In today’s focus: Strengthening review, tracing history, Mainland China’s internet enters a completely silent era; on the eve of the military parade in Beijing, schools and other units have comprehensively restricted personnel traffic; rich people dare not spend money, do they think the Chinese economy is worse than during the epidemic?
First of all, let’s understand that recently, many netizens have reflected that the monitoring of WeChat, QQ, and Douyin and other commonly used software is becoming stricter in the backstage. An industry insider revealed that the Chinese Communist Party’s National Internet Information Office issued a new order, requiring major platforms to access the “keyword search” and “secondary data analysis” systems. In other words, this system not only checks what is being said now but also checks what has been said before.
Moreover, the authorities are deploying artificial intelligence technology in the background to continuously scan users’ chat records, voice, images, etc., and conduct deep identification.
Mr. Chen, a Beijing netizen, told Epoch Times that not long ago, he was summoned twice by the Haidian Public Security Sub-bureau for sending the word “One Statue” in a WeChat group. He said, the cyber police straightforwardly said, “You can’t say that person; as long as you mention him, we have to deal with it.” From the sounds of it, even the police are very helpless.
Mr. Chen said, during the conversation, the police unintentionally mentioned that Beijing now has tens of thousands of internet police officers, whose daily work is to stare at screens, check chat records, analyze account behavior, and the intensity of their work is even higher than that of criminal police. He said, “If this is the case in Beijing, it’s probably the same in other cities.”
Mr. Zhou, an industry insider in cybersecurity, revealed that many platforms have already connected to the “Intelligent Public Opinion Monitoring System” uniformly deployed by the National Internet Information Office. This system can not only monitor real-time dynamics publicly but can also recognize voice, Pinyin, homophones, and even analyze text on images. He said, “Chat records used to be just backed up, but now they are repeatedly analyzed, triggering sensitive words will be marked even in records from a few years ago.”
Mr. Zhou added that this system operates 24/7. Every suspicious message will generate a report and be reviewed by a specialist. He said, “Now even behaviors like liking, reposting, and browsing frequency are recorded and quantified. The backstage will track what you said in the group, who liked your post, what content you reposted, all of which are stored in the database.”
Mr. Lv, a Henan netizen, said his account has been suspended over a dozen times, sometimes without saying anything himself, his account was suspended. Some friends’ comments can only be seen by himself, but others cannot. This situation indicates that the platform has set his account to be “invisible blocked,” so his remarks cannot be spread. This behavior is very covert; after the account is “invisible blocked,” it is not visible within the account. Only by viewing with another account can one discover that the comments have been blocked. In other words, many people think their accounts are normal, but in reality, they have long been “traffic limited” or “buried,” with no dissemination power.
Mr. Gao, an industry insider, pointed out that this round of review is harsher than before, and large platforms like Tencent, ByteDance, Kuaishou, and Alibaba are required to respond to government orders at any time. Once there is any “movement,” posts must be deleted, accounts suspended, and user data handed over; some platforms even have dedicated teams working around the clock to cooperate with the government.
What’s more severe is that the platforms not only strengthen their review but also actively retrospectively analyze. Even simply reposting or liking something will be tagged by algorithms, forming a behavioral file. In other words, now it’s not just about what you say at the moment but also about “what you have said in the past.”
Under this kind of review process, many “avoidance” methods used by netizens have become ineffective, such as Pinyin, homophones, emoticons, etc. To avoid risks, many users dare not speak at all, and can only express their emotions through reposting screenshots from overseas or self-media links.
Mr. Gao warned everyone, “It’s not as simple as just suspending your account now. If your remarks are classified as ‘organizational’ or ‘widely disseminated,’ you may not only have your account suspended but also be summoned, administratively detained, or even criminally prosecuted.”
On July 22, several primary, middle, and high schools in Beijing issued internal notices requiring teachers and students to return to school ahead of schedule in mid-August and explicitly stipulating that no one is allowed to leave Beijing after August 20. This regulation has caught many people off guard.
According to the original plan, the start of this semester was postponed to avoid the September 3rd military parade. However, many schools have already informed teachers to return early.
A teacher in Daxing District said that the school notice required teachers to return to Beijing before August 15. Student’s return deadline is August 21. If foreign relatives come to Beijing, they need to report in advance.
A parent from Daxing Yizhuang said their child has received a notice requiring them to return to school before August 20.
A parent in Xicheng District confirmed that the school notice they received was that they must return to Beijing before August 18 because preparations for the September 3rd military parade must start half a month in advance. Anyone intending to travel to Beijing should do so as early as possible or reschedule their plans to October.
Some parents expressed dissatisfaction, thinking that the start of the school year would be delayed so they had made travel preparations early, even booked plane tickets, and now they have to change their plans, which is really troublesome.
In addition to students and teachers, some units in Beijing have also issued notices requiring employees not to leave Beijing starting from August.
Interviewed by Epoch Times, independent commentator Cai Shengkun said that the reason why the authorities did this was to better control the people, and another reason is that the authorities want to “figure out the bottom” of the students. They want to understand where students have gone during the holidays, whether there have been any issues, and if any negative signs have appeared. In CCP society, schools have the responsibility of censoring. They believe that by concentrating students, managing them uniformly, viewing their performance, engaging in ideological learning, they can minimize security risks to the greatest extent.
In fact, Beijing has already entered a high level of martial law several days ago. According to official announcements, on July 16, Beijing designated multiple districts as “restricted air zones,” including Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, and other nine districts, strictly limiting the activities of drones and other aircraft to prevent any behavior that could affect aerial order.
Recently, international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman released a survey report, showing that the Chinese economy has been bleak in recent years, and the pessimism of the wealthy towards the economy is even more severe than during the epidemic period.
In May this year, Oliver Wyman conducted a survey of 2,000 high-income families in China whose monthly income is above 30,000 RMB, about 4,000 US dollars.
According to official data released by the CCP, in 2024, the average per capita income of residents on the mainland was 3,443 yuan per month. In other words, even if both husband and wife have income, a family’s monthly income is still less than 7,000 yuan.
It can be seen that families with monthly incomes above 30,000 yuan belong to the affluent group in China. However, even in this group, 22% of the wealthy hold a pessimistic attitude towards the overall Chinese economy. This percentage is slightly higher than during the most severe pandemic control period in 2022.
Oliver Wyman’s partner Waters said that the current pessimism of Chinese wealthy individuals towards the economic outlook is not just a short-term sentiment but a fundamental change in mindset. In other words, when these people feel that their economic situation is not good, their behavior will fundamentally change. Simply put, they are afraid to spend money, do not want to invest, and only want to save more money to deal with future uncertainties. This psychological transformation will have an impact on overall economic activities.
Waters said, “The longer this situation drags on, the more pessimistic they will be about the long-term outlook, and consumption will become more cautious.”
Furthermore, the survey report also shows that regardless of income level, many respondents feel that since 2023, their own economic situation has been deteriorating.
Official data shows that since November 2022, China’s consumer confidence index dropped to 85 points and has not risen back up until now.
Another survey indicates that more and more Chinese people believe that “inequality of opportunity” is the biggest reason for poverty. Nowadays, people’s feelings about “it’s hard for the poor to rise in the world” are becoming stronger.
Among them, the most pessimistic about the future are young wealthy individuals aged between 18 and 28 living in first-tier cities. They have the least confidence in the economy and the most significant decline in confidence. On the other hand, the group aged 30-45 is more optimistic about the future, possibly because they have accumulated more wealth.
Moreover, China’s wealthy individuals have also changed their spending habits; they are no longer obsessed with luxury goods but focus more on making themselves “a little more comfortable,” such as traveling abroad.
Oliver Wyman predicts that this year, the proportion of wealthy individuals from China traveling abroad will reach 37%, higher than in 2019 before the epidemic.
However, the report points out that the destinations of wealthy Chinese people traveling abroad have changed; they are no longer enthusiastic about going to developed countries like the United States but are more willing to go to nearby countries like Japan, Malaysia. In other words, even if they choose to travel, the wealthy are selecting relatively inexpensive regions.
In the “Good News Time” production team.