Here’s another in the ongoing series about the long arm of the Chinese law. This time, in London, Chinese-flag-waving tourists harass Brendan Kavanagh, a YouTube piano star (yes, there is such a genre), into hiding because he offended them by filming the Chinese waving their Chinese flags. Or something. The point is to make the UK and the global internet submit to the tastes of the Chinese Communist Party.
Radio Free Asia (RFA)* has the general story here. A snippet from the article’s intro:
YouTuber Brendan Kavanagh lived in a van for two days out of fear of violent repercussions following a standoff with a group of Chinese flag-wavers around the public piano in London's St Pancras railway station, he said via his channel, adding that he had received emails "threatening his life" after the incident went viral.
If you watch the video that includes the offending segments, you see the group of young Chinese nationalists argue with Brendan, then abruptly—and very loudly—accuse him of somehow touching a female of their group, causing Brendan to retreat. Not everything is in frame, so you can’t really see that he isn’t touching anyone else, but he doesn’t appear to be. And because of the cultural sensitivities of our time and cultures, the police err on the side of protecting the so-called tourists who claim to have been wronged.
This is how much of hostile foreign intelligence work and subterfuge are done: using our own cultural obsessions against us in order to create space for their own agitation and propaganda purposes. The point was apparently to film flag-waving mainland “patriots” standing up for themselves and their national pride while in a public space in a major western capital city—and making the westerner retreat and show deference, to kowtow, as it were.
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* The US government-created news organization RFA describes itself and its purpose here.
My husband follows the piano picker and has for some time. He told me about it the day it happened and we watched the hole incident unfold because that is how I am, I want first hand sources and I have the procrastination ability to take advantage of them.
My take, with a caveat, is that the engagement started out civilly enough. He thought they were Japanese initially and even invited one of the women to dance. But he demand to stop filming them startled him and he saw no reason he should comply. He knew the law, this was his country, they had no standing.
They claimed special permission but did not produce a document to support it. They had ample opportunity to move out of camera range but did not do so.
Kavenaugh referred to their flags (which they were holding, not waving) as communist flags. Apparently he tried to touch one of the flags and that sparked the DO NOT TOUCH HER!!!!!! hysteria.
In different times this could have been de-escalated and been a minor incident. We don't live in different times.
Caveat: I don't pick up certain social signals. It is entirely possible that there was a tone and atmosphere that didn't show up on video but that rendered the subsequent outrage reasonable.
Our kids are obsessed (and dumbed down) by being addicted to TikTok and the app is illegal in China. We are so easily duped.