[US Trending] Hundreds of Workers Surround Government in Zhaoqing, Guangdong｜Social Security Pressed Ever Harder, Yet You're on Your Own for Retirement?｜Zhang Wanying Faces Another Charge: Up to 15 Years in Prison｜Not Answering Calls, Transferring Money, Taking Photos — All Under Control?｜ ，Villagers Defend Their Land: Backed into a Corner｜Has Huawei Fallen from Its pedestal? State Media's Attitude Has Changed
This episode mainly reports on several domestic hot-button issues and international public opinion dynamics in China: the case of Zhang Wanying, who was formally indicted by federal prosecutors and faces up to 15 years in prison; the State Taxation Administration incorporating social security into the national unified tax penalty discretion range, sparking heated discussions; high pensions for retired personnel at Wuhan University triggering debates on treatment gaps; Jiangsu's anti-fraud risk control system upgrade leading to account bans for not answering phone calls and blocked transfers; photography at the Potala Palace square in Tibet being subjected to interrogation; hundreds of workers in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, besieging the government due to a compensation dispute over an electroplating park fire; villagers in Baoji, Shaanxi, defending their rights over a land dispute; DONGCHE DI's test of Huawei's Zunjie V800 brake fracture leading to a joint investigation by multiple departments and criticism from official media; as well as an elderly person in Henan shouting slogans to protest expensive gas, among other contents.
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US Hot Search lets you hear the voice outside the Great Firewall. Hello everyone, audience and friends, welcome to today's US Hot Search, I am Qi Xiaotian. First, let's look at the latest developments in the Zhang Wanying case. According to US media NBC, Zhang, who was suspected of spying on the son of a Chinese official for the Chinese government, was formally indicted by federal prosecutors on October 9; the indictment added charges of conspiring with Chinese officials and associates to act as an agent. If convicted, the maximum prison sentence will increase from the previously announced 10 years to 15 years. Currently still detained, she is scheduled for arraignment on October 23.
Recently, the wallets of young people in China have been targeted again. A while ago it was "big data hunting" for social security participation, and now, the penalty standards have been further unified. The State Taxation Administration announced last week that starting November 1, social security will be officially included in the national unified tax penalty discretion range. Employers who fail to pay or underpay social security contributions can face a fine of up to 3 times the unpaid amount. For enterprises, this means rising labor costs; for employees, this directly relates to how much money they can take home each month. Recently, a female blogger revealed that out of her monthly salary of 2500, only 700 was left after paying social security. On October 15, a Douyin blogger posted a video saying that even though he was paying social security normally every month, he was suddenly notified by his boss that due to an adjustment of the contribution base, he had to make up more than 1000 yuan in back payments for January to October this year, which the company had already paid and deducted directly from his salary. Another blogger on Bilibili said that a video he published last year titled "Social security can be 'mandatory', why aren't two-day weekends mandatory?" was suddenly taken down. In the video, he explained the absurd factors behind the Chinese Communist Party's mobilization for social security participation. Netizens said: ordinary people can't find jobs by the age of 30, and I guess more than half of those born in the 90s and 00s will struggle to live to that age, social security is just paying money to provide retirement for the red generations (princelings).
Beyond whether they can afford social security, people are increasingly concerned: how much of the money paid in today will actually be recovered in the future? Recently, the retirement benefits of Wuhan University have sparked discussion among netizens. In 2025, Wuhan University has a total of 7,424 retired faculty and staff. Some netizens estimated that with an average monthly pension of 10,000 yuan per person, the pension for this group alone would be nearly 900 million yuan a year. This has triggered heated debate among netizens regarding the disparity in treatment between different groups. According to data from the China Labour Statistical Yearbook, in 2012, the average monthly basic pension for those inside the system was about 2,900 yuan, while for enterprise employees it was about 2,000 yuan, a difference of about 900 yuan. By 2024, the pension for those inside the system had risen to about 7,736 yuan, while for enterprise employees it was about 4,008 yuan, a difference of more than 3,700 yuan. Netizens pointed out that retired officials receive much higher pensions. While the CCP mobilizes people to participate in insurance, it also tells everyone to be responsible for managing their own pension plans. On October 16, Zhuang Yan, Director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Civil Affairs, proposed guiding the establishment of the concept that "the individual is the primary person responsible for their own old-age care." Netizens retorted: If the individual is the primary person responsible for old-age care, then why pay social security at all?
A society without human rights protections means that the power hierarchy can intervene and interfere in your private life at any time. On October 16, a netizen in Jiangsu posted that because they are in the habit of not answering calls from strangers, their telecom mobile card was marked as a risk number by the anti-fraud risk control system, and their phone and internet functions were suspended, making it impossible to hail a taxi or make payments when going out. Netizens complained: "Those who make harassing calls should be the ones blocked." Other netizens shared similar experiences, saying: "I took my phone to another city, didn't answer any calls for half a year, and it was locked; I had to go to the service hall to get it unlocked." Recently, a Xiaohongshu user in Jiangsu posted that after her father transferred 50,000 yuan to her, the anti-fraud center took turns calling the whole family, repeatedly verifying the transfer situation, and questioning the purpose of the funds. This netizen wrote: I just watched a documentary about anti-fraud in northern Myanmar with tears in my eyes yesterday, and today the anti-fraud efforts have reached me. Transfers between a father and daughter require the whole family to repeatedly undergo verification; is this how anti-fraud works? On October 17, a netizen revealed that taking photos at the Potala Palace Square in Tibet would lead to being taken into a police station for registration and investigation by the police, "registering everyone who takes a photo." On October 1, a group of netizens took a group photo in the square, and as a result, the police came and forcibly demanded that they disband their chat group, and the group owner was summoned by the police to make a statement. Netizens said: "The tighter the spring is pressed, the greater the final rebound will be."
As the saying goes, even a rabbit will bite when cornered. If ordinary people are pushed into a corner, they eventually have no choice but to stand up and fight for themselves. In August last year, a fire broke out at the Zhaoxing Electrical Appliance Environmental Protection Industrial Park in Jinli Town, Zhaoqing, Guangdong, and a large number of factories were burned down. Manufacturers believe that the enterprise where the fire started had problems with the storage of hazardous chemicals and emergency response, and that the park's fire protection and management were also flawed. But more than a year has passed, the compensation has not been resolved, factories cannot operate normally, and the wages of a large number of workers have also been in arrears. On October 12, hundreds of workers united to defend their rights and surrounded the local government. On October 16, a land dispute occurred in Meidongguan Village, Baoji, Shaanxi. Villagers claimed that the local authorities dispatched police to assist a city investment company in occupying a piece of land for the construction of a food market. In the video, a police leader shouted, "Take them all away." One case involves workers demanding compensation, and the other involves villagers protecting their own land. Ordinary people usually just want to live their lives well; if they have truly reached the point of collectively standing up, it means there are few paths left for them to take.
Next, we enter the "Foreign Media on China" segment. As the situation with Dongchedi develops, things are looking precarious for them. The People's Daily just emphasized that the brake pedal should not break during driving, and a few days later, another central party newspaper began to criticize and expose Dongchedi. Consumers are still waiting for an explanation from the manufacturer, but the people who conducted the tests have already been questioned about their motives. The American think tank Jamestown Foundation recently analyzed that for many years, the CCP has touted Huawei as a representative of China's technology and national image. During the period of U.S. sanctions on Huawei and the Meng Wanzhou incident, the authorities even elevated Huawei's plight to a national level. When Xi Jinping held a symposium for private enterprises in 2025, Ren Zhengfei's name was listed at the very top of the six entrepreneurs who spoke. Bloomberg reported in 2023, citing data from the Semiconductor Industry Association of the United States, that the Chinese government and the Shenzhen municipal government's financial support for Huawei's development of chip manufacturing is estimated to be about 30 billion yuan. The support behind Huawei is both political and financial.
Recently, the automotive review platform Dongchedi released a video testing three new Maextro V800 vehicles. This car, a collaboration between Huawei and JAC, has a price tag exceeding 1 million yuan. The testers performed several consecutive emergency stops from a speed of 100 km/h, resulting in the brake pedal brackets of all three vehicles snapping. In response, the company emphasized that the product had undergone rigorous verification and that no similar failures had occurred in actual user scenarios. The company argued that the test conditions were too extreme, while simultaneously announcing a design optimization and offering free upgrades to owners who have already taken delivery. However, this did not answer the most direct question: how could a driver, pressing the brake hard in an emergency, snap the pedal bracket?
On October 11, the People's Daily app published an article explicitly naming the Maextro V800, stating that "a brake pedal should never 'snap' during driving." The article also criticized some car companies for compressing R&D time and reducing real-vehicle testing in a rush to go to market, ultimately forcing consumers to bear the risks. Seeing such a stance, many might have thought the manufacturer would now have to address the safety issue head-on. But in the following days, the focus of the criticism began to shift. On the evening of October 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), and the State Administration for Market Regulation announced the formation of a joint investigation team based on preliminary inquiries. It is easy to understand why the MIIT and the market regulator would be involved in investigating automotive quality. However, the inclusion of the CAC in the list raised concerns: would the controversy over the test video also become a focus of the investigation?
The announcement did not claim that Dongchedi faked the results. But Maextro's response had already elevated the safety issue of a single car to the level of the entire industry. Beyond expressing cooperation with the investigation, the company emphasized the need to "resolutely safeguard the overall situation of the development of the new energy vehicle industry." One evening, Huawei executive Yu Chengdong forwarded a statement, writing, "Justice may be late, but it will never be absent." Southern Metropolis Daily reporters verified with individuals who could view his WeChat Moments that the screenshot was authentic. The investigation has no conclusion yet, but Yu Chengdong is already talking about justice. It sounds as if the company has become the aggrieved party, waiting for the investigation team to clear its name. On October 17, the Economic Daily published an article explicitly criticizing Dongchedi. The article questioned whether Dongchedi has a conflict of interest, as it both conducts automotive reviews and earns money through automotive advertising and referring customers to dealers. The article also warned that if reviews are turned into tools to attack companies, it will ultimately harm China's automotive industry. The media should also not label this car as a "rushed product." At the same time, the article demanded that car companies face up to defects and issue recalls where necessary.
What Dongchedi originally needed to explain was how the tests were conducted and whether the data was accurate. Now, it must also answer whether it had commercial motives and whether exposing the problems would harm the entire industry. The cause of the brake failure has not yet been announced, but the review platform has been pushed to the forefront of the storm. For Dongchedi, the pressure of public opinion has clearly changed. The Jamestown Foundation also pointed out that the protection Huawei receives has sparked public resentment toward privilege. Since publicly criticizing the CCP carries too much risk, some people use complaints about product quality to satirize privilege and censorship. Things that were previously inconvenient to say directly find a relatively safe outlet when framed as criticism of a company. A similar situation occurred with this brake controversy. After the test video disappeared from multiple platforms, netizens' mockery shifted from car quality to who is protecting this company. As early as October 9, media outlets discovered the original video could not be viewed. By the 16th, reporters confirmed again that the relevant video had been taken down, and the reason remains unexplained.
These disputes also illustrate why an automotive test can become entangled with the overall industry situation and national image. The more tightly it is tied to patriotism, the easier it is to turn into a political issue. Consumers clearly just want to know if the car is safe, yet they are told to safeguard the Chinese automotive industry. Dongchedi should certainly disclose its testing methods and accept scrutiny. Even if a review platform has commercial revenue, that does not prove the tests of these three cars were fake. If there is an investigation, bring out the data and clarify both the vehicles and the tests. The pressure Dongchedi is facing this time has exceeded that of an ordinary review controversy. The Economic Daily has already named it, and the CAC is on the joint investigation team. If the manufacturer fails to explain why the brakes snapped, but the platform that exposed the problem is dealt with first, will other institutions choose to inform consumers or suppress the video when they encounter similar problems in the future? Once those who expose problems start worrying about their own fate, it will be even harder for car buyers to hear the truth. Given this trend, Dongchedi is likely in real trouble this time.
Next, let's look at a few absurd videos. On October 17, an elderly person in Henan, in order to protest that "gas is too expensive to afford burning," posted a video online shouting slogans such as "Down with Japanese imperialism" and "Long live the Chinese Communist Party." Netizens commented: The elderly person shouting official slogans to voice demands precisely illustrates that normal channels of expression are obstructed. In a healthy society, citizens should be able to directly state that gas is too expensive, without having to wrap livelihood demands in political declarations. Recently, a Bilibili blogger interviewed an uncle in Tianjin, asking him: Do you feel heartbroken about Chinese cultural relics collected in foreign museums? Let's see how this Tianjin uncle answered. Netizens commented: After all, the uncle has lived through that era and understands the Chinese Communist Party better than most people.
At the end of the show, we enter the netizen interaction segment. A comment about the People's Liberation Army folding clothes into tofu blocks said: Since the clothes are folded so well, shouldn't they go work in apparel retail stores like Uniqlo or Zara? Since the quilts are folded so well, shouldn't they go work in home furnishing stores like IKEA? Why should people who fold clothes and quilts well go to war instead? The Chinese Communist Party mobilizing people without income to pay social security said: That gang seizing power in Jinggang Mountains shouted "communism," but today social security takes the lion's share without working. Back then they shouted "eliminate classes," but now they have become a privileged class. A comment on the Chinese Communist Party's massive investment in technological development said: Did they really spend money to develop technology, when clearly the largest expenditure is on stability maintenance.