Journey to China 2021: My China Activism Factfinding & Medical Solidarity Working Trip
PART ONE: My Trip to China
Lee Siu Hin
April 6, 2021
It’s been a year since the COVID outbreak around the world. During this time over 130 million people have become infected and 2.83 million have died, as of April 3rd, 2021; as a social justice and medical activist I have been working non-stop to fight against the pandemic through community education, mask donations and countering the racist, anti-China propaganda campaign in the U.S.
On top of that, throughout 2020 we also needed to fight against injustices amplified by Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and racist anti-Asian-American violence; we have had to support healthcare workers and the Black Lives Matter movement demanding justice. Our book, “Capitalism on a Ventilator” co-edited by Sara Flounders, which compares China's success and the U.S. failure in their pandemic responses, was even banned by Amazon!
Video: China Daily TikTok Video Report: “Capitalism on a Ventilator” was banned by Amazon
Since Biden won the election, many people believe it’ll be getting better; however, COVID rates are still as high as at this time last year, with the fourth wave coming in the U.S. and already engulfing Europe; Biden is detaining the highest numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in years; the new administration is turning up war rhetoric against China and Russia with stepped up military campaigns; there is more anti-Asian American violence while people no longer talk about de-funding the police. The hopes for a U.S. exit from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are getting dimmer; expect increased spending that will hyper-fatten the capitalists, potential inflation that’ll hurt the poor; and U.S. “exporting” toxic inflation to the Global South caused by printing more money; the injustices of Trump are no different then Biden’s injustices – the rich will get richer and the poor will be getting poorer without COVID-vaccines.
People are enjoying a false sense of “normalcy” while blaming China for their own failure, even pushing for more hawkish stands against China. That’s the reason why, just after I’d returned from the China medical factfinding solidarity trip of 2020, I decided to return to China for another medical solidarity trip at the end of March 2021.
The trip will also be a promotional tour for the upcoming Chinese edition of “Capitalism on a Ventilator.” After the Amazon censor saga, our book got noticed by the Chinese media and a Chinese publishing house contacted us to discuss publishing the book in Chinese. Someone is helping us with the translation; if everything works as planned, it could be available in Chinese bookstores within a few months.
PHOTO: Brought several dozen U.S. activism books for gifts in China
It’s a great honor that our book will be read by hundreds of thousands of people in China. It will be an opportunity for the China factfinding mission to meet with a wider-base of community activists and academia, as well as also planning our international medical solidarity work.
On March 21st after I tested negative on my COVID test in Los Angeles, I left LAX for Guangzhou, China flying on a China Southern Airlines Airbus 380 jumbo jet. It was 70% full, mostly overseas Chinese students returning home.
Unlike western airline companies, the Chinese airlines are far stricter on epidemic safety measures for their flights: every flight attendant wears PPE, no catering service is offered for the 14-hour flight (only a snack bag).
After arriving in the Guangzhou International airport on 3/23 (a 14-hour flight, but because of the time difference, we “lost” two days), China doesn’t want to take any chances in keeping COVID at bay, so they’re still enforcing very strict procedures to check every entering passenger.
We had to have another COVID test upon entry, and then they sent us to a quarantine hotel for the14-day lock-down observations (rooms are $50-$100/night, plus food so we hope soon we will no longer need to stay at the quarantine hotel). To further minimize the risk, we must stay only one person per room, a nurse checks our body-temperature twice every day, PCR tests are given every 5 days, we need to pass everything and obtain a green passing code from the government’s COVID health authority in order to be discharged from the quarantine hotel and be free to go anywhere. Without a green code, you cannot go anywhere, can’t take a train, can’t stay at a hotel, and can’t be allowed to enter many buildings.
PHOTO: During my 14 days of quarantine my code will remain red; until I complete the quarantine and am discharged from the hotel, it won’t change to green to enable me to travel freely anywhere.
During my 14-day stay at the quarantine hotel, I order online takeout food, jog daily 6 KM (4 miles) indoors; I continued my activism work online.
PHOTOS: We cannot leave the room; each door has a chair outside in the hall. The hotel staff will bring the deliveries and leave them on the chair.
PHOTOS: Everyday I order online takeout food from the app at the quarantine hotel.
PHOTO: Temperature checks twice per-day by the hotel medical team.
PHOTO: Reading activism books brought from the U.S. during quaratine life.
Chinese TV has daily coverage of the country’s nationwide vaccination efforts, global vaccine solidarity in support of other countries, rapid economic recovery and the positive, vibrant energy across the country.
PHOTO: At the end of March, Ruili – the Chinese southwestern border town near Myanmar, had a small COVID outbreak. The local government quickly organized the COVID vaccination campaign for all 300,000 residents within 5 days in early April.
PHOTO: A new state-of-the-art mobile vaccination bus in China, to serve the people who don’t have time to go to the vaccination center.
April 4th marks China’s Qingming festival (which follows the lunar calendar); it's equivalent to Memorial Day in the U.S. Traditionally people hike to their family ancestral grave for the memorial; it is also a day where community members pay their respects for the country’s martyrs. High schools across China organized their millions of students for a day of hiking to memorials for their local martyrs to pay their respects to the people who sacrificed their lives for the country. On April 3rd a high school from the north central city of Guyuan organized 2,000 students with their teachers for a 40-miles round-trip hike to the memorial making headlines in the country.
This is in comparison to the ongoing disorganized failure of the U.S. anti-pandemic work under Biden, the renewed lockdowns and the vaccination disasters in Europe, and the unavoidable new waves of COVID surges in these countries.
I am sick and tired about what I am seeing everyday in the U.S.: the racists and the oppressed people fighting; fundamental COVID response failure; extremely greedy, selfishness and economic injustice where the rich keep on stealing from the poor and the Global South, fascist QAnon anti-science idiocy, while the majority of Americans can conveniently and comfortably shift their failure to China, socialism, Russia, Iran, Syria, “welfare queens,” and Venezuela without feeling any shame.
Some say COVID has been a “mirror” to reflect the true nature of the good, the bad or the ugly.
On April 6th, after passing the last COVID test, I will be free to leave the quarantine hotel, go to Shanghai, and begin my China activism trip.
More updates from my China solidarity trip will be following.
About Lee Siu Hin
Lee Siu Hin, a Chinese-American immigrant activist from Los Angeles, CA. He was born in Hong Kong, China and is a fifth generation Chinese-Japanese migrant from Kobe, Japan.
Lee founded and is national coordinator of the China-U.S. Solidarity Network (CUSN) and the National Immigrant Solidarity Network (NISN). He is a long-time community, labor, antiwar and immigrant rights activist working with NISN, a national grassroots immigrant activist network; and CUSN, a network of academic and community activists in both countries committed to build a China-U.S. grassroots activist dialogue.
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
ActionLA Network http://www.ActionLA.org
Activist Video Service http://www.ActivistVideo.org
China-US Bi-National Activist Solidarity Network http://www.chinadelegation.org
A long-time Pacifica Radio KPFK Los Angeles reporter and producer, Lee was a war correspondent between 1992-2005 in the Middle East, Europe, Mexico and Africa, and has published hundreds of articles, short video documentaries and photo essays.
Lee was a primary organizer of anti-globalization actions of D2K LA (August 2000), the 2001-2003 anti-war protests against U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the May Day 2006 immigrant rights march, and the China-U.S. international activists solidarity project. Between 2016-2020 he organized a dozen U.S. activist delegations to China, and delegations of Chinese activists to the U.S.
He holds a Masters of Science (Aerospace Engineering) and a Masters of Public Administration from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California.
He runs a medical IT technology non-profit that is developing a mobile health care system based on big data to help people living in inner-city communities and the Global South to manage their health care.
Lee lives and works between Los Angeles, California, and Shanghai, China. e-mail: ActivistWeb@gmail.com WeChat: 16266953405 Twitter: @siuhin
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