China in 2022

2022 is a significant and unusual year from multiple perspectives, especially for the Chinese. Beijing began the year by hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. Typically, the Winter Olympics attract fewer spectators than the Summer Olympics. However, at that time China was still enforcing a “very” rigorous quarantine policy, and people therefore were wondering whether the Winter Olympics might be delayed or perhaps canceled. Beijing ultimately chose to proceed as scheduled. During the Olympics, Chinese patriotism increases dramatically. People are criticizing opponents who defeated Chinese players and egotistically believe the referee accepted bribes on social media. The Chinese government highly praised Eileen Gu for her famous quote, “When I’m in the United States, I’m American, and when I’m in China, I’m Chinese.” After the closing of the Winter Olympics, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. At that time, I can recall two extremely amusing jokes. The first joke is that a newspaper published an “impassioned” article headlined “The fall of Kiev: Putin blitzed Ukraine for an hour and a half; Shoigu became a god after the first fight.” It made high comments on the level of Russian militarization, and up to now, this piece has been a strong indication of the trend of Chinese civic media. The spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lijian Zhao, remarked on Twitter that “U.S. intelligence is just a joke” is another funny story. He asserted this because he believed Putin had spoken with Xi during the Winter Olympics, causing the Chinese government not to believe Russia would invade Ukraine, while the U.S. government warned American citizens to evacuate Ukraine a week prior to the war. Considering the current state of affairs, we can determine who the true jokers are.

In March, Taiwan experienced a serious blackout, and Chinese social media usage decreased at the same time, occasionally. Since some pinkies believe the Taiwanese are constantly employing individuals to defame China on social media, they erroneously claim that the usage decline is due to the blackout and lie that the internet environment improved significantly during that period. However, I believe this was because the Chinese government suppressed public opinion over the Chained Woman Incident. In addition, in March China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 aircraft operating the service dropped sharply mid-flight and impacted the ground at high speed in Guangxi, and multiple accounts indicate that the aircraft was intentionally crashed. Following this, Shanghai experienced an outbreak of the Covid virus. People first assumed that this could be an opportunity for the Chinese government to liberalize its epidemic control policies, as Shanghai has historically been the most liberal city in mainland China. Ironically, Shanghai, which has long been recognized as a leader in disease prevention, had a lengthy and huge closure, and its inhabitants endured significant supply shortages. Because of this tragedy, many celebrities who had trusted the Chinese Communist Party fled China one by one.

In July, the celebrated legend novel author Kuang Ni passed away. Simultaneously, a widespread boycott of the Summer Festival erupted in Nanjing due to the belief that it originated in Japan. In August, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. The Chinese military even threatened to shoot down Pelosi’s jet due to the proximity of this visit to the PLA Day. Fascinatingly, despite the Chinese media’s hawkish language before the plane landed, as soon as they learned that Pelosi’s visit had concluded and the Chinese military had taken no action, they altered their attitude and stated that going to war would be a mistake. Due to this incident, many pinkies have developed a tremendous sense of mistrust and uncertainty towards the Chinese military.

Elizabeth II passed away at the beginning of September. Shortly later, there was a deadly road accident in Guizhou involving a truck carrying quarantined individuals. In October, the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held, and Xi was re-elected as president, becoming effectively the emperor (After he rewrote the relevant constitution in 2018, I was aware of Xi’s intentions, and this occurrence totally changed my mind and confirmed my decision to leave here. After all, when I was young and naive, I was also a pinkie LOL). In opposition to the epidemic prevention policy and Xi, a warrior (who was then arrested, obviously) on the Sitong Bridge in Beijing raises a banner reading “Life, no zero-covid policy; freedom, not lockdown, etc.” In November, a big fire in a high-rise apartment building in Urumqi, Xinjiang sparked protests in other cities against the Chinese government’s zero COVID policy. Numerous spontaneous street demonstrations commemorated the death of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin at the end of November, as well as the deaths of those who perished in the Urumqi fire. During these marches and memorials, “white paper protests” were staged to prevent Chinese military arrests (an idea that originated as a Soviet joke). In December, the Chinese government abruptly and unprepared relinquished control of the pandemic due to economic and public pressure, placing a severe strain on hospitals.

Since the events of the second half of 2022 transpired so rapidly and unexpectedly, I still cannot believe they are true. The majority of occurrences over this entire year were intimately tied to China’s epidemic prevention policies. Ironically, Denmark abandoned all control over the epidemic shortly after my arrival in 2021, and people’s life here was rapidly returned to normal. As a result of this chain of events, making China impossible to fulfill the 5.5% GDP growth target it set at the beginning of the year. Moreover, a huge number of overseas companies left China during this year, even including Blizzard, which had lost its sense of creativity. These events had almost no direct effect on me, but my family was profoundly influenced by them. A song by Ta-yu Lo states, “Those with foresight have long spared no effort, while those with hindsight have to earn their own livings.” From the perspective of a Chinese, I believe I am clearly qualified to comment on these events, but I will attempt to refrain from subjective judgment and instead focus on telling as many people as possible about all the sufferings that happened in 2022, in this land of misery.