Latest / UK Column Radio / Is China Expansionist? | Jerm Warfare

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Is China Expansionist? | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: My name is Jeram.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: This is Germ warfare, the Battle of ideas well, Kauzar,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: thank you for joining me in the Dreaders again.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Always a pleasure of Jeram.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: So I was thinking, Carle, when you and I traveled
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: across China, I learned so much about China from you.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: You're like a wealth of knowledge the great library of Alexander.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Accepting you weren't destroyed and thank you, and I thought
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: it might be appropriate.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Destroy it. Like like YouTube took my channel offline for
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: like twenty four hours for no reason or I don't
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: know why, because they rejected my appeal. And then I
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: posted on x talking about it, and because because I
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: have like two hundred thousand followers on x so, I
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: got a lot of retweets, and then team YouTube on
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Twitter contact me and say, okay, we'll look into it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: And then I finally was able to, you know, get
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: a human to look into my problem. And then they
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: come up with some really bogus excuse. But anyway, they
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: restore my channel, but they say because my channel was
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: hacked last year and the hacker uploaded a whole bunch
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: of like crypto scam videos. I was pretty sure I
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: removed all the crypto scam videos last year, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: after I regained the channel, but YouTube claim there was
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: one channel that was there was one video was left
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: on my channel which violated their policy on scamming, and
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: so that's why they blocked my chaninel. They did not
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: give me any notification beforehand. It's just just like you
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: chinnel have seen terminated because he violated our harmful count
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: policy and like what the heck? Uh so I suspect
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I suspect is? You know, YouTube was gonna can me
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: and then because the public uproar on x so they
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: want it like a plausible deniability, so they resacicitated one
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: of the deleted scam video on my channel. I'd say, oh,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: that video violated our policy, so it was a mistake.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: But they still give me a They still give me
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: a community guy like warning, even though they find out
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: that was a hacker's video. So I had to go
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: through the I had to do the YouTube community guide
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: like training to get that warning takeoff in three months.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: It's ps man, it's fun of bs.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: But you know what is really funny is that the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Chinese are terrible at scamming.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It should be a Nigerian.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Well, actually, no, no, no, no, no, you you because
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: you don't know this because the Chinese Choese scam other Chinese,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: they don't target you, so you don't know. Because I
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: was getting calls, you know, like Indonesia in my home
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: on my phone and say, oh you have a in Chinese.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: They speak in Chinese. Oh you have a special package
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: waiting for you at the Chinese embassy. I'm like, why
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: would I have a special package waiting for me in
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Chinese embassy. I'm not even a Chinese citizen, And so
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I suspect my phone number somehow got leaked via we chat.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: There might be a we Chat hack, and so the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: people they know I'm Chinese, but they just don't know
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: I'm actually not a citizen. So they use like very
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: bogus reason like, oh, you have a package waiting for
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: you at Chinese embassy. I'm like, why would I have
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: a package waiting for me Chinese embassy. But there is
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: a serious problem. Actually it's a serious problem. So a
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: lot of Chinese nationals they have been scammed by, you know,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: by by supposedly job opportunity to head over to places
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: like Thailand and Cambodia, and then they get kidnapped and
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: then they get sent straight into the scam centers where
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: they work for the scammers to send like telescam calls.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: You know. So so one other guy that was talking
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: to me was probably a guy holding you know, was
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: being held hostage in Cambodia somewhere. You know, he who
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: has to do his fulfill his daily quota of scams.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So you know, like they keep him alive. You know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: it's it's pretty bad, like like uh, you know, China
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: has cracked down several times by working with you know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Cambodian entire authority, Like anytime Thailand or Cambodia they want
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: to gain favor of the Chinese garment, then they start
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: to crack down all the scammers and send them back
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: to China. Yeah, it's it's pretty bad.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Actually, I always thought the world's best scammers of the Nigerians,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: but now you're giving them a run for the money.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you just don't know, because the Chinese cammer the
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: tower target Chinese, right like you know, like there's a
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: there's a joke on Chinese internets like the Chinese people
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: don't cheat Chinese, but it's a joke because like everybody
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: now those Chinese cammers targets specifically Chinese.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Anyway, what I was saying before we got
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: sidetracked there is that traveling across China with you was
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: a complete pleasure. I learned so much from you, your
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: wealth of information about China, and I thought it would
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: be appropriate to have a conversation with you about gardening.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I'm kidding, Yes, my favorite topic. I let my wife
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: do it. I let my wife do it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: No.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I was having a chat a few days ago with
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: somebody and you mentioned, just in passing China has an
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: expansion ast gender and I thought, hold on, wait a minute,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: that doesn't quite sound correct.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I think, I think very simple people have to note
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: that at the time of the Opium War, you know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: when British Wagia war to sell drugs to China, that
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: at the time of Opian War in eighteen forty one,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: then that the Chinese territory then was bigger than the
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Chinese territory now. So I think that sets the context.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: You know, that wasn't that long ago, you know, eighteen
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: forty one, what's only what like one hundred, one hundred
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: sixty years ago? Right, So, so China's one hundred and
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: sixty years ago was bigger than much bigger than China today.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: So you know, we but the thing is, China has
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: been an empire for thousands of years, right, I mean
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: it's it's boundary expand and contract. You know, when China
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: is powerful, it expands out. When when China weakened, it contracts.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: But more or less, it's all happened in like the
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: same geographic area, right. Uh, you know this is part
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: of it's because geography, there's a whole whole Humalayan mountains.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: They're not just not going to expand to the south
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: of that, and and then there's a Gobi Desert and
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: all the all the step line land of Central Asia.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, the Chinese territory has changed widely over
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: the years. But you know, people have to keep in mind,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: at the time of the Opan War, China, China used
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: to be a lot bigger, right. I think a lot
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: of the talking point about China being expansionists, you know,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: like people will raise it the typical issues of Shinjong
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: and Tibet, right, they will say, oh, what about Shinjong
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: and Tibet, Well, Tibet, yeah, and Taiwan okay, So at again,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: at the time of Opian War, all these territory all
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: was part of the Chain Empire. I mean, you know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: people can go back to the maps of eighteen forty,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: eighteen eight, eighteen twenty, those who were all Chinese territory. Well,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: they weren't acquired at different times for sure, But what
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: happened was with these territories. So Taiwan, I'll go one
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: case by case, right, Taiwan. What happened was in eighteen
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: eighteen ninety four eighteen ninety five, China lost the war
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: against Japan in the First Sino Japanese War. As a result,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Japan forced China to give the island of Taiwan to
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: the Empire of Japan, but that was reversed after World
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: War II, so at the end of nineteen forty five,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Japan was forced to give up all the territory he
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: had conquered prior, including Taiwan. So Taiwan was returned back
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: to China in nineteen forty five. The situation with Taiwan
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: today is really a result of unfinished business of Chinese
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Civil War. Because the Chinese government that was ruling China
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: at the time at the end of worl War two,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: which accepted Taiwan. The Nationalist government under Chan Kai Ship
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: was defeated in the Chinese Civil War by the Communists,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: so they fled to Taiwan. Right, So that is the
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: reason for the division. But that's this is why the
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: official name of the government on Taiwan they called the
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: twelve Republic of China. Right, So it's a competing vision
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: of China. I mean, like they don't they don't say,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: you know, Taiwan not part of China, but but but.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: But just but sorry, yeah, before you go any further,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: right now, the year twenty twenty six, how does the
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: government of China see Taiwan.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: It sees Taiwan as a breakaway province. It sees as
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: a renegae province. That's all the If you look at
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: official Chinese communicating, it says the renegae province of Taiwan.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: And in fact, that's how China saw in its dealing
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: with United States, you know, most famously in nineteen seventy two,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: when Nixon went over to China, he met with the
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Chinese premier to online and they signed the Joint Community
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: the Shanghai Communic k AND in which United States recognize
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: that there's only one China with so legitimate government based
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: in Beijing, and the Taiwan issue is to be resolved
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: by the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: That is what's written in the Joint Shanghai Communic k
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: which is hosted today. You can find it on the
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: United States government site on the State Department. You can
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: look it up. So that is for the basis of
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: the current China US relationship. Actually it's called the One
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: China principle. So so for for China. For the Chinese
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: official position, you always hold that Taiwan is a breakaway robins,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: but we hope for peaceful reunification. But we're not taking off,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: you know, we don't want to take off anything off
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: the table, you know, you know, including force, but we
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: hope for peace, peaceful reunification. If you listen to Xiji
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Pin's talk on Taiwan, he always says the same thing.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: We want to push for peaceful reunification with Taiwan. So
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: that's official Chinese.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Butstline, it's is it in the interests of either or
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: both Taiwan and the mainland to use force?
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Well, no, I mean that's why China, you know, that's
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: why it's right Now, There's a lot of people on
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Twitter say, oh, this is a perfect opportunity for China
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: to reunify with Taiwan, right while United States is distracted
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: in West Asia against Iran. But China has not made
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: any move because the last thing China wants to do
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: is to use force, because you know, China's goal is
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: to reincorporate Taiwan, including these people, and and and and
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the society of Taiwan. And China does not want to
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: destroy Taiwan. You know, the last thing you want to
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: do is use force. And now you're faced with the
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: bitter population, right, and then then then you know, which
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: leaves the problem down the road. So so China rather
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: wait for the opportunity, when the opportunity is right, for
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Taiwan to fall into its lap. And I think that's
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: going to happen. I mean, I mean, as for people,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: maybe people say, what's the benefit of reunification. Well, let's say,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: right now, when US waging a war in West Asia
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: that's closed, that's caused the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: You know, Taiwan is very energy dependent on the oil
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and gas coming from the golf and you know because
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: before US waivers are sanctioned against Russian and Iranian oil,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Taiwan had Taiwan got almost all his energy from the Gulf,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: so it has nowhere to turn, whereas China they can
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: just buy more from Russia which is next door, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: they never had problem buying Iranian oil. You know. In fact,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: urran Is right now is selling more oil to China
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: than they have been before the war. So so if
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: China and Taiwan are one, you know, Taiwan would not
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: being an energy crisis right now they have go ahead.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Sorry, man, I thought you finished it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So the converse question is how does Taiwan see the mainland.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: That's a little bit more complicated question. So before nineteen,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: before two thousand, you know, majority of Taiwanese, if they
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: ask them, they will identify us both Taiwanese and Chinese.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: You know that that was like not even a question.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: But what changed since two thousand was a new party
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: came to power. This is a Democratic Progressive Party DPP
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: short for DPP came to Taiwan and their party platform
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: in Taiwan, independence was written into their party platform. So
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: what they did is they carry out what's so called
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: de signification campaign. So what they do is education. First,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: they start with the education. They removed like all the Chinese,
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Chinese any content mentioned about China from the Taiwan textbooks.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: So before two thousand, like Taiwan people, students in Taiwan,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: they will learn about Chinese history, they will learn about
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Chinese geography. But when the DPP government camp became, you know,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: took over, they're like, no, no, no, you don't need
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: to learn that. You don't need to learn about China,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Chinese history, Chinese a geography that's China. China is China,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Taiwan is Taiwan. So they try to create, like artificially
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: create like a Taiwan identity that's separate from the Chinese identity,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: which you know, before the two thousand generation, people on
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Taiwan didn't see a contradiction. You know, they're both, they're
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: both Taiwanese and Chinese, of course, but after two thousand,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: because of this, you can call it brainwashing, you can
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: call it whatever. This is definitely a government led, top
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: down campaign to foster a new consciousness on new like
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: ethanogenesis on Taiwan. And you worked, you actually worked, because
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: now twenty years later, twenty six years later, half century later,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: if you ask a lot of young taiwan people, they
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: tend to identify more exclusively as Taiwanese rather than say,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: or Chinese. Now I think that actually that shows the
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: process can probably also be reversed. But anyway, so the
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: thing is, I have friends in Taiwan. I talk to
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: them all the time, and one thing they always tell
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: me is like the cultural DNA of Taiwan is still
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: very much Chinese. This is why people in Taiwan, they
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: still turn when they turn on TV, they still watch
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: like Chinese TV dramas made in mainland, you know, because
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that's the majority of the cultural production. Now, Taiwan used
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: to be like a cultural used to have a lot
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: of cultural soft power, you know, because back in nineteen eighties,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: when I was growing up in mainland China, we watch
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: TV dramas and movies made in Hong Kong and made
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: in Taiwan, you know, because those guys were cool back then.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Those guys are rich, they're wealthy, you know, you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: they have everything that we didn't, and so they were
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: people kind of looked up to Taiwan and Hong Kong.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: By the way, in nineteen eighties at that time, the
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: GDP of Hong Kong is equivalent to a quarter of
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: the entire Chinese mainland GDP that was. Today it's like
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: a small fraction, right, that's just because how much China
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: has grown. But so before, Taiwan had a lot of
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: soft power that exported soft you know, culture to mainland China.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: Like my cousin, my older cousin, they all know how
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: to sing sing Taiwanese songs, you know, from from eighties
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: and nineties, and they will be able to name all
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: the pop stars in Taiwan. But in two thousand, after
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: two thousand, after you know, decades of Chinese growth, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: particularly today in twenty twenty six, a lot of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Chinese language cultural production now is concentrated on Chinese mainland.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Even a lot of the Taiwanese pop singers, Taiwanese entertainers
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: also Hong Kong as well, you know, movie producers. They
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: all go to mainland China because that's where money is,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: that's where the you know, huge market, that's where the
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: market is. So this this is why today you know
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of young people in Taiwan they still to
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: kind of tune over to mainland China, for you know,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: to get their Chinese cultural fix. But go ahead, go ahead.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Hong Kong.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: There's also one that we didn't really talk about because
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: that was what how did you how did you describe it?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It was reunited back into the mainland. Now, I remember
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: when you and I were there and were I was
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: telling to a few people and they were unhappy about
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: this process. They say that Hong Kong is now going down.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's I would not deny it. There's a
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: significant fraction of people in Hong Kong they feel they
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: feel uh, you know, they're not happy with the with
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: the the handover that happening in nineteen ninety seven. This
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: is why there was a widespread Hong Kong protests in
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, you know, after which many Hong Konger has immigrated,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: you know, particularly to UK because UK gave them the
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: so called the BNO like the British Oversea National Passport,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: which allowed them to immigrate to UK, which doesn't give
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: them full citizenship. But it's kind of like, I don't know,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: like second clue.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: One guy, Yeah, the one guy we won't mention names.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: We will just call him Vanilla Ice. He is one
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: of those gentlemen that went from Hong Kong to the UK.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's very common. But
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people will have to learn,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: like maybe the hard way, Maybe the UK is not
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: what they picture TV, especially for people who have a
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: comfortable middle class style in Hong Kong, who are made
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: from decent mond But I.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Mean, yeah, but you're missing, You're missing, Yeah, you're missing
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: my question. Though, Hong Kong does seem dirty. I mean,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Shanghai is very clean, and many people argue that Hong
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Kong was very clean once upon a time.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: That's a good question because I the time I went
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: to Hong Kong with you, that was the first time.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Oh no, that's what The second time I went to
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong I went. The other time I was in
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong was twenty nineteen during the protest, So I
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to tell you from a personal experience
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: what Hong Kong was like, you know, but but my
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: experience twenty nineteen and the time we went what was
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: the twenty like a couple of years ago, twenty three,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: twenty four, I think, yeah, twenty four, it's it's the same,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: and like I didn't see much difference.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: In ninety hang on, hang on, to be fair, to
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: be fair, I mean, I don't know if you've been
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to power, but Paris is filthy, So it depends on
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: what what your benchmark is. I've never seen as much
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: graffiti as I've seen in Paris.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's that's the top of the list for me.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It is filthy.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I don't know. I mean,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Shanghai has been always been well. It has been clean
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: at least for for a while now, for like at
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: least decades. Because I remember going to China in two
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: thousand and one. This was like October two thousand and one,
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: right after ninety eleven, and George Bush also went to
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: China for an APEC meeting. And I was surprised because
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: I just landed in Shanghai from Hamburg, Germany. I work
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: in Germany for like six months working on a project
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: for Oxo Springer, So when I landed in Shanghai was like, wow,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Shanghai was much cleaner than Hamburg, because in Hamburg it's
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: like dog poop everywhere. You know, people bring their dogs
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: in restaurants and poop on the floor and Shanghai. You know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't see that, but it could be in around
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: two thousand and one. Maybe they cleaned up for the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: George W. Bush visit. It is possible, but that was
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: my impression two thousand and one was hank Shanghai was
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: cleaner than Hamburg, Germany, you know, like because Hamberger was
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: not that clean.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: But go ahead, no, Well, I think the underlying question
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: then is was the reunification of Hong Kong to the
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: mainland success?
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it depends on who to ask, right.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: For the people who are not happy who left for them,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: obviously they don't think it's success. They feel like Hong
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Kong is going down. That's why they immigrated to UK.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: But for the people who remain in Hong Kong, I
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: mean obviously they made their you know, people are either vote,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: people vote with their feet, right. The people who didn't
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: like Hong Kong they left, people who remain, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I think I can I think that's a success. For them,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: it's a success. But I think there are obviously problems.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Because you weren't problems, there wouldn't be the widespread protests
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen. Now I have to remind people is
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: that Hong Kong is not being ruled the same way
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: as mainland China, because even after nineteen ninety seven, when
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong's sovereignty was handed over to China by Britain,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong was governed under so called one country, two systems,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: which means they will have keep doing the same the
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: same way that we're doing things under the British. This
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: was the promise that was promised by denhell Ping. He said,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: we'll keep it. We'll keep the two sides separate for
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: fifty years. Then we'll see what happens and which happened yet,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: so which hasn't happened right now for a Chinese nationale
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: on mainland China for them to go to Hong Kong,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: they still need a passport, They still need to like
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: go through integration, you know, uh and and so so,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: so there is a literally a physical barrier. Uh. So
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: it's not it's not it's not just a Chinese city.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: So Hong Kong is still governed in a very you know,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: people described Hong Kong was like the free you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: free market, free willing, uh you know, free willing, free
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: market capitalism. You know, many libertarians great Hong Kong has
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: more freer economy than the United States. Uh, you know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: in a way, it's this is why a lot of
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and it's also a financial capital h you function as
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: kind of fun financial capital interface between the West and China.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: You know a lot of Chinese companies that go to
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong stock market to list to to in order
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: to raise capital. And again for the westerners, because Hong
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Kong is offered a degree of famili lerity, because you know,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: there's higher English level language level in Hong Kong. But
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: for you, it's just China, you know. I know you
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: told me, I was telling you Hong Kong is the
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: most westernized Chinese city. Yeah, you're just like, it's just
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: China to me that that we went to Shanghai. Okay,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: there is a difference between Shanghai and Hong Kong. I
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: think Hong Kong is a little bit more western nice
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: than difference, and Shanghai is more western nize than the
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: other Chinese cities. There are levels, they're levels.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: The levels.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean Shanghai for me is superior to
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Hong Kong. That was just my personal, my personal experience.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: But now, okay, so that protest you refer to you
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: in tweeny nineteen, you haven't mentioned that it had foreign
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: backed interests.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: You have Ukrainian neo Nazis, like the A's of Battalions
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: showing up in Hong Kong. And they were actually the
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: nd Nationally Am for Democracy, which is like the CIA
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Front group in the United States. They actually funding from
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: following was founded by the same people who found the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: who found the Yeah, yeah, yeah, so anyway, so so
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: they in they the sponsor showing of that Ukraine on
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Fire documentary, which was made specifically to counter like uh,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I think Michael Moore made a documentary on the Ukraine War, right,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: so so so the the the NATO and and their
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: sponsor made a counter pro Ukrainian documentary called Ukrainian Ukraine
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: on Fire, and and they they did a lot of
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: showing at the protest site in Hong Kong. And I
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: remember there was a very famous BBC interview one of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the Hong Kong protesters who attended the showing of the
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Ukraine on Fire, and she was got very emotional and
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: she was crying. She said, like, oh, I wish Hong Kong,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I wish us in Hong Kong. Would have the same
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: same happy ending as Ukraine. Granted, granted that that was
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, if just before the war in twenty twenty two,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: but still it's like you had no idea, You have
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: no idea what's actually going on Ukraine. All your information
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: was is like CIA action prop like Fronk organization propaganda
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: was a force feeding you and then you are hoping
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: that you have a happy ending, safe same like Ukraine.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And so in that regard, I think Hong Kong is
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: much better than Ukraine. I think that's obvious for between
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, Hong Kong is doing much better than Ukraine.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so I mean like there were there were
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: problems in Hong Kong, but I think that those problems
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: got This is how how Color Revolution come about. You know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: like Color Revolution, they didn't create everything out of thin air.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: The capitalized and the leverage existing grievances. So there were
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: grievances in Hong Kong, but I think they got co
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: opted because Hong Kong. People have to remember, Hong Kong
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: was the was a front line of Cold War. You know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: that place was crawling with all the intelligence services type
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: you know from MI six, CIA you name it. All
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: the three letter agencies were in Hong Kong during the
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Cold War. They didn't leave. They did not leave after
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: the end of Cod War. And I think you know
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: this in twenty nineteen, uh, you know, United States and
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: also UK, they just decided to activate all their all
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: their assets to to kind of you know, to to
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: cause a big problem for China. And that was also
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I think that's intended to so so far to cause
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: a color revolushing in Hong Kong. I think that was
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: never possible, but really to have an impact on Taiwan
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: because taiwans was having its election around the same time,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: and the Taiwan Ruling Party DPP was going to that
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: election kind of on very wobbly ground that what the
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: you know, they had been already ruling Taiwan for a while,
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: they were were not popular, but because of Hong Kong protests,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: they used the Hong Kong protests as a scare bongering
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: tactic for Taiwan voters, like you see what happened, You
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: see what happened. If we do the one country two
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: system like Hong Kong, did you see what happened? You
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: will have riots on the streets you know, you have
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: you you have like the cops brutality and and so
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: so Taiwan uh DPP leadership managed to win a second
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: election round. The election that time because of on the
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: back of the Hong Kong protests. So you know, so
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: there's that and and and like the recently the guy
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: who was bankrolling the this was propub with that knowledge
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: that the Hong Kong billionaire Jimmy Live who was called
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: by Wall Street Journal as a rupert Murdoch of Asia,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: he banked, he bank wrote Hong Kong protests. And his
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: second guy in command, Mark named Mark Simon literally come
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: from a CIA family. I mean, like like that guy's
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: dad was a CIA officer. I mean, is he's part
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: of CIA. Yeah, you can't never you know, you don't
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: you can never know, you know, this is a plausible deniability.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, yeah, so so there's a lot of
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: shady stuff going on in Hong Kong for Metaline for sure.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But I do wonder though, if if the Taiwan situation
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: would be more severe. I've got a close friend who
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: left South Africa twenty years ago and he's now resident
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: resident of Taiwan, citizen. I don't know I'm not sure
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: one of those two uh and and he's traveled the
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: world and aust him a few months ago. I said, so,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: have you been to the mainland And his answer was no.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I said, but it's right there. It's like a two
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: hour flight, and he said, yes, but it's China, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: you know, we don't really like China. So I wonder now,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I wonder now how deeply entrenched that that propaganda is
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: and where it's coming from.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: It's pretty I mean, it has been there for a years,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: for decades, I mean since nineteen forty nine, because you
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: have to remember what happened tai before. You know, after
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Japan returned Taiwan to China in nineteen forty seven, China
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: assumed got in broiled in the Civil War and two
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: sides fought. The Nationalists got defeated, and they left and
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: they went to Taiwan. And for decades and decades during
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: the Cold War, from the time from nineteen forty nine
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: to nineteen eighties, Taiwan was under martial law. The martial
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: law was not lifted until nineteen eighty seven, and in
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Taiwan today, that period is still called the White Hair.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: It's called white hair because they were going after all
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: the communists and what they suspect to be the communist sympathizers. Like.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So this is how the a lot of the you
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: know problem in Taiwan today actually can date to that
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: period because for the KMT government, for the nationalist government
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: that came to Taiwan from mainland China, they are different
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: from the people who lived there, you know for centuries.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Even though the Taiwanese are Chinese, they mostly came from
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: the neighboring province of Fujin just across the Taiwan straight
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: so they speak the same language mean none or some
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: some people refer as Hokien, which is another term for Fujin.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: But when the KMT government got defeated, they came to Taiwan,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: they brought millions of people with them, and those people
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: come from all over China. They didn't just fund the
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: same problems Fuji and anymore. They're the people from northern China,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: even people from Mongolia, from Tibet, from like all over
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: China win to Taiwan. And so the KMT government forced
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: uh Mandarin education, like they ban local dialects, they banned
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: people to speak their own local language, Hokien, which is Hokien,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: and they mandate everybody must now speak in Mandarin in schools,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: and and and like people, the teacher will beat the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: students if they speak. They heard them speak the local
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: lingua in so so this caused a lot of resistance.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: So people saw these mainlanders, mainlanders who came with the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: KMT by the way, came with Janki. These are not
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: communist mainlanders. There's the anti communist mainlanders, but the people
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: just see them as main these mainlander car carpetbaggers who
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: came to Taiwan taking over everything, you know, way they did,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: you know, because when the when the Japanese left, you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: all the all the before when when Japan came to Taiwan,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: they rule us a colony, right, the c sees all
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: the most important assets. So when the Japanese left, well,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: guess what, the nationalist government under Jackai Shi then camp
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: took over all those confiscated assets on the Japanese. But
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: because they themselves are a little bit different from the
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: local population, there's a lot of resentments all these mainland
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: carpetbaggers coming here, imposer language, uh, taking our our land.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And now they're they're they're institute in martial law. So
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: this is where Taiwan separatism originally came from. Taiwan separatism
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: originally was was against the government of jian Kai Shi
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: that came from mainland China. And this is also Wi.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: There's anti mainland sentiment even they dating to nineteen forty nine.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: But on top of that you have the KMTI government
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: carrying out the relentless brainwashing like the Red Scare against
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: mainland China. Oh, like these are communists on the mainland
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: softer throughout fifty years of Cold War, these kind of
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: different strains of propaganda, like the sentiment fused together. Now
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: it just became mainland China's bad, you know. So it's
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: a bad communist place where all the bad people come from.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: And so that remained the situation today. So right now,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: after the democratization of Taiwan, which happened in late nineteen nineties,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: the part of the two parties, the Democratic Progressive Party
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: was the opposition party. So they realized the best way
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: for them too became the main party is to divide
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: the votes. Because they just they did the divide and
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: conquer strategy. So on the main on the on the island,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: about about sixty about the whatether eighty five percent of
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: the population on the island, their ancestors, their their their parents,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: grandparents were already on the island in nineteen forty five
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: when when Jiang Kai Shee's government camp to take it
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: over from Japan. But fifteen percent of the population camp
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: with Jiang Kai shed when they were defeated on mainland,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: China came to two islands. So this present an opportunity
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: for the for the people doing the populace politics. Hey,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: we have this eighty five fifteen percent vibe. If we
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: can keep on pushing this line that we have been
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: oppressed by all these mainland carpetbaggers, right, and then then
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: we can at least a getting eighty five percent of
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: the vote. And that's what happened. I mean, they appealed
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: to the to the local you know in the western
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: press called Taiwan knees, but they're really the local Hokkien
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: population who spoke the Fujian language who came to Taiwan earlier,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: and then versus the mainlanders who came with Jiun Kai
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: shed in nineteen forty nine. And so this is how
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: this is. This was the origin of the Taiwan separatism.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: They say, Okay, the problem was all broad on by
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the Chinese mainlanders when the Junkai she came over, created
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: all this problem. And now we want we don't we
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: don't have we don't want to have anything with mainland,
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: mainly main in China. So this is this is kind of
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: very complicated history, but you know, there's a lot of
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: nuance to it.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Geopolitically though, Taiwan poses also interesting potential problems for the mainland.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: It's got strong US.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, of course. Uh. General MacArthur of the United
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: States famously said during the Korean War that Taiwan is
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: an unsinkable aircraft carrier off the coast of China. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: that's that's exactly what it is. It's it's a base
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: to use for United States to contain China. So during
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: during the Cold War, they developed the concept called the
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: First Island Chain, which is this chain that runs from
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Japan all the way, uh, all the way through islands Okinawa,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: down to Taiwan, down to Philippines, uh, you know, all
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: surrounding the South China Sea to contain China, to contain
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: China within the First Island Chain, and and then you
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: know this is this was originally to contain communism right
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: China and Soviet Union, but after the Cold War, which
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: is used to contain China. And this is why Taiwan
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: issues not really an issue between Taiwan and mainland China.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: It is really an issue between US and China. During
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: the Cold War, US has stationed up to sixty thousand
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: troops on Taiwan, and they actually had nuclear tip missiles
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: stationed in Taiwan. People today probably don't even realize that.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: So nineteen seventy two, when Nixon went to China, one
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: of the deal that was made that led to original
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: final normalization of ties between China and the United States
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: was for United States with Jewish military and with Jewish
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: nuclear missiles from Taiwan. This policy was reversed under Trump administration.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: When Trump sent like five hundred marines over to Taiwan.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: That was the first time after nineteen seventies, you know,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: when US military touched ground on Taiwan again. So now
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: we're you know, but thanks for Trump. But Trump has
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: other priorities because he has taken care of the Golden Boy, Israel.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: So now he's in West Asia fighting the war uh
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: for Israel. So now United States is taking all the
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: military hardware in East Asia and shipping them to to
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: to West Asia. You know, like all the Marines are
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: sending over to run right now, we're originally stationing Okinawa again,
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: you know, part of the first island chain to contain China,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: and and and people look at a map int geo politics.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: You know there's a there's a whole island chain from
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: the from from Japan down to Taiwan. You kind of
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: block China's access to the Pacific Ocean, right And this
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: is how the United States constantly talk about its Navy's
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: ability to to block a China, to cut off the
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Chinese energy supplies, right, including a stream Malacca. Well, right
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: now we would know what that would look like because
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: now we have a block A and the Straight of
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Horror moves and and uh, you know the US Navy
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: didn't need to block the Straight of Malacca tid hormuskat
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: block and now we saw the consequences. The consequences is
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: actually the US allies in the region, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: Philippines off suffering right now because they're more heavily dependent
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: on the Middle East oil. You know, China can still
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: get their oil and gas from from Russia. You know.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Well, speaking of Japan, I mean the Japanese like to
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: claim that China's expansion is particularly Tibet.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, okay, let's go back to Tibet.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: So again, like I mentioned, at the time of Oping War,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Tibet was already part of the Chinese Empire, you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Chinese official government. I'll do the official Chinese government line
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: and I'll give my own personal opinion. So the official
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Chinese government line says, the incorporation of Tibet day to
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: the Yuan dynasty, you know, when Kublai Khan founded the
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: Yuan dynasty in Beiji. But when during the time of
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Mongol conquest, you know, Mongo incorporated Tibet, which technically true,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: you know, but some people feel, well, but that was Mongols.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: But technically because Mongo did bring different piece of China
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: together at that time. But let's let's see, let's just
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: pass away Mongos for a second. Let's say that that
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: doesn't count. That's Chinese government propaganda, doesn't count. But by
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: seventeen twenty, by seventeen twenty, the Qin government, which is
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: based in Beijing, again, the Qin dynasty government. They did
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: send army to Lasa too, because at that time the
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Chin government was engaging a fight against the zuan Gar
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Mongols for supremacy over Central Asia and the Dwan Guards.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: They send the expeditionary force into Tibet to occupy Lasa.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: So that allowed the Chin government to have an excuse,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: you know, they were invited by the Tiptans to go
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: to Lasa to expel the invading younger Mongols. And then
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: after that, the Qin government state and you made officially
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: incorporated Tibet as part of the Qin Empire. So that's
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: seventeen twenty. That's before the founding of the United States.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: You know, US was seventeen seventy six, right, So seventeen twenty,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: that's that's like what fifty years before the founding of
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: the United States. Tibet already became part of China, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: it has been part of China ever since. What happened
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: was in the nineteen eleven when Chinese Revolution overthrow the
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: last imperial dynasty in China. At the time, all the
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: provinces of the Qin Empire declared independence, including Tibet and Mongolia.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: But the thing is nobody recognized Tibet as the independent country,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: you know, the only one. So what Mongolia and Tibet
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: did then is they recognized each other, you know, as
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: an independent state. But nobody else was recognized in either
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Mongolia or Tibet at that time. So if you look
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: at the maps World maps that was published during World
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: War two, for example, you will show Tibet as part
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: of China. So what happened was Tibet was de facto independent,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: but you never gained recognition, It never gained international recognition
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: and China, Chinese governments still maintained all that time that
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Tibet was part of China's but it didn't have control
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: over it because China at that time was during the
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: warlords period when different warlords were fighting each other, and
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: then after that there was a Japanese invasion, so nobody
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: can be bothered Tibet. But at the during World War two,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: a portion of the British the ally aid to China
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: was actually going through Tibet, so they went from British
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: India to Tibet, and from Tibet carried on yaks to
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the rest of China. So in so what happened was
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: after the Chinese Civil War when the communists won. This
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: is when Dalai Lama's government in Lasa they fell threatened
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: because they felt like communism they're they're atheists right there,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: They're gonna be a big threat to us, a Buddhist theocracy.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: So at that time, they they tried they at last minute,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: they tried to gain international regulation against again they failed,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: but they did gain cooperation from the CIA. So CIA
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: had met with Dalai Lama's older brothers, so they shipped
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: bunch of Tibetan gorillas to train in Colorado. And then
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: but in nineteen fifty US Chinese Civil War came to
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: an end, the Chinese People's Liberation Army did march on
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: to Tibet and they defeated the Tibetan army, and this
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: resulting what's called the seventeens point Agreement, the seventeen point agreement,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: which is agreement between the Dalai Lamas government in Lasa
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: and the central government in Beijing that you agree that
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Tibet is part of China, but Tibet will gain an
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: autonomous status within China, which means, you know, the Dalai
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Lamas government will get to maintain their way of life,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: they will keep on ruling as they did before. It
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: just you know, China will hand over, will handle the
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: foreign policy and military. So that was agreement. But what
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: happened was in an early in the mid fifties, so
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: China started to carry out a series of land reforms,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: you know, which has done in the other parts of China.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: But they promise they will not they will leave Tibet alone.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: You know, Tibet was original one country two system place.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: So they promised to leave Tibet alone. But what happened
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: was when China was carrying out so people have to
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: realize the Tibetan population in China is actually don't just
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: live in the Tibet Today, the region know as Tibet
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Autonomous Region matches the area that was under the control
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: of Dalai Lama's government in nineteen fifty, right, but the
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Tibetan plateau is actually geographically much bigger area. So the
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: Tibetan a lot of Tibetan population. In fact, half of
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: the Tibetan population lived outside of the Tibet in other
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: parts of Tibetan plateau in various Chinese provinces. Now, in
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: late mid nineteen fifty Chinese started to Chinese government start
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: to implement land reform in other Chinese provinces that's large
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Tibetan population. The land reform include seizing the land from
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: landlords and doing redistribution. It so happened the Tibetan monasteries.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: A lot of the Buddhist monasteries are arge largest landlords.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: They are largest landowners, so they got their land taken
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: away and getting distributed to the former serfs. So this
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: became a huge issue for for the local Tibetan aerosocracy.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: And this is this is the start of the Tibetan
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: revote in the outlying areas. Now, now this affected the
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Aalai Lama's government in Lasa as well because they saw
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: what was happening. They say, okay, well, Chinese government promised
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: not to touch us uh to allow us to keep
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: our way of life, including like you know, serfdain into
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: because Tibetan was a was a serve society. Ninety percent
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: of the population were serves. But they they they were
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: worried because they saw in the outlying provinces where there's
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of Tibetan live, they saw the Tibetan monastery
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: got their land confiscated and getting redistributed. So they're worried
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: it's a matter of time that China will implement the
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: same policy the Tibetan proper. So they got in touch
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: with the rebels, and they also got in touch with
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: the CIA were supplying the rebels and and so this
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: so the Tibetan rebellion grow larger and larger, you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: frou from nineteen fifty five. Eventually it reached Lasa in
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty nine. So in nineteen fifty nine, there was
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: a plot at the time it was very complicated. But
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: but how how he touched off was Dalai Lama was
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: originally scheduled to go to the Pola garrison in Lasa
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to attend some ceremony some some uh some celebration. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: now there was a widespread rumor in Lasa at the time,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: you know, probably by his senior monks saying that Chinese
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: are the Chinese government officials are intending to kidnap Dalai
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Lama during the ceremony. And so what happened This touch
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: off a big riot in Lasa and all the monasteries
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: they their arm by the way, you know, like I
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: know in in the West, Chibbet has an image of
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: being shanger, love and peaceful. But all the monasteries they
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: have their own army. This was a traditional way of
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: life in the feudal Tibetan society that the monastery they
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: have their own monk armies with with with weapons in
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Coconan firearms. So all the monks they they they started
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: uprising in March nineteen fifty nine, and what they did
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: is they sent out Dalai Lama on horseback across the
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Himalayas to India while they started the rebellion in the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: city of Lasa. So but very soon the PLA put
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: down the Tibetan rebellion in Lasa. This led to the
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: sharp deterioration of ties between China and India. By the way,
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: so China India before nineteen fifty nine had a honeymoon period.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: The Indians called it Hindi Chini Bye bye, which means
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: China Indian brothers, you we're brothers. But after nineteen fifty nine,
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: because of Tibetan revote, because Dalai Lama flew to India,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: we said CIA assistance. That led maud to be very
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: suspicious of Indian leadership on their network and the two
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: side the relationship deteriorated very fast. That eventually led to
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: the China India War in nineteen sixty two on the borders.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: But anyway, so this is the whole history of the
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Tibetan revote I mean, I can tell a lot of
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: stories because from my mom, when she was nineteen years old,
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: a recent graduate from nursing school, she was sent over
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: to the Tibetan Plateau to work on a high altitude
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: a clinic that served the local Tibetan Hurds families. This
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: is one in nineteen sixty eight, but the Tibetan rebellion
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: was actually still going on, because he was telling me
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: when they first went, because the Tibetan rebellion was still
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: going on. So all the all the girls from the
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: nursing school, they have to go through military training with
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: this PLA People's Liberation Army Unit. And then halfway through
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: the you know, they only had like a couple of
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: weeks of training, and then the rebellion, the rebellion activity
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: flare up. So the PLA units that were training with
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: was sent away. And and so one night they were
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: camping out, just these bunch of girls and one POA
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: officer with them. They heard a gunshot and they rush
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: out to their ten to see what's going on. So
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: there was a Tibetan herdsman who you know, came with
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: a bunch of yaks, and then there's a couple of
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: women sitting on the yax and he was haggling with
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: a PLA officer. He said, oh, you know, I heard
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: you have a lot of women here. You know, we
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: can do a trade. You know, I brought two women
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: we can train, and so explained him, we don't do
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: that here. But he's like okay. He's like, okay, you're
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: you're haggling price for pries. I understand. How about two
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: for one. I give you two for one. You know
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: it's good for you two for one. So there's a
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: lot of stories like that, and.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Like my scamming, the scamming that we spoke about.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: So so so my my mom, like in her youth,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: she was pretty right. So she was recruited to do
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: like in the performance trope, they will put put up
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: performance for the locals. And one day the locals after
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: her performance, uh, the next day the locals, her local
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: quintess came to her say, oh, you were great last night.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: The rebels came down from the mountain last night to
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: see her performance. So so, so my mom stayed there
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: for like fifteen years, and my during nineteen she still
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: remember in the early seventies. I think that coincided when
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: Nixon visited China in the early seventies. You know, as
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: part of the deal when Nixon went to China was
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: cut off CIA found into the Tibetan rebels. So my
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: mom remember in the early seventies, the Tibetan rebels were
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: coming out of the mountains to reconciliate with the local government,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: like they hold a like whold to reconciliation ceremony and
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: all that. So my mom was there all those time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: So so there's a lot of history, a lot of stories.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: We haven't even touched on shing Jiang, and we have
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: spoken about ching Jiang quite a lot in the past.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: So I guess just because it's also an autonomous region,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: just very briefly today, it's part of China, but it
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: still has its own way of life.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, I mean Shinjong is always you know,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: it's basically a part of Central Asia in terms of ethnicity,
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: culture is closely related to the rest of the Central
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Asia all the former Soviet republics basically, but it became
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: part of China again during the imperial times during imperial dynasties,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: including during the First Opian War. Shinjung was already part
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: of China back in eighteen forties and it remained part
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: of China and then in nineteen in nineteen through from
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: nineteen eleven to nineteen forties or you know, the period
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: after overthrow of Chinese dynasties and you know worl War two,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: Shinjong was ruled by various warlords and to maintain control,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: and there was a lot of fighting in Hinjong actually
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: becomes these between these different warlords factions. And then in
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: nineteen third in the nineteen thirties, there was a Wigur
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: revote against the Chinese warlords of Shinjiang. At that time
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Jinsu then because Jinsu then at that time was also
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: he was trying to take away the Oigur land and
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: give them to invite Chinese famine refugees from other provinces
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: to settle those lands. So that led to the most
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: recent Wigur rebellion in nineteen thirties, but it got squashed
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: by the other Chinese warlords army that was coming through
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: and then in nineteen so from nineteen thirties to nineteen forties,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Chinjiang was basically a Soviet protectorate because the Shinjang warlords.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Census High was only able to maintain control over this
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: large area with Soviet support, with Styaling support. But during
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: the World War Two, when he saw that the Nazi
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: German Germany's army was at the gate of Moscow, he saw, oh,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: Soviet Union's finished. And this was also around the time
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: when Japan did the Pearl Harbor attack against the United States.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Everyone in China knew that Japan has finished. You know,
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: there's no way Japan can win against US. And and
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Juan Kai she became a US ally and so census
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: I thought, okay, Stalin is finished. But Junkai she is
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: getting the American support, so he's a sure bet. So
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: census I then expelled all the Soviet advisors. The Soviet
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: Red Army function young and he switched legions to Junki.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: Shid and Stalin didn't like that. And then in nineteen
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: forty six, after the war wrapped up in Europe, Stalin
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: Soviet Union then they supported bunch of Uiguer and Kazak
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: communists to come from Central Asia into Shinjung to start
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: so the so called Second East Turkistan Republic. The first
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: East East Turkystan Republics was the one that was created
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirties that only existed for six months.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: So the Second East Turkistan Republic was established in the
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: northern part of Shinjung, the part of Shinjung we haven't
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: been to on our trip. We've been to the southern
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: Shinjung because Hinjaanas has a huge place. So in the
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: northern part of Hinjng the established the Second East Turkistan
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Republic was a coalition formed by communists and the Islamisist
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: so it's a very unstable coalition. But the KMT Junki
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: ship didn't like that, you know. He sent his own
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: army into Shinjung and the two side clash and eventually,
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: as part of negotiation between Juan Kai SHV's KMT government,
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: Nationalist government and the Soviet Union, Stalin agreed to have
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: those people in the East Turkistan Republic to take away
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: the name East Turkistan Republic to call themselves a revolutionary
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Three district of Shinjung and to have them form a
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: coalition provincial government in Shinjung with the Juan Kai Chess people.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: So that was the situation in Chhinjung before uh the
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Chinese Civil War and then when the Chinese when the
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Communists won the Chinese Civil War, the former the former
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: East the Turkistan Republic people who are a bunch of
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: communists because the Communists the purge the Islamists soon afterwards,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: the Islamis is the Communists. They didn't get along. So
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: the communists managed to purchase the Islamists and they control
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: the three district of northern Shinjung, so they may contact
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: with the Chinese communists. They say, okay, let's go after
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: the Juan Kai Chi army together. And then the Juan
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: Kai Chess garrison surrendered in Shinjiong in Urunchi, and so
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: all Shinjong become the People's Republic of China. So this
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: is a kind of brief history of Shinjong. It has
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: always been part of China, but there was a There
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: was only two instances of a like attempt at creating
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: a breakaway republic, but it didn't last long and it
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: wasn't like an occupation in nineteen forty nine. It was
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: literally the communists, the Uigran Kaza communists and the other
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Chinese communists got together and they gang they gang up
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: on the junkies, nationalist army and the Islamist faction. So
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: so that that's a history of Shinjung in a nutshell.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: It's also in Shinjung where you and I encountered the Tajiks,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: my people.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So for for the audience who were confused, there
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: were still a lot of police checkpoints in Shinjung, especially
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: around the border. But we were we were really confused
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: because Pepe Escobar and our Russian photographer were sitting in
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: the other car. They always get pulled over and have
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: their passport check and here me and Germs sitting together.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: We just get waving through. They're like what's going on here?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: And then then we're like, okay. They thought Germ was attaching.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: They must think you are like a local.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I'm safe, I'm safe with my people, call my people
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: need me.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so Pepe could have Pepe probably could
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: get away, but Stan was just too blond and too
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: blue eye to pass.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: So our question right at the very beginning of our conversation,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: is China expansionist.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: No, No, China is not okay. So all the tears
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: when China, when People's Republic of China was founding in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: nineteen forty, he inherited the border problem, you know, from
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: the colonial times, with all its neighbors, but they right
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: now China has resolved all its land land borders with
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: all its neighbor except two countries, India and Bhutan. And
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: bhutan foreign policy is controlled by India, so India is
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: really the out one out. But China has settled its
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: border with Russia in the north, settle its border with Mongolia, Tan, Jikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: Miammar Miyammar, Laos, Vietnam, even Vietnam land border between China
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: and the dispute between China and Vietnam right now is
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: strictly maritime dispute in South China Sea, but the land
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: border has been settled since the early two thousand, so
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: all the land border has been settled. So it does
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: show that China's willingness to negotiate, and even on the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: South China Sea issue, you know, like that that claim
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: predates Communist the Chinese claim on South China. See actually
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: the you know, the people talk about nine dash line,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: well used to be Leve dash line. It was proposed
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: by Jiang Kai Che's government. Uh, you know, right after
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: war World War two. But anyway, go ahead, you're shaky.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: However, yeah, however, you know that you're only speaking about
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: physical expansion. A very popular trope is the idea that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: China is trying to expand digitally, uh or through or
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: through what trade, colonialism or whatever?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean okay, I mean, if you're okay,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: then is Facebook? Is Facebook? Uh, American expansion of and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: you can come Facebook American expansion of the mind. But
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: by the way, uh, you know, you can have uh,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: you can't ban TikTok. It's possible. India banded TikTok. You know,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: America they forced the TikTok, the sale of TikTok to oracle.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: So you so this governments do have control, you know, Okay,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: but hold on, hold on, I said trade. So so
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: so Africa is a good example. They say, well, the
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Chinese are trying to expand and take over Africa. I
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: mean I'm a Chinese call for example.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're you're you're you're monitoring. I'm getting daily feed
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: from from your car cameras and I talk with Hiji
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Pain every Thursday, you know, to talk about your Germany's
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: daily routines. Uh So, anyway, it's called trade. I mean,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: trade is literally between two people, like two consenting parties,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: like nobody. China is not coming to Africa holding a
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: gun to anybody's head. They signed this deal, you know,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: or or else.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Sorry, but I'm interrupted.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm interrupting again because this is a free
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: loaded argument that that constantly gets made. So for example,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: add this Alba Ba right, the huge airport, it was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: built by the Chinese. They argue that these are dead traps,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: which which then helps China get control.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, well what did China do? Did China take
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: physical control of the Adabas Airport? Did China send the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: People's Liberation Army soldier to secure that airport? I mean,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: did China send any aircraft carrier attack groups to Africa?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Like United States actually have uh US actually have military
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: bases in almost every African country. They have this called
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: lily Pad strategy, you know, And whereas China just announced
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: zero terrif zero terrif for for African goods for all
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: those entire African content. And I say almost because this Swaziland, Swaziland.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's part of South Africa. Swaziland, Yes, it's a monarchy.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: Wait, Swaziland is part of South Africa.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you not know that?
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Oh no, No, I was thinking it's Wanty, it's Wanty,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: it's wakih. So so that's that's the only exception because
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: that that country, reckog is Taiwan, so it does not
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: have diplomatic relations. So for all the African countries, so
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: all fifty three that have diplomatic relations with China, China
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: has granted zero tariff for African goods. So so they
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you call that colonialism, you know, I
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: don't know. I mean I this this is like calling
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: everybody Nazis that you don't agree with. It's like what's
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: he makes a term meaningless? Go ahead?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: No, So the argument argument call is that, And this
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: is how I understand argument. I'm not entirely certainly if
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: I see evidence of it. But this is nonetheless argument
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: I hear all the time. Sure, and that is uh,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: the Chinese will come in and build infrastructure, but the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: African countries are not able to pay it back. So
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: what happens as a result is that policy therefore gets
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: influenced in favor of China.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: What happened, I mean that what happened, like like, what
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: did people need to give me a concrete example, how
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: did Chinese loans or Chinese build railroad? You know force? Yeah,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: I hear a lot of respect. No, I hear the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: same argument. But again it's like almost all conjectures like
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: this could happen. But okay, how like give me an example,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: you know, Like this is why I tell people, give
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: me an example where China actually come in the physically
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: possess an asset.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, let me let me jump.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: Let me jump into a high speed train built by
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: the Chinese, and then think about it and I'll come back.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Because that's what they're doing.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: The Chinese are building infrastructure. I don't necessarily see a
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: problem with UH infrastructure. I certainly see it as better
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: than say American threats of UH invasion war sanctions. And
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I certainly see Chinese quote unquote debt as better than
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: debt from the im A for the World Bank.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: For example.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: Well, that's that's actually why there's a Chinese that the
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: myth being propagated. Uh. Actually, by the way, the Chinese.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: The originator of a Chinese myth is an Indian think tank.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: He was an Indian think tank, and he was adopted
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: by all the Western journalists, mainstream journalism. And the the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: thing is, for decades ym F and World Bank, that's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: the only tongue in only game in tongue. And now
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: they have they have competition. They have they have China,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, to offer the loan so Africans. They have
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: additional choice, they have alternatives. They can decide, Okay, whether
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to take the IMF long war back long
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: or the Chinese loans. I mean, I think more choice
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: is better.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: I think so too.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: And I mean also I prefer paying less for for
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: Chinese products if it's just as good. I mean, Mike, Mike,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: call just Chinese basically costs a third of the price
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: of the equivalent let's say Japanese or German. Uh.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: And And someone says to me, yes, but it's Chinese.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: How long it's gonna last?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I've got a seven year maintenance plan, full maintenance plan,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: so it's going to last at least seven years.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: That's actually the reason why I bought my Chinese car
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: because he has a has a ten year warranty on
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: the battery and and so that's pretty good. That's pretty
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: good for me, you know, because.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yours is ev mine's petrol. I've got a warranty
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: on my engine for a million kilometers.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. I got. I
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: got ten years. I got ten year warranty. I mean,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: I only have my car, only have an electric motor,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: so the battery of motor is warranty for ten years.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: That's good enough for me. Yeah, you guys, ten years,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: hopefully I'll be all trading for another car.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the conclusion yet is you're arguing that China
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: is not expansionist. And we weren't getting into a whole discussion,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: but it's obvious that the United States is.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the simplest thing just look at the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: recent history. The last time China fought a war was
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine against Vietnam, right, so now we're in
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, was what like it's almost like so
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: for the last forty years. So for the last forty years,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: China has not fought a war, whereas United States have
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: been fighting war read decades, you know.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: And Trump himself even said that he's not going to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: start any newles. It's a good thing he can.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: And you know, the thing is every American president, uh,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: you know, came to office promise to be the peace president.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I remember as far as I remember, because
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: my first the first time I'm eligible to participate in
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: US election was the George W. Outgore election. Back then,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: George W. George W. Bush promised that he will be
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: a non pursuer, non interventionist foreign policy. I mean, this
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: is every every American president, you know, like Obama, he
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: came to office promising, don't do stupid ship. You know,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: he just you know, I guess, I guess the smart
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: thing to do is jowing weddings and funerals.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: You know, Trump is still your president.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: He's still my president. Yeah, he's still he's still my
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: best president for accelerationism of America imperial decline. I mean, like,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: what the heck is he doing?
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Man?
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Now? Now they're saying they're gonna start a ground war
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: with you round to reopen the street or hole Moose
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: which was opened before he started the war. It's a disaster. Man,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: I'm lucky. I'm like the US Pendagon just announced a plan.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: They're gonna increase the age, the maximum age for enlisting
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: to forty two. So I'm lucky. I'm already I'm already
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: forty nine. I'm gonna be fifty this year, so I
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: think by the time they need to increase the age
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: to fifty, US is screwed. Anyway, don't worry.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: About it, all right. How can I follow your work?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am a prolific ship poster on X so,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: you know, just follow my name carl Za. That's my
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: handle on x I also have a YouTube channel again
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: carl Za, just my name. And I do host a
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: a audio podcast on patreonch of Silk and Steel Podcasts,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: where I focus more on the Chinese history. You know,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: I dwolve into the Chinese I do. I do a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: chronological telling of the Chinese history from the very beginning. Uh.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: And my aim is to reach the present day sometime
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: in the future, because right now I'm around two hundred
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: and thirty a BC, so I still have a couple
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: of thousand years to go. So that's a couple of
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: tea check it out. Yeah, and of course you have
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: a show on UK column UK columns, Yes, UK column
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: I have a I have a have a show regular
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: three times a week.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining in the trenches.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you germs