Poking with Chopsticks (China Podcast)

China's President Xi Jinping has established himself in Mafia style as a leader for lifetime. That's not good news neither for 1,4 billion in the country nor for the rest of the world. His reign of fear will make lots of people suffer.

The UN believes the victims of human rights violations more than Beijing's threadbare explanations. Thisfact will deepen the cleavage lines in international institutions. And it assures China's nationalists that they're on the right track with pushing social decoupling from the West.

Lockdowns in Shanghai and other Chinese cities are apparently intended to combat the corona virus. But the main question is whether President Xi is powerful enough to become president for life. For that purpose nothing else matters. Not even more and more raging foreigners willing to leave the country.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a welcome opportunity for China's domestic propaganda to tell a story of a needled Russian regime. For that purpose it even accepts flooding of it's scoial media platforms with fake news.   

For the Chinese government the Beijing Winter Olympics are less about sports. The event is a stage to demonstrate the superiority of its authoritarian political system. The IOC passionately helps to cover up all the dirt.

A former Wimbledon champion goes missing in China after disclosing accusations of sexual coercion by former high-ranking party official Zhang Gaoli. The case displays the country's leadership's disdain of #MeToo. What will happen to Peng Shuai after the Beijing Olympics?  

Tech-companies, fan culture, online gaming - for the Chinese government evil for society and threat to its power monopoly is couching everywhere. Instead of providing little spaces for society to breathe, Beijing prefers to opt for radical bans. The autocrats just never learned integrative politics. How long should this work?

More and more Chinese youngsters prefer chill time to working hours. They are fed up with a system that demands them to totally submit their personal desires to a company that doesn't care for them. The government though sees another threat for its power monopoly. Although lying flat could support the plan to spur the birth ratio. 

The contours of the future Hong Kong are becoming increasingly visible. Beijing's political purge cuts freedom and tramples on civil rights. Quo vadis, Hong Kong?

For a year Chinese government was successful in containing the Lab Leak Theory. Now that 18 month have gone and still no origin of the Corona virus has been detected tides are changing.