What's happening in China right now?
Huge huge huge disclaimer: I'm not a journalist or any kind of expert, but I want to talk about this.
China's been having a pretty politicized Covid policy that involves locking people inside their houses and a whole host of other things. On October 13, a giant banner was hung on Beijing's Sitong bridge criticizing the CCP's Covid policy, Xi Jingping's cult of personality, and the authoritarian regime as a whole. This, for a nation that had epitomized BF Skinner's learned helplessness model for 30 years, was huge.
More recently, China's Covid policy killed 10 people in Xinjiang by not letting firefighters in and not letting residents out. Now, students in Shanghai and Beijing are marching the streets with a blank page as their symbol in defiance of China's stringent censorship. People are even comparing this to the 1989 Tiananmen Square march.
If you're not familiar with Chinese culture, it might not be hitting you just how huge this is. Students from places like Qinghua and Beida—essentially China's Ivy League—are leading this protest. This is the nation that has gotten used to tags on Weibo getting censored within hours of them going viral. This is the nation that is called “真怕死，真听话” (really afraid of dying, really obedient). But even a cornered rabbit has teeth, and the people of China are not rabbits. There is very real hope of change.
This has happened before. 1989, Tiananmen Square. It was also students, 30 years ago. What we call the Tiananmen Square Massacre, they called the Tiananmen Square Clearing. Actually, they call it nothing at all. Because schools don't teach about it. No one talks about it. Hell, barely anyone outside of Beijing even knew about the Sitong Bridge incident. The people in China aren't stupid—but they are kept deliberately ignorant. And that's why—
Here is one thing I am asking of you, even—no, especially—if you have no connection to China. I am afraid to be loud, because I have family in China. And the CCP already has a history of returning its people's violence tenfold. So if you have no stake in the game—be loud. Please. Let them know the whole world is watching. I know Twitter's a shitshow, but make them listen. Make them see that, if they pull out the tanks again, we will see, and we will remember. Make them afraid.
History isn't a circle, but a spiral—it repeats and repeats, but each time it tips a little further until eventually, something breaks.
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