Official China Discussion Thread

That might have been the reason China recently banned AO3, by the way. Seems like there was a popular queer fanfic involving a popular web series actor that outraged parts of his fanbase, causing them to mass-report the site to the authorities.

Banning fanfics to get rid of yaoi. Xi really IS the weird guerrillero wannabe dad

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 9th 2020 at 9:35:23 AM

The article itself notes that the fan backlash thing might just be a rumor.

Basically, this may have been all on the CCP.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2020 at 10:40:29 PM

Knowing them, who wants to be they are doing them because some daughters of party leaders got addicted to reading yaoi fics?

That or their sons got into it.

It's far more likely that they banned AO 3 because of its utility in getting around government censorship. AO 3 enshrined its "nothing is off limits" policy after the events of the Livejournal Strikethrough 2007 to protect authors in the face of Moral Guardians, overzealous IP holders, and nowadays bad-faith ship/fandom warriors, but it was also a place for which Chinese authors could be unfettered in expressing things that the government considers taboo. Such as frank depictions of homosexuality and non-traditional female agency, obviously, but also political criticisms and the like.

Well, yeah. But it's more fun to imagine the ban was due to something far more petty.

(Heavy Joking Mode and Sarcasm Mode here)

Banning yaoi. What a Man, Xi Jimping, un capo

Knowing them, probably both, with the petty thing being the last straw

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 9th 2020 at 9:53:04 AM

Considering the size of their population I imagine they have the largest of most things.

India as well.

As a useful point of comparison, Hubei has a population comparable to that of Italy.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Mar 10th 2020 at 8:04:37 AM

Okay, um, holy shit. China is kicking out all American reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. And yeah, that includes the ones based in HK and Macau as well.

It's ostensibly a retaliatory measure for the US designating Chinese state media outlets as "foreign agents" and limiting the numbef of journalists they can send... which doesn't really compare to China's own record of expelling and detaining international journalists. China had earlier expelled two WSJ journalists over a "racist" headline (which they wouldn't have had anything to do with), but it's possible that they were already on the CCP's crosshairs for their previous reporting and the headline was a convenient excuse.

Can't say I'm surprised, if we're going to penalize their media they'll do the same to us. It's regular tit for tat.

Yeahp, it's the journalist quota on state agencies. Not their reporting on the concentration camps or the Wuhan outbreak.

Indeed, the most plausible reason is tit-for-tat.

I think Eagle was being sarcastic from word choice, though I'll admit without Sarcasm Mode on its a little hard to tell.

Seconded, I think that with the CCP's historial the quota was merely the convenient excuse.

I mean, the concentration camps have been reported on for a while without China doing this, so idk if that's anything to do with it. And hasn't most of the Wuhan shit kinda died down by now? We're past the peak period at the very least. I think tit for tat is the Occam's Razor explanation here tbh.

I suspected they were but as you say without any confirmation it's hard to tell so I just took their post at face value.

Exactly my thoughts, the most logical reason is that they were doing this as a response to the US move to limit their journalists.

China is suspending entry to almost all foreigners in an effort to stop the spread of "imported" COVID-19 cases, in contradiction to an earlier WHO advice.

And returning international students are now finding themselves profiled at home as the media shifts focus to the thread of "imported" cases.

Sounds like a reactive move based more on emotional impulse then logic and rationality, unfortunate.

The UN is partnering with Tencent for an online dialogue program as part of its #UN75 anniversary campaign.

Speaking of China and videoconferences, it seems that Zoom has a major R&D presence in the country.

A question about how many children a family was allowed to have in the PRC: whether be it prior to, during, and/or after the One-Child Policy, were families allowed to have children again if they lost a child?

Edited by HallowHawk on Apr 2nd 2020 at 2:35:29 AM

I believe so, I think you could also simply pay a tax/fine if you wanted to have more children. For most of the country however that wasn’t an option, thus the demographic crisis.

The one-child policy is definitely a perfect example of what not to do, if you want to fight overpopulation then provide easy access to contraceptives and increase the position of women in society. Mandating a limited number of children is just a superficially attractive heavy-handed nonsense.

What's particularly ironic is that the problem only existed in the first place because of CCP policy under Mao][1.

[1]= The article is interesting but if y'all want to jump to the relevant bit go to "Mao's Pro-natalist policies" on pg 14.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 6th 2020 at 8:40:59 AM