China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs Rebellion
By Zixu Wang, Sept. 29, 2022, NY Times
“We have won the great battle against Covid!”
“History will remember those who contributed!”
“Extinguish every outbreak!”
These are among the many battle-style slogans that Beijing has unleashed to rally support around its top-down, zero-tolerance coronavirus policies.
China is now one of the last places on earth trying to eliminate Covid-19, and the Communist Party has relied heavily on propaganda to justify increasingly long lockdowns and burdensome testing requirements that can sometimes lead to three tests a week.
The barrage of messages — online and on television, loudspeakers and social platforms — has become so overbearing that some citizens say it has drowned out their frustrations, downplayed the reality of the country’s tough coronavirus rules and,occasionally, bordered on the absurd.
By Day 8 of a citywide lockdown in Shanghai this spring, Jason Xue had no more food left in his fridge. Yet when he clicked on the government’s social media account, he noticed that a top city official had vowed to “make every possible endeavor”to address food shortages.
Government assistance didn’t show up until four weeks later, Mr. Xue said.didn’t even know whether we could have the next meal.”
“I was extremely angry, panicked and despairing,” said Mr. Xue, who works for a financial communications firm. He eventually turned to neighbors for help. “The propaganda was resolute and decisive, but it was different from the reality that we
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has made controlling the virus a “top political priority.” Thousands of state media outlets and social media accounts have echoed Beijing’s “zero Covid” policy and praised the sacrifice of workers trying tocontrol Covid-19.
Propaganda has long been one of the Chinese Communist Party’s favored tools for social control. But in the Covid era, the government’s use of it has been on overdrive. By some estimates, at least 120 Covid-related propaganda phrases have beencreated since the beginning of the pandemic.
When certain terms risked upsetting large numbers of people, officials simply came up with new ones. The authorities, for example, have swapped the word “lockdown” with “static management,” “silence” or “working from home” whenreferring to certain Covid protocols.
“Words shouldn’t be used that way,” Xiao Qiang, the founder of a California-based website that documents Chinese censorship, said in a phone interview. “The government embellished policies with political rhetoric, aiming to mitigate fallout.”has contributed to confusion and frustration.
The authorities now avoid words like “lockdown” because they want people to continue to obey stringent coronavirus measures without panic or resistance, Mr. Xiao added. Officials made the policy language “ambiguous and awkward,” he said, which
When people tried to run away from quarantine buildings during an earthquake in Sichuan Province this year, epidemic workers were caught on camera blocking them from seeking safety.necessary.
Videos of the episode were posted online and quickly deleted by censors, who said people should “at least bring masks before escaping from buildings,” even when an earthquake is “highly destructive.”
For some, the video was a reminder of how the government had used the pandemic to tighten its grip on their private lives, telling them when they can leave their apartments, what kind of food they can buy and what hospitals they can enter.
Kong Lingwanyu, a 22-year-old marketing intern in Shanghai, was upset that officials used the phrase “unless necessary” when describing restrictions around things like leaving the home, dining out or gathering with others.
Ms. Kong said a local official responsible for carrying out coronavirus policies had told her that she should not “buy unnecessary food.” She said she asked the official what standards the government used to determine what kind of food was
“Who are you to decide the ‘necessity’ for others?” she said. “It’s totally absurd and nonsense.”quarantine centers, increased health care capacity, traditional Chinese medicine, screening of neighborhoods and prevention of local transmission.
On state television, Beijing’s “nine storm fortification actions” around the pandemic are frequently repeated to keep people in line with Covid policies. The nine actions are: neighborhood lockdowns, mass testing, contact tracing, disinfection,
Yang Xiao, a 33-year-old cinematographer in Shanghai who was confined to his apartment for two months during a lockdown this year, had grown tired of them all.said the announcements had disturbed his sleep at night and woke him up at dawn.
“With the Covid control, propaganda and state power expanded and occupied all aspects of our life,” he said in a phone interview. Day after day, Mr. Yang heard loudspeakers in his neighborhood repeatedly broadcasting a notice for P.C.R. testing. He
“Our life was dictated and disciplined by propaganda and state power,” he said.Google’s Random Generator, a program that scrambles data.
To communicate his frustrations, Mr. Yang selected 600 common Chinese propaganda phrases, such as “core awareness,” “obey the overall situation” and “the supremacy of nationhood.” He gave each phrase a number and then put the numbers into
He ended up with senseless phrases such as “detect citizens’ life and death line,” “strictly implement functions” and “specialize overall plans without slack.” Then he used a voice program to read the phrases aloud and played the audio ona loudspeaker in his neighborhood.
No one seemed to notice the five minutes of computer-generated nonsense.simulated the discourse like a mirror, reflecting its own absurdity.”
When Mr. Yang uploaded a video of the scene online, however, more than 1.3 million people viewed it. Many praised the way he used government language as satire. Chinese propaganda was “too absurd to be criticized using logic,” Mr. Yang said. “I
His video was taken down by censors.Justice! Rule of law!” Those words would be familiar to most Chinese citizens: They are commonly cited by state media as core socialist values under Mr. Xi.
Mr. Yang added that he hoped to inspire others to speak out against China’s Covid policies and its use of propaganda in the pandemic. He wasn’t the only Shanghai resident to rebel when the city was locked down.
In June, dozens of residents protested against the police and Covid control workers who installed chain-link fences around neighborhood apartments. When a protester was shoved into a police car and taken away, one man shouted: “Freedom! Equality!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/china-covid-propaganda.html
David P. wrote:------------------
China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs RebellionAs usual for the American Press, blowing things out of proportion. Those protests are rare and the protesters only make up a tiny fraction of the population of China.
By Zixu Wang, Sept. 29, 2022, NY Times
[..................] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/china-covid-propaganda.html
Those protesters should consider themselves lucky that they are able to protest. If not for the strict measures against the pandemic, they would be lying sick at home or in hospital or be dead by now.
The Chinese should hold on till the coming winter is over. Let's see if there will be another wave. If there is, the Chinese will have the last laugh.
dosai prata wrote:Why WSJ writers did not do their homework and keep publishing misleading articles which do not allow their readers to know what is happening in China?
David P. wrote:
China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs RebellionAs usual for the American Press, blowing things out of proportion. Those protests are rare and the protesters only make up a tiny fraction of the population of China.
By Zixu Wang, Sept. 29, 2022, NY Times
[..................] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/china-covid-propaganda.html
Those protesters should consider themselves lucky that they are able to protest. If not for the strict measures against the pandemic, they would be lying sick at home or in hospital or be dead by now.
The Chinese should hold on till the coming winter is over. Let's see if there will be another wave. If there is, the Chinese will have the last laugh.------------------
Why do you want to keep adding one billion people every 12 years,
like we've been doing since 1960??
--
--
David P. wrote:----------------------
dosai prata wrote:
David P. wrote:
China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs RebellionAs usual for the American Press, blowing things out of proportion. Those protests are rare and the protesters only make up a tiny fraction of the population of China.
By Zixu Wang, Sept. 29, 2022, NY Times
[..................] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/china-covid-propaganda.html
Those protesters should consider themselves lucky that they are able to protest. If not for the strict measures against the pandemic, they would be lying sick at home or in hospital or be dead by now.
Why WSJ writers did not do their homework and keep publishing misleading articles which do not allow their readers to know what is happening in China?The Chinese should hold on till the coming winter is over. Let's see if there will be another wave. If there is, the Chinese will have the last laugh.------------------
Why do you want to keep adding one billion people every 12 years,
like we've been doing since 1960??
-- -----------------
ltlee1 wrote:
David P. wrote:
dosai prata wrote:
David P. wrote:
China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs RebellionAs usual for the American Press, blowing things out of proportion. Those protests are rare and the protesters only make up a tiny fraction of the population of China.
By Zixu Wang, Sept. 29, 2022, NY Times
[..................] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/business/china-covid-propaganda.html
Those protesters should consider themselves lucky that they are able to protest. If not for the strict measures against the pandemic, they would be lying sick at home or in hospital or be dead by now.
----------------------Why WSJ writers did not do their homework and keep publishing misleading articles which do not allow their readers to know what is happening in China?The Chinese should hold on till the coming winter is over. Let's see if there will be another wave. If there is, the Chinese will have the last laugh.------------------
Why do you want to keep adding one billion people every 12 years,
like we've been doing since 1960??
-- -----------------
Each species has natural enemies that keep its
numbers in check. The U.N. projects that we'll rise to
9 then 10 billion & level out. Is that the plan? What's the plan?
Who's the author of the plan? I was talking to a professor
in 2020, & he said: "There is no plan."
-----------
Extending life spans artificially by suppressing
communicable diseases is a selfish decision at the
expense of other critters, future generations, and
the environment! Nowhere else in Nature does a
population increase indefinitely without a crash!
-------------
If we had stayed at world population 4 billion, we
wouldn't have climate change, the refugee crisis,
decimation of wildlife, & environmental degradation!
People thought they could do whatever they wanted,
and get away with it, and they were wrong!
-----------
The media needs to be interviewing Ecologists.
They're looking at the whole biosphere. Doctors,
epidemiologists, and politicians are just looking
at a piece of the picture, whatever suits them!
There's nothing "normal" about adding one billion
people every 12 years!
-------------
The scientists called for Zero Population Growth 50 years ago;
they were looking at our ecological footprint & projecting
into the future, & nobody else was! Nothing was debunked;
it was ignored!
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