[US Trending] 100,000 Qingdao owners demand explanations | China's ultra-beautiful dream shattered | North Korean smartphone exposure | Jiuzhaigou mudslide | China's pensions differ by 15 times

The video compiles events such as Qingdao Victoria Bay owners gathering to protest after public supporting land was mortgaged and auctioned, tourists being evacuated on foot due to a mudslide in Jiuzhaigou, and compares the pension gap between Chinese rural residents and urban workers. The program also introduces North Korean smartphones and a closed digital ecosystem, cites articles analyzing China’s economy, exports and fiscal pressure, and finally presents netizens’ comments on food safety, disaster reporting and accessing information by circumventing the Great Firewall.

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People from Shandong have long been known for trusting the system and loving civil service exams, always believing that as long as they follow the rules and obey, the organization will eventually solve problems. However, the socialist iron fist will not spare obedient subjects.

Recently, 100,000 owners in the Victoria Bay community of Qingdao West Coast New Area, Shandong, discovered that the developer had mortgaged and auctioned the land originally planned for a kindergarten and community hospital as industrial land. Many owners repeatedly filed objections to the court’s enforcement, which were still rejected.

On July 27, owners gathered outside the community to protest, strongly demanding higher‑level authorities intervene and investigate. In the video, police form a human wall, raise police shielding cloth, and protesting owners shout “See the district chief!”

The response was that construction had stopped, yet filming continued on site, the construction site was still active, and it was just a perfunctory cover‑up. We ordinary people now come to block, we ordinary people also stay silent. More women are around, they are all us. All the information on the official website, I want to tell you, it’s there, but I’m different, after seeing your face we think, although we all know the other side.

That night, the protesting owners were violently cleared by police, and some owners were taken away. Netizens said: owners’ protest is not “causing trouble,” but a signal of system failure. When planning changes are not disclosed and judicial objections are rejected, the government should reflect: should it punish the owners, or should it rebuild trust?

Extreme weather is frequent across many parts of China, and disasters keep occurring, yet tourists still dare to travel and repeatedly encounter danger. The “paradise on earth” originally promised can turn in an instant into a life‑threatening escape.

On July 26, due to short‑term heavy rain, the famous 5A World Natural Heritage site Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan experienced a mudslide, cutting off some roads. About 2,300 tourists were forced to leave the park by bus and then walked several kilometers in the mud‑slidden, darkened slopes.

Official statements now claim that evacuation was completed safely with no casualties, and loudly promote “warm-hearted protection” and “no danger, just a scare.” However, on‑site video shows that the emergency guidance took about two hours to start, and staff and villagers temporarily used “human railings” to barely maintain order.

Jiuzhaigou, a 5A scenic area located in a high‑risk geological disaster zone, did not expect such a hasty and passive emergency system. Netizens said: the fees are world‑class, the evacuation is refugee‑level. The mudslide is only the trigger of a natural disaster; the real tragedy is the management vacuum and chaotic disorder when thousands wait in despair for rescue.

China’s pension system can be described as a globally rare identity‑benefit distribution: the same elderly may receive over 10,000 yuan a month, while others get only about 200 yuan. This system does not prioritize the poorest elderly; instead it uses household registration, occupation and system identity to extend pre‑retirement inequality into retirement.

Recently, a content creator interviewed a 76‑year‑old retired university history teacher whose pension exceeds 10,000 yuan and who says she wants to live to 120! People inside the system receive such a high pension that even the nationalist‑leaning well‑known political commentator Luke Wen realized this phenomenon cannot last.

On July 27, he posted: After surveying various countries around the world and Chinese provinces, I found that, excluding rural elders, China’s pensions are extremely high. If you compare them to income ratios in other countries, China’s pensions are higher than those in Japan, South Korea and France. This situation should be unsustainable; the fiscal pressure is too great. I have not seen any country maintain this for a long time; it is a special phenomenon of a special stage in China. China’s pensions will inevitably be cut across the board at some point in the future.

Luke Wen specifically noted that the data “exclude rural elders,” exposing the tiered pension system in China: the so‑called “extremely high pensions” are mainly enjoyed by insiders and some urban workers; the massive number of rural elders are left out of this generosity.

On July 24, Caixin published an interview with Xue Huiyuan, deputy director of the Social Security Research Center at Wuhan University. By the end of 2024, about 180 million urban and rural residents in China receive basic pensions, averaging only 246 yuan per month per person – roughly 8 yuan per day. In contrast, the average monthly pension for urban workers in 2024 is about 3,825 yuan, more than 15 times the urban‑rural resident pension.

Luke Wen’s tweet touched two red lines: first, he threatened the pension system for insiders; second, he highlighted the extreme inequality of China’s elderly welfare. Currently, Luke Wen’s Weibo account has been taken down with a 404. Netizens say: if the day comes when pensions are cut for insiders, the outsiders will be even worse off – a month’s pension probably won’t even buy a single bun.

Now let’s look at the foreign media’s view of China.

In recent years, many Chinese take pride in their highly digitalized lives. However, a recent report by The Washington Post shows that North Korea can also scan QR codes for payments, hail taxis, order takeout, and even use online banking. This North Korean mirror reveals a truth Chinese do not want to face: they are also living in a steel cage, only the cage is larger and more functional.

Even more unsettling, North Korea’s smartphones may be previewing China’s digital ecosystem five years from now. The report says: North Korea has no internet, yet more and more people are using smartphones; this sounds like modernization, but in reality it is more like a “digital steel cage.” Phones are available and apps are proliferating, but every move on the phone is fully visible to the North Korean government. Each app also reflects the government’s presence.

With the assistance of North Korean tech expert Martyn Williams, The Washington Post obtained two of North Korea’s latest smartphones, giving us a glimpse into the digital life of the world’s most closed country.

Although North Korean citizens cannot connect to the global internet and can only use a government‑built closed intranet, the phones already contain hundreds of official apps, covering e‑wallets, ride‑hailing, food delivery, movie ticket purchases, video platforms, navigation, online banking, medicine delivery, women’s health management, and more – a full suite that looks increasingly similar to smartphones elsewhere.

However, behind these conveniences lies a stronger surveillance capability for the government. In the past, North Korea relied heavily on cash transactions; now, as e‑wallets and online banking spread, the government can more easily monitor money flow, prices, taxes, and consumer behavior.

Peter Ward, an expert on the North Korean economy, said large‑scale cash transactions are hard to monitor, but once electronic payments take hold, every transaction leaves a record, helping the government tighten control over food supplies, medicine distribution, and corruption.

The report states that QR‑code payments are now common on the streets of Pyongyang, even street vendors accept scan‑to‑pay. Phones can also stream official video platforms, offering 24‑hour dramas, movies, and state media programs.

Since opening mobile services in 2008, North Korea now has over 6.35 million mobile users, about 24 domestic phone brands, most using Chinese‑made hardware paired with North Korean‑developed software. 4G coverage reaches most of the country, but smartphones remain a luxury; a high‑end phone costs around $750, far above most citizens’ incomes, so they are mainly used by the elite in Pyongyang.

Experts believe Kim Jong‑un’s continual improvement of life for Pyongyang residents aims to keep the capital’s elite loyal to the regime.

Nevertheless, this digitalization has not brought information freedom. Ordinary citizens still cannot access the international internet; to browse the outside world they must take huge risks buying black‑market SIM cards at the China‑North Korea border to connect to Chinese networks, yet they still face CCP internet censorship and surveillance.

These two North Korean phones demonstrate not a more open North Korea, but a more digitized North Korea. As phones become increasingly smart, the people still cannot see the outside world; technology should enable the free flow of information, but under an authoritarian regime it becomes a new tool for tightening control.

The truly advanced thing has never been the apps on the phone, but the people's right to freely obtain information. What truly warrants vigilance has never been phones getting smarter, but the government learning more about each individual. Technology can bring convenience, but it can also become a tool of control; although payment, entertainment, communication, healthcare, and news are all packed into a single device, without the right to freely access information that device ceases to be merely a smart gadget and becomes more like a portable digital shack.

For more than a decade, Washington has been worried about how to deal with a rising China; now it faces a China whose growth engine is faltering, domestic demand shrinking, and therefore increasingly reliant on exports to shift crises worldwide.

Logan Wright, partner at Rongding Group, published an article in Foreign Affairs titled "China's Moment of Decline: Economic Recession and a Strategic Opportunity for the United States." The article points out that China is not in an economic crisis or collapse, but is continuously losing the ability to regulate the economy through its fiscal and financial system. Years of inefficient investment have accumulated tens of trillions of dollars of bad debt, making it impossible to generate sustained domestic demand from households or enterprises, and forcing complete reliance on export‑driven growth.

The author estimates that since 2021 China's cumulative real‑GDP growth measured in dollars may be only about 2%, far below the official figures. China's share of global GDP has fallen from a peak of 18.5% in 2021 to an officially estimated 16.7% (actually closer to 15%), while the United States' share has risen to 26%, widening the gap between the two economies and essentially eliminating the chance that China will overtake the United States.

From 2008 to 2017, Chinese banks added new credit equal to one‑third of global GDP, about $27 trillion. Now, to digest the bad debt, banks' lending capacity has been severely weakened; current credit growth is only 5.3%, less than a third of the boom period, and 58% of new loans are priced at or below the market loan‑offering rate, leaving almost no profit margin.

Fiscal revenue as a share of GDP has dropped to 15.4%, lower than any OECD member; the annual fiscal deficit reaches 9%–10% of GDP (about $2 trillion). This means Beijing’s room to stimulate the economy is extremely limited.

The collapse of domestic demand forces Chinese firms to dump goods abroad at low prices. Last year China’s exports reached $38 trillion, creating a historic $12 trillion trade surplus, which harms the global industrial base, including that of the United States and its allies.

Beijing has already begun using counter‑sanction measures to protect export markets, including retaliation against the EU’s "Industrial Acceleration Act," restrictions on outbound direct investment, and rare‑earth export controls on Japan.

The author believes China’s export‑control tools are not as powerful as outsiders imagine and are difficult to sustain; if the United States and its allies coordinate targeted trade countermeasures and limit China’s access to Western consumer markets, the leverage will be greater than merely competing for supply chains, because China’s growth depends entirely on external demand and cannot endure a prolonged trade conflict. Beijing’s current threat is “conditional, time‑limited, and more containable,” not an irreversible strategic advantage.

Now let’s look at a few absurd videos.

The CCP‑lauded "great‑nation craftsmen" generally cannot stand up to scrutiny. A netizen filmed a video that easily exposed the scam behind the great‑nation craftsmen. The netizen said: after all, the CCP’s great‑nation craftsmen need five years of practice just to press a launch button with their thumb, involving full‑hand molding, grinding, redesign, nationwide copying, fraud, shortcut overtaking, and claiming to be far ahead, the universe’s number one.

The CCP’s fear of the masses often shows through its strict regulatory policies. At a market in Fangshan, Beijing, staff meticulously inspected whether meat vendors’ knives complied with regulations, were chained, and whether the size and sharpness exceeded limits. A netizen joked: the power of a car far surpasses that of a knife—will they start chaining cars too?

At the end of the program, we entered the netizen interaction segment.

Windmean commented on Taiwan’s “problem oil,” saying: I hope Taiwanese understand that even if your cooking oil has issues, it is an occasional, isolated incident. Once you “return to the motherland’s embrace,” food‑safety problems will be something you face every meal, every day.

Someone from Fujian said: Ironically, the floods shown in the video are only visible in news outside the Great Firewall. Inside the firewall, the app scrolled for ages without a single related story, TV had no coverage, only scattered reports from Guangxi, which is also tragic. To know domestic news you still have to circumvent the firewall to learn the reality.

rzt comments that disaster victims across China say: after working so hard, barely managing to save a bit of a nest egg, a single natural disaster can easily wipe everything out; people in the country are truly miserable.