On this episode of China Uncensored,
did someone just drop a bomb on Beijing?!
Welcome back, Chris Chappell here.
What happened in Beijing?!
Did North Korea launch a missile?
It looks like a war zone!
What's that, Shelley?
Oh, I'm sorry, that isn't a war zone.
What you're looking at...is progress!
I mean, not progress.
That sounds so self-serving.
What you're looking at is the Communist Party's deep, caring concern
for the welfare of the common people.
Funny how concern looks like wholesale destruction.
This is Daxing district.
It's home to many of Beijing's estimated 8.1 million migrant workers.
Just to give you an idea of how many people 8.1 million is,
it's like the entire population of New York City.
But all crammed into a city
with 3 times as many people.
Plus add terrible traffic and unbreathable air.
And if you think the living conditions
for the average New Yorker are bad...
well, you're right actually.
But for Beijing's migrant workers,
it's so much worse.
A million of them literally live underground.
On the plus side,
if things ever do go south with North Korea,
the migrant workers are already living in bomb shelters.
I can see the real estate agent trying to rent out this apartment.
An exclusive opportunity
to live three floors underground
in a historic air defense bunker.
It has high ceilings!
Spacious closets!
Washing machine in the building!
Truly a steal.
China's migrant workers travel from their tiny villages
in the economically depressed countryside
to big cities like Beijing to find work.
That means they don't have the residence permits
that would let them officially stay in the cities
and do things like send their kids to school.
Migrant workers have fueled China's economic boom.
And unsurprisingly
"Migrant workers doing construction and service jobs
are often poorly paid
and lack any semblance of workers' rights."
And many of their homes
are not exactly what we would call up to code.
That's why a massive fire broke out last month.
It killed 19 people
and made thousands of others homeless.
So the authorities responded
by providing warm food, a place to stay…
…Haha, just kidding.
The CCP used it as an excuse
to kick everyone out of the neighborhood,
demolish all the buildings,
and leave them homeless on the streets of Beijing,
where the nighttime temperatures
were several degrees below freezing.
It's for the good of the people.
In some cases,
residents only got a few hours' notice.
"Word comes out you have to move,
and the machines are coming in
and destroying buildings."
"Why do you treat us like this?
It's not like we're foreigners.
We are Chinese.
Let's say you want us to move out,
to go back to our hometowns,
that's fine.
But give us a couple of days to do this, right?
One day is not enough."
I guess you'd call these people
the huddled masses yearning to be free.
And don't worry,
there were swarms of warmly dressed police officers around
to make sure everyone did as they were told.
And just to be clear,
these newly homeless migrants
aren't just the people whose homes burned down.
It includes tens of thousands of people in the surrounding areas, too.
In fact, Beijing announced a 40-day "safety" campaign
to clear out "illegal structures."
Because forcing the migrant workers out into the freezing weather
with practically nothing but the clothes on their backs
was totally about their safety.
It is absolutely not a pretext for the Party
to carry out a population control plan
they had announced in September.
Or the fact that the freshly evacuated real estate
is worth a lot of money.
Since, you know,
in China, there are no meaningful private property rights,
and local governments typically make about
40% of their revenue from land sales.
Fortunately for the homeless migrants,
they're not completely out of luck.
There has been an outpouring of support from people across the city.
Fellow citizens have donated food,
clothing, and temporary housing.
The people of Beijing really came together to help each other.
There's also an open letter to authorities
written by more than 100 scholars, lawyers, and artists
protesting the evictions.
People also protested the way
Chinese state-run media callously referred to the migrants
as Beijing's "low-end population."
So how did authorities respond to the public outcry?
By ordering the media to censor all references to the evictions.
And then authorities tried to shut down
local people's attempts to help the migrants.
Because you know,
they were making the Communist Party look bad.
But even though the Party is censoring TV,
newspapers, and even social media—
people are still going to notice
that something happened to all the migrant workers.
Like when no one is around to deliver their food.
"The ripple effect of the mass evictions
has swept the city—
fashionable restaurants without waiters,
airport ground staff and security personnel left homeless,
online shopping blocked
as Beijing delivery services are disrupted
by distribution warehouses suddenly bulldozed."
Chinese authorities have bitten off more than they can chew with this one.
This is just one of two huge scandals
to hit Beijing back to back.
The other one, we reported on last week.
There are allegations of sexual abuse
at an expensive kindergarten targeting the upper middle class.
According to Weiboscope,
which tracks censorship on Chinese social media,
"the level of censorship in recent days
was even higher than during
the politically sensitive Communist Party's five-yearly national congress in October."
Which is insane.
The Party Congress is one the most politically sensitive events there is.
And these scandals even have surpassed
that level of censorship.
Over the last couple weeks,
the CCP has managed to alienate
both the poor and the middle class of Chinese society.
Even the censors are complaining they can't keep up.
So what will the impact be?
For the migrant workers themselves,
the ones who can't find another place to stay
are mostly going home quietly.
There's not much else they can do.
Overall, it's hard to say right now
what the economic impact of this will be.
And remember,
Beijing typically sets an example for the rest of the country.
So probably we will see evictions in other cities
of more migrant workers—
a.k.a. the "low-end population".
And a nationwide campaign to evict migrants
could cause a national uproar...
or maybe just give real estate developers
more great business opportunities.
Look at this place.
So rustic!
So much open space!
Lots of light!
It's a steal.
So what do you think?
Has the Communist Party crossed a line?
Leave your comments below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I'm your host Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
You know,
it's about time that the Chinese Communist Party
got their own eviction notice.
If you want to know why,
check out our website,
ChinaUncensored.tv.
There'll you see loads of videos about what the Party has done,
plus half hour episodes
you won't see anywhere else.
So visit ChinaUncensored.tv!
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