The Chinese military wants a pay raise.

A tragic medical affliction

may be plaguing Chinese dissidents.

And finally,

with new Chinese tariffs,

we'll see a rise in the price of tinfoil hats.

This is China Uncensored.

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.

I'm your host Chris Chappell.

China is gearing up for another meeting

of the National People's Congress.

It's a time when everyone in the Chinese government

vies for power.

Including Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

More on that later,

but this is also the time when the budget

for 2018 gets set.

And everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Especially the military.

“China may have the world's largest military,

but for some it's not enough.

As Beijing gets ready to release

its defense budget for the year,

sources told Reuters that top brass

are pushing for a big bump in spending,

to combat modern threats.”

I mean, can you blame them?

It's not cheap to build

your capture the flag courses

out of LEGOs!

China is second to only the United States

on military spending.

Of course, “China's defense spending

is only about one-quarter that of the United States,

if official figures are accurate.”

Which is a big if.

But still,

they barely have enough to make

a proper propaganda video.

Look at what they rolled out

ahead of the Chinese New Year.

Behold the power of China's single tank.

The...navy?

They're even trying to reuse tanks as boats!

You get the point, they need more money.

Official figures from the past two years

show the smallest increase in the military budget

in a decade.

But “Experts say the true figure

is likely much higher than what is officially reported,

with money for some military projects

included in ostensibly non-military spending.”

What?

These missile launchers are totally for civilian use.

Now off to Xinjiang in Western China.

It's home of the much maligned

ethnic Uighur population.

They've had to deal with

a massive security crackdown,

surveillance using face recognition technology,

and Minority Report style precog criminal justice.

But somehow,

these Western news reports keep getting out!

Those meddling journalists…

Well now, the Chinese regime

is going after the journalists, too.

Authorities have detained the relatives

of four US-based reporters

with Radio Free Asia

who have been covering Xinjiang.

First, Chinese authorities just asked the relatives

to call those reporters and ask them

to stop reporting on Xinjiang.

But when threatening nicely didn't work,

the abductions started.

One reporter learned that Chinese police

had arrested 20 of the her relatives

because of her reporting.

Another one had relatives taken

to a political reeducation center

called the Loving Kindness School.

Don't worry.

It's one of China's top political reeducation centers—

along with the the Government Loves Everyone Academy,

and the CCP Besties 4-Ever Institute.

Of course, since we're hearing about

how journalists' relatives are being detained,

clearly the strategy of intimidating journalists

is not working.

A Chinese man was admitted

to a hospital earlier this week

for a minor stomach ache.

Even though previously he had

a clean bill of health,

this turned out to be a much deadlier condition.

He had contracted a case

of what Chinese military doctors call,

“being a rights lawyer.”

A few hours after entering the hospital,

the condition dramatically worsened

until tragically, he bled to death.

Because of a liver problem.

Yeah...

Some are calling rights lawyer Li Baiguang's death

at the No. 81 Military Hospital

a mysterious death.

But Bob Fu,

head of the Chinese Christian rights group,

ChinaAid, calls it murder.

Li Baiguang defended underground Christians in China.

They're the ones who refuse to worship

in state-approved churches

run by the atheist Communist Party.

A Twitter programer who was visiting his family in China

was invited to tea by the Chinese Public Security Bureau.

How friendly.

First, they asked him if he did anything

to “harm national interest.”

And then they asked for Twitter code technology

so they could monitor twitter content.

For national interest.

Now this may surprise you,

but Radio Free Asia suspects the Chinese regime

may be pressuring his family.

But even if the Public Security Bureau

didn't get the Twitter code they wanted,

at least they have Apple's Chinese users data.

Apple has officially put

all their Chinese users' iCloud data

on servers belonging to the state-run company,

Cloud Big Data.

Apple will also store

Chinese iCloud encryption keys there.

Just to make sure the Chinese regime

has easy access.

“Because of the move,

the Chinese government will be able use

its own legal system to ask Apple

for its users' iCloud data,

whereas before the government had to

go through the U.S. legal system.”

Now Apple has said

they weren't happy about it.

But in the end,

what choice did they have

other than to cave in?

I mean, it would be practically unethical

not to seek a share of that sweet,

sweet China market.

And finally,

President Trump has said he will implement

new tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel.

He's complained frequently about

how US manufacturing gets hurt,

because Chinese companies

get government subsidies

and export their goods

at below market prices.

“So, we're bringing it back

and we're going to bring it back relatively rapidly.

And we're going to be instituting tariffs.

Next week we'll be signing.”

From the initial announcement,

it looks like these tariffs will apply

to all aluminum and steel imports,

not just those from China.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government already

has plans to retaliate.

“Its commerce ministry investigating

imports of US sorghum,

which is used to feed livestock.

And officials say China

could further target soybeans.”

So is this the start of a trade war with China?

Well, what China doesn't realize is that

the US can actually survive just fine

without selling soybeans to China.

They really should put a tariff on iPhones.

So what do you think?

Leave your comments below.

Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.

Once again, I'm your host Chris Chappell.

See you next time.

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