Chinese Flight Attendant's Kiss with Pilot Leads to Homophobia Case

[PeterRS]

This is not a news story as it first appeared last November. But it was highlighted today in a CNN website article.

It was just a private kiss in an elevator in October 2019. The two men worked for state owned China Southern Airlines, China's largest, based in Guangzhou. One was a handsome 29 year old flight attendant who had worked for the airline for five years, Chai Cheng. The other was an unnamed pilot. Somehow that kiss found its way onto social media and went viral. Soon Chai was referred to as the China Southern cabin boy. Although homosexuality is not illegal in China, the current President Xi has been tightening up on homosexuality in recent years.

By all accounts Chai had been a model employee receiving several quick promotions. As he points out, quite a number of flight attendants are gay but they do everything possible to hide this from co-workers. Now that he has been outed, they go to even greater lengths to appear straight. Initially his bosses told him just to keep quiet about the incident and put him on unpaid leave. Then in April last year he was informed his contract would not be renewed "for obvious reasons".

In August Chai decided to sue China Southern for the six months salary he was denied. Although the case is not about discrimination, should Chai win it it is likely that a discrimination case will follow. Although Chai was fired, the pilot was not. This was because airlines invest a great deal of money training pilots. No doubt China Southern did not want to waste that investment. The case was heard in Court last November and the verdict is awaited. How the Court interprets the law is keenly awaited for a 2008 national law prohibits discrimination based on gender. It appears this has not yet been tested in any  court.

Since the incident, Chai has become an unlikely hero and activist for the LGBT community. 

Chai in an undated photo provided by him to CNN

Chai and his lawyer in a photo released by the LGBT Rights Advocacy China

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/26/china/china-southern-flight-attendant-trial-lgbtq-intl-dst-hnk/index.html

[Lucky]

God luck, Chai!

[fedssocr]

model employee indeed. Good luck to him. Does OnlyFans work in China?

[caeron]

Cute guy and I wish him luck. 

I remember naively thinking that the embrace of open markets would lead to more opening in Chinese society. Events have proven how wrong that was.

[TotallyOz]

It is sad that only the flight attendant was the one outed and fired. What a double standard. (clearly, neither should have been fired) I have been to many places in China and love the gay guys there. There are also tons of them that visit Bangkok. I wish this guy the best. I am not sure how far this will go but I hope he wins and creates more change in that society.

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, caeron said:

I remember naively thinking that the embrace of open markets would lead to more opening in Chinese society. Events have proven how wrong that was.

I read many pundits claiming that Hong Kong wold become the model for Taiwan returning to the embrace of the mainland. Deng Xiao-ping's one-country-two-systems model that is enshrined in law and registered at the United Nations promised Hong Kong a large degree of autonomy for 50 years - i.e. until 2047. It was believed by most that by then China would be more capitalist than Hong Kong and with a more democratic system of governance in place. Once again events have proven how wrong that prognostication was!

With all the panic around the world over covid19, Xi Jin-ping has totally blown that international agreement between Britain and China to bits. I do think, though, that the protestors who all but closed the central business district for months in 2014 and the excesses of some the protests in 2019 gave the mandarins in Beijing the excuse they needed to clamp down hard. 

Go back in time and it is clear to me that Britain is at the root cause of the problem. It had many decades to introduce a form of true democracy in Hong Kong. It did virtually nothing. What Hong Kong had got by the early 1990s was a sham form of very weak democracy that was democratic in name only. But it had the promise of both governments of much greater democracy by 2017. Then the last Hong Kong Governor, Christopher Patten, went behind everyone's back, including the British Prime Minister who appointed him, broke the provisions of the Basic Law which mandated in an international treaty that any changes prior to 1997 had to be be discussed and agreed by both sides, and announced that he would unilaterally introduce greater democracy. China was furious and the British government was far from pleased. At a stroke Patten ensured that China was never going to trust Britain and that it would have its way in Hong Kong sooner rather than later.

So the Taiwan question is now front and centre once again. Legally, its status depends on which international Treaty legal scholars believe is the more valid. In 1943 there was a Conference in Cairo between the Roosevelt, Churchill and their Asian ally, the ruler of China Chiang Kai-shek, to reach an agreement on the fate of Japanese occupied colonies after the end of the War. It was formally agreed all were to be returned to the countries from which Japan had annexed them. By then, China had ruled Taiwan for more than 200 years. When Chiang lost the revolutionary war with the communists and fled to Taiwan, the west was horrified. Two large communist powers was at least one too many. So another Conference was arranged in San Francisco in 1951 at which Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan. Crucially no agreement was reached over who should become the new sovereign power. Hence all the war games around Taiwan for decades thereafter.

If China takes it back by force which it is perfectly capable of doing very quickly, will the US and other countries now fight on the island's behalf? I cannot see it.

And how would that scenario affect the progress of the fledgling LGBT movement on the mainland? How would it affect the situation re gay marriage which Taiwan has legally adopted? Over the last few years Xi Jin-ping has solidified his power by getting rid of most of his opponents. He is now the most powerful leader China has ever had. Can we hope that the remains of the anti-Xi movement may eventually be able to topple him?  

[fedssocr]

Of course Taiwan does have a fairly advanced military. And the people mostly consider themselves to be Taiwanese, not Chinese. So I don't think it would be easy for the Chinese to takeover or rule. The US seems to be trying to draw together the other democracies in the neighborhood to counter China's expansionist plans. 

China has a lot of looming problems demographically and otherwise. Xi will do whatever he wants for the rest of his life. As you say there doesn't seem to be anyone to challenge him at this point. He seems to see himself as an emporer and the CCP has given him what he wants.

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, fedssocr said:

Of course Taiwan does have a fairly advanced military. And the people mostly consider themselves to be Taiwanese, not Chinese. So I don't think it would be easy for the Chinese to takeover or rule. The US seems to be trying to draw together the other democracies in the neighborhood to counter China's expansionist plans. 

China has a lot of looming problems demographically and otherwise. Xi will do whatever he wants for the rest of his life. As you say there doesn't seem to be anyone to challenge him at this point. He seems to see himself as an emporer and the CCP has given him what he wants.

Taiwan's military is indeed advanced and all young men have to do their military service - one reason why most of the younger guys you see at the hot springs  have such great bodies  But Taiwan has armed forces of less than 300,000 whereas China can muster almost ten times that amount. In the event of a sustained air and sea attack, Taiwan could not hold out very long, I believe. On the other hand, I think your view is correct. If anything will hold China back from the brink of a war it is that at least some of the mandarins in Beijing must surely realise that attempting to rule a people who would loathe them will be totally different from the result of their actions in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang. 

When you mention China's demographic problems, are you referring to the result of the one child policy - a 50 million plus excess of males over females many now of marriageable age? There is a thriving cross border trade with crooked agents virtually stealing female teenagers from Vietnam to provide partners for poorer Chinese farmers. That though is a drop in the bucket. With so many gay men having to marry for societal reasons, if China would just mandate a greater acceptance of homosexuality perhaps the problem would just disappear!!

[Guest]

Taiwan is an important country at the moment.   

TSMC produce and a couple of smaller manufacturers produce about 63% of the world's subcontract semiconductors.   They are apparently some way ahead of Intel in production at present and there has been pressure on Intel management to subcontract manufacture of their designs to TSMC.    I believe the AMD and ARM processors are made there.    

So if China invaded and quickly defeated Taiwan, they would have control of this.  I'd imagine the US would not like that to happen, so the Taiwan dominance in semi-conductor manufacture increases the chances of the US intervening.     Also, think of all the factories around the world having to stop due to no semi-conductors.  For example car plants.

This is probably worse than a major oil producer getting invaded.

The only saving grace is they need equipment from ASML(Netherlands) to manufacture.   The US managed to block at least some ASML exports to China.  If China invaded Taiwan, presumably there would be a block on exports.   Given enough time, one would think the Chinese could reverse engineer the existing generation of ASML products.

On the one hand, I think the US has to discourage a Chinese invasion.  

On the other hand, I suspect Mr Xi would have the ambition to take over Taiwan during his remaining years.  The chances of doing that peacefully must be near zero after the Hong Kong example has removed all trust in Beijing.  He's already 67.

 

 

 

[fedssocr]

I primarily was referring to their demographic issues. Of course most of the post-industrialized world has demographic challenges too.

They have some big economic challenges too

 

[PeterRS]

4 hours ago, fedssocr said:

I primarily was referring to their demographic issues. Of course most of the post-industrialized world has demographic challenges too.

They have some big economic challenges too

i find those videos interesting, but not their conclusions. I have read a couple of the books on the list including Martin Jacques "When China Rules The World". Jacques has been a very astute observer of China and much of what he writes is, I believe, pretty accurate.

The demographic situation is a projection based on what has been happening in countries with higher per head incomes like Japan and Singapore. These countries certainly have major problems with young people postponing marriage until much later and some even preferring to remain single. The long term prognosis with a rapidly ageing population means that Japan will have to start opening up to foreign workers far more than at present. To follow Singapore's example, in other words.

The OL problem in Japan (office ladies who live with their parents till their 30s, save up a lot of cash and then spend lavishly on overseas trips and luxury goods) has been a big problem for decades and there seems no end in sight. But I do believe the vdo fails to consider three elements: Chinese tradition, the effects of Mao's horrendous campaigns, and an on-going result of the one child policy. Although as the middle class has become even richer and more will ascend into the middle class, there are still probably many millions who resented the fact that they could have only one child - especially those who had daughters rather than sons. IMHO with the policy now abandoned, there will be enough couples seeking to have 2 or 3 children to render part of the vdo consequence incorrect. The economic reforms started by Deng pulled more than 400 million out of poverty. There remain at least another 350 million working in the countryside. They are richer than before but they remain rooted to tradition. Even though their brighter children will move away, they still want more children to help work on the farms etc.

The issue of the towns with few people is also not a new problem. The reason for them is complicated and I certainly do not fully understand it. But I do know it relates to land ownership and what you can do with it, taxation and other factors, often local. In at least some cases, developers have purchased land from local authorities. Once that happens, they must develop that land almost immediately. Unlike Thailand and most other countries, they cannot sit on it and wait until their constructions become economically more favourable. The fact is that given enough time many towns similar to Ordos in the vdo were built on spec and subsequently filled up. The Pudong area in Shanghai is perhaps the most spectacular. The Chengzhong District of Kunming is another. 

So looking to the future is one reason for what are inaccurately called "ghost cities". The 'facts' about Ordos in the vdo are now totally wrong. By 2017 it had a population of 153,000 and was home to 4,750 businesses. That year an article in Forbes magazine noted that of the 40,000 apartments constructed in 2004, only 500 remained on the market in 2017. Furthermore, resale values of apartments had risen 50% in the preceding 18 months.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/06/30/ordos-chinas-most-infamous-ex-ghost-city-continues-rising/?sh=18c5d1186877