[US Trending] General Secretary's Visits to India Frequent Issues | Yunnan Tobacco Farmers Gather to Defend Rights | Guangzhou University Town Incident | After Reporting Museum, Barbecue Shop Investigated? | Peking University Also “Living Tight” | BRICS Summit: India Unwilling to Follow China’s Lead

This episode compiles recent hot-button events in Chinese society and diplomacy. Domestically, a suspected multiple-victim revenge attack against society occurred at Guangzhou University Town; official reports deliberately downplayed the details and deleted posts spread by netizens. Tobacco farmers in Yunnan held protests to defend their rights due to price cuts and rejections by the tobacco company. In Heze, Shandong, a barbecue restaurant owner was forced to close down in government retaliation after reporting the disappearance of museum artifacts. Beijing issued new regulations ordering the clearance of all drones across the city within a time limit. In terms of education, schools in multiple regions implemented militarized management and rigorous security checks, with counselors threatening to monitor students scaling walls. Diplomatically, Xi Jinping visited India for the BRICS summit, and his gait sparked health speculations. Meanwhile, the "BRICS currency" de-dollarization initiative and AI technology standard export plan promoted by China both faced resistance and brakes from countries like India.

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On the afternoon of September 14, a revenge-against-society incident occurred at the GOGO New Heaven Commercial Plaza in Guangzhou University Town, located in Xinzao Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, leaving multiple people with eye injuries. Videos recorded the suspect's physical characteristics, and police and SWAT police subsequently entered the scene. That evening, Dongguan police issued a notice stating that around 17:20, Guangzhou 110 received public reports that a man was committing a revenge attack outside a hotpot restaurant on Xiaoguwei Street, Panyu District. Police apprehended the criminal suspect Li (male, 35 years old), and the injured were treated with no life-threatening conditions.

The official report deliberately downplayed two key points: first, it did not mention "University Town" nor did it state that the suspect was ultimately subdued inside a university cafeteria; second, on-site eyewitnesses claimed there were at least four suspects at the scene, whereas the notice mentioned only one caught and made no mention of accomplices still at large. The exact number of suspects currently cannot be verified. Before the remaining suspects were caught, local netizens posted warning messages on Xiaoshongshu asking everyone to pay attention to safety, but all the posts were deleted. The netizen angrily expressed that this is a low moment in China. Other eyewitnesses stated that several people were injured from Phase 2 to Phase 1, two were carried away by ambulances, and the suspect wore black clothes, a buzz cut, and carried a black bag.

Patriotic citizens within the Great Firewall, when talking about the rise of a great nation in the new era, often mention high-speed rail, large aircraft, and the extreme convenience of ordering midnight takeout delivered in seconds. Little do they know that while they enjoy such convenience, others are struggling for survival; this is the absurdity of this society. The high-end achievements of a great nation and the inability of ordinary citizens to make ends meet have both been dressed up as grand patriotic narratives. Major national achievements cannot dissipate the social hostility gathered due to livelihood hardships; treating the symptoms requires addressing the root cause.

Usually, the top leader stays hidden deep within Zhongnanhai, and even when people outside Beijing are suffering immensely, it is rare for him to make a public appearance among the common people. Normally, his every move, every photo, and every video are strictly vetted by the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee with filters turned up to the highest level. Only when he goes on foreign visits can people catch a glimpse of the top leader's true demeanor through the lenses of foreign journalists.

The top leader went to India on September 12 to attend the BRICS summit, and his footsteps stepping off the airplane attracted attention. Based on just those dozens of seconds of his gait walking down the airstair, netizens judged that he very likely has mild stroke symptoms. This time, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not go to the airport to greet him, but instead sent a minister. Every time the top leader visits a country, there is a recurring repertoire: protests by overseas Chinese residents. As the motorcade passed through the streets of New Delhi, it faced strong protests from Tibetan people.

Upon arriving at the venue, the top leader's luxury bulletproof Hongqi sedan was left parked there for quite a while after stopping, and Indian staff members on the car's front side directly started arguing with Chinese personnel, leaving the welcoming scene in complete disarray and disorder. The top leader stepped out with a gloomy expression, clearly sulking. Starting a few years ago, General Secretary Xi has, like the US president, brought his big Hongqi everywhere he goes. What opened the eyes of the Indians was that during the air transportation process, the car was covered in a black car cover, looking very much like a hearse. This time entering the venue's long red carpet, the top leader walked alone without staff accompanying him. This scene reminds us of the high-light moment when General Secretary Xi walked the red carpet at the BRICS summit in South Africa years ago, and his translator was tackled by security personnel, showing his panic.

During the family photo session, some people noticed that the top leader's base was very stable while taking the photo. Netizens even began discussing whether the top leader specifically practiced "fixed-point standing" for this visit to India. During the meeting, the top leader showed signs of poor health, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to pause his speech and ask him, "Is it OK?" Footage showed Chinese personnel rushing into the venue. That evening, the top leader did not attend the banquet nor return to the hotel, directly boarding a special plane back to China. When boarding the plane, his pace was indeed not easy and even somewhat strange.

Previously reporting a series of collective protests regarding rural funeral reforms in Yunnan and Guizhou, there is now a new hotspot of conflict. Some tobacco farmers in Yunnan, a major tobacco province, recently started gatherings to defend their rights to protest the relevant business arrangements of the tobacco company. The cause was that this year the tobacco company's standards for receiving tobacco suddenly became stricter, with tobacco leaves downgraded, prices squeezed, or directly rejected. Some tobacco farmers said that after hundreds or thousands of catties of tobacco leaves they painstakingly grew were pulled to the acquisition station, graded, and deducted in weight, they were left with only tens of yuan in the end. Netizens said this reflects the true relationship between human resources and the Party.

Shouting out when seeing injustice and taking action when the time comes does not work in today's Chinese society. In June this year, the owner of a barbecue restaurant in Heze, Shandong, reported that a Yuan dynasty blue and white porcelain cup at the local museum was suspected of missing, and submitted evidence. As a result, the owner was subsequently frequently retaliated against by relevant government departments, ultimately forcing the barbecue restaurant to close down. Netizens said that if you cannot solve the problem, you solve the person who found the problem; this time the blue and white porcelain did not shatter, but the rule of law did.

Drone hobbyists in Beijing have long been unable to fly drones in the city, and Beijing's new regulations have now added insult to injury. The new regulations state that starting November 15, holding drones will no longer be permitted anywhere in Beijing. In other words, the drone you paid for now needs to be moved out of Beijing by some means. Official solutions provided to drone players include: selling them, scrapping them, recycling them, or shipping them outside Beijing. Selling drones before the end of October grants a government subsidy of up to 3,000 yuan; processing them between November 1 and 14 reduces the subsidy to a maximum of 1,500 yuan. The government previously encouraged the "low-altitude economy," and now encourages "low-altitude departure from Beijing." The average price of a drone is about 3,000 to 7,000 RMB, and those required for this "time-limited disposal" are not just a few toys, but a considerable sunk cost. Of course, officials say this is to strengthen the security management of the capital, while how ordinary people's equipment and property losses are handled often comes second. Some netizens joked that drones directly enjoy firearm treatment.

During China's school opening season, bizarre incidents emerged endlessly. On September 12, at Wenshan Experimental Primary School in Yunnan, teachers required students to demonstrate classroom routines and read "I Love Our Motherland" with completely uniform actions, comparable to North Korea. Netizens lamented that individual edges do not matter; what matters is uniformity, identical heads, identical thoughts, identical behaviors, and an identical future. That is: brainwashing during student years, 996 rotating shifts at work, high housing prices and low wages in life, and early burial without money for medical treatment when old.

On September 11, a student shared a teaching building at their high school where staircases were covered in fences. Netizens joked: which prison is this? On September 9, a netizen shared a video of the back-to-school security check at Zijinshan Experimental School in Longyan, Fujian, where security gates and X-ray luggage inspection machines were set up at the school gate. Netizens said going to school feels just like passing through customs.

On September 11, a netizen posted a screenshot of a group chat where the "counselor" claimed that students

The school background system can check the software used by students to circumvent the Great Firewall, the websites they visit, and even "the posts they browse and the videos they watch." It also requires all students to immediately uninstall tools for circumventing the Great Firewall, warning that once verified, corresponding disciplinary actions will be taken, and those with serious circumstances will be handed over to the police (Public Security) for handling. The counselor also said that circumventing the Great Firewall may lead to personal information leakage and device hacking. Netizens said that they cannot see these things at all, and it is sheer bragging. If they could see them, they would have called people in one by one. The only thing they can see is the outbound bandwidth, and the volume of that bandwidth.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly called on everyone to "tighten their belts and live a frugal life." Let's take a look at how China's ruling class tightens their belts. A document from the Peking University Party Committee regarding "implementing the frugal life" is circulating on Twitter. One of the clauses states that all units are strictly prohibited from holding meetings at 21 scenic spots including Badaling, the Thirteen Tombs, the Chengde Mountain Resort, and Mount Hua. Netizens sarcastically commented that the document is tantamount to a voluntary confession that Peking University's meeting venues had long since expanded from Weiming Lake to Sanya. The so-called "living a frugal life," translated into Peking University language, means: landscapes cannot be viewed for the time being, but idlers are still supported and useless meetings are still held.

In the Mobile China segment, we used a video to recreate General Secretary Xi Jinping's one-day tour of the India BRICS summit. So, during those dozen-plus hours in New Delhi, did his BRICS currency and de-dollarization vision make any progress? When General Secretary Xi Jinping went to India this time to attend the BRICS summit, although he only stayed for one day, Beijing's ambition was not small: to push BRICS countries to accelerate "de-dollarization" and turn BRICS from a loose cooperative organization into a platform capable of challenging the Western financial system. As a result, after the summit concluded, the breakthrough the General Secretary wanted to see did not materialize. The "BRICS currency" that had been discussed by the outside world for a long time was not written into the New Delhi Declaration. The declaration only mentioned expanding local currency settlement, promoting payment system interconnectivity, and strengthening cooperation in digital currency and cross-border payments. The Indian side stated even more explicitly that there is currently no proposal whatsoever to establish a single BRICS currency. In other words, small-step cooperation is okay, but establishing a single currency is not. India put the brakes on General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Because the "BRICS currency" appears to be a financial issue on the surface, the underlying contest is actually about power. Who sets the rules? Who manages the payment system? Whose currency becomes the main reserve? When a financial crisis hits, who bears the losses? Russia, facing Western sanctions, urgently needs to bypass the US dollar and the Western payment system. China hopes to leverage the BRICS platform to expand the influence of the RMB and China's cross-border payment system. China and Russia have a shared need in this regard. However, India has its own plans. India hopes the world will no longer be dictated by the United States alone, but is equally unwilling to let China become the new boss. For India, weakening US dollar hegemony does not equal accepting RMB hegemony; opposing US control does not equal handing the financial lifeline over to Beijing. Therefore, the solution proposed by India is: countries use their own currencies for settlement, payment systems can be interconnected, and transaction costs can be reduced, but a unified financial system where China is most likely to take the lead cannot be established. What was finally achieved at this summit was only a bare-minimum consensus: everyone can use a little less US dollar, but they are unwilling to jointly use a new currency. China and Russia wanted to accelerate, India hit the brakes, and other member states continue to wait and see. Next year, China will take over the rotating chairmanship of BRICS, and General Secretary Xi Jinping will likely push this agenda again. But at least in New Delhi, General Secretary Xi Jinping's ambition to rebuild the financial order via BRICS was blocked by India on the first try.

This trip to India by General Secretary Xi Jinping was not just about politics, trade, and "de-dollarization"; he also brought a new product that China is most eager to export: artificial intelligence. According to Bloomberg, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed in New Delhi the establishment of a BRICS artificial intelligence open-source community to promote large language model development, application cooperation, and talent training. Chinese official media also suggested setting up a "BRICS AI Open Source Zone" and invited all countries to join the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization promoted by China. This plan looks very open, but behind it is a contest of technical standards. The United States holds leading models like OpenAI and Anthropic, but these companies mainly operate closed commercial ecosystems. China is temporarily lagging behind the US in high-end chips and top-tier models, so it chose another path: using open-source, low prices, and government support to attract Global South countries to use Chinese models, Chinese platforms, and Chinese technical standards. This is very similar to how China promoted 5G, telecommunications equipment, and digital infrastructure overseas in the past. First, provide lower-priced solutions, then help local areas build systems; once governments, businesses, and schools all start using them, the cost of changing suppliers will become higher and higher. What China exports is no longer just a set of AI tools, but a whole set of technical ecosystem and influence.

As a result, the problem is still India. India is developing its own AI industry and is certainly willing to acquire China's models and technology, but is unwilling to let its domestic AI infrastructure be controlled by Beijing. India hopes to use BRICS to expand its own influence, rather than helping China become the technological leader of the Global South. Therefore, although the New Delhi Declaration supports artificial intelligence cooperation, emphasizes improving the accessibility of AI resources, and includes expressions such as "secure, reliable, and inclusive," it did not fully accept the China-led proposal put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The answer given by this summit is very clear: using China's cheap technology is open for discussion; joining the AI ecosystem designed by General Secretary Xi Jinping is something countries must keep at arm's length. General Secretary Xi Jinping brought Chinese AI to New Delhi to sell it, and after listening, the BRICS countries only said one thing: cooperation is fine, leadership is out of the question.

The military of other countries studies combat readiness, while the People's Liberation Army (PLA) studies how to fold quilts. Some netizens shared a video of the PLA going all out to fold quilts into tofu blocks. Netizens said that the PLA's enemy is the unarmed common people, and they must not have combat effectiveness, otherwise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be frightened. Chinese official media's propaganda is notoriously bad, even able to spin a "price hike" as doing you a favor. Netizens mocked that in the CCP, language is not valued for being rigorous, but for how well it can deceive people.