Chinese Internet Goes Nuts After United Passenger Removal

On this episode of China Uncensored,
Get off my plane!
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
United Airlines:
Fly the Friendly Skies.
Unless you’re still sitting on the tarmac.
Then it’s Mad Maxx.
By now, it seems everyone in America
has seen this video.
But what you may not know
is that it’s also gone viral in China—
and for some unusual reasons.
But first, for those of you who don’t watch TV,
don’t read newspapers,
don't use the Internet,
live in a cave, and rely on China Uncensored
as your sole source of edutainment—
here’s the background.
On Tuesday, this video emerged
of police dragging a 69-year old doctor
from his United Airlines flight.
In the process, he was visibly injured.
What heinous crime did he commit?
Well, if you ask United Airlines,
they’d tell you:
They needed to get their employees
on an overbooked flight,
got no volunteers to switch,
and eventually randomly selected four unhappy passengers
to be removed from the plane.
Technically, United is allowed to do that,
but it became a PR nightmare for them.
That’s because the unhappiest of the four passengers
refused to leave,
so Chicago Aviation Police had to
“re-accommodate” him.
With force.
So why has the Chinese internet
exploded over this?
Well, it’s largely because
the unhappy passenger is Asian—
Chinese-Vietnamese to be exact.
A passenger on that flight
recalled him saying,
“I’m being selected because I’m Chinese.”
Now whether or not that's true,
It fits a widely held view in China
that when Chinese are the victims
of crimes overseas,
it’s because of race.
A view often encouraged
in Chinese state-run media.
For example,
the incident last month
where Paris police shot and killed a Chinese man
had state-media questioning
whether it was race-related.
So it should be unsurprising
that the United incident video
has gone viral in China.
It has been viewed more than 550 million times and counting
on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.
And with it has come
nearly a quarter million comments.
A lot of commenters are angry about discrimination
against Chinese people.
Others are saying America is hypocritical
for criticizing other countries’ human rights.
So this incident has become like propaganda Christmas
for the Chinese Communist Party.
Not that the officially atheist Communist Party
would celebrate that kind of opiate for the masses.
But anyway,
Chinese state-run media
have been having a field day.
Plus, since Chinese Communist Party
is behind almost half a billion
fake social media posts a year,
I think it’s safe to say they’re fanning the flames
on Chinese social media as well.
If everyone is being guided to be morally outraged
at the United States,
they’ll have less time to be morally outraged
at issues closer to home.
You see, the Chinese Communist Party has a problem.
As Foreign Policy points out,
when the Chinese Internet argues about America,
“the real subject under discussion
is often the Chinese government
and how inferior or superior it is
to the U.S. system.”
Guess which side
China's internet police are on?
Because it's true that America is dangerous.
With its freedom and democracy
and breathable air.
And Chinese state-media have a hard time
breaking the cultural hold America has.
So state-run media will exaggerate and manipulate
news stories to make America
seem like a ruthless, racist land.
Like when Chinese authorities issue
their annual human rights report on the US.
Hmmm,
"gunshots lingering in people's ears
behind the Statue of Liberty".
Those creative writing classes are really paying off.

But that's why this United story
is such a gift to state-run media.
They barely had to do anything to it at all.
The point is to convince everyone in China
that they're much better off under the benevolent dictatorship
of the Chinese Communist Party.
The benevolent dictatorship
where the kind, gentle city management police
treat law-abiding citizens like this.
Or this.
Or this.
So yes,
it’s debatable whether United Airlines
really needed to “re-accommodate” these passengers,
and there are really legitimate concerns
over how it was handled.
But the outrage in China
might include a tiny bit of deflection
from a regime that frequently "re-accommodates" the organs
of prisoners of conscience.
And let's not forget that besides having Internet police
guide the opinions of Chinese netizens,
the Communist Party heavily censors the Internet, too.
Like this censorship directive issued to
"find and delete negative and harmful commentary"
about a man in Beijing
who mysteriously died in police custody.
But you probably won't see any censorship directives
to stop people from posting on the United issue.
Which is another reason the topic
has become so big on Chinese social media.
So remember,
next time you’re flying with United
and you get “volunteered,”
just be thankful you don’t have to deal with
Chinese city management police.
So what do you think of the United scandal
and the response in China?
Leave your comments below.
And if you haven’t,
take a moment to sign our petition to Apple.
Apple has blocked the China Uncensored app from Apple TV
in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Because that would make the Chinese Communist Party sad.
Let them know what you think.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again your host, Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
Wow, that city management police is such a...
jerk.
And by the way,
can I just ask,
what exactly were they planning to do with that porcupine?
Acupuncture?

Chinese Internet Goes Nuts After United Passenger Removal | China Uncensored

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