【US Trending】Who is Jack Ma mocking by planting rice? Why don't audiences buy Feng Xiaogang's 'Catching Spies'? | Han Hong's reputation ruined after public appearance | Chengdu residential complex residents battle property management | CCTV commentator biased against Japan during World Cup | CCTV sports reporter goes undercover to buy jersey | Reversal in Nenjiang merchants' strike | Xi Jinping wants to govern the world
This episode mainly reviews several trending events and phenomena, including the cold reception of Feng Xiaogang's movie "Catching Spies" and Han Hong's botched appearance to support it; property rights defenders in Chengdu's Shimao Yunjing being arrested by police; CCTV commentators suspected of bias toward Tunisia and a reporter wearing an Iranian jersey in the US causing controversy; merchants in multiple locations across Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia going on strike to avoid surprise inspections; companies like Beidahuang being hit with retroactive taxes and late fees by tax authorities; Jack Ma leading a team to plant rice in the paddy fields and Alibaba suing the US Department of Defense; the upcoming "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" raising international concerns about freedom of speech; foreign media reports pointing out that the Chinese Communist Party uses visa access to impose censorship on Western media; and finally, absurd videos such as the Xiongxian, Hebei drill escorting elderly people and interactions with netizens.
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US Trending brings you the voices from outside the Great Firewall. Hello viewers and friends, welcome to today's US Trending, I am Qi Xiaotiao. First, let's enter the mobile browsing China segment. The Ministry of State Security has transformed into an influencer department, launching a high-profile campaign over the past year to mobilize the whole population to catch spies, leaving the public angry but too afraid to speak out. Recently, Feng Xiaogang followed the trend and directed the movie "Catching Spies", which premiered during the Dragon Boat Festival to a lukewarm box office. Han Hong, who came to show support, told the audience: "Give me some face, and we'll be good." This Beijing slang phrase instantly trended. Not only did the audience refuse to give face, but they also cursed her out until Han Hong disabled the comments! The public opinion spilled over to her charitable foundation, with a large number of donors cutting off donations on Twitter accounts. Writer Cui Chenghao tweeted: Instead of saving face, it completely crashed and burned, and netizens dug up her monthly donations of 160 million and all sorts of old dirt. Feng Xiaogang's "Catching Spies" has a movie title that touches upon major taboos: "spies", "bad elements", "rightists", "landlords", "counterrevolutionaries", "smelly old ninth"... Behind every single label lies a humiliated life, a torn family, and trampled dignity. What truly deserves to be remembered is not how "spies" were caught back then, but why so many people were arbitrarily slapped with labels. We must be vigilant against any urge to reduce people to a certain identity and then attack and exclude them on that basis. If everyone is a walking 500,000 RMB, mutually reporting and informing on each other, is this what a civilized society should look like? Cui Chenghao concluded: If Director Feng remade "Catching Spies" into "Catching Privileges", he wouldn't need to ask Han Hong and others for support; it would definitely be sold out every show, receiving both praise and commercial success.
Another Twitter user commented: "Nowadays, everyone is just thinking about holding onto their jobs and their bank balances. Who has the time to watch you hunt for spies, or spend money to go receive 're-education'? Are you out of your mind?" A netizen quipped: "Last year's trashy films like 'Nanjing' and 'Volunteers' dominated the charts for a long time. Today, they are using the same trick to try and deceive the audience again—they deserve to be scolded!" Another netizen dug up comments Feng Xiaogang previously made about the relationship between Chinese cinema and its audience, where he said: "It is because there are so many trashy audiences that so many trashy films are formed." The netizen said: "Trashy films match trashy audiences; the most typical examples are the 'main melody' (propaganda) films. This time, even the 'trashy audiences' aren't buying it. I don't think it's because the 'trashy audiences' have become enlightened." Dear viewers, why do you think even the 'trashy audiences' aren't going to watch it this time? This netizen humorously responded to Han Hong's call to "show some face" (support) at the cinema, but unfortunately, the cinema didn't give them any face. The netizen said: "They are all billionaires, and they want ordinary people to 'show them face'? Do you think you are the CCP? The people must support you and serve you." Another netizen said: "Feng Xiaogang kissed the CCP's ass, and now he's in trouble.
Changing property management in a residential complex should be a matter of course and a right of the homeowners. But in China, property management companies are just like the government: if the service is bad, you aren't allowed to replace them. On the evening of June 22, 2026, hundreds of homeowners at the Shimao Yunjing complex in Chengdu, Sichuan, blocked the road in protest after long-term dissatisfaction with high fees, poor service, and safety hazards like the lack of traffic lights at the entrance. After multiple failed attempts to defend their rights, they blocked the road. During the protest, homeowners clashed with the police and government personnel who arrived on the scene. Multiple homeowners were arrested, and at least one person was injured and sent to the hospital. Why do the police arrest the homeowners instead of the property management? Dear viewers, please answer this netizen in the comments section.
There is no Chinese national football team in this year's World Cup, so Chinese fans should be watching the games from the sidelines with a peaceful mind, right? However, the politically conscious commentators at CCTV don't see it that way. On June 21, when the Japanese team defeated Tunisia 4-0 in the World Cup group stage, netizens questioned the CCTV Sports commentator for being "obviously biased toward the Tunisian team." Netizens believe that sports commentary should remain as objective and neutral as possible and should not bring personal stances into the game. A netizen said: "It's the CCP state, after all—extreme nationalism. If they commented objectively, not only would these two lose their jobs, but they would also be labeled as traitors or spies by that group of Little Pinks." Recently, CCTV football commentator Wang Tao challenged himself during the World Cup by buying an Iranian team jersey in the U.S., claiming that because the U.S. and Iran are at war, the American people must be united against a common enemy. In the video, he said: "To avoid getting beaten up, I specifically wore a U.S. team jersey first as an 'amulet'." A netizen said: "A typical 'scumbag hero.' What kind of challenge is it to wear an Iranian jersey in the U.S.? If you have guts, wear a Japanese fan jersey in China, or go to Iran and wear a shirt with the American flag." Indeed, history and reality prove that wearing a Japanese fan jersey in China is what carries real danger. In November 2024, a Chinese person wearing a Japanese team jersey in China was besieged by Chinese fans and eventually rescued by the police. This group of people can't even be considered football hooligans; they are just thugs who would be slapped in the face by the national team's performance on the field. Another netizen commented on the man wearing the Japanese fan jersey: "A person is at their most handsome when they insist on what is right."
In the last episode, we reported that the local government of Nenjiang City, Heilongjiang, conducted "double random" inspections on businesses, leading to a collective strike and store closures. Now, there has been a reversal in this event: it turns out it was a surprise inspection carried out by the Heilongjiang Provincial Government, and the various municipal governments privately notified the businesses in their regions. According to a netizen who submitted information to Teacher Li: "In this matter, the first batch was inspected in Suihua City, Heilongjiang. One restaurant owner was fined 300,000 yuan, and another shop was also fined for fire safety violations. The local government was also warned, which is why Heilongjiang is like this now. The strike wasn't initiated by the merchants themselves; it was because the local government received word and then privately notified the merchants to close their doors." If it was a private message, how could they close their doors in such a uniform manner? This netizen said: "My colleague secretly notified the shops under his jurisdiction at the time." The latest news is that on June 23, businesses in Arhorqin Banner, Inner Mongolia, also began to strike to avoid inspections. The Arhorqin Banner Market Supervision
The regulatory authority has issued a rumor-refuting announcement, but shops still dare not open. Netizens said: They are always thinking of grabbing money from the ordinary people; those who are a bit smart stopped believing in the Chinese Communist Party a long time ago.
Local departments harvesting leeks is small-scale, but when the central government does it, it is high-end, sophisticated, and classy. On June 22, Heilongjiang Beidahuang Agriculture was asked by the tax authorities to pay about 1 billion yuan in corporate income tax arrears for the years 2021 to 2025, along with about 400 million yuan in late payment penalties. Netizens asked: Isn't Beidahuang a central enterprise? Did the flood wash away the Dragon King's temple, with family members fighting family members? Dear viewers, how do you interpret this phenomenon? In fact, this crazy tax harvesting of listed companies also includes Shandong Gold being asked to make up for about 73.8 billion yuan in tax arrears, Liugong Group paying 83.3 billion yuan, and Zhejiang Energy Group paying about 10.7 billion yuan. It seems that when the Chinese Communist Party gets ruthless, it really goes after its own people too.
Next, we enter the foreign media looks at China segment. Ever since Jack Ma expressed his grievances and pontificated at the Bund Financial Summit and was subsequently suppressed, his appearances in public have become fewer and fewer. Recently, photos of him and a group of Alibaba executives rolling up their pantlegs and planting rice seedlings in the fields leaked out, sparking widespread attention. Jack Ma has been a bit busy lately; while watching Alibaba roll up its sleeves to fight lawsuits in the United States, he has been leading Alibaba executives to roll up their pantlegs and plant rice seedlings in the fields. In the past, everyone said Alibaba was an e-commerce company, but now it looks more like an agricultural company combined with a law firm—planting rice by day and submitting legal complaints by night, featuring self-produced and self-sold, self-cultivated and self-defended operations. Recently, Alibaba officially sued the U.S. Department of Defense, demanding to be removed from the so-called "1260H list." Alibaba believes that the U.S. side designated it as a company suspected of supporting the Chinese military without producing sufficient evidence or providing a reasonable explanation. Alibaba stated in its lawsuit that the company had previously communicated with the U.S. Department of Defense for months and submitted a large amount of explanatory materials, but never received an official response, and even found out that it had been labeled as "military-affiliated" by reading the Federal Register. Although being on the list will not immediately trigger severe sanctions, this list is seen as a weather vane for future restrictive measures and will also affect the company's ability to secure contracts, funds, and investor confidence. In addition, relevant U.S. legislation is about to take effect, and institutions lobbying and defending listed companies in the future may also be affected, which further increases Alibaba's rights defense costs.
However, more eye-catching than this lawsuit is actually Jack Ma's other "agricultural practice." Recently, the core management team of Alibaba and Ant Group rarely appeared collectively in the rice fields of Hangzhou to plant rice. Heavyweights such as Jack Ma, Wu Yongming, Jiang Fan, and Eric Jing were all present, and Alibaba partner and Gaode Chairman Liu Zhenfei specifically posted with emotion: "When it's time to plant, you must plant; when it's time to endure, you have to endure." Many people believe that these words are almost a portrayal of Alibaba's current situation, because Alibaba today is indeed not having an easy time, with external pressure from the United States and an internal AI war. During the Spring Festival, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba splashed about 9 billion yuan to compete for AI users. Data shows that ByteDance's Doubao once reached 1.45 billion daily active users, while Qianwen had about 55 million. To catch up, Alibaba not only spent heavily with over 3 billion yuan in red envelope marketing, but also announced that it would invest more than 380 billion yuan in the next three years to build cloud and AI infrastructure, setting the record for the largest investment in related fields by a Chinese private enterprise. However, competitors clearly will not wait for it to grow slowly; ByteDance's Volcano Engine is using price and technological offensives to grab enterprise clients, and its market share is rapidly closing in on Alibaba. Alibaba, which once defined China's internet era, now has to prove itself all over again in the AI era. Therefore, this rice-planting activity is on the surface planting rice, but in reality planting confidence; on the surface bending down to plant seedlings, but in reality giving a shot in the arm to the capital market. Jack Ma leading the team to plant rice has a really good implication, saying that only when you have seedlings in hand can you ensure food in the future. But as the top head of Chinese private enterprises, from Alibaba and Jack Ma
under Xi Jinping's iron fist—from Ant Financial's IPO being halted to regulatory fines of 18 billion—going down to the fields to plant rice and having grain in hand; but whether what you harvest in autumn will actually be yours is really hard to say.
Xi Jinping's ambition to govern the world has recently gained a powerful new tool; from now on, anyone who dares to complain about China's ethnic policies may truly face the prospect of being punished, no matter how far away they are. Recently, the "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress," set to take effect on July 1, has drawn attention from Japanese and Taiwanese media. The most controversial part is Article 63, which stipulates that if overseas organizations or individuals engage in acts that "undermine ethnic unity and progress" or "create ethnic division," China may pursue legal liability in accordance with the law. This means that even if they are in the United States, Japan, or Taiwan, foreigners who post critical comments online regarding issues such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, or Taiwan may face the risk of being held accountable by China. Although the CCP cannot directly enforce laws across borders, commentators believe that by issuing arrest warrants, restricting entry, or leveraging cross-border business and travel opportunities, the CCP can still exert a deterrent effect on individuals abroad. On June 21, Tsukasa Shirakawa of the Liberal Democratic Party's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly caucus publicly stated that this law is not only aimed at Chinese domestic society but may also affect the freedom of speech of foreign companies and individuals, criticizing it as a further compression of the space for discourse. Taiwanese media also worry that the new law may increase uncertainty for foreign companies operating in and exiting the Chinese market, further raising the costs for international firms to assess risks in China. Additionally, this move may provide Beijing with a new legal basis to take action against individuals in Taiwan who support "Taiwan independence." As the July 1 implementation date approaches, this law continues to attract international attention. Some worry that the law's definitions are vague, which could expand the scope of interpretation for law enforcement and create a chilling effect on academic research, media reporting, and cross-border business activities. "Undermining ethnic unity and progress"—this provision is effectively another "catch-all crime." From "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" to "undermining ethnic unity," the scope of interpretation is growing ever wider, and the reach of jurisdiction is extending ever further. A regime that constantly emphasizes the "Four Confidences" is always trying every possible way to protect its fragile ego.
Over the past year, it has become increasingly difficult for us to select good news reports about China from foreign media. An article in The Diplomat yesterday revealed part of the truth, stating that Western media are quietly purging original truths about China from their news sources, all just to satisfy the CCP. Here is what is actually happening: the CCP is using a devastating silent weapon against global newsrooms: access. If an international news organization exposes human rights abuses or elite corruption, Beijing threatens to cancel journalist visas and cut off the profits of companies that benefit from the Chinese market. The hard evidence is shocking; media giants like Bloomberg have previously abandoned in-depth investigations into the hidden wealth of China's ruling elite to protect corporate revenue. Networks like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were forced to close their China bureaus entirely after Beijing quietly refused to issue visas to their correspondents. Even veteran BBC journalist John Sudworth had to flee to Taiwan after facing severe security threats while reporting on the Xinjiang re-education camps. To protect their bottom lines, other major networks are caving in; they are choosing to engage in what experts call "linguistic whitewashing," replacing accurate terms with harmless euphemisms preferred by Beijing, such as swapping "authoritarian" for milder phrasing. University of Alberta professor Reza Hasmath exposed this systemic extortion in The Diplomat. The data fully supports this; a report by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, a professional association representing international journalists, stated that a staggering 98% of correspondents said reporting conditions failed to meet international standards, with 86% experiencing interview refusals or cancellations. It seems that corporate media are sacrificing the authenticity of their reporting in exchange for visas, allowing an authoritarian regime to precisely determine what you are allowed to read.
Next, let's look at a few absurd videos. On June 22, an emergency flood drill was held in Xiongzhou, Hebei. As it turned out, the elderly in the village were being dragged out during the drill. Netizens asked: Is this a drill for dragging people out before forcibly demolishing their homes? Netizens also shared a video of a female tour guide explaining the ruling logic of the Qin Dynasty and the reasons for its eventual collapse. However, some netizens noted that if she hadn't mentioned the "Qin Dynasty," it would sound exactly like a description of the current CCP: the CCP has inherited all the dregs of ancient thought.
At the end of the program, we move on to the netizen interaction segment. James Bond commented on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hyping up Xi Zhongxun as a benevolent father to all citizens: No matter what Xi Zhongxun's performance was during the reform and opening-up, it cannot conceal his ugly nature: sending all his other children abroad while keeping Xi Jinping in the party to vie for power. As a father, could he not know what kind of character his eldest son has? No, he knew it very well! Therefore, the extreme selfishness of the Steamed Bun was successfully inherited from Xi Zhongxun, and his evil is no less than that of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Jax Leo said: The Xi faction takes the stage, and Western North Korea is born. Kamtong Leong said: Anyone who does not allow the people to supervise and restrain them is bad!