This Month in Bans (belatedly): March.

Another edition of This Month in Bans: February.

US Tech Giants From Government Procurement (nationwide)

One of the most important bans that took place this month was Beijing’s decision to discontinue allowing government procurement from a large number of foreign firms including Cisco, Apple, McAfee, and Citrix. Just like blocking Facebook is partly to boost domestic companies offering similar services, this move is intended to further curtail putting money into the pockets of foreigners in lieu of its countrymen. To say the strategy has worked in cases of companies like Tencent and Alibaba would be an understatement.

Online Pseudonyms, Parody Accounts & Anonymous Web Comments (national)

In a bid to force online users to link their social media accounts and blogs to their real names, China has increased an already-in-place rule requiring some Internet companies to disclose the real names of some of its users. Now, users of social media and blogs will all be required to link their online identities to their real ones. The rule also requires companies to have users pledge to avoid engaging in “illegal and unhealthy” activity, according to The Independent.

Smoking Meat in the Open Air (Chongqing)

In a hilarious bid to cut down on pollution, Chongqing’s government placed a ban on smoking meat in the open air, despite a long tradition of doing so, especially in the winter months. Later, authorities admitted that smoking meat probably wasn’t a significant factor in causing pollution, after they had scientists evaluate the program.

“Vulgar” Street Names, Like Ones Named After Foreigners (Beijing)

As the Telegraph reports, “Streets named after Chinese politicians, foreigners and dung beetles are to be outlawed under new directives from authorities in Beijing.” That means Dung Beetle Alley will become Always Shining Alley. Apparently a lot of streets had been named after prostitutes and different types of animal feces? That’s taken care of now, thankfully. Mao actually did something like this shortly after 1949, outlawing streets being named after Chinese political leaders to prevent cults of personality, according to Xinhua.

Fireworks (~140 cities)

Yeah, that didn’t go so well. I’m hearing them even now as I write. Anyway, fireworks are restricted in about 700 cities this year and banned in around 140. The Chinese, ever hungry for smoke and noise, have continued their traditional blasting of gunpowder. I say have at it Hoss, just not in the morning or in my backyard.

Trying Defendants in Prison Uniforms (nationwide)

Xinhua reports that the move comes to cut back on judicial prejudice. It’s a common site to see prisoners appear on trial in China being held on each elbow by a cop and donning an orange jumpsuit, but apparently that era is coming to an end. This is one of the fews bans that seems totally for the better.

Ivory Imports for One Year (national)

It’s no secret that the demand from some affluent Chinese is largely driving the African elephant poaching industry. In 2012, the New York Times cited experts as saying that as much as 70 percent of the world’s ivory trade was for China. Questionable as the industry may be on its face, there are those who think it should be legalized and heavily regulated. The problem with that in China is that regulators have failed massively. In 2008, 121 tons of ivory (equivalent to 11,000 elephants’ tusks) from the state’s official stockpile went missing, with the guy in charge admitting that it suggests a “large amount of illegal sale” of the ivory had taken place. So China has decided to ban ivory sales for a year to hopefully curb the growing practice of eliminating one of Earth’s most fascinating creatures.

Kevin is a freelance journalist and an editor for Shenzhen Daily. He lives in Shenzhen. Follow him @kevinpinner.

One of the nicer perks of being a mover and shaker in a one-party system is that you can pretty much declare anything is illegal and people just have to deal with it. This is a new monthly column that looks back at all that was banned in China in the past month.

Cleavage (in The Empress of China)

All of the sudden on New Year’s Day, the females on the nation’s most popular TV show, The Empress of China, had their cleavage eliminated. Lots of criticism followed, with popular outspoken businessman Ren Zhiqiang writing on weibo: “People aren’t concerned about cleavage, they’re concerned about a bunch of cultural troublemakers being in charge of making approvals.” Others on social media posted pictures of celebrities and drawings with the cleavage missing.

Car Sales Above 100,000 (Shenzhen)

After the mayor, vice mayor and head of the transportation department all said separately that Shenzhen, a city with 3 million cars and 1 million parking places, would not place a cap on car sales, they placed a cap on car sales, announcing it on Sina Weibo the day it was to take effect and prompting a massive rush to the city’s 2,200-some dealerships. More than 150,000 cars were sold between 5 pm and 6 pm. (For scale, last year 550,000 vehicles were registered throughout the entire year.) Now the city has capped car sales at 100,000 per year (20,000 of which must be electric vehicles). There is a convoluted system for how to earn the chance to attend a lottery or auction to get a license plate.

Auto-Show Girls (Shanghai Automotive Exhibition)

Although this one has yet to be confirmed because its purveyors are “seeking public opinion,” the Shanghai Automotive Exhibition could possibly ban auto-show girls. “We haven’t ruled out the possibility,” the organizing committee said in a Xinhua report. The ban possibly arose out of “moral concern” and in response to Shanghai’s deadly New Year’s Eve stampede.

U.S. Poultry (nationwide) 

China wasn’t alone on this one. Lots of countries banned US poultry after the USDA confirmed a bird flu case at a farm in Oregon. But for China, it’s a big blow to the economy. According to the WSJ, between January and November 2014, US poultry exports to China reached $272 million. The same report says China was the world’s sixth-largest importer of US chicken.

Individual Investors From Buying Private Bonds (nationwide)

With awareness of corporate default risks rising after Shenzhen-based property development company Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. missed a loan payment on December 31, the nation has banned individual investors from purchasing bonds issued by small- and medium-sized enterprises through private placement. The move is expected make it more difficult for such companies to issue private bonds.

Getting Fetal Sex Tests Abroad (nationwide)

Fetal sex tests have long been banned, but of course that didn’t stop people from finding a loophole. In recent years, sending pregnant women’s blood samples abroad has become the go-to method. But not anymore.

Private Drivers From Using Ride-Hailing Apps (nationwide)

As of earlier this month, only licensed taxi drivers are allowed to use the best thing to hit cheap car rides since Craigslist’s rideshare, which never made it to China. Uber is facing legal difficulties in a number of countries, and there was just no way something this cool and useful would stand the test of time here, where bans are dealt out like cigarettes.

Burqas (Urumqi)

In case you hadn’t already heard, Xinhua is here to explain: “Burqas are not traditional dress for Uygur women.” Well, that settles that. France is the most well-known place to ban burqas, so it’s not unheard of in the West, but the land of wine and cheese hardly has a majority Muslim population, unlike Urumqi, where, the Washington Times reports, 50 percent of residents practice Islam.

UPDATE, 5 pm: Textbooks With “Western Values” (nationwide)

In a strident blow to its education system’s already strained integrity, China has banned university textbooks that promote “western values,” according to Xinhua. “Never let textbooks promoting western values appear in our classes,” said the current Minster of Education, Yuan Guiren. That also goes for “remarks that slander the leadership of the Communist Party of China” and ones that “smear socialism.” It’s no wonder “getting a good university education” is synonymous with studying abroad. But Party officials know this. Xi’s own daughter is at Harvard and thousands of others have sent their children to learn in pluralistic environments.

Kevin is a freelance journalist and an editor for Shenzhen Daily. He lives in Shenzhen. Follow him @kevinpinner.

While China’s domestic media reels over the threat of ebola, praising the government’s efforts in fighting a cold it hasn’t caught, tuberculosis (TB) remains by far the country’s deadliest disease, having claimed the lives of approximately 45,150 in 2012, according to the World Health Organization.

TB is the second leading cause of death among infectious diseases in the world. HIV/AIDS is the first. But unlike AIDS, tuberculosis has a cure. In fact, it’s had a cure since the early 1950s. It’s also easily transmittable, not just through feces and blood like ebola, but through coughing, sneezing and breathing.

So why does the media focus on ebola instead of a treatable disease that’s killing 120 Chinese citizens each day?

“The international media find it easier to focus on the acute and present than on the historical problems that TB presents – the former being perceived as a ‘sexier’ and more ‘newsworthy’ subject,” said Dr. Christopher K M Hui, who works in both the academic and clinical sides of respiratory medicine for Hong Kong University.

And while China’s news media isn’t always keen on following the international news media, when a story like ebola rolls around — one that combines the shock value to distract people from more pressing issues with the highly likely chance that authorities will end up looking competent — they’re more than happy to hop onboard.

Long-Term Problems Aren’t Sexy

In 1990, TB killed 360,000 people in China. So the country has made progress. In fact, they’ve made a lot of progress. But more can be done.

“The challenges in regards to TB now are with identification, diagnosis and monitoring patient compliance with therapy, which is required over a long period of time for successful treatment,” said Hui. Even unsubsidized, these measures only amount to a few yuan daily, he said.

The working class is most susceptible to TB, but it’s not like they can’t pay for treatment, Hui said. It’s that they aren’t educated about the necessity of completing treatment. To fight TB, you need to have doctors willing to tell their patients the importance of taking all the medicine – three to four pills a day for 6 to 12 months. But more than that, you need a media that tells people, “Ebola is scary, but keep TB in mind and here’s what to do when you get it.”

As it turns out, money is being thrown at the TB problem — the central government increased spending on TB control from 40 million to 580 million in 2010 — but it’s unclear whether it’s being spent optimally. According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), in 2011 China’s rate of “public awareness on general knowledge” about TB was as low as 57 percent. In that year, only 47 percent sought treatment when infected and only 59 percent completed their treatment. The BMJ calls this lack of education a “major handicap” for TB prevention and control in China.

In an extreme example of what lack of education can lead to, a man in Gansu killed his wife and three children in 2011 because they were infected by tuberculosis, which he thought was incurable.

And in 2012, a young man who had just been accepted to the Ph.D. program at Hong Kong University, Wang Hao, was fatally stabbed by a 17-year old patient he had never treated. The patient was upset, in part, because he was told to return for treatment to cure his TB, which he had contracted after receiving treatment for an unrelated illness at the Harbin hospital where Wang was working. When his father was asked who he blamed for the death, he responded, “I blame the health care system.” His killer was uneducated, frustrated, and thought that doctors were tricking him by insisting he return over a course of months to treat his TB.

“Slow Motion Car Crash”

Tuberculosis isn’t like ebola, which kills roughly half the people it infects. There is no specific cure for ebola. That’s scary out of context. But unless you’re slumming it in Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia, there’s little reason to be obsessed about the disease. (The American media would do especially well to remember this, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee recently chided.)

“People are naturally — fatalistically? — drawn to emerging medical problems such as ebola that capture the imagination,” Hui said. “A car crash in slow motion is never quite as appealing as the ‘full speed’ Hollywood explosions that you see on-screen. TB is a little like a car crash in slow, slow motion.”

Kevin is a freelance journalist and an editor for Shenzhen Daily. He lives in Shenzhen. Follow him @kevinpinner.