China boycotts Christmas. Shops with Christmas decorations were ordered to take them down. In order to avoid cyberbullying, some have even obediently gone on social media to confess their “mistakes”.
Most ridiculous are the school students who have been taught to associate Christmas with “evil” America and how they had threatened China’s security during the Korean War.
I’ll leave the Korean War aside for the time being, but was Christmas invented by America? Those of us from more inclusive societies will be puzzled as to how Christmas could be associated with the West when it’s a Christian festival celebrated in practically every continent and by every ethnic group in the world. Do they realise that Communism is also a Western ideology?
This madness has hit me personally. In case people I used to communicate with on WeChat ask me why I had “disappeared”, it all began with me sharing photos of Christmas lighting with my relatives in China. They were blocked. Next came a notification asking for my agreement to allow the app to access my files. I quickly uninstalled the app.
In the video below, Taiwanese influencer Bo Te compiled a series of social media postings detailing the plight of whistleblowers and their experience with being forced into psychiatric hospital before they were disappeared.
In 2022, Li Yixue was one of many who were thrown into a psychiatric hospital after she revealed that she had been molested by a police officer in a hotel room. During her 2-month stay in the psychiatric hospital, her family was not allowed to visit her or bring her home. After she was released, she became a whistleblower, revealing that many of the inmates at the psychiatric hospital were normal people who had disputes with the authorities.
Li Yixue also revealed how inmates were tortured into submission. Threatened to be brought back into the torture chamber, those who were discharged completely withdrew their allegations. Not Li Yixue. She decided to seek justice. She first went to a reputable hospital to obtain certification that she had no psychiatric issues. The hospital cleared her. Next, she brought a lawsuit upon Jiangxi Psychiatric Hospital. While waiting for the hearing, she went on social media to share her ordeal. The police officer who allegedly molested Li Yixue resigned.
Li Yixue had gotten more than what a common citizen is allowed. She didn’t know when to stop. With her growing popularity on social media, she went on and on, criticising the corrupt police force and hospital staff. Finally, in December 2022, the police paid a visit to her home. She posted on social media that more than 10 officers came. They removed her surveillance equipment and forced their way into her home. She had just enough time to send out two messages calling for help but her social media account was swiftly disabled. She had not been heard from since then.
Followers of Li Yixue started questioning her disappearance on social media. The authorities issued a statement saying that Li was safe and home and wanted “privacy” (as in Peng Shua’s case). Friends who knew where she lived turned up at her home to find parcels left at the doorstep and nobody answering the door. This was also shared on social media, showing that the authorities’ statement was untrue.
Among those in the discussion was Chen Li, a friend of Li Yixue who had lent her money to fight the hospital in court. She gave proof that Li Yixue was indeed uncontactable after the police paid her a visit in December 2022. Chen Li also feared for her own safety but she felt that the truth had to be told. Not long after that, Chen Li posted a video in which she suspected that she was being monitored. She told her followers if there was no video from her the next day, it would mean that she was also disappeared. True enough, there was no video from Chen Li and her social media account went dead.
The authorities then issued a statement that Li Yixue had been detained at an unnamed psychiatric hospital, contradicting their earlier statement that she was at home. When that drew public outrage, the authorities elaborated on their statement, saying that when doctors visited her at her home, Li Yixue voluntarily followed them to an undisclosed psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed as suffering from mental illness. Under Chinese law, a person can only be confined to a mental institution against her will if a family member, her superior at work or if law enforcement deems that she is a threat to public safety. In this case, they tried to pass it off as voluntary without presenting any documentation to the public.
Following Chen Li’s disappearance, none of their friends dare to step out and demand for an explanation. More than 100 million netizens had contributed to the discussion but not a single one could get or provide any answers. Instead, the wind direction turned 180 degrees with people claiming to know Li Yixue agreeing with the authorities that Li Yixue was not only a dubious character but is untrustworthy to boot.
There is a common misconception that only dissidents and troublemakers need to fear the authorities in China. But going through Li Yixue’s earlier postings on social media, you’ll find that she is very much a “patriot” who is anti-West and pro unification, believing that Taiwanese people would be better off with the government and system on the mainland. The glaring irony is that the injustice that she had faced would never have occurred if she had been living in Taiwan. If the same thing had happened to her in Taiwan even if she were not Taiwanese, she can be assured that it won’t take 100 million people following her saga to bring justice to her.
During a live news broadcast on CCTV, netizens posted comments unrelated to the incident being reported. They called for Li Yixue to be released.