Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned.
The Chinese government has been intensifying its monitoring of Tibetans and maintained their interrogations of Tibetans living in Lhasa to determine if they have contacted people outside Tibet and stepped up surveillance measures to prevent such communication. Now the Chinese authorities are interrogating Tibetans in Lhasa specifically targeting and warning them to stop communication.
In March, two major anniversaries prompted police to step up surveillance. The month marked the 15th anniversary of a 2008 riot, and the 64th anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese troops that had invaded the region a decade earlier.
But the heightened security from March has continued well into June, and police have continued closely monitoring residents in Lhasa and random searches of their cell phone and online communications to discover whether they had communicated abroad.
A police officer searches a Tibetan woman’s cell phone on a street in Lhasa, capital of western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, March 11, 2023. Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned. Credit: Chinese State Media
The police were particularly concerned that the Lhasa residents might be in contact with journalists or researchers outside of Tibet, a Tibetan resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“Tibetans are warned not to contact people outside and those who have, have been summoned and interrogated,” the source said. “Their cell phones are confiscated and they are under constant scrutiny.”
The source was among those who had contacted people outside of Tibet, and was summoned for interrogation along with some friends.
“They gave us warning to not ever contact people on the outside, especially researchers on Tibet and journalists,” said the source. “I also know that so many other Tibetans who contacted people outside Tibet were interrogated by the Chinese authorities too.”
Another resident said that people could be summoned even for casual conversations with outsiders.
“I was summoned two times already this year for interrogation and one of my friends had to bribe the authorities to release me the second time around,” the second resident said. “My name is now listed amongst those interrogated, therefore I have to get permission from the local police if I need to travel outside Lhasa.”
Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong.
In 2018, Le Le Farley took his first steps to a stand-up career with two nervous, and he says, poorly received, performances in China. Back then, Farley was among a vanguard of young entertainers experimenting with what was a relatively new form of comedy in the country.
Much has changed in the five years since. Farley, an American who spent most of his 20s in China, is back in the States, where his comedy routines have grown more sure-footed. His YouTube videos, which often feature Chinese-related content, are viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, mostly fans in Taiwan and other countries overseas.
But back in China where he started, stand-up faces a more uncertain future. A joke last month by the comedian “House” prompted canceled shows and a nearly US$2 million fine for Xiaoguo Culture, the production company that employs him.
Farley, whose real name is Lawrence, equated doing comedy in the country with “playing football in a minefield.”
“You just don’t know how many things you’re not allowed to say,” he said. (Farley does know one thing not allowed: he says this bit got his performances banned in China.)
July 1 is International Joke Day (and, for what it’s worth, International Chicken Wing Day), but one main source of punch lines in China – the stand-up – has effectively been placed on hiatus.
In this undated screenshot, stand-up comic Li Haoshi, known by his stage name “House,” performs. His employer, a Chinese comedy agency, suspended Li after he sparked public ire with a joke which some said likened feral dogs to soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army. Credit: Screenshot from Tencent Video Talk show
House’s arrest has had a “deadening effect” on joke-telling, according to an American China scholar who has performed crosstalk, a comedic style with a much longer tradition in the country.
Stand-up is “still a very popular form, but now everyone’s kind of waiting to see if it’s going to have to go through some changes,” he said.
So sensitive is the environment now that the scholar, who lives in China, asked not to be named. Even figurative spotlights are shunned these days.
Comedy’s evolution
Comedy with Chinese characteristics has always been a bit of an uneasy fit.
Historically, crosstalk comedians were known to push the boundaries of good taste. (In crosstalk, one performer plays it funny while another plays it straight, like the “Who’s on First” routine made famous by Abbott and Costello.) But once the Communist Party took over, crosstalk shows, like other creative endeavors, were told to focus on promoting government ideology.
In the Cultural Revolution, they became “very unfunny,” the scholar said. “You couldn’t say anything.”
Comedians got a little more room to maneuver in the decades after Mao’s death, as rules were loosened under the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” paradigm, the phrase coined by Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping.
But it wasn’t really until the past decade that stand-up, a Western style of comedy known for its tradition of provocation, began to flourish. There were around 18,500 shows at 180 stand-up clubs in China in 2021, according to the China Performance Industry Association’s annual report. The $54 million those performances generated represented a 50% jump from 2019.
Xiaoguo Culture in particular came to dominate the stand-up scene. It produced a popular variety show called “Roast!,” which drew inspiration from celebrity roasts seen in the U.S. on Comedy Central, and the Stand-up Comedy Talent Show, where many of the country’s best known comedians got their start.
Dogs, squirrels and soldiers
But in May a Weibo user shared a post expressing discomfort with a stand-up segment the user alleged had insulted the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
In the offending bit, House, whose real name is Li Haoshi, drew a parallel between his dogs chasing squirrels and the phrase “possessing a good fighting spirit and winning battles.” Chinese leader Xi Jinping once used the phrase to call for a capable and disciplined military.
Authorities subsequently fined Xiaoguo nearly $1.9 million and charged House with “depicting severe insults towards the People’s Liberation Army, resulting in a negative societal impact.”
He was also accused of willfully altering approved content.
A show cancellation notice is seen outside a Xiaoguo Comedy theater in Shanghai, May 17, 2023. Credit: AFP
In China, public performance scripts are heavily scrutinized. The country’s “Regulation on the Administration of Commercial Performances” says that shows performed and broadcast can’t have a negative impact on the nation, its ethnicity, social stability or traditions.
Organizers of commercial shows must submit an application to the local authorities before performances, to include a word-for-word transcript and a video of the artist presenting the script.
Joke inspectors on the job
There is little room for improvisation. According to one report, Xiaoguo Culture sent in text for one show that extended to 1,000 pages. In another instance, authorities found that a Xiaoguo comedian had included approximately 10-20% of content that had not been approved. Company representatives were called in for questioning, which in China typically means a warning from authorities.
In Shanghai’s Huangpu District, where more stand-ups perform than anywhere else in China, a volunteer brigade of censors recruited by government cultural authorities actually go out into the city to monitor shows.
Inspection reports, which volunteers are required to complete on the night of the performance, should include at least three on-site photos, a summary of the show, and an assessment of how well it aligned with the preapproved script, according to job announcements posted in 2021 and 2022.
A volunteer told Chinese media that she tries to be “sneaky” observing the comedian, using a hat or scarf to shield any light from her phone as she reads the word-for-word transcript to make sure it matches what she’s hearing.
A man and a woman walk into a bar
Despite the guardrails, Chinese comedians still find ways to be funny, just as American comics in the 1960s when cultural norms were more conservative and legal rules regarding obscenity were tougher than today.
Chinese stand-ups rely on self-deprecation and anecdotes about life’s absurdities to make their audiences laugh, while steering clear of politics or issues known to be important to the Communist Party, like the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The American scholar gave this example as a typical joke: A man and his date drive to dinner, then they drive to a bar for a drink, then to a park for a short walk, and finally back to her place.
Feigning dizziness at all the driving, the woman asks the man to help her upstairs to her apartment. But instead of recognizing the opportunity, the man gets angry at the suggestion he’s a bad driver and speeds off, dangerously.
“They just naturally kind of wiggle their way into a sort of semantic space where they can be very funny but without being dirty or political,” the scholar said.
Audience members laugh as a Chinese standup comedian performs during a comedy show at a bookstore in Beijing. May 24, 2015 photo. Credit: Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
The list of offenders grows
Comedians have occasionally pushed against the boundaries of their craft – and paid a price.
There have been at least two other instances where cultural officials found performances that strayed too far from their scripts since 2021, but in these cases the fines were relatively minimal: around $7,000 USD each. The nearly $2 million fine imposed on Xiaoguo Culture suggests a rising level of concern within the government.
Chizi, whose real name is Wang Yuechi, was reportedly banned on multiple online platforms in February after a stand-up tour in North America where he reportedly talked about taboo topics such as China’s epidemic prevention policies and censorship rules.
Meng Chuan, who appeared on the Stand-up Comedy Talent Show from 2019 to 2022, was prohibited from performing after expressing support for White Paper protesters last fall.
And Kamu, a Uyghur from Xinjiang whom the American comedian Farley considers to have been among the edgiest stand-ups in China, was arrested in 2020 for what the police said was facilitating drug use. He received an eight-month prison sentence. He is active on Chinese social media but isn’t allowed to perform offline or appear on television.
In China, jokes travel
Comedians who may want to press their luck face another issue, beyond just the chance of being identified by a cultural investigator: the audiences themselves.
“What is said in the comedy club doesn’t stay in the comedy club,” said Jocelyn Chey, a University of Sydney professor and an expert on Chinese culture, including its humor.
Humorous events can acquire a range of “political factors or vortexes which rapidly engulf the comedian or cartoonist,” said Mark Rolfe of the University of New South Wales.
“A whole lot of other people pile their agendas on.”
As the House case shows, a cancel culture monitored by citizens exists in China as it does in the United States.
Rhetoric experts say authoritarian governments like China’s are particularly fearful of humor because of its effectiveness as a communications tool. Understanding a joke requires a shared knowledge base, so sharing a laugh is an easy way to find someone with a similar outlook (see Let’s Go Brandon memes).
Humor can also help convey complex or difficult issues more simply or palatably.
Comedians can “couch very serious matters in humorous terms without losing the intended message,” said Beck Krefting, a professor at Skidmore College in New York who studies comedy. “Humor, as they say, helps the medicine go down.”
In the U.S., stand-ups have a history of joining other cultural arbitrators to push social changes, said Krefting, who is a part-time stand-up herself.
The civil rights movement, for example, “was aided and abetted by stand-up comedy and comedians, specifically [those] … who had established a presence with black audiences but were also welcomed by white audiences,” she said.
But comedy is equally powerful in reinforcing an ideology, said Matthew Meier, an associate professor at DePauw University in Indiana.
“The point at which I’m laughing at things, I have taken the premise of those things so for granted that they must be true,” said Meier, who edited a book of essays on comedy called Standing Up, Speaking Out: Stand Up Comedy and the Rhetoric of Social Change.
“Authoritarianism wants to control what is and isn’t funny because there is power in funny. And the power is, at least in part, its capacity to become viral.”
Xi has a sense of humor … just ask him
That desire for control extends beyond comedy. Chey said the case involving House reminded her of China’s recent crackdown on foreign consulting firms that analyze the country’s economic climate.
“In many areas I think people are very careful and are very conscious of increasing restrictions on what they can say and what they can repeat,” Chey told RFA.
Chinese President Xi Jinping laughs during a meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York, Sept. 27, 2015. Credit: Seth Wenig/Associated Press
This isn’t to say – the Chinese government would like it known – that the party or Xi Jinping himself doesn’t have a sense of humor.
CGTN, China’s foreign-language news propaganda channel, made a video showcasing Xi’s “light-hearted moments,” and the Central Propaganda Department endorsed a Shanghai government produced a “popular theory-based stand-up comedy show.” (Chinese citizens displayed their own sense of humor in the comment section: “Please display instructions on the screen for when and how loudly to laugh, and indicate the maximum number of teeth I can reveal when laughing,” one said.)
“Xi Jinping’s humor is a reflection of wisdom and self-confidence,” said a 2018 propaganda piece intended to promote the leader’s funny side.
“Whether among the masses or among leaders at all levels, Xi-style humor is ubiquitous.”
Given the government’s response to House, it may be the only style left.
Merchants at Myanmar’s border with China say the junta’s trade policy is too unstable and that a new pay-by-bank system announced last week will severely restrict their ability to import goods.
On June 23, the junta’s commerce ministry announced that importers at northeastern Myanmar’s border with China will have to pay for goods using their local bank accounts beginning on Aug. 1.
Those who have been granted a license will receive a one-month grace period and must complete their imports by Aug. 31 or their license will be invalidated, the announcement said.
The move comes days after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two junta-controlled banks in connection with the Myanmar military’s purchases of arms from foreign sellers, in a bid to restrict foreign currency transactions.
Analysts said the junta hopes that its new pay-by-bank system at the Chinese border will slow the outflow of foreign currency amid the tightening of sanctions.
On Tuesday, the World Bank noted in a report that, over the six months leading up to June, Myanmar has pursued “a further expansion of export and import license requirements, increased regulation of fuel imports, and additional administrative restrictions on outbound financial transfers.”
“The authorities have announced that imports will be subject to additional scrutiny, with the intent to promote import substitution with domestically produced goods,” the Bank said.
An official from the junta’s Department of Economy and Commerce, who declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the subject to the media, framed the pay-by-bank system as a way to “strengthen trade between the two countries and reduce money laundering.”
But Min Thein, the vice president of the Muse Border Rice Association in Shan state, told RFA that the new banking system will “create challenges” for traders, as they will be required to submit proof of purchase via original bank statements and information about the income they generate to the junta’s trade department.
Additionally, the Department of Commerce will only grant import licenses based on the total amount of money in an applicant’s bank account. Also, 65% of foreign currency income from exports must be sold to the regime at the central bank’s currency exchange rate, which is substantially lower than the market rate.
As of Tuesday, the official exchange rate for the U.S. dollar hovered around 2,250 kyats, while the market rate was 3,200 kyats. On Thursday, the official exchange rate for the Chinese yuan was 290 kyats, while the market rate was 435 kyats.
Controlling foreign currency
A trader at the border who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns, told RFA that the junta’s directive is aimed at controlling all foreign currency used for trading.
He said requirements on the reporting of income and selling of 65% of foreign currency to the junta at the official exchange rate “won’t work for traders,” and will likely lead to a trade decline.
A similar pay-by-bank system was put into place by Myanmar’s former junta, which ruled the country until 2011, but was later rescinded after traders complained that it forced them to deposit money in advance of their deals, requiring more personal outlay and leading to trade delays.
Kan Pike Te gate at the China-Myanmar border in Kachin state in 2019. Credit: RFA
A trader at the border in Shan state’s Chin Shwe Haw township, which is one of Myanmar’s five official border trade posts with China, said the junta’s frequent changes to the country’s trade policy had left importers and exporters scrambling to keep up.
“We don’t exactly know which way to go,” he said. “The trade system changes too often. When one system was announced not long ago, another new system was ordered to replace it. Importers and exporters are all confused.”
Other sources told RFA that if the new system slows trade, those who rely on the exchange of goods will also suffer.
A trucker at the border said that his line of work would also be impacted by the new policy.
“If traders have to pay too much to the government, we truckers will be out of work, too,” he said. “We will have to wait and see how it’s going to turn out, as the new policy was just announced, but I expect that the flow of goods will definitely be slowed.”
Junta officials have pointed to the success of a similar pay-by-bank system implemented along Myanmar’s border with Thailand since Nov. 1.
But a trader working along that border told RFA that the success is largely due to the strong banking connections between Thailand and Myanmar, while in some cases there aren’t even banks on the Chinese side of the border with Myanmar.
Slowing trade
Trade along Myanmar’s 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with China mostly takes place in the border towns of Lweje and Kanpaikti in Kachin state and in Muse and Chin Shwe Haw in Shan state.
Trade with China was steady prior to 2019, but was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the political crisis in the aftermath of Myanmar’s Feb. 1, 2021 military coup d’etat.
According to the junta’s Department of Commerce and Industry, exports to China from Muse – which sees the heaviest flow of trade across the border – amounted to US$3 billion in the fiscal year from 2019-2020, while imports were worth US$1.8 billion.
As of May for the current fiscal year, exports had reached US$274 million, while imports were valued at US$157 million.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
A group of villagers involved in a long-running land dispute with a Chinese-backed company and a ruling party senator were arrested this week at a roadblock on the way to Phnom Penh, where they had planned to petition a government minister.
Police arrested 11 villagers in southwestern Koh Kong province on Thursday and charged them with criminal incitement, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or Licadho.
Eb Teng, one of the villagers, told Radio Free Asia that authorities later threatened to make more arrests after about 20 villagers gathered outside the provincial office where the 11 were being detained.
Around 100 villagers had planned to travel to the capital Thursday to urge Minister of Justice Koeut Rith to intervene on previously filed charges against 30 Koh Kong land activists.
Police initially stopped four vans from driving from the province toward Phnom Penh, but a fifth van began the journey and was later stopped at a police roadblock about 80 miles (140 km) away, Licadho said in a statement.
The villagers were forced into a police truck and brought back to the provincial capital, Eb Teng said. Police didn’t give a reason behind the arrest and didn’t show any warrants, she said.
Police were also sent to an area between two villages where many of the protesters live, according to Licadho.
No-bid land lease
The villagers have accused Ly Yong Phat, a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and casino tycoon with business interests in Koh Kong, and the Chinese-backed Union Development Group, UDG, of encroaching on their land.
UDG is building the US$3.8 billion Dara Sakor project including a seaport, resorts and casinos in Koh Kong.
The company was sanctioned in 2020 by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for alleged land grabs, rights abuses, and corruption.
The Dara Sakor project has been mired in controversy ever since UDG’s parent company, Tianjin Wanlong Group, was granted a 99-year lease to 90,000 acres along 20 percent of Cambodia’s coastline in May 2008.
The lease was handed to Tianjin Wanlong without an open bidding process and has provided the company with more than triple the size of any concession allowed under Cambodia’s land law.
UDG has cleared large swathes of forest from Botum Sakor National Park, which was included as part of the land lease, forcing hundreds of families to relocate.
Authorities have turned the land dispute case into a political dispute against the villagers, Eb Teng said.
“I have been protesting over the land dispute but authorities accused me of being involved with politics,” she said. “We don’t have a party? What is my party?”
RFA was unable to reach a provincial court official or Provincial Police Chief Kong Mono for comment about the arrests on Friday.
Licadho’s coordinator in Koh Kong, Huor Ing, urged the court to release the villagers, saying they were only exercising their right to request assistance from government officials. They didn’t provoke any social disorder, he said.
“Authorities should consider releasing them out of the jail because villagers just tried to petition the government to intervene,” he said.
Authorities inside a Chinese-controlled special economic zone have arrested a Lao national believed to have shot and injured two Chinese men in the notorious crime area, area residents said, citing social media reports about the crime.
Authorities in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, which sits along the Mekong River in northwestern Laos’ Bokeo province, have not identified the shooter involved in the June 27 incident.
Established in 2007, the gambling and tourism hub caters to Chinese citizens and has been described as a de-facto Chinese colony. It has become a haven for criminal activities, including prostitution, online scamming, money laundering, drug trafficking, and human and wildlife trafficking by organized criminal networks.
A Lao resident told Radio Free Asia that locals learned about the shooting from reports on social media, though the perpetrator’s motive remains unknown.
“There are a lot of guns in this area,” he said. “They sell them to each other like they are selling cake. Safety protection and controls in the zone are based on who has money and authority in the zone.”
Residents who live in the vicinity of the SEZ say they are concerned about their safety because other shootings have occurred there, but Lao authorities do not have the right to enter the zone to conduct investigations.
Lao authorities in Bokeo province said they are aware of the shooting but cannot enter the Chinese-controlled area, which operates largely beyond the reach of Lao laws, creating friction with local residents.
It is up to the Chinese to investigate the incident, they said.
Meanwhile, the condition of the two injured Chinese men is unknown.
A health official from Bokeo’s Ton Pheung district, where the SEZ is located, told RFA that those wounded in shootings there are treated by Chinese doctors at the zone’s hospital, whereas the district’s small medical clinic treats only Lao workers.
An official from the Lao Ministry of Planning and Investment said control of the SEZ is a complicated issue, so Lao authorities cannot get involved in investigating crimes that occur there.
“Lao authorities should have the right to get involved, but in reality the Chinese have more rights than us,” said the official, who declined to be named so he could speak freely.
It is unknown whether Chinese authorities in the SEZ will investigate the shooting themselves or transfer it to Lao police, he said.
The Lao government let the Chinese-owned company, Kings Romans Group, set up the SEZ in the Lao section of the Golden Triangle, hoping to generate economic development in the relatively poor country. But the area’s development into a crime hub has caused problems, including an increase in gun violence.
Kings Romans Group has denied accusations of its involvement in criminal activities in the zone.
Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping’s domination over his country has extended to the book sales charts. Xi’s works and the party’s charter have commanded the top five slots in recent months – a chart-busting performance not seen since late supreme leader Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book ruled and riled up readers some 50 years ago.
