A monkey virus kills

And China is buying up American farmland

That and more on this week's China news headlines

Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

Massive flooding is once again devastating China.  

At least 33 people have died in  Henan province, in central China.

Chinese state-run media have called it  the heaviest rain there in 1000 years.

Henan experienced almost a year's  worth of rainfall in three days.

How severe is the flooding? Pretty severe.

Cars were being swept away like leaves.

I'd be a little more freaked  out if I were this guy. 

And you may remember the problem China  has with sinkholes from a recent episode.

Unfortunately, the flooding has not helped.

Also, apparently floodwaters  can make factories explode.

This is what's left of an aluminium alloy plant.

It was quite the explosion.

And it could be seen from quite a distance. But that's not even as scary as what happened to a  

subway line in the city of Zhengzhou, the  capital of Henan. After water burst through  

a retaining wall near a subway station,  water started pouring into the tunnels.

People were trapped in flooded subway  

cars. And I would definitely be a  little more freaked out if I were them.

These people were evacuated  from drowning subway cars. 

According to official figures,  around 500 people were evacuated,  

while tragically, at least 12 people died  while trapped in the flooding subway.

The suddenness of the flooding  took people by surprise.  

Thankfully, people were able  to pull this woman to safety.

But in the aftermath of the floods,  hundreds of people are still missing,  

judging from posts on Chinese social media. And  the death toll is likely to rise. Although we'll  

probably never know the true death toll, since  Chinese authorities suppress that information. 

And now locals are asking why authorities  weren't more prepared for the floods.

Residents are questioning inaccurate weather  forecasts and a confusing disaster alert system.  

And even why officials didn't shut the  subway down after the flooding began.

Some are even wondering whether  the officials' decision to open  

reservoirs to release floodwater also  contributed to the massive flooding.  

If it did, then I fully expect Chinese  authorities to also suppress that information.

More China news after the break.

Welcome back.

It's the book release we were all waiting  for—the Compilation of Xi Jinping's Discourses on  

Full and Strict Governance Over the Party! It's so exciting that the official Xinhua news  

agency published a...one-sentence article about  it. Well, someone's going to a re-education camp.

Anyway, the book is a real page turner. A  compilation of over 220 reports, speeches,  

articles, and instructions by  Xi Jinping, from 2012 to 2021.

And guess what? It turns out Xi is not  a fan of democracy. Who'd have guessed  

presitator for life Xi  Jinping would feel that way?

In January 2018, Xi delivered a speech to the  Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.  

That's basically his anti-corruption police force  that has been purging all his political opponents.

Here's what he said, “As the strict overall  governance of the Party continues to intensify,  

there are also some murmurs  of noise within the Party.”

Those murmurs were calls for intra-Party  democracy, rather than, shall we say,  

more centralized leadership. Two months after  that speech, Xi amended China's Constitution,  

so he could effectively be presitator for life. Now this is important to remember about factional  

infighting within the Chinese Communist Party.  Xi didn't make himself leader for life for fun.  

Just like those in the Party that  were calling for intra-Party democracy  

weren't good-guy reformers. Remember, they  weren't saying give Chinese people a vote.

There are no heroes in everyone's favorite  communist soap opera General Hostility.

As you know if you've been watching, Xi Jinping  is locked in a life or death power struggle  

with a faction tied to former Chinese leader  and Battletoad-reject Jiang Zemin. Intra Party  

democracy would have taken power away from Xi  and put it into the hands of the Jiang faction.

And remember, in a communist  power struggle, no one wins.

The key takeaway, no matter what you might hear,  

is the Chinese Communist Party will never  reform. When US politicians or businesses  

talk about working with the Communist  Party, they are being idiots.

The Party isn't building all those  new missile silos for our health.

Speaking of our health, a year  after declaring a pandemic,  

the World Health Organization is finally  calling for audits of the Wuhan labs.

I mean how much evidence  could the Chinese Communist  

Party possibly destroy in just a year's time?

But I don't want to criticize the WHO  

that much. I'm sure they've learned many  lessons from the coronavirus pandemic.  

Just in time for China to report its first  human death from the rare Monkey B virus.

The 53 year old man was a veterinarian. He  was dissecting two dead monkeys and got sick.  

It's rare for humans to contract the Monkey  B virus—a form of herpes that causes brain  

swelling in humans. Since most people aren't at  risk of coming in contact with monkey fluids,  

it's pretty rare in humans.

However, while the Monkey B virus is  deadly, it's not as bad as the Monkey C  

virus, which causes radical behavioral  changes. After all, Monkey C, monkey do.

More bad news for Hong Kong's Apple Daily.  Which is surprising since the Hong Kong  

government already drove the company out  of business. How much worse could it get?

Well, Hong Kong national security police  arrested 3 more top staff of the paper,  

including the former editor in chief.

It's not entirely clear what they're being  charged with, but I think it's pretty clear  

Hong Kong authorities don't need much of  a reason to arrest anyone these days.

Speaking of the continued communist takeover  of Hong Kong, staff at Hong Kong's public  

broadcaster are no longer allowed to call Taiwan  a country, or refer to its leader as a president.

So Taiwan's democratically  elected president, Tsai-ing Wen,  

must be called “the most senior leader of Taiwan”  

while Xi Jinping, who was elected by nobody,  must be called “president.” It makes total sense.

China is suffering from a  massive demographic crisis.

It was caused by decades of  state-run family planning.  

In other words, forced  abortions and sterliziations.

Well, for the first time in  decades, the CCP has lifted  

baby fines for people who have  more children than allowed.

Currently there's a three-child policy. But now,  you won't be fined if you have more. Supposedly.  

We'll see how local officials handle it.

But this should give you some idea  of just how desperate the CCP is  

for people to start having babies. Of  course for all the people who have been  

forcibly sterilized, the new changes  probably don't mean all that much.

And after the break, Chinese people might  not want to have more kids, but that hasn't  

stopped the Chinese Communist  Party from screwing the US.

Welcome back.

Over the past decade, China has hacked  dozens of US pipeline companies.

And this wasn't about stealing  technology. Oh no. Much worse.

According to the FBI and Homeland Security,  

“these intrusions were likely intended to  gain strategic access to the [pipeline]  

networks for future operations rather  than for intellectual property theft.”

In other words, they weren't stealing  the technology. Chinese hackers  

wanted to be able to seize  control of them in the future.  

So Blackrock, tell me more about how we  should be investing in Chinese bonds.

But if you want more proof that no one  is taking the China threat seriously,  

the US military has been buying Chinese cameras  in violation of America's own China sanctions!

We're talking video surveillance equipment with  known national security risks. But the military  

didn't buy them directly from China. No no  no. They bought them from American resellers  

who totally said they didn't violate US sanctions.  

Gives me a lot of confidence  in US military intelligence.

In more good news, guess who's buying  up American farms? Besides Bill Gates.

The answer is, China.

Yes, China might someday control America's  food supply. I can't see that going wrong.

“By the start of 2020, Chinese  owners controlled about 192,000  

agricultural acres in the  U.S., worth $1.9 billion.”

That's still a small percentage of the nearly  900 million acres of total American farmland.  

So it's not an immediate problem, but it's  something we should definitely do something about.

But in some good news, there is  bipartisan agreement this is bad.  

Because, you know, national security.  

And I'm talking like, Mike Pence and Elizabeth  Warren are in agreement. That's amazing. To see  

a white man and a Native American woman setting  aside their differences for the common good.

And this week marks the 22 year anniversary of the  

Chinese Communist Party's crackdown  on the Falun Gong spiritual practice. 

US State Department Spokesperson  Ned Price had this to say.

We recognize 22 years since the People's  Republic of China launched a campaign of  

repression against the Falun Gong movement and  its millions of practitioners, advocates, and the  

human rights defenders working to protect their  rights...We call on the PRC to immediately cease  

its campaign against Falun Gong practitioners and  release those imprisoned due to their beliefs.

Back in May, the State Department sanctioned a  

Chinese official involved  in persecuting Falun Gong.

And even former Secretary of  State Mike Pompeo spoke out.

“With respect to Falun Gong, the absence  of religious freedom in China is horrific,  

it is tragic, it's gone on for too long and  America needs to lead the world to ensure  

that those people have the opportunity to  practice their faith in the way they want to.”

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee also issued  

a statement condemning the Communist  Party's campaign against Falun Gong.

As did at least 15 other US  lawmakers, like Senator Marco Rubio

As well as the Inter-Parliamentary  Alliance on China,  

an international coalition of  politicians from 20 countries.

So considering former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin  said he'd wipe out Falun Gong in three months  

back in 1999, I'd say this campaign majorly  backfired for the Chinese Communist Party.

And now it's time to answer a question from a  member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army,  

fans who support us and our efforts to expose  the truth about the Chinese Communist Party,  

by contributing through crowd  funding website Patreon.

Ringleader asks, “Knowing that the  PLA and it's "military leadership"  

have no real combat/war fighting experience, plus  it's extreme corruption, what are the odds that  

the CCP could really succeed in a real invasion  against the independent nation of Taiwan?” 

That is the big question, isn't it? The  Chinese military is basically completely  

untested. That's a huge advantage  for the defense of Taiwan.

Not to mention China would be facing a  coalition of forces defending Taiwan.  

Besides the US, Japan said  it would likely get involved.

The real advantage the Chinese Communist  Party has is the fact that basically  

everything today is made in China. The US is  entirely dependent on China for things like  

aspirin and antibiotics. That's an  advantage the Chinese regime will keep  

pressing. Then there's the wild-card factor  of China's space weapons. If they really  

could blind US satellites, that really would  impact the US military's ability to coordinate.

But China would still be facing some pretty big  obstacles to a successful invasion of Taiwan.  

But an unsuccessful invasion of Taiwan?  Well, that's a whole 'nother story.

Thanks for your question and  your support, Ringleader.

And a big thank you to everyone who supports China  Uncensored on Patreon. We could not do this show  

without you. So thank you for joining us in the  fight to expose the Chinese Communist Party to  

the world. If you're interested in joining, head  over to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored. You'll get  

a bunch of cool perks, including the chance  to have me answer your question on the show!

Once again I'm Chris Chappell, see you next time.