Introduction:
Chinese authorities on Sunday violently dispersed a peaceful protest by hundreds of depositors, who sought in vain to demand their life savings back from banks that have run into a deepening cash crisis.
History:
Since April, four rural banks in China's central Henan province have frozen millions of dollars worth of deposits, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of customers…
Anguished depositors have staged several demonstrations in the city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, over the past two months, but their demands have invariably fallen on deaf ears.
Last month, Zhengzhou authorities even resorted to tampering with the country's digital Covid health-code system to restrict the movements of depositors and thwart their planned protest, sparking a nationwide outcry.
The Protest:
On Sunday, more than 1,000 depositors from across China gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, to launch their largest protest yet…. The demonstration is among the largest China has seen since the pandemic, with domestic travel limited by various Covid restrictions on movement.
…most protesters arrived outside the bank before dawn -- some as early as 4 a.m. -- to avoid being intercepted by authorities. The crowd, which included the elderly and children, occupied a flight of imposing stairs outside the bank, chanting slogans and holding up banners.
Police Response:
Across the street, hundreds of police and security personnel -- some in uniforms and others in plain clothes -- assembled and surrounded the site, as protesters shouted "gangsters" at them.
The face-off lasted for several hours until after 11 a.m., when rows of security officers suddenly charged up the stairs and clashed with protesters, who threw bottles and other small objects at them… security officers dragged protesters down the stairs and beat those who resisted, including women and the elderly…
The protesters were hurled onto dozens of buses and sent to makeshift detention sites across the city -- from hotels and schools to factories, according to people taken there. Some injured were escorted to hospitals; many were released from detention by the late afternoon, the people said.
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The CNN article is very biased and missing a lot of information.
"Henan banks, return my savings!" they shouted in unison, many waving Chinese flags, in videos shared with CNN by two protesters.
Using national flags to display patriotism is a common strategy for protesters in China, where dissent is strictly suppressed. The tactic is meant to show that their grievances are only against local governments, and that they support and rely on the central government to seek redress.
Yeah okay CNN, every person waving a chinese flag at the protest actually doesn't like china but instead just waving the flag reluctantly.
Police in Xuchang, a city neighboring Zhengzhou, said in a statement late Sunday they recently arrested members of an alleged "criminal gang," who were accused of effectively taking control over the Henan rural banks starting from 2011 -- by leveraging their shareholdings and "manipulating banks executives."
The suspects were also accused of illegally transferring funds through fictitious loans, the police said, adding that some of their funds and assets had been seized and frozen.
The article glosses over the fact that it was criminal bankers who froze the bank accounts in April and that it's the Chinese government who is working to get the money back to the depositors. The protesters are asking for the Chinese central government to get their money back from the criminal bankers.
Please give me some link to read further so I can forward it to the China hating family members who keep posting this.
Yea. Basically shady private rural bank own by private banker offer a great interest rate to lure peoples into making deposit. Seeing that the govt are clamming down on financial sector, they hurry and fled to the US. The peoples here basically got misled and protest in front of govt bank that unrelated to the private bank that scam them
So this is kind of like getting bitconnected and then blaming the US government for it
On the other hand, why isn't the bitconnect guy an emote yet? I feel he very perfectly captures the crypto/bored ape/slurpdurp mango juice whatever it's called zeitgeist
Well, if they're waving Chinese flags, they aren't blaming the Chinese government for it, at least not the central government. They're protesting because they want the government to do something about the rural banks and the money they lost.
Who said blame the US govt? The dude like other scammer that fled China, they run to the US since the law here are lax and they willing to use dissidents. Just like that Guo Wengui , did a scam then fled to the US to do more scam with Bannon. The US could work with China to extradite these scammers if they want.
Who said blame the US govt?
I believe they were using an analogy, not making a suggestion.
I believe they were saying that CNN blaming the Chinese central government when a local private sector bank in China was scamming customers is like someone in the US blaming the US federal government when people fall for a cryptocurrency scam.
I see US flags at protests all the time. Waving the national flag is usually a statement of "I'm a proud citizen of (country) and I demand (thing)." It's not some trick these people are pulling.
Yeah okay CNN, every person waving a chinese flag at the protest actually doesn’t like china but instead just waving the flag reluctantly
Is this refering to a different paragraph? Because the CNN paragraph you linked says:
they support and rely on the central government to seek redress
So the flag wavers trust the central government to solve the problems, no? Maybe I lost a message meant to the regular CNN reader but that part seemed fine to me.
Imagine that CNN were to use this same language for Americans. Would CNN ever report that Americans were waving US flags because dissent is oppressed? In the western ideology, support for China is an impossible position. CNN has to construct the narrative for the reader that the people are waving the flags for ulterior motives.
Consider that maybe Chinese people are waving China flags because they like China. Nobody ever questions whether an American who waves the US flag is doing it because they like the US.
spoiler
Many waving american flags in videos shared with CNN by two protesters.
Using national flags to display patriotism is a common strategy for protesters in America, where dissent is strictly suppressed. The tactic is meant to show that their grievances are only against local governments, and that they support and rely on the central government to seek redress.
The protesters are asking for the Chinese central government to get their money back from the criminal bankers.
Which explains why the protestors were waving Chinese flags. Petitioning the central government (or the Emperor's ministers) to overturn an injustice committed by local officials has been part of Chinese history and culture since Europeans were throwing shit at each other from their mud huts.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/asia/china-letter-ban-trnd/index.html
I almost can't believe they actually reported this :michael-laugh:
so cringe that someone took an image I made that conveyed some information in a basic way and then added a racist caricature saying "probrem?" to it. It literally adds nothing and makes the image more alienating. to people grossed out by racism. :debord-tired:
What the fuck.
Here's the original
https://i.ibb.co/hdBCZph/but-but-but-i-thought-pooh-was-banned.png
the economy here is being battered by the country's zero COVID policies
:doubt:
Death to America
Projection as always. Can’t wait for Trump to call cnn fake news media again
In the video the guy says that the covid qr codes led to this and then doesn't explain how.
tbf, the codes have been used to fuck with people. Even SixthTone reported on it. I'm expecting some heads to roll in the bank these people are protesting, and the local government for abusing a public health system. At least that's what should happen.
tbf, the codes have been used to fuck with people. Even SixthTone reported on it.
I'm sure, but these protesters have a pretty specific issue and it's not the codes.
Sun, from Shenzhen, is struggling to keep his machine factory from bankruptcy after losing his deposit of 4 million yuan ($597,000) to a Henan bank. He can't even pay his more than 40 employees without the funds.
Sun said he was covered in bruises and had a swollen lower back after being repeatedly stomped by security guards at the protest. "The incident completely overturned my perception of the government. I've lived all my life placing so much faith in the government. After today, I'll never trust it again," he said.
:mao-wtf: Death to the bourgeoisie land owners. Down with the capitalist class.
$597,000
this motherfucker is literally in the top 15% income in the USA lmfao (probably top 10% or even 5% when you add in the value of the factory)
they literally found the Chinese equivalent of a multimillionaire for their interview
If he's not able to pay his workers without that money (assuming he's not just lying) then that money is probably revenue, not profit.
Yeah the police clearly escalated this situation from a protest to a violent clash, like they always do.
The headline of this article and so many others conflate private business and local governments with China/CPC/Xi/whatever else, and in a way that never happens with "United States" or even "Joe Biden", "Trump", etc (obv). They cop to it unceremoniously in the body text, but most people will just gloss over that because 1) no one reads past headlines 2) no one reads articles 3) it drops "Zhengzhou authorities" in passing as if :lmayo: :farquaad-point: care or know what means. "China" as the evil government is the takeaway.
The writers can't conceive and won't disclose of anything but total dictatorship, often one-man autocracy so most reading won't consider the absurdity of one guy or an inner clique of, idk, 30 strongmen domineering over 1/5th of humanity and ordering (minimum abetting) the brutal crackdown of "hundreds of depositors" outside a bank in a provincial capital as opposed to a local government over 1000 miles from Beijing in a unitary but devolved system (similar to the UK but more substantive & extensive). And as /u/dead pointed out, China is working to get the deposits back from these private banks. If we're gonna read the national government as China, then China is trying to fix this, by opposing capitalistic banks.
Please give me some link to read further so I can forward it to the China hating family members who keep posting this.
I don't have anything in particular relating to devolution of powers, it is frustratingly difficult to search for. There's not many good rundowns that aren't Chinese state media, unfortunately. It is hard to find lib-friendly sources beyond dry, academic articles. This UN site is sparse but positive.
I do have an al-Jazeera article documenting that the police have arrested suspects involved with the bank though https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/7/11/chinese-police-arrest-suspects-in-bank-scandal-behind-protests
It's MSM, so naturally they have a section claiming protests are rare with dissent being tightly controlled and so on and so forth... Thankfully it is at the end; most of the article shows that the government is putting the bank to justice.
NATO countries do this all the time with countries they don't like. Anything that goes bad is immediately the fault of the leader they don't like. Even if the issue was the fault of a smaller municipality.
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/henan-govt-will-get-to-bottom-of-banking-furore-soon-regulators-say
Anyone want to read the context of this, here.
So they can bail out giant, failing real estate developers for $300 billion, but with common citizens and their $6 billion in life's savings, they need to first apprehend and take the money back from the criminal organizations? But the people who "white shirted" and beat up protestors were all cops and gangsters? Bad look, China.
Well yea, they need to catch the criminal first to measure the damage he caused.
Well, in the short term, for the victims with fewer than 50k yuan frozen, they're going to be compensated starting 15th July. For those with more than 50k frozen, the compensation will come later.
Yep I bet this is a totally isolated incident, definitely won't be seeing more of this in the future
how is this any different from us? (I'm referring to the guy wearing the camo cargo pants)
The protesters were hurled onto dozens of buses and sent to makeshift detention sites across the city – from hotels and schools to factories, according to people taken there. Some injured were escorted to hospitals; many were released from detention by the late afternoon, the people said.
But wait, I thought all protestors in China got thrown into gulags and had their organs harvested before being worked to death.
