The Economist.
Last week we heard about the Chinese word run,
and how it began trending online two years ago at the height of the zero-COVID lockdowns.
It was being used because it sounds a little bit like the English word run.
Netizens used this character as a code to go around online censors while talking about escaping China.
In the first episode of this three-part series,
we heard about educated urban Chinese who have made the decision to run to Japan.
But long before this latest wave, blue-collar workers had been coming to Japan for decades in search of better jobs.
A lazy assumption might be that traditional migrant workers are only looking for economic opportunities.
But some of the Chinese workers I met in Japan had strong views about the society they left behind.
I'm David Rennie, the Economist's Beijing Bureau Chief.
And I'm here with Alice Su, our senior China correspondent.
This week we're asking how political is the run phenomenon?
This is Drum Tower from the Economist.
David, how's it going?
My life is work and admin and bureaucracy.
The burden of a Bureau Chief.
Too dull at the moment to bore you with. How's your life?
I'm well. I've been on the road.
I just spent two days in Southern Taiwan going to some military drills,