As 2024 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2024 Editors’ Picks.”

In this Part 2 post about 2024’s most notable censored articles and essays from CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive,” some of the topics include a food-safety scandal about oil tanker-trucks transporting cooking oil, a proposed national Internet ID system, the illegal sale of corpses for use in medical procedures, indebted local governments selling off assets, stabbing attacks against Japanese nationals in China, a car ramming attack at a stadium in Zhuhai, and worries about a weak economy driven by high youth unemployment. Part 1 focused on topics including media passivity, economic woes, the cancellation of the premier’s customary post-NPC press conference, the disappearance of the pre-wireless Chinese internet, and the link between xenophobic online content and anti-foreigner stabbing attacks.

Below is a month-by-month summary of the most-censored topics from July to December 2024, along with examples of particularly notable or influential censored essays and articles.

July 2024

• Beijing News bombshell exposé about an industry “open secret”: oil tanker-trucks being used to transport cooking oil without being washed between transports
• Criticisms of Chinese government plans to implement a national Internet ID system
• Scandal about a CITIC Securities intern inadvertently exposing confidential client information while making a video flaunting his wealth and connections
• Red-flag waving work crews were criticized for putting on a propaganda performance while repairing the breach of an embankment on Dongting Lake, Hunan province

One expert who weighed in on the national Internet ID draft proposal was Lao Dongyan, a criminal law professor at Tsinghua University known for her opposition to mass surveillance, facial recognition, and other methods of government surveillance and coercion. Her strongly worded critique, which was deleted from Weibo on July 30, argued that the proposal’s true purpose was to more effectively control people’s behavior on the Internet:

Firstly, is the true intention of this draft proposal to protect individual user data, as the drafters claim it is, or is it aimed at strengthening control over individuals’ online speech?

In the 12 years since the online real-name verification system was introduced, more than one billion netizens have provided various Internet service providers with the personal information required to authenticate their identities. Given this fact, how much practical significance would the implementation of a national Internet ID system have? The online real-name verification system was originally launched in the name of protecting the general public, and we all know how that turned out. This means that the new proposal serves much the same purpose as the real-name verification system: controlling people’s behavior on the Internet. The so-called “protection of individual user data” is nothing more than a ruse; at the very least, it is not the main purpose of this proposal.

Secondly, what is the true nature of the [proposed] national Internet ID system?

Metaphorically speaking, the national Internet ID system is similar to the COVID pandemic-era health code app. Both are based on the same philosophy of control, the only difference being that the social controls enforced by the health code app became routine and normalized. The Internet ID system is the equivalent of installing a monitor on each individual’s online behavior, allowing convenient, instantaneous access to all traces of an individual’s Internet activity (including their browsing history). The Internet ID system means that going online or using services provided by ISPs will essentially become special privileges that require permission. If the relevant government departments deny that permission, an individual will find it very difficult to access certain Internet services, including (but not limited to) the ability to post, comment, or to utilize other online services. [Source]

August 2024

• An investigation into Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co. Ltd. for illegally purchasing over 4,000 corpses from funeral homes and crematoriums for use as raw material in bone graft procedures
• The establishment of special working groups in many provinces and municipalities to “smash our pots to sell for scrap”—in other words, to do everything in their power to reduce debt levels, even if it means selling off state assets
• The lonely and mysterious demise of a well-educated 33-year-old woman from the countryside who was found dead by her landlord in Xi’an, Shaanxi province
• Officer who was punished for the poor police response in the 2022 beating of several women at a BBQ restaurant in Tangshan, Henan province, now insists he was made to take the fall

The corpse sale and trafficking case gripped the Chinese internet throughout the month of August. Follow-up reports were scrubbed by censors and dozens of related hashtags went viral on Weibo until they, too, were deleted by censors. A document leaked by a Beijing-based lawyer revealed that authorities in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, were investigating 75 suspects from numerous companies, hospitals, and funeral homes spanning at least seven provinces and nearly a dozen localities. Some of the online comments about the corpse-trafficking case suggested it was emblematic of a broader culture of exploitation. “When we’re alive, we’re treated as chives,” wrote one netizen. “When we die, our bodies are plundered for parts.” Perhaps the most influential reporting on the scandal was a long-form investigative report by The Paper, censored on August 8, which detailed and explained the content contained in the leaked documents. Among the many censored pieces was a (later-deleted) WeChat post by blogger and former journalist Xiang Dongliang. He expresses dismay that of the hundreds of people who were likely aware of the for-profit corpse-trafficking scheme, not one saw fit to report it—or if anyone did report it, officials may have tried to cover it up:

The most frightening thing is that in addition to the 75 suspects confirmed by the Taiyuan Public Security Bureau to have been involved in the case, there must have been hundreds of people who actually knew about that criminal activity spanning a period of eight years, but either they lacked the conscience to report it, or if they did, the report was suppressed.

In short, this is yet another industry-wide practice that has remained an “open secret” for many years, provoking shock and horror when it is finally revealed to the public.

As a long-time journalist, I have definitely seen my share of the dark underbelly of society. But even I have a hard time believing that such an abhorrent practice could exist, and it is hard to fathom the depths of such depravity. [Source]

September 2024

• A 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy was killed in a stabbing attack near a Japanese school in Shenzhen. The attack occurred on September 18, the anniversary of the 1931 “Mukden Incident” that precipitated Japan’s invasion of China
• Eleven parents and students were killed when a school bus driver lost control in Dongping county, Shandong province
• China’s 0-7 defeat to Japan in the World Cup qualifiers
• The Chinese government’s deeply unpopular plan to raise the retirement age provoked many complaints online. One social media user, making reference to Xi Jinping’s third term, wrote: “One guy who doesn’t want to retire is making all of us work longer, too”

The killing of the Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen generated an outpouring of articles and essays online, many of which were later deleted. One of the most detailed posts came courtesy of the WeChat account “Chanting a Spell Will Make It Rain.” In a longform article (censored on September 20) titled “Behind the Murder of a 10-Year-Old Japanese Boy: 278 Kuaishou Videos Calling for Japanese Schools to Be Torn Down Have Attracted Over Two Million Likes,” the author includes screenshots detailing the popularity of extreme anti-Japanese content on the video-sharing platform Kuaishou:

The 278 anti-Japanese videos on the Kuaishou platform calling for the demolition of Japanese schools have not been censored in any way and have accumulated 2,313,525 likes. Among these, 39 videos have received more than 10,000 likes; five videos have received more than 100,000 likes; and the most popular video has garnered 327,000 likes.

The content of these 278 videos can be divided into roughly four categories:

1. Live-bloggers who film themselves lurking around Japanese schools, “revealing” their locations and supposed secrets.
2. Fake news reports claiming that the Chinese government has decided to demolish Japanese schools.
3. First-person commentaries spreading rumors that Japanese schools in China train their students as “spies.”
4. Emotional videos that whip up anti-Japanese hatred and call for the destruction of Japanese schools in China. [Source]

October 2024

• An indiscriminate stabbing rampage at a Shanghai Walmart killed three people and injured 15\
• The authors of “Why Nations Fail” won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics
• Cancellation of Shanghai 2024 Halloween festivities
• Many local governments are grappling with debt-laden balance sheets and unpaid salaries for civil servants

November 2024

• In the most deadly “Xianzhong” incident in a year marked by them, a car ramming attack killed 35 and injured 43 people exercising outside a sports stadium in Zhuhai, Guangdong province. The shocking attack prompted a rare response from Xi Jinping himself
• A stabbing attack at a polytechnic college in Wuxi, Jiangsu province killed 8 people and injured 17\
• Another indiscriminate attack, this time by a man ramming a car into people near an elementary school in Changde, Hunan province. There were injuries but no fatalities
• Hundreds of thousands of college students in Zhengzhou, Henan province enjoy the (short-lived) viral trend of “night-cycling to Kaifeng”

The mass casualty attack in Zhuhai, while the Zhuhai Air Show was taking place, was met with media silence, heavy censorship, and horror among the general public. One deleted WeChat post, from “Age of Aquarius,” offered a forensically detailed account of the vehicular attack, the stadium layout and security, and personal stories from the victims and their families. Many more deleted posts explored the Zhuhai murders from sociological, economic, or mental-health care perspectives. A now-deleted essay from the WeChat account “Common Sense Distribution Center” discussed government proposals to try to head off “revenge against society attacks” by labeling troubled individuals—for example, by classifying them as “people suffering from ‘four lacks and five frustrations.’” But who among us, asks the author, hasn’t at one time or another fallen into one of these supposedly high-risk categories?

The “four lacks” refer to people who lack a spouse or children; a job or stable income; normal social interactions; and financial assets such as a house or car. The “five frustrations” (or “five losses”) refer to frustrations over failed investments, estranged relationships, feelings of being thwarted in one’s daily life, loss of emotional equilibrium, and suffering from mental illness.

I’ve heard that some communities have recently begun making lists of local residents thought to suffer from these “four lacks and five frustrations.” According to one rumor, “The most notable characteristic of these people is that they have no “weak spots” that can be leveraged—that is, no children or family ties—therefore they’re the ones that community workers need to keep an eye on."

[…] Truly, everyone in this world has experienced these familial or emotional bonds that make us vulnerable, that form our "soft underbelly." And of course, life can also sever those bonds at any given time. For example, the male-female population imbalance means that not too many years from now, tens of millions of unmarried men will join the ranks of those with "four lacks and five frustrations," which ought to keep community workers busy for quite some time.

I remember the online rumor about Shanghai conducting a survey to identify residents who might be prone to mental illness. Symptoms of suspected mental illness included "unexplained absences from school or work, not leaving the house, or not having any social interactions." Now, take a look at yourself in the mirror and be honest: do you think you might potentially fit any of these criteria?

[…] It’s certainly possible that individuals grappling with the so-called "four lacks and five frustrations" might pose a threat to society, and certain circumstances might increase the likelihood of them going to extremes. However, since our individual circumstances and even our individual identities are so fluid, and the population base is so vast, trying to screen and identify those with "four lacks and five frustrations" is a nearly impossible task.

[…] When a person is reduced to a label or turned into a symbol; stripped of their identity as a father, mother, son, or daughter; deprived of their status as a flesh-and-blood person; then our basic human empathy toward that person seems to disappear. When a person is killed, others generally respond with compassion, but when a person is reduced to a label or symbol, there will always be some who delight when that "label" or "symbol" is destroyed.

To maximize the safety of everyone, our society must undergo a radical transformation to restore its fundamental humanity. [Journalist] Xiong Peiyun once said that where symbols take root, reason collapses. Conversely, when the labels and symbols we attach to others are swept away, our fundamental empathy and kindness toward others are restored, and our society sees the return of common sense and reason.

If more people possessed a “soft underbelly” of conscience and reason, there’d be no need to be so nervous about the “four lacks and five frustrations” among us. [Source]

December 2024

• Economists Gao Shanwen and Fu Peng gave speeches critical of the Chinese economy
• South Korea’s “six hours of martial law”
• Former Olympic gymnast Wu Liufang was criticized for making money via mildly provocative online videos; many netizens rushed to her defense

As economic stagnation continues and the Chinese government seems months away from unveiling any further stimulus, censorship of heterodox economic views has increased. In December, frank speeches by economists Gao Shanwen and Fu Peng were deleted from multiple platforms. In a speech in Shenzhen on December 3, Gao Shanwen (chief economist for SDIC Securities) analyzed concerning regional data on high youth unemployment, pointed to the undercounting of unemployed and discouraged workers, and suggested that China’s GDP growth over the last few years has been significantly overstated. In a closed-door event for HSBC in Shanghai on November 24, Fu Peng (chief economist for brokerage house Northeast Securities) noted that while lower-income workers suffer the most during periods of economic contraction, their travails hardly make a dent in the macro-economic data. Afterward, it was rumored that Fu had been summoned by regulatory authorities displeased with his remarks, but Fu himself denied the rumors. Gao and Fu’s WeChat accounts were subsequently shut down, likely in retaliation for their frank assessments of the troubled Chinese economy.