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China clamps down on pop culture in bid to 'control' youth

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By Jing Xuan TENG

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Brainwash the young to become party fanatics. Nazi party banned things not German including music and books. Now replicating that is the CCP. There are way too many indicators of China taking the same path to world domination that Nazi Germany was on.

Dont concern yourself with freedom of action or thought. Just make them all party drones with no free will or inspiration for diversity and innovation. What a horrible place to live with a disgusting group of old men who think they are "leaders".

There can be no good future for China under the CCP.

13 ( +20 / -7 )

The party-run Global Times tabloid last week suggested the East Asian trend of "effeminate" male celebrities has roots in a CIA plot to weaken Japanese men after World War II.

What the heck the CIA has to do with J-Pop or K-Pop in general??

Their conspiracy theories are below any credibility, though Asian pop in general is not my cup of tea I think everyone has the right to express it's passion and creativity toward any musical genre.

This is also freedom of expression which communist China fail to comprehend.

I rather prefer have youth liking such kind of music or sub-culture rather than be all brainwashed and indoctrinated in a "patriotic" way like in North Korea and China.

Pure madness from the CCP.

6 ( +14 / -8 )

This country sucks more and more, day by day.

I remember my time in China and Hongkong, but that was before 1997, and it was absolutely awesome...in Hongkong.

China was bad, even at that time.

Just a few days ago I watched a video on youtube about Hongkong, where a chinese girl said, that many many young people are trying to leave Hongkong, because the situation there is going worse and worse day by day. Especially for the young generation.

And she also complained that during the last years, too many mainlanders move from China to Honkong, because they think that life in Hongkong is better than in Mainland China.

She said that the independent life in Hongkong is long time over, therefore the young generation want to immigrate to Canada, US or Europe.

14 ( +18 / -4 )

China clamps down on pop culture in bid to 'control' youth

Yup, young people always respond positively when paternalistic authorities tell them to stop listening to current music that they like and instead listen to stuff that old people are comfortable with.

This will work really well and definitely will not cause any backlash at all, whatsoever.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

If that’s not enough of a sign of their end beginning… They just only have this path left, before it’s culminating and then being over. It was the same some decades ago, behind the iron curtain in Eastern Europe, increased brainwashing , restrictions, punishments, arresting people etc. And they know it now, otherwise they wouldn’t see the necessity to implement it now.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

By targeting Chinese youth they run the very real risk of creating a twenty first century Tienanmen square type event.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Controlling what China's youth see, hear and read has long been the policy, with strict internet censorship and crackdowns in recent years on men wearing earrings, tattoos or "vulgar" hip hop lyrics.

Maybe I could get behind some of this thinking...

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

winnie the pooh has clearly lost the plot. He's mad

8 ( +11 / -3 )

They are imposing on your personal freedoms, the question is do you accept it or are you going to fight back China? I’m hoping this bites xi on the ass and the people of China collectively rise up against the communist party..

6 ( +9 / -3 )

I rather prefer have youth liking such kind of music or sub-culture rather than be all brainwashed and indoctrinated in a "patriotic" way like in North Korea and China.

China Tackles 'Masculinity Crisis,' Tries to Stop 'Effeminate' Boys

This is a title of an article dated Jan, 2017. They've been at it for a while.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Trying to stop the young generation from outside influences only makes them want more outside influences.

China is being hypocritical as usual.

Ridiculous !

5 ( +7 / -2 )

For the past several years I thought China was rising. Well, now the USA and others don't have to fear. Xi is single-handedly destroying Chinese technology companies, so soon things will be back in the hands of the USA.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

HongKong rocked in 1971

6 ( +6 / -0 )

My daughter grew up surrounded by Japanese pop culture. She was really into it - I took her to see a few concerts (did sightseeing meanwhile), and her room, frozen since she left home five years ago, is still festooned with pop posters. But she was healthy about it, and I kept an eye on her to ensure things didn't go overboard. It's the parents' job to police their children, not the state's. Take an active interest in your child's life and you won't need state intervention.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

China will basically look like North Korea by the end of the decade.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Nibeki! Already has for a long time. Long Live Xi

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

A few more years and everyone will be dressed similarly to Mao. I feel sorry for the Chinese people, but feel only disgust for the CCP.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

But I do agree on the Sissy men thing though. I see too much of that in Japan. Sometimes I can't tell if it is a girl or a boy!

In the end it is up to the people in China if they are prepared to take all this crap from CCP or not.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

Peter14Today  01:55 pm JST

By targeting Chinese youth they run the very real risk of creating a twenty first century Tienanmen square type event.

If there are so many sissy men, CCP doesn't need to worry about that! LOL

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

There are way too many indicators of China taking the same path to world domination that Nazi Germany was on

i was thinking the same thing - the similarities between 1930’s Germany & today’s China are worrying

10 ( +11 / -1 )

China needs to worry less about what children like and worry more about the power cuts sweeping around China that have been forecast to last for months.

Months ago the CCP in it's punishment to Australia stopped accepting Australian coal. Now they have used their stocks and have run out simply to damage the Australian coal industry. Now the truth comes out that it is hurting China more than Australia. People put in danger by unscheduled power outages, traffic lights not working and people stuck in lifts for hours. They are looking to source coal urgently from mongolia to correct the situation while Australian coal ships remain full and ready to be offloaded. Sadly it is the average Chinese citizen and business that is paying for the CCP's wrong actions in trying to punish an innocent Australia.

Now they pay even more by banning children's TV and looks to indoctrinate the young from the cradle. Perhaps it is a smoke screen to cover their poor management of diplomatic relations with their biggest supplier of raw goods. Do not bite the hand that keeps your energy companies working.

How stupid are the CCP. More so than most realize. Many of those old men should have retired a decade ago. Sad to see but their pain is self inflicted and they continue it in most area's of life.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Wrong move. CCP thinks they still have power over their people. Less freedom, more dissent.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Interesting.

Depends how they enforce it. Will it be like Japan where the Gov. says something but never enforces it? Will they pick a few and make examples? Or will they go full cultural revolution 2 and turn the country upside down and wait for the cult blasphemers to fall out?

The old men are scared! They look at inner cities in the US with drugs crime and gangs and don’t want the same situation.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Feel bad for these kids, who would want to live like that, just terrible, but this being China, not surprised. As long as the CCP and their kids can live a privileged life who cares what the lower class thinks.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Don't care. Is none of our business to meddle in other country affairs anyway.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

If the CCP disappeared tomorrow, the world and of course, China, would be a better place for it.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

For the past several years I thought China was rising. Well, now the USA and others don't have to fear. Xi is single-handedly destroying Chinese technology companies, so soon things will be back in the hands of the USA.

It's far from being destroyed. It's the pride of their nation now, from making and selling shoes to exporting advanced technology, at least from what I read.

It's the balancing act of not killing the goose and keeping control.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Xi will soon realize that he is a figure head and that the people who have made money and established legitimate business will eventually destroy the stuffed panda animal. The very same people who he is having executed and working for him has no idea that they to are working against him and that will be the panda's big down fall as Winnie will soon smell his pooh

3 ( +3 / -0 )

CCP thinks they still have power over their people. Less freedom, more dissent.

These are Confucian mores. The government is the patriarch of the nation and has the authority and respect of the people if they're benevolent. The CPC is a giant Asian Tiger mom.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Ah...they'll be burning books in China soon. If you can escape, I recommend you do. If you can defend yourself, prepare to be attacked. And it's about time that the democracies stopped encouraging the Chinese descent into fascism i.e stop trading with China.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

"Hey Xi, leave them kids alone!"

Nevermind, he wouldn't understand the reference or the song anyways.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

China Tackles 'Masculinity Crisis,' Tries to Stop 'Effeminate' Boys

The funny irony is that Xi Jinping says stuff like this while apparently not looking at himself in the mirror. He's a fat little putz with tiny hands. Whatever masculinity he ever had left him decades ago. Now he's just an insecure baby. Put a diaper on him and give him a binky. Baby Ping-Ping.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

The old men are scared! They look at inner cities in the US with drugs crime and gangs and don’t want the same situation.

There has never been a shortage of drugs or crime in Chinese cities. Believe me, I have family there. Drugs are rampant. A movie from 2018 titled "Ash is Purist White" gives you a peek at the criminal underworld of modern day China. Not having a free and investigative press most of us do not understand that China is not this crime and drug free place the CCP tries to make it out to be.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

It's the job of parents to police their children. That's quaint. The mere use of the term police indicates an unbalanced relationship.

Pop Culture. A vapid parade of inanities. Commercialized pap for mass consumption. Basely shared hallucinations. Primarily devoid of any manner of depth and most often lacking in authenticity.

Youth counterculture is an entirely different posit. More so than alt-culture. Let alone pop culture.

Self-expression assumes you have a self to express - which is not o be confused with narcissism and overbearing youthful ego.

Ariana Grande. Greta Thunberg. World of difference.

Disaffected Chinese youth. Millennials and the melding point of Millennials & Gen Z. Headed for The West, which will be a crash landing.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Ah...they'll be burning books in China soon. 

The purge of Chinese libraries began two years ago. Any teaching regarding the Cultural Revolution, which used to be widely taught for a time but more recently was restricted mostly to Fudan University in Shanghai, has been prohibited as well.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Self-expression assumes you have a self to express - which is not o be confused with narcissism and overbearing youthful ego.

This is a truly disturbing sentence. It reminds me of a father who never could imagine his son could have any sort of independent thought that differed from his. Whenever I challenged any of his sacred ideas his first question would be "who told you that". It angered me greatly. You are like too many old fuds who refuse to give young people credit for having any intelligence.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

China is going to do what it wants regardless of what anyone here thinks. The US will follow suit one day because you always become what you hate.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Xi is cracking down on everyone. Somewhat unwise when 'everyone' outnumbers you 1.4bn to 1.

If he carries on like this he will be more unpopular in China than he is in the US and Japan.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

If he carries on like this he will be more unpopular in China than he is in the US and Japan

Xi Jinping has been deeply unpopular in China for a long time but the press is not allowed to mention this. Xi has just added to the list of his enemies and by extension added yet another sharp and maybe very heavy knife to his juggling act. Sooner or later he will miss one and stab himself. That will be when things get really interesting in China.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Xi Jinping has been deeply unpopular in China for a long time but the press is not allowed to mention this.

Really? Why is he so deeply unpopular? Are you sure this isn't wishful thinking? Conversations with English speakers in wealthy coastal cities don't necessarily reflect the views of the hundreds of millions living in rural villages and tier 4 cities. These people have seen their living standards rise exponentially over the past 20 years.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

The fiery activism of youth is an important balance to the cold cynicism of age. Cut out one, and you end up with an overload of the other.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Xi has just added to the list of his enemies and by extension added yet another sharp and maybe very heavy knife to his juggling act. Sooner or later he will miss one and stab himself. That will be when things get really interesting in China.

May the CCP live in intersting times.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Are you sure this isn't wishful thinking?

It's possible. We can never know what the people of China are thinking, as the country is an authoritarian leadership with no personal or press freedom, nor freedom to criticize the government. So we really can't know if the Chinese people hate Winnie the Xi or love him.

Just like North Korea. And we all know the North Koreans LOVE their leaders - have you ever seen them crying when one dies?!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

 Conversations with English speakers in wealthy coastal 

My wife is the only English speaker in her side of my family.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Zi has a psychological weakness, why do not Chinese citizen abroad exploit it, he has no no power to harm citizen outside China, exploiting his weakness by posting their discontent abroad

0 ( +0 / -0 )

According to several foreigner youtubers in China have said that these measures have been requested and received very well from the vast majority of family parents.

Which ones? Presumably the ones spreading the message the CCP tell them to? Seems like they must have some sort of special privilege to run a YouTube channel in China? Can the ordinary Chinese citizen freely access YouTube?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

China is doing everything possible so that the country do not get contaminated with so much western garbage, especially from the US, as sadly Japan and Korea have done

If true it's laughable. Western culture permeates Chinese society already. Disney movies are wildly popular. So is western music and dance. They are not going away but will driven underground. The CCP would have had to continue the Cultural Revolution through today and doing so would have guaranteed China remained poor and backward.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Can the ordinary Chinese citizen freely access YouTube?

Nope. Maybe if you have a VPN but those are illegal. Youtube, Facebook and Google are all blocked in China.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Zi has a psychological weakness, why do not Chinese citizen abroad exploit it, he has no no power to harm citizen outside China, exploiting his weakness by posting their discontent abroad

The CCP will harass and even arrest your relatives in China to get at you if you post things about Xi or the CCP that they object to. They pretty routinely detain family members of people they want to try for various reasons if they come to China to visit relatives. The Chinese will detain them at the airport and refuse to let them leave. Sometimes these people are placed under house arrest. Other times their travel documents are confiscated and left to fend for themselves in China.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

According to several foreigner youtubers in China have said that these measures have been requested and received very well from the vast majority of family parents.

And you believe that? Ask how these people are on Youtube, which is blocked in China. You are being bamboozled by CCP propaganda. Please don't be fooled so easily. Be critical and ask questions.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I remember my time in China and Hongkong, but that was before 1997, and it was absolutely awesome...in Hongkong.

Yes! Hong Kong before the Chinese take over was great. I think in the fullness of time it will be great again, but not until the CCP is gone.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

China clamps down on pop culture in bid to 'control' youth

So the Chinese government is clamping down on pop culture. The government’s in the “freer” world can not do this to pop culture. But what we’re seeing now are social media corporations clamping down on information. I ask you what’s worse? Google Facebook Twitter are all censoring information. It should be our right to listen to or read whatever we want without censorship.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

China literally brainwashes people using pop-ups on newsfeeds-it’s like 1984

1 ( +1 / -0 )

""China clamps down on pop culture in bid to 'control' youth""

Every nation does it to a certain degree.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The CCP can come and go but China has been ruled by the same mindset for 5000 years. Don't get your hopes up for regime change, or any kind of change.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The old love the young when they can control, use and exploit them (for work and war), but fear them when they can't. And the Achilles heel of the older generation is their fatal forgetfulness: the immeasurable energy, drive and passion of the young for which the old are no match. The Beijing dinosaurs are clearly getting desperate as they edge ever closer to extinction, 'cos the times they are a-changin'.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This has never worked as a political strategy - just causes misery and eventually fails.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

No wonder Chinese people are not having babies. Nobody wants to bring children into such an oppressed world.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

So, Winnie the Pooh wants to toughen up the Chinese masculine/national image. Good luck with that.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

the East Asian trend of "effeminate" male celebrities has roots in a CIA plot to weaken Japanese men after World War II

What I can see is that it has worked.

Never seen any bodybuilders, and they evade any physical show off but love looking pretty instead of handsome.

No wonder foreigners can bait so easily.

Xi is just a dictator, asking for a cult, what do you expect ?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

 the immeasurable energy, drive and passion of the young for which the old are no match. 

Age and treachery overcomes youth and strength ^_^ But by all means hire the young while they still know everything. Kidding aside I prefer the company of the young as they often see our world more clearly than us jaded old fuds and importantly the young are the future. Trying to chain them to our past and legislate from the grave is a grave injustice. Each generation has the right to live under laws of its own making. Oldsters need to know when they are nothing but obstacles to change and get out of the way. We had out day now move over for younger generations to take the lead.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No wonder Chinese people are not having babies. Nobody wants to bring children into such an oppressed world

All the developed nations in Asia and much of Europe, even the US, are facing the same demographic situation. It think it has more to do with the nature of modern cities and the modern workplace making it both too expensive to raise kids and not enough home time to do so. Of the developed nations only France seems to be able to achieve a replacement birth rate. The US maintains its population through immigration, as does Singapore, but stop that and the US will be in the same boat as China, Japan and South Korea

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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