China's Propaganda Machine in Overdrive

Medical staff in full suits looking after coronavirus patients in Wuhan

The Chinese government is anxious to show it is doing everything to battle the coronavirus, which means all hands on deck in the propaganda department.

There are video clips of mostly men who are seen dashing into police stations or government offices and dropping off boxes of masks or lots of cash and then running away.

It's meant to show people's selflessness, that they are willing to give away their life savings to the authorities to fight the coronavirus. If they ran away, how would they know all these details? Or maybe these people just robbed a bank beforehand?



The first video seemed shocking but sweet, but now there are about 41 different video clips which makes them even more staged. Why would so many people run into a police station or government office, dump bricks of cash on the counter and then run off again? It boggles the mind.

Then today CCTV has a clip of apparently two nurses decked out in full hazmat gear complete with plastic shields and blue suits yellow shoe covers in a coordinated dance outside of the hospital. Apparently they were trying to make light of the situation and enjoying a fun moment.



Really? From the clips I've seen of nurses having mental breakdowns, them dancing like children is completely off the wall and ridiculous. It's so obvious this clip was begging for sympathy.

But then there are uncomfortable video clips of more than a dozen nurses in Gansu province having their heads shaved, calling them "the most beautiful warriors!" in a bid to show their devotion to fighting the coronavirus. These women are crying, which seems to indicate they were coerced into doing this. Why didn't the men go bald too?



And there are horrific stories of nurses being forced to take birth control pills so they wouldn't menstruate (as going to the bathroom would be too much trouble), and they were chastised for asking for sanitary pads and tampons, saying they "lacked the spirit of devotion".

While the propaganda army was hoping these clips of the nurses would make the public sympathize with them, it actually enraged people that the women were being treated this way and vented their wrath online.

Young people in particular have had enough of the propaganda machine, as they can access a lot of information and clips via WeChat or going over the Great Firewall to see what people outside of China are saying about the coronavirus in their own country.

People are still very angry about Dr Li's Wenliang's death

They were particularly angry following the death of Dr Li Wenliang, who tried to warn his former classmates about the coronavirus, and were angry that the police accused him of spreading rumours.

"In the past month, many young people have been reading a lot of firsthand information and in-depth media reports about the epidemic on the internet," says Stephanie Xia, a 26-year-old in Shanghai in The New York Times. She says they are angry and confused about what they learned.

"There's some gap between what the young people are really like and what the government believes what they're like," Xia adds.

For young people today, this coronavirus and how they experienced it is much like other seminal events, like the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the Wenzhou train crash in 2011, the downfall of Bo Xilai in 2013.

How China's next generation is influenced by how they went through this year's coronavirus crisis will forever shape their perceptions of the Communist Party of China and their trust in the government.

One gets the feeling it's not going to be very solid...

Google's Censored Return to China

Google is going to return to China in the form of an Android app

 Google decided not to make its search engine available in China in 2010 when it knew its search results would be censored.

We applauded it for this brave move, much to the dismay of fans in the mainland. But Google did this to make a statement -- if you are searching for something on the World Wide Web, you should be able to find all the answers you need, not just what the government thinks you should see.

Fans mourned the search engine when it exited China in 2010

However, eight years later, the behemoth wants to come back -- and is willing to be censored.

According to the investigative website The Intercept, Google plans to launch a censored version of its search engine in the form of an Android app. So if you use it on the mainland, the Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall; certain banned words and phrases will have a "no results shown" page; the app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; and the final version could be launched within the next six to nine months.

Back in 2010 Google was adamant about leaving China because one of the co-founders Sergey Brin was born and raised behind the iron curtain in the then Soviet Union and felt the need to take a stand against censorship. However these days he is less hands-on in the company and the leadership at Google has changed.

Sergey Brin is not as involved in Google these days

The company also specifically chose Android, as 95 percent of the 750 million internet users have mobile devices, 80 percent of which use Android. So it made sense for Google to target this massive audience through an Android app.

Nevertheless it's going to be an uphill battle for Google to get young people to use its search engine as everyone is so used to Baidu the domestic one. And how can Google differentiate itself from Baidu when its search results will be as heavily censored as the local version?

Not everyone at Google is happy with this latest development. According to the New York Times, some employees who were asked to work on the project declined and requested to be transferred elsewhere in the company. Some said the move to be censored went against Google's previous statements about its stance on censorship, and that technology should not be used to contravene human rights.

Amnesty International has said it would be a "dark day for internet freedom" and would constitute "a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom if Google accepted China's censorship terms.

The Android app will help Google reach millions of users

On Chinese social media, some were excited about Google's return, while others questioned the point of having a "neutered Google". "We don't need a second Baidu," said one internet user.

It's disappointing to see Google sacrifice its own ethics to satiate its desire to enter the mainland Chinese market. It only gives China even more power, so it can say, "Look, even Google is willing to bend to our demands."

Alas, the allure of China is too great for even internet giant Google...

China 1, Google 0.