Top searches on Douyin,14/06: Tangshan's "Thunderstorm" operation; Chinese stock market's rebound

Tangshan is determined to fight against "gangsters and evil forces".

(Jinglin Gao, a writer at GRR, contributed the majority of today's top searches review)

All eyes are on Tangshan (a city in north China's Hebei province) these days. The city is waging a war against gangsters and evil forces after a violent criminal case set fire on the Internet.

Despite recent turbulence in the U.S. stock market, Chinese markets rallied significantly last week. Global investors have regained faith in China's economic recovery after the government contained the recent coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai.

Today's trending topics on Douyin (the Chinese equivalent to TikTok) are mainly about Tangshan's "Thunderstorm" operation, the Chinese stock market's rebound and some heroic deeds. Please note that the top 10 topics were not selected by GRR, but from the real-time report from Douyin.

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Tuesday's top 10 trending searches on Douyin as of 7:30 p.m. (1130 GMT):

#1 Tangshan’s "Thunderstorm" operation tip line numbers updated

唐山雷霆风暴行动举报电话已更新

#2 Supermoon is coming -- CGTN

超级月亮来了

The second supermoon illuminates China's sky on Tuesday night. Also known as the "strawberry moon", the moon looks brighter and larger because it is at its closest orbit to Earth. People from all corners of China get to appreciate the moon as long as no clouds are in the sky.

#3 A video to honor Mao Jingrong and Liu Zejun -- China Daily

一段视频缅怀毛景荣刘泽军

Two heroic firefighters from Hangzhou, the capital of east China's Zhejiang province, died during a market fire rescue last week. Mao Jingrong and Liu Zejun were both in their twenties, and the loss of two young heroes put citizens in deep grief. The martyrs funeral was held on Tuesday, and people from all walks of life came to pay their last respects.

#4 iPhone14Pro in Gold color revealed

iPhone14Pro 金色版曝光

#5 China's FAST telescope finds suspicious signal

中国天眼发现地外文明可疑信号

According to the Weibo account of stdaily.com, professor Zhang Tongjie, the chief scientist of China's extraterrestrial intelligence research group, said that China's FAST (Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) has found possible signals of extraterrestrial civilization. However, GRR found that the news was later deleted from the Weibo account.

#6 China's TV drama "Crush can't be hide" to start filming in July

偷偷藏不住将于7月开机

China's romantic TV drama "Crush can't be hide" will start filming in July, according to public records of TV drama production. Like many hits in recent years, this TV drama will adapt from a popular web fiction.

#7 Financial Times: Investor flight from China reverses

外媒: 全球投资者正重返中国市场

#8 Movie "Strange Folk Tales: Water monkey" premiered online

电影民间怪谈水猴子上线

A new Horror movie "Strange Folk Tales: Water monkey" is available on China's top streaming media Tencent Video on Tuesday. The movie is inspired by Chinese folklore about haunted spirits.

#9 Special police were sucked into a culvert when transferring residents

特警为转移群众被吸入涵洞

Two special police officers were sucked into a culvert when they were rescuing residents from the sudden flood on Monday. The incident happened in Heyuan, south China's Guangdong province. Fortunately, the two officers grabbed a part of a water pipe and a piece of wood respectively. They survived with just scratches. Bravo!

#10 Episode 1053 of anime series One Piece

海贼王1053话

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#1 Tangshan's "Thunderstorm” operation tip line numbers updated

The city council and government of Tangshan decided to conduct a half month long special operation from June 12. It will focus on cracking down on criminal activities having adverse social impact and that raising public concerns ... The operation will be as effective as the thunderstorm.

The Wechat blog of Tangshan government's internet information office updated special operation tip line numbers after citizens reported that they couldn't get through the original line on Tuesday. -- The Paper

In the early morning of last Friday, nine men harassed and beat up several female customers badly at a barbecue restaurant. The suspects fled the scene but got caught two days later.

The camera footage of the conflict went viral online and raised many social concerns

Authorities in Tangshang acted quickly on the case and handed it over to another city, Langfang in Hebei, for unbiased and effective investigation.

According to Peng Xinlin, a professor of Law School in Beijing Normal University, the superior public security bureau handing the criminal investigation from one city to another one of the same level is an unusual operation. Only two types of cases would be treated this way, cases with jurisdiction conflicts or special criminal cases. Tangshang's situation belongs to the latter. -- iNewsweek

After the assault occurred and became a hot topic online, several residents in Tangshan released videos with real names reporting gangs who had carried out violence against them, including a woman reporting that she and her friends were kidnapped and assaulted in May. -- ChinaDaily

Tangshan is determined to fight against "gangsters and evil forces", and citizens are more than willing to cooperate with the thunderstorm special operation. However, as China News Service said, though the special operation is effective, the fight against the evil forces should not be "a gust of wind." The city needs to reflect on the problems behind the incidents and normalize the fight against brutal violence.

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#7 Financial Times: Investor flight from China reverses

Investor flight from China reverses as Beijing shifts sentiment -- FT

The global flight from Chinese stocks during the rout earlier this year has reversed, underlining the rapid shift in sentiment as investors bet Beijing can engineer a recovery for the world’s second-largest economy.

The Chinese stock market has staged a rebound in recent weeks as authorities step up their efforts to boost an economy blighted by repeated coronavirus lockdowns and shaken by the crackdown on the country’s tech sector.

The benchmark CSI 300 index of companies listed on the mainland has climbed 13 per cent since its low for the year in early May, buoyed by measures to support the economy, including a record cut to the country’s mortgage rate late last month.

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“Clearly there’s been a turnround in appetite,” said Tim Moe, chief Asia equities strategist at Goldman Sachs, adding that global investors have become more willing to entertain a bullish outlook on Chinese stocks.

Overseas capital flows back to Chinese equities amid US monetary policy tightening -- Global Times

"When the Omicron epidemic first broke out in Shanghai, many overseas investors thought the epidemic would spread all across China. But now they have seen China's control measures are effective, and an economic recovery is a quite certain tendency," Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Monday.

In May, US inflation hit 8.6 percent, the highest in 41 years, which will push the US Federal Reserve to hike rates further. In comparison, China's monetary and fiscal policies are relatively loose, as China's inflation in May is only 2.1 percent.

"The US Fed is focusing on taming inflation and it will resort to monetary policy tightening. This is not a very positive external environment for A shares, but the bright side is, it is making A shares look like better assets to invest in - a safe haven for global capital," Li said.

The market's rebound is not a surprise considering resurgences of COVID-19 are waning, Shanghai restored normal life and factories resumed production. GRR has full confidence in foreign capital's return as expressed in the post: How Shanghai can win back the confidence of foreign capital: A look at history.

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