8 Strange Things Banned In China

Let us begin by asking you two simple questions. First, are you someone who spends a lot of time scrolling through Instagram and can’t even imagine life without it? Second, are you planning to visit or move to China? If the answer to both these questions is a yes, then, unfortunately, you’ll have to give up on one thing – IG or China! Because China has banned Instagram. 

Instagram banned. Seems quite irrational, right? Well, not for the Chinese Government that completely censored it starting September 2014 to stop people from sharing instigating images during the pro-democracy protests.

But Instagram is not the only one thing, China has a long list of banned artifacts – from popular websites such as Facebook and YouTube to some peculiar stuff such as cartoon characters and flowers. And we are going to look at some of them in this article. 

So brace yourselves for the eight most strange things China has banned for various reasons.

1. Winnie The Pooh

We know it sounds weird, but Winnie The Pooh is a banned character in China. In 2013, when Barack Obama visited China, things didn’t turn out well for the Chinese president. A photo of Barack Obama and XI Jinping walking together went viral, getting memeified everywhere on the Chinese Internet. Memers started making fun of the Chinese president by comparing him with A.A. Milne’s uber-popular fictional character, Winnie The Pooh.

As this incident was damaging and made fun of the president’s reputation, the Chinese Government kicked Winnie The Pooh out of the nation’s borders. The Government also banned the phrase ‘Winnie The Pooh” from Twitter’s Chinese alternative, Weibo. And it is safe to say that as long as Xi Jinping remains the President of China, the ban on Winnie The Pooh will remain in effect.

2. Jasmine Flowers

In December 2010, the citizens of Tunisia successfully demonstrated 28-day civil unrest against the regime. The movement, named the “Jasmine Revolution” after the country’s national flower, aimed to hold the government responsible for the dwindling quality of life in the north African nation.

Now, the Jasmine revolution took place in Tunisia. But, its scent had reached the shores of China, suggesting something similar in the communist nation. This led to the Chinese government curbing the Jasmine flower and any mention of it on the internet.

3. Google

You are not the only one using Google a million times a day. Google processes more than 8.5 billion searches on a daily basis. But, even these mighty stats couldn’t save it from getting banned in China. In 2014, the Chinese government blocked all Google servers and services in China. On being questioned, the Chinese government vindicated its decision by citing that Google is storing information about Chinese people on its non-Chinese servers.

There were some more added justifications the government offered against the Google ban. One of these was that the Chinese government wants to encourage China’s domestic search engine, Baidu as an alternative to Google.

4. Violent Video Games

If you are a hardcore fan of violent FPS (first-person shooter) games, China is certainly not the place for you. The Chinese Government has prohibited violent video games. And not only violence but sex and gambling-related games are also banned in China.

China announced the ban on (allegedly) violent video games in April 2019, stating that such games negatively influence young minds. Hence, they should not be played by anyone and not just the youth. This ban includes popular games such as Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and I.G.I-2.

Furthermore, games with plots that revolve around demeaning or showing the Chinese government in a negative light have also been banned, for obvious reasons.

5. Social Media Websites and Apps

The Chinese government has always been apprehensive of western social media platforms. Thus, it is little wonder that most, if not all, popular social media apps and websites have no official existence in the communist state.

Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat (also Instagram, as mentioned above) are just some of the social media sites forbidden by the Chinese government.

The social media ban allows the Chinese state to monitor the information its citizens divulge about the nation and prevent any social unrest resulting from sharing provocative messages on SM apps and websites. Does this remind you of 1984?

6. Gambling

The Chinese government imposed a ban on gambling in 1949, 73 years ago. However, gambling is an old tradition in China, and it is difficult to restrain people from engaging in it. Many Chinese entrepreneurs also established illegal casinos and operated them underground.

But, the Chinese government has been extra strict about the gambling ban recently, taking stringent measures against underground Casinos and online gambling.

7. Peppa Pig

Peppa pig has garnered accolades all over the world for entertaining an entire generation of youngsters. But, all that pales in comparison to Peppa’s newest achievement – a name on China’s list of banned cartoon characters.

Yes, China has banned the world’s most harmless piglet, and for an outrageous reason at that. Peppa is no stranger to dark fan-fiction. Theories surrounding her death have been making rounds on the internet for some time now. But China has gone a step ahead, associating the piglet with gangsters.

According to the government, a class of people known as “shehuiren” – gangsters, lowlives, individuals with low moral values, etc., began using Peppa to make fun of the state using jokes and memes, videos, etc. This resulted in the government outright banning her and directing the authorities to see to it.

The ban resulted in Doukyin, a popular Chinese video app censoring the hashtag #peppapig and deleting over 30,000 clips of the pink cartoon character.

8. Time Travel Plots in Shows and Movies

If a ban on Peppa was not enough for you, we have something even stranger for you – time travel. China is infamous for banning the most absurd things, objects, or concepts that are by no means related to the destabilization of the state. And one of them is Time travel plots in movies, tv shows, and OTA series.

According to the government, the concept of time travel promotes subversion of history. The act of a person going back in time and changing the course of action of events signifies negativity and a lack of logical reasoning – two factors the Chinese government condemns.

This might be one of the reasons why the recent Dr. Strange movie faced a ban in China.

9. Some More Utterly Weird Bans By The Chinese Government

Reincarnation
China invalidates all reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhist monks unless issued approval by the government. (Insert the Batman, scratching his chin, saying “hmm…… interesting” meme here)

The show “The Big Bang Theory”
The Chinese authorities issued orders to retract the popular sitcom from Sohu in 2014, China’s most popular streaming service, after an explosion in its popularity.

No specific reasons were given, but we can safely assume the “western influence and low-values” factors to be behind the ban.

Alice In Wonderland
The 1865 children’s classic by Lewis Carroll got a ban in Hunan, China, in 1931.

The animals in the book display human characteristics, an attribute the governor of Hunan found quite insulting as a human. Thus, he ordered the novel to be banned.

Brad Pitt
China banned Mr. Pitt for a whopping 20 years after the release of his movie “Seven Years in Tibet”. Seven Years showed Pitt acquainting with Dalai Lama, a Tibetan monk, during the siege of Tibet by China.

The Chinese government didn’t like how the movie showed China’s brutal annexation of Tibet and banned Brad Pitt and Jean Annaud – the director, from the country. However, the ban has been lifted as of 2016.

Conclusion

So there you have it, eight of the most unusual bans China has enforced over the years.

If you read between the lines, you will observe that most of the bans here preserve the national integrity of the nation.

From protecting government secrets and deterring corporations from collecting citizens’ data to preventing rebellions and inculcating good morals in the populace, China’s bans play a myriad of roles in keeping the country intact.

And seeing how the Chinese government is overly careful about the general public’s well-being, we are sure the number of bans in the future will only grow.