China deletes videos showing abject poverty in the nation: report
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Beijing: Chinese authorities have deleted videos including that of a retiree illustrating the struggles of the Chinese people to make ends meet with their meagre livelihood.
The viral video showed the woman, who is a pensioner, wondering what groceries she could buy with her monthly pension and only source of income of 100 yuan, or USD 14.50.
The propaganda by the government stops Chinese people from understanding how prevalent poverty is in the country, according to New York Times.
Authorities have reportedly banned a viral song by a singer who expressed frustrations of young and educated Chinese.
In the song that discussed the country’s gloomy job prospects the singer said ‘I wash my face every day, but my pocket is cleaner than my face’.
It added further, ‘I went to college to help rejuvenate China, not to deliver meals.’
Censors blocked discussing a migrant worker who, working hard to support his family, gained widespread attention after tested positive for covid last year.
He came to be called as the ‘hardest-working person in China’ but authorities waited outside his house stopping journalists from meeting his wife.
China’s Cyberspace Administration said in March it would crack down on anyone posting videos to ‘deliberately manipulate sadness, incite polarization, create harmful information that damages the image of the Party and the government, and disrupts economic and social development.’
According to the report China is eager to keep the talk happening only around positive aspects about China.
Meanwhile, China brags about how its policy measures over the past four decades lifted people out of poverty.
Despite China's rise as an economic power, the reality of poverty in the nation flies in the face of all such claims.
