Does anybody running China tell the truth?

The China Letter: June 17, 2022

You’ll see a trend in the stories coming out of China this week, which all relate to messages from Beijing that don’t correlate with what seems to be the reality. How do we deal with this kind of world power? The best we can do with this newsletter is learn more about these developments—and also keep you informed.

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Turning red after a protest

CNN Asia Pacific PR @cnnasiapr

Authorities in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou have been accused of tampering with the Covid health code system to stop people from protesting. @Nectar_Gan has the story.

cnn.itChina’s bank run victims planned to protest. Then their Covid health codes turned redAuthorities in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou have been accused of tampering with the Covid health code system to stop people from protesting.

It was after rare protests against the banking system in the province of Henan that some residents reported that their COVID-19 apps were instructing them to restrict their movements, even if they tested negative and had no likelihood of contracting the virus. But after word of this trend spread, users found their red alerts turning green again.

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Between the lines he signed

ABC News @abcnews

'Non-war military operations': Xi readies China's forces for bigger overseas 'grey zone' role

abc.net.auXi announces plans to allow Chinese military to undertake ‘armed forces operations’ abroadAccording to China’s government, Xi Jinping has signed off on a set of new trial outlines that allow for Chinese “armed forces operations” that aren’t war, and set a legal basis for the PLA to “safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests”.

With the legal basis set for more “armed forces operations” by China, the guessing begins about what that means for foreign security. State media reported Xi Jinping signed off on foreign operations for purposes “other than war.” It’s increased speculation of defining an invasion of Taiwan as “disaster relief, humanitarian aid, escort and peacekeeping.”

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Freed journalist still missing

Haidi Lun Stroud-Watts 伦海迪 @HaidiLun

Our friend and colleague, Haze Fan, was released on bail in January, according to the Chinese embassy in Washington - more than a year after she was detained. Bloomberg News has been unable to contact Haze; the embassy says her case remains pending trial: us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/lcbt/sgfyr…

Bloomberg News newsroom staffer Haze Fan was detained in December 2020 on the grounds of endangering national security, adding to a pattern of journalists being jailed by Beijing. China’s embassy in Washington announced that she’s been released pending a trial. But none of her Bloomberg colleagues could find her when they tried after that.

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Rewriting history in HK

BBC Asia @BBCNewsAsia

Hong Kong: New school books claim territory was not a British colony

bbc.inHong Kong: New school books claim territory was not a British colonyThe books assert China’s claims of unbroken sovereignty over the territory despite the UK’s long rule.

Hong Kong’s education bureau is currently vetting textbooks that contend it was never a British colony, even though that was the status it had for over 150 years. The new portrayal is that the British “only exercised colonial rule” between 1841 and 1941 and 1945 to 1997.

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Retracted signal from space

New York Post @nypost

China says it may have detected aliens, then deletes report trib.al/mc8ZGpK

“Several cases of possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations from outside the earth” were reported on by the official newspaper of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, which cited a team of researchers from Beijing Normal University. But even if this truth is out there—they’ve deleted the story.