Martin K. Dimitrov

In China, as in all communist regimes, there exist two types of media: one is publicly available and the other is restricted and accessible only to regime insiders who possess the proper clearances. This second type of media, known as neibu 内部 or for ‘internal circulation’, has received less attention from scholars. The puzzle as to whether a Mao-era institution like internal-circulation media has survived into the twenty-first century stems from a theoretical uncertainty about the role of internal publications in an age when so much information is accessible to regime insiders via the Internet and social media. This article provides a theoretical argument about the function of neibu publications in China. It then argues that these media have retained their original functions and are still of central importance as conduits for transmitting sensitive information to Party leaders in the digital age.

What are neibu publications?

In contract to the publicly accessible media, neibu publications are restricted to individuals holding the appropriate rank within the Chinese party-state. The classifications of these media range from neibu 内部 (internal circulation) to mimi 秘密 (confidential), jimi 机密 (secret), and even juemi 绝密(top-secret). Here, neibu is used as a synonym for internal publications at all levels of classification. The general principle is that those materials are available to regime insiders, with the circle of recipients becoming progressively smaller as we move up the ladder of confidentiality. For example, Neibu cankao 内部参考 (Internal Reference) was issued as a secret 机密 serial originally limited to Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee members and provincial CPC Standing Committee members. Top-secret materials have an even narrower distribution list, generally being aimed at CPC Politburo members and provincial Party secretaries.

In terms of type, neibu publications are mirror images of the kinds of media that circulate publicly. They include books on technical matters like policing or military affairs; detailed government reports, yearbooks, and almanacs; documentaries on politically sensitive issues; academic research reports; and, finally, periodic bulletins containing news and analysis on both domestic and international politics. The same individuals write for both neibu and the publicly accessible media, with final decision about which of the two publication streams is the more appropriate outlet resting with the editors at Xinhua, the major news outlets (which all have neibu publications), the major publishing houses, and so on. The range of these sources is truly extensive.

Internal media under Mao

Scholars of Maoist China have an extraordinary resource that allows them to trace systematically the content of internal media: the secret-level classified serial Neibu cankao, which is available at the Universities Service Centre at the Chinese University in Hong Kong in its entirety for the 1949–1964 period. Analysis and detailed coding of the 3,612 issues published between September 1949 and December 1964 reveals that this serial meant for the top leadership contained a rich array of negative news.[1] Readers were apprised of alarming phenomena such as episodes of famine, shortages of goods, and incidences of bureaucratic corruption, theft, and waste as well as ethnic and religious minority unrest. In addition, Neibu cankao tracked various anti-regime and enemy activities, such as the creation of counterrevolutionary organisations or the infiltration of different parts of China by foreign spies. Most frequent were reports on hostile reactions, opinions, and views concerning the Party and its policies, including occasional dispatches on superstitious rumours. This coverage stood in sharp contrast to that in the officially accessible media, such as People’s Daily, which focused on the Party’s achievements and praise.

Other classified publications have survived from the Maoist period include the initially classified Reference News (Cankao xiaoxi 参考消息), which began as neibu but radically expanded its circle of recipients in 1957 and by the late 1970s had become a newspaper that was readily available both on a subscription basis and through newspaper kiosks.^[2] There are also individual issues of serials, bulletins, and government documents at all levels of classification, as well as Xinhua almanacs that discuss internal reference publications. Cumulatively, these sources, which can be accessed at various archives in Hong Kong and in the West allow us to claim that internal media persisted during the darkest chapters of China’s political history such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, despite arguments put forward by orthodox supporters of the Cultural Revolution that they should cease publication. The reason for their survival is that top leaders found them valuable. As Vice-Premier Chen Yi 陈毅 opined in 1966, the neibu Reference Materials (Cankao ziliao 参考资料) is ‘our daily bread’ and ‘we cannot work without it’.[3] For their part, Mao and Zhou Enlai insisted on reading Reference Materials and Important News of the Day (Meiri yaowen 每日要闻) right before going to bed.[4]

Internal reference materials under Xi

Multiple sources point to the continued importance of neibu publications in the present age. Anecdotally, Chinese academics say that the internal reports they write can lead to bigger bonuses and faster promotions than publications in openly circulating academic journals.[5] Internal reference books and government publications persist, especially in the highly sensitive areas of public security and ethnic affairs.[6] There is also evidence of the screening of classified documentaries on the Soviet collapse to Party cadres.[7] Most importantly, internal reference news bulletins continue to be published. Relevant evidence is provided by the 2014 Jiujiang 九江prefecture Propaganda Department surprise data leak, which revealed the persistence of both central-level and grassroots classified bulletins into the Xi Jinping era. One example from the central level is the Xinhua weekly Public Opinion Observation (party and government edition) 舆情观察(党政版), which contains reports on official Weibo 微博; on social media posts by famous personalities; on the top news items; most frequent keyword searches; most viewed photos, cartoons, and videos; as well as analytical reports on Internet public opinion.^[8] The content of this bulletin suggests that this is the primary way in which the leadership understands the Chinese Internet and social media.

At the grassroots level, Xinhua prepares bulletins on Internet public opinion that are generated through the Xinhua public opinion management system舆情管理系统, consisting of over 700 popular print media from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as over 300 major websites and over 300 discussion forums. This system enables keyword searches that can be used to produce reports about public opinion expressed in different localities in China. For example, public opinion about Jiujiang prefecture in one week in October 2014 consisted of 159 items from the traditional print media; 908 items from the online media; and 509 items from discussion forums.^[9] Once identified, these items can be scored in terms of their tone (positive, neutral, negative), with negative public opinion highlighted for additional attention. In general, over the last decade there has been a proliferation of internal reporting tailored for cadres at various levels of the political system.[10]

Do these reports matter? A cliché about communist regimes is that leaders ignore the intelligence they receive.^[11] One feature of the Chinese internal reporting system allows us to test this assumption: leaders have the option to discount the information, to read it, or to read it and to issue instructions (pishi 批示). We have evidence that in 2005 central leading cadres中央领导issued instructions on 1,460 internal reference reports prepared by the Xinhua News Agency; by 2011, the number of reports prompting instructions by the top leadership had risen more than threefold to 4,557.^[12] Since then, attention to these documents has grown further.[13] This rapid increase attests both to the value that leaders attach to internal reporting and to the frequency with which these reports inform policy decisions: according to the internal rules of the Chinese bureaucracy, a report that has received a pishi automatically acquires the status of a policy document.^[14] In sum, internal journalistic reporting remains indispensable to decision makers in the age of social media. These reports allow leaders to react to online and offline public opinion crises quickly and to thus fulfil the paramount goal of Stability Maintenance 维稳.

Why neibu publications still matter

In the eyes of the party, the most important distinction between internal media and publicly available media is the function they serve. Internal periodicals have to contain factual information 信息, while publicly available outlets carry appropriate news 新闻, opinions, and most importantly, propaganda messaging.[15] Xi Jinping for example, called for the public media to ‘correctly guide public opinion’ 正确舆论导向 by ‘emphasising positive publicity’ 正面宣传为主.^[16]

This distinction goes back many decades. During the Mao period, when the People’s Daily avoided reporting on sensitive topics like famine or popular criticism of the regime, Xinhua instructed journalists writing for internal publications to collect information on important events and provide objective, factual reporting not suitable for publicly accessible media. Specifically, this included the political attitudes expressed by ordinary people of different walks of life and their opinions about important domestic and international events. In addition, internal media contributors were expected to track people’s opinions about life and work problems and monitor their views about the leading party and government organs. Finally, internal media had to cover natural disasters and ‘counterrevolutionary’ activities. In sum, such publications were entrusted with a very broad mandate of reporting on negative developments, while the publicly available media carried propagandistic and politically vetted content.^[17]

Academic studies of internal publications have focused on the Mao period.^[18] Given the difficulty of accessing a substantial body of such publications, most research is based on relatively small samples. Nevertheless, it’s clear that under Mao, reporting on domestic news was an important focus of internal media, which covered a wide spectrum of issues from popular reactions to the death of Stalin to the circulation of rumours and the incidence of riots.^[19] Internal bulletins served as a key source of information for the leadership during the Mao period and potentially up until the 1989 pro-democracy protest movement.^[20]

In the post-1989 period, foreign scholarship has centred on investigative reporting in the publicly available print media, including commercialised media, and on citizen journalism in social media.^[21] The implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumption is that internal journalistic reporting has either become extinct or has greatly receded in importance due to the rise of useful reporting in commercial media, where investigative journalism of the sort that reveals public attitudes and concerns helps make publications competitive.^[22]

And yet, a leaked 2011 directive on writing internal reports for the party and the government reveals the distinct requirements for internal information that validate the persistence of internal publications into the digital age.^[23] Because internal information reports are supposed to help leaders reach decisions, they need to be presented in an objective and clear writing style. By contrast, publicly available news and reports serve multiple functions: to entertain, propagandise, educate, and guide public opinion and so may use literary devices like metaphors and analogies. This document also specifies the kinds of information (regarding disasters, epidemics, and unexpected incidents), whose casual release to the public could have a negative impact on social stability; such information can appear in the public media with prior approval from the senior leader at the relevant level.^[24]

One theory is that investigate journalism thrived precisely because the regime needed more information.[25] However, given that the regime has abundant sources of information that are not publicly disseminated, investigative reporting may better serve other regime goals such as appearing accountable.²⁶

In July 2024 Beijing News 新京报 published a front-page report on tankers being consecutively used to transport coal-to-liquid fuels 煤制油 and edible oils 食用油 without being cleaned in between.[26] Widely hailed as ‘investigative journalism’,[27] the report acknowledges that this practice is a well-known ‘open secret’ 公开的秘密.[28] What was the purpose of this report? By the end of August 2024, two truck drivers had been arrested and three companies penalised. Most important were the draft regulations laid down in August 2024 by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, which stipulated that containers used for transporting non-edible oils should not be used for cooking oils.[29] Thus, instead of investigative reporting, we most likely have a strategically placed report that aimed to portray the government as responsive and accountable to citizen concerns. Whenever the relevant neibu documents become available, we can check on when a report on unclean cooking oil first emerged in the internal media. This author’s strong suspicion is that this happened months and perhaps even years prior to the Beijing News publication.

In sum, internal publications continue to deliver negative information to the leadership in the Xi era, apprising it of popular dissatisfaction.

[1] Martin K. Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023, p. 132–135.

[2] Xinhua News Agency, Chronicle of Important Events at the Xinhua News Agency, 1950-1976,新华社大事记, 1950-1976, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2002, p. 41; Xinhua News Agency, Cankao xiaoxi: Commemorative Booklet for the 55^th Anniversary of Its Creation (1931-1986) and the 30^th Anniversary of the Expansion of Its Circulation (1957-1987) 参考消息–创办五十五周年(1931-1986)扩大发行三十周年(1957-1987)纪念册, Hefei: Anhui Xinhua Yinshuachang, 1987.

[3] Xinhua News Agency, Chronicle of Important Events at the Xinhua News Agency, 1950-1976新华社大事记, 1950-1976, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2002, p. 88.

[4] Ibid., p. 112.

[5] Author’s conversations with academics in China, 2023–2024.

[6] Third Department of the Ministry of Public Security, Compendium of PRC Household Registration Regulations, 1950–2014 中华人民共和国户口管理资料汇编, 1950–2014, Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Gong’an Daxue Chubanshe, 2015; Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Local Gazetteer Editing Committee, Xinjiang Gazetteer, 1986–2005, vol. 7: Politics 新疆通志 1986–2005, 第七卷:政治, Beijing: Fangzhi Chubanshe, 2022.

[7] Author’s conversations with academics in China, 2023–2024.

[8] Public Opinion Observation (party and government edition)  舆情观察(党政版), Nr. 16 (17 October 2014).

[9] Jiujiang Public Opinion Assessment Weekly 九江市舆情监测周报, Nr. 40 (6 October–10 October 2014).

[10] Tao Wu and Bixiao He, ‘Intelligence for Sale: The “Party-Public Sentiment, Inc.” and Stability Maintenance in China’, Problems of Post-Communism 67:2 (2020), 129–140.

[11] Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962, New York: Walker & Co., 2010.

[12] Calculated from Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2006 新华社年鉴2006, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2007, p.198 and Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2011新华社年鉴2011, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2012, p. 259.

[13] Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2016 新华社年鉴2016, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2017.

[14] Wen-Hsuan Tsai, ‘A Unique Pattern of Policymaking in China’s Authoritarian System: The CCP’s Neican/Pishi Model’, Asian Survey 55:6 (November/December 2015), 1093-1115.

[15] Martin K. Dimitrov, ‘The Political Logic of Media Control in China’, Problems of Post-Communism 64: 3–4 (2017), 121–127.

[16] David Bandurski, ‘Under Xi, the Media has Turned from a ‘Mouthpiece of the Masses’ to the Party’s Parrot’, Hong Kong Free Press, 21 June 2016, online at https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/06/21/under-xi-the-media-has-turned-from-a-mouthpiece-of-masses-to-the-partys-parrot/

[17] ‘Central Committee Regulation for Xinhua Journalists Writing Internal Reference Materials’ 中共中央关于新华社记者采写内部参考资料的规定, July 1953.

[18] Michael Schoenhals, ‘Elite Information in China’, Problems of Communism 34 (September-October 1985), 65–71; Jennifer Grant, ‘Internal Reporting by Investigative Journalists in China and Its Influence on Government Policy’, International Communication Gazette 41 (1988), 53–65; Huai Yan and Suisheng Zhao, ‘Notes on China’s Confidential Documents’, Journal of Contemporary China 2:4 (1993), 75–92.

[19] For a piece based on the systematic analysis of 30 reports published in Neibu cankao in March 1953, see Hua-yu Li, ‘Reactions of Chinese Citizen to the Death of Stalin: Internal Communist Party Reports’, Journal of Cold War Studies 11:2 (Spring 2009), 70–88. On rumours and superstitions in Neibu cankao, see S. A. Smith, ‘Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts: The Politics of “Superstitious” Rumors in the People’s Republic of China, 1961-1965’, American Historical Review 111:2 (2006), 405-427. For an overview of sensitive issues covered in Neibu cankao, see Dimitrov 2017.

[20] Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, p. 152–157; Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, Perry Link, and Orville Schell, comps., The Tiananmen Papers, New York: Pacific Affairs, 2002; Daniel Leese, ‘The CCP Information Order in the Early People’s Republic of China: The Case of Xuanjiao Dongtai’, Modern China 49:2 (2023), 135–158.

[21] Zhou Yuezhi, ‘Watchdogs on Party Leashes? Contexts and Implications of Investigative Journalism in Post-Deng China’, Journalism Studies 1:4 (2000), 577–597; David Bandurski and Martin Hala, eds., Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases of Chinese Watchdog Journalism, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010; Jingrong Tong, Investigative Journalism in China: Journalism, Power, and Society, London: Continuum, 2011; Marina Svensson, Elin Saether, and Zhi’an Zhang, eds., Chinese Investigative Journalists’ Dreams: Autonomy, Agency, and Voice, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014; Jingrong Tong, Investigative Journalism, Environmental Problems, and Modernization in China, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; Haiyan Wang, The Transformation of Investigative Journalism in China: From Journalists to Activists, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016; Jonathan Hassid, China’s Unruly Journalists: How Committed Professionals Are Changing the People’s Republic, New York: Routledge, 2016; Maria Repnikova, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017; Rongbin Han, Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018, esp. p. 77–100.

[22] Peter Lorentzen, ‘China’s Strategic Censorship’, American Journal of Political Science 58:2 (April 2014), 402–414; Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013; Xin Xin, How the Market Is Changing China’s News: The Case of the Xinhua News Agency, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012; Susan L. Shirk, ed., Changing Media, Changing China, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; and Yuezhi Zhao, Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. For an exception to this line of thinking, see Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information.

[23] ‘Some Pointers on Writing Reports for Party and Government’ 党政信息写工作的几点体会, online at http://www.zk168.com/fanwen/fanwenxinde_274744

[24] Ibid.

[25] Lorentzen, ‘China’s Strategic Censorship’.

[26] Dimitrov 2017; Haiyan Wang, ‘A Dog That No Longer Barks: Role Performance of Investigative Journalism in China in the Digital Age’, Journalism Practice 18 (2024), 2240–2257.

[27] Han Futao (韩福涛), ‘An Investigation of Tanker Truck Transport Chaos in Unloading Coal Oil and Loading Edible Oil’ 罐车运输乱象调查卸完煤制油又装食用油, Beijing News, 2 July 2024, online at https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1719878490168127.html

[28] ‘A Rare Exposé’, China Media Project, 10 July 2024, online at https://chinamediaproject.org/2024/07/10/rare-front-page-report/#:~:text=Reporters%2C%20for%20example%2C%20trailed%20one,of%20the%20tank%20in%20between.

[29] https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1719878490168127.html

[30] ‘Chinese Cooking Oil Scandal Prompts New Safety Rule for Transporting Products’, South China Morning Post, 30 August 2024, online at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3276586/chinese-cooking-oil-scandal-prompts-new-safety-rules-transporting-products

The post Eyes Only: How China’s Party Leaders Get Their Information appeared first on The China Story.

The photo showed a young Chinese couple in a park in Adelaide, with a caption saying that they were celebrating their six-month anniversary. Alice immediately recognised the man in the photo as the partner of a friend of hers who she had messaged earlier that day. She was disgusted by the discovery of his two-timing, but impressed by the power of Xiaohongshu’s algorithm.

Alice didn’t follow her friend or her partner on Xiaohongshu, but despite that and her being 729 kilometres away from Adelaide, Xiaohongshu’s powerful combined geographical and personalised algorithm had shown her that photo.

Background and expansion

Launched in 2013 in Shanghai by Stanford graduate Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu, Xiaohongshu 小红书 – also known as ‘Red’ or ‘The Little Red Book’ – has become the fastest growing social platform in China by 2023.^[1] Users share stories and photos from daily life, exchange life hacks and post reviews ranging from new lipsticks to interior design.^[2] Similar to Instagram, Xiaohongshu prioritises posts that contain photos and videos, and divides them into three main feeds for users: ‘Follow’, where users can view posts from people they choose to follow; ‘Explore’, where users can access algorithm-personalised posts by choosing their favourite content categories, from manicures to career development; and ‘Nearby’, where the app recommends content produced in the same geographical area as the user.

When it was first launched, Xiaohongshu was designed as an e-commerce platform providing overseas travel and shopping information for Chinese tourists abroad, offering them user-generated recommendations on where to eat, shop or stay and what to buy overseas. It was also the time when the phenomena of daigou 代购, shoppers buying sought-after goods overseas on behalf of consumers in China, caught global attention. As daigou relied on social media to advertise the products, it contributed to China’s first transnational e-commerce boom, with the sector recording 2.7 trillion RMB ($573 billion AUD) in 2014.^[3] The profits of the e-commerce boom not only prompted then Premier Li Keqiang to announce new economic policies to promote the growth of cross-border e-commerce, but also inspired Xiaohongshu to launch its own online store in 2014 selling overseas products recommended by its users.^[4]

With the increasing traffic to the app and growing diversity of content, Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce feature extended to products available in mainland China. The app combines the user-generated posts with e-commerce by allowing each post to embed a shopping link to the products. Users describe Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce model as ‘planting seeds’ 种草: the user-generated reviews plant the seed of desire for the items. This differentiates the platform from traditional e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and newer ones such as TEMU, which still follow the Amazon-like structure that prioritises item search, rather than customer reviews.^[5]

Specifically, Xiaohongshu encourages users to produce anecdotal, visual and first-person reviews that directly address other users. These requirements constitute what marketing professionals call the Xiaohongshu format 小红书文案, which feature of a condensed, click-bait headline, a strong first-person anecdote, practical tips and suggestions, and address other users as ‘families’ 家人们, ‘sisters’ 姐妹们, ‘fairies’ 仙女们 and ‘little sweet potatoes’ 红薯们 (hongshu men, a pun on the name red book, hongshu 红书) which is the way Xiaohongshu fans describe themselves. With the development of artificial intelligence in recent years, Chat-GPT style AI tools have been developed to help users and marketing professionals write the kind of post favoured by Xiaohongshu’s algorithm.^[6] For Instance, to generate a negative review of a restaurant with unreasonably high prices and poor service, a Xiaohongshu-tailored AI would generate a post as below^[7]:

Title: NEVER EVER eat at this restaurant!

Today I want to share with you all my experience at a shady restaurant: xxx restaurant. Firstly, the prices were quite high, the food just so-so, and not worth the price. Secondly, the staff’s attitudes were bad – while we ordered, the waiter looked impatient, which made us feel very uncomfortable. Lastly, the dining environment was no good either, and it made you lose your appetite. In summary, never ever eat in this restaurant, I really don’t recommend it! #NotRecommend #BadReview #HighPrice

According to a senior Xiaohongshu director, the philosophy behind promoting such an anecdotal style of reviews is to encourage users to ‘genuinely share’ 真诚分享 their experiences: ‘When we first began the platform for offering reviews of transnational shopping, we aimed to present authentic views from real people on real items, and these reviews could be shown to another person with similar demands. When the person read these reviews, they’d find them useful,’ said ‘Monkey King’, the director of the CEO office. (As part of its corporate culture, all staff in Xiaohongshu address each other using nicknames – the CEO himself is known as Seiya, from the Japanese manga Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac).^[8]

However, the rise of AI generated content and ‘soft advertising’ on the platform raise doubts on the supposed authenticity of the reviews. Similar to other video sharing platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, Xiaohongshu has become a new platform for online influencers who collaborate with brands to produce advertisements disguised as authentic product reviews.

Some accounts will embed a link that directs customers to shops on Xiaohongshu, so that shoppers don’t need to quit the platform to complete the purchase. Among the brands that maintain accounts on Xiaohongshu are Dior and Chanel. In the first quarter of 2024, Xiaohongshu recorded over US$1 billion sales, with a net profit of $200 million.^[9] The platform records around 300 million active users per month and has been listed as most popular mobile app among Chinese people under thirty along with second-hand selling platform Xianyu 咸鱼 (No. 2) and video platform bilibili 哔哩哔哩 (No.3).^[10] But as the platform continues to grow, issues embedded in its technical and algorithmic structure have emerged, including social and political dilemmas that could worry the Party and government.

A feminist platform?

Since its founding, Xiaohongshu has accumulated a large base of young female users. According to data from a Fujian-based social marketing company, around 70 percent of Xiaohongshu’s users are young women, with 85 percent of them born after 1996 (‘Gen Z’) and half of them from China’s first and second-tier cities.^[11] The preponderance of women has created a space for women to interact and discuss gender-related topics from skincare routines to menstrual shaming.^[12] Notably, compared to other social media platforms such as Weibo, users of Xiaohongshu are more likely to follow and adopt recommendations of other users due to its nature as a review-sharing platform.^[13] Xiaohongshu’s operations team knows that growing their user community gives them more opportunities to monetise user-generated content. Taiwanese software engineer Nick who worked for Xiaohongshu in 2017 has told Bailingguo News – one of the top three podcasts in Taiwan – that during his time at the company, Xiaohongshu had around 200 staff, over half of whom were women.^[14] The majority of the team of operation engineers responsible for content presentation were women as well. According to him, Xiaohongshu would collaborate with cosmetic brands to offer training about makeup products to male engineers responsible for the algorithm so they could learn about trends. ‘It’s very useful. It helps you understand what’s the difference between lipsticks and lip glosses,’ he told Bailinguo News.^[15]

With users’ heavy focus on consumer aesthetics, Xiaohongshu has sparked debates over consumerism and gender stereotypes, including that which promotes the ‘pale, young and slim’ 白幼瘦 obsession among young women. In 2020 and 2021, a combination of user-directed recommendations and brand-driven promotion made the American fast-fashion brand Brandy Melville a symbol of youth, charisma and fashion. Xiaohongshu users coined the term ‘BM style’ based on the brand’s one-size-fits-all (so long as ‘all’ are slim) philosophy and posted photos and videos of themselves in Brandy Melville clothing. ‘BM style’ became the subject of a popular user-driven discussion on young women’s appearance, with many discussing ‘appearance anxiety’ 容貌焦虑 related to the promotion of the ‘pale, young and slim look’, leading to the hashtag ‘RejectAppearanceAnxiety’ 拒绝容貌焦虑’ on the platform in 2022. The discussion eventually inspired a new popular online buzzword, ‘beauty conscription’ 服美役, that likened the social pressures and gender stereotypes forcing young Chinese women to apply makeup, dress up and keep fit (slim) to military conscription.^[16] Today, the promotion of ‘pale, young and slim’ aesthetics co-exists on Xiaohongshu alongside discussions of appearance anxiety. The hashtag #AppearanceAnxiety, where people criticise the overemphasis on appearance has received 2.8 billion views. To put this in perspective, the hashtag #FatLoss 减脂  – for sharing tips on losing weight and building and maintaining a fit and thin figure – has received almost 13.4 billion views.

Still, the disproportionate number of female users on Xiaohongshu has fostered the assertion of individual identities and feminist awareness where users discuss important topics of women’s health that are still taboo in China’s mainstream society, ranging from menstruation and postpartum depression to motherhood. It creates a community where women offer peer support and tips to each other through first-person narrated posts with visual elements. For instance, the hashtag #menstruation had 1.5 billion views by end of 2024. Women used it to discuss the pros and cons of menstrual products from pads to menstrual cups, share their reviews of different hygienic brands and tell stories related to menstrual cramps.  You can find critiques of the social stigma around periods and explainers for women’s health issues such as the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical cancer. In November 2024, the conversation around women’s menstruation sparked a public outrage against China’s major sanitary pad producers, including over their misleading advertising about the dimensions of their pads.^[17]

Such discussions are partly fuelled by the sanitary product industry itself. Many posts looked like an explainer of menstrual cycles with tag lines such as ‘girls must read’ or ‘it’s 2024, time to normalise discussions about periods’, yet they are in fact product placements, or posts from sanitary product brands themselves. There are questions about whether consumeristic ‘self-care’ rhetoric is truly feminist, not only on Xiaohongshu but also on Douyin other social media platforms (and which echo similar questions raised by and posed on foreign platforms such as Instagram). However, such public discussion of subjects like menstruation has encouraged women to speak openly about other controversial topics such as the desirability of child-free marriage^[18], violence against women, and reproductive strategies such as egg-freezing for young women who want to delay motherhood.^[19]

Besides engaging in topic-specific discussions, many women on Xiaohongshu will post about their daily routines, career progress and travel, often through well-edited and filtered videos. While some of them spark controversies and criticism for worshipping materialism and over-glamourising middle-class lifestyles in China’s first-tier cities, it can be argued that the content reflects the concerns of many Chinese Gen Z women. The discussions show that marriages and families are not a priority for this demographic group, which prefers to define success in terms of personal growth, mental health and career. An example is the series of ‘Living Alone 独居’ vlogs where Xiaohongshu users show off their single lifestyles: travelling alone, engaging in their nightly routines after work.^[20] Some have become influencers as their videos go viral – even as questions arise about whether some are just product placements disguised as lifestyle. The connectivity of social media platforms means that the ‘Living Alone’ series videos are also widely available and popular on platforms such as Douyin. Product placements or not, the key message of these videos remains that women can also live happily without being married or having children, and this has had a significant social impact in itself.^[21]

Is Xiaohongshu the next tool for Beijing’s foreign influence?

The platform has never officially acknowledged whether the name Xiaohongshu bear any reference to the ‘The Little Red Book’, the nickname given to Quotations from Chairman Mao published in the 1960s and was ubiquitous during the Cultural Revolution. And while it was founded for commerce, not political ends, there are concerns that Xiaohongshu will follow TikTok – a short video app that originated from China – and be manipulated to serve Beijing’s political interests abroad.

In 2022 in Taiwan, where the government is combating a multi-front mis- and disinformation assault from China, Tsai Ing-wen’s government banned public servants from downloading Xiaohongshu on government devices.^[22] But Xiaohongshu is popular with Taiwanese youth who use it as a reliable search engine for beauty and lifestyle information. The increased popularity of Chinese drama and entertainment shows among Taiwanese young people also drives downloads for access to updates and fan-made content.^[23] While politics isn’t a major topic of discussion on Xiaohongshu, a Taiwan-based Xiaohongshu user told Radio Free Asia’s Wainao – a longform news outlet for the Gen Z Chinese diaspora – they did occasionally receive recommended posts containing mainland nationalist content, including one encouraging them to read the People’s Daily.^[24]

In the United States and Australia, Xiaohongshu is widely used by Chinese students studying at universities and young first-generation migrants, who find it useful for locating Chinese restaurants, Asian grocery stores and Chinese-speaking trade services as well as researching immigration policies and sharing their immigration experiences.^[25] In Australia, Xiaohongshu attracts almost 700,000 users^[26], including Chinese Australian citizens and temporary residents such as international students.^[27] In 2021, I interviewed three Australians who are on Xiaohongshu.^[28] Sebastian, who first came across Xiaohongshu through his Chinese partner, treated the platform like a ‘Chinese Instagram’ where he posted his daily outfits in exchange for hundreds of likes – often much more than on his Instagram where he shares the same content. Julie, an Anglo Australian who began studying Chinese at 11 years old, was a part-time influencer collaborating with an Australian marketing company to promote Australian products to Chinese audiences. Michael, a corporate worker in Melbourne who speaks Chinese and married a Chinese international student, talks about his upbringing as a second-generation Chinese Australian on Xiaohongshu. He also shares his personal tips for new migrants and international students on job hunting and ‘fitting in’. Xiaohongshu has become a new platform for Australian politicians to engage with the Chinese Australian electorate. According to an ABC News report in November 2024, twenty politicians, ranging from federal members to local councillors, use the app.^[29]

Since November 2023, Xiaohongshu has been gaining attention from teenagers outside China, after a video of a male blogger who learned makeup techniques from Xiaohongshu users went viral on TikTok. They joined Xiahohongshu to participate in the new Chinese social media trend of ‘Open to blunt advice’ 听劝 which encourages people to take advice from strangers on the internet. On the platform, they asked for make-up advices and suggestions on improving their appearances.^[30] In January 2025, ahead of the possible TikTok ban in the United States, many TikTok users rushed to Xiaohongshu as ‘TikTok refugees’ as they considered Xiaohongshu to share similar functions as TikTok.^[31]

However, unlike TikTok, Xiaohongshu’s global influence remains limited. Just as Tencent WeChat was the international version of Weixin to mitigate data and social media regulations from China on users outside the country, Xiaohongshu also launched an international version for overseas users, which it calls REDNote.^[32] According to the descriptions of Xiaohongshu and REDNote on the Apple Store, the two apps take different approaches to data from users’ contacts. Xiaohongshu users could find their data from contacts could be collected and linked to their identities^[33], while REDNote users may still find the data being collected by the app, but the data would not link to their identities.^[34] While Xiaohongshu has its own X account and YouTube channel to promote the platform in English, neither have been updated since 2022.

Nevertheless, utility of Xiaohongshu as a travel guide for Chinese tourists has prompted the tourism offices of foreign governments to launch their official accounts on Xiaohongshu in hopes of boosting visitor numbers from China. In August 2024, Australia’s Northern Territory, which experienced a 10.5 per cent drop of domestic tourists in 2023 due to Australia’s ongoing cost of living crisis, tense competition against international markets and other factors, launched its Xiaohongshu account to promote destinations such as Uluru, attempting to attract tourists from China.^[35]

Bumps in the road

Despite its lifestyle focus, Xiaohongshu is exposed to political risks inside and outside China. It is subject to China’s toughening censorship regime and has been found to censor keywords relating, for example, to the 1989 Tiananmen protests and Xi Jinping.^[36] Internationally, despite being one of the most popular platforms Chinese travellers turn to for overseas trip advice, Xiaohongshu does not yet have an overseas branch, although it is planning to open an office in Hong Kong.^[37] This could partly be due to the fact that Xiaohongshu struggled to make a profit until 2023, almost a decade after it was first launched.^[38]

The platform has drawn attention from business analysts for inefficiently monetising its huge amount of content and large community of users to boost its e-commerce business, which is the foundation of its business model. Its existing e-commerce feature does not have a clear brand compared with TEMU’s low pricing and Taobao’s convenience, for example.^[39] China’s tightening control of private companies going public overseas may also have slowed Xiaohongshu’s international expansion.^[40] However, as the platform recorded its first profits and caught the attention of venture capital investors^[41], it is possible that Xiaohongshu will relaunch overseas, although the company has denied that it would go public in Hong Kong or the United States.^[42]

The lack of a corporate presence overseas has posed questions such as data safety for overseas users. In Australia, there have also been concerns about misinformation on Xiaohongshu regarding Australian elections and referenda, with media academics calling for the Australian government to develop policy regarding the regulation of such platforms.^[43] There are a number of issues the platform will have to address if it wants to follow WeChat and TikTok overseas.

The Xiaohongshu bubble

To some extent, Xiaohongshu serves as a kind of pop culture survey, capturing and presenting the latest social trends and phenomena in contemporary China through vivid and relatable stories from everyday life. For instance, the intensive work environment and Chinese economic slowdown sparked a new trend on Xiaohongshu in June with users posting about life after quitting their jobs.^[44] In these posts, users share photos of themselves walking out of offices, packing their luggage and moving back to their hometowns, and beginning afresh by farming, travelling or pursuing other personal goals. However, Xiaohongshu has also caught attention from the Cyberspace Administration Office of China for failing to regulate the increasing number of posts that celebrate an over-materialist lifestyle.^[45] Since 2021, as part of the China’s mass campaign for internet regulation, Operation Qinglang 清朗行动, Xiaohongshu have followed instructions from the Cyberspace Administration Office of China and suspended accounts and removed social media posts that involve ‘showing off money and worshiping wealth’ 拜金炫富.^[46] Many people simply find other ways to project images of success on Xiaohongshu: Chinese state media reported in November 2024 that a growing number of users on Xiaohongshu post doctored photos of themselves making speeches at the United National Assembly.^[47] In August 2019, following reports by several Chinese media that Xiaohongshu failed to regulate accounts that sell pirate luxury-brand items on its e-commerce platforms, and advertising posts for tobaccoes, China’s cyberspace authorities instructed Xiaohongshu to rectify its content, and the app was removed from all mobile app stores for a month^[48].

Xiaohongshu is also heavily invested in an algorithm designed to fragment its users into groups based on their interests and lifestyles. When a new user joins Xiaohongshu, the platform automatically activates its personalisation algorithm. In its algorithm’s guidelines, Xiaohongshu states that it tracks information on the users’ devices, but it does not specify what type of information it will track. It also states that it will track geolocation, view history and all activities on the app so that the algorithm can recommend posts and videos of interest to them. It then reacts to likes by creating a bubble that pushes more and more similar content into their feeds. Commercially, this helps users, whose tastes are thus validated, develop a strong sense of community, which increases their loyalty toward the platform, and both Xiaohongshu and brands can easily make money from users in such bubbles. But it also restricts the picture of modern China and overseas Chinese communities for users to that reflected in their bubbles, including notions of wealth distribution and inequality, especially as the app itself is heavily biased towards the middle-classes. Its invasive yet opaque access to users’ personal information on phones have also sparked concerns on privacy. For Alice, who discovered the partner of her friend cheating on her in Adelaide while she was using the app in Melbourne, the incident did not just alert her to the platform’s powerful algorithms, but also how Xiaohongshu could have unintended effects on Chinese people’s daily lives wherever they live.

*Alice prefers using a pseudonym to protect her identity

Notes

^[1] Newrank, ‘2023 New Media Content Ecosystem Data Report’, 2023新媒体内容生态数据报告, Newrank.cn, 5 March 2024, online at: https://edit.newrank.cn/detail.html?uuid=CD1017CC7A7C05F817C31DCA2F049C32

^[2] Eleanor Olcott, ‘Chinese Social Media Sensation Xiaohongshu Win Major foreign VC Backing’, Financial Times, 11 July 2024, online at:  https://www.ft.com/content/2d5f515f-d341-41c8-ace5-16a16cb33e35

^[3] Qu Yiping, ‘How does Cross-border e-commerce platform Work’, 跨界电商究竟怎么跨, People.cn, 1 October 2015, online at: http://paper.people.com.cn/rmzk/html/2015-10/01/content_1638473.htm

^[4] People Daily, ‘Li Keqiang hosted State Council Executive Meeting’, 李克强主持召开国务院常务会议,http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0611/c1024-27135868.html

^[5]  Wing Kuang, ‘TEMU’s business model could only work in China. But they’re racing to replace Amazon in the global market’, ABC Online, 29 August 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-29/temu-may-save-china-status-as-world-factory-amid-deflation/102724900

^[6] She Xiaochen, ‘AI post is dominating Xiaohongshu’, AI文案正在攻占小红书, Jiemian news, 17 July 2024, online at: https://www.stcn.com/article/detail/1261073.html

^[7] Tai Feng, ‘Xiaohongshu Generator-ChatGPT’, 小红书生成器-ChatGPT, online at: https://ai.xiaohongshu.live/

^[8]Zan Kuang Zhanyu,’In-depth Interview: Behind the Scene of Xiaohongshu’, 深度访谈：想不到你是这样的小红书, bilibili, 29 March 2021, online at: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1DK4y1T7na/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=9fdd674b2b019d60d5f6a64069e21ad3

^[9] Bloomberg News staff, ‘China’s Instagram-style Xiaohongshu crosses $1 billion in profit’, Bloomberg, 12 December 2024, online at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/china-s-instagram-style-xiaohongshu-crosses-1-billion-in-profit

^[10] QuestMobile, ‘QuestMobile Report: Xianyu, Xiaohongshu and bilibili top ranking of young people’s most favourite apps’, QuestMobile报告：咸鱼与小红书、B站并列高值年轻人喜爱三大APP, 1 July 2024, online at: http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/202407/01/t20240701_39055609.shtml

^[11] Qiangua, ‘QIangua data: Xiaohongshu’, 千瓜数据-小红书数据分析平台,Qiangua Data, online at: https://www.qian-gua.com/article/index/1/1.html

^[12] Hanzhe Chi, Renhao Liu and Jingye Pan, ‘Users’ behaviour under the uneven gender ratio of social media platforms: taking Hupu and Xiaohongshu as examples’, SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 50, no. 2 (2022): 1-5.

^[13] Zhuoli Wang, Wei-jue Huang and Bingjie Liu-Lastres, ‘Impact of user-generated travel posts on travel decisions: A comparative study on Weibo and Xiaohongshu’, Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights, vol. 3, no. 2 (2022): 1-11.

^[14] Nick didn’t reveal his last name in the show.

^[15] Bailinguo News, ‘The KK Show – 216 Xiaohongshu Algorithm Engineer Nick’, The KK Show – 216 小紅書算法工程師Nick, YouTube, 26 September 2023, online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN07i8Puqzs

^[16] Huiyan Chen, What’s behind Chinese Women’s ‘Beauty Duty’ Backlash?’, Jing Daily, 19 October 2022, online at: https://jingdaily.com/posts/beauty-duty-womens-rights-china

^[17] Koh Ewe, ‘Chinese companies apologise for ‘shrunken’ sanitary pads’, BBC News, 28 November 2024, online at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev9ry341dyo

^[18] Jingshen Ge and Weiqi Tian, ‘Reimagining maternity: a multimodal analysis on the identity construction amongst Chinese ‘Married, child-free’ women in Xiaohongshu’, Social Semiotics, (2024): 1-12.

^[19] Jingshen Ge and Weiqi Tian, ‘Preserving choice: weaving femininity and autonomy through egg freezing discourse on Xiaohongshu’, Critical Discourse Studies (2024): 1-22.

^[20]Jia Guo, ‘Living-alone’ Wanghong: Women’s singleness as a Wanghong genre and the configuration of Chinese postfeminist wanghong culture’, Global Media and China, (2024).

^[21]Jia Guo, ‘Living-alone’ Wanghong: Women’s singleness as a Wanghong genre and the configuration of Chinese postfeminist wanghong culture’, Global Media and China, (2024).

^[22] Liang Jinghong, Chen Yuzhen and Xu Bosong, ‘Taiwanese teenagers on Douyin and Xiaohongshu: when national identity co-exists with Chinese social media trends’, 抖音、小紅書上的台灣青少年：當本土認同與中國社群媒體熱潮並行,Initium Media, 12 January 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230113-taiwan-concerns-teens-chineseapps

^[23] Liang Jinghong, Chen Yuzhen and Xu Bosong, ‘Taiwanese teenagers on Douyin and Xiaohongshu: when national identity co-exists with Chinese social media trends’, 抖音、小紅書上的台灣青少年：當本土認同與中國社群媒體熱潮並行,Initium Media, 12 January 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230113-taiwan-concerns-teens-chineseapps

^[24] Xu Jiaqi, ‘Postfeminism, capitalist traps or cultural united front work? We talked to the female users of Xiaohongshu in Taiwan’, 后女性主义？资本主义陷阱？文化统战？我们和“小红书“的台湾女性用户聊了聊, Wainao, 23 June 2022, online at:https://www.wainao.me/wainao-reads/xiaohongshu-in-taiwan-06232022

^[25] Shuyue Chen, ‘In the eyes of overseas young Chinese, Xiaohongshu becomes a ‘search engine’’, 海外中國年輕人眼中，意外成為「搜索引擎」的小紅書, Initium Media, 23 February 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230223-mainland-overseas-students-xiaohongshu

^[26]Jenny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[27] Yuwen Jing, ‘Temporary Migrants’ Reactions to Immigration-related Content on Social Media Platform: Taking Australian Chinese Temporary Migrants on Red (Xiaohongshu) as An Example’, SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 190, no. 03018, (2024): 1-5.

^[28] Wing Kuang, ‘Australian influencers on Xiaohongshu, and China influence in their eyes’, 以小红书为阵地的澳洲网红，和他们眼里的中国影响力, Wainao, 13 October 2021, online at:  https://www.wainao.me/wainao-reads/Xiaohongshu-Australian-influencer-10132021

^[29] Jenny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[30] Shuyue Chen, ‘Please help me look good: when foreign internet users seek makeup advice on Xiaohongshu’, 请帮助我发光：当外国网友到小红书寻求外形改造, Initium Media, 22 February 2024, online at: https://theinitium.com/zh-hans/article/20240223-mainland-foreign-users-little-red-book

^[31] Kinling Lo and Viola Zhou, U.S. TikTokers flock to Xiaohongshu, baffling and bonding with Chinese users, Rest of World, 14 January 2025, online at: https://restofworld.org/2025/tiktok-refugees-rednote-xiaohongshu-chinese-users/

^[32] Xingin, ‘REDnote – Xiaohongshu’s international version’, 小红书国际版, Google Play, 22 December 2024, online at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xingin.xhs&hl=zh

^[33] Xingin, ‘Xiaohongshu’, 小红书, Apple Store, 7 January 2025, online at:  https://apps.apple.com/au/app/%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6/id741292507

^[34] Xingin, ‘REDnote – Xiaohongshu’s international version’, 小红书国际版, Apple Store, 30 December 2024, online at: https://apps.apple.com/tz/app/rednote-%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6%E5%9B%BD%E9%99%85%E7%89%88/id6499068935

^[35] Northern Territory government, ‘Tourism | NT Budget’, The Territory, 2024, online at: https://budget.nt.gov.au/industry-outlook/tourism#:~:text=on%20international%20visitors.-,Domestic%20visitation,consumer%20behaviour%20and%20higher%20airfares.

^[36] China Digital Space, ‘Xiaohongshu Censorship Encyclopedia’, 小红书审查百科, China Digital Times, August 2020, online at: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/%E5%B0%8F%E7%BA%A2%E4%B9%A6%E5%AE%A1%E6%9F%A5%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91

^[37] Karen Wong, ‘Xiaohongshu to set up office in HK’, Marketing-Interactive, 28 November 2024, online at: https://www.marketing-interactive.com/xiaohongshu-to-set-up-office-in-hk

^[38] Eleanor Olcott and Ryan McMorrow, ‘China’s Instagram-like Xiaohongshu makes first profit’, Financial Times, 25 March 2024, online at: https://www.ft.com/content/1716fcfd-31fd-4dc3-9475-f04283fe3eaf

^[39] ​​Beihe, ‘Xiaohongshu e-commerce’ buyers: their rise and challenges’, 小红书点上‘淘金’人：佛系、崛起和犹疑, CBN Data, online at: https://www.cbndata.com/information/292933

^[40] Eliot Chen, ‘Failure to List’, The Wire China, 19 November 2023, online at: https://www.thewirechina.com/2023/11/19/failure-to-list-chinese-ipo-china-companies-stock-market/

^[41]  Eleanor Olcott, ‘Chinese Social Media Sensation Xiaohongshu Win Major foreign VC Backing’, Financial Times, 11 July 2024, online at:  https://www.ft.com/content/2d5f515f-d341-41c8-ace5-16a16cb33e35

^[42] Pandaily, ‘Xiaohongshu Denies Reports of $20 Billion pre-IPO Financing Round’, Pandaily, 29 April 2024, online at: https://pandaily.com/xiaohongshu-denies-reports-of-20-billion-pre-ipo-financing-round/

^[43] enny Cai and Iris Zhao, ‘How Australian politicians are using emerging Chinese social media app Red’, ABC News, 3 November 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/politicians-campaigning-chinese-social-media-red-xiaohongshu/104482116

^[44] Cailin Zheng, ‘Job-quitting vloggers: pretending to be relaxed is harder than going to work’, 假装松弛的离职博主，比上班卷多了, iFeng, 30 June 2024, online at: https://news.ifeng.com/c/8apzXQiFP4G

^[45] No. 10 Company, ‘Xiaohongshu has banned over 8,700 posts that involved ‘showing off money’, bloggers are united to oppose showing off money’, Paper.cn, 18 November 2021, online at: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_15438246

^[46] Chi-hui Lin, ‘Chinese Social Media Companies Remove posts ‘Showing off Wealth and Worshipping Money’, The Guardian, 17 May 2024, online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/chinese-social-media-companies-remove-posts-showing-off-wealth-and-worshiping-money

^[47] Guancha Jun, ‘China’s rich ladies are outdated, as ‘United Nations ladies’ are emerging on Xiaohongshu’, 国内假名媛过时了，小红书正在批量制造‘联合国名媛， Guancha.cn, 23 November 2024, online at: https://user.guancha.cn/main/content?id=1337163

^[48] Juan Hou, ‘Is it the end of Xiaohongshu?’, 小红书要‘黄’了？, People.cn, 2019, online at: http://paper.people.com.cn/zgjjzk/html/2019-08/15/content_1945098.htm

The post Who’s Afraid of the Little Red Book appeared first on The China Story.

It is common for people in a region with a high degree of linguistic diversity to learn and speak different languages through social and cultural activities, such as formal schooling, interactions with friends who speak another language, and expressing opinions at official events. The patterns of multilingualism – that is, how a person uses two or more languages in different situations – vary across different communities.

For example, in northern Vanuatu, due to common intergroup marriages, intense trading networks, and ritual and cultural events, children grow up learning two or more languages.^[3] None of these languages is socially or politically dominant so linguists call this a pattern of egalitarian multilingualism. In contrast, what can be observed in Yunnan nowadays is a pattern of hierarchical multilingualism in which languages are ordered according to their dominance in different domains of life: Standard Chinese (the term refers to both the spoken and written language as opposed to Putonghua, the official spoken language) as the official language over a local major language over one or a set of minority languages.

The predominant status of Standard Chinese in Yunnan and across China is a result of decades of efforts in promoting it as a national language and other linguistic policies. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the government has promulgated a series of policies such as using simplified characters 简体字 for writing, the promotion of Hanyu Pinyin 汉语拼音 as a system for teaching standard pronunciation, and the promotion of Putonghua 普通话 as the national spoken language to deal with the challenges of significant linguistic diversity. These challenges included intergroup communication and widespread illiteracy,^[4] which have a long history in China. Putonghua is promoted as the lingua franca and used in almost all the official domains, including education, government administration and broadcasting.

The status of minority languages is also closely related to language policies. Unlike in some other provinces, the non-Sinitic languages spoken in Yunnan do not enjoy a prominent official status. This is despite the fact that China’s constitution recognises and protects the right of all nationalities to use their spoken and written language. Students of Korean nationalities in Yanbian 延边, Jilin province, for example, can choose to take the national college entrance exam 高考 in Korean rather than Chinese. However, in Yunnan province, the option for minority nationalities 少数民族 to take the exam in their own languages does not exist. Non-Han people in Yunnan do not have a chance to study their mother tongues formally, and everyone needs to study Standard Chinese at school. None of the minority groups (groups whose languages are not mutually intelligible) in Yunnan, however,^[5] have any linguistic advantages over others in the college entrance exam.^[6]

With Standard Chinese in the predominant position, it seems the minority languages in Yunnan are lumped together in an equal position – unless we look beyond official domains such as education and governmental administration. The situation at the community level is complex. The hierarchy of languages at the community level depends on whether there is one large minority language used in the region in addition to Standard Chinese and how different groups communicate with each other. I will explain how this works on the basis of my field experience working with Kua’nsi people in Yunnan.

There are approximately 5,000 Kua’nsi people in Liuhe Yizu township 六合彝族乡, which is in Heqing county 鹤庆县 in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture 大理白族自治州 of Yunnan. Kua’nsi people are recognised as part of the Yi nationality 彝族. However, their language is not mutually intelligible with the languages spoken by other Yi groups. Kua’nsi people do not consider themselves the same as other Yi groups. They refer to themselves as the ‘Kua’nsi subgroup of Yi nationality’ 彝族夸恩斯支系. Although Standard Chinese is the primary language used in education, governmental administration and other official domains, Kua’nsi remains the primary language of communication between Kua’nsi people in their villages, which are mostly homogeneous. As there is no written mode of the Kua’nsi language, Kua’nsi people will write things down in Chinese. People who did not attend school for education rely on others to read and write Chinese.

In Heqing county, more than 98 percent of the population is Bai, and therefore the major language is the local variety of Bai language, Heqing Bai. Kua’nsi people have been in close contact with Bai 白族 and more recently with Han people as well. For communication with people from outside the villages, Kua’nsi people have learnt to speak – or at least understand – Heqing Bai and the local south-western variety of Mandarin Chinese. The use of the latter is also expanding within the villages. People who are Bai or Han rarely learn Kua’nsi to fit in. I know only one Bai man who married into the village and learnt Kua’nsi.

Patterns of multilingualism have started to shift within the Kuai’nsi community. Men from older generations are likely to be bilingual in Kua’nsi and Heqing Bai, or even trilingual in these two languages and the local variety of south-western Mandarin Chinese, while women of these generations are more likely to be monolingual in Kua’nsi but sometimes have some knowledge of Bai. Younger people tend to speak both Kua’nsi and Putonghua. Some of them might have some knowledge of Heqing Bai. Although bilingualism is common, it is by no means the case that every Kua’nsi can understand Heqing Bai or Mandarin. There is still a need for interpreters, especially between elderly Kua’nsi and outsiders.

The change in the pattern of bilingualism is due to the promotion of Standard Chinese in official domains, especially through education. Each administrative village has one primary school, where Kua’nsi children start to learn Standard Chinese formally. Classroom instructions in Kua’nsi may be available for students in the first and second years of primary school to help them transition to understanding and speaking Putonghua properly, but this depends on whether the teacher is also Kua’nsi. In most cases, the teachers are not Kua’nsi but are from different ethnic backgrounds, such as Bai, Han, Naxi and other ethnic nationalities in the region, so the students are encouraged to speak Putonghua from their first year of primary school. In the primary school where I conducted fieldwork, teachers would tell the students that they must speak Putonghua in school even with their Kua’nsi peers. Teachers also mentioned to me that some students were struggling to compose Chinese sentences properly, seemingly the result of students using Kua’nsi language structure and word order to write sentences in Chinese. Thus the lack of a mother tongue in formal education not only reduces the chances of the language used in private and official contexts but also poses a challenge for students whose first language is not Standard Chinese to achieve better academic performance.

The divide in the multilingual hierarchy is not just between Standard Chinese and the minority Kua’nsi language. Often, there is tension between another relatively larger minority language and a smaller one. Before Standard Chinese gained predominance in the region, Heqing Bai was the lingua franca for different ethnic groups in the region. As a result of the long history of contact, Kua’nsi people use many borrowed words from Heqing Bai. For example, they call boiled water xwa³³si³³, which came from Heqing Bai. Although nowadays Heqing Bai is becoming less dominant compared to Standard Chinese, Kua’nsi children still pick up words and phrases from Heqing Bai, the language of their friends and teachers, when they go to Liuhe township for middle school and Heqing county for high school. People whose first language is Heqing Bai, by contrast, had little motivation for learning Kua’nsi language.

This sometimes leads to discrimination. As one former student mentioned to me, some Kua’nsi kids were mocked for their language at school. He remembered that his English teacher once asked him why he could not speak English properly as his mother tongue already sounded like a foreign language. The comment from this teacher reflects the ignorance of local non-Kua’nsi people towards Kua’nsi and how Kua’nsi people sometimes are considered exotic to them.

Hierarchical multilingualism in Yunnan highlights the broader dilemma for people of minority groups in China who must learn not just Standard Chinese but also the languages of other more dominant groups to improve their life. As the minority group in the region, Kua’nsi people need to know how to speak both Heqing Bai and Chinese (Putonghua or local south-western Mandarin Chinese) to communicate with government officials, to bargain in the market and to trade with outsiders. Hence, being a smaller minority group in the region not only means they need to learn Standard Chinese for better education but also puts them in a less equal position in many political, social and economic activities, compared to the larger minority group who can use their language in more situations. During the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign 精准扶贫 in Kua’nsi villages, the Heqing local government sent officials there to teach the villagers how to plant cash crops to raise their annual income. These officials are mainly of Bai nationality and do not know any of the Kua’nsi language, so the villagers were helpless without an interpreter, usually the village leader. In this situation, Putonghua is the main language of communication: the village leader would translate the government officials’ speech from Putonghua into Kua’nsi and the villagers’ speech from Kua’nsi into Putonghua. If the villagers were Bai or if the officials had put effort into learning the Kua’nsi language, the conversation between the government officials and the villagers would be more direct and efficient.

A majority within a minority

Despite having a population of only 5,000 people in Heqing, Kua’nsi enjoys a more advantageous position compared with some even smaller minority groups. In addition to Kua’nsi, there are four other Yi groups in Heqing: Kuamasi, Laizisi, Zibusi and Sonaga, with populations ranging from a few hundred to just over a thousand.^[7] Although they are all considered minority groups in Heqing, they do not receive equal amounts of attention or resources from the local government.

Government projects for the revitalisation of local cultures in Heqing have focused on the dominant Heqing Bai, yet the culture, language and history of the Kua’nsi have received more attention from the local government and scholars than those of the four other Yi groups. For example, the local government sponsored the publication of an edited volume on the society, history and culture of the Kua’nsi community.^[8] My PhD project is also a language documentation and description project that contributes to the preservation of the language and culture of Kua’nsi people.^[9] Kua’nsi culture has also been branded as a tourist attraction, while the four other groups have not received similar recognition. It is well known in the region that Kua’nsi people wear their traditional clothes made from fire grass, and the local government recently organised a workshop to teach young Kua’nsi women to make traditional clothes as a means of cultural preservation. Those four other Yi groups ceased to wear traditional garb from the 1970s, let alone had a workshop to learn how to make them.^[10] People in some villages even shifted to wearing the clothes of Heqing Bai.

The lack of government recognition due to hierarchical multilingualism threatens the preservation of minority cultures and languages. The languages of all these smaller Yi groups in Heqing county are in danger of extinction.^[11] At least Kua’nsi language and culture are being documented and could be revitalised; the others will be seriously endangered if no action is taken soon.

Conclusion

The story of language use in China is not as simple as Standard Chinese versus all other languages and dialects. It must also take into account the double or multiple divides between Standard Chinese, other Sinitic languages and dialects, as well as larger minority languages and smaller minority languages according to the dynamics between languages in a particular region. The recognition of hierarchical multilingualism and its influence on minority groups illuminates the challenges faced by minority groups in contemporary Chinese society.

In addition to sponsoring research projects on documenting minority languages in China, the Ministry of Education and State Language Commission jointly launched the China Language Resources Protection Project 中国语言资源保护工程 in 2015.^[12] This is a welcome effort to protect and understand languages and dialects in China. It is also important to transfer the knowledge from research to community language preservation projects, so that minority languages can be kept alive and passed on to future generations.

Notes

[1] The data on languages spoken in China is from https://www.ethnologue.com/country/CN/#typology. Language family is the linguistic classification of languages that are genetically related and languages of the same language family developed from a single ancestral language. Languages spoken in China are from these language families: Sino-Tibetan, Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien, Austro-Asiatic, Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic, Austronesian and Indo-European as well as a couple of unclassified languages.

[2] National Bureau of Statistics, ‘Main data of the seventh national population census’ 第七次全国人口普查主要数据情况, 11 May 2021, online at: https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202302/t20230203_1901080.html. The distinction between language and dialect is not always clear and easy to draw. From a purely linguistic perspective, the difference between language and dialect is the degree of mutual intelligibility; for example the degree to which a person can understand the language spoken by another person. In the context of China, the distinction is made between the official language and other speech varieties. Putonghua is considered the only standard language of modern Chinese, and all other speech varieties of Chinese are dialects of this language; that is, Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 ‘common speech’ as the standard language versus other Sinitic languages/varieties as fāngyán 方言 ‘dialect’, although many of them are not mutually intelligible; for example Cantonese versus Shanghainese; the great differences between varieties of Mandarin in northern and south-western China. In this article, the term ‘Sinitic languages’ is used as an umbrella term. and it refers to all the speech varieties that are spoken by Han people.

[3] Alexandre François, ‘Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence’, Journal of Historical Linguistics, vol. 1, no. 2 (2011): 175–246.

[4] Bernard Spolsky, ‘Language management in the People’s Republic of China’, Language, vol. 90, no. 4 (2014): e165–e179.

[5] The term ‘minority group’ is not the same as少数民族 in this article. This aims to differentiate groups whose languages are not mutually intelligible within one minority nationality. Again, the division is made on purely linguistic grounds. During the recognition of nationality status (民族识别工作) from the 1950s to the late 1970s, the government recognised 55 nationalities out of 400 applications (Minglang Zhou, Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages 1949–2002, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003, p. 8). Small groups that are closely related to each other were lumped together, although their languages are not mutually intelligible. For example, the Yi nationality 彝族is a large nationality, but it is not a homogenous one. It contains Yi groups whose languages and cultures are quite different from each other, although related. The Yi nationality includes Yi groups like Nuosu 诺苏, Niesu 聂苏, Lalo腊罗, Kua’nsi 夸恩斯, Khatsuo 卡卓, Talu 他留 and many others. Although these groups are historically related, they do not consider themselves the same as each other. These groups are also related to Lahu拉祜, Lisu 傈僳 and Hani哈尼, which are recognised as separate minority nationalities in China.

[6] ‘One way China has tried to solve the problem of minority children not understanding Chinese is to translate language textbooks. Yunnan province, in particular, has translated the national Chinese language textbooks for first and second graders into 14 different languages. These textbooks have the Chinese and the minority language side-by-side and are used mainly as diglots [i.e. bilingual books]. The focus is on having the minority language as an aid to help the children understand the Chinese texts.’ From Heidi Cobby, ‘Challenges and prospects of minority bilingual education in China: An Analysis of four projects’, in Anwei Feng (ed.), Bilingual Education in China: Practices, Policies and Concepts, Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters, p. 188.

[7] Andy Castro, Brian Crook and Royce Flaming, ‘A sociolinguistic survey of Kua-nsi and related Yi varieties in Heqing county, Yunnan province, China’, Journal of Language Survey Reports, 1–96 (2010). SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2010–001. Online at: https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/9202.

[8] Jinhe Gao, Jiao Xiongcai and Wang Hongzhi (eds), A Collection of Research on Heqing Baiyi Culture 鹤庆白依文化研究合集, Kunming: Yunnan Nationalities Publishing House, 2015.

[9] Huade Huang, ‘A grammar of Kua’nsi’, doctoral thesis, Canberra: Australian National University, 2024. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/316664

[10] Castro, Crook and Flaming, ‘A sociolinguistic survey of Kua-nsi and related Yi varieties in Heqing county, Yunnan province, China’, pp. 39–40.

[11] Many factors contribute to the endangerment of languages, such as reduction/shift in domains of language use, community members’ attitude towards language, governmental language policy, availability of literacy and educational materials and so on. (See the link for the discussion of these factors of language endangerment: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000183699) A language is dying out when no children learn it as their mother tongue; that is, the intergenerational transmission stops (Nikolaus Himmelmann, ‘Language endangerment scenarios: A case study from northern central Sulawesi’, in M. Florey (ed.), Endangered Languages of Austronesia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 45–72), and it is dead when the last speaker dies.

[12] More details about the project can be found at https://zhongguoyuyan.cn/index

The post Linguistic Hierarchies in Yunnan Province: A Case Study of Yi Groups in Heqing appeared first on The China Story.

A plan without a plan

China’s social credit experiments date back twenty-five years, when authorities and businesses sought solutions to problems like counterfeit products flooding the market, triangular debts – where A loans money to B, B loans to C, and C loans to A, creating a deadlock of bad debts threatening the stability of the financial system – and widespread disregard for the country’s laws and regulations. Subsequently, the central government and dozens of ministries spent decades trying to establish data-sharing systems across traditionally fragmented government units, alongside blacklists to punish severe lawbreakers and incentives to promote ‘trustworthy’ behaviour. In 2011, the then premier Wen Jiabao commented that ‘good “social credit” 社会信用 is a necessary condition for every enterprise, institution and individual to gain a foothold in society’ but lamented rampant ‘commercial fraud, counterfeiting, false reporting, and academic misconduct’.^[2]

The Social Credit System that emerged was not merely concerned with financial credit. Its focus was on regulatory compliance, or the ‘credibility’ of enterprises. The term ‘social’ 社会 did not refer to interpersonal behaviour as it commonly does in the English language. Rather, it was meant to distinguish it from a ‘national credit system’, which was the name for the system that was originally envisaged. Changing ‘national’ to ‘social’ in 2002 emphasised that the system was not to be built by the government but by ‘society’. Finally, the Social Credit System was never intended to become a fully integrated system. At best, it is a fragmented collection of different systems that typically share little more than the aim of enforcing compliance with laws and regulations.

Whether the Social Credit System has had its desired effect remains in doubt. None of the many plans issued over the years answered the fundamental question: what is social credit, and what is its ultimate goal? In 2019, this led to researchers asking local officials in China what the Social Credit System was to them, only to have the officials ask the same of them: ‘I really can’t figure it out. Is it possible that you scholars can tell me?’^[3]

Experiments were being carried out in almost every domain, yet shared understanding was completely lacking. Starting in the early 2010s, some localities experimented with scoring citizens on such criteria as whether they quarrelled with neighbours or set off fireworks during prohibited times, with the scoring being done by volunteers, not artificial intelligence (AI).^[4] Others developed local initiatives to crack down on people eating on the subway, enforced by local subway officers.^[5] During the COVID-19 pandemic, some cities blacklisted citizens for refusing to wear a mask or get tested.^[6] These were all labelled as part of the Social Credit System but in practice were rarely integrated or expanded widely.

Private companies were experimenting, too. Alibaba’s subsidiary Ant Financial developed Sesame Credit 芝麻信用 in 2015. Its aim was to find alternative ways of assigning financial credit scores, as most citizens in China still did not have credit cards or extensive credit records to draw from. Sesame Credit used big data, monitoring citizens’ shopping habits, and turning this into a three-digit score. One of Ant Financial’s executives suggested that people buying beer could be seen as less ‘trustworthy’ than those buying nappies or that playing online games could lower one’s score. Users’ scores were also affected by their friends: 5 percent of one’s Sesame Credit Score was the aggregate of scores in one’s network. Unfortunately for Ant, however, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, ultimately did not approve of the scheme, in which Alibaba simultaneously acted as credit assessor, supplier of loans, payment service provider, and the marketplace. Sesame Credit rewarded people for shopping with Alibaba but was not an effective credit-scoring system. In 2017, the bank denied Sesame Credit an official credit licence.^[7] Sesame Credit still exists today but fulfils little meaningful function and remains fully voluntary to use.

Such initiatives remained at the fringes of the system. The real thrust of the system was the enforcement of regulatory compliance. Authorities across China set up blacklists for individuals and companies who committed severe violations of laws and regulations in the market economy. Such violations included fraud, illegally dumping pollutants in bodies of water, producing substandard medicine and more. Regulators could manually add violators to blacklists, which they planned to share with all government bodies and with the public online. At least ten million citizens currently find themselves on one of such blacklists. The consequences are severe: depending on the blacklist, some cannot travel by plane or high-speed rail, and others might see their government subsidies, professional qualifications or loans cancelled. Because the emphasis has been placed on penalising lawbreakers, it took central authorities twenty years (until 2019) before they seriously encouraged ‘credit repair’, the process of allowing people or entities to apply for removal from the blacklist, establishing a process of credit repair in the annual evaluation of cities that had hosted pilot social credit systems.^[8]

There was no grand masterplan. The vague nature of the Social Credit System grand experiment let local authorities essentially do as they wished.^[9] Few of them were concerned with whether these actions were proportional, at all related to ‘credit’, or commensurate with Xi Jinping’s ‘law-based governance’. This is commonplace in Chinese policy-making, where central authorities frequently create the contours of policy and let local officials work out the details, learning from their mistakes and successes. But the Social Credit System took it to another level by attempting to cover an extensive range of problems involving an even more extensive range of agencies – each bringing their own interests to the table. Moreover, digitisation initiatives require standardisation. Without uniform standards on questions of what data to gather and how to format or process it, it is impossible to weave fragmented initiatives into one coherent whole.

Social credit is dead

These problems led to severe backlash from China’s legal community, who criticised the overgeneralised concept of ‘credit’. They argued that ‘credit’ should remain a financial or compliance-related concept with very little relationship to social behaviour or minor transgressions like eating on the subway. They criticised the blacklists for unjustifiably restricting citizens’ rights.^[10] In 2019, China’s chief economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), ordered that local points systems could only be used for incentives, not for penalties.^[11] During the COVID-19 pandemic, criticism of the scheme increased, as many local governments began using it for such things as enforcing mask-wearing.^[12] Another problem was that companies were suddenly at risk of being blacklisted over noncompliance with contracts and loan repayments due to lockdowns. At the end of 2020, the central government launched a regulatory crackdown on the experiments, clarifying that blacklisting is only appropriate for severe violations of laws and regulations.^[13] Local governments that did not comply would see their pilots abolished. In the years that followed, most of the aforementioned experiments were cancelled or quietly abandoned.

Today, the Social Credit System finds itself stuck in purgatory. Rongcheng 荣成市, a small county and China’s ‘ground zero’ of mandatory citizen-scoring experiments in Shandong Province, made participation in its scheme fully voluntary and strictly reduced the types of behaviour covered by it.^[14] In 2024, when German journalists visited the town, they found that no one cared any more about collecting points.

Central authorities and ministries released fewer new policy documents on the Social Credit System in 2023 than in any year since 2014 – the year large-scale experimentation started. After decades of work, authorities still have not perfected basic data infrastructures. Information collected under one scheme is still not appropriately shared with other government organs and platforms.^[15]

In late 2022, the NDRC released a draft Social Credit Law for public comments. China’s government typically passes laws relatively quickly after the public comment period ends, but not in this case. The draft raised more questions about the core aims and approaches of the system than it answered.^[16] It did not clarify any concepts or concrete goals, only restating vague ambitions to establish the system in key sectors such as food and medicine production. It seemed as if the NDRC simply canvassed all government bodies for their thoughts and copied and pasted them into one document. It failed to do the things a law is supposed to do, and the Social Credit Law disappeared from public view for two full years.

Long live social credit?

In part as the result of the regulatory crackdown, in part because of continuing uncertainty about the system’s core aims, China’s Social Credit System as we know it might be dying. Still, some more focused elements of the system continue to be implemented and developed. The so-called ‘judgment defaulter’ blacklist 失信被执行人名单 is one example. This blacklist, which targets people who have an outstanding court order against them yet refuse to obey its measures, currently includes approximately nine million citizens. As it is managed by a single institution with a clear remit – the Supreme People’s Court – it does not face the hurdles of coordination and troublesome legal definitions plaguing other elements of the system.

Similarly, in the financial domain, the People’s Bank of China established its Credit Reference Centre many years ago and continues to build on it. This centre is dedicated to collecting financial information on citizens and companies (i.e. records of lending and spending) and provides it to lenders to assess potential financial risk. The central bank is also invested in a joint venture called Baihang 百行征信, co-founded with China’s tech giants, through which it attempts to coerce tech companies and commercial banks to pool data for more effective credit reporting. Although these initiatives are sometimes labelled part of social credit, they remain principally financial – not unlike credit institutions in other developed economies.

Finally, efforts in the regulatory domain are shifting towards an initiative called credit risk management 信用风险监管. The most important new initiative under this banner is the aggregation of regulatory data to create a risk index for companies. This index covers two elements: the likelihood that a company might violate laws and regulations, and the likelihood that this violation would cause severe harm to the market economy. For instance, a classical music company does not pose a particularly high risk to the market, even if it ignores all regulations, whereas small violations in a plant producing medicine could have disastrous consequences. Outcomes will be used to determine the number of random inspections to which a company is subject but will not be tied to formal punishments. One official at China’s Ministry of Transport recently recommended that this is where the weight of Social Credit System development should be.^[17]

These initiatives are not without their problems. In some experiments with the credit risk index, authorities have sought to use social media discussions of a company as an indicator of its credit risk. Social media comments can easily be manipulated by competitors and other actors for various reasons. Other experiments have used the age of the company’s legal representative as a proxy for risk, with relative youth linked to higher risk. In other words, age discrimination is a feature, not a bug, in some local experiments. The Supreme People’s Court’s blacklist for judgment defaulters also features severe penalties with little regard for proportionality: some companies were blacklisted for defaulting on a fine of just RMB 500, and their executives were banned from travelling by plane or leaving the country.

Conclusion

Some parts of the Chinese government see the Social Credit System as the solution to many problems. The courts have lauded how the Social Credit System has helped them recover billions from judgment defaulters. The NDRC, perhaps as an act of self-promotion, claimed that the system has improved the business environment by reducing ‘bad credit events’. After two years of silence, in June 2024, the NDRC released a new action plan.^[18] One of its goals is finally to move ahead with the long-delayed Law on the Establishment of the Social Credit System. Another target in the plan is to continue working on points incentives for citizens.

They have not yet resolved what ‘social credit’ actually means. Without consensus on this fundamental question, laws will have to wait. And without legal clarity, it is difficult to picture local authorities being eager to invest scarce resources in an ambiguous and controversial initiative. The plans might be little more than the dying breaths of the Social Credit System, at least as we know it.

Notes

^[1] Vincent Brussee, ‘China’s social credit score – untangling myth from reality’, MERICS, 11 February 2022, online at: https://www.merics.org/en/opinion/chinas-social-credit-score-untangling-myth-reality

^[2] General Office of the State Council, ‘Wen Jiabao chaired a meeting of the State Council Standing Committee to develop and deploy the planning of the Social Credit System’ [温家宝主持召开国务院常务会议部署制订社会信用体系建设规划], 19 October 2011, online at: https://www.miit.gov.cn/xwdt/szyw/art/2020/art_b3248b53edb34d4781e5e7c492cce1d3.html.

^[3] Wen-Hsuan Tsai, Hsin-Hsien Wang and Ruihua Lin, ‘Hobbling Big Brother: Top-level design and local discretion in China’s Social Credit System’, China Journal, no. 86 (2021): 1–20.

^[4] China Law Translate, ‘Rongcheng municipal credit assessment standards’, 3 February 2019, online at: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/rongcheng-municipal-personal-credit-appraisal-standards/. Note: these regulations have been abolished since.

^[5] Xinhua, ‘“Untrustworthy in one place, restricted everywhere” – Where is the boundary of credit punishment?’ [“一处失信，处处受限” – 信用惩戒的边界在哪里”], 12 September 2020, online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220910115006/http://www.xinhuanet.com/legal/2020-09/12/c_1126484391.htm

^[6] Xinhua, ‘Not wearing a mask in public places counts as untrustworthiness? The Social Credit System must prevent abuse’ [公共场所不戴口罩算失信？社会信用制度要防滥用], 22 March 2020, online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220807170829/http://m.cnhubei.com/content/2020-03/22/content_12883173.html

^[7] Rogier Creemers, ‘China’s Social Credit System: An evolving practice of control’, SSRN Open Access, 2018.

^[8] Vincent Brussee, Social Credit: The Warring States of China’s Emerging Data Empire, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, chapters 5–6.

^[9] Rachel Cheung, ‘The grand experiment’, Wire China, 17 December 2023, online at: https://www.thewirechina.com/2023/12/17/the-grand-experiment-social-credit-china/

^[10] Kui Shen, ‘The road to the rule of law in the construction of the Social Credit System’ [社会信用体系建设的法治之道], China Legal Science 2019, no. 05 (2019), online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220910115025/http://fzzfyjy.cupl.edu.cn/info/1035/11343.htm

^[11] ‘National Development and Reform Commission: Personal credit scores can be used to give rewards for integrity, but cannot be used for punishment’ [发改委：个人信用分可以结合守信激励 但不能用于惩戒], China News, 19 July 2019, online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220807183035/https://www.creditchina.gov.cn/gerenxinyong/gerenxinyongliebiao/201907/t20190719_162509.html

^[12] Xinhua, ‘Not wearing a mask in public places counts as untrustworthiness?’ [公共场所不戴口罩算失信？社会信用制度要防滥用].

^[13] General Office of the State Council, ‘Guiding opinions on further improving systems for restraining the untrustworthy and building mechanisms for building creditworthiness that have longterm effect’, trans. China Law Translate, 7 December 2020, online at: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/%e5%85%b3%e4%ba%8e%e8%bf%9b%e4%b8%80%e6%ad%a5%e5%ae%8c%e5%96%84%e5%a4%b1%e4%bf%a1%e7%ba%a6%e6%9d%9f%e5%88%b6%e5%ba%a6%e6%9e%84%e5%bb%ba%e8%af%9a%e4%bf%a1%e5%bb%ba%e8%ae%be%e9%95%bf%e6%95%88%e6%9c%ba/

^[14] Rongcheng People’s Government, ‘Rongcheng municipal measures on the management of personal integrity scores’ [荣成市个人诚信积分管理办法], trans. China Law Translate, 13 June 2022, online at: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/18133-2/

^[15] Kendra Schaefer, ‘China’s corporate Social Credit System: Context, competition, technology and geopolitics’, Trivium Social Credit, 12 August 2020, online at: https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-corporate-social-credit-system-context-competition-technology-and-geopolitics

^[16] Jeremy Daum, ‘“Franken-law”: Initial thoughts on the draft social credit law’, China Law Translate (blog), 15 November 2022, online at: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/franken-law-initial-thoughts-on-the-draft-social-credit-law/

^[17] Yiyin Liang, ‘Research on the legislative ideas of transportation credit under social credit legal disputes’ [社会信用法律争议下的交通运输信用立法思路研究], Pearl River Water Transport珠江水运, no. 3 (2024): 21–4.

^[18] General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission, ‘2024–2025 Action Plan for the Establishment of the Social Credit System’, trans. Jeremy Daum, 4 June 2024, online at: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/2024-2025social-credit-plan/

The post Is China’s Social Credit System As We Know It Dead? appeared first on The China Story.

In January 2022, the discovery of the ‘woman in chains’, a mother of eight shackled and maltreated by her husband in a Feng county village there, generated fresh interest in Ma’s book.^[1] Shocked by the cruelty and indifference to her plight by local villagers and authorities, people turned to Ma’s book for causes of the region’s economic and moral impoverishment—even though the book’s historical scope ends in 1949, the year the People’s Republic of China was established. In 2023, a revised version of the book, now considered a classic in the field of regional socioeconomic history, was published in mainland China. The following is abridged highlights from his interview with the Shanghai Review of Books on 28 January 2024.^[2]

Editors’ introduction

Q1: Back in the Tang and Song dynasties [618–907; 960–1279], the Huaibei region used to be arable and prosperous; it was known as the ‘land of plenty’. But thereafter until the Republican period [1912–49], the region became a so-called inhospitable wasteland. How did this change occur, and why? What was the key turning point in this historical change?

This has to do with water control. Historically, regions were ranked according to their distance to the imperial capital. Every 500 li [roughly 250 kilometres] from the capital, the region’s ranking went down one level. At the centre was the Royal Domain 王畿 [the capital and its environs], then the core regions of the Sovereign Domain 甸服, the Noble Domain 侯服, the Peace-Securing Domain 绥服, the Restrained Domain 要服 and lastly the Wild Domain 荒服. In the past, dynasties focused on developing the Royal Domain and its surrounding core regions, in part because limitations in transportation and communication made it difficult effectively to manage regions further away.

Before the Northern Song dynasty [960–1127], imperial capitals were all located between the Yellow River and the Huai River. Therefore the central government had to ensure the prosperity and stability of the Huaibei area. During the Southern Song [1127–79], the centre of power shifted to Lin’an (contemporary Hangzhou) south of the Yangtze River. Then, in the Yuan dynasty [1271–1368], the capital was moved to Dadu [modern-day Beijing], north of the Yellow River. Huaibei was reduced from a core region to a marginal one. It became a battlefield with neither southern nor northern powers willing to invest in its development. In 1128, the year after Emperor Gaozong 宋高宗 moved his capital to Lin’an [Hangzhou], the imperial official Du Chong 杜充breached the dikes on the south bank of the Yellow River in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the enemy Jurchen army’s advance. Water from the Yellow River flooded southward. The broken dikes were never repaired.

In the Ming dynasty [1368–1644], during the Hongzhi period 弘治 [1488–1505], Liu Daxia 刘大夏, a water management official, blocked the main course of the Yellow River, forcing it to flow south into the Huai River, whose course was very narrow to begin with, and it flooded. Liu did this to protect the Grand Canal [a crucial water transport infrastructure in pre-modern China]. The Ming prioritised the north when it came to water management, including protection of the capital and its surrounding regions (today’s Hebei). The court offered flooded regions tax relief but did not concern itself greatly with the effect of the floods on the lives of the common people. In the early years of the Wanli period 万历 [1573–1619], the director-general of river conservancy Wan Gong 万恭 suggested breaching a levee at Tongwaxiang 铜瓦厢 in the lower reaches of the Yellow River to divert the waters into the Daqing River 大清河 instead. No action was taken, but in 1855, there was a breach at Tongwaxiang, and the Yellow River changed course exactly as Wan Gong had prescribed three centuries earlier.

Q2: We talked about the impact of water control in the Huaibei region earlier. Apart from water control, in your book The Sacrificed Land you also described in detail the effect of grain transport and salt production on the Huaibei region.

During the Ming and Qing dynasty, especially under the Kangxi Emperor [reign period: 1661–1722], grain transport, salt production and water control all centred on Huai’an in Huaibei. Water control was the most costly of all. Under an imperial autocracy, more spending naturally meant more corruption. Frequently, 90 percent of the funds for flood control were embezzled, leading to ineffective flood control. In the Qing dynasty, although eight provinces paid part of their taxation in grains, parts of Huaibei accounted for nearly 40 percent of the whole empire’s grain tribute. The common people had to bear the costs of both the taxes—including corvée labour and providing building materials for water control projects—and the corruption.

Q3: In The Sacrificed Land you used the ‘cult of power’ to explain various social–ecological transitions and transformations in the Huaibei region since 1680. You mentioned that this concept was greatly influenced by Marxist theory. Can you elaborate on it?

I think Marxist theory can explain many things about pre-modern China. It is very useful for us to understand Chinese society. The concept of the cult of power encapsulates Marx’s argument in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that ‘executive power subordinates society to itself’.^[3] In my view, pre-modern Chinese society had no religious traditions in the Western sense. Western religions emphasise the purification of the soul through self-reflection, whereas religious worship in Chinese society is pragmatic and self-serving: people pray to Confucius for good examination results, to the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin for more children and to Lord Zhao the Marshal for more wealth. In essence, religious worship in China is the worship of power. People worship gods and deities because they themselves have no power.

Confucianism assigned scholars the highest social status. But the purpose of studying is to become an official, and only by becoming a high official can you rise above other scholars and obtain power. Even Daoism and Buddhism have hierarchies. In Daoism, the Jade Emperor sits at the top, followed by other deities below him, ranked in a strict order. As for Buddhism, there is a story in the novel Water Margin where Lu Zhishen 鲁智深 [a violent man who eventually attained Buddhist enlightenment] declares his intentions of becoming an abbot, and a monk at the temple tells him that he has to begin by carrying water and looking after the vegetable patch, and work his way up. To sum up, before 1949, the only sacred thing in China was power, which people devoutly worshipped.

Q4: In The Sacrificed Land, you were critical in your analysis of power worship that was prevalent in traditional Chinese society, but you also showed great sympathy for ordinary people. How did this attitude come about?

When I was young, I read novels like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and imagined myself as a big shot like [the poet, general and statesman] Cao Cao 曹操 or Liu Bei 刘备 [founder of the Shu Han kingdom]. But around my third year at university, my perspective changed. After tracing my family genealogy I realised that my ancestors could not even compare to the lowest-ranking figures recorded in the Twenty-Four Histories. In fact, their likes were not recorded in any histories. Since then, I no longer viewed history from the perspective of powerful and famous men. Instead, I imagine myself as one of the corvée labourers building the Great Wall or one of those unfortunates described in a Tang poem about war as ‘bones lying by the banks of Wuding River’, a farmer, or the owner of some small business, squeezed by corrupt officials day after day. Ordinary people form the majority in history. This is also what Marxist historiography emphasises: to study history from the bottom.

I also study history from a regional perspective. Scholars outside China have devised many influential theories about Chinese history, but they are usually inapplicable to the Huaibei region, where I grew up. For example, the theory of ‘involution’ looks at the issue of diminishing returns per unit of labour in agriculture caused by overpopulation. However, the same theory cannot be applied to the Huaibei region. The Huaibei region historically had a relatively small population with a lot of land, but they could not farm it profitably because of constant flooding. During imperial times, the central government deliberately flooded the region again and again. This resulted in constant social turmoil and banditry. Peasants simply abandoned their land, which grew desolate. This had the greatest effect on the local middle class. Wealthy families could afford to keep private armies to defend themselves against bandits, while the poor had nothing to be robbed. The social structure of the Huainan region was dumbbell-shaped, with the richest families at the very top, the common people and bandits at the very bottom, and scant middle class in between. A middle-class household with an ox was the most desirable target for the bandits. A dozen people would rush into your house, snatch your ox, sell it the same evening and divide up the spoils. The common people also faced severe exploitation by officials and landlords.

Q5: You just used the reality of the Huaibei region to challenge the well-known theory of involution. This reminded me of a comparison you made in your book: some regions suffered from capitalism while Huaibei suffered from the absence of capitalism. Could you elaborate?

Capitalism developed relatively early in the Yangtze delta region. The harm caused by capitalist economic crises in that region has been well studied. However, scholars have failed to examine how places like Huaibei suffered from the lack of capitalism. Under a market economy, businesses experience profits and losses, and prices fluctuate. Farmers can decide whether to plant rice or mulberry according to the demands of the market. In contrast, in places where power is concentrated in the hands of the elite, like Huaibei, everything is subject to their arbitrary decision-making. People have no choice but to endure the greater losses and suffering that result.

In the Dictionary of Political Economy, edited by scholars including Xu Dixin 许涤新, a landlord is defined as ‘someone who rents out land’ while a worker is a ‘landless proletariat’. In reality, proletariats formed the majority of the landlords in the Yangtze delta region. According to research by economic historian Li Bozhong 李伯重, in the 1820s every household cultivated around ten mu [1.6 acres] of farmland in the Yangtze delta region. In many instances, the labour force of the household worked in factories and rented out the land to others to farm, making most landlords working class.

Q6: You used the novel Water Margin to support your research on the social and economic history of the Huaibei region, which reminded me of the book Water Margin and Chinese Society by Sa Mengwu 萨孟武. Can you talk about the reasoning behind it?

I refer to Water Margin in the context of a historiographical method called mutual verification between literature and history. I have two principles in historical research. The first is to identify and critically examine historical materials. The second principle is never use materials that I cannot verify elsewhere. As in a court trial, there must be a chain of evidence. Water Margin and other novels I refer to, like Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, can be classified as ‘social novels’, which supplement historical materials to serve in the chain of evidence.

Water Margin was written in the early Ming dynasty, with modifications and new versions appearing later in the dynasty. The theme song of the 1998 TV series Water Margin sings about ‘a friendship of life and death forged over a bowl of wine’. To offer one’s life in exchange for a bowl of wine or a meal indeed reflects the material scarcity of a famine-stricken society. This was also the social norm of Huaibei society. During an uprising at the end of the Yuan dynasty [1279–1368], a wealthy family only had to slaughter a few cattle and prepare a few jars of wine to incite a mob to murder the county magistrate.

Q7：Some have criticised you for showing too much personal emotion in your book. In the epilogue, you talked about your experiences growing up and studying in Huaibei in stark poverty, as well as the challenges of doing field research in your hometown. Is it right to assume that you brought your personal experience into this book and, to some extent, you wanted to tackle prejudices against the Huabei region and its people?

I do not think there is any historian who writes without any personal bias. Even choosing what to study and which materials to use is based on personal likes and dislikes. Scholars who claim to be purely objective are lying.

I studied at Soochow University in the 1990s. Back then I could barely afford proper clothing. For three-quarters of the year I would wear the same outfit: a khaki military jacket, a pair of track pants, and sneakers with holes in the toes. Poverty was one reason why I was drawn to this subject. Most of my classmates came from the relativity prosperous Yangtze delta region, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I dared not attend the social dances that were popular at that time, or invite anyone to the movies. My classmates looked down on me, and I gradually discovered from my readings that people from Huaibei had been discriminated against for their poverty by those from the neighbouring Yangtze delta region since the Ming dynasty. However, if you look back further in history, things were different.

The more I read about the Huaibei region, the more perplexed I became: before the Northern Song dynasty, not only was my home region way more developed than the Yangtze delta region, it also produced many noteworthy figures, including the Han general Xiao He 萧何 [257–193 BC] and the Three Kingdoms military strategist Zhou Yu 周瑜 [175–210]. How come a thousand years later, by the time of Emperor Qianlong’s southern tour, he described Huaibei as ‘barren mountains and poor rivers, vulgar men and shrewish women’?^[4] Why have there been so many misunderstandings and prejudices against the Huaibei region? I began doing fieldwork in the region because I wanted to find an explanation for this historical change. I was dissatisfied with what existing history books, models and theories had to say about the Huaibei region.

My background is in history, and I have not received any formal training in anthropology or sociology. So I did not have a carefully formulated plan for field research. I just wandered around looking for answers to the questions that had piled up from my readings. At that time, I was living entirely off my scholarship. To save money, in winter, I lived in a public bathhouse because it was warm, and in summer, I stayed in any cheap guesthouse as long as it came with an electric fan. I was living among street performers and vendors.

The most unforgettable experience was when I went to Feng County for research. As soon as I entered a village, villagers began to follow me, cursing me from behind. I turned around to see what was happening, and I was immediately surrounded by people who started hitting me. More people joined in the beating, all shouting and cursing. It seemed like half the village had come running over. When I told this story to the director of the Xuzhou Salt Industry Bureau, who had also grown up around there, he shrugged and said that was nothing. Their division director had been stabbed by a mob before.

Because I grew up in the Huaibei region and conducted fieldwork there, my research focus and perspectives cannot be the same as those who write about the region while sipping coffee in their studies. For me, it is necessary through research and writing to reconstruct the ecology of the Huaibei society with which I am familiar. I hope my book can serve as a different point of reference and offer readers a new way of thinking.

Notes

[1] Joel Wing-Lun, ‘What have we learned from “the woman in chains”?’, China Story, 9 May 2022, online at: https://www.thechinastory.org/what-have-we-learned-from-the-woman-in-chains/

[2] ‘Interview with Ma Junya’ 马俊亚谈被牺牲的“局部”, Shanghai Book Review, 28 January 2024, online at: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_26167117

[3] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852, online at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch07.htm.

[4] When the Qianlong emperor visited Xuzhou, he reportedly uttered the phrase ‘poor mountains and rivers, untamed men and women’ 穷山恶水，泼妇刁民. Although lacking any historical record, the saying became popular when describing the Huaibei region.

The post The Sacrificed Land: Q&A with Historian Ma Junya appeared first on The China Story.

The editors

Kou Aizhe: The short happy Antarctic summer ends too soon and is followed by a long winter.

Many scientific researchers return home to China at the end of summer as most Antarctic research can only be done in the summer months. Only a small number of staff are left at the research station for what is known as 越冬 ‘winter-over’.^[1] Cao Jianxi used to be one of the team members wintering over at the research station, responsible for ensuring that the research station operated normally during the winter months.

‘Wintering over’: A gruelling experience

Once we are wintering over, everyone’s workload is much lighter. Someone like me, who is in charge of the kitchen, only has to make sure meat and vegetables are brought in from the storeroom and ready for cooking the next day.

We rise much later in winter as the sun only rises after ten o’clock in the morning, when it is almost time for lunch. Between lunch and dinner, we have plenty of time to ourselves.

I’d often sit by my bed, wrapped up in a warm blanket to play online games or watch movies. There was a particular actress, I can’t remember whether I saw her on TV or in a movie, but I was very fond of her at that time, and thought her very beautiful.

She has very oriental features, with a delicate ‘melon-seed’ oval face. She appeared wearing a crimson veil and appeared against a red background.

I took a photo with my mobile phone and would often stare at it, my heart heavy with loneliness and the yearning for a companion.

Although there were other people at the station, our interactions were minimal. In this sort of closed environment, the longer we stayed together the more silent and withdrawn we became, with no desire to connect with anyone, just amusing ourselves alone in our rooms.

Those who are more extroverted, especially the older ones, seemed less affected by the isolation. The younger team members tend to be more quick tempered, and would ignore the others if they were in a bad mood.

At times an older team member would walk into the dining hall and, sensing the negative vibe, would attempt to lighten the mood by telling jokes or asking people how they were going.

But the strange thing is, they would get no response from the others. As you can imagine, under such circumstances, that made most team members felt even more depressed.

It was also common to see conflict among team members. I personally experienced this: as the period of isolation grew longer, the more my relationship with my direct superior deteriorated. At the start, we got along well because we were polar research centre co-workers.

But later, because of the nature of our working relationship, he made more demands on me than others. Sometimes it was over small things like cigarettes or alcohol. I would get annoyed and feel like he is mistreating me or that he wasn’t looking after me. As time went by our relationship worsened with every such incident.

As a result, my relationship with the station master deteriorated as well. Even when winter was over, we could not repair our relationship. In normal life, if we run into problems at work, we can always go home or go for a drink or a meal with friends after work to relieve our stress. But in the extreme conditions of the South Pole, that isn’t an option. We are always together. If something goes badly today, tomorrow we still have to continue working together. Frustrations build up and never go away.

Food

Kou Aizhe: In Antarctica, growing crops is strictly prohibited.^[2] All crops are considered ‘exotic species’ that risk damaging its unique environment. Of course, the harsh conditions in Antarctica are not conducive to growing crops either, so supplies of food and other necessities are completely dependent on infrequent transport links to the station.

The popular Chinese saying goes, ‘Food is the people’s heaven’. Even when they are at the ‘end of the world’, those stationed in the Antarctica are determined not to compromise on their enjoyment of food. It is at times like this when culinary creativity is at its most prolific.

My job as a manager at the research station means I am like the ‘housekeeper’. I manage all the storerooms, especially the kitchen store. Every day, I would go to the kitchen to prepare supplies, like alcohol, other drinks, rice and flour. Our dishes mostly consisted of dried goods from the north-east of China because they could be kept for a long period of time. It was rare to have green leafy vegetables. Usually we’d eat bean curd strips, seaweed and other dried goods that had to be soaked in water first.

Among twelve of us who stayed behind in the winter months, there was a chef by the name of Old Zhu. He used to be the main chef on board the [icebreaker and resupply ship] Xue Long.

Before each meal, one of us rang the bell outside the dining hall. Sometimes it was me, sometimes the chef himself or one of the kitchen hands, and then everyone would come to eat.

At the station, big steel trays were used for serving meals, which usually consisted of three dishes, such as chicken or black fungus stir fried with sliced pork belly, and a soup, typically egg-based with seaweed, which was vacuum packed; all we had to do was to steep it in hot water first.

We also had desiccated vegetables, but no matter what we did with them, they were flavourless.

Sometimes we would have barbeques outdoors using large steel plates and long iron skewers. Barbeques were fun, especially after the tide receded and lots of abalones were left stranded on the rocks. We would barbeque abalones on a large metal plate as if they were lamb on skewers. Those abalones were the best I have ever eaten – extremely tender.

When celebrating festivals or birthdays, we would prepare more dishes, sometimes a dozen or so, in smaller portions and served on white porcelain plates. We would lay them out on a table covered with a white tablecloth, plus flowers for decoration. The flowers were plastic, but it looked pretty.

To celebrate the birthdays of our teammates, Chef Zhu would also bake a cake. The station manager would pass a birthday card around for everyone to sign. On each card would be twelve signatures, making it something worth keeping.

On special occasions like the Mid-Autumn Festival, I would also make banners that read ‘China’s 22nd Antarctic Scientific Expedition Team at the Great Wall Station Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival’. I would print out the Chinese characters individually on A4-size sheets and pin them together on a scroll of red cloth to make a long banner.

End of winter

Kou Aizhe: The first time Cao Jianxi spent the winter at the polar research station, he had a calendar pinned up in his room and he would stare at it for ages every day, studying it minutely, counting down the days until his return home.

But as the end of wintering over drew nearer, Cao had mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was dying to see his family and friends. Over and over, he’d imagine the scenes of meeting them all again in detail.

On the other hand, human society became like a beautiful dreamscape. The long separation from society instilled a sense of anxiety in Cao, who worried whether returning to a normal life would ever be possible.

After more than a year’s wait, the day finally came for Cao to finish wintering over.

When I was in Antarctica, I never thought I’d go back. But back in China, I found myself having difficulties adapting to society. Like a prisoner who has been released after a long jail term of more than a decade or do, I found it hard to get used to a life of freedom and was nostalgic for the prison environment.

After many months of trying to adapt, I decided to return to Antarctica. Society was a little hard to fit into.

Life and death

Kou Aizhe: In 2007, Cao Jianxi boarded the icebreaker Xuelong, to join China’s 24th Antarctic Scientific Expedition to the South Pole. The first destination was Zhongshan Station. If Cao’s first ‘wintering over’ at the Great Wall Station had only subjected him to mental anguish, venturing into the interior of Antarctica was a severe ordeal that tested both his body and spirit.

Zhongshan Station was the second scientific research station that China built in the Antarctic. It is located in East Antarctica and is 4,986 kilometres away from Great Wall Station, making the distance between the two research stations even greater than that from Shanghai to Urumqi. What’s more, the climate in Zhongshan Station is much harsher.

It was during the 24th Expedition that Cao had the most dangerous experience of his life.

In Antarctica, you never know where the danger lies until you come face to face with it. The further you travel into the interior, the more dangerous it becomes. Accidents are common, especially for those venturing onto the endless plateau of snow, ice and glaciers for the first time.

When the icebreaker Xuelong arrived at Zhongshan Station with our research team, we had to start unloading 10 to 20 nautical miles from the station. This is because the Xuelong could only drive through ice up to 1.1 metres thick. We had to use snowmobiles and sledges to transport our cargo from the vessel to the station.

This zone is notorious for its haphazard formation of ice sheets, resulting from huge blocks of old ice bonding together and refreezing. This makes the structure of the ice non-uniformly thick, with some places thick and others thin.

As a precaution, having two drivers (a pilot and a co-pilot) operate an oversnow vehicle is the norm. This boosts safety because in an emergency, one person can radio in a report.

At the time, a very experienced chief mechanic, Mr Xu Xiaxing, decided to drive an oversnow vehicle on his own, so as to allow the other members of the team to rest. He didn’t take a sledge, which signified it was an empty vehicle. We’d put caterpillar treads on it while it was still in the hold, and it was the best equipped of all the vehicles. The crane moved it from the hold onto the ice.

Mr Xu wanted to move the vehicle to another spot and began driving.

Our assistant expedition guide Wang Hailang was on duty in the control room of the Xuelong. He witnessed the whole episode. The vehicle began moving forward when it suddenly stalled and began spinning. Then, suddenly, it started sinking.

When Mr Xu discovered his oversnow vehicle had stalled, he thought all he had to do was pump the accelerator to get the vehicle to lurch forward, as he had done before. But this was a totally different situation: the area’s ice layer was too thin. Underneath, it was already broken into ice debris. The vehicle started sinking rapidly, as if the wheels were shovelling up ice from below.

When the oversnow vehicle first started sinking, Mr Xu didn’t panic. He still thought that hitting the accelerator would solve the problem by propelling it forward and freeing it from the ice. But before he realised it, the vehicle had sunk to a considerable depth and a stream of bubbles began to burst forth from its interior. Only then did terror enter his heart, and he thought of his family. He realised the peril he was in and feared this would be the end of him.

Water gradually flooded the car. He prepared to escape but couldn’t open any of the windows or its sunroof owing to the pressure of the water. Pushing open the door would be futile for the same reason.

However, the window on the driver’s side could slide back and forth. By chance, Mr Xu managed to push that window open. Water rushed into the car and completely flooded the interior.

He then tried to escape through the sunroof.

The sunroof was like that of a family car, except it was not able to open fully. It could only be cracked open to a 5- or 10-degree angle at most.

Mr Xu decided to stand on the vehicle’s middle console and push up as hard as he could to force the sunroof open. The connecting rod of the sunroof gave way completely, opening the only possible escape route for him.

He tried to float to the surface, but he continued to sink. His boots were caught.

Those boots were specially designed to withstand a temperature of around minus 30 degrees Celsius so they were extremely bulky and heavy. But he eventually managed to free himself from them. He’d used up almost all his energy and swallowed another mouthful of ice-cold sea water.

After he had made his escape from the sunroof, he swam upward with all his might, until he heard his head bump against the ice debris, and knew he’d reached the top. He raised his hand and ascertained he’d found the ice hole.

The rescue team still hadn’t reached him, but he climbed his way out onto dry ice all by himself. He managed to make two steps before collapsing.

As a result of this, all the work of the research team came to a temporary stop. Everyone was at a complete loss. The whole team’s spirit sank to an all-time low.

Return to Antarctica

Kou Aizhe: After his fourth expedition to Antarctica, Cao Jianxi resigned from the Polar Research Centre. Not long after, he moved to Australia and began a new phase of his life.

After leaving China, I didn’t think about returning to Antarctica. I threw myself into an entirely new life. I got married and devoted my time and energy to raising a family.

At first, I wasn’t nostalgic or keen to think about those days. Nor did I want to dig out old photos and videos. However, with the passing of time, I began thinking more and more of the memories of those events.

In Antarctica, under such harsh conditions, a small group of us still managed to work together using our own skills to complete our mission. There is a sense of camaraderie in having been through thick and thin together, akin to that of having been comrades-in-arms on a battlefield.

I feel like this deep connection is too precious to be discarded or forgotten. It is so rare in one’s life to have relationships built on shared experiences of life and death.

By chance, a friend asked if I was interested in working on board a cruise ship specialising in tours to Antarctica. The steep increase in the number of Chinese tourists in recent years has raised the demand for people like me, who know Antarctica and speak English and Chinese.

At first, I didn’t take this opportunity seriously, but when night came, I thought more deeply and got very excited. Things big and small that happened when I was living and working in Antarctica, the friendship and connection with teammates, started to play out in my mind. If I returned, I would be return to my old circles.

I felt an urgent desire to go back, a bit like how I felt the first time I was bound for Antarctica after college. But before I ventured back, the cruise company decided that I should travel to the Arctic a few times first. As a result, I visited Iceland and Greenland several times. Some six months later, I was finally on my way back to Antarctica.

When the cruise ship arrived at Antarctica, the sight of the snow-capped mountains and glaciers in the far distance made me extremely emotional, and tears welled in my eyes.

When I went ashore, I felt that I knew every rock and stone was familiar. I also ran into a teammate who once wintered over in the same year with me at the research station. He was very happy to see me and cooked some noodles for us. I felt extremely happy and excited. I really hadn’t expected that.

In that distant place, I returned to where I first started, as if some mystical power is at work, or perhaps this is just what is meant to be. When Heaven opens a door for me, I linger hesitantly at the doorway, but when I finally decide to cross the threshold, I keep going.

Notes from the translator

[1] 越冬 or ‘winter-over’ is a specific term used to denote the process by which researchers in the South Pole steel themselves to pass through the long and often difficult winters. It implies a degree of tenacity on the part of the researchers to adjust their way of living in the research centre to wait out the winter season.

[2] Many research stations in the South Pole have, however, set up hydroponic gardens in greenhouses for research purposes as early as 1902. By 2015 there were at least forty-six different facilities in Antarctica where researchers had grown plants at some time or another as scientific experiments. Matthew Bamsey, Paul Zabel, Conrad Zeidler et al., ‘Review of Antarctic greenhouses and plant production facilities: A historical account of food plants on the ice’, Paper presented at the 45th International Conference on Environment Systems, Bellevue, WA, USA, 12–16 July 2015: 1–37. Accessed 15 September 2023. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280738927_Review_of_Antarctic_Greenhouses_and_Plant_Production_Facilities_A_Historical_Account_of_Food_Plants_on_the_Ice

The post Loneliness, Death and Desolation: Why I Return to Antarctica Time and Again appeared first on The China Story.

Government policy towards its ageing population has undergone significant changes in the last three decades. Starting from the 1990s, the central government largely viewed population ageing as a social issue and introduced such policies as mandatory pension system and accessible aged-care services. Following the slowdown in the Chinese economy since COVID-19, the central government started to view population ageing through the lens of economic development. While older people can be important contributors to society and the economy, this article shows that treating them only as consumers overlooks other potential and fails to address some important challenges presented by the ageing population.

Social policy changes towards elder care

In 1991, the State Council released its ‘Decision Regarding Reform of the Basic Pension Insurance System for Enterprise Employees’ 国务院关于企业职工基本养老保险制度改革的决定 and initiated a pension system, which encouraged individuals and their employers to contribute to pension provident funds.^[3] To this day, the system is still being modified to reduce regional discrepancies and to enhance equity between rural and urban areas and to allow for easier transfer of pension accounts between regions. Operating on a pay-as-you-go social insurance model, the pension system works on the assumption that the current working-age population will finance the pensions of the elderly.^[4] However, having a rapidly ageing population means that a shrinking proportion of younger workers are responsible for funding the pensions of a growing proportion of retired people. If no corrective action is taken, the pension system will eventually collapse.^[5]

Pensions alone cannot answer all the needs of the elderly in the absence of accessible aged-care services such as affordable nursing homes or domestic assistance. In 2000, private aged-care providers, which emerged in the late 1990s, were incentivised to work with district and street-level governments and community authorities 居委会 to expand the capacity of aged-care services. As demand continued to grow, the central government decided to allow the market to pay a bigger role. In 2016, the General Office of the State Council published a document titled ‘Several Suggestions on Fully Liberalising the Elderly Care Service Market and Improving the Quality of Elderly Care Services’ 关于全面放开养老服务市场提升养老服务质量的若干意见.^[6] As a result of this policy, the private market for aged care thrived. However, private providers tend to focus on high-end users, and costs are often prohibitive for ordinary pensioners. Moreover, private providers proved more interested in providing services primarily for the healthy elderly.^[7]

Some promising market solutions did emerge. Due to the restrictions on official spending imposed by ‘Eight Central Regulations’ 中央八项规定 in 2012,^[8] the hospitality sector, such as spas, hotels or restaurants, built during China’s fast economic growth era, became sluggish. Many buildings were left unused, mostly in peri-urban areas. Business owners were reluctant to give up and hoped that the restrictive policy could be relaxed soon and the market would revive.^[9] As they were waiting, some business owners started to notice that the shortage of pensioners’ homes could be their new business opportunities and started to convert their business venues to aged-care facilities or age-friendly properties. In this way, they can earn rent or service fees.^[10] With no signs of relaxing restrictions on official consumption, city governments, such as Nanjing and Beijing, began to implement favourable policies, including land tenure, business licensing or direct subsidies to support the conversion of unused buildings (such as factory buildings, community service rooms, urban hostels and rural collective land and facilities) into aged-care facilities or age-friendly homes.^[11] Due to this policy support, care home operators in renovated facilities are able to charge less than those in newly built care homes so their homes therefore more affordable.^[12] However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, older individuals have become reluctant to reside in care homes. A 2020 survey by the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed that around 50 percent of the 4.29 million beds in aged-care homes were empty.^[13]

Even with affordable agedcare institutions and the passing of the worst of the pandemic, most older people prefer to live independently at home. This means there need to be such services as basic health checks, food delivery or assistance in domestic chores that the elderly can access conveniently near their own home. In the 1990s, the central government began to experiment with the idea of ‘community building’ 社区建设 : making residential communities a centre for service delivery and mutual support. It was a shift from employer-provision (also known as work unit provision单位提供) instituted during the central planning era. With services provided in urban communities, older people’s needs can be addressed through socialised services delivered by private providers or NGOs. Since its inception, the service provision system has been restructured several times. The newest official target is for 97 percent of seniors (defined as 60 or older) to receive basic support and primary healthcare at home and/or in the residential community they live in, while the remaining 3 percent, who were unable to live independently, could live in private aged-care institutions.

This system faces two challenges: the lack of guaranteed consistent funding support and a qualified workforce. To support the funding of care services, a long-term care insurance system was introduced in 2016 with 15 cities as pilots, and 49 cities currently participate in pilot programs.^[14] To increase labour supply, a professional standard for aged-care workers was introduced in 2019, and many city authorities set up geriatric nursing schools to train more aged-care workers.^[15]

Government to the elderly: wallets over work

In 2024, the Chinese government formally announced the policy ‘Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy to Enhance the Well-being of the Elderly’ 关于发展银发经济增进老年人福祉的意见. A decade ago, the government had begun piloting ‘silver economy’ programs in cities including Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Xiamen and Taicang while some other cities have taken the initiative to carry out such programs themselves.^[16] Now, more cities follow suit in response to the central government’s effort to address demographic and economic issues in the post COVID-19 era.^[17] This is a significant policy shift, from treating the ageing population primarily as a social issue to leveraging it as an economic driver.

This consumer-oriented approach is promising in several ways. First, some of the older population have good savings, and their strong consumption power can be used to spur economic growth. Second, it targets the specific needs of older people, thereby enhancing their quality of life, supporting their lifestyles and ultimately improving their well-being. An array of tailored services and products are included in the government’s plan: meal assistance (including community dining halls), home-based elder care and public health services (including home visits by community doctors to carry out regular health checks for chronic diseases such as senior health check-up, advices or referral services), community-based cultural and sports activities (with dedicated rooms and facilities). There are also services including day care centres and game rooms for the rural population. Third, meeting the needs of the older population has the potential to stimulate innovation in new products, services and entrepreneurship.^[18] This new plan will stimulate more private investment in the relevant industries and services.^[19]

The policy shifts indicate that the government values the wallets of older people more than their work. Continuous industrial upgrading over the decades of economic reform have made many of the skills of older employees obsolete.^[20] Second, China’s economy is struggling to absorb its labour force. Before the pandemic, it was hoped that the increasingly prosperous internet economy and international trade would drive employment.^[21] However, the economy has been struggling since the pandemic, with many small and medium-sized businesses closing due to a decline in trade.^[22] Meanwhile, the last statistics released on youth unemployment showed it at more than 20 percent, and there are ever more university graduates, with the number expected to exceed 11.79 million in 2024.^[23]

What does active ageing look like in China?

In China, the mandatory retirement age is unusually low: 60 for male and 55 for female in managerial positions; 60 for male and 50 female for manual workers; and 55 for male and 45 for female in heavy labour workers who have at least ten consecutive years of work experience.^[24] Early retirement has brought further challenges as the younger retired cohort want to be active and socially engaged. ‘Public square dancing’ 广场舞 in which participants – mostly women – dance to loud music in public squares and parks has been a popular phenomenon for years. There have been frequent conflicts between the dancers and local residents because of the noise and disruption to traffic, which working-age families fear could affect the value of their property.^[25] Some local governments have introduced regulations concerning the use of public spaces and noise levels. In the past two years, building more public sports facilities has been written into the annual Central Government Work Report 政府工作报告.^[26] According to the ‘National Fitness Facilities Improvement Action Plan (2023–2025)’ 全民健身场地设施提升行动工作方案 (2023–2025年), in community centres, parks and other public spaces where new fitness equipment is installed, the number of age-friendly fitness equipment (including those for older people and children) should not be less than 50 percent of all equipment. All public sports venues will provide fitness activity spaces for the elderly. Financially better-off areas can build and equip age-friendly fitness equipment and provide services such as Senior Exercise and Health Homes offering chronic disease exercise intervention, exercise health management and dissemination of health knowledge.

According to the China Association of the Universities for the Aged 中国老年大学协会, as of the end of 2019, there were approximately 76,000 Universities for the Aged in China (老年大学; like the University of the Third Age in Australia). About 10.9 million students enrolled, and more than 80 percent of the enrolled students were younger than 70, with half of the students aged 60 to 69. Pre-pandemic, the demand for such education was so high that vacancies were allocated by lottery. During pandemic, however, most of these universities curtailed their courses due to concerns about virus transmission. Post-lockdown, there was a lag in reopening the courses, so about 10 million older people could not go to the university as before. Online teaching started to enter the third age education sector, and the Online University for the Aged 网上老年大学 was founded and more than a thousand teachers and 700 universities across the country joined the platform.^[27] However, digital learning cannot replace face-to-face learning for the students as many of them participated in learning activities to avoid being socially inactive and overcome loneliness.^[28] These days, online services are upgraded to provide teaching materials and public lectures that can be attended by students across the country. By April 2023, there are more than 20 million students attending the University of the Aged. About 40 percent of older people participated in learning activities, both online and offline. The university system has developed into a five-level educational network consisting of provinces, cities, counties, townships (streets) and villages (communities).^[29]

Seniors themselves, without official support, have formed groups for social outings, consumer activities and travel. According to a report released by the China Tourism Academy in July 2023, 67.50 million older people travelled for tourism in 2020. Seniors (aged 65 and above) residing in urban areas on average spent CNY1209.2 (US$167) per trip while their rural counterparts spent CNY847.5 (US$117). The report further showed that older people expressed dissatisfaction with the traditional senior tourism market, which offered only a narrow range of products and experiences. They longed for a more culturally enriching experience, emphasising personal growth and opportunities for social engagement.^[30] Given that the older population will continue to grow in numbers, there may be a higher proportion of older people travelling and, with higher costs for the more desirable tourist experiences, the report estimated that by the end of 2025, the revenues of domestic senior tourism could reach 1.14 trillion yuan (US$160 billion).^[31]

It may be easy to infer that China’s seniors have responded positively to ‘silver economy’ policies that support active ageing. The reality is less straightforward.

Elderly to government: I want to contribute, but not on your terms

Since 2012, every time the central government proposed the idea of postponing the legal retirement age due to the sustainability of pension funds, the response was a strong backlash from the public on social media.^[32] Many internet-based surveys were conducted over the years, all of which found that the majority were against postponing retirement. In one survey, some 90 percent rejected the idea.^[33]

An obvious concern is that working extra years means people have to contribute to the pension fund for a longer period and enjoy a shorter retirement life. People have calculated that if the monthly pension amount that retirees receive does not change, they would ultimately pay more and receive less. A survey conducted by Economic Daily, a state-owned newspaper, showed that workers who endured years of low pay during China’s central planning era (1950–80) were particularly against delaying retirement age, having accepted reduced pay in return for a state-funded old age pension at the established age.^[34] In contrast, those employed by government departments and public institutions with better welfare coverage voted most favourably in postponing retirement.^[35] Currently, China’s retirement age is set uniformly across most occupations and all regions, offering no flexibility for individual circumstances. For instance, even though blue-collar workers find it harder to do manual labour after a certain age,^[36] the lack of reliable universal social protection for them after retirement means that many people, especially migrant workers, simply cannot afford to retire.^[37]

Given the mounting pressure of population ageing, in 2021, the central government introduced a gradual postponement plan with small-step adjustments; that is, delaying retirement by a few months each year.^[38] Despite the fact that it is an unavoidable change, the official expression of policy in this area, as in others, tends to focus on the economy or society rather than individuals. Telling people to work more years because the pension funds need more contributors to be sustainable sounds much like the discourse around shifting from the One-Child Policy to the Three-Child Policy. Women and employees are perceived as mere instruments for sustaining an ailing economy.

Beyond employment, older people contribute to society in other ways. Previously, in the One-Child Policy era, older people played an important role as caregivers, not just in the case of looking after migrant workers’ ‘left-behind children’ 留守儿童 but also where there is absence of affordable and good-quality childcare.^[39] In 2021, the government published ‘The Implementation Plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan: Ageing Population Project and Childcare Infrastructure Construction 十四五老龄化工程和托育建设实施方案 designed to ensure that families have access to affordable, high-quality childcare options that support the well-being and development of children.^[40] Following this policy, the number of registered childcare enterprises increased from 1892 in 2020 to 5561 in 2021 and then to 14,191 in 2022.^[41] These enterprises operated 75,000 childcare institutions offering services to 3.5 million children across the country.^[42] Such exponential growth in the availability of childcare facilities helped to ease pressure on middle-class families – and grandparents who otherwise were being asked to babysit as well.^[43]

During COVID-19, community volunteering activities, such as maintaining environmental hygiene, community patrolling, food sorting and delivery, have become more active in urban China, including among seniors.^[44] It was good for the mental health of residents, in particular for the seniors.^[45] The government saw this as an opportunity to push for greater civic engagement and supplement the shortage of care labour force.^[46] However, on the whole, Chinese seniors are not yet very active in volunteering, probably because of the traditional thinking that older people should receive care from others instead of giving care themselves. This mentality had been reported even before COVID-19.^[47] However, it has been observed that the younger senior cohort are more likely to participate in time-banking whereby they can accumulate credits for helping others.^[48] These credits can be used for buying goods and services. Obviously, this is not as altruistic as volunteering without compensation. But as long as older people could benefit from time-banking by leading an active life and supporting others in need, there is no reason why they have to engage with society out of pure altruism.

The Chinese government’s silver economy plan is meant to use one stone to hit several birds: meeting the specific needs of older people, propelling economic growth and boosting innovation in new products, services and entrepreneurship. It represents a step forward in recognising the importance of the ageing population not just as a social issue but also as an economic issue. However, the policy falls short of realising the full potential of this demographic. It focuses too much on the wallet rather than the human resources of older people, overlooking the rich tapestry of experience, wisdom and capability they offer. The way ahead is to recognise that the real value of the silver economy is not just in how much the elderly can spend but also what they can do. The challenge, however, lies in winning the trust of older people. Rather than making them all eat in community canteens, policy-makers should probably need first to ask people how they define a happy and constructive old age.

Notes

^[1] Xiuli Liu, Mun S. Ho, Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Yuxing Dou, Shouyang Wang, Guangzhou Wang, Dabo Guan and Shantong Li, ‘Ageing population, balanced diet and China’s grain demand’, Nutrients, vol. 15, no. 13, 2023, p. 2877.

^[2] Rong Chen, Ping Xu, Peipei Song, Meifeng Wang and Jiangjiang He, ‘China has faster pace than Japan in population ageing in next 25 years’, Bioscience Trends, vol. 13, no. 4, 2019, pp. 287–91.

^[3] State Council, ‘The State Council’s decision on the reform of the basic pension insurance system for enterprise employees’ 国务院关于企业职工基本养老保险制度改革的决定, Guofa (1991), No. 33.

^[4] Hsuan-Chih Lin, Atsuko Tanaka and Po-Shyan Wu, ‘Shifting from pay-as-you-go to individual retirement accounts: A path to a sustainable pension system’, Journal of Macroeconomics, vol. 69, 2021, 103329.

^[5] Junqiang Han and Yingying Meng, ‘Decreased contribution rates increase public pension fund revenue: Evidence from China’, Journal of Ageing and Social Policy, vol. 33, no. 2, 2021, pp. 120–37.

^[6] General Office of the State Council, ‘Several suggestions on fully liberalising the elderly care service market and improving the quality of elderly care services’ 关于全面放开养老服务市场提升养老服务质量的若干意见, Guobanfa (2016), No. 91.

^[7] Bingqin Li, ‘Population ageing and community-based old age care supply in China’, in Housing and Ageing Policies in Chinese and Global Contexts: Trends, Development and Policy Issues, ed. Terence Shum and Charles Kwong, Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2023, pp. 79–95.

^[8] Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, ‘The eight regulations of the 18th Central Political Bureau on improving work style and strengthening contact with the masses’ (十八届中央政治局关于改进工作作风、密切联系群众的八项规定), December 2012, Central Government Portal, online at: https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-11/02/content_2774141.htm

^[9] Lifei Huang and Fang Xiao, ‘Hunan and Hubei-themed restaurants suffer losses and rush to close down, while Hunan catering enterprises display various strategies to get through the winter’, China Daily, 18 July 2013, online at: http://finance.people.com.cn/n/2013/0722/c1004-22273248.html

^[10] Hui Cheng and Lipeng Lin, ‘Nursing homes, hard to find (Special Report: New growth points around us? Elderly care services)’, 26 January 2015, online at: http://finance.people.com.cn/n/2015/0126/c1004-26447022.html

^[11] General Office of the People’s Government of Nanjing, ‘Measures for the planning, construction and management of elderly care service facilities in nanjing (trial)’, online at: 南京市养老服务设施规划建设管理办法（试行）, [2017] No. 125.

^[12] Bingqin Li, ‘Creating a service system from scratch: Community old age care services in China’, Dilemmas in Public Management in Greater China and Australia, ed. Kaifeng Yang, John Wanna, Tsai-Tsu Su and Andrew Podger, ANU Press, Canberra, 2023, pp. 473–96.

^[13] Chenwei Du and Yue Wu, ‘Many vacant beds in nursing homes, will it trigger an industry wide reshuffle?’, Jiefang Daily, 26 June 2023, online at: https://www.cnr.cn/shanghai/shzx/zq/20230626/t20230626_526303043.shtml

^[14] Zhanlian Feng, Elena Glinskaya, Hongtu Chen, Sen Gong, Yue Qiu, Jianming Xu and Winnie Yip, ‘Long-term care system for older adults in China: Policy landscape, challenges and future prospects’, Lancet, vol. 396, no. 10259, 2020, pp. 1362–72.

^[15] Li Bingqin, Jiwei Qian and Sisi Yang, ‘The mindset: Tackling the challenges of old age care in communities in China’, China: An International Journal, vol. 19, no. 3, 2021, pp. 148–67.

^[16] Lijie Fang and Bingqin Li, ‘The entrepreneurial welfare mix: The case of community-based old age services in China’, Social Policy and Society, 2023, pp. 1–10, online at: doi:10.1017/S1474746423000234

^[17] General Office of State Council, ‘The State Council General Office’s opinion on developing the silver economy to enhance the well-being of the elderly’ 国务院办公厅关于展银发经济增进年人福祉的意见, Guobanfa (2024) No. 1.

^[18] Interesse G, ‘Unlocking China’s elderly market: Tapping into the power of the “silver economy”’, China Briefing, 3 July 2023, online at: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/unleashing-the-potential-of-chinas-silver-economy/

^[19] Chad De Guzman and Koh Ewe, ‘China unveils extensive “silver economy” plan to adapt to ageing population’, Time, 15 January 2024, online at: https://time.com/55949/china-silver-economy-ageing-population-plan/

^[20] Bo Liu, ‘Age discrimination in Chinese internet workplace’, Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 27, 2024, pp. 172–80. Huiping Zhang, ‘Workplace victimization and discrimination in China: A nationwide survey’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 36, no. 1–2, 2021, pp. 957–75.

^[21] Edmund Li Sheng, A Tale of Three Cities: Urban Governance of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore During COVID-19, Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2024, pp. 69–87.

^[22] Cheng Huang, Gordon G. Liu and Zhejin Zhao, ‘Coming out of the pandemic: What have we learned and what should we learn?’, China Economic Review, vol. 79, 2023: 101934.

^[23] State Council Information Office PRC, ‘China to have 11.79m university graduates in 2024’, Xinhua News Agency, 6 December 2024, online at: http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2023-12/06/content_116861005.htm.

^[24] John Giles, Xiaoyan Lei, Gewei Wang, Yafeng Wang and Yaohui Zhao, ‘One country, two systems: Evidence on retirement patterns in China’, Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, vol. 22, no. 2, 2023, pp. 188–210.

^[25] Yue Xiao, Eddie C.M. Hui and Haizhen Wen, ‘The housing market impacts of human activities in public spaces: The case of the square dancing’, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, vol. 54, 2020: 126769.

^[26] State Council, ‘Report on the Work of the Government 2024’ 年政府工作报告, 14 March 2024, online at: http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2024-03/14/content_117057714.htm.

^[27] Wangshang Laonian Daxue, 网上老年大学, ‘About us’, 2024, online at: https://www.wslndx.cn/aboutus.html.

^[28] Yuruo Lei, Jie Lao and Jiawei Liu, ‘Participation in community seniors’ organizations and mental health among retired adults in urban China: The mediating role of interpersonal needs’, Frontiers in Public Health, vol. 10, 2022: 1045948.

^[29] Insight and Info, ‘Analysis of the current development status and investment prospects of China’s Elderly Education Industry Report (2023–2030)’, 中国老年教育行业发展现状分析与投资前景研究报告(2023–2030年), 2023, online at: https://www.chinabaogao.com/baogao/202311/675605.html.

^[30] Keju Wang, ‘Great potential seen in senior tourism market’, China Daily, 8 February 2024, online at: https://govt.chinadaily.com.cn/s/202402/08/WS65c433bb498ed2d7b7ea7814/great-potential-seen-in-senior-tourism-market.html#:~:text=In%20a%20bid%20to%20further,inclusive%20environment%20for%20older%20adults.

^[31] Jing Zhang, ‘China’s report on the development of elderly health and wellness tourism: The demand for elderly tourism continues to increase and upgrade’, 4 July 2023, online at: https://www.mct.gov.cn/gtb/index.jsp?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mct.gov.cn%2Fwhzx%2Fzsdw%2Fzglyyjy%2F202307%2Ft20230704_945588.html

^[32] Joy Dong, ‘A greying China may have to put off retirement: Workers aren’t happy’, New York Times, 27 April 2021, online at: https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20210427/china-retirement-aging/-nytimeschinese/

^[33] Nan Xiang, ‘Survey of 10,000 people: 94.5% of respondents oppose delaying retirement’, 29 August 2013, online at: China Youth Daily, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/0829/c1001-22729079.html

^[34] Li Bingqin, ‘Social pension unification in an urbanising China: Paths and constraints’, Public Administration and Development, vol. 34, no. 4, 2014, pp. 281–93.

^[35] Lijuan Wang and Jingjing Wang, ‘Media survey: How to balance the interests of all parties in the steady implementation of delayed retirement’, 29 March 2021, online at: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_11939262

^[36] Marina Schmitz, ‘Change in China? Taking stock of blue collars’ work values’, Journal of Chinese Human Resource Management, vol. 10, no. 1/2, 2019, pp. 49–68.

^[37] Vaishali Singh, ‘Ageing society and labour policy in China: Analysing policy challenges and options’, Chinese Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 2018, pp. 242–50.

^[38] Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of PRC, ‘The Five-Year Plan for the Development of Human Resources and Social Security Affairs’, 人力资源和社会保障事业发展’十四五’规划’, 30 June 2021, online at: https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-06/30/content_5621671.htm

^[39] Yantao Ling, Zhe Song, Yang Yu and Tangyang Jiang, ‘Dealing with an ageing China – Delaying retirement or the second child policy?’, Plos one 16, no. 1, 2021: e0242252.

^[40] National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Civil Affairs, National Health Commission, ‘14th Five-Year Plan for Actively Responding to the Aging Population Project and Childcare Construction Implementation Scheme’ 十四五’ 积极应对人口老龄化工程和托育建设实施方案, 17 June 2021, NDRC Social [2021] No. 895 (updated 11 March 2024), https://www.sohu.com/a/769965819_121124337.

^[41] National Health Commission Childcare Institution Information Public Disclosure Platform, ‘National Childcare Institutions Filing Data Observation Report (As of July 31, 2023)’, 全国托育机构备案数据观察报告（截至2023年7月31日) 7 August 2023, online at: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1773539293895409363.

^[42] Yanfan Yang, ‘Inclusive childcare, supporting a happy childhood (big data observation)’ 普惠托育，托举幸福童年(大数据观察), People’s Daily, 31 May 2023, online at: https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202305/content_6883878.htm

^[43] Xiaohui Zhong and Minggang Peng, ‘The grandmothers’ farewell to childcare provision under China’s two-child policy: Evidence from Guangzhou middle-class families’, Social Inclusion, vol. 8, no. 2, 2020, pp. 36–46.

^[44] Lin Chen, Minzhi Ye and Yilin Wu, ‘Shaping identity: Older adults’ perceived community volunteering experiences in Shanghai’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 6, 2020, pp. 1259–75.

^[45] Wai Chan, Cheryl Hiu Kwan Chui, Johnson Chun Sing Cheung, Terry Yat Sang Lum and Shiyu Lu, ‘Associations between volunteering and mental health during COVID-19 among Chinese older adults’, Journal of Gerontological Social Work, vol. 64, no. 6, 2021, pp. 599–612.

^[46] Peizhi Li, ‘Promoting the high-quality development of volunteer services’ 推动志愿服务事业高质量发展, Guangming Daily, 17 January 2022, online at: https://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2022-01/17/nw.D110000gmrb_20220117_2-06.htm

^[47] Hua-lei Yang, Shuo Zhang, Wen-chao Zhang et al., ‘Volunteer service and well-being of older people in China’, Frontiers in Public Health, vol. 10, 2022: 777178.

^[48] Shiyu Lu, Cheryl Chui and Terry Lum, ‘Facilitating volunteer engagement among older adults in social services: A case study of an innovative timebank program in a Chinese society’, Gerontologist, vol. 64, no. 1, 2024: gnad010.

The post From Mandatory Savings to Silver Economy: China’s Plans for its Elderly Population appeared first on The China Story.

Less noticed was what Sogavare—and the Pacific more broadly—received in return. A host of memorandums of agreement (MOUs) was signed, including the controversial security agreement, which was first leaked online by a provincial government adviser in 2022, but the final text, which covers military and police cooperation, has never been made public. China–Pacific relations also got their first policy slogan: the Four Fully Respects 四个充分尊重.^[3] Much of it was boilerplate doggerel around ‘win–win results’ and ‘shared benefits’, but it also touched on ‘cultural traditions of Pacific Island nations’ and the need to support the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent—a regional strategy agreed on by Pacific Island Forum nations in 2019 to tackle climate change against the background of geostrategic competition.^[4]

Unpromising beginnings

Less than a decade ago, China’s knowledge of and interest in the Pacific was rudimentary at best. Back in 2013, I worked with a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC), the think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). One of their team was tasked with coming up with China’s five-year plan for its relations with the Kingdom of Tonga, which would map out China’s strategies for aid, investment and trade with the one Pacific nation never to have been colonised. It looked to be a sensitive mission. Tonga already figured large in fears about China’s intent in the region, with some analysts arguing that the kingdom might ‘fall’ to China as a result of debts owed to China Exim Bank dating back to 2006.^[5]

I had expected the researcher, fresh from a posting in Pakistan, to be familiar with the history of China’s engagement with the kingdom, which switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan in November 1998 as part of its confusingly named ‘Look East’ policy.^[6] There was no shortage of entertaining detail for him to become familiar with: a 1996 deal brokered by the Tongan princess Pilolevu to lease Tonga’s satellite spots to China after the kingdom – with the help of a colourful American businessman—had acquired the world’s last 16 unoccupied orbital slots. Another deal that should have caught his attention was the origin story of China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’ in the Pacific, where the construction company China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) brokered a China Exim Bank loan to rebuild Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, following anti-Chinese riots in 2006, breezily promising (never in writing) that the debt would be forgiven one day. China still holds nearly two-thirds of the Kingdom’s external debt.

To my disappointment, the researcher, flown out on the tab of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) China to write his country report and assess sectors where Australia and China might team up on aid projects,^[7] was not fully familiar with his brief. A week before heading to Shougang Airport for the long trip via Australia and New Zealand, he expressed surprise that he was not heading to Africa. He had assumed that he was off to Togo (duoge 多哥) rather than Tonga (tangjia 汤加).

Ten years since this unpromising start, a transformation has taken place. The Chinese government has invested in the teaching of Pacific languages—at Beijing Foreign Studies University, it is possible to study all the languages of China’s Pacific diplomatic partners, even Cook Islands Maori. The field of Pacific studies is still relatively small,^[8] although there are already six main research centres, led by the early mover: Sun Yat-sen University’s Center for Oceania Studies, and the heavily funded Research Centre for Pacific Island Countries at Liaocheng University. The last benefits from a whole-of-university approach—even the vice chancellor at Liaocheng is engaged in Pacific studies – and institutional links to both the Shandong Provincial Government and the International Liaison Department, a Party agency charged with managing relations between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and foreign political parties.^[9]

The quality of historical and political research coming out of China on the Pacific is still mixed. At one end, there are serious scholars equipped to engage in extended archival and field research in the Pacific and to conduct sophisticated analysis of how the Pacific is portrayed in China.^[10] At the other end, I can recall an international conference in 2015 where participants sitting in the shade of the Great Hall Fale at the National University of Samoa silently exchanged incredulous glances as a senior academic from Liaocheng University shared her knowledge of an alleged secret plan by Banimarama’s Fijian military to invade New Zealand.

Weaponising Pacific history

Despite such misfires, Chinese research on the Pacific has laid the foundations for strengthening ties with Pacific Island countries.

The Chinese state—and particularly its propaganda organs—is beginning to apply Mao’s famous aphorism ‘using the past to serve the present’ (gu wei jin yong 古为今用) to the Pacific. Since the Chinese state had very little to do with the Pacific before the 1970s, it is using the West’s Pacific colonial past to serve the present.

Although the Pacific was once relatively neglected—Mao’s shorthand for the developing world was ‘Asia-Africa-Latin America’ (ya fei mei 亚非美)—PRC academics with knowledge of the region are in high demand to provide comment for outlets like the Global Times, China’s influential nationalist tabloid. Such researchers as Yu Lei 于镭, from Shandong University, provide critical commentary about Western colonialism in the Pacific. In 2023 Australia agreed to resettle the entire population of Tuvalu under the Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty,^[11] which had neocolonial overtones,^[12] particularly Article 4, which required: ‘Tuvalu shall mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters. Such matters include but are not limited to defence, policing, border protection, cyber security and critical infrastructure, including ports, telecommunications and energy infrastructure.’ Commenting in the Global Times, Yu Lei argued the treaty demonstrated that ‘former colonial powers’ wanted these countries to remain ‘politically subservient … and economically reliant’ on them through ‘instructions and manipulation’.^[13]

Although in its early stages, the popular deployment of historical narratives is likely to provide focus to China’s discovery of Pacific colonial histories, as China—which has no historical baggage in the Pacific— looks to ‘tell its story well’ 讲好中国故事 in the Pacific. Part of that story is that unlike three of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom and France), China has not conducted any nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Chen Hong 陈弘, another prominent academic at East China Normal University, who gained the distinction in Australia of having his visa cancelled for allegedly trying to influence a NSW government backbencher,^[14] was among the first to examine the deplorable nuclear legacy of the United States. His work has highlighted Operation Castle Bravo, the first of a series of tests on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the first fusion nuclear bomb tested anywhere and still the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States.^[15] The United States, the United Kingdom and France detonated 315 nuclear devices in the Pacific over three decades, including twelve in Australia.^[16]

There are entire swathes of colonial history that China’s commentariat have yet to exploit, presumably because they have yet to come across them. The practice of blackbirding, whereby Pacific islanders were often taken either by force or under false pretenses, to provide slave labour for Queensland’s sugar plantations, has yet to feature in the Global Times.

The frontiers of China’s narrative competition

Future Chinese criticism of blackbirding, which began in the 1840s and was banned by law only in 1904, might not cause many current Australian politicians to lose sleep. But it would not hurt our standing in the region to make an official apology for the practice. The renaming of New South Wales’s Ben Boyd National Park—named for Australia’s first blackbirder—as Beowa National Park in 2022 was a good first step. But apologising for running a slave trade that tore tens of thousands of Pacific islanders from their families should not be a hard sell in Australia’s parliament.

Australia’s relations with Pacific Island counties have begun to evolve. If there is a moment we can look back on as a shift in Australia’s relationship with the region, it might well be 18 October 2023, when the Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) finally passed the Australian Senate with the support of the Greens and the crossbench. Bipartisan support for the PEV once looked likely, but the Coalition walked away from an initiative they once championed, objecting to the use of a lottery system.^[17] The lottery element is why New Zealand’s Samoa Quota and Pacific Access Visa (which the PEV is modelled on) are so popular—everyone can agree a random lottery is fair.

The significance of the PEV lies in its potential to transform Australia into a nation that looks more like the Pacific. When politicians turn their minds to the needs of Pacific constituents, as we see in New Zealand, the game will change. That is some way down the track, but the PEV is a start. Reams of research show that access to permanent migration is more effective than development assistance for Pacific islanders—and the gains to Pacific families are almost immediate. As Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad argued, ‘This is part of a broader strategy to integrate the region in the long term. And given the geopolitics as well, uniting the region in this way will benefit the whole of the region.’^[18] Welcoming Pacific migrants is something that China cannot and will not do.

Despite the easy win represented by the PEV, bilateral competition in defence, economic ties and aid will continue to frame China and Australia’s relations in the Pacific, with Australian governments of both stripes vying to be the ‘partner of choice’ for Pacific nations. Yet all three fields of contestation come with historical complications. Military needs—be they an airfield, a naval base or semi-automatic weapons— can be acted on much more quickly than economic or developmental needs. Nonetheless, Australia’s military spending in the region continues to be shaped by historical concerns about the presence of a hostile power in its immediate vicinity, raised by political leaders as far back as 1883, and the need for Papua New Guinea to be a ‘shield’ against Asia, be it imperial Japan or newly independent Indonesia.^[19] This reinforces a longstanding perception that Australia is more interested in securing the region’s territory for its own safety than contributing to the well-being of Pacific peoples.

The American public might romanticise the United States’ defining Pacific conflict, the battle of Guadalcanal, but it reminds Solomon Islanders of the problem of unexploded ordinance—a danger that remains to this day. This critique was made by a Solomon Islander who, as reported in the Global Times,^[20] responded to US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy’s declaration: ‘We’re coming back’ with the words, ‘But for what?’

Despite the tendency of the Australian and American publics to view our World War II engagement in the region positively—with Australian tales of the Kokoda Trail or the US focus on the battle of Guadalcanal—the conflicts of the past provide ammunition for China’s anti-colonialist barbs.

Recent events in New Caledonia show the Chinese state delivers these barbs selectively. Faced with the chance to back an anti-colonial struggle against a power that only last year criticised China’s ‘new imperialism’,[21] China’s media has gone deathly silent. Less than a year after mocking Macron for suggesting independence in New Caledonia could mean “a Chinese naval base tomorrow,”[22] the Global Times has posted just a single, neutral sentence to accompany a photo: “Law enforcement still on the front lines on May 19, 2024 around Magenta Tower where law enforcement and rioters clashed throughout Saturday night into Sunday in Noumea, New Caledonia.”[23] While neighbouring Vanuatu rails against ‘the unfinished business of decolonisation’, China’s state media has chosen to look away.

Unlike China, Australian and US governments cannot direct their companies to invest in the region, even though this is what Pacific leaders from Rabuka to Marape are most keen on (Telstra’s purchase of Digicel Pacific is the lonely exception^[24]). While much ink has been spilt on the leverage provided by China’s ‘sky high debts’,^[25] the source of Beijing’s sway over Pacific leaders is past and present investment and the promise of future projects. Qian Bo, China’s abrasive Special Envoy to the Pacific, is known to regale his Pacific counterparts with derisory observations about Australia’s economy and its inability to meet the Pacific’s needs, either as a destination for Pacific exports or as a source of investment.

Although China’s Pacific aid has plateaued since 2016,^[26] China grounds its critique of other powers competing for influence in the region in its self-image as a developing nation, the provider of ‘South–South cooperation’ rather than ‘aid’. On this front, Australia has a history of jumping at shadows. In 2021 the then Foreign Minister Marise Payne flew to Daru in Papua New Guinea in response to a (highly unlikely) proposed Chinese state-backed investment in a fish-processing plant on Australia’s northern border. After this, China’s representatives in Papua New Guinea suddenly started to mention the project in their talking points, having previously said nothing about it. With some glee, the Global Times cited a Facebook post by local governor Taboi Awi Yoto in the wake of her visit, claiming Australia wants ‘us to be subsistence farmers and fishermen and maintain the status quo’.^[27] With a bit of due diligence, the fuss could have been avoided. There was a reason MOFCOM had said nothing about the project. The company, which consisted of a couple of guys from Fujian kicking around Port Moresby, had no capacity to get the project off the ground.

The uptick in Australia’s diplomatic relations with China might offer some protection from China’s envoys snarking about Australia’s colonial history, but China’s political winds can change quickly. The best way to brace for a future narrative assault on Australia’s Pacific history is to deal with it honestly, make reparations where appropriate, and encourage the United States, the United Kingdom and France to do the same. More importantly, Australia should continue on the path of becoming a nation that looks more like the Pacific. When Australian history becomes Pacific history, doing right by the region will not seem such a big ask.

Notes

^[1] CGTN Global Watch, 9 July 2023, online at: https://twitter.com/GlobalWatchCGTN/status/1677950717695254531

^[2] CGTN, Exclusive with Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, 15 July 2023, online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4i4xABX-x4

^[3] Xinhua, ‘Xi Jinping: China’s policy on Pacific Island countries adheres to the “Four Fully Respects”’ 习近平：中国的太平洋岛国政策秉持’四个充分尊重’, Gov.cn, 10 July 2023, online at:  https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202307/content_6890928.htm

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Susannah Luthi, ‘Meth, vanilla and “gulags”: How China has overtaken the South Pacific one island at a time’, Politico, 29 August 2021, online at: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/29/tonga-china-south-pacific-influence-506370. Taina Kami Enoka, ‘China insists Tonga loans come with “no political strings attached”’, Guardian, 29 June 2022, online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/29/china-tonga-loans-no-political-strings-attached-pacific

^[6] Most Pacific nations refer to their strategies of engaging with China – and Asia more broadly – as the ‘Look North’ policy.

^[7] Graeme Smith, George Carter, Mao Xiaojing, Almah Tararia, Elisi Tupou and Xu Weitao, The Development Needs of Pacific Island Countries, Beijing: UNDP China, 2014.

^[8] Denghua Zhang, ‘Pacific studies in China: Policies, structure and research’, Journal of Pacific History, vol. 55, no. 1 (2020), 80–96.

^[9] Shandong is one of three provinces heavily involved in distant-water fishing. Graeme Smith, ‘Fishy business: China’s mixed signals on sustainable fisheries’, in Linda Jaivin and Esther Sunkyung Klein with Sharon Strange (eds), China Story Yearbook: Contradiction, Canberra: ANU Press, 2022, p. 220.

^[10] See for example Shuo Luan, ‘Chinese pacificism: Exploring Chinese news media representation of Pacific island countries’, Pacific Studies, vol. 45, no. 2 (2022), 157–86.

^[11] Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty, November 2023, online at: https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/tuvalu/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-treaty

^[12] Jessica Marinaccio, ‘The Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union: Tuvaluan values or Australian interests?’, DevPolicy blog, 15 November 2023, online at: https://devpolicy.org/the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-tuvaluan-values-or-australian-interests-20231115/

^[13] Editor, ‘Do not make the resettlement offer to Pacific a geopolitical chess move’, Global Times, 14 November 2023, online at: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202311/1301824.shtml

^[14] Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop and Echo Hui, ‘Australia revokes Chinese scholar visas and targets media officials, prompting furious China response’, ABC News, 9 September 2020, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-09/chinese-scholars-have-visas-revoked-as-diplomatic-crisis-grows/12644022

^[15] Kyle Hill, ‘The Castle Bravo disaster’, youtube.com, 23 January 2021, online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew064gt2thY

^[16] Nic Maclellan, Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons: A Pacific Priority, Melbourne: ICANW, online at: https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Pacific-Report-2017.pdf

^[17] Stephen Howes, ‘The Opposition’s opposition to the Pacific Engagement Visa’, DevPolicy blog, 8 March 2023, online at: https://devpolicy.org/the-oppositions-opposition-to-the-pacific-engagement-visa-20230308/

^[18] Stephen Dziedzic and Dubravka Voloder, ‘Parliament clears path for Pacific visa and opens the door to 3,000 annual immigrants’, ABC News, 19 October 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-19/labor-expands-pacific-immigration-with-new-visa/102997646

^[19] Bruce Hunt, Australia’s Northern Shield? Papua New Guinea and the Defence of Australia since 1880, Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2017.

^[20] Frank Sade Bilaupaine, ‘US geopolitical point-scoring means little to Pacific Island countries’, Global Times, 4 August 2022, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272183.shtml

[21] Guardian staff and agencies, Emmanuel Macron denounces ‘new imperialism’ in Pacific on historic visit to Vanuatu, The Guardian, 27 July 2023, online at:   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/27/emmanuel-macron-vanuata-visit-pacific-imperialism

[22] GT staff, Macron’s ‘new imperialism’ narrative ‘an empty concept and desperate effort’ to save France’s marginalized status in South Pacific: experts. Global Times, 28 July 2023, online at:  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202307/1295252.shtml

[23] VGC, Chaotic Aftermath. Global Times, 19 May 2024, online at:  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202405/1312600.shtml

^[24] Renju Jose, ‘Australia’s Telstra completes Digicel Pacific buyout’, Reuters, 14 July 2022, online at: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/australias-telstra-completes-digicel-pacific-buyout-2022-07-14/

^[25] Alexandre Dayant, Meg Keen and Roland Rajah, ‘Chinese aid to the Pacific: Decreasing, but not disappearing’, Lowy Interpreter, 23 January 2023, online at: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/chinese-aid-pacific-decreasing-not-disappearing

^[26] Ibid.

^[27] Editor, ‘Canberra’s arrogance won’t block planned fishery project’, Global Times, 27 January 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1214169.shtml

The post The Frontiers of History: China Discovers the Pacific’s Dark Colonial Legacy appeared first on The China Story.

As years passed, Sydney’s original Chinatown no longer served as a community hub, gradually becoming a cultural attraction for local and international visitors alike. At the same time, Burwood grew to become one of the suburbs where large numbers of the Chinese diaspora live, along with Sydney’s Chatswood and Melbourne’s Box Hill.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 48.8 percent of the population in Burwood is of Chinese ancestry, with 29.9 percent born in China.^[2] With 16.6 percent of the population aged 25 to 29 years, more than three times higher than the New South Wales average, the suburb is dominated not just by recent migrants from mainland China but also by students and young working professionals.^[3] The demographic skew of Burwood has led to its vibrant Chinatown and paved the way for one of the most rapidly developed sectors in Australia: online food delivery.

Since 2016, the online food delivery sector has gone through exponential growth in Australia, accelerated by COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2023, the sector recorded AU$1.3 billion in revenue, up 180 percent over seven years, despite an ongoing cost of living crisis in the country.^[4] Yet the market is highly concentrated in the hands of a few multinational companies. After the exit of UK-based delivery giant Deliveroo in November 2022 citing tough competition,^[5] Australia’s food delivery market was left with three big players: UberEats (54.5 percent), Australia-founded Menulog (27.5 percent) and DoorDash (15.0 percent). Other players make up 3 percent.^[6] Both UberEats and DoorDash originated in Silicon Valley.

At Burwood Chinatown, every food vendor collaborates with food delivery platforms, evident from the colourful placards of delivery platform logos at their counters and from the large posse of delivery riders in yellow or blue jackets and helmets standing and waiting in front of the food stalls, scrolling their phones, with their vehicles parked outside the plaza. However, the platforms that dominate Burwood Chinatown are not from Silicon Valley or Australia but two Asian food delivery apps: HungryPanda 熊猫外卖, which originated in the UK, and Fantuan 饭团, which originated in Canada. HungryPanda offers a choice of languages, including English, Chinese (a choice of simplified or traditional characters), Japanese and Korean, while Fantuan offers choices of English, French and Chinese (simplified or traditional characters). Despite the language options, the two platforms are dominated by Chinese-language users.

Like the physical, concrete Chinatowns that served as a one-stop community hub for the Chinese diaspora, these food delivery apps have shaped the daily experience of newly arrived Chinese migrants in Australia, especially during the pandemic. However, these delivery apps face distinctive challenges as Chinese diaspora-oriented digital platforms operating in the West, including questions about the treatment of their delivery drivers and the sustainability of the diaspora economy.

The non-Silicon Valley apps born in the West

Launched in 2017, HungryPanda was first created in the United Kingdom by former Chinese international student Eric Liu, who saw the potential of developing an online Chinese food delivery platform tailored to the needs of the Chinese diaspora community in Britain.^[7] The platform expanded to France and New Zealand the following year, and in 2019 it was launched in the United States and Australia. As the app expanded, it incorporated more cuisines and languages, with Asian food as its core business. The app has also attracted venture capital, including US$130 million in its Series D funding round in 2021. Today, HungryPanda claims more than six million users worldwide, partnering with more than 100,000 merchants and 80,000 delivery riders.

Despite its achievements, HungryPanda did not have a smooth start in Australia, as the country had had its own online Asian food delivery app, EASI, since 2014.^[8] The Melbourne-based business claimed it had 1.5 million Australian users, worked with around 20,000 vendors and partnered with 25,000 delivery riders.^[9] In March 2022, HungryPanda acquired EASI for AU$50 million, making it a leading player in specialist online food delivery service, available in nine cities and towns.

But the same month the HungryPanda–EASI deal was completed, a Canadian Chinese food delivery app also entered the Australian market. Fantuan was founded in 2014 in Vancouver, where almost 20 percent of the population are of Chinese heritage.^[10] Besides Canada and Australia, the app is also available in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its Australian business mainly operates in Sydney and Melbourne. In December 2023, Fantuan secured US$40 million in Series C funding from a US grocery e-commerce company as well as investors from the United States and China.^[11] The deal, along with HungryPanda’s in 2021, shows optimism from the sector about the potential of these Asian food delivery platforms and confidence in consumers from diaspora communities.

Despite roots in the West, HungryPanda and Fantuan are on a different path from Silicon Valley rivals such as Uber and Doordash. They built their businesses by specifically offering Chinese diaspora communities modern, authentic Chinese food that tastes like home. Their focus on offering services in Chinese won them loyalty from new migrants and international students still adapting to an English-speaking environment. Their growing number of users in turn helped them accumulate an increasingly long list of Chinese food vendors that also rely on the specific customer groups targeted by these delivery apps. They grew strongly during the COVID-19 lockdowns when dining out was impossible.

As elsewhere, following their initial success, they expanded their focus in Australia from Chinese food to Asian cuisine more broadly as well as local fast food chains. As specialist delivery apps they proactively court restaurants well known in the communities with the hope of being the first one to secure contracts—especially exclusivity contracts—with the restaurants, according to the food vendors I talked to.^[12] Like their Silicon Valley competitors, which expanded their delivery services to grocery shopping, both HungryPanda and Fantuan have launched similar services for Asian grocery stores. In Burwood, one Asian gourmet snack shop that sells bags of marinated duck neck and other traditional Chinese snacks told me they joined these two delivery platforms ‘for convenience’, as ‘everyone is using them now’. They also actively support community events and traditional cultural festivals through sponsorships and advertising.^[13]

A stepping stone for new migrants

In a Hong Kong café in Burwood, Joe and Qing (not their real names) sat with me after they finished their deliveries for the day. It was the winter of 2023, and both Joe and Qing had heard predictions of extreme heat in the upcoming months. Joe recalled that a couple of years before, during a hot summer in Sydney, he suffered damaging sunburn on his face even though he had applied sunscreen and covered his face while doing his deliveries.

Both men were in their fifties and spoke Mandarin with a strong Malaysian accent. Although news reports often describe food delivery riders as young international students and backpackers on working holiday visas,^[14] a proportion of riders for these specialist delivery apps are middle-aged men like Joe and Qing who came to Australia to support their families in Malaysia, China or Taiwan. However, the size of the proportion remains unknown as there is no accurate data available. As Australia does not offer low-skill work visas, some of the riders I talked to were in complicated ‘visa-hopping’ situations in which they secure and keep their work rights through various types of temporary visa. Their visa conditions plus their poor English skills limited their employment options to farm work and other low-skill jobs. Food delivery became their stepping stone to other work.^[15] The process of becoming a food delivery rider is simple: download the app, sign the job application, demonstrate valid work rights in Australia and go through road safety training on the app. Chinese-language delivery apps like HungryPanda and Fantuan are the first choice for newly arrived migrants with limited proficiency in English. Unlike international students, whose work hours are capped as part of their student visa requirements, riders like Joe and Qing deliver food as a full-time job with no limits on working hours. Many riders sign up for several platforms as they are considered contractors, not employees.

As a full-time rider, Joe told me that during the pandemic—when there was a huge shortage of migrant workers as a result of the border closures—he could earn around AU$300 for eight hours of work. Income consists of delivery fees from each order plus bonuses from the platforms for reaching a certain number of orders. Both Joe and Qing came to Australia with the hope of making more money than staying at home. Their incomes as delivery riders in Australia could not only cover their daily expenses but also support their families in Malaysia.

But making a living as riders can be challenging. Because not all orders are of the same value, to maximise their income, many riders will take several orders at a time. They might engage in ‘order-grabbing’ 抢单, by which, in addition to the orders allocated to them, riders also lay claim to unallocated orders while still in transit. Order grabbing has sparked concerns about road safety, as many riders were found scrolling their phones while riding on the road. In an interview with me, HungryPanda confirmed that they no longer allow riders to take unallocated orders along the way. They also confirmed that they have adopted a computerised system to allocate orders that avoids unfair arrangements, with human coordinators stepping in when the riders report an error.

Despite all these measures, road safety for delivery riders has been a major concern in Australia, with at least 13 riders killed on the roads since 2017 and frequent major accidents.^[16] The need to complete the delivery within the required time to avoid penalties and get new orders is the main reason riders take risks on the roads.^[17] Riders and labour advocates also raise questions about the speed and simplicity of the sign-up procedures.^[18] When fatal accidents occur, the employment status of delivery riders as contractors makes it difficult for victims’ families to seek compensation from delivery platforms. In September 2020, HungryPanda delivery rider Xiaojun Chen died on the job in Sydney. After a two-year legal battle, his widow was finally granted AU$830,000 compensation.^[19] The landmark case later pushed HungryPanda, UberEats and other key food delivery players to announce stricter road safety policies, to launch mandatory safety training sessions for new riders and to extend riders’ insurance schemes.

In October 2023, in the wake of the Labor government passing new workplace legislation that imposes minimum wage standards on gig work, Uber warned that customers would have to pay 85 percent more for food deliveries, although commentators said the claim demonstrated how badly they were underpaying their delivery riders.^[20] In February 2024, Parliament approved the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act, which said that gig workers could receive minimum wages if they demonstrate that they are engaged under a services contract and work for a digital platform with low bargaining power under the contract.^[21]

While the Closing Loopholes Act sparked hopes among delivery riders for improving their working conditions, for many of them, it is too difficult to advocate for themselves in conflicts with delivery platforms. Some of them have joined the Transport Workers’ Union—the national advocacy organisation for transport workers – to defend their rights, including around safe practices. There have been protests and organised meetings with the delivery apps management, and the union has helped members to lodge fair work dismissals.

But mobilising workers unfamiliar with Australia’s legal system comes with challenges. Joe and Qing, who are both members of the Transport Workers’ Union, told me they had ‘very positive’ experiences with the union. When the union organised protests, they would share the information in the WeChat groups with other delivery riders, but only a few would end up joining them.^[22] In my interview with the National Secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, Michael Kaine, he told me his organisation actively approached migrant workers to support them.^[23] However, due to the fact that they were constantly on the road, it was challenging to mobilise them compared to those who work in the physical venues.

The sustainability of diaspora economy

Despite being created for the Chinese diaspora community, delivery apps like HungryPanda and Fantuan have so far avoided the ownership and data-sharing controversies that dog TikTok. While they were to some extent inspired by the success of China’s own food delivery apps Meituan 美团 and E Le Ma 饿了吗,^[24] both HungryPanda and Fantuan were founded in Western countries in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom and Canada. Although they have investors from China, their influence is limited in comparison to TikTok’s Beijing parent ByteDance.

But these specialist delivery apps might face consequences from changes in immigration policies. In December 2023, the Australian Government released a migration review that set higher barriers for international students to stay after graduation and cracked down on the abuse of student visas as a pathway to work in Australia. The review also targeted the phenomena of ‘visa-hopping’—a tactic that several of my interviewees have adopted in order to keep working in Australia legally – to prevent visa applicants from exploiting the temporary visa system.^[25] It remains unknown to what extent the new migration review will affect the supply of delivery riders—where the majority of them are visa holders—in Australia. Noticeably, due to the rise of cost of living, there has been an increase of English-speaking delivery riders using and joining HungryPanda, even though the app’s primary language option is Chinese.^[26] The surge echoes the growing trend of Australians working two or more jobs—including food delivery—to ease their financial burdens amid the continuous rises of interest rate in 2022 and 2023.^[27] As government policies gradually put in place while Australia’s per capita recession is estimated to extend, there may be significant changes in the future of both delivery riders in Australia and the sector.^[28]

Notes

^[1] Burwood Chinatown, ‘Our story’, Burwood Chinatown homepage, retrieved 29 March 2024, online at: https://burwoodchinatown.com.au/

^[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘2021 Burwood (NSW)’, ABS, 2021, online at: https://abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/120031678

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] IBIS World, ‘Online food ordering and delivery platforms in Australia – market size, industry analysis, trends and forecasts (2024–2029)’, IBIS World, August 2023, online at: https://www.ibisworld.com/au/industry/online-food-ordering-delivery-platforms/5538/#IndustryStatisticsAndTrends

^[5] Praveen Menon, ‘Britain’s Deliveroo exits Australia, citing tough competition’, Reuters, 16 November 2022, online at: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/britains-deliveroo-exits-australia-citing-tough-competition-2022-11-16/

^[6] IBIS World, ‘Online food ordering and delivery platforms in Australia’.

^[7] HungryPanda, ‘About us’, HungryPanda, retrieved 29 March 2024, online at: https://www.hungrypanda.co/

^[8] Ibid.

^[9] Anthony Macdonald and Kanika Sood, ‘UK’s HungryPanda buys Melbourne food delivery business Easi’, Australian Financial Review, 10 January 2022, online at: https://www.afr.com/street-talk/uk-s-hungry-panda-buys-melbourne-food-delivery-business-easi-20220109-p59mwb

^[10] Justin McElroy, ‘Majority of metro Vancouver residents now identify as visible minority, census data shows’, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 26 October 2022, online at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/2021-census-minority-demographics-metro-vancouver-bc-1.6630164

^[11] Fantuan, ‘Fantuan raises $40 million series C round, led by e-commerce platform GrubMarket’, PR Newswire, 5 December 2023, online at: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fantuan-raises-40-million-series-c-round-led-by-e-commerce-platform-grubmarket-302006255.html

^[12] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia: They worked hard during the pandemic, then got replaced by new immigrants during post-COVID’ 澳洲華裔送餐員：疫情時用命搏，疫情後卻被新移民取代, Initium Media 端傳媒, 29 September 2023, online at: https://theinitium.com/article/20230929-international-delivering-food-in-austrilia

^[13] HungryPanda, ‘HungryPanda supports Dragon Boat Festival celebrations in Australia’ 熊猫外卖HugryPanda助力澳大利亚端午节活动, HungryPanda, 24 June 2023, online at: https://www.hungrypanda.co/zh-hans/hungrypanda-xszq/

^[14] Lydia Feng, ‘Death of latest Sydney food delivery rider Adil Abbas prompts calls for reforms to overseas licence rules’, ABC News, 21 August 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-21/calls-nsw-driver-licence-reform-after-delivery-rider-death/102746298

^[15] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[16] Edwina Storie, ‘“I can barely survive.” We ask delivery riders if they feel safe on the job’, SBS News, 28 August 2023, online at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/i-can-barely survive-we-ask-delivery-riders-if-they-feel-safe-on-the-job/qd8wysl06

^[17] Ibid.

^[18] Samantha Hawley and Lydia Feng, ‘The delivery riders at risk for your dinner’, ABC News Daily, 7 September 2023, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/abc-news-daily/the-delivery-riders-at-risk-for-your-dinner/102823264

^[19] Isabel Roe and Issac Nowroozi, ‘Family of food delivery driver Xiaojun Chen, who died at work, granted $830k compensation’, ABC News, 23 June 2022, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-23/compensation-for-xiaojun-chen-food-delivery-driver-died-on-job/101176062

^[20] Jordyn Beazley, ‘Uber warning that food delivery prices could spike 85% shows gig workers are underpaid, experts say’, Guardian, 17 October 2023, online at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/17/uber-warning-of-85-meal-hikes-under-labors-new-laws-shows-how-underpaid-gig-workers-are-experts-say

^[21] Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, ‘Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023’, Australian Government, 26 February 2024, online at: https://www.dewr.gov.au/closing-loopholes

^[22] Jason Om, ‘This food delivery rider spoke up against Hungry Panda. Then they called the police on her’, ABC News, 18 March 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-18/food-delivery-rider-spoke-up-against-hungry-panda/103561144

^[23] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[24] Fantuan, ‘Fantuan raises $40 million series C round’.

^[25] Nick McKenzie et al., ‘Trafficked’, Age, November 2023, online at: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/trafficked-6frg

^[26] Wing Kuang, ‘Chinese delivery riders in Australia’.

^[27] Greg Jericho, ‘A record number of Australians are now working more than one job to make ends meet’, Australia Institute, 8 September 2023, online at: https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/in-the-past-year-the-number-of-people-working-more-than-one-job-has-risen-7/

^[28] Michael Janda, ‘“Tepid” GDP extends Australia’s per capita recession, hinting November’s interest rate rise may have been “unnecessary”’, ABC News, 6 March 2024, online at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-06/gdp-december-quarter-2023-meets-low-expectations/103553062

The post Stepping Stone for Migrants? The Reality of Chinese Food Delivery Apps in Australia appeared first on The China Story.

The incident gained global attention after Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee 李家超 and Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung 楊潤雄reacted furiously to the international soccer icon’s failure to play, blaming the organisers.[3] Certain pro-Beijing Hong Kong politicians, including Regina Ip 葉劉淑儀 and Junius Ho 何君堯, sought to escalate the incident by accusing Messi of disrespecting not just soccer fans but also ‘making the chief executive “lose face” and insulting the SAR government ’. [4] Nationalistic sentiments ran even hotter after Messi took to the field in a game against Japan just two days later. This led Junius Ho to accuse him of ‘insulting China’ by playing in a country that had carried out atrocities in China, such as the Nanjing Massacre in 1937.[5] Regina Ip even demanded that ‘Messi should never be allowed to return to Hong Kong’.[6]

Advancing from stability to prosperity

In 2019, millions of Hongkongers took to the streets to protest against an extradition bill that would allow the possibility of a mainland trial for people in Hong Kong. One year later, the PRC imposed a National Security Law on the territory that put many protesters and journalists in prison, shut down free media and broke up a number of unions and other associations. Two years after that, Xi Jinping announced during the Twentieth National Congress in September 2022 that Hong Kong had entered a ‘new stage in which it has restored order and is set to thrive’ 進入由亂到治走向由治及興的新階段.[7] Since then, the Hong Kong government has been actively promoting the narrative of ‘advancing from stability to prosperity’ 由治及興. The central idea is that despite ‘the impact of the epidemic and the social unrest previously’, the city has now ‘transited from chaos to order’ and is now enjoying prosperity with ‘better constitutional order and improved governance systems’, under the leadership of the Hong Kong government and the support received from the motherland.[8] The government has continually reiterated this rhetoric, particularly after the legislation of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (commonly known as Basic Law Article 23).[9]

To substantiate this narrative, the Hong Kong government has launched various new campaigns aimed at enhancing the city’s international profile, showcasing its reputation as a top international destination. For example, the Hong Kong International Airport World of Winners campaign distributes free tickets across a range of airlines for lucky winners to visit Hong Kong.[10] With sponsorship from Hong Kong companies, the government organised Night Vibes Hong Kong during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Christmas celebrations to showcase the city’s vibrant nightlife after COVID-19.[11] In 2024, apart from sponsoring the Inter Miami exhibition game in February, the government has announced plans for monthly fireworks displays and drone shows above Victoria Harbour to boost tourism.[12]

Despite the government’s efforts and massive advertising campaigns, not all the mega events went smoothly as planned. Night Vibes suffered from power outages in the first few days.[13] One day before Hong Kong was set to host the FIA (Fédération International de l’Automobile) World Rallycross Championship Season Finale for the first time in November 2023, the organiser announced a shortened schedule and racing track on the first day owing to construction delays.[14] Poor transport arrangements for the 2024 New Year’s Eve fireworks left 1,500 mainland tourists waiting long hours – in some cases all night – for coaches home.[15]

When Messi’s visit proved a public relations disaster instead of a triumph, the Hong Kong government was eager to point the finger at the winner of the multiple Ballon d’Or himself. However, local press in Hong Kong have since questioned the credibility of the event’s host, Tatler Asia, and why the government sponsored the event for HK$16 million, exceeding the HK$15 million limit for one major sports event stipulated in the 2023 Budget. Tatler Asia is a luxury fashion and lifestyle publisher that has favourably covered the career of Victoria Beckham, wife of the owner of Inter Miami, David Beckham, but the company had never before organised a major sports event.^[16]

Just one week later, the Lunar New Year Cup 賀歲盃, a soccer tradition in Hong Kong since 1908, proceeded smoothly, with Rivaldo, Alessandro Del Piero, David Villa and Francesco Totti in attendance. There were few complaints.

Soccer fans in Hong Kong were certainly disappointed by Messi’s absence from the match. Ignoring the fact that Messi had an injury and that injuries happen in soccer, some demanded a refund for their tickets. This happened even during the game itself.[17] But many perceived the Hong Kong government’s response to be an overreaction. Local netizens shared the humorous meme: ‘It’s all because you’re pessimistic, unlike me who can see the benefits of “advancing from stability to prosperity”’ 咁係因為你悲觀, 我見到由治及興嘅好處.[18] The meme, which originated from LIHKG, a popular Hong Kong online forum, has been circulating since April 2023 to make fun of the government’s new political slogan ‘advancing from stability to prosperity’. It is often invoked in response to unfortunate events in Hong Kong, such as the perceivable economic decline, ironically urging Hongkongers to have faith in their local government and the motherland.

Nationalistic overdrive

Local disappointment turned into nationalistic fury in mainland China, especially after Messi’s subsequent appearance on the pitch in Japan. ‘Patriotic’ Chinese netizens shared comments from people like Kenneth Fok, Junius Ho and Regina Ip, demanding that Messi ‘give Chinese people an explanation’ 给中国人民一个交代 and calling for a nationwide boycott of Messi’s games, teams and related products.[19] Angry fans flooded Messi’s and Inter Miami’s social media accounts demanding refunds and an apology;[20] some burnt Messi’s jerseys; some even targeted the website of the Argentine Embassy in China and declared the Falkland Islands to be ‘a sacred and indivisible territory of the United Kingdom’.[21] On 9 February, five days after the Hong Kong exhibition game, the Hangzhou Sports Office issued a statement citing ‘obvious reasons’ for cancelling a friendly match with the Argentinian national team in March 2024.[22] Such reactions highlight the increasing integration of Hong Kong’s affairs with those of China and show that a local incident in the territory can influence international relations.

On 19 February, the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Argentina, Messi’s social media account on Weibo posted a video in which he denied having any political reasons for not playing in Hong Kong while playing two days later in Japan, stressing ‘his close and special relationship’ with China.[23] Netizens’ reactions were mixed: some people had enough of the drama, some said he should have released the video sooner, others complained that he did not really ‘apologise’. Some quoted a Weibo post from 8 February by Hu Xijin’s 胡錫進, the former editor of the Global Times and an early ‘wolf warrior’–style commentator, stating that the matter ‘should not be politicised’ and denigrating Messi as ‘not that influential’.[24] By contrast, Kenneth Fok’s furious response has received blowback on the Mainland, with some labelling him a ‘political opportunist’ 政治投机.[25]

The Hong Kong government’s fury at an injured Messi’s failure to play at a friendly exhibition game must be understood in the context of the government’s fervent desire to restore Hong Kong’s image as an international city, under the narrative of ‘advancing from stability to prosperity’. Since the 2019 protests, crackdown and imposition of the National Security Law, some Western commentators have argued that Hong Kong ‘is struggling to restore its image as a global city’.[26] Even mainland netizens joke that Hong Kong has become the ruins of an international financial centre 國際金融中心遺址.[27] Yet, for all the controversy and ensuing reactions, the fact that such a high-profile figure as Messi visited Hong Kong in the first place – and the widespread international attention paid to the incident – affirms the city’s global significance. Nevertheless, the Hong Kong government’s overreaction and hyperbolic rhetoric from certain Hong Kong politicians that ‘Messi is not just hurting the feeling of Hong Kong people but also insulting China’ illustrate the city’s growing integration with mainland China in its own perception as well as that of the world.

Notes

[1] Peggy Ye and Pak Yiu, ‘Lionel Messi no-show angers Hong Kong authorities and fans’, Nikkei, 5 February 2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Sports/Lionel-Messi-no-show-angers-Hong-Kong-authorities-and-fans.

[2] Kenneth Fok, ‘On “Inter Miami” and “King of Soccer” Messi’, Facebook, 7 February 2024, https://www.facebook.com/FokKaiKong/posts/pfbid02CF5PRLmNh9ovJD8vKPUbenagfrZqae5uepYGK6CjfsoRzjfx47SdNbEs2w9f1RQzl.

[3] ‘Govt sought remedies over sit-out’, news.gov.hk, 5 February 2024, https://www.news.gov.hk/eng/2024/02/20240205/20240205_124118_490.html; ‘Organiser should explain sit-out: CE’, news.gov.hk, 6 February 2024, https://www.news.gov.hk/eng/2024/02/20240206/20240206_101337_541.html.

[4] Junius Ho Kwan Yiu, ‘Contradiction between ourselves and the enemy’ 敵我矛盾, Facebook, 8 February 2024, https://www.facebook.com/JuniusHoKwanYiu/posts/1143928760545224?ref=embed_post.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Regina Ip Lau Suk Yee (@ReginaIplau), ‘Messi should never be allowed to return to Hong Kong’, X, 8 February 2024, https://x.com/ReginaIplau/status/1755239462605553874.

[7] Xi Jinping, ‘Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and strive in unity to build a modern socialist country in all respects’ 高举中国特色社会主义伟大旗帜 为全面建设社会主义现代化国家而团结奋斗, Gov.cn, 25 October 2024, https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2022-10/25/content_5721685.htm.

[8] Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, ‘Build a solid foundation for security while upholding the principle and leveraging the advantages of “one country, two systems”‘, The Chief Executive’s 2022 Policy Address, 2022, https://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/2022/en/p7.html.

[9] John Lee, ‘Safeguarding National Security Ordinance has become effective, fulfilling the historical mission’  維護國安條例生效 完成歷史使命, news.gov.hk, 3 March 2024, https://www.news.gov.hk/chi/2024/03/20240323/20240323_170428_609.html.

[10] ‘Hong Kong International Airport World of Winners’, Hong Kong International Airport, 2023, https://wow.hongkongairport.com/lang/en/tickets/.

[11] ‘About “Night Vibes Hong Kong”‘, September 2023, https://www.nightvibeshk.gov.hk/en/about.html.

[12] Hong Kong Special Administration Region, ‘Building the Hong Kong brand on all fronts’, The 2024–25 Budget, 2024, https://www.budget.gov.hk/2024/eng/budget10.html.

[13] Wynna Wong, ‘“Night vibes Hong Kong”: Hundreds flock to Wan Chai bazaar but power supply glitches zap event energy’, South China Morning Post, 27 September 2023, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3236031/night-vibes-hong-kong-hundreds-flock-wan-chai-bazaar-power-supply-glitches-zap-event-energy.

[14] ‘Fans express disappointment at FIA race arrangements’, rthk.hk, 11 November 2023, https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1727428-20231111.htm.

[15] ‘Govt criticized for inadequate traffic arrangements after New Year’s Eve’s fireworks display’, Standard, 1 January 2024, https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/211955/Govt-criticized-for-inadequate-traffic-arrangements-after-New-Year%27s-Eve%27s-fireworks-display.

[16] ‘Controversy over Messi’s trip to Hong Kong is difficult to resolve’ 美斯香港行爭議難平, HK01, 9 February 2024, https://www.hk01.com/.

[17] ‘The Consumer Council received 245 complaints involving $1.6 million, and some passengers sought compensation for air tickets and hotel expenses’ 消委會接245宗投訴涉款160萬 有旅客追討機票酒店費用, HKTKWW, 6 February 2024, https://www.tkww.hk/a/202402/06/AP65c1a611e4b0eb64da03c720.html/.

[18] ‘Messi’s performance in Hong Kong was “unfortunate”‘ 美斯: 香港情況「不幸」, LIHKG, 6 February 2024, https://lihkg.com/thread/3621122/page/1.

[19] For example: Junius Ho Kwan Yiu, ‘Contradiction between us and the enemy’ 敌我矛盾, Weibo, 8 February 2024, https://weibo.com/3471850792/NFKUfb0dG; Chongfeng haojiao, ‘Messi should never be allowed to come to Hong Kong again”‘绝不应该允许梅西再来香港, Weibo, 8 February 2024, https://weibo.com/2343014623/NFDubl9Q2.

[20] ‘From pitch to politics: About the messy Messi affair in Hong Kong’, What’s on Weibo, 17 February 2024, https://www.whatsonweibo.com/from-pitch-to-politics-about-the-messy-messi-affair-in-hong-kong/

[21] ‘Dissatisfied with Messi’s insult to China, Chinese netizens flooded to the Argentinian embassy’s Weibo and left messages: Falkland Islands belong to British’ 不滿梅西辱華 陸網民湧阿國使館微博留言: 福克蘭群島英國的, Economic Daily, 11 February 2024, https://money.udn.com/money/story/5603/7765774.

[22] Da He Bao, ‘Argentinian soccer trip to Hangzhou is cancelled’ 阿根廷杭州行取消, Weibo, 10 February 2024, https://weibo.com/1734530730/4999623037160812.

[23] Lionel Messi, ‘Good luck in the Year of Dragon’ 龙年大吉, Weibo, 20 February 2024, https://weibo.com/5934019851/O1m9styT4.

[24] Hu Xijin, ‘Old Hu supports criticism of Messi’s performance in Hong Kong’ 老胡支持批梅西的香港表现, Weibo, 8 February 2024, https://m.weibo.cn/status/4999238310695484.

[25] ‘The Messi incident may be reversed’ 梅西事件或将反转, Sohu, 23 February 2024, https://www.sohu.com/a/759684676_120915036.

[26] ‘Hong Kong is struggling to restore its image as a global city’, Economist, 15 February 2024, https://www.economist.com/china/2024/02/15/hong-kong-is-struggling-to-restore-its-image-as-a-global-city.

[27] ‘Where did the narrative of “the ruins of an international financial centre” come from?’「國際金融中心遺址」說法從何而來?, Headline Daily, 2 December 2023, https://www.stheadline.com/realtime-finance.

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