for his “immortal achievement” in “unifying the nation,” but would you wish to be born during the Qin Dynasty and become a pile of bleached bones in service of his “immortal achievement”?

You applaud Putin for being “so resolute” and “worthy of a great leader/emperor,” but would you wish to be born on the border [of Ukraine and Russia] and become one of those countless Ukrainian refugees?

[…] On the chessboard of our imaginations, we are all kings, but once the war begins, all of us are pawns.

Don’t be the fool who pushes humanity into the abyss. [Chinese]

“When I see photos of crying Ukrainian children from thousands of miles away, why do I feel heartbroken?” wrote the author in his note. “Maybe it’s because I’m still human.”

— Marrian Zhou 梦媛 (@ZhouMarrian) February 25, 2022

Similar anti-war sentiments were expressed on Weibo. One post captioned “normal people in war” earned nearly 70,000 likes and over 30,000 reposts and engendered a lively conversation in the comment section: 

@ 银河系茶水间碎碎念女工 We are a people who have experienced countless wars, invasions, and slaughters within the last century. Yet at this moment, we’re leveraging the outbreak of war in another land to write jokes and craft memes. Although I don’t have a vast store of political knowledge, I’m offering you a word of advice: If you truly lack empathy, sometimes keeping silent is the wisest option. No matter how many “interesting” jokes you write, nobody will think you’re clever. 

@仙道岳 Re: “[Russia] was forced into it”… When a missile lands at your doorstep, there will also be people who say, “[The aggressor] was forced into it.” The reason you’re so cavalier about war is that the bombs haven’t fallen near you yet. There’s nothing noble about being indifferent to others’ misfortune.

@ 是你赵哥哥哎  Using war as fodder for jokes is not the least bit funny. 

@ 平克辣  We are a nation shaped by suffering and war. Empathy for the weak and unfortunate, coupled with a hatred of warfare and oppression, is the precious legacy of our own painful history, and a vital source of spiritual strength for us as a communist nation. We should always remind ourselves that we have no right to (and are in no position to) make a mockery of war or the victims of war for our own entertainment, because to do so would be to betray our history and work against our own ambitions. [Chinese]

The 6,000 Chinese citizens living, working, and studying in Ukraine are also in danger. After initially downplaying the chance of war, the Chinese embassy in Ukraine suggested that its nationals post Chinese flag stickers on their cars while fleeing. Chinese outlet Jiemian News interviewed a Chinese exchange student in Ukraine who spoke out against the war and reminded readers that “every soldier killed could be one of my classmates”:

What’s going on in Kyiv? Jiemian News obtained an exclusive interview with Xiaohu (pseudonym), a Chinese exchange student currently in Kyiv.

Last August, Xiaohu went to study at a school in Kyiv. When this [recent] incident occurred, she was in a school dormitory just a few kilometers from Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport. She told Jiemian News that at 5:00 A.M. local time (11:00 A.M. Beijing time), she heard four or five rounds of artillery fire, and saw a mushroom-cloud-like plume of smoke outside the dormitory window. By 6:00 A.M., everything was calm and it was pitch black outside, but the sound of armored vehicles speeding by could still be heard.

At 5:00 A.M., she received a message from the Chinese Exchange Students in Ukraine Association, reminding students to stay indoors, not to run around, and to keep their mobile phones, documents and cash handy. She told Jiemian News that she had packed her luggage and was ready to flee, and was staying in the dormitory to await further news. Fortunately, she had bought three 20-liter bottles of water yesterday, and is well supplied with essentials for the time being.

She told Jiemian reporters that she is “very scared right now,” and that her greatest wish is to get home safely.

Xiaohu told Jiemian News that her Ukrainian classmates are basically “all soldiers” and really want to defend their country. There is still a big recruitment notice on their school’s official website. She told Jiemian reporters that she was “truly sad”: “If fighting does start, we may lose half of our classmates. I don’t want any casualties, because every soldier killed could be one of my classmates, the ones I go to class with every day, who I joke around with or make fun of our teachers or skive off doing homework with.” [Chinese]

While many of the voices highlighted above have spoken out against the war, there were a fair number of ghoulish comments on the web, many of which targeted Ukrainian women: 

Some have even suggested that more Chinese men should marry Ukrainian women to solve China's imbalance of male-female population. For context: China has 30 million more men than women. pic.twitter.com/9qEO0QKcpC

— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) February 24, 2022

Weibo later announced that it had deleted 542 sexist posts and issued 74 accounts with 30-day suspensions. The social media platform also began censoring searches for “Ukraine” and “pretty women.” An essay on Wechat tied the callousness of the men mockingly offering shelter to Ukrainian women to the official coverup of the crimes perpetrated against Xiaohuamei, the “shackled woman” in Xuzhou: 

Over the past two days, one phrase on social media has really stood out: “shelter.” “My place has a bedroom, I can shelter a beautiful Ukrainian woman between the ages of 18-24,” “Shelter-on-call,” etc., jokes like these have tons of rabid fans. Some men have taken to direct-messaging female Ukrainian bloggers: “I can shelter any displaced Ukrainian beauties,” “This babe is so hot she’d have to be tricked into coming to **,” “Marry me, I’ll protect you,” “Come to my house, you’ll definitely be safe”… This stuff is all over Weibo, Douyin [Chinese TikTok], Kuaishou, and the rest.

Do you still remember? The first and second Fengxian county reports both used the word “shelter.” They claimed that Dong Zhimin’s father spotted a pitiful, homeless, mentally-ill woman at the side of the road, brought her home, and “sheltered” her by giving her to his son as a wife (See: “Is this wave of ‘shelter’ a form of language corruption?”) As you can see, “shelter” has been polluted to the nth degree. What is going on in these people’s minds all day long?

This is just how some people are: they don’t utter a word about the “shackled woman” right in their own backyard, and even have the nerve to make fun of those who do speak up for her. Then, when people abroad find themselves in desperate straits due to the tragedy of war, the first thing they do is make fun of women, write jokes, pick at others’ weaknesses, and even resort to direct verbal harassment. [Chinese]

“While you are chilling in your home, drinking boba, reading Weibo and posting jokes, it’s us, your compatriots on a battlefield, who are paying the cost of your actions.”

“Stop pushing your compatriots into the fire pit.”

The post received over 1 million likes.

— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) February 26, 2022

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/netizen-voices-on-ukraine-in-our-imaginations-we-are-kings-once-war-begins-all-of-us-are-pawns/

Photo: One Last Day, by Jonathan Kos-Read

One Last Day, by Jonathan Kos-Read (CC BY-ND 2.0)

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/photo-one-last-day-by-jonathan-kos-read/

Post-Olympics, Some Athletes Speak Up About China’s Human Rights Abuses

As athletes head home after the Beijing Winter Olympics, some have now chosen to publicly speak out on human rights abuses in China. Free from the burden of upcoming competitions, daily COVID-19 tests, and government surveillance, these athletes have added a postscript to a Games that have been heavily censored and marred by controversy around genocide. Helen Davidson at the Guardian reported on Swedish Olympian Nils van der Poel’s criticism of the “extremely irresponsible” decision to allow China to host the Olympics: 

A Swedish gold medallist has said it was “extremely irresponsible” to hold the Winter Olympics in China because of the government’s human rights record.

Nils van der Poel, a 25-year-old speedskater, made the comments after returning home from the Beijing event, where officials have been at pains to keep politics and protest out despite diplomatic boycotts.

[…] “The Olympic Village was very nice, the Chinese people I met were absolutely amazing,” he said. “The Olympics is a lot, it’s a fantastic sporting event where you unite the world and nations meet. But so did Hitler before invading Poland, and so did Russia before invading Ukraine.

“I think it is extremely irresponsible to give it to a country that violates human rights as blatantly as the Chinese regime is doing.” [Source]

Nils van der Poel, who won gold in the men's 5,000 and 10,000 metres speed skating, said "it is extremely irresponsible to give it to a country that violates human rights as blatantly as the Chinese regime is doing."https://t.co/otRZ669S8F

— Cha (@asiancha) February 20, 2022

Nils van Der Poel not only dominated his sport. He cemented his reputation as a legend by speaking truth to power on how difficult it was for athletes to do their best in a place that was doing their worst to >1m #Uyghurs. He said the quiet part out loud. #BeijingWinterOlympics https://t.co/3YZclZosIq

— Mei Fong/ 方凤美 (@meifongwriter) February 16, 2022

British Olympian Gus Kenworthy made similar remarks just before his last run at the men’s freeski halfpipe final on Saturday. Mari Saito at Reuters described Kenworthy’s criticism of the Chinese government’s repression of LGBTQ+ rights: 

Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, said on Saturday the International Olympic Committee should take a host nation’s stance on human rights issues into consideration when awarding the Games.

[…] “I am absolutely a fan of [the] Olympics. I also think, that being said, because it’s the world stage and everyone is watching, there is an opportunity to create positive change and the IOC could help dictate that change by pushing on certain issues,” he said after the men’s freeski halfpipe final on Saturday.

“Those issues are human rights issues,” he said.

The British-born Kenworthy, who won silver for the United States in slopestyle in Sochi in 2014 and is now competing for Britain, said China had put on an impressive Games, given the pandemic, but stressed that the Olympics had the ability to bring about positive change.

“When there’s human rights and the country’s stance on LGBT, those issues should be taken into consideration by the IOC,” he said after finishing eighth. [Source]

British freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, a fierce critic of the IOC's decision to award #China the Winter Olympics, said on Saturday that he does not feel the IOC's "heart is in the right place." https://t.co/38RouSUUNy

— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) February 19, 2022

Warren Barnsley from Australia’s 7 News reported on German Olympian Natalie Geisenberger and her desire to never return to China: 

Natalie Geisenberger, Germany’s luge champion who took home a sixth gold medal at these Games, went to Beijing having previously criticised China and even considered boycotting.

[…] Having now returned to Germany, she told newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that she will never return to China.

[…] “It has nothing to do with the pandemic. I wasn’t there because I really wanted to go to China, but because the IOC decided that the Olympic Games would take place in Beijing.” [Source]

🇩🇪 luger Natalie Geisenberger, who won 2 gold medals at Beijing 2022, says on Markus Lanz after returning to Germany:

“… und nie wieder nach China” => “… and never go back to China again”

1/nhttps://t.co/bHdFZmd52f

— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) February 19, 2022

Many athletes described their fears of speaking out while still in Beijing. “You have to be careful when you say what and where you say it,” said Geisenberger at a press conference after winning her gold medal. “Upon my return [to Germany] there may be a few more things to be said but here on site I am not going to say something.” Van der Poel told Swedish media before heading to Beijing: “I don’t think it would be particularly wise for me to criticize the system I’m about to transition to, if I want to live a long and productive life.” He said that during the Games, “We are very focused on being athletes and we don’t talk much about world politics.” American biathlete Deedra Irwin told PBS, “Personally, it’s not a place to, like, make huge statements and try to criticize. You need to be sensitive about when you bring stuff up and why you’re bringing it up.”

In January, even before the Games began, the Chinese government cast a pall on free speech by athletes when an official announced that “any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.” John Leicester from The Associated Press described how the Chinese government was able to pressure foreign athletes into silence for the duration of the Games:

“We have seen an effective silencing of 2,800 athletes, and that’s scary,” said Noah Hoffman, a former U.S. Olympic skier and board member of the Global Athlete advocacy group pushing for Olympic reform.

[…] “We’re in China, so we play by China’s rules. And China makes their rules as they go, and they certainly have the power to kind of do whatever they want: Hold an athlete, stop an athlete from leaving, stop an athlete from competing,” [British Olympian Gus Kenworthy] said.

“I’ve also been advised to sort of tread lightly while I am here and that’s what I am trying to do.”

[…] “Prior to the statement [by an official from the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee], we had been engaging with quite a few athletes,” said Pema Doma, campaigns director at Students for a Free Tibet. They “were expressing a lot of interest in learning more and being engaged in the human rights issue.”

Afterward, “there was a very, very distinct difference” and “one athlete even said to an activist directly: ‘I’ve been instructed not to take anything from you or speak to you,’” she said in a phone interview. [Source]

In a rare display of defiance, several athletes made public statements critical of China’s human rights record before or during the early stages of the Games. American figure skater Timothy LeDuc, who became the first openly-nonbinary athlete at the Winter Games, described the Chinese government’s abuses against the Uyghurs as “horrifying.” German luge champion Felix Loch declared on live broadcast from Beijing that he was in favor of a German diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. 

German Olympic luge champion, @FelixLoch says he would welcome a ''Diplomatic Boycott'' by the German government.

Civil society and athletes are speaking up, the time to act is NOW @GermanyDiplo!!!#NoBeijing2022 #AthletesWanted https://t.co/L390OGFZkr

— World Uyghur Congress (@UyghurCongress) January 14, 2022

Turkish ski jumper Fatih Arda İpcioğlu used skis emblazoned with the flag of East Turkestan during his first round jump on February 5. The flag, which has long been banned in China, is strongly associated with the concept of an independent Uyghur homeland in Xinjiang. İpcioğlu later declined to confirm whether the design was an intentional message of support to the Uyghurs. Censors appear to have overlooked the design when CCTV aired his jump on Chinese national television. Karolos Grohmann and Mitch Phillips from Reuters described the reactions to İpcioğlu’s eye-catching skis:

“This was not a political statement. As you may know, the official Turkish flag includes a white crescent and a star on it,” Turkey’s Olympic Committee told Reuters.

“However, in order to avoid any confusion, only the National Olympic Committee of Turkey emblem (will be) used on our athlete’s skis for the remainder of the Games.”

Nonetheless, Uyghur advocates and sympathisers on social media were quick to jump on the issue.

“The first Turk to qualify in ski jumping, Fatih Arda Ipcioglu competed with the East Turkestan flag on his helmet and skis, protesting the Chinese persecution in China,” said Twitter user Bulent Aksoy. “Congratulations Fatih Arda.”

Another, Mustafa Karadeniz, said “Fatih Arda Ipcioglu participated in the competitions with the flag of East Turkestan in the heart of China. Thank you my brave brother.” [Source]

This Turkish ski jumper has the Uyghur ("East Turkistan") flag on his skis. It's a brave and heroic protest in the face of @iocmedia's complicity and indifference to the Uyghur Genocide. https://t.co/BJQ6fvQGcm

— NomoGaia (@NomoGaia) February 5, 2022

Some people say there is an East Turkistan flag on Turkish skier Fatih Arda Ipcioglu’s skis…

At least the scene went on air yesterday on China’s state TV. pic.twitter.com/gqgLYbiQI5

— Kevin Tired (@TheiKevin) February 6, 2022

Journalists also faced notable censorship during their coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Amid declining press freedom in China, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) released a statement documenting intimidation, obstruction, and harassment of foreign journalists in Beijing, despite promises by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that international standards of reporting would be upheld. While the IOC dismissed these as isolated incidents, the FCCC argued that “Government interference occurred regularly during the Games.” 

1/ FCCC Statement on Olympics Reporting, February 21, 2022

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) is dismayed that the conditions for independent reporting in China continue to fall short of international standards during the Winter Olympic Games.

— Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (@fccchina) February 21, 2022

5/ Most visibly, a reporter with Dutch public broadcaster @NOS was hauled off camera during a live TV broadcast by plainclothes security men, despite the fact that he had been standing in a spot police directed him to only minutes early. https://t.co/xshkD3D0Z5

— Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (@fccchina) February 21, 2022

7/ In one case, French news agency @AFP was even prevented by police from filming the Opening Ceremony from a private apartment two kilometers from the Bird’s Nest stadium – and outside the official cordoned-off zone.

— Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (@fccchina) February 21, 2022

 

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/post-olympics-some-athletes-speak-up-about-chinas-human-rights-abuses/

The Print — Beijing’s internet watchdog warns Supreme Court of China for violations: report

source https://theprint.in/world/beijings-internet-watchdog-warns-supreme-court-of-china-for-violations-report/839415/#new_tab

Minitrue: Keep Weibo Posts on Ukraine Favorable to Russia; Control Comments

The following instructions leaked and have been distributed online.

Effective immediately, re: Weibo posts related to Ukraine

Send all posts from the Horizon News account first, then repost from the main [Beijing News] account in order to promote Horizon. Do not post anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western.

Let me look at drafts before publication.

Carry out selection and control of comments: first enable selective comment display, then let suitable ones through. Everyone is responsible for the ones they publish. Pay real attention to which comments are allowed. Keep an eye on [responses to] each post for at least two days, paying attention at shift handovers.

If using hashtags, only use those started by People’s Daily, Xinhua, or CCTV. [Chinese]

On Tuesday, as Chinese authorities engaged in a “tightrope act” over Russian troop movements into Ukrainian territory, a set of instructions for posting on the topic briefly appeared in a Weibo post by Horizon News, a Beijing News affiliate focused on international affairs. The directions mix commercial with political imperatives, and appear to been issued to social media staff by managers. Shielding Russia from negative coverage, injunctions against pro-Western messaging, and especially orders to follow the lead of central state media are all common elements of official media directives—in this case, the author may be relaying specific official instructions, or taking the initiative in anticipating the desired course of coverage. The post has now been deleted, but Weibo users have flooded the comment sections of other Horizon posts with the text of the leaked instructions.

Needless to say, instructions like these are not intended for publication, though some directives do include reminders. A 2015 directive on the sentencing of rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, for example, urged recipients: “Attentively guard this internal information on Internet commentary, [and] do not leak relevant Internet commentary work information.” Accidents happen. In 2013, a Weibo post from entertainer Peter Ho included the direction to “post at around 8:20,” revealing a coordinated campaign to boost critical state media coverage of Apple’s customer service in China. Ho initially claimed that his account had been compromised and that he had notified the police, but he later admitted in an interview that the post was arranged by “a certain website.” Former Google executive Kai-Fu Lee said he had been approached by CCTV about promoting the same content, and the state broadcaster came under stinging criticism for “placing the condom of state power over the instrument of your own private profit.”

The Horizon News instructions may have been posted accidentally, but if not, it would not be the first time a Beijing News Weibo account had gone rogue. On May 4, 2012, after the U.S. Embassy in Beijing sheltered legal activist Chen Guangcheng following his sensational escape from house arrest, Beijing News joined a coordinated barrage of editorials denouncing Chen and U.S. ambassador Gary Locke. That midnight, the paper’s official Weibo account expressed repentance, posting a mournful black-and-white photo of a smoking clown with the message: “In the still of the deep night, removing that mask of insincerity, we say to our true selves, ‘I am sorry.’ Goodnight.”

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. Some instructions are issued by local authorities or to specific sectors, and may not apply universally across China. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source. See CDT’s collection of Directives from the Ministry of Truth since 2011.

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/minitrue-keep-weibo-posts-on-ukraine-favorable-to-russia-control-comments/

Translation: China’s Invisible Disabled Community

On the eve of the Beijing Paralympic Games, CDT presents the full-text translation of this article by Xie Renci for the health news site DXY.com. Originally published on International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the article highlights the huge gap between the promise of accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities, and their lived reality, in China today. As part of a campaign to raise funds for wheelchair ramps, the piece argues that every member of society will benefit from accessible infrastructure and unbiased treatment. Obstruction of accessible pathways and discrimination against people with disabilities, on which the piece focuses, are long-standing problems for China’s disabled community. The hollowing out of civil society over the past decade, in particular the targeted crackdowns on advocacy organizations such as Yirenping and Changsha Funeng, has only made these problems more difficult to address. But disability rights activism has not ceased, as this call for “accessibility for all” makes clear. CDT has identified and corrected some factual errors.

Today [December 3rd] marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

According to the sixth national census, as of 2010, China’s disabled population had surpassed 85 million.

World Health Organization data [from 2011] shows that 15% of the global population is disabled. This suggests that 15 out of every 100 people you encounter on the street are disabled.

In reality, even if you halve this figure to account for hidden disabilities, shouldn’t about five of every 100 people you encounter have a disability? And yet, how many disabled people do you know or have you met? 

Where has China’s disabled community gone?

“Accessible Facilities” That Are Anything But

Imagine that you’re a wheelchair user with limited mobility, and there’s an offline event that you have to attend today. How many obstacles do you think you’re likely to encounter on the way there?

First, you have to be able to leave your home, and that hinges on whether your residential complex has an elevator.

According to the national Residential Building Code, elevators are only required for buildings that are at least seven stories high. If you happen to live in an old complex, there’s a good chance your building doesn’t have one.

Suppose you’re fortunate enough to live in a modern complex and you manage to take the elevator down to the first floor without a hitch. The next challenge is exiting the building.

In buildings where elevators are the access point for private residences, there are typically two to three steps between the elevator and street level.

If the complex was built before the Regulations on Accessible Design in 2012, then it probably doesn’t have an unobstructed, properly graded wheelchair ramp.

Even if there is one, please check its level of incline and overall condition before you use it. If the ramp is too steep, has defects, or is uneven, and you are not careful, then you risk injury, or even death, in a fall.

In early 2020, disability rights activist [Chen] Xiaoping departed our world when she fell out of her wheelchair on an “accessible” curb in Shenzhen that was not up to code. [Editor’s note: Chen Xiaoping’s fatal accident occurred in 2021, not in 2020 as reported by DXY.]

Chen Xiaoping fell to her death when her wheelchair was caught on this pothole in an “accessible” curb in Shenzhen (press photo)

If you live in a luxury residential complex that is humanely designed and up to code, and you make it to the street in one piece, then you’re going to have to figure out how to get to the event in your wheelchair.

While each city in China is unique, city streets tend to share shockingly similar design failures.

A tactile path choked by rental bikes, parked directly in front of a sign reading “Pedestrian walkway, do not park bicycles here,” and just before the covered, designated bicycle parking space. (online photo)

These dangers are not insurmountable, but getting around them is demanding and dangerous, even deadly.

In 2019, mobility rights activist Wen Jun was killed when he fell out of his wheelchair while surveying an “accessible” route in Dali. The culprit was a precipitous drop into an underground parking garage that appeared out of nowhere, without any warnings or safety barriers.

Only after Wen Jun’s fatal fall was a cordon of colored flags set up in front of the unbarricaded drop into an underground parking lot. (Baoyangcong 剥洋葱)

After navigating countless obstacles, you finally arrive safely.  But your worries aren’t over–you don’t dare to drink too much water.

If the venue was built before 2012, it is unlikely to have an accessible bathroom. Even if the building was constructed after 2012, you’d still worry whether the accessible bathroom was in working order. After all, you’ve seen too many that were being used as storage spaces or were simply unusable.

An accessible bathroom, rendered inaccessible by stored items blocking the space under the sink. (Qilu Evening Post)

Once the event is over, everyone starts to leave, but you’re a bit worried. It’s gotten dark, and the trip home will be even riskier now.

These are probably only the most common day-to-day challenges faced by disabled people with limited mobility.

These challenges are even more difficult if your disability causes you pain or discomfort. If you have a sensory impairment, such as blindness, then the difficulty of traveling independently is magnitudes greater.

Now have you figured out where China’s largest minority group has gone?

Those everyday barriers—the stairwell we casually navigate, those troublesome but easily forgotten potholes—can be dangerous, even life-threatening, obstacles for people with disabilities.

The disabled are confined to their homes because there is a lack of compassionate city-planning and accessible facilities that are dependably up to code.

For disabled people, accessible facilities are their water, their air, their path to independence and freedom. 

Accessible facilities make it safe for people with disabilities, the elderly, pregnant women, and children to move through and utilize a space. No construction project is complete without these amenities.

Article Seven of the Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities emphasizes the importance of accessible facilities. The reality is that, due to design flaws, lack of maintenance, and other factors, not only have accessible facilities failed to remove the obstacles that confine the disabled to their homes, they may have become yet another stumbling block impeding safe movement.

The Invisible Obstacle: Structural Ableism

When you hear the word “disabled,” who do you think of?

Do you think of Paralympic athletes earning glory for their countries; world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking; Zhang Haidi, chair of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation; or some other disabled person lauded in the media whose name you can’t quite remember?

Though they are of different ages, occupations, and genders, they have all “conquered life’s challenges” and attained a level of “success.” In short, they’re all “strong.”

And the majority of readers’ comments on these articles tend toward: “How optimistic!” or “Such strength!” or “You remind me how lucky I am.”

But the disabled are simply ordinary people with certain limitations.

As the media continues to focus on backward, cliched stories of “strong” individuals living with disabilities, the public may think, “I won’t experience the same difficulties she does because I’m not disabled,” or “Thank god I’m not disabled, otherwise my life would be miserable.”

Disability is not simply a fixed individual identity, but also a function of limitations imposed by society.

If glasses suddenly disappeared, how many people would immediately become “disabled” due to their nearsightedness?

If traffic signals could only be understood by distinguishing red from green, then those who can’t tell the difference wouldn’t be allowed to drive. But in Japan they’ve invented a [red] traffic light with an “X”, so that color-blind drivers know when to stop. As a result, the inability to differentiate between red and green is no longer an obstacle to driving.

Disability is by no means “someone else’s business,” and it’s not simply an individual matter, but is rather a societal issue brought about by design flaws and institutional shortcomings.

The media’s image of the iron-willed “disabled superhero” who overcomes all obstacles stands in stark contrast to the reality of discriminatory, often invisible, oppression of people living with disabilities.

The media’s favorite disabled person by far is Wu Xiao. After losing her eyesight as a child, she surmounted incredible challenges, scoring 470 on the gaokao and gaining admission to  Nanjing Normal University to study applied psychology. [Editor’s note: Wu Xiao attended Nanjing Normal University of Special Education (NNUSE), not Nanjing Normal University.]

However, in 2020, Shaanxi Normal University rejected her application to their master’s program in the same field, claiming that “the university is unable to accommodate blind students.”

One of the admissions officers had the audacity to ask, “How can the blind even attend school?” completely ignoring the fact that Wu Xiao had fulfilled her course requirements at Nanjing Normal and had received her undergraduate degree. [Editor’s note: Wu Xiao was still a fourth-year student at NNUSE when she applied to Shaanxi Normal University.]

This dismissive attitude towards people with disabilities is discriminatory and fails to consider their true capabilities. Moreover, the Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities requires that schools not yet equipped to support students with disabilities must do all they can to create a supportive environment, and not just take the easy way out by rejecting them.

Social obstacles may be tangible, like stairs, steep slopes, or barriers, but they can also be intangible practices or attitudes, such as rejecting someone’s application on the grounds of disability, or assuming that the disabled are somehow “unsuitable.”

The physical obstacles we see on the street keep people with disabilities confined to their homes. The intangible bias of individuals and institutions prevents the disabled from having a voice in society.

Everyone Needs Accessible Facilities

The idea that “disability is a personal issue” comes from a misunderstanding of the limitations and fragility of human beings, the immediate consequence of which is the belief that “accessible facilities are only for people with disabilities.”

Have you ever carried heavy luggage up or down stairs?

“I always hated the train trip home from university. I would have to carry two suitcases up and down an endless procession of stairs. Some of the sloping walkways were so steep that I nearly tumbled down them along with all my luggage.” It’s at times like these that you really need accessible facilities.

Have you ever pushed a stroller?

In early 2020, because some New York City subway stations lacked accessible facilities, a mother fell while carrying her stroller down the station stairs, and both mother and child were killed. [Editor’s note: this appears to refer to Malaysia Goodson and her daughter, Rhylee, who fell in January 2019, not 2020. Ms. Goodson died, but her child survived.]

Have you ever been injured in an accident?

Someone once asked online, “If you have a broken leg and there isn’t a Western-style toilet, how do you go to the bathroom?” The response was full of dark humor: “You can practice one-legged squats.”

Even if you’ve never had to carry heavy things, push a stroller, or been injured, you’re eventually going to get old, right?

“When you’re young, you don’t think about how your legs give out when you’re old, and how absolutely grueling it is to climb the stairs.”

For most people, growing old is a process of gradually losing physical function. When you’re young, you don’t think twice about the odd slope or pothole, but these things can cause serious injury.

Once we reach old age, we must face our limitations and human fragilities. In this sense, we will all be disabled someday.

In the talk “Hostile Homes,” Professor Li Dihua of Peking University’s College of Landscape Architecture recounts how a respected senior colleague was badly injured after tripping over a five-centimeter [less than 2 in.] protrusion. Unable to continue the career he cared about so deeply, the man succumbed to despair and passed away soon after.

“Everyone Needs Accessible Facilities” is just not a slogan.

We all live in a world full of uncertainty, where the limitations of the human body and of society can easily render any of us disabled.

Accessible facilities “concern us all”: For every single one of us, there will come a time when we require assistance.

We need to take action now, rather than waiting until we are elderly or injured, or need to carry luggage or push a stroller, to realize just how important accessible facilities are.

[As leading Japanese feminist thinker Chizuko Ueno told NHK in the broadcaster’s “Last Lecture” television series,] we need to form “a society where we can be frail or weak and still feel safe,” because “we won’t always be strong.”

The slow process of eliminating entrenched biases against people with disabilities demands that we clear our streets of tangible obstacles, make it possible for more people with disabilities to leave their homes, and create a society where the able-bodied feel that accessible facilities are for them, too.

DXY has decided to make a small contribution: we’re partnering with the Zhejiang Foundation for Disabled Persons to donate several accessibility ramps.

Of course, these ramps alone can’t resolve all mobility issues, but at least they’ll come in handy when we find ourselves challenged by a set of stairs or a steep slope.

For more details, please see the poster below. (Note that the ramps will not be as steep as those depicted in the image.)

Our ultimate hope is that someday there will be no need for these temporary accessibility ramps, and that cities won’t be cluttered with dangerous obstacles that impede the free movement of us all. [Chinese]

 

This poster shows an illustrated depiction of the temporary ramps that DXY and the Zhejiang Foundation for Disabled Persons fundraised for in December 2021. One ramp was donated for every hundred views of the video embedded at the end of this article.

Translated for CDT by Hamish.

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/translation-chinas-invisible-disabled-community/

CCP Gestures Towards Women’s Rights to Sweeten Pro-natalist Shift

A shifting tide of demographic policies has brought renewed attention to the status of women’s rights in China. Given the historic plunge in the national birth rate and widespread public skepticism toward the three-child policy, the Chinese Communist Party finds itself in the position of needing to boost the birth rate in order to avoid a potential future tsunami of social instability, but its success depends on persuading women to get on board with the government’s new pro-natalist agenda. Recent demographic policies have used a combination of carrots and sticks, revealing the CCP’s dilemma: how much autonomy to grant women in its quest for long-term stability. 

So far, there appear to be more sticks than carrots. New policies regarding contraception have prioritized fertility over women’s reproductive rights. Guidelines released by the State Council late last year called on local governments to reduce abortions conducted for “non-medical purposes,” without defining what constitutes a non-medical purpose. In January, China’s Family-Planning Association followed up on the guidelines by outlining a “campaign of intervention” to reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions among adolescents and unmarried women. Liyan Qi from The Wall Street Journal reported on the announcement of the new plan:

The plan stressed it was important to “reshape the parenting culture of multichild families.”

[…] Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that while it is unclear how the goal to reduce abortions will be implemented, “given the government’s history of restricting women’s reproductive rights through abusive—and sometimes violent—means, this is certainly a cause for concern.”

[…] It was unclear from the family-planning association’s plan what alternatives to abortion would be available to unmarried women who become pregnant.

[…] Wang Pei’an, a former top official in China’s family-planning bureaucracy, which was created to enforce birth restrictions, is now the top Communist Party official at the Family-Planning Association. Mr. Wang is urging young people to be more responsible and have children. [Source]

A decade ago people were horrified by Feng Jianmei’s forced abortion. Now authorities say they will prevent (some) abortions. This reversal can appear stunning for those unfamiliar with the control-at-all-cost ethos underpinning Beijing’s birth policies. https://t.co/SwowwbJMnb

— Mei Fong/ 方凤美 (@meifongwriter) February 13, 2022

Women have raised doubts about these plans. “To be honest, I don’t think that women’s rights are one of [the government’s] targets. But the birthrate is something they’re really worried about,” Chinese feminist Xiong Jing told the Guardian. “What will they sacrifice if they can’t achieve it all? Maybe it’s women’s rights.” Last year, in response to a state media hashtag that read #Eliminate Backward Concepts Like “Men Are Superior To Women” and “Beget Male Heirs To Carry On The Ancestral Lineage”#, one netizen commented, “As soon as they want access to your uterus, they start sweet-talking you. Bear in mind that the divorce ‘cooling-off period’ started not so long ago!” 

Lu Jun, co-founder of the influential health-focused human rights NGO Yirenping, expressed his concern to Radio Free Asia about what these measures will look like on the ground: “There will definitely be a lot of arbitrary implementation in governments at all levels, and across the country, including abuses of power. There will be targets and quotas set for abortions prevented.” 

Implementation is already altering the health-care options available to Chinese citizens. In December, a Washington Post investigation found that 12 hospitals in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou were no longer offering vasectomies, to the frustration of many young couples interviewed. There are no official bans or specific restrictions on the surgery, although contraceptive surgeries for both men and women must be approved by county-level health departments. The de facto restrictions on these surgeries stand in stark contrast to the CCP’s campaign of mass forced sterilization of Uyghur women, whose reproductive health and well-being clearly play no part in the government’s pro-natalist policies to increase “high-quality” births among Han Chinese citizens. 

Other policies hint at a possible expansion of assisted reproductive services. In December, the National Health Commission quietly announced that it had “started revising rules and standards relevant to assisted reproductive technology, based on wide consultations with experts,” and that it would push for more legislation allowing assisted reproductive technology, while strictly prohibiting its misuse. Access to such technology remains extremely limited in China, as only married women with specific medical conditions are permitted to freeze their eggs, and any form of surrogacy is illegal. 

For single women, the latest policies are a mixed bag. At local levels, access to improvements in the social safety net remains skewed towards married couples, as has been documented in Guangdong, but single mothers in Shanghai have recently won access to maternity benefits after the municipal government simplified its bureaucratic procedures. The push for greater reproductive rights for single women is also playing out in local courts, such as the Chaoyang People’s Court in Beijing, where feminist Theresa Xu has launched a case to freeze her eggs at public hospitals. Emily Feng at NPR described the background to the case:

Xu is suing the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital at Capital Medical University, arguing that no national law says a woman must be married to have the procedure. She filed suit in October 2019 and has gone to court hearings, but is still awaiting a decision.

[…] “It comes down to conservative values, and unmarried women who have children are usually found to have violated the catchall legal rule of, quote, ‘keeping up public order and morality,’ ” says Liu Minghui, a lawyer who testified in support of Xu in court last year.

[…] “There are rules that say reproductive assistance services are only available to married couples, and while they don’t mention egg freezing specifically, it’s considered such a service,” says Liu, who is a legal expert who specializes in gender discrimination cases. She points out unmarried men can freeze their sperm in China. 

[…F]amily planning officials continuing to bank on only married couples having more kids may keep struggling to bring the birthrate back up. [Source]

The demographic crisis has motivated the government to update policies that touch on women’s rights at a much broader level, in areas that extend far beyond reproductive rights. The official newspaper of China’s Supreme Court explicitly tied the three-child policy to a revision of the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests, which will be updated for the first time since 2005. Major revisions include redefining sexual harassment, affirming prohibitions of workplace discrimination, and banning forms of emotional abuse. The expanded rules also target employer restrictions on marriage and childbearing. 

This draft really is fascinating.
It contains many provisions clearly aimed at protecting women from discrimination but its assumptions about the inherent traits of women as a group are really hard to handle from a US cultural perspective.
https://t.co/nchxDvfM49

— China Law Translate (@ChinaLawTransl8) December 29, 2021

Exactly how, and to what extent, these laws and protections will be enforced remains unclear. In a recent article in The Diplomat, Darius Longarino, Changhao Wei, and Yixin (Claire) Ren delved into the weak enforcement mechanisms of the law as it relates to sexual harassment:

Not-so-new Enforcement Tools for Women

The draft revisions do not significantly improve the enforcement tools available to women. Like the 2005 LPWRI, the draft says women can bring civil lawsuits against harassers and report sexual harassment to employers and government organs. In a new provision, it calls for the setting up of a nationwide hotline for women to report rights violations. Importantly, the draft does not provide that survivors can sue employers who failed to adopt or implement anti-harassment policies. Nor does it address the judicial procedures and practices that make it extremely difficult for survivors to prevail in court.

Weak Administrative Sanctions

The draft provides for limited administrative enforcement of its sexual harassment provisions. Under article 83, the police may “reprimand and educate” harassers (a power already provided under several provincial regulations) or may issue written warnings to them. Yet these police actions are neither mandatory nor considered penalties, and there is no adverse consequence if a harasser chooses to ignore the police’s reprimands or warnings.

Employers that fail to adopt reasonable measures to address sexual harassment will be ordered to rectify, if their inaction harms women’s rights and interests or has “a vile social impact.” For a governmental employer, the order will be issued by its superior authority; for others, it will come from the government agency with oversight authority (e.g., education departments for schools). If an employer refuses to comply with such an order or the violation is serious, then its individual officers who are directly responsible for the violation will be disciplined under separate laws, which likely include the one governing public employees’ conduct. The draft does not impose any liability on the employers themselves, however. The subjective standards for sanctions and scattered enforcement authority among a variety of government agencies also raise doubts as to whether enforcement will be rigorous and consistent. [Source]

China is set to revise its women's rights law. On paper it looks great: a stronger def of harassment, even a ban on pickup artistry.

But will it change anything? One activist:“This law, to be honest, is more of a gesture than a specific plan of operation"https://t.co/L3tLAYvmh1

— Vivian Wang (@vwang3) January 2, 2022

The draft law was open to public comments after it was published. Zhang Wanqing and Luo Yahan from Sixth Tone collected some of the most popular online comments from feminists and anti-feminists, with many negative reactions from the latter: 

Widely shared anti-feminist posts on social site Weibo argue that the revised law gives so many rights to women that, if passed, it will have a discriminating effect against men.

“We men also need to get involved in this, otherwise this law that is oppressive for men will pass,” reads a popular post by a male Weibo user who encouraged people to submit opposing opinions.

[…] A section of the draft law about hiring practices inspired anti-feminist users to suggest employers should be able to review the social media accounts of job applicants to see whether their political views are “in line with national policy,” a reference to an often made accusation that people who want gender equality are anti-China and are being supported by unidentified “foreign forces.” [Source]

Even as the CCP pursues demographic policies that it regards as essential for future stability, the Party’s antipathy toward greater gender equality continues to impede the expansion of women’s rights. Prominent #MeToo figures, such as Peng Shuai and Xianzi, are routinely thwarted and silenced, and the censorship and closure of feminist social media accounts is commonplace. As recently as December, Alibaba fired a female employee for accusing her manager of rape, and subsequently fired ten more employees for leaking her accusation to the public. Such exploitation of women by powerful men in the private and public sectors may prove resistant to change. As Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks recently argued in Foreign Affairs, women’s empowerment is inherently destabilizing to the autocratic foundation of the CCP: 

Aspiring autocrats and patriarchal authoritarians have good reason to fear women’s political participation: when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy. In other words, fully free, politically active women are a threat to authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders—and so those leaders have a strategic reason to be sexist. 

[…] Established autocrats and right-wing nationalist leaders in contested democracies are united in their use of hierarchical gender relations to shore up nationalist, top-down, male-dominated rule. Having long fought against social hierarchies that consolidate power in the hands of the few, feminist movements are a powerful weapon against authoritarianism. [Source]

source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/ccp-gestures-towards-womens-rights-to-sweeten-pro-natalist-shift/