There's a contemporary story from the martial arts world that illustrates the price of even the most superficial rebellion against the Chinese Communist Party. There's a mixed martial artist, named
Xu Xiaodong. He loves martial arts, and China's history with it. One day, he's watching the TV, and a program about them comes on. It claims that Tai Chi masters can defeat ten men at once and stop a man's heart with a single touch. This and many other outrageous claims about Chinese martial arts are "believed" by many people in China and masters of the schools frequently claim such things. So, Xu began challenging Tai Chi masters- when one finally accepted, Xu handily defeated him in 20 seconds.
In response, the Chinese government censured him for "disparaging Chinese culture" and "promoting Western values". His family received death threats. Xu was prevented from fighting other Tai Chi masters and repeatedly jailed. He was first forbidden from organizing tournaments in his gym, then from competing in tournaments at all. The gym he trained at claimed they never trained him and denounced him as an enemy of the Chinese people and martial arts. He would be harassed virtually everywhere he went by martial artists challenging him and even punching him on camera in broad daylight- if Xu did anything to defend himself, he would be arrested and jailed again for assaulting the martial artists.
Xu continued to denounce what he saw as fraud in the world of martial arts. Upon critiquing a famed Tai Chi master, he was censured, had his social media deleted, was ordered to pay US$60,000 in damages and to spend an hour a day for the next seven days apologizing and denouncing himself as a fraud and an enemy of China and martial arts on social media. His social credit score was lowered to the point he could no longer rent or own any place to live or use any form of public transport. His own family denounced him and disowned him. The Chinese government began to allow him to fight again: but only if he wore Chinese clown makeup, had his tattoos covered up, and fought under a pseudonym that would best translate as "stupid obese midget". Xu accepted these terms, and once again challenged a master he viewed as a fraud.
Two days before the fight was to begin, the location of the venue was changed to a location thousands of miles away from where it was supposed to be fought- most likely in the hopes that Xu would not be able to arrive in time and would thus forfeit the match. Xu traveled for 36 straight hours to reach the new venue, and had to sleep in a locker room for a few hours before the fight.
When the fight actually took place, Xu, despite clearly being weak on his feet, dominated the master, unleashing the full breadth and depth of his MMA background against his opponent. After 3 minutes, with his opponent lying near-unconscious on the ground without having laid a single meaningful blow, the fight was called.... and declared a draw. Xu was decried as having cheated, and the match was later totally invalidated to preserve the master's "undefeated" score. The only reason he hasn't "vanished" is because he hasn't said anything directly critical of the government and has essentially been turned into an unperson.
www.bbc.co.uk
