Latest / UK Column Radio / Starmer in China: Is the UK Shifting Away from the US? | Jerry Grey | Silk and Steel

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Starmer in China: Is the UK Shifting Away from the US? | Jerry Grey | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Silk and Steel
0:05
Podcast. I'm your host, Carl Zaa.
0:07
Today I have back on my show my old friend and old guest of
0:14
mine, Jerry from China. How are you, Jerry?
0:18
It's a bit strange to call me Jerry from China, but yes, I'm
0:21
Jerry in China. But yeah, I'm well, thank you
0:23
very much. Thanks for the invite.
0:25
It is great. You were actually one of the
0:27
very first people to ever interview me a long, long time
0:30
ago. Yeah, it's, that was, Oh my God,
0:34
it's almost like 6 years, right? It's 4.
0:38
Five years ago, at least four. At least five years, yeah.
0:41
Yeah, I think it was before COVID even.
0:44
It was. It's it's been it's been quite
0:47
some time. So the reason I have you back on
0:49
the show, Jerry, is because recently, by the way, I'm not
0:52
very nice background picture of the mosque that this goes goes
0:58
along with because we are in the mount of Ramadan.
1:02
So, so happy Ramadan everybody, and also happy Chinese New Year.
1:08
Like just this year, everything falls on the same calendar, you
1:11
know, like like the Chinese New Year, Ramadan, they all starts
1:15
around the same time. So, so the reason I asked you
1:21
back, Jerry, is because recently the UK Prime Minister Starmer
1:26
has visited China and I, and you are originally from UK and I
1:30
call you Jerry from China, but that's you, you live in China
1:34
now, but originally you are from UK.
1:36
So I like to get your takes on Starmer's visit to China, you
1:42
know, amidst the current geopolitical shift, you know,
1:47
with Trump is cranking up pressure on Europe.
1:52
It was was this was this trip because it, you know, do you do
1:57
you think there's some sort of a shift in the UK foreign policy
2:02
toward China? Does does the Starmer visit
2:06
maybe signal some kind of shift? I think there's a shift.
2:11
I'm, I'm not, I'm not 100% certain that's a shift towards
2:15
China. It's a shift away from America
2:17
for certain. The the UK government has
2:20
literally just denied permission for the Americans to use British
2:24
bases if they're going to attack Iran.
2:27
So there's something shifting there internally.
2:30
There's also, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, the Epstein
2:35
files which are causing Starmer to need to distance himself from
2:40
them with the former Prince Andrew and the the Mandelson
2:46
case, both of which, of course, Starmer embarrassment when he
2:50
returned back-to-back to the UKI do see that the UK has my
2:56
personal experience in talking to friends and I don't have that
3:00
many friends in the UKI left there in 87.
3:03
So it's quite rare that I kind of catch up with anybody from
3:06
there. But but talking to people that I
3:08
know in the UK, they're feeling the same thing.
3:12
The UK has lost its momentum. It lost it probably at the end
3:16
of the Second World War, but now it's taken, it's taken until
3:19
this long for many people to realise just how bad things are.
3:24
I know that individually lots of people were struggling, but I
3:27
mean as a collective country they're starting to realise they
3:30
don't have the European Union anymore and that was a big
3:34
mistake. I think a lot of people realise
3:35
that they've got internal turmoil with the Reform Party.
3:39
It's the extreme right and then the Greens who are coming in
3:42
from the left. And then you've got these two
3:45
mainstream parties, Labour and Conservative, which are
3:48
basically, as I think George Galloway calls them, two cheeks
3:52
of the same ass. They're basically he, he, he
3:57
uses that to describe America, Democrats and Republicans.
3:59
But I think it fits just as well there you've you've basically
4:03
got this mainstream political which are left or right, but
4:06
neither of them are left or right.
4:08
They're both very, very central and both to the right of central
4:11
Keir Starmer is is no, there's no representative of the working
4:15
people and and the country is made-up of working people.
4:18
It really it always has been, despite being a, a, a global
4:23
leader with the British Empire, despite having its Lords and
4:26
ladies, its Dukes and duchesses, it is very much a country
4:30
made-up of working class people who have now realised that they
4:33
are screwed and the only way to unscrew themselves is to have
4:37
global, global recognition, but also global relationships.
4:42
And China is the country to have the global relationship with.
4:46
If you're going to get anything, if you're going to start or kick
4:49
start your economy again, it has to be, it has to be in Asia at
4:53
least an ASEAN. And they are actually involved
4:57
in the CCPTCPCTPPCTTPP whatever it's called, the cross Trans
5:04
Pacific. Partnership that yeah, that was
5:10
basically got transformed from the original TPP, right.
5:14
Trans Pacific Partnership, which was proposed by Obama but got
5:19
forgotten nuke by Trump first term because Trump has not don't
5:25
want anything to do with it. So now it becomes this long
5:28
acronym like basically it's like TPP without America, but except
5:33
that that now. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's
5:38
quite interesting. But So what?
5:40
I So what I when I saw Starmers visiting China, you know, I saw
5:45
a lot of Chinese people clamoring to take photos with
5:48
armor, which is I think for a lot of UK people quite startling
5:53
because they they wouldn't, they were probably shocked that
5:56
Starboard could be popular anywhere.
5:59
I mean, he seems, he seems definitely seems to be more
6:01
popular in China than he was back home in UK.
6:06
Yeah, that's true. And, and but there is, I I think
6:09
the reason for that is because for the Chinese people, you
6:13
know, it doesn't matter whether it's Starmer or any UK
6:16
politician, they don't see them as, you know, they see them just
6:21
as representative of their country.
6:23
They, they see Starmer as a representative of the country UK
6:26
and despite, you know, the, the, the history of Opium War and
6:30
stuff, the modern people in China, people in modern China
6:34
actually have quite warm feelings toward UK, you know
6:37
that. So, so this is what they're
6:38
expressing. They're not expressing any,
6:41
their approval about actual performance of Starmer per SE
6:45
in, in UK itself, because that had nothing to do with them.
6:49
But there is a bit of backlash, though.
6:52
I, you know, among British media and some of the pundits about
6:56
Starmer's China visit say how, how could you do this?
7:00
You know, how, how can you, you know, I tried to go you're,
7:04
you're, you're, you are trying to appease a dictatorship,
7:07
etcetera, etcetera. Where do you think that come
7:09
from? Like why was there such
7:11
hostility toward kind of repairing relationship with
7:15
China You've? You've got half a dozen people
7:18
in in in the political arena. Some of them are actually
7:22
members of Parliament. Tom Tugen that you've got.
7:26
Luke de Pulford, you've got all of these, these people who are
7:31
connected to the National Endowment for Democracy, They
7:34
pretend the the IPAC, the International Parliamentary
7:38
Alliance on China. And to be a member of this, you
7:41
must be an elected member of a democratic parliament somewhere.
7:44
And they have offices, they have people from all around the
7:48
world, including Australia, New Zealand and, and, and European
7:52
countries as well. But these, these people, they
7:56
are basically paid for by their, their hatred is paid for by
8:00
Washington. The National Endowment for
8:02
Democracy set this up, pays for it.
8:05
It comes out of Washington. There is no question in my mind
8:09
that these people hate China, that if they're not paid to hate
8:12
China, they would hate China anyway, whether they're paid or
8:15
not. So you've got this and, and most
8:17
of the vocal opposition is coming from those people.
8:21
It's not coming from ordinary people.
8:24
I think ordinary people who don't care that China and
8:28
Britain or you know, I'm just not politician.
8:31
Ordinary people, not ordinary politicians, because most
8:33
politicians are so badly misinformed about China.
8:36
They still think, they still think that there's Uyghurs being
8:41
incarcerated by the millions. They still think that Hong Kong
8:45
democracy has been eroded. They still think that Tibet was
8:49
invaded. They think these things because
8:51
they don't know and they're being told this by people in
8:54
very high positions. Those people in very high
8:56
positions are being paid to say this, but they would probably
9:00
say it for free anyway because they just hate China.
9:03
They're just racist bigots who dislike China.
9:06
Now, I, I can, I mean this, this picture behind me is a mosque.
9:09
It's in Gansu. And I can say for absolute
9:13
certainty, there is no Uyghur genocide.
9:16
There is no Uyghur oppression. There's no Muslim oppression.
9:19
There's no lack of religious freedoms in China.
9:22
There is no lack of freedom of speech there.
9:24
There's, there are rules and speculations around all these
9:27
things, but there is no lack of them.
9:29
So you know when I know China and I can say this and, and many
9:33
people now that the UK has got its 30 day visa free for its
9:37
citizens, they can come and have a look for themselves.
9:40
And you arrive in, it's a 10 or 12 hour flight from the UK.
9:43
You arrive in, say, Guangzhou, for example, and you're still 5
9:48
hours flying time away from Xinjiang.
9:50
So it's not that easy to visit. And this is what the BBC will
9:54
tell us. It's it's very difficult to
9:56
visit there. Yeah, it's difficult because
9:58
it's remote. It's a long way from anywhere
10:00
and you know it. It takes a long time to go
10:02
there. Took me 57 days to get there.
10:05
But that that's that. You have a bike?
10:07
Yeah, I did. It's.
10:11
Not a high speed train. It's not a high speed train.
10:13
It's a bicycle. You.
10:14
Know the high speed the first time I went there was on the on
10:17
the old green train and it it's still it was still a 50
10:21
something hours. So that gives you an indication
10:25
how far away it is. You're still in China and we
10:28
weren't even at that stage. We only went to Urumqi, the the
10:30
capital. You still 600 kilometres from
10:34
the border when you're in the room.
10:35
So yeah, it's a it's a big place and it is difficult to get to.
10:40
But let let's for a moment say let's, let's hypothetically say
10:45
we know that's not true. Hypothetically, OK, I know it's
10:49
not. But let's talk to an English
10:51
person, to the the English audience and say if that's not
10:54
true, if it's not true, you think China is bad and they say,
10:58
well, yeah, but what about Hong Kong?
10:59
OK, now if I can tell you, if I can prove to you that in Hong
11:03
Kong the Chinese government has not stepped outside of the
11:07
boundary of the joint declaration made by Deng
11:10
Xiaoping and and Margaret Thatcher back in 1987, the joint
11:14
declaration of how Hong Kong would be managed.
11:16
If I can prove to you that that is exactly what China is doing,
11:20
would you accept that that's not the case?
11:23
Yeah, probably we. So now hypothetically, the two
11:25
things that the Brits really feel there's a problem within
11:29
China can be eliminated. Now, what's the problem with
11:32
China? They're they're over capacity.
11:36
In what respect to their over capacity.
11:38
They're selling every car that they're building.
11:40
They're not building more cars and selling them cheaply.
11:42
They're, they're selling them cheaply because they're building
11:45
more cars. It goes the other way.
11:47
There is no threat from China to, to the ordinary people,
11:51
there is no threat from China. 30 years ago in my hometown of
11:56
Sunderland in the UK, Nissan arrived and they built a huge
12:01
plant and it was massive. It it, it was one of the biggest
12:04
factories that the UK had and it survived there for over 20
12:10
years. It's gone now I believe, but
12:13
that helped the British economy enormously.
12:16
Now, why can't BYD do the same thing?
12:19
Because they're Chinese, Because they can spy on us.
12:21
Well, the the country that is spying on you is not China.
12:26
The country that is threatening you is not China.
12:29
The country that is stealing your resources is not China.
12:33
China wants to add to your resources.
12:35
China wants to invest in your resources.
12:37
Now, once we start to see that, and I think Keir Starmer can see
12:41
that, I'm fairly certain he he should be able to see that, but
12:44
I'm fairly certain he's got people in his advisory team now.
12:48
He's just lost his main advisor, Morgan McSweeney, but he's got
12:52
people in his advisory team who I'm sure will be telling him
12:56
this. You know this is all rubbish
12:58
about China, you know that, don't you?
13:00
And that's probably the advice that he's getting.
13:02
But of course he cannot. It's political suicide to stand
13:05
up on stage and say there is no Uighur genocide, there is no
13:09
Uighur oppression. That would be political suicide
13:11
for him. Immediately the BBC would slam
13:14
down on him. Everything that's owned by
13:15
Murdoch would slam down on him. And of course, that's the end of
13:19
with his. Well, his political career is
13:21
pretty much over. He walked back from here into a
13:26
storm. He had to fire not only his
13:29
chief of staff, but his chief of communications.
13:32
He's had to fire his. Just a few months ago, he fired
13:35
the US ambassador, the British ambassador to the United States,
13:39
who happened to be a personal friend who happens to have been
13:42
in the Epstein file several times and who happens now to
13:45
have been arrested. So, you know, we're talking
13:48
about a, a really difficult situation for him to get over
13:52
and he should resign. However, he's probably being
13:56
allowed to stay on because at the next election they will get
13:59
whitewashed, they will lose so many seats and they need that
14:03
scapegoat. That's the only reason I think
14:05
that he's survived. As long as he survived, he'll
14:08
stay there. And there's a local election in
14:11
Gorton, which I think is in Manchester or Liverpool, not
14:14
sure it's in that N northwest area in, in the next few days,
14:19
just later this week. And when that happens, if Labour
14:23
has suffered considerably, it may be time then for Starmer to
14:28
to just pack his bags and leave #10 So there's a lot of stuff
14:31
going on. Yeah, I saw some survey says
14:35
he's like the most unpopular British politician in recent
14:39
history or or the most unpopular Prime Minister, which which says
14:43
something because you have people like list to us, you
14:46
know, like. Boris Johnson.
14:48
I mean, these these guys were, I mean, this, this is a record bar
14:52
that just keeps getting lower, you know?
14:55
Yeah. At the time, Boris Johnson was
14:58
the most unpopular Prime Minister.
15:00
Then, of course, came his trust. Who?
15:03
Who lettuce Liz, she has the shelf life of a lettuce 19 days,
15:08
I think it was. I mean, it takes a little bit of
15:12
doing to reach that bar. But yeah, he does look pretty
15:16
unpopular. He has made some very, very
15:20
serious decisions, personal decisions.
15:24
And you know, he's, he got caught out with a little gift
15:29
problem when he was first in power.
15:32
Turned out that one of the donors was giving him the suits
15:35
he was wearing and stuff like that.
15:37
These kinds of things don't bode well.
15:40
Peter Mandelson, who who had to be fired, Lord Peter Mandelson.
15:45
I believe he's still technically a Lord, although he's resigned
15:49
from the House of Lords. I don't think the title can be
15:52
taken away without an act of Parliament and that hasn't
15:56
happened yet. But he has resigned as a former
15:58
member of the House of Lords and now they're going to have to
16:01
find someone to replace him. And that that's caused him a big
16:04
problem because Peter Mandelson had two resigning events in his
16:09
career, basically around corruption.
16:13
So this is, this is a guy who's become extremely powerful and
16:16
has had to resign twice in the past.
16:18
This is his third resignation. I think it might be his last
16:21
because he's 72 years old now. But I I don't know if he still
16:24
pulls power. I don't know if he still has the
16:26
strings of power inside of Parliament certainly had them
16:29
for a while. And he his one of his proteges
16:33
was a guy called Morgan McSweeney who became the chief
16:36
of staff and basically was running the government.
16:41
The. The funny thing about
16:44
Mendelssohn is that instead I just saw a mainstream media
16:48
reporting trying to link that to China, right?
16:52
They say, oh, we established Epstein's connection to China
16:57
because apparently Epstein was trying to get into the Chinese
17:00
market, but he has no connection.
17:02
So he had to work through Mendelssohn to get some some
17:06
Chinese connection. The Chinese connection they
17:08
found for Epstein was this Hong Kong billionaire, a Desmond
17:15
shoe, who has been basically on the run from the Chinese
17:18
authority since 2015. So that is Epstein Chinese
17:23
connection, quote UN quote. I mean, I'm, I'm surprised that
17:27
you even bothered to do a story on that.
17:29
It's basically a nothing burger. Well, of course it's a nothing
17:32
burger. Everything about China is a
17:34
nothing burger. The BBC just create these things
17:38
and it and it's amazing to watch the mental gymnastics that they
17:41
go through to prove China is bad when in fact it was China who
17:45
rejected Epstein's visa. It was a the guy he was dealing
17:49
with is a corrupt criminal, is on the run.
17:52
So yeah, China's bad because they, they made that, that Hong
17:56
Kong businessman run away. Yeah.
17:59
Yeah, that in fact it's because China Epstein visa that's why
18:03
Epstein went to Mendelson for help, for consultation on how he
18:07
can get to China. So it's it's it's it's the same
18:11
it's the same story about corrupted Western elite.
18:15
You know, this their, their, their networks, but yet they're
18:18
trying to trying to tell the public somehow Epstein is an
18:22
intelligence asset of Russia or China.
18:25
When the biggest elephant in the room, nobody is willing to
18:29
touch, which is like is a massage connection, you know,
18:33
like no mainstream media is willing to touch it, even though
18:37
it's like right there staring you in the face.
18:40
But you know, that's, that's the kind of world we live in right
18:44
now. Unfortunately, This is why I
18:46
think a lot of China stories is actually distractions from, you
18:51
know, from like the Western and Israeli atrocities.
18:55
I remember, you know, you brought up Xinjiang.
18:57
I remember in 2018, back in 2018 when Israel was bombing, you
19:04
know, cuz Israel has always been bombing Gaza.
19:07
They, they put out a lot of articles in New York Times, Wall
19:10
Street Journal about how Xinjiang is the world's largest
19:13
open air prison. And so if you type that in
19:17
Google search bar those, the article will come up when
19:20
everybody know the world's largest open air prison, it's
19:23
Gaza, right? So it's like very blatant
19:26
attempt to gaming the search engine.
19:29
So to kind of kind of they just put up a whole bunch of stuff.
19:33
So they, they don't want you to look at Gaza, you know, like,
19:36
like let's look at China. What's going on, Carl?
19:39
The There's a girl who's riding around China at the moment on a
19:43
motorbike, a Dutch girl, and she raised the point.
19:47
Somebody, I don't, I'm not following her because it's, it's
19:51
annoying to me to watch people like this.
19:53
But somebody raised the point. She's wandering around Turpan,
19:55
Turpan in Xinjiang and and saying this is the place where
19:59
the Uyghurs come for their Hajj because they're not allowed to
20:03
have passports. What?
20:05
Where? Tell me that piece of
20:07
information come from they're not allowed to have passports.
20:10
I know Uyghurs who have passports.
20:12
I know several Uyghurs who've educated overseas.
20:15
It it's just really weird that that people come up with this
20:19
kind of statements. Well, they're not allowed to
20:20
pass. Who told her this?
20:22
Who told her that Uyghurs are not allowed to have passports?
20:25
I I don't know if you know Luke, who is also British.
20:29
He. Actually met Luke in Xinjiang.
20:31
Yes, I do know. Yeah, it's a nice, nice British
20:34
chap. He's doing his, he got his PhD
20:37
in AI, in medical AI in China and he fell in love with
20:41
Xinjiang. He's, you know, like while he
20:44
was getting waiting to get his diploma, he was, he's hanging
20:47
out in Xinjiang teaching English.
20:49
So I, I, I met with him in Xinjiang, in Guruchi on my trip
20:53
last year. And he told me a lot of students
20:57
that he teaches English to went abroad.
20:59
You know, that's the whole point.
21:00
They're learning English. That's why he's teaching them
21:03
English, so they can go abroad and study more.
21:06
Yeah, I, I, I've got the same thing.
21:09
I used to be an IELTS examiner, the International English
21:11
Language Testing System, and I had many weekers come through.
21:16
Why are they getting an IELTS test?
21:18
The only reason you need an IELTS test or an IELTS score is
21:22
because you're going overseas. That's, that's what happens.
21:25
I mean, I, I've, I've tested thousands of people, but
21:29
probably dozens of them would have been Uyghurs, you know,
21:32
tested all over China. We travel a lot when we're IELTS
21:36
examining. I, I'd, I'd sometimes go to
21:38
Beijing. I went to Chongqing a couple of
21:40
times. Most of the time because I was
21:43
based in Guangzhou, I was in the South Nan Chong, Fuzhou, Shaman
21:47
Chang Changsha there. There's the northern most places
21:51
I would go to, but I went to Beijing a couple of times.
21:53
I went to Chongqing a couple of times.
21:55
Chongqing has a lot and Chengdu as well would have a lot of
21:59
wiggers coming down. They're the they're the closest
22:01
places to get the test for them because there's no test centre
22:05
out there in Orochi as far as I'm aware.
22:07
If there is, I would have volunteered to go there too.
22:10
But I love the place and it's five hours away by plane.
22:13
It's 20 something hours by I speak.
22:16
Train, well, it's 5-5 hours away by plane from where you are
22:19
because you live in like you, you, you, you live in like the
22:22
southern tip of China. You're just above Hong Kong
22:26
because you, you, you are like the furthest part from Xinjiang.
22:30
It's I think it's about like 3 1/2 hour from like Shanghai or
22:33
something like. That from the east four to five
22:38
hours from most of China, but yeah, there's yeah, once once
22:41
you once you get into Chongqing where you're from it it's not
22:44
that far at. All closer, yeah, it's not
22:46
closer yeah, yeah, I, I was it's a it's a huge place that as you
22:51
mentioned because I last year I went with Pepe Escobar we spent.
22:57
I was following you, yeah. Yeah, we spent about two weeks
23:01
just in the southern part of Xinjiang.
23:03
We didn't even go to northern Xinjiang.
23:05
We drove three, our driver told us we drove like 35,000
23:12
kilometers wrong. I mean, that's only a southern
23:18
part. We never left the region.
23:21
Yeah, it's not a province, It's a, it's an autonomous region.
23:24
But it, it has a provincial status.
23:26
Yeah, you'd never leave it. I I've done the same thing.
23:30
I mean, I've cycled about 5000 kilometers in there.
23:32
I think Fernando, Fernando Munoz Banal has driven 60,000 or
23:39
something around that. It's just so vast.
23:42
It's the size of France and Spain together.
23:44
It is very, very big. And yeah, down that southern
23:47
area. Did did you cross the Taclo
23:49
Macan because? Yes, we did.
23:52
We, we, we drove right across, Yeah, we drove right across
23:56
Taclo Macan to, to, to, to Kashgar, to Kotan, actually to
24:02
Kotan. And then from Kotan we went to,
24:04
we went to Kashgar, but back back-to-back to UK China, UK
24:09
relations. Do you think the Starmer's visit
24:13
made a impact? I mean like like is there a, is
24:18
there a positive impact on the UK China relationship or has it,
24:22
has they have any result? For sure, China has never.
24:27
I don't think China will ever forget the golden age when Xi
24:31
Jinping and Cameron drank beer together and everybody talked
24:36
about how things would reset that.
24:38
That is how the people that I know here are viewing Starmer's
24:42
visit. It was a very positive thing.
24:44
The first thing that happened when they got back was that the
24:48
media started reporting the 30 day visa free for the for
24:52
British citizens and they preempted that.
24:54
They said it has been granted when it hadn't and it was given
24:58
favourable. Actually the words were positive
25:01
consideration. Xi Jinping actually said this.
25:04
He was cited as saying we're going to give this positive
25:06
consideration. And that was what the Global
25:09
Times, the People's Daily, Guan Ming rebel the, the, the, the
25:14
media that I read in China was all saying that.
25:16
And the meter I was looking at in the UK said, Oh, they're
25:19
giving us 30 days. So if you turned up at the
25:21
airport to fly to China, you would have been very
25:23
disappointed. You wouldn't have got on a
25:25
flight. So they were pre empting that.
25:27
And it did finally come. It just, it came quite quickly.
25:30
And it's confirmed that the Canadian and the British
25:33
citizens are now getting visa free 30 day entry.
25:36
So that's a very big, very positive thing.
25:39
And, and I said in in just before that, I made a short
25:43
video which said Britain needs to prove its intent.
25:48
It needs to show some action. So obviously there was some
25:51
action there. And it wasn't just whiskey, as
25:54
far as I can read working out that there's a lot of media
25:58
coverage. One thing that did happen was
26:00
the the tariffs on whiskey being imported into China were halved
26:05
Scotch whiskey. That is not Irish whiskey.
26:09
Not sure why, maybe Ireland or Ireland has AI think Ireland's
26:12
got a different relationship anyway, not a free trade
26:15
agreement, but a very strong relationship with China and
26:19
that's part of the European Union as well, not the British
26:22
Isles. So anyway, the whiskey was one
26:25
thing Astra Zeneca have they're a British pharmaceutical.
26:31
They're a pharmaceutical company that has a base in Britain and
26:34
they are going to invest quite a lot of money, I think 115
26:38
billion into the China Pharmaceutical industry.
26:41
And that's a very big positive thing for both sides.
26:45
China is always looking for overseas investment coming into
26:49
China. But now then we get the story
26:51
that over Chinese investment is declined because net investment,
26:55
China goes out more. So China is now investing in, in
26:59
the third world in, in the global South, as people like to
27:02
call it. So investing in Latin America,
27:04
investing in Africa, all of these things are that they're
27:08
showing that China is improving the world more than it's
27:12
improving the, the imperial world, if you want the global
27:16
North. So they're very, there were very
27:19
positive things. I think about 58 business
27:21
leaders came with Starmer and many of them stayed behind after
27:26
Starmer left. So the, the 3-3 days of meetings
27:30
that Starmer had were, were positive.
27:33
There were a lot of good things came out of it.
27:35
And then Starmer went away and he went into a storm of, of bad
27:40
news. He had bad media coverage.
27:43
He had bad news. All of a sudden buses were were
27:46
fire hazards and electric buses built by BYD are bombs.
27:51
You know, they're mobile bombs that have trigger switches and
27:53
all kinds of things. All this ridiculous media
27:56
headlines just just because Washington didn't like that.
28:01
But then of course, a few days later Donald Trump says I'm
28:04
going to China on the 29th of March.
28:07
OK, so what's wrong with England doing it or Britain doing it?
28:11
This is what really impresses me most of all, the hypocrisy of it
28:18
because America are funding anti China rhetoric at the same time
28:22
as saying we need China. We we need to be at the table
28:25
with China. You know they're not on the
28:27
menu, they're at the table. That's funny because exactly
28:31
exact same thing happened when Carney went to China.
28:34
You know, like then there was a lot of online pundits saying,
28:38
oh, how could you do that? How could you do trade with a
28:41
dictatorship and, and all that? Why are you sabotaging our
28:44
relationship with United States by by by doing trade with China
28:50
and like, are you guys crazy? US is still Chinas third largest
28:53
trading partner and Donald Trump is going to China in April.
28:58
What are you talk like? What are you talking about?
29:01
It's and China is not threatening to annex in Canada.
29:06
You know, like, like China is not tweeting out from like,
29:09
yeah, or Greenland and China is not tweeting out, you know, on
29:12
social media on how like I just saw a ridiculous White House
29:17
tweet. You know, this show like a, a
29:18
cartoon of American eagle has sinking its claw on the Canadian
29:22
goose. It's like we are this is just a
29:25
childish level of antiques right now.
29:29
And, and there's still people saying, oh, why, why are you
29:32
moving closer to China? I mean, come on.
29:37
But, but I I think you are onto something about the IPAC the so
29:40
that what, what what's the acronym for Inter parliamentary
29:44
the. Inter parliamentary alliance on
29:46
China. Yeah, it's actually IPAC is
29:49
actually Co founded by Marco Rubio.
29:53
You know this now the Secretary of State of the United States.
29:57
I think he he. Was he was once a member of it?
30:00
I don't know if he still is. I guess now he's Secretary of
30:03
State. He's not an elected member of
30:05
the the Congress or or Senate. So yeah, I guess he he has to
30:09
step aside from that. But he was actually a member of
30:12
it for sure. Yeah.
30:14
It's that's really interesting because now he controls the
30:16
purse strings that pay for it. And I don't think there's going
30:20
to be any doubt they'll continue to, to have any defunding.
30:24
They also get NDI, which is the National Democratic Institute.
30:28
They have Taiwan, Hello, Taiwan is one of the and, and hello,
30:32
Taiwan is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.
30:35
So there's some sort of circular referencing going on here where
30:39
Taiwanese association pays for this anti China association, but
30:44
it gets its money from the same source.
30:46
And gosh, and then and then in their in their website, they
30:51
actually they actually say this. We do not take any government's
30:56
money and they're taking it all from the Ned.
31:00
How does that work? We do not take government money
31:02
from government as well. OK, so who approves the NE DS
31:06
budget? Now that's Congress.
31:08
What a Congress, Congress of the government of America are OK.
31:12
It's a very long role that they draw to say that they're to
31:16
prove they are independent, which they obviously clearly are
31:20
not. And you know, they they Lord
31:23
Alston and what's the name, the lady from Sheffield Hallam
31:27
University. These people are very, very much
31:33
vocal in anti China and Canada's got them too.
31:37
Australia has them, so does New Zealand, basically the Five
31:40
Eyes, but they also have a few inside of Europe from Holland
31:43
and a few other places. So yeah, Germany's got a few,
31:47
Holland's got a few. The German Chancellor is coming
31:50
here tomorrow, I think Wednesday you'll be here.
31:54
So Germany is coming here. France was just here, Finland
31:57
was just here, Britain was just here, Canada was just here.
32:01
And that's not to mention that half a dozen or more other
32:05
leaders who are of such, you know this not not to be rude
32:10
about them, but they're less significant countries that are
32:14
sending people here. Xi Jinping sent a message and
32:19
they sent the delegations to the Africa Forum, which happened
32:23
just a week or so ago. And that happens every second
32:27
year in China. And 53 of 54 countries come
32:31
here. So there's, there's, you know,
32:33
there's massive things going on the, the, the Africa issue, 53
32:38
of 54 African countries have basically now got a free trade
32:42
agreement with unilateral free trade.
32:45
So they have free trade into China.
32:47
China doesn't necessarily get free trade into them.
32:50
So 55 I think, or 56 countries now have visa free visits to
32:56
China. So basically what we're seeing
32:58
here is that the exact opposite of the United States and UK
33:03
needs to basically it needs to pick a side.
33:06
Now, China never has said to any company or corporation, if you
33:10
deal with America, you can't deal with us, but America does.
33:13
If you deal with China, you can't deal with us.
33:16
You deal with Russia, you can't deal with us.
33:18
If you if you're not, if you don't support Israel, you can't
33:21
deal with us. China doesn't put those
33:23
restrictions on anyone. So I think that's why more
33:26
countries are leaning towards China.
33:28
And it's not a case of us or them for China.
33:32
It's a case of we want multipolarity, we want equality
33:37
throughout the world, and once we have that, then America's
33:41
power becomes less important. Marco Rubio is famous about 3-4
33:45
years ago for saying if we don't sanction these people now, we'll
33:49
never have the power to sanction them because there will be
33:52
alternatives for them. And there are.
33:54
The CIPS is taking over from the SWIFT system.
33:57
The Russian ruble and the rupee and the RMB are all taking over
34:01
from the dollar. So yeah, there's a lot of
34:04
movement towards China that China is naturally attracting
34:09
because it is a more open society.
34:12
Strangely enough, they're still calling it authoritarian, but
34:16
it's a much more open society than than the US currently is
34:22
under its current government. Yeah, which is crazy because
34:27
recently during the Olympics, lot of a lot of MAGA crowd
34:33
online, they're really flipping out over, you know, Eileen Gu,
34:40
you know, playing for China, which is the the, you know, like
34:43
it's, it's really crazy. Like this is sports like
34:47
actually switch nationality all the time.
34:50
There's actually a, a American girl who was educated in
34:54
Stanford who hold, you know, dual citizenship in the UK and,
34:59
and, and US Zoe Atkin, who just recently won a medal for for UK.
35:06
Yeah, and, and and yeah, nobody's, you know, and, and and
35:11
she nobody, nobody is talking about her because but, but, but
35:15
I didn't say no, that's not acceptable.
35:17
Well, the UK is is not an authoritarian, dictatorial,
35:22
genocidal government. That's the problem.
35:25
Yet that's exactly what the UK are.
35:28
But historically they're genocidal.
35:30
There is. There's no getting away from
35:32
that. I mean we, we're kind of making
35:34
a joke about it, but historically the Brits have
35:37
genocided, Well, not necessarily mass murdered is probably a
35:40
better word rather than genocide, but they have mass
35:43
murdered many in many different places.
35:47
They did genocide in Australia for sure.
35:51
They did everything they could to wipe out the indigenous
35:53
population of Australia. They they absolutely did that
35:57
there. India has seen mass starvation.
36:00
These are not genocides because it's not a case of trying to
36:04
kill or remove that entire population.
36:06
This is a a mass event where 10s of thousands if not millions of
36:11
people staff. The US did it, is doing it to
36:14
Cuba, did it to Venezuela, is doing it to Iran, doing it has
36:17
send it to China. And these are genocidal actions.
36:22
If you want to use the word genocide correctly, these are
36:24
genocidal actions. So yeah, to say that those.
36:29
Countries are and those are country rule by pedophilic
36:33
elite, as we know from the Epstein file reveal.
36:37
I mean like. I mean like.
36:39
Epstein files will need a lot of investigation.
36:43
I'm not, I'm not trying to diminish them at all, but yeah,
36:46
I, I'm kind of evidence based and the evidence is not all
36:51
there. I'm not, I'm not saying didn't
36:54
happen. I'm saying it needs
36:55
investigating. And I've been trying to, I'm not
36:58
trying to defend Andrew, the former Prince.
37:01
I'm just trying to say because he was arrested on these charges
37:06
that he misused public office, because he's been arrested and
37:10
he's being investigated for an offence which occurred in the
37:13
United Kingdom, related to the United Kingdom.
37:16
He's the arrest and the same as Mandelson, He apparently went to
37:21
very important meetings. He was given very important
37:24
documents and those documents were passed to a third party
37:28
from a different country, the United States, in this case,
37:31
Epstein, which maybe you want to argue, it could be Russia, could
37:35
be Israel, or it could be America.
37:37
But certainly it whatever happened, they were given to a
37:40
hostile government, hostile to the United Kingdom.
37:44
And that's what he's being charged with.
37:46
And people are saying, well, yeah, they're not even
37:48
mentioning the pedophilia. Well, first of all, he paid 12
37:51
million to, to, to put that to bed or his mother did and his
37:56
brother did. They paid 12 million to put that
37:58
to bed in a court case. Secondly, the evidence against
38:02
him is extremely difficult to prove.
38:04
Not saying it's not there. It's extremely difficult to
38:07
prove, particularly now that the only witness is dead.
38:11
So I mean there there are basically 3 witnesses to this
38:14
who could say that this did or didn't happen.
38:16
Ghislaine Masquell is 1. She's possibly still in custody.
38:22
Epstein is not. Not, not suicided yet, Maxwell.
38:26
That's why not suicide. Suicide yet?
38:29
No, but she appears to be talking or she appears to be
38:32
walking around Montreal and he's walking around Israel.
38:35
I love social media. You just, you don't know what's
38:37
true and what's not. But I mean, if we're if we're
38:40
going back to facts, the fact based information, there is
38:45
very, very much a lot of difficulties to prove that
38:51
Andrew did something wrong on that island to that girl.
38:55
Now This is why, This is why I have needs investigating, sorry.
38:59
This is why we need a full release of the Epstein file
39:03
right now. The only release still a small
39:07
fraction. And they they're they're the
39:09
White House is trying to say, OK, we're done.
39:11
We, we did our duty. No, no no, you got to release
39:14
the full file and not like heavily redacted as they are
39:18
right now. Yeah, it looks like they're
39:19
redacted, the names of the guilty, not the names of the
39:23
innocent, which seems to me to be a very, very wrong thing to
39:28
be doing. And we're talking about 3
39:30
million pages there. And yeah, that's a small part of
39:33
it, apparently. So yeah, we're going to see a
39:35
lot more. I mean, there's, I'm not
39:37
diminishing any of this at all. What I'm saying is it's
39:40
extremely difficult to prove. It's very easy to misinterpret
39:43
something. Do they really eat babies?
39:46
I haven't seen anyone say, yeah, we had a lovely lunch yesterday,
39:49
I had babies, intestines or whatever.
39:51
Now, I mean, there's a lot of comments that could be
39:53
interpreted as that. And that's why investigation and
39:58
openness is the way to go now, of course, if you're trying to
40:02
hide something. Then what's the best way of
40:04
hiding something you put it into?
40:06
If you want to hide A tree, you put it in the middle of a
40:08
forest. So they're going to be releasing
40:11
stuff that needs interpretation. And now they're saying some of
40:15
these documents have been altered, some of them are false,
40:18
some of them are clearly not true.
40:20
So what they've done, they've released 3,000,000 pages and now
40:24
they're saying people have hacked into the database and
40:27
changed things. So now all the evidence is
40:31
tainted. It's going to be almost possible
40:34
to get a conviction from any of these allegations.
40:38
Andrew will never, ever be convicted, in my opinion.
40:42
He he'll be charged, he'd be put in front of the court.
40:45
He cannot be convicted because the evidence has been so badly
40:48
tainted by media, by social media, by people even like us
40:53
talking about it. What we're doing there is, is
40:56
we're preventing him from getting a fair trial.
40:59
And that is the very basis of the system of justice.
41:02
So I think he's going to get away with it.
41:05
Whatever he's done, he'll probably get away with.
41:08
And you know, they get, they're going to say at the end of the
41:10
day it's impossible for us to prove what is actually true and
41:14
what is rumoured to be true. That's the problem.
41:18
I think, I think that's by design though.
41:20
I think that's by design, including like releasing half
41:24
truth together with the other files to to confuse you and and
41:29
to to say, oh, hey, like not everything we really see was a
41:32
fact. You know, the some of them just
41:34
speculation. It's just wow rumor.
41:36
It's a it's not. It's.
41:37
Not really. What's going to happen?
41:39
You've got hundreds and hundreds, thousands, 10s of
41:42
thousands of pages of interpreted information.
41:46
What actually happened here is not the same as what they said
41:50
happened here. You know, there's one of these
41:52
where you tried to buy my baby, really tried to buy a baby.
41:57
I don't believe that, you know, this, this kind of thing.
42:00
They, they really, you know, words that we write, we speak
42:04
euphemistically, we speak metaphorically, we speak
42:07
idiomatically. We have different ways of saying
42:10
things in different cultures. And people speaking English not
42:13
as their first language will make some mistakes.
42:15
That's not what I meant to say. You're interpreting it the wrong
42:18
way. That kind of thing is going to
42:20
create enough doubt. And it is by design.
42:23
I'm certain it's by design because there is a massive
42:27
corruption scandal and this is insider trading for sure.
42:30
This is industrial espionage. For sure.
42:34
This is possibly espionage at a national level with either.
42:38
Mossad is the most likely. Russia is the probably not the
42:43
least likely because China is the least likely.
42:46
But Russia and and Israel are possibly not possibly almost
42:52
certainly involved in this. But prove it.
42:54
Try proving that from the information that's been
42:57
released. You can't.
42:59
And then as evidentiary value, this is crap.
43:02
Circumstantial evidence, hearsay evidence, it's all crap.
43:06
It's not going to stand up in a court.
43:08
So that's probably why this is all being released and why Pam
43:11
Bondi can sit there and go, yeah, I don't care what your
43:13
questions are. I don't have enough evidence to
43:16
act. And and Cash Patel will say the
43:18
same thing. I don't have enough evidence to
43:20
act. And it's true they don't have
43:22
enough evidence to act because they've tainted it by design.
43:27
I guess so. We also don't have enough
43:30
evidence to say Cash Patel's girlfriend is actually a Mossad
43:34
asset. We just don't have.
43:38
We just don't have evidence. But anyway, OK, so I'm I'm glad
43:45
there's some good coming out of Starmer's visit to China.
43:49
And I'd like to remind people when when we're talking about
43:52
golden age of China, UK relationship.
43:55
That's only 10 years ago. That wasn't that long ago.
43:58
You know, I'm old enough to remember that.
44:00
Me. Too.
44:04
And you know that that. Yeah, there was a time when Xi
44:08
Jinping was like pub crawling in London.
44:11
I mean, like this just goes to show kind of how far the media
44:16
environment has been poisoned in the last 10 years.
44:20
You know, like the whole, you know, China, like the whole anti
44:24
China vibe has taken over in the last 10 years since the Trump
44:30
first term, which coincide by the way, coincide with the Trump
44:33
first term 2016. I mean, it predates that, but it
44:37
really got really worse from from 2016 and onwards.
44:41
Do you follow Warrick Powell? Professor Warrick.
44:43
Powell Oh, yeah, yeah. I, I, I he's a regular on my
44:46
show now. I, I, I, I made-up with him
44:48
every other Wednesday. Yeah.
44:50
OK, great. I I haven't seen that.
44:52
I didn't know that. But Warrick and I are friends as
44:54
well. We've actually met in Beijing
44:57
and he, he made an interesting point about maybe a year, 18
45:02
months ago, that the money they've spent, the massive and
45:05
it is billions of dollars denigrating China has really
45:10
been wasted. Because when you talk to
45:12
ordinary Australians, when you talk to ordinary Brits, when you
45:15
talk to ordinary Americans, I mean, not normal people with an
45:19
education of any sort. They're all saying, well, you
45:22
know, China's not all that bad. I can't see any big problems.
45:24
There's no threat to me, no threat to us.
45:26
So it effectively all of this money has been spent to try and
45:31
make China into an evil Iran, an evil North Korea, an evil Cuba.
45:38
And it's all failing. And now the rest of the world
45:40
are starting look at this and go, yeah, I'm not buying this
45:43
anymore. Social media has been great for
45:46
this and but. Jerry but Jerry that all that
45:51
money went to into pocket of someone those people who got the
45:55
money for them. It did make a difference.
45:58
I mean, like this is how the Western system works now.
46:01
A lot of it's just by Griff. It's not even designed to work.
46:04
It's designed to to keep the system of Griff going, you know,
46:08
so all these grifters get their, get their, get their Mac
46:13
mansions in Virginia or, or Bahamas, you know?
46:18
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Benedict Rogers, Luke de
46:23
Pulford, they're doing very, very well, getting good
46:25
salaries, creating myths, creating myths.
46:29
That's, that's all they're doing, creating and perpetuating
46:32
myths. I'd, I'd invite them to come.
46:35
They can't. Benedict Rogers was actually
46:37
banned from Hong Kong a few years ago.
46:40
He flew in from Thailand, got turned around and sent home.
46:44
I think they, these guys, some of these people will not be
46:47
allowed to enter China. I'm fairly certain on that.
46:50
And that's a big question. When, when, when the visa free
46:54
is operating. What happens if that guy just
46:57
turns up and and and walks into the country?
47:01
They know who he is. He's he's red flagged I'm sure.
47:04
Yeah, well, I like right. Looks like right now United
47:09
States is the only one of the five Anglo high country that
47:13
don't get visa free to China. You know, UK, Canada, New
47:20
Zealand, Australia, they all have 30 days visa free now.
47:24
Well, there's another thing that it may happen because it usually
47:28
coincides with Australia got it when Lee Chang went there,
47:32
Britain got it when Keir Starmer came here.
47:35
So it coincides with a visit. And Trump is coming here.
47:38
He hasn't been here for a long time.
47:41
It's. Yeah.
47:43
This is his first time. Yeah.
47:45
This is his first term, so almost 10.
47:46
Years, yeah. So he's, he's coming here in 3-4
47:51
weeks time when he arrives here, he maybe this will be part of
47:56
it. But I think in order to get
47:58
this, there needs to be some positive moves seen by China,
48:04
not just positive promises. Because every time there's,
48:07
there's these meetings that go on the, the, the promises that
48:10
come out are actually flawed, flawed promises.
48:14
The last one in, in Korea, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met
48:20
XI Jinping's department, the the State Council information office
48:23
put out that, that it was a positive meeting.
48:26
And America put out all sorts of things with, with statistics and
48:29
figures that, you know, they're going to buy 20 million tons of
48:32
soybeans this year, which they didn't do.
48:34
It's now into the the next year and they're going to buy 30
48:37
million this year or 25,000,000. And they haven't said that they
48:41
will or not. China didn't say this at all.
48:44
Where did this come from? It looks like somebody just made
48:47
it up and said we want you to in the meeting, we want you to buy
48:52
our soybeans. Yeah.
48:53
OK. We'll give that some
48:54
consideration. OK.
48:55
They said they're going to buy our soybeans.
48:57
And now when they don't buy soybeans, something goes wrong.
49:00
The other one, the big one, was the lie, and it is a lie.
49:03
It's it's an absolute lie. The press are saying China
49:08
stalled the restrictions on rare earths.
49:11
They did not stole the restrictions on rare earth.
49:15
They stalled for one year only the restrictions that they
49:18
imposed on the 12th of October on rare earth elements.
49:22
So all the other restrictions on rare earth elements are still in
49:25
place, still happening. And if you want to get rare
49:29
earth elements out of China now you need to be registered, you
49:32
need to be an end user certificate certificated user
49:36
or, or you need to be a supplier.
49:37
There are no middle men anymore. There's there's just end users
49:41
and those end users can use agencies, but the agencies don't
49:44
get to touch the rare earths. They get sent direct.
49:48
So there's new regulations, hundreds of people have been
49:51
employed to make sure that these regulations are met.
49:54
And there is no back doors, there's no container, loads of
49:57
stuff going out that shouldn't be going out.
49:59
So they've got hundreds of people employed just to do that.
50:03
So when America says are they delayed, they are giving
50:06
themselves a bit of face. They are not giving themselves
50:09
truth, so there is no truth in that aspect of it.
50:12
So we're going to see stories coming out.
50:16
And I always, as soon as I see an American media release that
50:20
says this is what happened, I go to the State Council Information
50:23
Office or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to verify the
50:26
Chinese version of what happened.
50:28
And invariably they are very different.
50:31
Good point. I mean, I mean, as as American,
50:34
I can tell you we're pretty used to a government official lying
50:38
through their teeth. I mean, that's just that's just
50:40
normal United States. That's how you get elected into
50:44
the office. Yeah.
50:46
But it's it's sad. OK, That that's great.
50:52
Is there what what any future project?
50:54
Is there any future project you're involved with right now,
50:57
Jerry, while in China? I have two two projects that I'm
51:01
working on at the moment. 1 is a cycle ride.
51:03
I mean any of your people don't know who I am.
51:07
I cycle around China, but I've cycled from from Guangdong to
51:13
Xinjiang. I've cycled from Harbin back to
51:15
Guangdong. I've done Xinjiang, not in.
51:18
The winter, right? Not in the winter time, right?
51:22
Yeah, I'm retired now. I can, I can afford that time.
51:26
The the next trip is from Ho Hot in Inner Mongolia.
51:32
Cycled to Ho Hot last year and left some gear there.
51:35
This year we're going to fly up there with our bikes.
51:38
I have our bikes shipped up there and then we're going to
51:39
cycle back by Qinghai Lake. That's one project.
51:42
And I've actually been asked to write a book.
51:45
I've got a publisher contacted me and asked me to write a book
51:47
about Xinjiang. So it's and it's not political.
51:51
They don't want anything political in it.
51:53
They don't want all the negativity about it.
51:56
They want. English.
51:59
In English they may translate it into Chinese.
52:05
I'm quite functional at Chinese but writing a book, doing
52:09
interviews and I'd rather not do an interview in China.
52:12
No, I mean I mean translate it. Maybe translate?
52:15
I don't know yet. We haven't even got as far as
52:18
discussing fees or costs or I, I want to go back and do a few
52:24
different things. I've, I've given them an
52:25
outline, I've given them what I want to do.
52:28
I want them to fund me or at least advance me or make sure
52:32
that my costs are recoverable for, for some trips.
52:34
I don't mind paying for my own trips.
52:36
But, you know, if I'm going to do this for a publisher who
52:38
wants me to put it together, then I'm hoping that they'll pay
52:41
for it as well. So yeah, the editorial freedom
52:46
is a guarantee. But they have actually said we
52:49
would like this to be more travelogue than political.
52:54
So yeah, that's OK. I can do that, I think.
52:57
But I, I mean, I, I think there has to be one, at least one
53:01
short chapter to cover some of the issues to, to, you can't
53:06
just write a book about Xinjiang and, and pretend nothing's ever
53:09
happened there because there has been things happening there.
53:11
And I'd like to cover the reality rather than the the
53:14
myths of the the genocide and the incarcerations and the
53:19
suppression and operation. It's crazy like that.
53:23
Like there's still people you know today on social media
53:27
saying, oh, Eileen Gu, why doesn't she say anything about
53:31
Uyghur genocide? You know, while he has a, she
53:34
has a pedestal. It's like, OK, let's, let's,
53:38
let's just even assume, let's even assume that's even true.
53:41
The Uyghur genocide is even true.
53:44
Do you know how many American you know, if every time an
53:47
American athlete would have to ask about American atrocities,
53:52
you know, there, there, there there don't be no no more
53:55
competition because that will take up all the time because
53:58
this is ridiculous that that's that's so ridiculous.
54:00
But and and and I lingu just said OK, I'm I I can't speak on
54:04
the issue because I'm not expert.
54:06
I'm not educated on it, so I cannot comment it on which is a
54:10
perfectly neutral answer. But as a, as a person that you
54:14
know, have actually been to Xinjiang, you know, driving
54:17
35,000 kilometers all around South and Xinjiang, I can say
54:21
definitely, I definitely did not see any Uyghur genocide.
54:26
You know, I see Uyghurs on the streets of Kashkar, on the
54:29
street of Kotan Turpan, walking everywhere, enjoying their daily
54:34
lives. You know, you see, like I do not
54:38
to to compare to say this is somehow the same as what Israel
54:43
is doing in Gaza. This is just a blatant, blatant
54:46
lie. Exactly.
54:48
Scorched earth policy in Gaza. All they're doing in Xinjiang is
54:51
building that. In December last year CCTV Four
54:57
took my wife and I to Hotan and Ala ER the the two cities on
55:04
either end of the Takanakan Desert and what a great
55:07
experience. They rented bikes for us and we
55:10
cycled the G580. You, you cycled through the Taco
55:14
Macon desert. That's, that's the same route we
55:17
drove through, but we, we were in the Toyota Land Cruiser.
55:21
So, but wow, I mean, how long did it take you?
55:26
We didn't cycle all the way. They had a great night.
55:29
I'd love to. It's 480 kilometers.
55:32
It would have taken at least three and probably four days.
55:35
I actually had the five days to do and, and there's, there are
55:38
two stopping points in the in the desert.
55:42
So we would have been able, there's no hotel, there's no
55:44
hotels. We would have been able to camp
55:47
where there were shops and food and and service stations on two
55:53
nights, but we would have been desert camping.
55:55
So basically what we did, they, they, they wanted, they wanted
55:59
us cycling. Then we would have loved to
56:01
cycle the whole whole journey. But what they did was they
56:05
picked us up in Ala UR. We flew into Ala UR which is
56:09
Altai I think. It's a, it's a northern.
56:14
Yeah, yeah. So, so we flew into there and
56:18
they had bikes ready for us, which we, we, we met them at the
56:22
whole, met them at the airport actually, and then went to the
56:24
hotel together, you guys. Probably flew into Kucha I
56:27
think. No, we actually flew into our
56:29
area has its own airport. It has an old airport.
56:32
Wow, OK, wow. That's about 28 airports in
56:35
Xintang, now 28. That's a that's a thing that
56:38
really surprised me. We went to Tashkurgan, a tongue
56:41
of like maybe 50,000 local residents, and they have a
56:45
airport. They have an International
56:47
Airport that flies to Islamabad, which is crazy.
56:51
Yeah, my wife was in Kutcher last year as well.
56:53
She she went there to accept an award.
56:57
We, we've got the, we have Silk Road friendship ambassadors
57:01
because of the work that we've done related to Xinjiang.
57:05
So yeah, we, I didn't get to Kutcher.
57:08
So that's part of my next plan to go to go there.
57:11
But yeah, we will. I've been to a structure which
57:15
is near near Kashgar and it's very, very similar.
57:18
I'm told Thatcher is 93% weaker population.
57:24
Our on the other on the other hand is about 85% harm.
57:28
It's a new city that the the Xinjiang production core has
57:32
built up. It has a massive university.
57:34
This is where they're, they're basing all of the reforestation
57:37
through this university there in, in the desert that, that
57:40
area. We, we were put into a van,
57:46
comfortable van like A7 seater with the bikes in the back and
57:50
then driven to the beginning of the road where we, we started
57:54
the journey and we're filmed and we rode 20 kilometres or so,
57:58
then put in the van and then driven another because there's
58:01
actually nothing changes for 100 kilometres.
58:04
You've seen this, it's just sand dunes.
58:06
So they drove us to the next point where there's something of
58:09
of interest and then we got to have the van and we rode again
58:12
and then did 20 kilometers or so.
58:14
We actually only did about 100 kilometers and it took us.
58:18
Only 100 kilometers only. Only cycle 100 kilometers.
58:25
Well, it, it, we started, we left the hotel at 5:00 in the
58:29
morning and we got into Hotan about 9:00 PM that, that same
58:34
day. So we had, we had several stops.
58:36
I think there's five different stops where we did some filming,
58:39
did some cycling and it, I mean, it was a joy to ride through
58:43
there, but it was freezing cold. It was like -10°.
58:46
So yeah, it was a bit cold, but we had the gear.
58:48
They, they bought us all the gear and, and we still got it.
58:51
We got to keep the gear. The bike I was using was superb
58:54
and apparently it belonged to the shop owner where they'd
58:57
rented it. It was his personal bike.
58:59
It was a fantastic bike. So I was riding a very, very
59:02
high quality bike, which is something I don't normally do,
59:06
but yeah, it was fantastic. It was, it was a great
59:08
experience. And we, we met up with people
59:11
who were involved in the Reforestation re greening de
59:15
desertification program. And yeah, I've got a lot of
59:18
information. I can't write about this yet
59:20
because they're making a video. The video will, will come out.
59:25
So I, I can't, I can't really, I can talk about it, but I can't
59:29
really go in public with a video of my experience because that's
59:33
their video, not mine. Nice.
59:37
OK, if people wants to get in touch with you or want to follow
59:41
you on social media, where would they go?
59:44
Jerry, well, Jerry's take on China is my YouTube and I lost.
59:51
I had my ex account act gone. Jerry's take on China has gone
59:55
now, and it belongs to somebody else and it's being used by
59:58
someone else. It's used, it's being used by
1:00:01
someone called Angela Langhorne, but I still have China
1:00:05
untravelled on on the X which is my actually it's larger.
1:00:10
It's got about 90,000 followers and anybody who wants to contact
1:00:15
me my my e-mail is in the bio. I have no trouble with
1:00:18
responding to emails so people can contact me and say hey but
1:00:21
what about and I'll happily answer them.
1:00:25
Well, thank you again, Jerry, for making your time to speak to
1:00:29
us. It's always interesting to talk
1:00:31
about your China travel stories. You know, I, I told you, I, I
1:00:35
live vicariously through you. You're, you're, you're living my
1:00:39
dream, you know, cycling across China.
1:00:41
I I that was my dream since I I don't know, since I when I was
1:00:45
in high school or something. But I didn't my first ride when
1:00:50
I was 55 years old. So you got.
1:00:53
I still have like 6 years. I'm 49 now so I have six years.
1:00:58
Start you. Still have young kids.
1:00:59
Your, your, your, your boys will be.
1:01:02
You need to get them off your hands first.
1:01:04
So wait until they're 18 or 20, they're off to college, then you
1:01:07
can go and do it. OK.
1:01:09
Well, thank you very much, Jerry all.
1:01:12
Right. Thank you.
1:01:13
For our audience, thank you for tuning in.
1:01:16
Until next time, bye bye.