Cat Rescue

What 1215 stolen cats rescued in Hangzhou tell us about contemporary China

View from China with an Austrian School of Economics Perspective

It has been observed that the mark of a civilized society is the degree to which it finds the capacity to care for those who aren’t its winners. This includes not only the poor and disabled, but also animals.

Last week we saw China’s civil society in action precisely on this front, as a convoy of trucks carrying 1215 stolen cats (according to the latest count) was stopped by an animal protection society in Hangzhou. The cats were apparently en route to the south to be sold as meat.

Cat meat is a component of a few of those exotic dishes the Cantonese are famous for: variants of 龙虎凤 (lónghúfèng), meaning dragon (snake) + tiger (cat) + phoenix (chicken). E.g. 菊花龙虎凤蛇羹 (as a soup) or 龙虎斗 or 龙虎凤大烩. Apparently 龙虎斗 used to be made with civets (果子狸) but when eating civets was banned the civets were replaced by cats.

Mainland Chinese tend to claim that these particular ‘specialties’ were only kept on the menu thanks to demand from Hongkongese. Since such delicacies are banned in Hong Kong, the Honkies have to travel north to satisfy their cat meat lust.

Apparently what happened is this: Many of the cats still had collars on, and some of those collars had geo-tracking functionality. Perhaps the perps neglected to read about such concepts before they went catnapping? A cat owner who had discovered her cat to be in Hangzhou contacted an “animal protection” group (杭州动物保护组织) located there. This group quickly went into action and stopped the catnapper convoy. It’s not clear how they managed this, but clearly they did. Eventually the police got involved, the drivers were arrested and the cats released to the care of local pet hospitals. Feeding and caring for 1200 cats is a pretty big deal, with a lot of cat food and space required. Several owners who had lost cats drove to Hangzhou and managed to recover their cats.

This isn’t the first time catnappers have been caught; it has happened a number of times, with some of the cat traffickers getting themselves pursued down China’s motorways by angry cat owners. However, catching a convoy with 1200+ cats in one shipment seems to be some kind of record. In any case, regardless of the numbers, clearly this is not just a one-time thing; it’s a business. Strictly speaking, it’s not illegal to sell “a” theoretical cat for meat – at least not yet. The problem is that these are not theoretical cats. Rather, they are mostly cats belonging to people.

Moreover, a bunch of people must be doing all this catnapping. Is it really that profitable, or are some other curious factors at work here?

It’s unclear what will happen to the drivers, who claimed ignorance of the whole affair, or to the catnappers, if they can be found. It will be interesting to follow, since China still lacks an animal protection law and it’s unclear under what basis these people can be prosecuted. Perhaps this is where one of those one-size-fits-all crimes (口袋罪) would come in handy?

All well and good.

Regardless of how the case turns out, it’s interesting what all this episode tells us about contemporary China.

First of all, we have the contrast between all these people who care so much about their pets that they buy them collars with geo-tracking functionality, and people who think that stealing cats and selling their meat for 80 yuan per kilo is a worthwhile use of time. These two radically different groups of people both inhabit China. If an average adult cat weights 2-2.5 kilos, then it seems unlikely they’re able to obtain average more than one kilo of meat per cat. So at best we’re looking at 80 yuan per cat and probably less. 1,215 cats x 80 yuan each makes 97,200 yuan, a bit more than US$13,500. With that money you have to pay several drivers plus the roadway fees plus the petrol plus everyone involved. And then there’s the risk that you might get caught by one of the cats’ prior owners. Or by an animal protection group. How can this possibly be worth it?

Second, we have the technical sophistication of the geo-tracking used to locate the thieves.

Third, we have these extremely effective privately organized groups able to quickly mobilize resources and bring in the police when required to get things done.

Fourth, we have the existence of these underground ‘businesses’ on the margins of society, apparently able to operate with impunity.

And finally, we have China’s fuzzy legal framework and its often informal (and arguably creative) approach to problem solving.

At this point we can only make some educated guesses as to what was going on here, but here’s one worth considering:

Perhaps the actual background is the dog bite incident in Chengdu, Sichuan province a few months back. On October 16^th a house dog bit a young girl inside a housing subdivision, damaging one of her kidneys. She ended up in the ICU and the incident was plastered across social media, creating pressure on the authorities to “crack down” on unleashed pets. Such ‘crackdowns’ often end up getting transmuted into a form only vaguely related to the initial trigger, so maybe that’s what happened this time, as well. It’s easy to imagine that the upshot was an arbitrary KPI pushed down to the neighborhood committee level – something along the lines of: “Each neighborhood committee (居委会) needs to capture x number of stray unleashed animals – say 100 each.”

Which types of animals are easiest to catch? Well, of course tame house cats.

This is pure speculation, but it would explain several things. First, it would explain the source of the cheap labor to do the required catching. Second, it would explain why somehow the authorities seem curiously reluctant or unable to root out this embarrassing ‘business’ from society.

Since there’s no explicit law to fall back on – at least not yet – probably the authorities will resort to their informal toolkit to plaster over the situation. For example, they might say that the cat traffickers were “disturbing public order” (影响公序良俗). Or: “违反了社会道德，引起了社会公愤”, i.e. violating social norms, creating divisions in society. Or can they be threatened with violating food safety laws. Or with the illegal operation of a business (非法经营罪). The first two aren’t really laws, but essentially amount to reading someone the riot act for making a nuisance of himself. The latter two are real laws, but probably not so easy to prove in this case.

Without a law having been broken, maybe the perps can’t be formally arrested and charged, but they can still be detained and told in no polite terms to shape up or ship out.

All in all, it’s a case worth following further, not so much for its formal significance, but rather for what it tells us about all these sub currents running through contemporary Chinese society. And maybe at the end of it, as an added bonus we’ll finally get an animal protection law out of it.

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