Strategic adaptations included splintering into dozens of smaller WeChat groups that were harder to keep tabs on, communicating between groups via encrypted apps such as Telegram and sharing more sensitive information via phone calls or in person, according to depositors. Their agile tactics and pursuit of clear goals also exposed the system's limitations. The stories recounted to Reuters by Yao and 14 other bank depositors, who used social media to discuss and coordinate efforts to recover their funds, reveal the scale and reach of China's high-tech security apparatus. The rural banks under investigation and the CBIRC national banking regulator also didn't respond.Ĭhinese authorities say social stability is the foundation for a prosperous future and dismiss human rights complaints as Western propaganda and interference in internal affairs. He says he feels let down by the state he revered: "When you try to defend your rights, they try to maintain social stability."Ĭhina's Ministry of Public Security, the Henan and Anhui local governments, and police departments in those provinces and Beijing didn't respond to requests for comment for this article. "Their overriding message is - do not make trouble," he added. "I could often receive more than a dozen phone calls a day from police, day and night," said Yao, who works at a state-owned company, and fears he'll never recover his life savings of over 10 million yuan ($1.4 million). It offers a glimpse of the lengths some frustrated citizens will go to in taking on the world's most powerful security state. The unusually prolonged and public dissent, part of a broader swell of popular anger, from mortgage strikes to COVID lockdown protests, has persisted despite a security clampdown. The pushback by Yao and thousands of his fellow bank depositors from across the country comes during a sensitive time for China, with Xi Jinping set to secure a third leadership term at a party congress starting Sunday that will ensure his place as its most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Yet the 43-year-old's life has been upended since he and thousands of other people abruptly lost access to their savings in a banking fraud scandal that erupted in April, which centred on a string of rural lenders in Henan and Anhui provinces.Īfter venting his anger on social media and discussing protests with fellow depositors to lobby authorities to reimburse their funds, he says he found himself in the sights of the government's high-tech social surveillance machine. Having escaped rural poverty and joined Beijing's middle classes through decades of study and work, he saw himself as a patriotic poster child of the party's successful rule. BEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Jack Yao, a Chinese Communist Party member, never wanted to be an activist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |