A Chinese woman crossed the border for a concert. It could cost her family their welfare

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A woman from a low-income family in China crossed over into Hong Kong to get to a concert she had spent months saving up for.

It was a trip that Beijing’s vast surveillance apparatus didn’t miss. Now her family face the prospect of losing their government benefits for splurging on “high-end consumption.”

The incident has sparked massive debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving benefits are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese government’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital payments.

The story first surfaced in a post on popular site Red Note in early September by a user who said they were the young woman’s cousin.

The woman, surnamed Huang, had “worked hard doing manual labor and saved up from the subsidies” to pay for the concert ticket and expenses of traveling to Hong Kong, around 235 miles (380 kilometers) from her home in Jiangxi province, the post said.

That post has since been taken down, but Chinese officials have said it was indeed written by the woman’s cousin. A screenshot of it has also been used by state media reporting on the case.

Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 following more than 100 years of British colonial rule. It is governed by separate legal and political systems to mainland China, and mainland Chinese citizens still must apply for permission to travel there.

According to the Red Note post, a local social worker warned Huang before the trip that any border crossing could trigger a review of her family’s eligibility for welfare.

“I can’t tell if she was actually dumb enough to think Hong Kong doesn’t count as going abroad, or if she knew perfectly well and went anyway,” it said.

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The family is in “extreme, extreme poverty” and the prospect of losing the payments has left them in “complete devastation,” the post said.

It is unclear what concert Huang had risked so much to go and see.

For many of the legions of K-Pop fans in mainland China, Hong Kong is the most accessible place to see a K-Pop concert. For the past decade, Beijing has placed an unofficial ban on performances by Korean artists on the mainland as it feuds with Seoul over trade and the presence of US weapons in South Korea.

In late August in Hong Kong there was a two-day international music awards festival featuring performances from different K-Pop bands, including some famous ones such as ALLDAY PROJECT, aespa, BABYMONSTER, RIIZE, Super Junior and TOMORROW X TOGETHER.

On September 7, the Social Affairs Management Bureau in Ganzhou in Jiangxi province, where the young woman lives, issued an official readout on its website in response to the heated discussion on the original Red Note post.

The bureau said Huang and her family were under investigation “after she independently traveled to Hong Kong to attend a concert, the trip triggered an alert in the dynamic monitoring system for recipients of the minimum living allowance.”

The city’s New Economic Development Zone’s Social Affairs Management Bureau told CNN on Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.

Over the four decades to 2020, China lifted the vast bulk of its population out of poverty, and in 2021 leader Xi Jinping declared that extreme poverty had been eliminated. But official data shows around 40 million people across the country still depend on government living subsidies.

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According to Ganzhou’s policy, if a household per-person income is below the minimum living allowance threshold set by the government, each person in the family could receive 1,005 yuan per month, equivalent to $150 dollars.

The case has sparked so much debate that China’s state media has waded in.

The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily issued a commentary last week saying “of course, reasonable freedom to spend one’s money should be respected, but that freedom has limits, and people receiving public assistance are even more obligated to follow the rules.”

Government basic living subsidies are “meant to cover basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Going to Hong Kong to see a concert is a high-cost form of entertainment, so there is nothing unreasonable about it triggering an alert in the monitoring system,” it said.

The online discussion has drawn over 120 million views on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Some commenters said they thought it would be “cruel” if the family lost their welfare. “Does being low-income mean you are not allowed to enjoy things you like?,” asked one person.

But many other were less sympathetic. “Her family is struggling this badly, and she doesn’t think to use the money she earns to help her family out?” asked another user of the platform.

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一位来自中国低收入家庭的女子为了观看一场她攒了几个月钱的演唱会，越境进入香港。

这次旅行并没有逃过北京庞大监控系统的监视。现在，她的家人面临着因“高端消费”而失去政府福利的风险。

这一事件在中国社交媒体上引发了关于领取福利者是否也有权享受一些奢侈品的激烈辩论。它也提醒人们，中国政府的监控系统规模之大令人震惊，而人工智能的进步和数字支付的普及更是加速了这一系统的扩张。

这个故事最早出现在9月初热门网站Red Note上的一篇帖子中，发帖人自称是这位年轻女子的表亲。

帖子称，这名黄姓女子“辛勤做体力劳动，并靠补​​贴攒钱”，才得以支付演唱会门票和前往香港的旅费。香港距离她位于江西省的家乡约 380 公里（235 英里）。

该帖子已被删除，但中国官员表示，帖子确实是该女子表兄所写。官方媒体在报道此案时也使用了该帖子的截图。

香港在经历了100多年的英国殖民统治后，于1997年回归中国。香港实行与中国大陆不同的法律和政治制度，中国大陆公民前往香港仍需申请许可。

根据 Red Note 的帖子，当地一名社工在黄女士出行前曾警告她，任何越境行为都可能引发对其家庭福利资格的审查。

“我无法判断她是真的蠢到认为去香港不算出国，还是她明知故犯，”声明中写道。

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帖子称，这个家庭处于“极度贫困”状态，失去补助金的前景让他们“彻底崩溃”。

目前还不清楚黄某冒着如此大的风险去看的是哪场演唱会。

对于中国大陆众多K-Pop粉丝来说，香港是观看K-Pop演唱会最便捷的地点。过去十年间，由于中韩两国在贸易和美国在韩国部署武器等问题上存在分歧，北京方面实际上禁止了韩国艺人在中国大陆的演出。

8 月下旬，香港举办了一场为期两天的国际音乐颁奖盛典，众多韩国流行音乐组合进行了表演，其中包括一些知名组合，如 ALLDAY PROJECT、aespa、BABYMONSTER、RIIZE、Super Junior 和 TOMORROW X TOGETHER。

9月7日，针对最初“红字帖”引发的热烈讨论，该年轻女子居住的江西省赣州市社会事务管理局在其网站上发布了官方声明。

该局表示，黄女士及其家人正在接受调查，“此前她独自前往香港参加音乐会，此次行程触发了最低生活津贴领取者动态监控系统的警报”。

该市新经济开发区社会事务管理局周三告诉 CNN，调查仍在进行中。

在截至2020年的四十年间，中国使绝大多数人口摆脱了贫困，2021年，国家主席习近平宣布极端贫困人口已被消除。但官方数据显示，全国仍有约4000万人依赖政府生活补贴。

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根据赣州市的政策，如果一个家庭的人均收入低于政府规定的最低生活津贴标准，那么该家庭的每个人每月可以领取1005元人民币，相当于150美元。

该案件引发了广泛的讨论，甚至连中国官方媒体也介入其中。

中共喉舌《人民日报》上周发表评论称，“当然，合理支配个人金钱的自由应该得到尊重，但这种自由是有界限的，接受公共援助的人更有义务遵守规则。”

政府基本生活津贴“旨在涵盖食品、衣物、住房和交通等基本生活必需品。去香港看演唱会是一种高成本的娱乐方式，因此触发监控系统警报并无不妥之处。”声明中写道。

这场网络讨论在中国社交媒体平台微博上获得了超过1.2亿的浏览量。一些评论者表示，如果这个家庭失去福利，那将“太残酷了”。一位网友问道：“难道低收入就意味着你不能享受自己喜欢的东西吗？”

但也有许多人对此缺乏同情心。“她家境这么艰难，她难道就没想到用自己挣的钱帮帮家人吗？”另一位平台用户问道。