What does it say about the stability of the Chinese Communist government when it feels threatened by rumors of aliens, zombies, and time-travelers?

Several people have been punished in the past few years for relaying tales of the walking undead and extraterrestrial invaders for fear of touching off public panic.

Earlier this month, the police in the southern city of Guangzhou published a notice online that images posted on Weibo of a woman covered in blood and a note suggesting she was a zombie were fake.  A 21-year-old man from the area with the surname Zhang was given 10 days of detention for posting the item, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

in 2014, photos emerged showing a Gollum-like creature kneeling in a rocky ravine with a message declaring that it was a “mythical beast” discovered in the Huairou District of Beijing. The local police said the images were merely candid pictures of an actor in a film who was photographed going to the bathroom while in costume

In 2013, a farmer in Shandong Province claimed to have encountered five extraterrestrial creatures, one of whom was killed by an electric fence. The farmer’s story, and photos of the purported alien corpse he kept in a freezer, drew widespread attention online. The local authorities investigated and held a news conference to announce that the dead alien was actually made of rubber, Southern Metropolis Daily reported. The farmer was sentenced to five days of detention for disturbing public order, Xinhua reported.

China also apparently bans all movies about time travel.

China blocks all movies about time travel, saying it “disrespects history.” Usually the protagonist is from the modern time and for some reasons and via some means, travels through time and all the way back to the ancient China where he/she will constantly experience the “culture shock” but gradually get used to it and eventually develop a romance in that era. Though obviously the Chinese audience is fond of this genre of shows, the country’s authority … is not happy about this trend and calls a halt to the making of this type of drama. What the Chinese time-travel plots have in common is the notion of escape: leaving contemporary, Communist-dominated China for the China of another era, one where, despite mores that are, in some ways, odd and outdated, love and happiness can be found. 

We can laugh at this, but there is a serious point here: the Communist government of China acts overcautiously because it has no legitimacy.  It fears that even fiction or literature can encourage people to think differently.  If zombies can overthrow the government, why can't people?  If people can travel back in time to a time before communism, that opens up the possibility of another time without communism.

Ironically, while the Chinese government is busy banning fiction, the American government is forcing fiction on the American people in the form of hysteria over global warming, isolating people who speak out against it and taxing all of us heavily for contributing to this imaginary problem.

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.