[US Trending] Fled for 15 years, collected 1.4 million, and still got promoted | 1.3 million Chinese TV boxes secretly controlled | Paid social security for nearly 20 years, only receiving 66 yuan a day? | Joshua Wong sentenced to another 10 years, Au Nok-hin to 12.5 years | Waited for payment but didn't get it, rights defenders carried away first | Can a 19-year-old be a delegate to the Two Sessions?
This episode focuses on the gap between social security and government positions in China, officials continuing to receive salaries while fleeing after corruption, political trials in Hong Kong and Macau, the wave of resignations among public officials in Taiwan versus the craze for civil service exams in mainland China, the decline in marriage rates, payment crises involving prepaid corporate cards and payment platforms, privacy issues with smart devices and the TV box botnet incident, and Shenzhen clearing out electric vehicles and payment barriers ahead of the APEC summit. It also discusses the obstruction of Nvidia chip imports, absurd social videos, and netizen commentary.
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US Trending lets you hear voices from outside the Great Firewall
Hello, viewers, hello everyone
Welcome to today's US Trending, I am Qi Xiaotian
First, we enter the today's news segment. Ordinary citizens who have paid social security for nearly 20 years receive about 66 yuan a day after retirement, but a cadre who committed a crime and fled for 15 years not only continued to receive 1.4 million in salary but was also promoted. On November 4, a netizen from Guangdong posted a retirement income certificate from the Shenzhen Social Insurance Fund Management Bureau. He began receiving a urban employee pension of 1,989 yuan per month starting in August 2026. He paid into social security from November 2006 to July 2026, three months short of 20 years. The total amount he paid into his personal account was about 39,000 yuan, with about 16,000 yuan in interest. After retirement, he gets 66 yuan a day. Netizens say he is from that generation, and for current young people, paying social security is a loss. In that era, about 20 million people were born each year; they are now old and need pensions, while now only about 7 million are born each year. These 7 million people have to pay social security to support those 20 million-plus people first. Coupled with the current economic downturn, many young people cannot afford to pay social security. Next, the threshold for social security may be raised further. According to reports from sources like Shanghai Bendibao, starting from 2030, the minimum contribution period is proposed to increase by six months each year, reaching 20 years by 2039. In other words, social security will have to be paid for longer, and you will get less.
After paying social security for nearly 20 years, a person receives 1,989 RMB a month. Yet, also living off public funds, a township official in Hebei fled after committing a crime and spent 15 years on the run, all while his salary was never interrupted for a single month. According to a report by The Beijing News on November 5, in March 2010, Lü Dengdi, a township official in Fanjiazhuang Township, Quyang County, Baoding, Hebei, got into a dispute with a villager and used a sharp weapon to injure Pang Aishi, a villager who stepped forward to break up the fight, causing severe injuries. Lü Dengdi was captured in December of that year, but his detention was changed to residential surveillance due to a serious illness. As a result, he escaped during the period of residential surveillance and remained on the run for 15 years. During this time, he even returned to his village to attend a funeral. The victim reported this to the criminal investigation team twice, but nothing came of it until November 2025, when the victim's son reported the matter to higher-level police. Only then did the police reissue an online manhunt, and in less than a month, Lü Dengdi was caught in a rented apartment in Baoding. Even more surreal is that Lü Dengdi continued to collect his salary throughout these 15 years, totaling over 1.4 million RMB, averaging more than 7,000 RMB a month—roughly four times the pension of the retired elderly person in Shenzhen mentioned earlier. In 2019, Lü Dengdi was even promoted from deputy section-level to a second-level主任科员 at the section level. Netizens asked how big data can track down people who fail to pay social security, yet fail to find a criminal official. Another netizen said that under the Chinese Communist Party, even running away while holding a government position counts toward years of service. On one side are people who honestly pay social security for nearly 20 years and only get 1,989 RMB a month; on the other side is someone on the run for 15 years whose salary and official rank continued to rise. Do you think this is a loophole in a specific township government, or is it the norm of the entire system? Please leave a comment.
In the United States, lobbying Congress and calling for sanctions are daily routines for citizens; in Hong Kong and Macau, this is called endangering national security, carrying sentences of ten or even a dozen years. According to Radio Free Asia, on November 5, the High Court of Hong Kong sentenced prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and 2014 Umbrella Movement leader Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign or external forces to endanger national security. He had already been serving nearly 6 years in prison in connection with the primaries case involving 47 pan-democrats. The judge stated that Joshua Wong's sentence started at 13 years, reduced by 3 years for pleading guilty. The judge also claimed that the endangerment is ongoing, citing as one of the reasons that fourteen Chinese officials remain on foreign sanction lists. Joshua Wong was originally expected to be released in January next year, but he now has to stay in prison until November 2036. By that time, this young man who took to the streets in his teens will be approaching forty. Joshua Wong's plea letter written from prison mentioned that he had hoped to be released in January 2027 to take care of his parents. Following the sentencing, ten countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, issued a joint statement demanding an end to the unfair prosecution of Joshua Wong and others. On the same day, according to BBC Chinese, the Primary Court of Macau sentenced 69-year-old former pro-democracy legislator Au Kam-san to 12 years and 6 months in prison on charges including subversion of state power. If he serves his full sentence, he may be 82 years old upon release. Joshua Wong and Au Kam-san fought for the people of Hong Kong and Macau to have more freedom and to decide their own future, yet the response from the Chinese Communist Party was over a decade behind bars. They hoped to return freedom to the people, but the Chinese Communist Party stripped them of their freedom first. If a regime cannot even tolerate its people asking for freedom, on what grounds can it claim to represent the people?
Both being civil servants, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are staging two different choices. According to Taiwan's Central News Agency, from 2022 to 2025, a total of about 10,000 civil servants in Taiwan resigned, with more than half of them having served for less than 5 years. On November 2, Haixia Net, affiliated with the Fujian Daily Press Group, a party mouthpiece, published an article describing the phenomenon of Taiwanese public servants resigning as an exodus wave. So, what did the Taiwanese authorities say? According to the Central News Agency, one of the reasons for the resignation of 10,000 civil servants in Taiwan is that the economy has been too good over the past two to three years, and private enterprises, especially the tech sector, offer higher salaries, making civil servant compensation uncompetitive. Meanwhile, in mainland China, according to China News Service, 3.45 million people passed the qualification review for the 2027 national civil service exam, with an average of about 97 people competing for a single position. While some people in Taiwan leave public service because private sector compensation is better, many people in mainland China treat a government position as the most stable career choice. Since Chinese state media calls what is happening in Taiwan an exodus wave, what should this trend in mainland China—where people break their heads trying to squeeze into the system—be called?
Due to the economic downturn, young people in mainland China are crowding into the civil service exams, while the marriage rate among youth continues to decline. According to a Voice of America report, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China released data on November 5 showing that in the first three quarters of 2026, there were only about 4.65 million marriage registrations nationwide, a decrease of about 500,000 pairs compared to the same period last year. Furthermore, the drop accelerated over time: a year-on-year decrease of 6.2% in the first quarter, 8.7% in the second quarter, and 14.9% in the third quarter. The brief rebound in marriage registrations last year was due to a policy change allowing nationwide processing, enabling people to obtain marriage certificates anywhere. Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes this was merely a short-term rebound brought about by policies. He predicts that China's birth population this year may be just over 8 million, and next year it might drop to just over 7 million. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has rolled out a basket of policies urging people to marry and have children, but while young people are rushing into civil service exams due to the poor economy on one hand and being tracked down by big data to pay social insurance on the other, has the CCP ever calculated the heavy toll on their minds?
Next, let us move to the "Mobile Phone View of China" segment. In the United States, if prepaid merchant cards face massive redemption failures, regulators and the media typically investigate closely and focus on compensation. However, in Zhumadian, Henan, when a merchant's prepaid cards ran into redemption issues, the first to arrive at the scene were police arresting the victims. Huanle Aijia, a chain supermarket in Zhumadian, Henan, previously offered shopping cards to shoppers, allowing them to deposit money in the supermarket for consumption and withdrawal. However, these shopping cards recently encountered a redemption crisis. On September 14, Wang Haizhou, the chairman of Huanle Aijia, wrote a guarantee letter in front of consumers stating that the company's assets at the time were about 3 billion RMB, far exceeding its debts, and promised to release a solution on November 6. However, when November 6 arrived, the promised redemption plan failed to materialize. Crowds of cardholders gathered in front of Huanle Aijia chanting for refunds. Yet, these people did not receive a solution; instead, they were met with a massive force of stability maintenance police. Ultimately, large numbers of police and SWAT police formed human walls and carried away multiple rights-defending residents, while traffic controls were implemented on several surrounding roads. A single guarantee letter had pinned all hopes on November 6, but on the day it matured, no plan was seen, and the people were carried away first.
Kunpeng Payment, a Chongqing-based payment company holding a central bank payment license, was recently exposed for widely defaulting on merchants' business revenues, with amounts ranging from several thousand RMB to hundreds of thousands of RMB. On November 2, the company abruptly announced that its general manager had resigned due to health reasons, and rumors spread online that he had absconded to the United States with the funds. On November 5, a large crowd of merchants gathered at the entrance of the People's Bank of China Chongqing Branch to protest regulatory negligence and demand their money back. As a result, police arrived at the scene, and multiple rights-defending merchants were taken away. In the end, the license was issued by the central bank, yet when merchants went to demand answers, they were met with the police. What the CCP protects is never the victim; what it always solves are the people who raise the problem.
In our last episode, we reported that Xiaomi phones might be secretly recording screens and audio during WeChat and QQ calls. Unexpectedly, netizens have made new discoveries today, and it is not just Xiaomi; Honor phones have also been exposed for privacy monitoring. Even home TV boxes might be secretly making money for others in the background. Recently, a netizen discovered that the log component of Honor phones can read the list of installed apps, track how many times each app has been opened, how long it has been used, and the last time it was used. More notably, the relevant code also has the capability to receive cloud instructions, execute debugging commands, and capture network data. If these issues on mobile phones still require further verification, the next matter is even more serious. This time, it is not an anonymous netizen speaking, but Google. On November 2, Google's Threat Analysis Group released an investigation report stating that they had dismantled a botnet controlling over 1.3 million TV set-top boxes. Google stated they are highly confident that this backdoor, named XCPE, was intentionally developed and deployed by Shenzhen Shizhuang Technology Co., Ltd. These companies sell control of the TV boxes to criminals, allowing them to use these devices to click on ads, install malware, and even secretly rent out users' home broadband to profit. In other words, you pay for the TV box and pay for your home internet, but someone else is secretly using your network address to go online. If it is used for illegal activities, the network address seen by the outside world might still be yours. Tech media Ars Technica reported that these devices also exploited vulnerabilities to pass Google certification. When consumers buy the TV box, take it home, and connect it to the internet, malicious code is loaded, bypassing security checks. The affected devices are spread across the globe, including Brazil, Malaysia, Iraq, Mexico, and Taiwan, with a large number of devices also affected in the United States and Europe. Chinese mobile phones may record your every move, and Chinese TV boxes secretly use your home broadband to do business. Previously, Made in China was sold for its cheapness; now, with Made in China, consumers have to worry about what is hidden behind that cheap price.
Shenzhen is about to host the APEC summit. Before the foreign leaders have even arrived, Shenzhen is already busy dressing up the city. However, this time, what is being hidden is not illegal construction, but the electric bicycles of ordinary people. On November 3, netizens discovered that white barriers had suddenly been installed at electric bicycle parking areas in many parts of Shenzhen, blocking rows of electric bikes completely. It is reported that such barriers have appeared near subway stations in Nanshan District, Longzhu Avenue, and other places. Netizens suspect this is to welcome the APEC summit, fearing that foreign guests will see the streets full of electric bikes and it will affect the city's image. Netizens mocked this, saying they do such self-deceiving things every day. Another netizen said it seems Shenzhen's way of improving the city's appearance is not to solve the problem, but to solve the people who see the problem; as long as it is blocked tightly enough, the city's image is considered improved.
The national gates have opened, but the wallets have not. Twitter blogger Cui Chenghao tweeted on November 4 that a Japanese couple he knows just went to China for tourism, and the first hurdle they hit was payment. They had downloaded Alipay and linked their cards before departure, but the first transaction in China showed a verification failure. After finally figuring it out, they found that large stores could accept payments, but small shops could not. When they took out 100 RMB in cash, the small shop owner said they could not provide change. Foreigners come to China for tourism, but the CCP has set up layers of obstacles for consumption. This is truly overdoing the anti-espionage measures, and in the end, they are just shooting themselves in the foot.
Next, we move to the "Foreign Media on China" segment. Xi Jinping has consistently emphasized technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, but a series of recent actions by Beijing raises the question: is this self-sufficiency or self-sabotage? Reuters reported exclusively on November 5 that, according to two informed sources, approximately 600,000 NVIDIA H200 AI chips are currently sitting in Hong Kong, waiting to be shipped into mainland China because Beijing has been slow to approve large-scale imports. Reuters noted that the Trump administration had already permitted NVIDIA to sell H200 chips to approved Chinese customers last year. In recent months, Beijing has only allowed a small fraction of these chips to enter, with several major Chinese internet companies receiving only about 10,000 units each. Unable to import through official channels, some buyers have had to resort to intermediaries and circuitous routes, driving the price of an eight-card H200 server up to over 6 million RMB—about three times what it cost a year ago. According to Voice of America, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai stated as early as May this year that while Chinese companies are interested in NVIDIA's H200 chips, the Chinese Communist Party is more focused on promoting the development of domestic chips. On the other side, the U.S. is also tightening restrictions. According to Reuters, citing a Financial Times report from November 4, Oracle canceled a 7-billion-dollar, 5-year chip leasing contract with Tencent after U.S. officials expressed concerns. This contract would have allowed Tencent to utilize approximately 100,000 advanced chips in Southeast Asian data centers. The report also mentioned that senior officials from Guangdong Province had visited Tencent to demand that the company support domestic chips. On one hand, Washington is restricting Chinese companies from using advanced chips; on the other, Beijing itself is unwilling to grant clearance. Caught in the middle, Chinese AI companies have no choice but to pay triple the price for the confidence of being "far ahead." The U.S. is choking China's tech sector, and Beijing, instead of helping, is so afraid the grip isn't tight enough that it actively joins in to help squeeze. This is not technological self-reliance; it is clearly technological self-sabotage.
Next, let's look at a few absurd videos. In China, there is a form of education called brainwashing, starting from childhood. A video recently shared by netizens shows a group of elementary school students standing up and loudly reciting, "Fear not, follow the Communist Party." Netizens commented, "Leave the kids alone, please, I beg you." When a boss has a birthday, the employees' gift is not having to work overtime. In the video below, factory employees stand in formation and chant in unison, wishing "President Wei" a happy birthday. Netizens mocked this, asking, "How is this any different from the landlords of the old society?" The collaboration between Hello Kitty and the Japanese drama VIVANT was accused of "insulting China." An angry patriotic "Little Pink" destroyed all their Sanrio products in a fit of rage. However, ironically, other netizens pointed out that the destroyed products were mostly pirated goods, not official Sanrio-licensed products. Netizens joked that, in a way, this act helped Sanrio destroy a large amount of counterfeit merchandise—a case of doing a good deed with bad intentions.
"Shake-to-open" advertisements have become a safety issue. On November 4, a blogger posted a video complaining that while riding a bike across a bridge at night, the normal vibrations of the bike caused their phone's navigation app to frequently jump automatically to third-party ad pages like JD.com, which were difficult to close. Netizens lamented, "Having pop-up ads even in navigation—this is truly shameless." Recently, it was rumored online that China has a 19-year-old "youngest" member of the Two Sessions. Netizens have been asking: Which fourth-generation descendant of a CCP power family is this? How was he selected? Who asked him to represent them, and by what right does he represent the people? Netizens said, "He will never represent the 'leeks' (the common people). Who he is and how he became a representative are both state secrets. If you dare to voice an opinion, that's the crime of subverting state power."
At the end of the program, we enter the netizen interaction segment. Dehu commented on Chinese people's ballots, saying, "The Chinese people have no ballots, no banknotes, only subpoenas." Sheryl commented on the Chinese history teacher who had an awakening after visiting Taiwan, saying, "This is why they confiscated the passports of all the teachers." An awakened "leek" from behind the Great Firewall commented on the A-share market crash and state media blaming the U.S. election, saying, "Financial consumers who have dealt with China's A-shares are mostly familiar with the face of the regime: when it goes up, it's the CCP's wise leadership and prosperity; when it goes down, it's the fault of foreign forces." That concludes today's U.S. trending topics. Thank you for watching. To our new viewers, if you like our program, please help by liking and subscribing, and help us spread these voices from outside the wall even further. Additionally, for those who want to support our channel more, you can consider joining the membership of "China-U.S. Benchmarking." We will see you in the next episode.