Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • A Chinese art project goes terribly wrong

  • The Party preps for its 100th birthday

  • And, you won't read about this in Hong Kong newspapers

  • That and more on this week's China news headlines.

  • Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

  • This episode is sponsored by Daily Pnut.

  • The news can be a tough pill to swallow.

  • That's why Daily Pnut gives you a daily dose of news in equal parts humor and substance.

  • This week in China,

  • An art gallery in Shanghai is in hot water for a recent exhibition called Campus Flowers,

  • by Chinese artist Song Ta.

  • He secretly recorded 5000 women on a Chinese university campus.

  • And ranked them quotefrom the prettiest to the ugliest”.

  • And get this, the Chinese title of this so called art piece was Campus Flowers.

  • But the English title was Uglier and Uglier.

  • After a huge backlash, the Shanghai museum shut down the exhibit and issued an apology.

  • After receiving criticism, we re-evaluated the content of this artwork and the artist's

  • explanation, we found it disrespected women, and the way it was shot has copyright infringement

  • issues.”

  • That's because the women were filmed secretly.

  • How dare some guy do that!

  • In China, secretly filming people is the government's job.

  • This actually wasn't the first time artist Song Tadisplayed this piece.

  • It debuted back in 2013 and there was no outcry.

  • In 2019, he gave an interview to the Chinese language version of Vice about it.

  • He and three assistants sorted through hours of footage and sorted the women frommost

  • beautifultoabsolutely unforgivably ugly.”

  • He also said the final cut didn't include the two women he ranked the most beautiful.

  • He said he kept those for himself to enjoy.

  • That's also, um, part of the art?

  • According to the New York Times, “To the accusation that he was objectifying women,

  • he responded by saying that everyone objectifies everyone else, regardless of gender.

  • He also said he saw himself as a feminist, though he admitted to not fully understanding

  • 'women's issues.'”

  • You know, women's issues like men secretly recording them and ranking them based on their

  • looks.

  • And this wasn't even Song's firstfeministart piece.

  • This piece from 2013 is calledOne is not as good as the other.”

  • He ranked 30 women from beautiful to ugly and had them walk down a runaway in that order.

  • The work was part of a broader project by Mr. Song called 'The Origin of Inequality.'”

  • Well, maybe not the origin, but certainly the continuation.

  • Next week, on July 1, the Chinese Communist Party will be celebrating its 100-year anniversary.

  • And like any 100 year old, it's decrepit and falling apart.

  • But to make sure the anniversary goes off without a hitch, China is beefing up security.

  • Meaningthey're cracking down extra hard on dissidents.

  • Back in March, 18 of China's top security and propaganda departments, “jointly launched

  • a three-and-a-half-month special campaign to suppressillegal social organizations.”

  • State-run media Xinhua reported that over 500 “illegal social organizationswere

  • identified and placed under investigation.”

  • My favorite state-run media, the Global Times, says radio signals will be blocked on the

  • anniversary.

  • And airport security will be extra tight.

  • That airport security is good, because according to this new report...

  • China tops the list of countries for most millionaires moving abroad.

  • These millionaires must be confused.

  • China is obviously the best country in the world.

  • Anyone who says otherwise must have some serious problems.

  • And if they don't, they will soon.

  • And after the break, China should get what it deserves for the coronavirus pandemic.

  • Welcome back.

  • So, I think it's time we talk about China's role in the coronavirus pandemic.

  • They need to be held accountable.

  • And by accountable, I mean, they should be awarded the Nobel Prize!

  • At least that's what Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian believes.

  • At a press conference he said, “The team in Wuhan should be awarded the Nobel Prize

  • in medicine for their research on COVID-19, instead of being criticized.”

  • Yeah!

  • Instead of criticizing China for potentially engineering a virus that killed millions around

  • the world and spending a year covering it up, we should be honoring the contributions

  • the Chinese regime has made to fighting the pandemic they caused.

  • According to research from Oxford University , more than half of the 10 worst hit countries

  • by the coronavirus use Chinese vaccines!

  • Keep in mind, China is not donating these vaccines.

  • They're selling them.

  • Unlike the US.

  • Which for instance just donated 2.5 million vaccines to Taiwan, tripling their promised

  • amount.

  • But I mean Taiwan's not even a country.

  • That doesn't even count, right?

  • There is also a slight problem with the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccines.

  • One of their main vaccines, Sinovac, has been shown in some studies to be barely over 50%

  • effective.

  • And 90 countries using Chinese vaccines are now battling Covid outbreaks.

  • In fact, the Chinese vaccines don't seem to be doing much for China either, since they

  • just announced they're keeping Covid border restrictions in place for another year.

  • And that's partially causing a huge backlog at Chinese ports.

  • Which means Christmas may come late this year!

  • So...about that Nobel Prize.

  • Earlier this week I did an episode about how the Chinese Communist Party used money and

  • connections to influencethe scienceon the coronavirus.

  • And now there's a new twist.

  • By now you know about the badly, badly compromised scientist Dr. Peter Daszak.

  • He was the one largely responsible for convincing the world the coronavirus lab leak hypothesis

  • was a conspiracy theory.

  • He was also working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on making coronaviruses more dangerous

  • to humans.

  • That was through the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which studies how animal viruses

  • can jump to humans.

  • Well it turns out, Google has been funding EcoHealth Alliance for over a decade.

  • Here's a 2010 study on bat flaviviruses by Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance.

  • It was partially funded by Google.org, Google's charitable foundation.

  • And here's one from 2014.

  • And 2015.

  • Now I just want to be clear, I haven't seen any evidence Google was specifically funding

  • the EcoHealth Alliance work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

  • But it's not surprising that Google was funding EcoHealth Alliance in general.

  • Because researching animal viruses that could jump to humans was largely seen as a good

  • thing that could prevent the next global pandemic.

  • So if the global coronavirus pandemic was *caused by* a lab doing this type of research,

  • there's going to be a reckoning in the scientific community.

  • But it doesn't help that YouTube, owned by Google, was labeling certain ideas about

  • the origin of the coronavirus asconspiracy theories”, and cracking down on them.

  • Like the theory it leaked from a lab.

  • A lab that was working with EcoHealth Alliance.

  • YouTube was demonetizing, age restricting, and sometimes removing episodes we made about

  • the coronavirus.

  • Even if we weren't talking about a lab leak.

  • Clearly, they didn't like us talking about the coronavirus.

  • Speaking of demonetization, it's time for an ad breakthat hopefully has an ad.

  • Welcome back.

  • If you didn't see an ad, you know why we need your direct support to keep making episodes

  • like this.

  • Visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored to learn more.

  • More bad news out of Hong Kong.

  • I feel like I'm saying that a lot lately.

  • And by lately I mean over the past 7 years.

  • Pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has been forced to shut down.

  • Hong Kong authorities froze their assets.

  • The paper couldn't continue.

  • Their crime?

  • Violating the national security law.

  • Authorities allege that Apple Dailycalled for foreign sanctions against both China and

  • Hong Kong's leaders over the government crackdown on Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.”

  • Sure, the Hong Kong government was unwilling to specify which Apple Daily articles violated

  • the National Security Law.

  • But we all know they didn't need a specific reason to shut down Apple Daily.

  • It also comes after 500 Hong Kong police officers raided Apple Daily's offices, arresting

  • several of the staff.

  • Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam defended those arrests and the shutdown.

  • She said the national security law needs to have a, “preventative and deterrent effect.

  • It has to have a deterrent effect if it is to achieve its objective.”

  • The objective is annihilating press freedom and making everyone too terrified of speaking

  • up.

  • But it may not be working as well as the authorities hope.

  • Because Apple Daily printed 1 million copies of its last paper, ten times more than normal.

  • And Hong Kongers bought them all, in one last show of support for the paper.

  • They can't march in the streets anymore, but Hongkongers are still finding a way to

  • protest.

  • In another sign of the Communist Party's crackdown on Hong Kong, staff at Taiwan's

  • de facto embassy in Hong Kong are also leaving the city.

  • They've been forced to.

  • The Hong Kong governmentdemanded [the Taiwanese] officials sign a document supporting

  • Beijing's claim to Taiwan.”

  • They refused.

  • So the Hong Kong government refused to renew their visas.

  • Now the Taiwan office has just 1 staffer left.

  • And his visa will expire next month.

  • And if demanding diplomats sign away Taiwan's sovereignty seems out of this world, just

  • wait till this next story.

  • Chinese astronauts are now living in China's first space station.

  • The space station is still under construction.

  • Just a friendly reminder, China's space program is run by the Communist Party's

  • military.

  • So this should have everyone pretty worried.

  • All three astronauts are party members, and they and other space officials repeatedly

  • credited [Xi Jinping] or the party for the country's feats in space.”

  • Let's see if they're still singing that tune when an alien lays an egg in their chest.

  • And this episode is sponsored by Daily Pnut.

  • If you want more daily newsthat goes beyond what we cover in our weekly headlines episodecheck

  • out Daily Pnut.

  • It's a bunch of fast, timely news stories, selected for you and available to read on

  • your phone, tablet, or computer.

  • Reading Daily Pnut is an easy way to filter out the noise and learn more about the world

  • news that matters.

  • Join more than 250,000 other readers.

  • Education and entertainmentdelivered right to your inbox, every morning.

  • And the best part is, it's free.

  • So sign up for Daily Pnut now.

  • Use the link in the Description below.

  • I'm Chris Chappell, thanks for watching.

A Chinese art project goes terribly wrong

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it