A Province Goes Dark; Xi’s Stress Test; Bad Economic News and a Deadly Crash in Guangde
This Week in China — June 20–26, 2026. Broadcast on X at @whyyoutouzhele and on YouTube 李老师不是你老师 ("Teacher Li is not your teacher"). Chinese citizens reporting the realities of Chinese life.
At the social apex this week, Xi Jinping was celebrated as a model son for Father’s Day, although some of his own remarks from years ago, surfaced by netizens, entirely contradicted the propaganda. In the middle, schoolteachers faced yet more official loyalty tests as the security apparatus focused on renovating the Great Firewall. Further down, the economic news was bad and revolts simmered. One sign of financial stress is officialdom cooking up new ways of extracting revenue, so across Heilongjiang province whole towns of shopkeepers pulled their shutters rather than meet a wave of…
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