Latest / UK Column Radio / We Just Came Back From Xinjiang... And The Truth Will Shock You | Pepe Escobar & Carl Zha

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We Just Came Back From Xinjiang... And The Truth Will Shock You | Pepe Escobar & Carl Zha · UK Column Radio

0:00
Hello and welcome. I am Carl Zai, your host to the
0:03
Silk and Steel podcast. Today I have a very special
0:07
guest We have Pepe Escobar, who needs no introduction, who is
0:13
coming to join us from Bangkok, Thailand.
0:17
Pepe, just in case. Just in case there's some among
0:20
my audience who may have been living a cave for the.
0:23
Last. 20 years. Could you do a brief
0:27
introduction of yourself to the? Well, Carl, well, first of all,
0:31
it's a huge pleasure to reconnect the BKK Bali
0:37
connection. In fact, yes, which for me has
0:41
been part of my personal history for decades.
0:46
Well, a mini introduction for all of you who, who, who are
0:50
looking at this guy and say what the hell is this guy coming
0:53
from? Well, it's a long story.
0:55
I am a dinosaur first of all, so that's why many of you won't
1:00
know me. I am.
1:03
OG Pepe you're you're OG original gangster.
1:09
OK, so as an OG, I am a member of a dying breed, which is the
1:16
foreign correspondent, which is my official profession, which is
1:22
dying. Literally most of my peers, my,
1:26
my older colleagues, they're all dead for all that matter.
1:30
And my contemporaries, most of them are in fact, all of them
1:35
are retired, many of them in disgust after suing their
1:39
newspapers, of course. So there are not many of us
1:43
left. So we go back to a wonderful
1:48
tradition in the newspaper business in the past, which was
1:53
the form the foreign correspondent.
1:55
Like great newspapers, big newspapers used to send people
2:00
all around the world and sometimes to different
2:03
destinations, and you would be covering a particular capital or
2:08
region. In my case was even crazier.
2:12
During a few years I was covering Asia as a whole, which
2:16
is subsequently absurd. But at the time, you could do
2:18
that. And the director of the paper
2:21
says, yes, you're going to, Asia said, wow.
2:25
But the great thing is that you had the freedom to go anywhere
2:29
you want it. Turkmenistan, Timor, no problem.
2:33
You know, But this is an old era.
2:36
I'm talking about the previous Millennium for all of you young
2:41
people. So in 2000, in fact 25 years
2:46
ago, I switched to online media and I started a long
2:51
relationship with Asia Times based in Hong Kong, which at the
2:56
time was a no line, a mini online.
3:01
It started as a newspaper in fact, but at the time was just
3:04
a, a mini website. And of course we were very
3:09
lucky. It was circumstances, of course,
3:13
but a little bit of where's the action happening next?
3:18
We were in Afghanistan and Pakistan before 911.
3:24
And when I say we, my dear friend, it's a horrible story.
3:29
Later he was killed because he discovered an al Qaeda cell in
3:34
the Pakistani Navy. So he was actually fascinated.
3:40
We tried, we, we all of us, we tried everything.
3:45
And obviously the Pakistani government at the time, they
3:47
buried the so called investigation, you know,
3:51
completely. And Salim, Salim was based in
3:55
Karachi. He was our correspondent in
3:57
Pakistan. And I was between Peshawar and
4:00
Islamabad. And we were.
4:03
That's where we were before 911 and after 911, we continue to do
4:08
the same thing. And we picked up a gigantic
4:12
audience, especially in the United States.
4:15
They say who, who are these crazy people in the middle of
4:19
all the IT was us, essentially, and two guys here in Bangkok who
4:23
were editing everything. It was a very small operation,
4:27
but we made our mark. So I stayed with them on and off
4:34
mostly for 20 years, and I left a few years ago because it was
4:39
bought by American bankers. So obviously we had serious
4:42
clashes and in the end I left. Yeah, I, I I did notice there
4:48
was a whole editorial change in Asia Times the.
4:52
Story of you notice, Carl? Yeah, it used to be for all of
4:58
you younger generations. In journalistic terms, we had
5:05
total freedom in the 2000s up to 2014.
5:10
It was an outstanding experiment because our benefactor at Asino,
5:17
Thai Tycoon Sunday, Linton Goo Sunday, would, you know, he
5:22
would hands off completely and we could do anything we wanted.
5:26
We just need to stick to our small budget every month.
5:30
But we could do anything we wanted, our travels, you name
5:33
it. So from 2001 to 2014, that was
5:37
quite something. It was a beautiful experiment.
5:40
But when the American bankers bought it, of course, the whole
5:43
thing changed. And for instance, when they
5:45
called me back, my brief was, OK, you're going to cover the
5:50
new Silk Roads. I said, yes, I'm already doing
5:53
this. But I was writing for the
5:54
Russians at the time. Obviously, when they start to
5:58
see what I was writing about the US growth in China, immediately
6:01
I became an agent of the CCP. So obviously, we were in shock
6:07
all the time. And in the end, I was fed up
6:09
because when I was writing about Russia was the same thing.
6:11
I was paid by the Kremlin. And when I was writing about
6:14
Iran, I was paid by the ayatollahs.
6:16
So, you know, American bankers, Carl, you cannot reason with
6:19
these people. So in the end, it was
6:21
inevitable, you know. But this is a short, I would say
6:26
a short summary of what I've been doing for the past 40
6:30
years. When I started, you guys, you
6:33
have no idea when I started. It was during the Reagan,
6:36
Gorbachev era. Can you believe this shit?
6:40
My first post as a foreign correspondent was London, and
6:44
the big story in the mid in 198586 was Reagan Gorbachev.
6:50
So, you know, we dinosaurs, we managed to see the whole shit
6:56
these past four years. And that's why nowadays the only
6:59
thing we look around and the only thing, our only possible
7:03
reaction is to laugh about the whole thing, about the whole
7:07
tragic comic environment that we inherited.
7:13
And, and it's getting worse by the day, as you all know.
7:15
I think that's the only sensible and healthy response to, to the
7:20
whole farce. And but what I really want to
7:25
talk to you about today, the reason I, I, I brought you here
7:29
is to talk about your latest project, which I had I play a
7:33
small part in because we recently travel.
7:37
We were together in that trip, yeah.
7:40
We travel the modern Silk Road in in Xinjiang region of China.
7:46
And now that we are, you know, we had some time to settle our
7:51
thoughts. We have left now I'm interested
7:54
to kind of dig your brain for your reaction because you, I
7:59
know you have travelled to Xinjiang way before like 2728
8:03
years ago, back in 1990, seven, 1998.
8:06
And contrast that with what you saw recently, like this month on
8:12
this trip. I mean, I, I can imagine there's
8:14
just tremendous changes. What?
8:17
What are some of your reactions? Initial reactions?
8:22
Of course. Wow.
8:23
Wow, Carl. It was an enormous shock.
8:28
And I was, in fact, I was amazed by everything that I saw, to
8:32
tell you the truth, compared to my first two trips in 9798.
8:39
And then I came back in 2003. Yeah, it hadn't changed much.
8:45
That was the year of the of the Iraqi war.
8:48
You know, after the Iraqi war, a few months later, I did the Silk
8:51
Road again, starting in Sian, and then I sink 2009 or 2010.
8:58
Still, you could see the beginning of a few changes in
9:02
terms of modernization. And the last time I I, I went to
9:08
Urumqi, I flew from Beijing. So I didn't see what was going
9:11
on in between. So this trip was planned for
9:17
2020. It didn't happen because of
9:20
COVID. The trip that we made together,
9:23
you know, the first part of the trip was to what I did solo
9:28
retracing the ancient Silk Road from Xi'an to Urumqi via the
9:33
Gongsu corridor, and especially with a special stopping
9:36
Dunhuang, right. And the second part is what we
9:40
did together is this is absolutely outstanding on the
9:44
road in Xinjiang. So the year before 2019, I did
9:51
the other side. I, I went to the three stands
9:54
bordering China, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
9:59
And, and I did, let's say New Silk Road loop on the Central
10:05
Asian side. Just to give you an idea, all of
10:09
all of you. I was, it was a Newman's land.
10:14
We were outside of the Pamir Highway and my driver, a Pabiri,
10:21
he studied in Russia, he said, look, you see that that fence
10:24
over there, there's a no man's land of 20 kilometres and after
10:27
20 kilometres is Xinjiang. Unbelievable, total no man's
10:33
land, literally nothing, just bare rock, you know.
10:37
So they are very, very close. And of course, we went to to the
10:43
borders in the Kazakh Chinese border.
10:47
Wow, it's non stop action. As you know, the the dry port of
10:51
Corgos. You have one, one border for
10:55
trucks in the highway 1 border for passengers on border for
11:00
trains. You have a free trade zone.
11:01
It's completely crazy. It's, it's the, you see the new
11:04
Silk Roads in action. Then there's the Kirgis Xinjiang
11:09
border and the Tajik Xinjiang border.
11:11
There of course, much cooler, but you see traffic of cargo
11:15
trucks in and out all the time. What we saw together this time
11:22
was on the Chinese side. And I, I, I had a particular
11:27
shock, Carl, because I was expecting the Karakoram Hwy on
11:31
the Chinese side to be at least four lanes and very, very busy.
11:36
Yes, it was very busy, but it was only two lanes and ultra
11:40
congested. So I didn't, we couldn't find
11:44
anybody to answer the key question, why do you have only
11:49
two lanes leaving from Kashgar? That's the beginning of the
11:54
China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the number one project
11:58
of Belton Rd Cross border with the Super important border,
12:03
China, Pakistan, and you have a perennial traffic jam.
12:08
So I assume the costs are still very, very high and they will be
12:14
waiting for the next stage because a few years ago they
12:17
were saying now soon we're going to have a super highway from
12:22
Kashgar all the way to Islamabad and then the South of Pakistan
12:26
in Baluchistan and even a, a pipeline.
12:29
Oh man, this is going to take forever.
12:32
It's a long, a really long term project.
12:35
So, so during our trip, we had shocks like that in terms of
12:41
maybe the infrastructure building is not progressing as
12:46
fast as as we thought. For instance, on the Pakistani
12:50
side, it is 2 lanes. But when you, when you look at
12:56
the environment, it's, it's literally across the Karakora
13:01
mountain. So OK to, to do a high, a mega
13:05
highway over, that's practically impossible.
13:07
But what, what the Chinese did, they repaved everything as a
13:10
state of the art Rd with fibre optics.
13:16
All, all, all, all across, you know, tunnels, a succession of
13:20
tunnels that the Chinese built all of them.
13:23
And it's, it's, it's absolutely amazing.
13:25
I remember the Karakoram in the late 90s.
13:28
What's still a mega adventure to travel The Karakoram was very
13:32
tough. This was only 25 years ago.
13:36
So this is one example. The other example is the total,
13:40
The opposite is the mega modernization. 2 things that we
13:43
saw arriving in Urumqi and you arrive at a mega Chinese city in
13:49
the middle of the desert. And when we crossed the
13:53
Taklamakan, which was one of my dreams since forever and it's
13:58
absolutely mind boggling. This super highway, the Chinese
14:03
magic cube, the reeds on both sides protecting from the
14:07
shifting sands, the 2 green barriers on both sides as well.
14:12
You know, leisure stops, tourist spots, and of course the
14:19
Greenbelt. We saw the Greenbelt in the
14:22
beginning and in the end of our crossing, the 3500 plus
14:27
Greenbelt encircling the Taklamakhan.
14:30
So when you see this things, well, my, my initial reaction
14:34
was always the same, man. Socialism with the Chinese
14:38
characteristics. These motherfuckers know what
14:40
they're doing. OK, now I I want to ask you
14:44
specifically though. Of course.
14:47
On cash card because you visited Kashgar I think before they
14:52
redeveloped the place of you know or totally yeah because
14:56
Kashgar you know what they they actually you the American
15:00
Hollywood actually used Kashgar as the backdrop to shoot the
15:04
film kite runner because they. Couldn't do it.
15:08
Yeah, because they couldn't do it in Kabul, Afghanistan.
15:10
Too dangerous. So they shot it in Kashgar,
15:14
Xinjiang because they thought they got a approximation of what
15:17
Kabul looked like back in 1970s. And this this movie was in 2000
15:22
O 7. So.
15:25
So I think that we developed it after you say you were in
15:30
Kashgar in 20, 2009, 2010 I think. 1009 It was the beginning
15:36
Carlton, it was the beginning of the how can I put this
15:42
diplomatically revamping of the old city.
15:48
They they had the idea of turn turning the old city into a sort
15:51
of OK open air mega shopping mall solo.
15:58
In fact it is now in fact it is, but at least they preserved it.
16:03
You remember the conversations we had with homestay owners or
16:08
business owners and all that? They got some help from the
16:12
government, Yes. To renovate the houses.
16:14
Yes. I see.
16:16
Because the rents in the main road, but they are they are very
16:20
high. It's very expensive.
16:22
Yes. So can they get the money back
16:25
on business? They have business all the time.
16:27
Oh, yeah. For example, this is my house.
16:29
You want to run a business? OK.
16:31
Like homestay shops. I can rent you OK?
16:34
And you pay for me rent. Exactly.
16:37
And the rents here, for instance, are high as well.
16:39
Yes, yes, they are according to the size according yes.
16:42
And then, and then the house locations, of course, for
16:46
example, this is this is a very nice location.
16:48
It's one of the main alleys leading to the OK.
16:51
And and I think was was was pretty decent.
16:53
They offered money for them to upgrade their homes.
17:00
They had the option to stay in their own homes or to rent their
17:03
homes to new businesses. So nobody lost anything.
17:07
In fact. And of course, I remember
17:10
reading a lot of horrors in Western media about it, and it's
17:15
absolutely untrue. Everything was untrue, but OK.
17:19
But that's Western media. We know how it works.
17:22
But another thing is to actually go there and talk to the locals
17:26
and see for ourselves. So you actually stayed in Ashgar
17:30
Old Town for a couple days after we have already left?
17:33
How? How was that?
17:34
I did. It was great because we had more
17:39
time to interact with the local businessman.
17:42
You know the local our homestay owner, for instance.
17:46
She gave us a wonderful interview.
17:48
She's a young businesswoman. She's probably 30 now.
17:51
When she was 23 or 24, she's from north and Xinjiang.
17:56
She decided to go to Kashgar and say, look, maybe I'm going to
17:59
start a business here. Now she owns a homestay in one
18:03
of the best alleys in the in the old city.
18:06
So she told us, how does it work?
18:10
How much rent does she pay? The influx of the domestic
18:15
touristic boom, how the provincial government pays a lot
18:20
of attention to the development of the city on that.
18:23
So this was this was fascinating, really fascinating.
18:27
And I I had I had a beautiful experience, Carl, this, this was
18:32
very touching. Then our last night I was
18:36
reviewing some of the footage with our director of
18:39
photography, Stan, the guy who shot our document, and I brought
18:43
some some stuff that I that I had on my one of my drives, what
18:49
I actually shot in Kashgar in the summer of 98 when I was
18:55
travelling with my wife. We shot the Itka Mosque in the
18:59
morning. Then we shot the whole animal
19:05
and vegetable market during the day.
19:08
So when I was showing these images to Stan the girls in the
19:13
home state, they they start coming at the wow, look at this.
19:18
It was the first time that they saw these images of their own
19:21
city when they were not even born.
19:25
Man, I almost cried. That was beautiful.
19:28
That was such a beautiful moment.
19:30
And I and I felt humbled and at the same time very excited to
19:34
show them, look, this is how your city was in the last
19:37
Millennium, last century, literally.
19:42
And when you compare Carl, wow, you know, there were no paved
19:47
roads leading to the Itka Mosque, for instance.
19:50
You know that that huge swinging square that we saw, it was not
19:55
there, you know, and some of the buildings around it, they were
19:59
not there as well. It's very, very impressive.
20:03
And it was more or less a segregated city at the time.
20:06
I think the Chinese learned a lot these past few years.
20:09
So we had the old city that looked like it like it was for
20:14
the past centuries. And you had a modern Chinese
20:19
city like what, half an hour walk away, but completely
20:24
separated with, with People Square, with a statue of Mao in
20:28
the middle and all that. This time we, we did an
20:31
experiment. We started at the people Square
20:34
in front of Mao statue and we walked back to the old city.
20:38
And now everything is seamlessly integrated.
20:41
It's organic. The integration is organic.
20:44
And you see Han Chinese, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, a Kyrgis,
20:49
everybody, you know, doing business together, interaction,
20:53
the famous people to people's exchange, Xi Jinping style.
20:56
You know, you see that in front of you everywhere, like we saw
20:59
everywhere we went in Xinjiang, right?
21:02
Yeah, one thing I I did was I walk around.
21:05
I did the same walk from People Square to the cash card Old
21:09
City. I just hold out my DJI pocket 3
21:13
in front of me. I didn't say anything.
21:15
I just I have 1/2 hour of footage.
21:18
I plan just to post that on YouTube and say.
21:21
You should do that. Definitely do that.
21:24
Yeah, exactly. You don't need words.
21:28
That's it. People see for themselves and
21:30
they will be like, wow. Yeah.
21:32
And the fact is, I know, I know for a fact that even Chinese
21:36
state media would not post footage like that because they
21:40
would just think it's too common, like they think it's
21:42
not. But what they don't realise this
21:45
is actual everyday living for the local people.
21:49
That's this authentic footage what people would like to see.
21:53
Yes, and. And for foreigners will
21:56
foreigners will be like wow. So it is in fact organic,
22:01
everybody interacts with each other and bustling and it's a
22:05
business centre. Kashgar is a business centre as
22:08
well. It's not Urucha of course.
22:10
Urucha is already a high tech centre, but Kashgar is a is
22:14
still a Megabazar, an open air Megabazar.
22:18
And I was also I, it was, I think, pretty obvious for our
22:23
trip that most of the tourism, which I think probably employ
22:28
the most people in Xinjiang right now, lot of the tourism is
22:32
primarily driven by domestic tourism.
22:35
Because our, our driver, our driver had told us that there
22:39
was a sharp drop of foreign travellers after 2000 O 8.
22:44
So much that the English speaking tour guide, they start
22:48
drop out of the profession, they start join careers elsewhere
22:53
with trading companies, you know, that would make better use
22:56
of their English skills because there were just not enough
22:59
foreign tourists coming to Xinjiang.
23:01
So, but today there the foreign tours are completely replaced by
23:07
the Chinese domestic tourism and the Chinese domestic tourism
23:10
everywhere. I was impressed.
23:13
I was very impressed. You were impressed.
23:15
I was immensely impressed. And whole families from the
23:20
eastern part of China, they go there, they rent their tank, 300
23:25
Jeep and you know, they are swinging on the road everywhere.
23:30
Fascinating. Fascinating.
23:32
And we didn't see foreigners essentially.
23:36
You, you, you guys got a lot of looks.
23:37
You, you, you and Stan got a lot of looks.
23:42
But but that it was good. You, you were celebrities.
23:44
All these ladies at these at Akashkar wanted pictures taken
23:49
with you. But I was expecting to see more,
23:55
more, more European tourists, at at least.
23:58
No. Remember when we went to get our
24:00
border permit in Kashgar, we met 22 backpacking couples from
24:08
Italy. There was a lady, she was Franco
24:13
or Chinese, Chinese living in France with her husband and a
24:19
German with his family. That's it.
24:22
These, these were the foreigners that we actually saw on this
24:25
trip. It's incredible, incredible.
24:27
But we understand why the campaign of demonization of
24:34
Singjiang, it was not only in the US, it was all across Europe
24:40
as well. So.
24:41
So if you ask an average Frenchman or German, they think
24:44
that Singjiang is a slave. Labour and concentration camps
24:47
everywhere, is it safe to go there?
24:51
You know the unusual stupidity. Yeah, it's, it's very safe
24:56
because actually there, there, I mean, I mean, safety is the last
25:01
thing you need to worry about in China and, and, and in Xinjiang
25:05
in particular, because there's actually heavy police presence
25:11
in Xinjiang as we, we, we have seen and, but, but surprisingly,
25:18
the police are actually very polite and very professional.
25:22
Extremely polite and and we should tell our audience in many
25:27
places, in our case as foreigners, it was facial
25:34
recognition. We were going through a lot of
25:37
checkpoints. We didn't even have to stop
25:39
because the cameras, obviously our files were already there in
25:43
the central database. So they knew that this was a
25:48
bunch of foreigners travelling together.
25:50
And sometimes we had to our, our leader, let's put it this way,
25:55
our local producer, she had to show our passports, but most of
25:58
the time was facial recognition and everybody extremely polite,
26:04
extremely polite. So this proves that they they
26:08
are not seeing many foreigners travelling around Saint John.
26:12
We were a sort of an exception, in fact.
26:15
Yeah, because I remember when the time we did get stopped in
26:18
Kotan, the the Uyghur police were very apologetic, right?
26:23
Oh, so sorry we have to do this to you, but to you.
26:27
But this was because of the the drone saying, wasn't it?
26:32
No, no, this was a separate thing.
26:33
When we're on our way to Yangtze that day to on our way to
26:37
Kashgar Kotan the first time we got pulled over for our passport
26:43
check. Yes, OK, OK.
26:46
I remember this one as well. But for instance, two other
26:50
instances, one night we were shooting in Urumqshi, stunning
26:56
myself, we were in. There are two downtowns in
27:00
Uruchin, so big they have two downtowns.
27:02
So we were in the top downtown shooting all those buildings
27:08
clad in red with 70 in all of them.
27:12
That that's the 7th, 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang
27:17
Uyghur Autonomous Region. And we happened to be there at
27:20
the time. And then the police approached
27:24
us. And then we found out why Stan
27:27
had he who was framing one of the buildings, but there was a
27:30
police station nearby. We didn't notice and then the
27:35
guy told us, look, this is a police station, you cannot film
27:38
that. But we didn't know that.
27:40
So he erased the footage that where the police station was
27:44
side by side with the big building and they were super
27:48
polite as well. And another time was no, in the
27:57
premier areas, for instance, was very, very easy once you get the
28:02
permit, super easy to travel all across the the Pamir Tajika
28:07
areas. No, there was another instance
28:11
when they approached us and they were hype.
28:13
Ah, the drone thing. For instance, we didn't know we
28:17
were in the back of a Canyon. Can you imagine literally in the
28:22
middle of the desert in the back of a Canyon.
28:25
So as Stan, he had a drone, so we needed some drone footage,
28:29
obviously, absolutely outstanding place.
28:32
The problem is there are cameras everywhere, even in the back of
28:37
the Canyon. So obviously police came later,
28:40
say guys, sorry, but no drones anywhere.
28:44
It was because of XI Jinping's trip to Urumqi and the
28:48
commemorations of the seven. Seas we got we got a little bit
28:51
cocky you know, because before we fly the Jones we said wow
28:56
emperor the mountains are high and emperors are far away
28:59
because. And the Emperor is far right?
29:01
No, the Emperor is there. The Emperor is an old sea
29:08
emperor. So we we just chose a bad time
29:12
to go because they had a drone band throughout the throughout
29:17
the 70s had that. Drone ban for everybody.
29:20
So but but but but remember when we met that guy in the Penlong
29:26
Mountains, he was flying his own drone.
29:29
So he probably met somebody who gave him some sort of permit.
29:35
He was the only guy who could fly a drone in that area.
29:38
Did you know your interview on Judge Napolitano has gone viral
29:46
on Chinese social? Media.
29:48
It went viral in China. Several people told me that and
29:51
I told the judge yesterday and they were like, wow.
29:57
You know how fast he went viral on the way back, Like right
30:03
after we left Kashgar? On our flight from Kashgar to
30:06
Shanghai, Jenny was picking up a Global Times that was on on the
30:12
plane. And in that Global Times was a
30:16
piece, a excerpt of your interview piece on Judge
30:20
Napolentino, because they already have translated
30:24
everything, put subtitles on it. And and after that, Xinhua, the
30:29
official Chinese state media, Tian Sun Net, which is officials
30:35
media of Xinjiang region. They all have reposted videos of
30:40
your clips of your interview with Judge Napolitino with
30:44
Chinese. And this is.
30:45
Enormous because probably I'm I'm not sure, but maybe this was
30:51
the first time on an American podcast that he was shot
30:57
straight from from Xinjiang live.
31:01
Probably was the 1st. Time and you, you know what Pepe
31:04
and I, I watched that interview you're even though you're live
31:08
streaming from Kashgar, I have to say your quality look much
31:12
better than Judge Napolitino who just had a virtual background
31:17
because you had you look like you are in a professional studio
31:20
setting. But you, you know who did it?
31:23
Carl. Stan.
31:25
Stan. Stan gave me.
31:28
In fact, Stan used my DJI mic plugged to my laptop and he had
31:35
lights so it looked like a real studio.
31:39
It was in front of our homestead.
31:42
And of course, with people passing the judge, when he saw
31:46
that, he was like, wow, was very, very funny.
31:50
Yeah, I, yeah, I, I recognise that was a coffee shop in front
31:53
of your homestead, but I was like.
31:55
Exactly. So we filled in that coffee
31:57
shop. Yeah, yeah.
31:59
Yeah, that, that looked really good and and now, now everyone
32:03
in China knows about you. So that's how I was sharing
32:06
those videos to. I was sharing those videos to my
32:10
family in China. I'm like, hey, look, look,
32:13
they're talking about our trip and my mom's like, they didn't
32:16
talk about you. It's all about Pepe.
32:19
I'm like, I'm like, I'm with Pepe, I swear.
32:24
No but this is good. I would say pre PR for our
32:27
documentary because a lot of people when the documentary
32:30
comes out, they will remember exactly.
32:34
And of course Chinese media we need when we release the
32:38
documentary, we have to get this all across Chinese media.
32:42
We will because this is probably going to be the first major
32:47
Western. It's not Western, it's it's a
32:50
Chinese production, our documentary essentially, but
32:53
with Westerners involved in English talking about Xinjiang
32:58
on the road. It's a it's a multi polar
33:02
production. It's.
33:03
A multi polar, it's total multi polar production.
33:07
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's more Asian than
33:10
Western. Yeah, we have.
33:12
We have you a Brazilian journalist.
33:14
We have a Russian photographer. You know, I, I.
33:19
I, I, I, I mean American. Exactly Chinese American.
33:24
Yeah, we have a S We have a South African as well.
33:27
Don't forget about germs. So, you know, we got every, we
33:30
got all the BRICS members present.
33:32
We have we. Got the bricks in the move,
33:35
South Africa, Russia, Brazil. So we got BRICS together.
33:43
Cheers. Cheers.
33:49
Cheers. Cheers.
33:51
China, China, Brazil, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Indonesia.
33:56
Bricks. Oh my God, stop and start all
34:00
over again. China, South Africa, Russia,
34:06
Brazil, Indonesia. Bricks. 5 permanent members of
34:11
Bricks. Bricks representation on the
34:13
trip. Full bricks.
34:14
Full bricks participation. Fantastic.
34:18
But look Carl, to sum it all up, for me, this was one of the most
34:25
beautiful moments of my professional career and of
34:28
course of of my my life as a nomad.
34:32
In fact, especially when you cherish so much coming back to
34:37
one of your favourite places. And it was very hard to go to
34:40
Xinjiang until two years ago, maybe after COVID until until
34:46
last year, it was very, very tough, was practically
34:49
impossible. And during and during the 2000
34:53
and 10s, you could not go there. You could maybe fly to Urumqi
34:59
maximum, you know that's but that was it.
35:02
Even the even the our driver said, you know, during that
35:05
time, like at the checkpoints, everybody have to get get out
35:10
and then they check your IDs. Now today they just do you just
35:14
ask you roll down the windows, look into the camera and then
35:17
yeah, and just wave you through. So, yeah, so things are
35:21
definitely getting better. And I and you, I, I know you
35:26
have a, you're planning to go back.
35:29
I, I, I know you are planning to go back, but I, I wanted to
35:32
remind you, March and April can still be cold in northern
35:37
Xinjiang. You know what the locals told me
35:41
is May after the May 1st? After the May 1st holiday, the
35:46
weather will start to get back. No, OK.
35:49
We'll, we'll take this into consideration.
35:51
We we have already discussed a Part 2 of the documentary and
35:57
it's approved. There will be a Part 2 and it
36:00
will be focused more on on North and Xinjiang because the idea is
36:05
to go to those 3 borders, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and
36:09
Kyrgyzstan. So the focus will be more on the
36:12
Geo economics of the north of the Sorry of the Belt and Rd
36:17
initiative, Xinjiang with Central Asia.
36:21
And of course we, we can spend some more time in Urumqi to talk
36:26
about Urumqi as a high tech centre.
36:29
So it will be a different focus compared to this first, this
36:33
first documentary, he had a strong ancient Silk Road aspect
36:39
to it, right? So this was my original idea.
36:42
I wanted to see the ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang now and then
36:48
compare it with the past, obviously.
36:51
So we didn't have much time to see high taxing jump.
36:55
So we did see a lot. Of course we did, yes, but not,
37:01
not not in detail. For instance, we didn't spend
37:04
enough time in Urumqi, but but when?
37:08
But, but just an example for all of you, our audience, you leave
37:14
Urumqi and you go to Turfan, one of the top Oasis in the north in
37:18
Silk Road and you see electrification of China.
37:24
You see that those forests of wind turbines and, and solar
37:31
panels and you see those solar farms as well.
37:36
You can see the light, you know, on the poles for miles and miles
37:42
away. You know, so you and you see
37:45
mechanisation of agriculture. We saw all that.
37:49
These are some but but there's another aspect of Urumi as an IT
37:54
hub. So this this, this next time is
37:57
something that we can see. And of course, yes, go ahead.
38:00
Please go ahead. No, a lot of people wouldn't
38:02
even, they don't even realise Xinjiang is an up and coming new
38:07
tech hub because they just, they just they, they, well, first of
38:12
all, they, they probably get inundated by a lot of Western
38:15
propaganda. But Xinjiang now has one of the
38:18
cheapest electricity in China because of proliferation of
38:22
solar farms and wind farms. That in fact, I, we, we talked
38:27
to a American entrepreneur in Shanghai.
38:30
They were formerly involved in like crypto business.
38:33
And at one point they had send their contact to Rumchi to
38:39
talking about setting up a crypto mining operation in
38:43
Xinjiang because electricity was cheap or that was before China
38:46
banned crypto mining because. They banned crypto mining?
38:50
You bet. Yeah, but but that's because of
38:53
the cheap electricity. A lot of the high tech
38:56
industries are now moving to Xinjiang.
38:58
In fact, one of the things like a lot of the, the, the, the, the
39:04
for, for production of solar panels, for example, because
39:08
itself is very, very energy intensive.
39:11
A lot of the the the the, the solar panel components are today
39:18
made in Xinjiang. They're all made this in
39:21
general. Yeah, Well, it's it's very
39:26
impressive when you see that in front of you, you know, driving
39:31
along the highway, it's it's unbelievable, unbelievable.
39:35
And I remember that many, many years ago, this doesn't exist,
39:40
exist at all. I remember going to Turfan, from
39:45
Urumqi to Turfan, it was just desert.
39:48
That's it. Now it now it's a high tech
39:52
highway. Yeah, yeah.
39:54
You know, actually I think in two weeks we have travelled more
39:59
through more cities in southern Xinjiang than even many Chinese
40:04
people, you know, because we. Most and most Chinese people,
40:08
you're right, because we, we went, we went to the top Oasis
40:12
in the north and then the top Oasis in the South as well all
40:17
the way to Kashkar. And not many people do that.
40:20
Yeah, yeah. And we cut right across the
40:22
Takamakan Desert. And so we we got we got we we
40:26
had all the spots and if you. We hit all the spots because
40:31
this was the original idea, OK, the main, the capital, Urumqi,
40:36
the most important ways is Kashgar, from Kashgar to the
40:40
close to the China Pakistan border because of the China
40:43
Pakistan Economic Corridor and on the north and Silk Road and
40:46
the southern Silk Road, the top Oasis and of course crossing the
40:50
Takramaka with all that you, you do the perfect loop of southern
40:55
Xinjiang. Of course, we didn't go to
40:57
northern Xinjiang. That's next time.
41:01
That will be something then then you have then you would have
41:04
definitely surpassed most of the Chinese in the amount of
41:08
Xinjiang places you have explored, I think.
41:12
But but even before Carl, when I was in Dunhuang, before going to
41:19
Rongji, I met a lot of families from Shanxi province, from
41:25
forest. They say, look, this is the
41:27
first time we come here and not very far when you think about
41:31
it. You know, for them, Xinjiang is
41:34
like going, it's going to Europe or going to the Americas, you
41:38
know, it's very far. The Western Regions, you know,
41:41
it's very far. Well, Pepe, Pepe, back in the
41:44
days, in the old days, I'm talking about in the 80s and
41:47
90s, you will take two weeks to take a train from Yili to
41:53
Beijing 2. Two weeks.
41:56
Two weeks, two weeks train trip from Yili on the border with
42:00
Kazakhstan. To Beijing.
42:02
To Beijing. That this is, I mean, even even
42:04
for me, I remember in the 80s my parents will take me to Songjing
42:10
in Sichuan and take a train to Shanghai, and that took three
42:14
days and three nights. I mean today, I mean this, this
42:19
is for the first time, a lot of the Chinese people can like
42:22
travel within reasonable time, travel those distances with,
42:27
with reasonable time because of development of high speed rail
42:30
and and Hwy system and airports and airports.
42:34
Because like, remember, even in places like in Tashkurgan on the
42:39
premier plateau, now there's an airport, we.
42:41
Have an airport now in Tashkurgan.
42:44
I'm amazing. Exactly.
42:45
Tashkurgan, probably what? It's 20,000 people, 30,000
42:49
people, not more than that. It's a very small settlement
42:53
airport and it's a strategic airport because it's close to
42:57
those borders, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
43:01
And it is an International Airport.
43:02
They do fly to Islamabad from Taj Korean apparently.
43:08
Or it makes it makes total sense for business, for business
43:11
people, Pakistani business people, Chinese business people
43:14
makes total sense. Well, train journeys.
43:17
I remember I once I did Chengdu Kunming was almost two days,
43:24
almost 2 days and it was not a long time ago was probably 25
43:31
years ago. OK, 25 years ago in China is?
43:39
Older than my younger cousin, yes.
43:43
Most of your family. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:47
I was, well I was before talking to you, I was going through the
43:53
plenum in Beijing. So I'm going to write a column
43:56
about the plenum. And of course what do they
44:00
decide? We'll continue to do what we're
44:02
doing, developing our country exactly, investing five year
44:07
plans, you know, building our moderately prosperous society.
44:13
They they put out, they put a video, they put a video of their
44:18
five year plan on Twitter. I saw that they're like, this is
44:21
what we're going to do right next five years.
44:24
And and in China's case, you know, they're probably going to
44:27
deliver. You know, this is not like, you
44:30
know, Donald Trump's campaign promise or something.
44:32
No, no, no. It's because if the people
44:35
responsible don't deliver, they have to pay the consequences.
44:39
It's a meritocratic system. That's the difference.
44:42
You have targets, a lot of people involved, and you have to
44:46
meet the targets step by step. And this is supervised by the
44:51
millimetre. That's how that's how it works.
44:54
That's that's how you develop Sing John in OK, Max.
44:59
It was between 10 and 15 years. Everything that we saw was built
45:04
in the past 10 to 15 years. Everything.
45:06
Yeah, nice. Well, a lot of the hotels we
45:09
stayed in, I asked about that. They were building last year or
45:14
so. Building last year, yeah.
45:17
And I commented with, I commented it with this with my
45:21
European friends who say, guys, first of all, in Europe you have
45:26
no idea that hotels like that exist, not those pieces of shit
45:31
that you have in Italy, France, Germany, etcetera.
45:34
Second, if they existed in Europe, you would be paying €500
45:39
a night. We were paying less than $100 a
45:43
night to stay in them. Brand new, impeccable, modern
45:48
everything, electronic hotels in the middle of literally in the
45:53
middle of OK. I wouldn't say nowhere, but very
45:56
far away from everything. Doesn't matter.
46:01
Yeah, even even in Turpan, they have the they have those robots
46:05
delivering water to your room. You know if you call the front
46:08
desk you want more water, they will send the robot with water.
46:11
They send the robot well, but but people in the West have no
46:19
idea about about anything. In fact, only the few ones who
46:27
who actually take the trouble to travel to China, but they're
46:31
they're still mostly in the east.
46:35
You see them in Beijing, in I saw some of tourists in Xi'an,
46:41
not too many. And as you go West, they
46:44
disappear completely. They don't go.
46:49
So they're not, they're not seeing the development of China,
46:56
I would say in a comprehensive perspective, not at all.
46:59
Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I was surprised
47:02
was, you know, how many Chinese people now have both the leisure
47:07
time and the disposable income to travel within their own
47:11
country now? I mean, like, because we, I
47:13
remember we went to the cash car old city.
47:16
One of the most popular thing for people to do is to go rent a
47:23
Uyghur costume, get the makeup and have a photographer to shoot
47:29
you around the city. So I I first assume, OK, this is
47:33
just a tourist thing for those tourists from the yeast to do,
47:37
right? But later I'm like, wait, wait,
47:39
wait. They're they're I actually saw
47:41
Uyghur people dressing up. So I'm like, what's going on?
47:45
What's going on here? So I I went to ask them.
47:48
I was like, oh, you you're are you Uyghur?
47:51
Yeah. Wait, are you, are you a local?
47:55
They're like, no, no, we're from Aksu or we're from Kucha.
47:58
So I realised, OK, so they're Uyghur tourists.
48:01
You know, they're travelling to travelling to Pashgar for the
48:07
holiday, right? So, so it's, it's for everybody.
48:09
The the the the tourist site is for everybody.
48:13
It's it's just like those in Sian in front of the bell tower
48:20
every day. It's an absolutely outstanding
48:23
Instagram TikTok catwalk. But most of the girls, they are
48:29
not from Xi'an. They're from other parts of
48:31
China. They want to they want to do
48:34
their ang Princess stuff in Xi'an, of course.
48:39
And the craziest 1 is in Dunhuang.
48:43
In Dunhuang, they go to those dunes, the Ming Shah dunes
48:48
outside of Dunhuang and they have to pose like Princess of
48:52
the Desert Man. I spent the whole day just
48:58
looking at them and it's absolutely fascinating.
49:01
From all over the same thing, not only from central China,
49:05
from everywhere, from, from Yunnan, you name it, you know,
49:09
fantastic, fantastic. So it's an industry all across
49:13
China, especially young girls. And it's, it's a fascinating way
49:19
of valuing their culture. So if they go to Sian, they pose
49:25
as a Tang Princess. If they go to Qashgar, they pose
49:30
as a Uyghur Princess. Perfect, you know.
49:34
Actually, I asked our driver, they said the you Chinese
49:39
government actually have a policy to strongly encourage
49:43
tourism to go to Xinjiang. So for example, for state owned
49:48
enterprises for, you know, government employees as well,
49:52
they usually get to take a like paid vacation pay by their work
49:59
unit. But so, but they're strongly
50:01
encouraged to make that pay vacation in Xinjiang.
50:05
So, so yeah, so there is a strongly government directed
50:10
effort to direct more tourism to Xinjiang to bring the to inject
50:15
the cash into the local economy. Man, this, this is brilliant in
50:20
so many aspects because it's it's supporting the local
50:23
economy and at the same time showing to the rest of China.
50:26
Look what we did here, they advertising lots of state
50:35
agencies, federal government, regional government, scholars,
50:40
universities, etcetera, who invested in Xinjiang this past
50:44
10-15 years. And now you see the fruits in
50:47
front of you, you know, sustainable.
50:51
This is another definition of sustainable development.
50:55
Well, in the easier because because of those five year
51:00
plans, Carl, that's makes all the difference, right?
51:03
Long term planning, long term planning, which is not a thing,
51:07
not a thing in US, There is not a non term planning, not a thing
51:12
in the US. the US, they only care about the quarterly,
51:15
quarterly early reports. You know how you order.
51:18
The stock prices, They cannot even plan their dinner.
51:21
Can you imagine five year plans? Well, that that's beyond the
51:26
election cycle, Pepe. You know five years is 1 year
51:29
too long. It's one year too exact.
51:32
Yeah, no, but they cannot, they could not even plan for five,
51:36
for four years if they want it. It's at at best is a quarterly
51:44
and in practise is probably one week after another.
51:47
That's it, you know. Well, in Trump's case, he will
51:49
change his policing tweet in in 24 hours or 48 hours.
51:55
So, so, so that that's where we are.
52:00
I mean, that that's why when the beginning you said all, all you
52:04
can do is laugh. I mean, I think that's a healthy
52:07
response. It's in such situation.
52:09
Well, for all of us who follow the dementia, I think our only
52:16
antidote is to laugh about the stupidity of the role, because
52:20
if we take that too seriously, our lives become unlivable.
52:26
In fact, we cannot take that too seriously.
52:29
Well, nothing that comes from the US or the European Union.
52:33
Nothing literally we can take seriously.
52:36
So at least we take seriously what comes from China, Russia,
52:40
Iran, you know, some other players across Eurasia.
52:44
That's different. The Sahel states, some states in
52:48
Africa, these are serious people.
52:53
But when we compare to the this fragmentation and disaggregation
52:58
of the West, wow, it's there and it's terrifying in many aspects
53:04
because it will only get worse. And it's their own doing.
53:09
Nobody's forcing them to act like this.
53:11
It's their own non decisions or lousy decisions.
53:19
So, So it was very hard, Carl, for all of you.
53:24
It was very hard to leave China. This time.
53:28
I was very lucky because I came here to Thailand.
53:30
If I had left back to the West. Wow being deep depression like
53:36
for weeks. Seriously.
53:39
Seriously the contrast is so mind boggling.
53:45
It was years ago. It was the equivalent of leaving
53:50
the West to come here to Southeast Asia.
53:52
At the time of the Asian Tigers, you could, you could see the
53:57
whole region here booming and you know, dreaming about the
54:01
future compared to the West, which at the time during the
54:05
90s, they were self satisfied that we're ruling the whole
54:10
thing and we'll continue to rule, to rule the whole world.
54:14
Nope. But this was the mindset at the
54:16
time. So when you, when you were
54:19
travelling to Asia at the time, you could see, no, the future is
54:24
among these people. It's what we're seeing now.
54:29
I, I think the, the Asian century is here already.
54:32
It's not like in the future we are already in, yeah, in the
54:36
Asian. No, it's already here.
54:38
But but this is something you can only see if you live in Asia
54:42
or if you come from the West. If you spend a lot of time in
54:47
Asia, then you start to get the picture.
54:50
Otherwise it's impossible for the majority of the brain war.
54:54
Yes, go ahead, go ahead. By the way, I, I, my, my 4 year
54:59
old son had the same reaction as you.
55:01
He's asking me that why did we come home from China?
55:06
I want to be in China. He said he said that.
55:11
Wow, he said. That.
55:15
It's fascinating because this is a visceral, instinctive feeling.
55:20
It's not. It's nothing intellectual.
55:22
It's wonderful. It's wonderful.
55:25
You can feel it, you can feel the literally you can feel the
55:29
vibe, which is something in our trip, the vibe of everything
55:35
that every, all the places we've been, the people we were talking
55:39
to, the vibe was amazing. So obviously you, you get
55:45
contaminated. Even live in China.
55:49
I, I came to, I came via Shengdu.
55:53
I arrive in Shengdu in a brand new airport terminal, literally,
55:58
you know, the guys had just inaugurated a mega terminal.
56:03
Impeccable. It was a few weeks before.
56:08
Mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling.
56:11
I remember Shengdu because I, I, I flew from Shengdu to Tibet
56:15
zillions of years ago and the airport was a mess.
56:19
The airport was. I I remember going to Chengdu
56:23
back in 1990 from my hometown, Hongjing, in order to visit the
56:28
American consulate to get a visa from the US to join my parents.
56:33
And I remember at that time it took me one day and one night by
56:39
train to get to Chengdu. And this time, this time when I
56:46
went back to after our Xinjiang trip concluded, I went back to
56:51
my hometown Chongqing. And while my ex pat friend in
56:55
Chongqing, Daniel Dunbar Braille, he took me on a date
56:59
trip to Chengdu. We took the high speed train
57:02
from Chongqing. We were in Chengdu in like hour
57:04
and a half and. Now we're in 1/2.
57:07
Wow. Amazing.
57:10
Yeah, yeah, I remember at the time it was like what, 12 hours
57:15
by train, 10 hours, 12 hours, something like that.
57:17
Yeah. There you go.
57:22
Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
57:32
You know that. This is.
57:34
Go ahead. This is hard to explain.
57:38
No, no, no. This is hard to explain even to
57:44
a lot of a lot of people that seem to be at least acquainted
57:49
to what China has been doing for this past 2020, 25 years.
57:53
They, they still don't get the dimension of the whole thing.
57:58
They, they don't get the, you know, the scope, the breadth,
58:01
the, the amount of investment, the planning, the organisation.
58:08
It, it is unexplainable for most people that that's why I think
58:13
the, the, the, the approach by the, the Communist Party is very
58:18
sound. They, they tell the whole global
58:21
S Look, it's not that you, you need to copy the Chinese model.
58:25
No, we did a few things that were pretty good.
58:30
We made some mistakes. You can learn from everything
58:33
that we did here that work. And then you can apply to your
58:37
own conditions in your own states.
58:41
That's very, very sound. So if you tell that to somebody
58:44
in Latin America or Africa, they will pay attention.
58:49
No question. They are offering something to
58:55
the global S that it's it's much bigger than what it seems.
59:02
You know they are. That's a different approach
59:08
between China and the so called Washington consensus, right?
59:11
The Washington consensus is there's a, there's a universal
59:15
value. Everyone must adopt.
59:17
By the way, the universal value is our value.
59:20
You must adopt our value. And China is saying, yeah, China
59:25
is saying, well, actually the China model is unique to our
59:29
circumstances. You can come to learn from us.
59:32
Take what you think will be useful to apply to yourself, you
59:36
know? But like, we're not asking you
59:40
to copy us. We're just just serving.
59:43
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
59:45
If you want to cross the Taklamakan, there are four ways
59:48
to do it. Yeah.
59:57
And you can stop along the way to have a drink on top of.
1:00:00
It yes, yes. Incredible.
1:00:06
Well, this, this has been a fascinating, fascinating post
1:00:10
trip interview and I really hope we'll probably do another one by
1:00:15
the time when our documentary comes out.
1:00:19
Any, any time you want Carl the heavy, the heavy work starts
1:00:23
now. And Stan, he has gone through
1:00:26
the footage and he's going to prepare a first rough cut.
1:00:32
So maybe next week or the week after next, we're going to have
1:00:35
a Zoom to start talking about the first rough cut and then
1:00:40
planning the next one, the next one.
1:00:43
So it it's good. It's, it's a tremendous job, but
1:00:48
maybe it could be ready by the end of the year or the beginning
1:00:52
of next year. Hopefully I have so.
1:00:56
Well, I have some footage of my own, So what I can do is I'll,
1:01:00
I'll start. Did you, did you send, did you
1:01:03
send your footage to him? I I did.
1:01:06
I did. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I did.
1:01:08
I did. Especially with the barbershop
1:01:12
will have to be documentary. It's a must.
1:01:15
It's an absolute. Must two guys, two guys walking
1:01:17
in the Uyghur barbershop. That's going to be in our
1:01:20
documentary and. Of course I already wrote the
1:01:24
column. My column starts with us.
1:01:28
I read it, I read it. It was fantastic.
1:01:35
Well, Pepe, thank you very much for making your your.
1:01:38
Time. You're welcome.
1:01:38
My pleasure. And I, I, I look forward to your
1:01:42
next adventure when you do a follow up trip in When Xinjiang
1:01:46
Trip Part 2, definitely. Next year, guaranteed.
1:01:52
Awesome, awesome. Well, if people want to follow
1:01:56
you for again, for the people who have been hiding under a
1:01:59
rock for the last 20 years, for people who want to follow you
1:02:02
today, where do they go? Exactly.
1:02:04
This is important because my work is a little bit scattered
1:02:09
everywhere. It's very complicated.
1:02:11
Well, a lot of people follow me on several podcasts.
1:02:15
This is easy to find. And these podcasts, they have a
1:02:18
large audience. But I'm a writer, I'm not a
1:02:22
podcaster or YouTube. I am a writer, an old school
1:02:25
writer. So where do I publish?
1:02:29
It's complicated if you live in the West.
1:02:31
Again, I publish on Sputnik International in English based
1:02:37
in Moscow, and Strategic Culture in English as well, also based
1:02:43
in Moscow and the Cradle in Beirut.
1:02:47
So it's easy because a lot of my stuff is republished or
1:02:52
translated in several languages. But if you want to get the, for
1:02:58
instance, if you go to my Telegram channel, it's the
1:03:01
easiest way. Whenever I publish something,
1:03:03
there's a link to what was published.
1:03:06
For instance, this column that we were talking about, two guys
1:03:09
walk into a Barber shop in Xinjiang.
1:03:12
So I put the link over there and it's very easy.
1:03:14
So you know where it is. You can click directly, and
1:03:17
obviously if you are in the West, that's the problem.
1:03:21
You have to read the column somewhere else and then you have
1:03:25
to know who's going to republish.
1:03:27
Then it becomes monumentally complicated.
1:03:31
But at least you have the title of the column right.
1:03:35
So when I was with Asia Times, it was much easier.
1:03:39
But that's over. That's a long time ago.
1:03:43
So definitely follow Pepe on Telegram.
1:03:45
So how do they find you on Telegram?
1:03:47
They just search your name. Pepe Very.
1:03:48
Simple. My Telegram channel is at
1:03:53
Rock'n'roll. Geopolitics in one word.
1:03:58
Well, many of you don't know, but I am originally a rock and
1:04:02
roller completely. You still are.
1:04:05
You still are. You're you're still OG.
1:04:09
Totally OG in the in the beginning of my in journalism, I
1:04:17
was among other sings. I was a professional music
1:04:20
critic with lots of yes, with lots of responsibilities,
1:04:24
interviewing rock stars, reviewing records, going to
1:04:28
shows, whatever editing the music page.
1:04:30
So I did this for. Tell me that you did an
1:04:35
interview with germs on your on your career doing that.
1:04:40
No, I did, Jeremy. No, you didn't.
1:04:43
No. Yeah, I, I.
1:04:45
He talked about it, but in the end it never happened.
1:04:48
We could do this later. No, it'll be OK.
1:04:51
I'll let you know. It'll.
1:04:54
Be a pleasure. No, it's going to be a lot of
1:04:57
fun for our music listeners because I can't talk about
1:05:04
direct experience of post punk in London, for instance,
1:05:10
interviewing all these people, you know, The Cure, Echo, The
1:05:14
Bunnymen, Sex Pistols, Clash, you name it, all that.
1:05:19
And of course, when I was growing up, the 60s and the 70s,
1:05:24
when the music was absolutely out of sight, then we can talk
1:05:28
about records. We can talk about the best
1:05:31
records ever, why, how The Beatles used to record in the
1:05:36
studio, like how Led Zeppelin came about, that kind of stuff.
1:05:41
I'm sure a lot of people love that.
1:05:44
Oh, I would love that. I mean, I, I in fact, I'm going
1:05:47
to remind germs to follow up to make sure.
1:05:50
OK, let's do that. We can do.
1:05:52
We can do the three of us. Yeah, of course.
1:05:53
Yeah. Yeah, that would be awesome.
1:05:57
So for the people who are watching this from UK columns,
1:06:00
make sure to keep your eye on the channel.
1:06:04
We're going to have Pepe interview on Rock'n'roll coming
1:06:08
on the. Thank you Rock and.
1:06:11
Roll yes Carl all the all the best for your family and to and
1:06:17
to SE Bali very important. Yes, yes.
1:06:22
Thank you very much, Pepe. For making the time, my
1:06:24
pleasure. Thank you.
1:06:26
And I, I hope I, yeah, I hope to to see you again on your on your
1:06:31
next journey. No, we're going to be together
1:06:34
in this next trip. Oh, it's.
1:06:36
OK. But we're going to be together.
1:06:39
We're going to be together in this next trip, definitely.
1:06:42
Cheers. Cheers.
1:06:45
Bye, bye bye Pepe. Bye bye.
1:06:47
Cheers.