A woman from a low-income family in China crossed over into Hong Kong to get to a concert she had spent months saving up for.
It was a trip that Beijing’s vast surveillance apparatus didn’t miss. Now her family face the prospect of losing their government benefits for splurging on “high-end consumption.”
The incident has sparked massive debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving benefits are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese government’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital payments.
The story first surfaced in a post on popular site Red Note in early September by a user who said they were the young woman’s cousin.
The woman, surnamed Huang, had “worked hard doing manual labor and saved up from the subsidies” to pay for the concert ticket and expenses of traveling to Hong Kong, around 235 miles (380 kilometers) from her home in Jiangxi province, the post said.
#hong #family #government #benefits
It was a trip that Beijing’s vast surveillance apparatus didn’t miss. Now her family face the prospect of losing their government benefits for splurging on “high-end consumption.”
The incident has sparked massive debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving benefits are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese government’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital payments.
The story first surfaced in a post on popular site Red Note in early September by a user who said they were the young woman’s cousin.
The woman, surnamed Huang, had “worked hard doing manual labor and saved up from the subsidies” to pay for the concert ticket and expenses of traveling to Hong Kong, around 235 miles (380 kilometers) from her home in Jiangxi province, the post said.
#hong #family #government #benefits
2 months ago
