“A crisis of confidence” | Hmmmm…. Henan's banking scandal

Depositors in several banks in Henan and Anhui are fighting to get their money back, after withdrawals were blocked with no explanation. Assumed to be either incompetence or straight out theft.

The customers planned demos a month or so ago, but were blocked by local government which turned their Covid tracking Apps — to red. In China you can’t go anywhere without your Covid app. If you’re Red, you can’t go anywhere. This freaked out lots of people, including me. But then it was “well, this is China”. Then we heard, amazingly, that Beijing had punished Henan officials who’d misused the app. Great.

Having made it to Zhengzhou, the capital, they were met with uniformed police, plain clothes police and these white-shirted mystery men circled above — probably hired thugs. We had the same sort of thugs here in Hong Kong back in mid 2019, when they came to a subway station and beat the crap out of some demonstrators. I don’t think they were ever caught. Hmmmm… 

So here we have the latest in government-sponsored thuggery. First it was il Duce’s Black Shirts, then Adolf’s Brown Shirts. Now Henan's White Shirts.  Circled in red above.

By the way, I think it’s interesting, and for now encouraging, that the SCMP is reporting this issue in some detail. The above is its full back page, today’s print edition. Plus an inside article, noting that in China they’re warning not to publish stuff from “hostile” western forces, which is basically anyone reporting the issue at all. Like today’s Post.