Over the past 24 hours, two oil tankers were successively struck by unidentified projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, sparking fires but causing no casualties.
The website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published an article discussing the characterization analysis of retired party members and cadres illegally accepting property, sending the signal that even retirement cannot escape accountability.
A delegation composed of leaders of state legislatures from the southern region of the United States met with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan, exchanging views on economic and trade, agriculture, and national security cooperation.
Influencer "Feng Ge Wangming Tianya" filmed the living conditions of day laborers in Majuqiao, Beijing; because the content differs greatly from state media narratives, he said in a livestream that he did not dare release the full video.
On October 21, a large number of netizens reported having their Moments features restricted, or even permanently banned, for posting sentences containing specific homophonic characters, such as "accustomed to the plain and uneventful days lately," in their WeChat Moments.
On October 21, the People's Bank of China announced an upgrade to the digital yuan infrastructure, launching a new system and intelligent integration service framework that supports preset consumption conditions and time limits.
Workers at the CSCEC Second Division's Huangdao project in Qingdao climbed to the roof to demand 600,000 yuan in unpaid wages; on the same day, construction workers in Shantou also climbed to a rooftop for rights defense.
Hu Liren said that if Xi Jinping falls from power, his family could face a thorough purge, and predicted that family members and assets would be implicated.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council stated that because Zhang Linghe had repeatedly posted content demeaning Taiwan's status and the purpose of his application was unclear, it did not approve his application to hold events in Taiwan, and it pushed back against the Taiwan Affairs Office over the deliberate ramming incident involving Huang Yihao.
Xinhua News Agency announced personnel appointments: Wang Jinjian, former secretary of the Yangzhou Municipal Party Committee in Jiangsu, has been transferred across provinces to serve as a member and standing member of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, seen as Li Qiang laying groundwork in advance at the local level.
On October 21, 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission announced that Zu Guo, former Party secretary and director of the Changchun Housing Provident Fund Management Center, is under investigation and scrutiny.
After several mainland netizens posted reflections containing specific homophones on WeChat Moments, their Moments feature was restricted until November 20 or their WeChat accounts were banned.
On October 21, Xu Xiaodong posted a video on Twitter revealing that over the past three or four days he had been followed in Beijing by a suspicious person wearing Arc'teryx clothing, whom he eventually caught and forced to the police station.
The Taiwan New Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted five people, accusing mainland Chinese national "K" of offering NT$450,000 to hire someone to stage a fake car crash out of dissatisfaction with Huang Yihao's satire of Xi Jinping, and refusing to pay the NT$200,000 balance because Huang suffered only minor injuries.
On October 21, Microsoft released a report stating that Storm-0940, a hacking group linked to the Chinese government, has been using the AI tool ARTEX since September to breach Microsoft 365 systems with credentials from the cloud backup application of U.S. IT service provider ConnectWise, attacking hundreds of government, military, semiconductor, and think tank organizations worldwide. In some attacks, high-level cloud privileges were obtained in under three hours. ConnectWise has acknowledged the security incident and is restoring services in phases.
On October 21, surveillance footage of the incident in which Taiwanese crosstalk actor Huang Yihao, who had publicly mocked Xi Jinping, was struck by a vehicle was released: a black sedan tailgated his parked scooter and suddenly rammed it. The video also shows photos from the scene, heavily armed police arriving at his door to arrest him, and footage of him being escorted away. All 5 defendants in the case have been indicted.
A new poll shows that Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang's support rate leads Chiang Wan-an by 17 percentage points.
On October 21, in Qingdao, Shandong, the "Ocean Vitality Zone" project of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) Second Engineering Division in Huangdao District has failed to pay over 600,000 yuan in wages to several interior plasterers since the project's completion at the end of 2024, leading multiple workers to climb to the roof to threaten suicide in order to demand their unpaid wages.
On October 21, a large number of netizens posted screenshots claiming that their Moments feature was restricted for posting the sentence “Used to the quiet days lately” on WeChat Moments. After one netizen appealed, the Moments feature was permanently banned. The sentence is suspected of being treated as a sensitive term related to Xi Jinping.
On October 21, Wuzhou No. 7 Middle School in Wuzhou, Guangxi responded to an incident on the evening of October 16 in which a teacher stopped senior-year students from leaving the school and shouted “I’ll drive over and kill you,” saying the teacher had been criticized and educated for improper emotional management, that the students kept provoking, and that the video circulating online had been cut off at both ends, refusing to provide the full video. The Wuzhou Municipal Education Bureau said it had clarified the course of events and would strengthen disciplinary guidance for individual students.
On October 21, Zhang Wenbin, a volunteer who has long been engaged in environmental supervision and runs the WeChat public account "Zero-Distance Pollution Task Force," was taken away by police from Wanzai County, Yichun, Jiangxi, in Urumqi. Online reports say he is suspected of extortion; colleagues suspect it is related to his exposure of environmental violations by Wanzai enterprises in 2023. No official announcement has been made yet.
On October 21, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han responded to Jay Chou reposting and liking a video that introduced him as a “Chinese singer,” saying it was a sincere expression of Taiwanese artists’ recognition of their Chinese identity, and criticizing “Taiwan independence” forces for labeling and attacking artists.
On October 21, Philippine Congressman Riton suggested that if the government does not expel Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Jing Quan, it could consider expelling lower-level Chinese diplomatic personnel.
In response to Liton's recommendation of expulsion, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines replied on X on October 21: "Why don't you suggest closing the entire embassy?"
On October 21, 10 members of the Philippine House of Representatives submitted Resolution No. 1562, calling on the president to declare Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Jing Quan a "persona non grata" or ask Beijing to recall him, citing remarks such as "Just do it" at the embassy as grounds.
On October 21, a Douban user posted that AI-driven layoffs are becoming increasingly common: apart from "Ningxia News Broadcast," the anchors at Ningxia TV have been replaced by AI; after Lao Gan Ma introduced AI pepper selection, the pepper-sorting positions were cut from more than 600 people to 48; the post also listed large-scale layoffs at multiple overseas tech companies including Coinbase, PayPal, and Meta.
On October 21, homeowners in Gushi County, Xinyang, Henan, gathered outside the Central Park Xinhe Group Century City sales center to defend their rights, raising their fists and chanting slogans to demand their apartments, and called out company leader President Chen by name, demanding the return of their homes.
An in-depth Financial Times report on October 21 pointed out that China's population decline, deflation, weak consumption, and slumping property and stock markets resemble Japan in its day; after the property bubble burst in 2021, new housing starts fell 78% from their peak. Economist Richard Koo argues for stimulating demand through fiscal spending, while Adam Slater does not rule out growth slowing to 2% to 2.5% over the next decade.
On October 21, 8-year-old Qiqi, a student at Peixin School in Huadu District, Guangzhou, fell and hit the back of her head after being bumped by her desk mate during recess. A PE teacher carried her to the infirmary like a sack of rice, while the school doctor and homeroom teacher watched without calling 120. She was sent to the hospital about an hour later. On November 2, Jiangsu News Radio reported that the child suffered a brain hemorrhage and a fractured skull, and has been declared brain-dead. The school denies any negligence.
A student at Yunnan Vocational and Technical College of Communications in Chenggong District, Kunming, Yunnan, went missing after being sent by the school to an internship placement. The family repeatedly approached the school with no result, and recently held a banner displaying the child's photo outside the school gate to search for the person, getting into a dispute with police.
A netizen submitted a post claiming that employees at China Post's Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province branch have received no overtime pay for decades, have often had wages deducted on the pretext of inspections, have been forced to buy third-party products at their own expense, and that leaders, in order to earn commissions, pressure employees into engaging in financial fraud.
On October 21, anti-trafficking volunteer Shangguan Zhengyi released a plea from a family, stating that the police have not opened a case more than a month after the report. He called on relevant departments in Guangdong to verify the labor compensation, whether forced labor exists, and the reasons for the man's departure from the recycling station.
On October 21, the state media outlet People's Sharp Commentary published "Tesla 'Can Fly' — Have We Been Left Behind?", stressing the advantages of China's new energy vehicles. In the comment section, netizens responded with sarcasm, asking when the two-day weekend, the eight-hour work system, and the problem of unpaid wages will ever be resolved.
On October 21, a Global Times editorial titled "The World Is in Chaos While China Lives in Peace" climbed onto Weibo's trending list after being reposted by accounts such as Beijing Daily. Some netizens pointed out that only four of the 400 comments in the relevant Weibo comment section were displayed, while another netizen said "Domestic chaos is what you cannot see," and the search suggestions for their post showed "Are negative news stories being blocked."
Recently in Guizhou, a Douyin blogger posted a photo of a China Unicom promotional display board claiming that a one-time payment of 699 yuan entitles one to 400 yuan in medical insurance and 699 yuan in communication fees. In the comments section, netizens posted similar medical insurance discount coupon posters from China Mobile, and pasted an anti-fraud reminder reading “pay first and get cash back later is always a scam” as satire.
On October 21, a netizen photographed a poster put up in an office building in Shenzhen titled “In Order Not to Cause Trouble for the Shenzhen APEC Summit, Please Choose Your Way of Contributing,” which listed options such as working overtime until late at night and letting your beloved car sit idle. It sparked heated discussion among netizens and was subsequently taken down.
On October 21, Starbucks China announced that starting from the 22nd, its stores nationwide would implement a new “purchase required to be seated” rule, with relevant notice signs placed in stores, sparking discussion among netizens.
Tsinghua University professor Nie Huihua previously proposed taxing robots and AI, on the grounds that companies hiring real people must pay wages and social security contributions, while switching to robots can save on labor costs; this view has recently drawn renewed attention.
On October 21, several employees of Zhuimi Fengxing Intelligent Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Pinghu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang gathered inside a warehouse to demand unpaid wages and defend their rights. The employees at the scene accused the company of being in arrears on wages for as long as five months.
On October 21, several workers in Lingui District, Guilin, Guangxi who are owed wages by Xinglin Chengtou held banners outside the company's door to defend their rights. The banners bore slogans such as "You owe money and won't pay, with no regard for whether others live or die," and they accused the company of lying flat and failing to act in resolving its debt.
On October 21, in Jinping District, Shantou City, Guangdong, several people suspected of being involved in a dispute over unpaid wages climbed to the edge of a rooftop near the local government to defend their rights.
On October 21, Thomas Jamaluddin, a researcher at Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency, confirmed that the debris that fell in Kalimantan was from China's LandSpace Zhuque-2E rocket, adding that physical inspection is still needed for final confirmation.
On October 21, South Korean girl group Hearts2Hearts announced the cancellation of a fan-signing event originally scheduled to be held in Shenzhen, citing force majeure, without specifying the reason.
On October 21, a Douyin blogger with 550,000 followers posted a video saying that the Huawei smartwatch they purchased did not support standalone video calls, so they applied for a refund and returned it within less than 10 seconds of receiving it; the merchant refused the 960 yuan refund citing a scratched screen and sent the item back, and their earlier complaint video was taken down.
On October 21, several workers involved in a marine ecological restoration project in Yingkou, Liaoning, publicly filed a real-name report against the contractor, China Communications Construction Port & Waterway Bureau, for withholding their wages for five months, saying that after repeated complaints the relevant leaders kept passing the buck, so they publicly called on netizens to share the post and push for a resolution.
On October 21, a netizen in Shandong posted a video saying that the month's pension, which he had reported the previous day, had not arrived on time, resonating with many other netizens; after consulting the local Social Security Bureau, he was told that it would arrive in batches over the following days. As of October 22, some netizens still had not received their pensions and were comforting one another.
On October 21, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, said at the 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference that without safety, all intelligence, performance, design and innovation lose their meaning; multiple media outlets including Chang'an Jie Zhishi and The Beijing News republished his press release.
On October 21, the official account of Jiaxian Experimental High School in Jiaxian, Pingdingshan, Henan, posted a promotional video showing several teachers carrying kettles into classrooms during breaks to pour water for students one by one, captioned "A cup of hot tea warms the heart." This drew criticism from netizens, who said that bullying of teachers should be banned and that teachers should be able to work with dignity.
On October 21, BMW launched a voluntary redundancy scheme in Germany, with compensation for some employees reaching about 4.87 million yuan. A large number of employees logged into the internal system to check their compensation amounts, causing the system to become congested, and the related topic trended on Weibo's hot search.
On October 21, a Douyin blogger posted a situational short skit recreating a day in the life of high school students in the four Shanhe provinces: awakened by the broadcast at 5 a.m., taking oaths and shouting slogans, holding books for morning reading, and after self-study ended at 10:30 p.m., still having to undergo dormitory checks by the homeroom teacher, sparking heated discussion among netizens.