Latest / UK Column Radio / Carl Zha on Trump making India great again

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Carl Zha on Trump making India great again · UK Column Radio

0:39
So I'm from Africa, I don't carry cash all that often
0:41
because it's very dangerous to carry cash.
0:43
But you reckon it's not that much different in the US, $40?
0:47
None. Is the West and the East to work
1:09
together? We don't want, we don't want
1:11
rivalry. We don't want, well, we don't,
1:12
we, we want competition, but we don't want fighting.
1:15
And, and it's very important that that we try and understand
1:21
each side because that is how we actually make progress.
1:24
We don't make progress by creating enemies, but that's
1:28
what could happen. That's our podcast.
1:29
Yeah, that's our podcast, but we're done.
1:35
Let me, let me press end. But I mean, that's what that's
1:38
what's been happening under the Trump administration.
1:42
I like some of the things that Trump says and does, and I
1:44
dislike many others. One of the things that I dislike
1:48
about his administration is how he has created China as as as
1:54
enemy #1. That's, well, first of all,
1:58
Trump does not even represent the entire W Trump only
2:03
represent a a segment of the US right now.
2:07
It doesn't. Even the president entire, but
2:09
he's a. President, he's a president.
2:11
He's a president because we, we have the Electoral College
2:13
system. But as you know, US itself
2:16
politically is quite divided. You know, it's almost like 5050
2:20
right down the middle. But yeah, guys, Trump is the
2:23
president and he actually slapping tariff against everyone
2:27
now, not just China or, or, or people in the east is slapping
2:31
tariff against Europeans as well.
2:33
You know, all the right now all the EU leaders are.
2:36
Did you see that recent photos of all these you leaders that
2:40
were lining up sitting like, sitting like school children
2:45
ready to get sculpted? And, and, and I mean, wow, you
2:49
know, like that, that, but that's how it is.
2:52
That's how it is because you, you Trump can do that because
2:56
you know, US has a lot of power. And, and, and Trump just felt
3:00
that he could throw the weight around and, and right now it's
3:04
all big sticks. No carrots, no carrots, no ice
3:08
cream, sorry, just big sticks. Am I right in saying that India
3:13
and China have decided to remove trade barriers between each
3:18
other? So, so right now there's an
3:21
interesting development because of the Trump, because of the
3:24
Trump actually because Trump, Well, well, Trump, you know, I
3:30
say give that man a Nobel Peace Prize already.
3:32
You know, Trump is the greatest peacemaker at the moment because
3:36
he's making India and China sitting together, resolving
3:40
their long how differences. So give that give that man a
3:44
Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, Nobel Peace Prize is AI
3:48
mean Nobel Peace Prize is a piece of joke anyway, like Obama
3:52
receives a Nobel Peace Prize before he even started working
3:54
as the US president, right? He just he just won Nobel Peace
3:58
Prize for getting elected and you.
4:00
Know why not? And then he authorised I think
4:03
something like 26,000 shellings in the Middle East in 2016
4:07
alone. Yeah, so, so, so give, give,
4:10
give Trump a Nobel Peace Prize. You know, that thing is a piece
4:13
of joke about I saw for I saw the picture.
4:20
Your picture froze and I just automatically assumed it was
4:23
your Internet because you're, I mean, South Africa.
4:29
Hey, it turned out it was me. It turns out it was me.
4:32
So I had to at least one day, at least once a day, reset my Wi-Fi
4:37
router to get the Internet working.
4:39
And it just so happened. So where, where did we left off?
4:42
Should we? Just about to tell me about
4:44
Trump. Oh yeah.
4:45
But but give that man a Nobel Prize nevertheless, because
4:48
Trump, because Trump is putting a lot of pressure on India for
4:52
purchasing of Russian oil. Now India is felt compelled to
5:00
see closer alignment with its fellow BRICS members that that
5:04
is China. And one of the things that
5:06
happened between India and China was there was a 2020 border
5:10
conflict that kind of put the bilateral relationship on a
5:14
nosedive. And as a result, India banned
5:17
TikTok. They put a lot of restriction on
5:20
Chinese investment into India, particularly in the tech sector.
5:26
Chinese auto giant BYD was going to build a electric vehicle or
5:31
joint venture in India and because of the Indian government
5:34
intervention, that deal got can. So now as a result of the Trump
5:40
pressure on India, the 50% tariff on Indian goods now, now
5:45
India is approaching China and say, OK, let's work our, let's
5:49
work our differences. We're going to lift the
5:51
restrictions that we previously put on Chinese investment and
5:55
trade. And in fact, the Chinese foreign
5:58
minister Wang Yi just met with Modi that's to pave way for
6:03
Modi's upcoming visit to China end of this month, August 31st
6:08
for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in China.
6:12
That's this is the first time in seven years that Modi is, is
6:16
visiting China. So this is this is pretty big.
6:19
This is pretty big. There's looks like there might
6:21
be a a a soft rapprochement or daytime that's going on right
6:26
now between India and China to get there, come get their
6:30
relationship back to a normal track.
6:32
And he all it's all thanks to Donald Trump, of course.
6:35
He gets all the I. Think he knows this?
6:37
I mean, do you think he's doing this on purpose or is it?
6:39
Is it just? Backfiring.
6:43
Well, I think there there's multiple reasons why Trump
6:46
decide to squeeze I1 is because Trump can't just like how he's
6:50
squeezing all the European leaders right now, He's not
6:54
putting the same kind of pressure on China for purchasing
6:58
Russian oil, even though China is the number one purchaser or
7:01
Russian oil. That's because China has a Trump
7:05
card, so to speak. You know, they got United
7:07
States, you got, they got, they got US by the balls because
7:12
China controls 90% of the rare earth refining.
7:19
You know, right now if they dig out rare earth in the largest
7:23
rare earth mining in in United States, which is Mountain Pass
7:26
mine in California, they had to ship it to China to get it
7:29
processed because there's no refining capacity in the United
7:34
States and China just put export control on rare earth exports.
7:38
So now anyone who want rare earth, they have to go file
7:42
application to the Chinese Commerce ministry and say, could
7:47
I please have some rare earth? And so, so Trump, no, he,
7:51
there's not much pressure he can additional pressure he can apply
7:54
to China. So he's decided to punch in the
7:57
softer target, which is India. And and another reason, another
8:01
reason this is again, this is I think has to do with Trump
8:04
personality because Trump really want that Nobel Peace Prize.
8:08
You know, he claimed credit for mediating A ceasefire between
8:13
Pakistan and India during the recent Pakistan India conflict
8:17
and the move was welcomed by Pakistan publicly.
8:22
You know, Pakistan the sing praise of Trump and they even
8:26
nominated him for Nobel Peace Prize, whereas India immediately
8:31
came out and deny Trump any role of Trump in mediating the end of
8:36
the conflict. So I, I think that really pissed
8:39
off Trump. I mean, that man really wants a
8:42
Nobel Peace Prize. And when India publicly rejected
8:46
his claim of actually bringing peace, Trump didn't like that.
8:51
And and so, and there's also, I think there's a bit of right
8:56
now, there's a there is a lot of anti Indian racism in United
9:00
States. I've seen that.
9:02
Yeah, yeah, there especially on X, you know, you can see that on
9:06
X. And I think this is probably a
9:09
result of, you know, like the success of Indian Americans in
9:13
in in United States. And, you know, particularly
9:16
recently we had several high profile Indian American
9:19
politicians like Vivek Ramaswamy, who didn't do himself
9:24
any favour by calling Americans stupid.
9:28
They should apply themselves, study harder.
9:30
I mean, it's true, but you shouldn't say that when you're a
9:34
politician, when you're trying to get elected into the office.
9:37
And so, so, so, so he got a lot of hate and now, now the whole
9:42
Indian community is catching a lot of flag, flag also over the
9:46
issue of immigration. So, so Trump, I think he's, he
9:50
sees that, you know, there's a lot of anti Indian racism,
9:54
particularly among the right. And so maybe he's not just
9:58
trying to capitalise on that as well, you know, 'cause Trump is
10:01
very good at kind of sensing which way the wind is blowing
10:06
and capitalise on the public. Popular movie.
10:09
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly, exactly.
10:12
So I I think this is these are the reasons why Trump is going
10:15
after India, because he felt he could the thing.
10:18
That I call is. Go ahead, sorry.
10:20
But The thing is you can understand the the anti Indian
10:25
sentiment. I'm not, I'm not defending it,
10:28
but I'm saying you can understand that when you see
10:31
what's going on in the States, you got this mass immigration
10:34
problem. They have all sorts of
10:36
employment issues, no longer manufacturing.
10:39
So what happens is that they transfer the anger onto somebody
10:43
else. It's the same with Europe.
10:44
Europe is also imploding, but it's a mass immigration problem.
10:48
They like to point fingers at the Muslims, but it's the
10:52
immigration policy that welcomes the Muslims.
10:55
If, if, if, if they copy China's border policy, they won't have a
10:59
mass immigration problem, for example.
11:02
But they they don't want to accept the fact that, well, have
11:06
more kids. If you, if you, if you feel that
11:09
you're, that you're, that your population is, is dwindling,
11:12
have bigger families. Stop celebrating degenerate only
11:16
fans me me me culture and go back to what it means to have a
11:21
family you know and then. You won't, folks.
11:25
Yeah, go, go back to the bedroom, go back to the bedroom
11:28
and you won't need to point fingers at Indians.
11:30
Or what does that, that tweet, you let me pull it up here at
11:33
some Lego thing with a, with a jet.
11:37
And it said something about every lost.
11:38
But when we say every lost yellow man, we mean every lost
11:42
yellow man. And it's a, it's, it's a, it
11:44
looks like a Lego promo with a, with an F16 or, or stealth
11:47
bomber or something made out of Lego.
11:50
Yeah. It's over.
11:51
It's what's supposedly the China's three gorgeous stand.
11:54
Now it's like a Internet mean now, like a lot of people are
11:59
especially Americans. They're coping.
12:00
Oh, we're we're gonna bomb this take out the three gorgeous
12:03
stand. I mean, this is crazy talk that
12:05
that's not gonna happen. You know, first of all, there's
12:09
a lot of assumption that that AUS stealth bomber can get deep
12:13
enough inside the Chinese airspace because 3 Gorges Dam is
12:17
about 2000 kilometres up the Yangtze River, you know, very
12:21
far from the coastline. You know, So assumptions is that
12:24
American stealth bomber can penetrate so deep into Chinese
12:28
airspace and drop a bomb and without retaliation, you know,
12:33
like if that happens, there's going to be a nuclear exchange.
12:36
You know, China is going to launch the.
12:37
Nukes. But we know that can happen
12:39
because a balloon went into American airspace.
12:42
A Chinese balloon call. That was the first that was the
12:49
first blunt by F22, by the way, that was the first confirmed
12:54
kill by the American stealth fighter F22.
12:57
Is, is that they, they, they killed a Chinese weather bloom.
13:02
So OK, so a lot of this is copium.
13:04
Like I said, there's, there's I think there's very little
13:07
possibility of actual hot kinetic war between US and China
13:11
because that that would just lead to, you know, Sir, World
13:14
War 3 and thermonuclear exchange end of the human civilization,
13:18
right. So that doesn't.
13:20
Survive that. Yeah, America won't survive
13:22
that. No, nobody survives.
13:25
There's no winners in a nuclear war, right?
13:27
I mean, so, so, so a lot of that is this copium and there's a
13:30
copium. The, the, the amount of copium
13:32
was produced is because as you point out, US and I think on a
13:37
great greater scale, the collective W is facing a
13:40
decline. You know, they're facing
13:43
deindustrialization and they're and, and breaking down of the
13:48
families and, you know, the, the, the, the massive
13:52
immigration is just a symptom. And I mean like, like, like you
13:56
say, oh, it's why don't they just go have more babies?
13:59
Well, you have to incentivize people to have babies.
14:03
You know, the reason people are not having babies because the
14:06
Youngs, they can't even afford to buy their own house.
14:09
They can't move out of their parents basement because they,
14:12
they know the housing is so expensive and, and, and and then
14:16
you know, like once you start working, you know, is they, you,
14:21
you can have you, you need a whole government support for
14:24
people to have more babies again.
14:26
You know, you, you're going to make it easier for people to
14:29
take longer maternity leaves, right?
14:31
So the women can, can, can stay home longer to take care of the
14:35
babies. And and you can you have to
14:38
government have subsidised housing, education that all
14:43
costs money. It's a lot cheaper just to
14:46
import immigrants for several countries who are essentially
14:50
like, like cheap, cheap labour and a a permanent political
14:55
underclass because these people, they don't have, they don't
14:58
have, they don't have all. Slave labour.
15:01
Everything in China's slave labour.
15:02
So there we go. We have low wages.
15:05
Well. China, actually China today has
15:09
the, the, the, the largest deployment of industrial robots
15:14
in the world. China has more industrial robots
15:17
than the rest of the world combined.
15:19
You know, people may not realise this, but that that is, that is
15:22
a fact. And you know, Chinese car makers
15:25
like the Xiaomi, they, they're, they have a lights off 24 hour
15:30
20247 lights off factories. It's lights off because there's
15:34
no humans working there. It's all robots.
15:36
Robots is rolling out the, the making cars 24/7 because robots
15:40
don't need to sleep. But yeah, that and, and, and for
15:44
US to even try to bring some manufacturing back, the only way
15:48
they could do so is through automation.
15:51
But again, automation is not going to add a lot of job
15:54
manufacturing jobs. So so that's a problem like the
15:59
youngins can't afford to get a decent paying job so they can
16:03
they can go go have their own house, form their own family and
16:07
have more babies. And it's like, but at the same
16:11
time, you know, the rich, they still need nannies to take care
16:16
of their kids. They still need someone to get
16:18
this from Mexico. And from Mexico and the
16:20
Philippines, yes. Yes, they still need they still
16:24
need someone to pick the strawberries from the field, You
16:27
know, so I literally that's that's what's going on in the
16:31
USI live in California for like 20 years.
16:34
I mean, California, a lot of the low wage labour in California
16:39
basically runs on the back of Mexican migrant workers that,
16:44
that, you know, so I, I don't know how there's a problem.
16:47
It's, it's a lot easier here, economic downturn to point
16:50
finger at the immigrants. But issues, as you correctly
16:53
point out, it's a policy. The policy actually encouraged
16:56
that, you know, the at least during the Biden administration,
16:59
they literally just throw the, the, the border open and to, to,
17:04
to allow anyone to come in. Why did they did that?
17:07
It's, it's easy. It's, it's, it's free labour.
17:10
It's, it's, it's cheap labour. And you create a permanent
17:13
underclass, these people who have no voting rights.
17:16
So they, they can't, they can't influence political process in
17:21
either direction. So, so This is why the elite,
17:24
the 1%, they prefer it that way. And and it's just serve as a
17:29
further point of division the society, you know, that the two
17:35
political party can play football on the immigration
17:38
issue because it's very easy for the politicians to just take a
17:42
stance, right, Rather than actually doing something, just
17:45
take a stance. I'm for this issue.
17:47
I am for for this. And you don't have to do
17:50
anything and you get 50% of the vote.
17:51
I mean, that's, that's the quandary we're in right now.
17:55
US is originally set up as the immigrant society.
18:00
You know, it's, it has a being a history being a country of
18:04
immigrants. So, so there's a lot of people
18:06
who are for immigration and, and who, who people for, for reasons
18:11
of, you know, humanitarian reasons, They felt, felt that
18:14
it's, it's wrong to deny people a better chance, a chance at a
18:19
better life like their ancestor did when they came to United
18:23
States come through Ellis Island to US.
18:27
So that that this is, this is a very complicated issue.
18:31
I don't, I don't think that's going to be resolved anytime
18:33
soon. But I, I, I think you're right.
18:36
I think the, the, the Indian American circums, they just got,
18:40
they just caught a stray because you know the, and, but, but, but
18:45
you know, because there's a lot of lot of, there's a lot of
18:50
react, there's a big reaction against the H1B visa, right?
18:55
That's when they, they bring in a lot of tech workers.
18:58
But in a way, I work in the IT industry, right?
19:03
So I know how H1B visa work. Lot of time they brought in the,
19:08
the, the, those are not genius visa.
19:10
Let me put it that way. There's those are not GH1B is
19:14
not genius visa. I work with those people.
19:16
They're brought in because of tech companies.
19:18
They want cheap labour. They, there's United States is
19:21
not producing enough computer programmers, just not graduating
19:26
enough STEM graduates. And, and one of the reason they
19:29
don't get enough STEM graduates is because they're not paying
19:34
them enough. No, you, you, you can make more
19:36
money if you just go to the Wall Street, You know, you make the
19:39
bank. So all the smart cookies, the,
19:42
the, the choice, you know, the people, the people that can
19:45
actually do the math. It's so easy.
19:48
They just go to Wall Street. Why, Why do they want to have to
19:51
be a cranking, cranking the cold, be a cold monkey.
19:54
So, so the tech for the tech giants, it's easy.
19:58
Let's just bring in a lot of the Indian coders, you know, on H1B
20:02
visa because we don't want to pay our engineers, software
20:07
engineers more money. This way we can keep the wages
20:10
low. And, and, and This is why, you
20:13
know, a lot, lot of Silicon Valley tech Bros, they're very
20:17
much in favour of H1B visa to, to continue to, to bring in and
20:22
it's, it's to depress wage. This is the this is the idea of
20:27
a lot of why you know the 1%. That are pro immigration right?
20:32
It's suppressing the wage policy.
20:34
Call. Yeah, it's policy.
20:38
I think the fundamental problem germ is there's a fundamental
20:43
disconnect between the 1% and the rest because the, the, the,
20:48
the, the 1% in United States, they're not working.
20:52
They're they're not working. Oh, let's, let's work for the
20:55
greatness of America. Let's make America great again.
20:58
No, they're, they're trying to make their wallet fatter again,
21:02
you know, even fatter. And that's a problem.
21:04
They treat Americans, their fellow American citizen, the
21:08
same way they treat people from the certain world countries.
21:12
They're all peons to them, right?
21:13
Everybody is a peons to, to collect rent from, to, to
21:17
squeeze money from. And and that's a problem.
21:19
There's no, this results in breakdown of, of social
21:24
solidarity, right? I mean, if you go in United
21:27
States as well as in, in Europe, nobody believe those the leaders
21:32
are working for the common man. Nobody believes that.
21:37
And, and, and, and for, for EU, those guys are not even elected.
21:40
I mean, Wanderling was elected by what, like 40 people, 40 MPs?
21:44
What is that? But, but these guys are making
21:47
the political decisions that that influence all lives of
21:50
Europeans. Why?
21:52
Doesn't doesn't matter if your country doesn't manufacture a
21:55
lot. Ultimately you can't be a Jack
21:58
of all trades. Well.
21:59
What you're saying germs you're, you're talking about Adam Smith,
22:03
right? The, the comparative advantages
22:05
and, and, and but, but our current leadership, they don't
22:09
believe that anymore. Nobody has they stopped talking
22:13
about free market a long time ago.
22:16
And, and now, now they're talking, talking about trade
22:19
barriers and bring, bring manufacturing back home.
22:24
I mean, I mean, I, I can understand there's a, there's a
22:26
certain, there's a lot of appeal to that, you know, like, because
22:29
United States has been shedding tonnes of manufacturing jobs
22:33
since 1970s. US have been off sourcing to
22:39
mostly East Asia for the last 40 years.
22:41
And as a result, a lot of manufacturing job which
22:45
previously were staffed by college graduate man with
22:50
college with no, not college graduate, sorry, man with only
22:53
high school education, you know, they could get a decent pain
22:57
manufacturing wage job. But now nowadays you have to be
23:01
a college educated to kind of even have a chance to make into
23:06
the middle class. And that leave a lot of people
23:08
behind, right? Those are the people who felt
23:11
left behind by globalisation, right?
23:14
Well, unlike you germs, you know you are, you are, you are, you
23:16
are doing well. You know you're making the bank.
23:21
You're the 1% Jeremy, you're you're the benefit.
23:24
The. The the war is going, is
23:26
happening between America and China, and meanwhile nobody even
23:30
cares. In fact, the world cares so
23:32
little about South Africa that we had to name our country, the
23:36
physical geographical location of it, South Africa, just in
23:39
case you didn't know where we were.
23:43
How many countries? How many countries have that?
23:51
Yes, it's a big country. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to
23:54
Africa for a safari. Do you do you know, Mike?
24:04
A lot of this also seems to be in, in my view, a result of
24:10
highly developed countries. Yeah, yeah, I, I think I don't,
24:17
I, I think in the energy sector, I think we are doing OK.
24:23
I mean, there's still a lot of like United States, for example,
24:27
is full of cheap natural gas and, and oil.
24:31
And, and This is why Trump is actually going in a big way in,
24:36
in oil. We're asking other countries
24:39
like China, they're developing solar, wind, nuclear, all these
24:45
other source of energy. So I think energy wise, I think
24:51
I think we're going to be okay, especially unless.
24:54
You mentioned Venezuela, which has I think one of the largest
24:58
oil reserves and you spoke about that also recently.
25:02
Well, the, the problem with having the world's largest oil
25:06
reserve is gonna, you're gonna attract the tension of United
25:09
States because they're gonna start bringing democracy to your
25:12
country when they smell oil. And that's, that's exactly
25:16
what's happening right now when the US is about to send 4000
25:21
troops to Venezuela. I don't know what they're gonna
25:23
do with 4000 troops, to be honest.
25:25
I, I, I, I that's just sounds like the base of Bay of Pigs
25:29
invasion, but on a slightly larger scale.
25:32
I mean, you're, I don't, you're not going to be able to take
25:34
over the country, which is 4000 troops.
25:36
So I don't, I don't exactly know what the intended effect of that
25:40
is. Maybe Trump is just like trying
25:42
to bluff, but I don't know. Who knows?
25:45
Did you see Putin when he was in the States recently?
25:49
He went and gave. We put down flowers on the
25:53
graves of former Soviet soldiers.
25:58
Yeah, I mean, this, that was a big win for Putin going to
26:02
Alaska. You know, a lot of people
26:03
saying, oh, why, why is Putin taking a great personal risk,
26:06
you know, go, go to United States could be a trap.
26:09
He could be detained. No, no, like he, he put know
26:12
what he's doing by going to United States, the country that
26:16
was main backer of the ICC warrant that was out for Putin
26:21
and, and being received by Trump and, and got wrote in the beast
26:26
with, you know, he wrote the beast the armoured car and that
26:30
actually lent a lot of legitimacy to Putin as a world
26:34
leader. Look, he's he's like the ICC
26:37
warrant is a joke. Even United States, the country
26:39
that pushed for it, is now treating it as a joke and
26:42
they're receiving him as the world leader that he is.
26:47
So, so and that This is why, you know, his is a Russian foreign
26:52
minister. Lavrov showed up with a USSRT
26:55
shirt casually strolling into Alaska.
27:00
And so, so, so this is a big win for Russia.
27:02
They they, they show that, you know, they are still world power
27:06
to be reckoned with, but I don't know.
27:10
We all know that's not true, Carl, Because because Trump made
27:13
sure that Putin drove past all the big jets.
27:16
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There were like a couple F22's
27:20
that flew over. I mean, come on.
27:23
But by the way, the reception for Trump, that was just pretty
27:27
sad because they have the usually a world leader comes to
27:30
your town. You have this whole honour guard
27:32
right? And, and, and, and, and for
27:34
inspection. And then, then you see the
27:36
picture and the videos of, of, of, of Putin walks down the,
27:40
the, the red carpet and they have just bunch of like, like
27:46
AUS servicemen who showing up like they were forced to, you
27:50
know, work on Saturdays. It's like, it's, it's very sad.
27:54
I mean, like, there's a reason nations have honour guard.
27:57
It's, it's to, to, to like in a show respect both to your guests
28:02
and to put the best foot forward for yourself, to present your,
28:06
put your own nation in a good positive light.
28:09
But what instead, you know, the whole Alaska meeting, it was I
28:15
think because it was a last minute thing, like because they,
28:17
they couldn't find enough hotel room for the Russian journalist.
28:20
So they have to host him in a stadium and with dividers like a
28:23
like an emergency hospital ward for the Russian journalist to
28:28
sleep in. Because apparently it was
28:30
efficiencies in the Alaska. So all the hotels were already
28:33
booked. So that tells me this meeting
28:35
was a very last minute thing, right?
28:37
And like This is why everything is so haphazard.
28:42
And I think this is Trump is looking for some kind of win by
28:46
hosting Putin by showing, hey, like all the Russia gate to get
28:50
Putin saying that Russia gate that's a hoax.
28:53
You know, that Russia did not interfere in the election.
28:56
That was all Democrats making it up.
28:59
But overall, I think Putin came out the bigger winner.
29:02
You know, he but but because for Trump, there's really no big
29:06
deal broke ground breaking deal that he could show and say, all
29:10
right, give me give me a Nobel Peace Prize now, folks.
29:13
You know, I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
29:16
I think, I think that's what Trump is really after.
29:19
Does Trump ever come out as a winner?
29:23
Why? If you, if you listen to the, if
29:27
you listen to the White House press release, Trump always win,
29:30
man. So much winning.
29:32
So much winning. He's like that.
29:35
He's like that dude in in a school playground who's got the
29:39
loudest voice and he's shouting at everybody, telling everybody
29:41
how great he is. He types everything or writes
29:45
everything in uppercase letters. And Putin's, Putin's that that
29:51
that little quiet nerd sitting in the corner playing chess.
29:54
Yeah, but except he he's also like a judo captain.
29:57
Then he can actually kick your ass.
29:59
And that's the difference. He's not just like a nerd who
30:03
play chess. He can also kick your ass.
30:06
But Trump, but see Trump, Trump is loud, loudmouth because
30:12
that's how what it takes to succeed in American politics.
30:17
In America, you have to be a loudmouth, a very confident
30:20
loudmouth to, you know, get ahead.
30:23
You know, like you can't be a nerd from a chess club to be
30:27
elected to president of the United States.
30:28
That's just that won't happen. I mean, Trump recently, you
30:32
know, said, oh, you know, like there was because because Trump
30:35
was putting the squeeze on India.
30:37
So there is a warming of ties between US and Pakistan.
30:40
And Trump was saying, oh, it's Pakistan is so great.
30:43
We're going to go there and we're going to get all the
30:45
minerals. We're they have oil and we're
30:48
going to get their oil. And people are people in
30:50
Pakistan is like, what? When did we discover oil?
30:55
He'd probably think, OK, Pakistan is a Muslim nation.
30:58
You know, it's kind of close to Middle East.
31:00
It must be oil rich too. But you know, that's just Trump.
31:04
He's he's he's great. He's a great Trump is great for
31:11
television, man. He's great for television.
31:14
Like the the real question is how the United States ended up
31:18
with a reality TV host as a president.
31:21
That's that's a real question. But Trump is undoubtedly ATV
31:25
star. You know, he is, he has a great
31:26
presence. Yeah.
31:28
I, I, I don't think, I don't even think that the Pentagon.
31:32
Is about war, shall we say, other than the bankers.
31:35
Right. I, I don't, I don't even think
31:36
the bankers want a war. I, I think what everything, it's
31:41
very easy to understand. Everything is easy to understand
31:44
if you just understand the whole government in the West, but
31:48
particularly in the US, is set up as a grift, right?
31:51
Like, like, like Julian Assange said, He said US and NATO is not
31:56
in Afghanistan to win the war in Afghanistan.
31:59
The whole point of Afghanistan in Iraq is to wash money from
32:04
the vast taxpayer bases of Europe and America into the
32:08
pockets of a few selected transnational security elite.
32:13
That's all it is. It's all about grift.
32:16
And so I, I don't think that because, because a World War
32:19
three that could lead to a nuclear exchange, that could be
32:22
the end of the civilization, right?
32:24
Nobody wants that. But I, I do think that the, the
32:28
purpose is to maintain tension. You know, there's a term for it
32:31
called strategy of tension to maintain tension so they can
32:35
continuously to fund money towards the military industrial
32:39
complex. This is why the US official
32:41
Pentagon budget is over a trillion dollars right now and
32:44
Trump administration is demanding European countries to
32:47
put put up 5% of their GDP into defence spending.
32:51
I mean that's great, great 5% of your GDP toward defence
32:54
spending. That's a war level of military
32:57
spending like Russia. Even Russia is now is a missile
33:00
war is spent about 7%, but but officially EU is not at war with
33:05
anybody. And even even United States only
33:09
spend officially only spend about 4% of GDP on defence.
33:13
So, so yeah, I, I, I don't think there's going to be a, a, a, a
33:18
war. I I I don't think the danger,
33:22
the real danger is it accidentally gets started.
33:27
I don't think it's anybodies plan to start a World War three.
33:30
But the danger is it's an accident, right?
33:34
Because like World War One, nobody expected, you know, World
33:37
War wanted to go off the way it did.
33:39
But that that's, that's, that's, that's a danger.
33:42
Like there could be some accident in South China Sea
33:46
somewhere in the, in the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman.
33:49
And then certainly it get bigger than than you should be going.
33:53
Back to what you were saying, it's not as though China has got
33:56
military bases all around the world.
33:59
And, you know, thankfully, the United States has no military
34:02
bases anywhere around the world. Yeah, but I mean that that's all
34:11
part of the grift germs. That's, you know, those, those
34:15
military bases, that's a lot of fat contract for the military
34:19
contractors, you know, like Halliburton, they made a lot of
34:22
money during through the whole, the whole Iraq debacle.
34:25
They they, they if you, if you look at the defence contractors
34:29
stocks, they have been they have been going through the roof
34:32
since, you know, the Great War on Terror.
34:36
But but you know, like the, the, the and not the same can be said
34:40
by the general economy. But you know, those defence
34:43
money, the defence companies that been eating, they've been
34:46
eating well. Right now we can see that the
34:50
Eastern Bloc internationally is becoming the next powerhouse and
34:57
it's very obvious that the West, NATO, Trump, MI6CIA, UK, Western
35:06
Europe, they don't like this. The irony is that they actually
35:09
don't make up much of the world's population.
35:15
That's right, That's right. I mean, but This is why I think
35:20
there's a fear among some western elite that the rest of
35:24
the world is going to out to get them right?
35:26
Because for, for so long, United States have what, like 5%, less
35:30
than 5% of the, the world population has dominated over
35:34
the globe for, you know, since World War 2.
35:37
And, but now there's a lot of fear about losing that, that top
35:42
spot and, and, and, and which I think it's unwarranted because
35:48
if you look at the example of UK, you know, people in UK did
35:52
pretty well after UK lost its empire.
35:56
And, and right now the US empire, it's not really serving
36:01
the average Joes in Michigan, you know, because, because if
36:06
anything, it's taking away the resources that's needed to be
36:10
ploughed into domestic infrastructure, education,
36:14
everything that needed to actually make America great
36:16
again. Instead, it's getting squandered
36:20
in endless wars over the globe. And then it's just making the,
36:24
all the defence contractors and the Washington lobbyists rich
36:29
and, and you know, that's it's not sustainable, whereas China,
36:33
China, China just investing in itself.
36:36
You know, China hasn't fought a war in last 40 years.
36:39
You continue to invest their, their in their own education,
36:43
their own infrastructure And, and the, the track record speaks
36:48
well for itself. And, and, and I think what the,
36:53
the reason there's also a lot of anti China propaganda in the
36:56
West. I think it's because our ruling
37:00
class don't want people to look at China as an example.
37:04
It's like, see what happens when you don't waste trillions of
37:08
dollars in in wars abroad, when you actually invest your own
37:11
population. Like what, what could happen?
37:14
So This is why they must paint China as it's like dystopian
37:18
hell, you know, So, so don't think about like you think you
37:20
got it bad in US or Europe. No, no, no Chinese, they have a
37:23
way worse. So.
37:24
So don't think about it. It's still always blows my mind
37:29
though when people make that claim about China.
37:31
That is the sort of dystopian totalitarian hell.
37:35
They very quickly forget that here in South Africa we have on
37:38
average about, I think it is something like 20 to 30 murders
37:46
out of 100,000 and something around 50 rapes out of 100,000,
37:50
which is one of, I mean, those are two of the highest ratios in
37:54
the world. You know you are very likely to
37:58
to become a victim of crime no matter where you are in South
38:02
Africa at some point in your life, whereas you don't even
38:05
think about crime, you know, in countries like China or Japan.
38:09
Germs, germs. According to Jon Stewart.
38:12
That is the price of freedom, my man.
38:15
That's, that's the price you have to pay for your freedom.
38:18
I mean, that's that's what literally what Jon Stewart said
38:23
when Tucker Carlson went to Moscow and marvel at how clean
38:27
the street of Moscow is compared to New York City.
38:30
And Jon Stewart just says, well, that's the price of freedom.
38:34
And he said that ironically. It's like This is why you have
38:38
to accept shitty subways in New York City with rats everywhere
38:42
because that's the price of freedom germs.
38:45
Here in South Africa on car insurance, for example, on my
38:48
own car insurance, you you pay more if your car is not parked
38:53
inside the garage. Wow.
38:55
Well. Actually I I would like I wait
39:00
wait you pay more in other. Words.
39:03
Sorry, I beg your pardon. You paid less because they want
39:06
your car out of sight. OK.
39:09
So your car's likely your car's likely to get broken into if
39:12
it's in the driveway or in the street.
39:15
OK, so they don't want you to park in the driveway or in the
39:17
street? Yeah, they want you to park in
39:19
in the garage if you have a garage.
39:20
No, no, no. We we need that law in Bali,
39:22
man, there's so many cars parking on the street.
39:25
I can't barely squeeze by. We, we have to.
39:28
We need that laws by here. It's ridiculous how how people
39:34
are so myopic and it's because of propaganda.
39:37
They're indoctrinated and it doesn't matter what you say.
39:41
I've had these conversations over and over and over and it's
39:43
become almost like a comedy sketch now.
39:46
But you're not Chinese. Have you been to China?
39:49
No, but I want to go to China. OK.
39:51
I was in China. How long were you there?
39:52
I was there for 10 days. That's not long enough.
39:54
You need to. You need to live there.
39:55
OK, well, let me talk to somebody who lives there now.
39:58
You can't talk to somebody who lives there because they've been
39:59
watched by the CCP. Yeah, I mean, even I get that.
40:06
I mean, like, and then they're, they're like, oh, like they're
40:11
like trying to tell me they know more about me, about China,
40:15
because China does not have freedom access to free
40:20
information. I'm like, look, I, I live
40:23
outside the free fire, the great Firewall, man.
40:25
I have the same level of access to information as you do, except
40:29
I have also been inside China and I have lived there and I
40:33
have travelled through China. So, but you know, but it's hard
40:37
to change people's mind, right? It's hard to change people.
40:40
But that's why I encourage people to actually travel there
40:44
and see it for themselves, you know, seeing.
40:46
Doesn't matter. Travelling doesn't matter
40:48
because to be being something for 10 days, you still only see
40:51
what they want you to see. Yeah, it's.
40:54
It's a. It's a rather.
40:56
Believe the BBC. Well, I, you know, the, the
41:01
surprising thing about BBC is that I thought I was immune to
41:05
Western Corp corporate or her government propaganda in case of
41:09
BBC. But I was surprised when I
41:12
travelled to Moscow, I was surprised to see how colourful,
41:15
vibrant, beautiful Moscow is in the summer.
41:17
And I was taken back by that. It's like, why did I find that
41:20
surprising? And then I realised in the West,
41:24
all the image I see coming out of Russia is like grey, they're
41:29
always like a grey philtre applied to it.
41:31
Like the sky is always grey. Everything is has no colour, is
41:35
very drab and very depressing. And so it's, it's, it's a quite
41:40
shocking for me to actually been there and to see how vibrant
41:44
everything is in the summertime when the sun is out and people
41:47
are out there enjoying themselves.
41:48
Right, Because people are not well travelled, people are not,
41:52
you're not, they're not as worldly as you are germs.
41:56
They haven't, you know, there's only like 5%, there's only 5% of
42:02
the people in America that possess passport, they actually
42:06
have passport, you know, and the, the people that do have
42:08
passport, they travel the the most destination to travel is
42:12
just Canada and Mexico, right? They, they haven't even been
42:14
outside of a lot of them haven't been outside of the continent of
42:18
North America. So, yeah, I mean, the only thing
42:22
they, they they get is what their media fed them.
42:26
I was told by this by African, by a Somalian, he said.
42:31
Search Mogadishu into English into Google and then serve
42:37
search this I forgot what's it called the Mogadishu name in the
42:40
Somali language into Google and do a image search.
42:44
See what you happen and it's very striking.
42:47
If you put Mogadishu in Google and do image search, you just
42:51
see like, like warzone, right? And whereas you use the, the the
42:56
Somali term for Mogadishu in the same Google image search and
43:00
it's very nice. It's a it's a it's a wow.
43:05
It's a modern city. You can tell it's a modern city.
43:07
So I mean, it's it's it's kind of amazing that just the
43:10
language philtre that that was put on in the in the media.
43:17
But that do you think that is by design or by emergence?
43:24
I think it could be both, to be honest.
43:27
I mean like, because one, lot of the lot of the news they they
43:32
sell to capture eyeballs and also news tend to be
43:35
overwhelmingly negative anyway. You know that because that's to
43:39
to play on people's fear, right? The fear is one of the strongest
43:43
emotions and, and that's how they get you, you know, like the
43:48
to, to, to, to, to, to, to give you, to get a emotional response
43:53
out of you that, that make you may possibly want to click
43:56
right? So click bait.
43:58
So I, I think there's that part and then then there's, there's,
44:02
I think the, the, the media also selling to people what they want
44:06
to hear, right? They, they want people, let's
44:10
face it, People want to hear that other people are doing more
44:13
poorly than they are. And the media feeds into that.
44:20
And I think that's what's going on, remember?
44:22
When you and I were in Hong Kong, we went to a Japanese
44:25
restaurant and you weren't there.
44:28
But afterwards, I briefly went and spoke to the the head chef,
44:33
the Japanese chef who could barely speak English.
44:35
Now, what was so funny to me is, you know, we talk, we often talk
44:39
about stereotypes and how countries are are seen.
44:42
You know, you spoke about Mogadishu being a war zone.
44:44
And so South Africa is a crime capital.
44:46
And there are other things that I suppose that come to mind when
44:48
you when you say South Africa. But one of the things that
44:51
doesn't really often come to mind is bolt on, which is
44:54
effectively beef jerky. We call it bolt on.
44:56
It's the Afrikaans word. We don't say beef jerky, but it
44:59
in my view, it tastes way better than beef jerky.
45:02
It's thought the way that it's made anyway.
45:04
It's not exactly something you would think of when you say
45:07
South Africa. So when I was chatting to that
45:09
to that chef and you asked me where I was from, I said South
45:12
Africa. And the first thing you
45:14
responded with was Boltong. Boltong.
45:18
Wow, that's incredible. Wow.
45:21
Well. That's a little bit different.
45:23
That's his specialty, right? He's, he's a, he's a Top Chef.
45:26
That's yes, you know, he knows his food.
45:28
So he's, he's a very well educated chef.
45:32
I mean, I, I, I this when you told me about this, this is the
45:35
first time I heard about both. You know what?
45:37
I got to travel to South Africa. I got to take my own advice.
45:40
I want to, I want to go taste it for myself.
45:42
Come stay with. Me yeah, come stay with me.
45:44
Let's. Do it.
45:44
Let's do it. You will, you will love, you
45:47
will love Bolton. It is one of the best things you
45:50
can eat and and our wine, I would argue is often better than
45:56
French wine. But we never win those
45:58
competitions because I think it's all rigged in favour of the
46:02
French because they can't possibly lose anything to do
46:04
with wine. Yeah, Yeah, that's true.
46:07
I mean, I mean, it's it's, it's a branding, right?
46:10
This is in South Africa. They need a what you guys need,
46:14
you need Americans to do your PR because Americans are great at
46:18
marketing, right? But we're we're, we're great.
46:20
Marketing. No, no, no Chinese.
46:23
Shit at marketing and propaganda.
46:27
American Americans are best at marketing and propaganda.
46:30
So that's what you need. You need some American PR person
46:34
to do more PR for South Africa for.
46:37
The South. African.
46:37
Both of them, yeah, to prove. Your point?
46:39
Look at look at branding in America, like Apple, right?
46:42
It's just literally an icon. They don't even have the word
46:44
Apple on it, right. Chinese cars like GWM.
46:49
It just says GWM. Yeah, you wouldn't even know
46:53
what. GWM means right.
46:55
You wouldn't even know what the hell is the GWN or if you have.
46:59
All that's the word HAVAL or BYD.
47:02
It's the word sorry, the letters BYD, There's no, there's no
47:05
branding. Exactly.
47:08
Exactly. So they need to work on that
47:10
too. Yeah, yeah, they do.
47:13
They do. They should hire.
47:14
But Americans? Are the best, You're right.
47:16
They're the best in marketing, yes.
47:18
Yes, the Byds of the world, they should hire me.
47:22
I can, I can. I can inject some of this
47:24
American marketing for the American PR.
47:27
I I just don't work my magic. Something that I noticed when I
47:31
was in the UAE and also in Hong Kong and I, I suspect this is
47:36
now very normal across Asia, is the the combination of electric
47:43
and ICE. It's not one or the other to buy
47:48
huge amount of electric cars, but also a huge amount of, of,
47:51
of diesel or petrol. I think that's very clever
47:54
because what I think a lot of Western manufacturers, car
47:57
manufacturers have done wrong in the last 10 years is just go
48:00
balls to the wall on electric. And, and I've, I think it's cost
48:04
them very dearly because not everybody wants electric, yeah.
48:08
And especially in places where you don't have charging
48:12
stations, right? I mean, like, why would China be
48:17
diplomatic? I mean, like a lot of people
48:19
don't. I mean, when they talk about
48:22
China, Chinese overcapacity, they always talk about Chinese
48:26
state subsidies. What they don't realise, there's
48:28
actually intense market competition within China.
48:31
All these Chinese automakers are competing with each other for
48:35
market share. That's why slap they slash
48:38
prices by a great deal. Like once those cars get
48:41
exported out of China, the price doubles.
48:44
In fact, the the the the Chinese car makers right now, they're
48:47
looking to expand their export markets because they they they
48:52
get more profit selling outside of China versus inside of China
48:56
because inside China they face too much competition from their
48:58
fellow Chinese car makers. And in a wonderful horseshoe,
49:04
back to the beginning of the conversation.
49:06
God bless Trump because his tariffs have now encouraged us
49:09
to buy to buy Asian, Asian products.
49:12
Chinese cars are are taking the market by Stormia.
49:15
I'm telling you, germs, Trump is my president.
49:22
He's my president for acceleration.
49:24
ISM I, I love him. I love him.
49:27
I wish he'd be like the God Emperor for life.
49:32
What do you think of that comment?
49:33
That I think it's Alex Craner and what many others have made,
49:38
that Trump actually favours multipolarity and is
49:42
deliberately trying to create competing currencies.
49:46
I, I don't know, I think for Trump, he's very transactional,
49:51
right? Like to subscribe him to some
49:53
kind of grand strategy. I think that's a little far
49:55
fetched. I think Trump, Trump for for
49:58
Trump, everything is transactional.
50:00
Like he's he's he's doing stuff like he's telling NVIDIA, OK,
50:04
we'll allow you to sell this watered down AI chips age 22
50:08
China, but you have to pay me 15% of your revenue.
50:13
And so he just collecting toes from everybody.
50:16
And that's that's what the whole tariff is about, right.
50:18
The tariff is, is, it's not being paid by foreign countries.
50:21
They're being paid by American importers and, and then it's get
50:25
passed out to American consumers.
50:26
So in effect, a tariff is a tax, but it's disguised as tariff.
50:32
So people don't realise it's a tax.
50:35
But, but, but that's all it is. It's, it's about collecting
50:38
toes, collecting rent from the, from the rest of the population.
50:43
So I, I, I, I don't, I don't, I, I doubt, you know, I have my
50:47
doubts whether Trump have some like any more grander vision
50:50
than that than just collecting money.
50:53
For now, call. How can I follow you?
50:57
Oh yeah, I'm a prolific ship poster on on X.
51:00
Like if you haven't got enough of my ship posting right now,
51:03
you can you can get more if I follow my handle, just Carl Zah.
51:07
That's my X handle. And I have my own YouTube
51:10
channel, Carl Zah again and or you can find me on Patreon where
51:16
I do the Silk and Steel podcast, which focus on everything China
51:20
history, culture and politics. And I do a chronological
51:24
retelling of the Chinese history from the very beginning.
51:27
Right now I'm up to like 310 BC. So I still have a long way to
51:32
go. And feel free to check it out.
51:35
Support, support me, Support my surfing habits in Bali so I can
51:40
live like a degenerate surfer that I am.
51:46
All right, Carl, thanks for joining me in The Avengers.