Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

When it comes to public gatherings, the Chinese Communist Party isn't exactly known for its calm and accepting attitude.

This came into sharp focus on Halloween, when Chinese police went around handing out warnings and arrests to people for the terrible crime of wearing a costume or just flat out being too sexy.

Put a shirt on, you dirty hippie.

So it should probably come as no surprise that when last Friday, a night-riding army of more than 100,000 Chinese students took to the streets on bicycles, the state reaction was not exactly joyful.

The mob of student bicyclists overwhelmed traffic as they made their way on a 37-mile trek one way from Zhengzhou to the small historic tourist city of Kaifeng, where they abandoned their rideshare bicycles en masse, crowding streets, sidewalks, and parking lots.

A few even rode Chinese electric bicycles.

Although luckily, none of them exploded.

He's okay, folks.

Crowds like this, that wouldn't turn out well.

This was a massive event that took the CCP by surprise.

Even people in wheelchairs took part.

So why did so many students travel so far in the dead of night?

Soup dumplings.

That's right, soup dumplings.

According to Chinese state-run media, the night-riding bicycle fad began back in June, when four young women suffering from a late-night craving decided to bike to Kaifeng for its famous soup dumplings.

Other students took up the tasty call, and a new midnight cycling craze was born.

At first, this was seen as a positive thing.

The CCP's mouthpiece People's Daily praised biking from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng as a boost to local tourism.

The news outlet called it a symbol of youthful energy and the joy of shared experiences.

It also praised young bikers for embodying a vibrant spirit full of curiosity, determination, and a zest for discovery that adds new dimensions to the tourism industry.

Of course, it wasn't just about the vibrancy of youth.

The People's Daily also went out of its way to make this about the resilience and adaptability of China's economy, flourishing as it evolves alongside the aspirations of its young people.

Forget about China's youth unemployment, which keeps hitting new highs.

And all those Chinese netizens wondering if their economy is in the garbage time of history.

No, the Chinese economy is flourishing, and these bold adventurers on bicycles prove it.

Despite initially cheering for the nocturnal bike rides, it didn't take long for the CCP to worry once the crowds became as big as they did on Friday.

The huge numbers sparked complaints, particularly from residents of Kaifeng, which said their city was overrun and that bikes and garbage were left behind.

Which...yes, very yes.

The scale of the bike rides prompted the authorities to arrive en masse and ban people from biking on that route, citing traffic and safety concerns.

Of course, that hasn't stopped tons of students from just walking all the way to Kaifeng on foot.

The old Forrest Gump method. Life is like soup dumplings. Sometimes you get burned by it.

On Saturday, some bike rental companies operating in Zhengzhou tried to prevent a repeat of Friday's crowds by announcing that their bikes would be locked if residents attempted to take them out of designated zones within the city.

Some Zhengzhou universities also enacted measures including banning bicycles on campus and requiring students to apply for passes to leave the grounds.

And Bloomberg notes that some pieces criticizing universities for restricting students appear to have been censored. Because if no one is allowed to criticize you, you're clearly doing nothing wrong.

The CCP was so concerned about enemies in the night bike caravan that it posted a warning that criminals had infiltrated cyclists and spread anti-party and anti-state remarks endangering national security, and asked citizens to cooperate and to not discuss topics related to night riding online.

Does this mean they're not allowed to use stationary bikes at the gym after 6pm?

Are the ellipticals off the table, too?

Schools likewise warned of hostile foreign forces and said that the night bike event had developed into a political movement.

Some reports out there even compared the bikers to the white paper protest.

So why did Chinese authorities, businesses, and universities respond this way?

Were they worried about public health since soup dumplings are salty, and that amount of sodium can lead to dehydration and headaches?

Well, large crowds like this unnerve the CCP.

Even with participants singing the national anthem, waving the Chinese flag, and shouting slogans like Long Live the Chinese People and Long Live the PRC, this is still a lot of people coming together with a shared mission, and historically, that hasn't been a good thing for the CCP.

You can tell you're not very well liked when someone says something nice about you, and your first reaction is they're clearly being sarcastic.

Any large gathering is seen as potential cover for anti-CCP or pro-democracy movements.

The CCP wants to avoid incidents like the 2022 white paper protest, which called for Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party to step down, and which was led by young people.

Or that other protest in the spring of 1989, which totally never happened, also led by young people, mostly students.

To recap, the CCP is terrified of bicycles, paper, and Winnie the Pooh.

That's why Chinese authorities cracked down on Halloween, even for something as innocent as wearing a costume.

After all, Halloween has been used as a vehicle to criticize China's authorities for their disastrous zero-Covid policies.

Or to mock the glorious leader Xi Jinping.

Sure, zero-Covid resulted in countless deaths and lives ruined, but dressing like a cartoon bear? That's going too far.

Young people in mass gatherings represent the strength of the actual people, not the Party.

So of course the Party has become paranoid.

If the authorities see the word freedom anywhere in large gatherings, like the bike trek to Kaifeng, you bet the CCP will be scared out of its wits, regardless of the context.

If you're curious whether or not you're the bad guys, one obvious sign is being repelled by freedom like a vampire biting into garlic bread.

But the CCP's paranoia isn't entirely unjustified. After all, the bike ride from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng inspired a lot of other bike rides.

Tens of thousands of college students rode bikes from Nanjing to Chaohu Lake in Anhui Province and Manshan, from Chengdu to Dujiangyan, from Wuhan to Lingbo Gate at East Lake.

The only thing more cramped up than the traffic have to be their calves.

That's a lot of people moving freely in large groups around the country, which doesn't bode well for the CCP.

Some bikers from around Beijing even tried to bike to Tiananmen Square.

But as you can see, Tiananmen Square was closed to bikes.

You had to take a bus to pass through around that time.

Chances are, it being closed to bikes was no coincidence.

In 1989, university students in Beijing rode their bikes to Tiananmen Square to join pro-democracy protests that ended in a bloody crackdown by the Chinese military.

Not that Chinese students these days would even know about that.

The CCP has made it a top priority to erase the existence of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Even innocent coincidences, like Chinese influencer Li Jiaqi eating a tank-shaped ice cream cake near the massacre's anniversary a few years back, resulted in disappearances.

Even protests promoting Chinese narratives, such as the ones criticizing Japan, make the CCP nervous.

For example, during the anti-Japanese protests that sparked in 2012, pro-democracy activists took part.

So a bunch of students seeking soup dumplings in the dead of night.

Definitely a cause for alarm.

You can tell this is a government that truly has the support of its people.

To make matters worse, some of the bicyclists brought fireworks.

So I guess I can understand why the CCP might be feeling just a tad nervous.

Though they should really be more afraid of Chinese electric bikes.

Thank you for watching.

And before YouTube kicks you to some random video, check out the latest episode of my show, Deep Thoughts While Gaming.

Mao Zedong once said, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

So how much power does a squirrel with a gun have?

Click the link and find out.

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