China Tweets #7
A Shenzhen resident loses the rag with the Shenzhen Healthcare Commission, writing, "To what ends are you tormenting us parents? It's been three years, children can't start school like normal, parents can't work as they used to, whatever the problem is, it is schools, children, and parents that are first to receive the onslaught. One might well ask, who would dare to have more children? Do you have the guts to publicly share my message?"
深圳衛健委也算是清流。 pic.twitter.com/6gqwKtfJER
— Mao (@Maoviews) August 29, 2022
When Xi revised the constitution in 2018 to remove term limits, Teng Biao told us: "Judging from the historical situation faced by the CCP, individual dictatorship is probably the collective choice of the CCP as an authoritarian party to deal with the crisis of its rule."
党内高层几乎任何人取代 #习近平,对中国社会和民众大概都不至于如此恐怖和严酷。但也仅此而已,新的党魁不可能采取任何动摇、或挑战整个极权体制的步骤。
— 滕彪 (@tengbiao) August 29, 2022
2018年习修宪时我有个说法:“从中共面临的历史大势来看,个人独裁恐怕是中共作为专制政党应付统治危机的集体选择。” https://t.co/IWIJKAQE0S
"Do you remember we said this thing would happen when no one else thought so? Well, it's happening, and we were right all along."
Do other China specialists feel vindicated that something we've been teaching about for a decade is now more widely acknowledged? The Hu-Wen regime recognized the problems but did not fix them. Can XI? China’s property-driven growth model is broken https://t.co/XIUs4XgUWh
— Mary Gallagher (@MaryGao) August 29, 2022
Michael Pettis dives deeper into this same piece on China's property market crisis:
1/15
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) August 30, 2022
Good piece: "There is one obvious answer. China needs to fundamentally reorientate its economy away from the current over-reliance on investment and towards greater consumer spending."
But it is important to know how this works.https://t.co/n2fbod9nlp
Future demand in the property sector won't be enough to keep it intact:
1/6
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) August 30, 2022
Chen Long, from Chinese research outfit Plenum, gave a very interesting presentation yesterday on Chinese real estate demand to a small group of us. The title of the presentation was "No More Growth for China’s Real Estate."
Will local governments need to dispose of state-owned assets to keep afloat?
1/5
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) September 1, 2022
For years I've argued that once the Chinese economy begins its adjust to a new growth model, there'd be enormous pressure on local governments to absorb heavy adjustment costs. The only way for them to manage would be to sell off government assets.https://t.co/Lp7MQKU3jE
China's development model worked "under one set of underlying conditions", but when those conditions changed in the mid-2000s a new set of imbalances emerged.
1/3
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) September 3, 2022
The point here is not that China has a "bad" development model, as many seem to assume from my comments. From the late 1980s to the mid 2000s China's high-savings high-investment model was exactly what the economy needed, delivering nearly three decades of spectacular growth. https://t.co/qcg82NYdGm
On Taiwan
Is India Taiwan's fairweather friend?
India's support for Taiwan is welcome, but it usually is proffered when Delhi is seeking to put pressure on the PRC. 🇮🇳should consider TW's intrinsic value as a democracy, public-goods provider, & supporter of the RBO. Taiwan shouldn't be used as a card.https://t.co/RvFLSoM0YJ
— Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 🇺🇦 (@BonnieGlaser) August 29, 2022
The US military moved through the Taiwan Strait last week:
USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville transiting Taiwan Strait on August 28. pic.twitter.com/SmNGQRAKaU
— Duan Dang (@duandang) August 29, 2022
The Germans say they will be in the vicinity a lot more:
BERLIN, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Germany will expand its military presence in the Indo-Pacific by sending more warships and joining drills with allies as it keeps an eye on the "enormous" build-up of China's armed forces, the German defence chief told Reuters. https://t.co/dk3zFy2HEH
— Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 🇺🇦 (@BonnieGlaser) September 1, 2022
Some Taiwanese journalists to follow:
There's so many Taiwanese journalists who do honest, legit reporting. Follow/share them instead: @Wenyee_Lee@yingyuchen9@AngryTaiwanman@silvashih@amy_changchien @johnsfeng@tingtingliuTVBS@JohnLiuNN@chihui__lin@bingwangtw@joyuwang
— Lev Nachman (@lnachman32) August 30, 2022
(apologies to everyone I'm forgetting!)
Taiwan shoots down a drone above Kinmen island, just off the coast of Xiamen, Fujian province, China.
Taiwan shoots down drone for first time off Chinese coast @Reuters https://t.co/aDVCg4o5N1
— Noah Barkin 🇺🇦 (@noahbarkin) September 1, 2022
There's a slight difference there alright:
This chart lives rent free in my mind. pic.twitter.com/scBwvKHw7S
— Brian Hart (@BrianTHart) September 2, 2022
Japanese coastguards have been in the Taiwan Strait.
7 🇯🇵Japan Coast Guard’s cutters patrolling in 🇹🇼Taiwan Strait today, and 🇨🇳China didn’t say a word. pic.twitter.com/nOrWbRVhnT
— Taiwan Military (@TaiwanMilitary) September 3, 2022
UN Human Rights Chief Michele Bachelet's report on Xinjiang
How relations between China and the OHCHR used to be:
Flashback to 2018: "The Chinese side hopes and believes…Michelle Bachelet…will lead the…OHCHR…in fulfilling its missions in an unbiased, objective and non-selective manner…The Chinese side always supports the UN High Commissioner."
— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) September 2, 2022
h/t @jamestareddyhttps://t.co/Cv3N5piPin
Bachelet's report on human rights in Xinjiang was released ten minutes before midnight, which was ten minutes before her role officially ended as UN human rights chief.
#BREAKING: UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet's office calls China's treatment of the Uyghur minority as constituting "serious human rights violations" in a report issued just minutes before the end of her tenure.
— Stuart Lau (@StuartKLau) August 31, 2022
Bachelet: Can I visit Xinjiang?
— Stuart Lau (@StuartKLau) September 1, 2022
China: Sure. We’ll arrange a tour.
Bachelet: Here’s my report.
China: You interfered in our domestic affairs.
An Uyghur worker speaks out about being paid less than his Han coworkers:
A Chinese-owned company operating a coal plant in a village in #China’s far-western #Xinjiang region is paying #Uyghur laborers less than their Han Chinese counterparts, according to a Uyghur worker at the plant and local officials. https://t.co/QhVMW5cvPn
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) September 3, 2022
Take a look at these pictures of the family members of those who were detained in camps in Xinjiang:
These cadre pics of village meetings for families of the detained changed me. When I saw them, I knew something unspeakable was happening in Uyghur communities, and I vowed to document every thread of evidence I could find @UNHumanRights https://t.co/nQEyDvXZYZ pic.twitter.com/m1FOY4xjbi
— Timothy Grose (@GroseTimothy) August 31, 2022
The report doesn't exist!
What UN report into into systematic human rights abuse in Xinjiang?
— Will Glasgow (@wmdglasgow) September 2, 2022
Beijing’s propaganda machine is trying to “disappear” Michelle Bachelet’s damning work. In China, it’s working. https://t.co/iU4HKNxpQ4
Oh wait, it does. Bachelet's Xinjiang report is a concoction of anti-China forces according to Chinese state media.
Communist Party officials have instructed state media to portray the U.N.'s Xinjiang report as a concoction of anti-China forces, say people familiar with the matter. The issue is set to come up again this month at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.https://t.co/FN06vYQ1M7
— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) September 2, 2022
Beijing's view on the demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories in France during the summer of 1968.

May '68 as seen from Beijing pic.twitter.com/kBM55BQHyi
— Clint Twist (@ClintTwist) August 31, 2022
On Chinese poetry:
I really can't recommend Cai's textbooks and podcast strongly enough for anyone interested in learning more about Chinese poetry and how it works. https://t.co/w3wyuoFkxN
— Brendan O'Kane (@bokane) August 31, 2022
On Taiwan's "silicon shield":
§eriously, you have to read this. Puts to the sword some of the more 'we are all doomed' stuff that ppl write about often naïvely. One of the better/more informative pieces like this on the key semiconductors turf at heart of China-western relations 1/4 https://t.co/FB4z8U8dSY
— George Magnus (@georgemagnus1) August 28, 2022
A trip to the ER in China:
I wasn't planning to spend my evening in the ER of Huashan Hospital in Shanghai but here we are.
— Christian Petersen-Clausen (@chris__pc) September 1, 2022
A few random observations... pic.twitter.com/NpaQJ5SfQm
Sofia Horta e Costa's weekly Bloomberg round-up:
All of this happened in China this week. A thread. 1/10
— Sofia Horta e Costa (@SofiaHCBBG) September 2, 2022
Xi getting absolutely rinsed here:
trying to make Xi Jinping out to be a macho strongman obsessed with looking tough is so odd. check him out. he's the arch-bureaucrat. he's a little tubby guy. every single picture you see of him he's probably thinking about doing some cheeky extra paperwork later just for fun
— yoshimi battles the xiaofenhong (@nise_yoshimi) September 3, 2022
Spreading accurate rumours:
A whistleblower in Chengdu who told followers on social media followers that a lockdown was imminent was arrested for "spreading rumors", a day before Chengdu went into lockdown https://t.co/u55xil1RTF
— 杨涵 Han Yang (@polijunkie_aus) September 1, 2022
On the utopian promise of a surveillance state:
1/ Here’s a Saturday Essay @Joshchin and I wrote for the @WSJ about China’s surveillance state. The excerpt lifts from our new book, but it’s worth a read as this was some of the best access we’d been given by a city agency running a surveillance system. https://t.co/uhNKJTc2nk
— Liza Lin (@lizalinwsj) September 3, 2022
On the death of Gorbachev
Joseph Torigian on China's reaction to the death of Gorbachev:
Chatted with @lilkuo for this @washingtonpost piece on China’s reaction to Gorbachev’s death https://t.co/KRVxSESgNI
— Joseph Torigian (@JosephTorigian) August 31, 2022
Xi was not a fan of Gorbachev.
Xi Jinping in 2012 :
— Jeremy Goldkorn (@goldkorn) August 30, 2022
"Finally, Gorbachev announced the disbandment of the Soviet Communist Party in a blithe statement. A big Party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.”
In fact, what Gorbachev did to the Soviet Communist Party is the stuff of nightmares for Xi:
Gorbachev is understandably lionized in the US and Europe. But In China, Gorbachev’s “failure” to keep the Communist Party in power and the USSR intact has profoundly informed Xi’s hardline rule. Xi doesn’t want to EVER be known as “China’s Gorbachev” https://t.co/22lDjoNqp4
— Mike Forsythe 傅才德 (@PekingMike) August 30, 2022
In response: "the blithe dismissal there of the - entirely reasonable - official Chinese perspective on the end of the USSR deserves attention".
the patronizing tone here re: the Chinese view on Gorbachev aside, no way post 1991 anyone "lionized" him. that stopped after it became clear 1) the end of the USSR may have been a mistake and 2) he kept on saying inconvenient things about the West and capitalism into his old age pic.twitter.com/QAtWY3l0v1
— yoshimi battles the xiaofenhong (@nise_yoshimi) September 1, 2022
This is actually funny:
mikhail gorbachev sacrificed himself to absolve russia of the sin of communism, and that no chinese leader has done so means china has not yet been forgiven, and as penance every year must endure fifty china-watcher thinkpieces about xi jinping doing cultural revolution 2
— yoshimi battles the xiaofenhong (@nise_yoshimi) September 1, 2022
Gorbachev visited China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests:
Former leader of Soviet Union #MikhailGorbachev has died at the age of 91,earlier on Wednesday.
— China in Pictures (@tongbingxue) August 31, 2022
In Beijing, with Deng Xiaoping, 1989. pic.twitter.com/8lNjjzojxC
The propaganda department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee released an article saying that Gorbachev "had a unshirkable responsibility" for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Quoting Xi: "under the leadership of Gorbachev, the denial of the history of the Soviet Union, the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the denial of Lenin, and the denial of Stalin have become the norm. The thinking of the Soviet Party and people were messed up, which also provided an opportunity for foreign hostile forces to westernise and divide the Soviet Union".
浙江省委宣传部发布“之江轩”署名文章,称戈尔巴乔夫对苏联解体“有不可推卸的责任”。引用习近平的讲话,批评“在戈尔巴乔夫领导下,否定苏联历史、苏共历史,否定列宁,否定斯大林,成为风气,苏联党和人民的思想都被搞乱,这也为国外敌对势力西化、分化苏联提供了可乘之机”。https://t.co/M10wjBiVZu pic.twitter.com/TjBKlin4AL
— Mao (@Maoviews) August 31, 2022
Those born in China today are likely to live longer than those born in the US:
This is quite a chart. People are now expected to live 2.1 years longer in China than in the US. Covid deaths have contributed to the majority of the 2019-2021 decline in life expectancy for Americans. H/t to @hancocktom @JDMayger pic.twitter.com/AbPzZQuUlB
— Sofia Horta e Costa (@SofiaHCBBG) September 1, 2022
The tech crackdown continues on Tencent:
Tencent divestment strategy sends chill through China’s tech sector https://t.co/4egsn5udG0 Guangdong official - “looking for…RMB 100bn donation or selling stakes” pic.twitter.com/zB7KAcm4Qi
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) September 2, 2022
On Sino-Ukraine ties:
This year, China broke the tradition and did not congratulate Ukraine on Independence Day
— Yurii Poita (@PoitaYurii) September 2, 2022
Sinophrenia: the simultaneous belief that China is about to collapse and about to take over the world.
Became aware that DC think tankers found a way to square this circle, with the theory that because China is (gradually) collapsing so its more likely to (try to) take over the world https://t.co/HCDT4xvGly https://t.co/iB5DBrCZcu
— Tom Hancock (@hancocktom) September 3, 2022
More on Fuzhou Police overseas service stations. Perhaps run the Italian article through a translator.
🚨 From Italy to Spain, from Argentina to Ireland: what are this so-called Fuzhou Police overseas service Stations?
— Giulia Pompili (@giuliapompili) September 3, 2022
We investigated their presence in Italy and found that no, they don't just make driver's licenses https://t.co/DtCGxeZZYi
There's something fishy about Tesla cars in China:
Tesla cars cannot enter government agencies and SOEs in China pic.twitter.com/Vz6MlYTJfu
— Zhao DaShuai 无条件爱国🇨🇳 (@obsidianstatue1) September 3, 2022
Sometimes the system just doesn't work so well...
somebody went to move his hukou/household registration from one province to another. got the paperwork done at the police station at his original hukou/residence. Trusting the police knowing everything about him, he didn't look closely at the paperwork.
— Zichen Wang (@ZichenWanghere) September 3, 2022
before boarding the train,
Ideology in China:
What worries me the most about China today is not any specific policy, but a broader trend that seems to prioritize ideology over economic performance and good governance.
— Huan Gao (@hjgao) September 3, 2022
See my latest piece with coauthor @ChrisCarothers in The National Interest.https://t.co/0ftKpBhI4O
If Liz Truss becomes Britain's next Prime Minister things are likely to get hairy between the UK and China:
Yes, she will.
— Liqian Ren (@liqian_ren) September 4, 2022
Used to be US/UK politicians will talk very tough about China before election, then after election both sides sit down and work. Now being tough is the work. https://t.co/plvxzGhqUU
Weibo is not able to censor all posts in Cantonese:
This! Furious netizens from Guangzhou use Cantonese to express their criticism on COVID-zero policy, and Weibo fails to censor all the posts, possibly because it can’t identify Cantonese words accurately 🤪 https://t.co/lx0v673loa
— Wing Kuang (@wing_kuang) September 4, 2022
Lockdowns are still widespread in China:
According to Caixin, 33 Chinese cities, including Tianjin and 7 provincial capitals, are now under partial or full lockdowns, affecting more than 65 million residents.
— Yanzhong Huang (@YanzhongHuang) September 4, 2022
Meme of the week
Students having to pay for food at a university canteen in China is mind-boggling to some:

Q: "How would one assertively translate 'I'm not in danger, I'm the danger'?"
A: "I'm not a close contact, I'm a positive case."
这个真正做到了信达雅 😂 pic.twitter.com/jCctXXcei6
— Peter Fang (@petefang) August 30, 2022
Compiled by Alex Davey