A girl from a low-income household in China crossed over into Hong Kong to get to a live performance she had spent months saving up for.
It was a journey that Beijing’s huge surveillance equipment did not miss. Now her household face the prospect of shedding their authorities advantages for splurging on “high-end consumption.”
The incident has sparked huge debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving advantages are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese authorities’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital funds.
The story first surfaced in a post on in style web site Red Note in early September by a person who said they were the younger lady’s cousin.
The lady, surnamed Huang, had “worked hard doing manual labor and saved up from the subsidies” to pay for the live performance ticket and bills of touring to Hong Kong, around 235 miles (380 kilometers) from her home in Jiangxi province, the post said.
That post has since been taken down, but Chinese officers have said it was indeed written by the lady’s cousin. A screenshot of it has also been used by state media reporting on the case.
Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 following more than 100 years of British colonial rule. It is ruled by separate legal and political systems to mainland China, and mainland Chinese residents still must apply for permission to journey there.
According to the Red Note post, a native social employee warned Huang before the journey that any border crossing could set off a review of her household’s eligibility for welfare.
“I can’t tell if she was actually dumb enough to think Hong Kong doesn’t count as going abroad, or if she knew perfectly well and went anyway,” it said.
Surveillance digital camera seen in entrance of the Hong Kong National’s flag and China flag in Hong Kong. – May James/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
The household is in “extreme, extreme poverty” and the prospect of shedding the funds has left them in “complete devastation,” the post said.
It is unclear what live performance Huang had risked so much to go and see.
For many of the legions of Ok-Pop followers in mainland China, Hong Kong is the most accessible place to see a Ok-Pop live performance. For the previous decade, Beijing has positioned an unofficial ban on performances by Korean artists on the mainland as it feuds with Seoul over commerce and the presence of US weapons in South Korea.
In late August in Hong Kong there was a two-day worldwide music awards pageant that includes performances from totally different Ok-Pop bands, including some well-known ones such as ALLDAY PROJECT, aespa, BABYMONSTER, RIIZE, Super Junior and TOMORROW X TOGETHER.
On September 7, the Social Affairs Management Bureau in Ganzhou in Jiangxi province, where the younger lady lives, issued an official readout on its web site in response to the heated dialogue on the unique Red Note post.
The bureau said Huang and her household were under investigation “after she independently traveled to Hong Kong to attend a concert, the trip triggered an alert in the dynamic monitoring system for recipients of the minimum living allowance.”
The metropolis’s New Economic Development Zone’s Social Affairs Management Bureau instructed CNN on Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.
Over the 4 many years to 2020, China lifted the huge bulk of its population out of poverty, and in 2021 chief Xi Jinping declared that excessive poverty had been eradicated. But official knowledge reveals around 40 million people across the nation still rely on authorities residing subsidies.
Xi Jinping presents an award during a gathering to mark the nation’s poverty alleviation accomplishments in Beijing, China, on February 25, 2021. – Yan Yan/Xinhua/Getty Images
According to Ganzhou’s coverage, if a family per-person income is below the minimal residing allowance threshold set by the authorities, each particular person in the household could obtain 1,005 yuan per month, equal to $150 {dollars}.
The case has sparked so much debate that China’s state media has waded in.
The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily issued a commentary last week saying “of course, reasonable freedom to spend one’s money should be respected, but that freedom has limits, and people receiving public assistance are even more obligated to follow the rules.”
Government primary residing subsidies are “meant to cover basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Going to Hong Kong to see a concert is a high-cost form of entertainment, so there is nothing unreasonable about it triggering an alert in the monitoring system,” it said.
The online dialogue has drawn over 120 million views on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Some commenters said they thought it would be “cruel” if the household lost their welfare. “Does being low-income mean you are not allowed to enjoy things you like?,” requested one particular person.
But many other were less sympathetic. “Her family is struggling this badly, and she doesn’t think to use the money she earns to help her family out?” requested another person of the platform.
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