Trade War Reality Hits China Way Harder Than They Thought - Episode #258

Work backwards for a minute. I hold on to you, gone. I remember you. You lift my spirit, with you high is all I'm feeling. Remember how we felt alive? I remember you. You make me stronger, my song. You remember? I remember you. You left my high.

Welcome everybody to episode 258 of the China show. The real China show. Area code for 258 is...?

So episode 258 is the area code for Mosamb-beek.

Yes. Good old Mosamb-beek. Very close to where I used to live, actually.

And you've been there, pretty sure when I was young.

Oh, okay. Would you see zebras, or zebras, as you say? Yeah.

Uh, why would I have to go to Mozambique to see zebras? They're in South Africa.

This is true. Maybe they have a different flavor.

They're exactly the same. Same zebras. It's about five, six hours drive from where I used to live in Mosmbique. So it's the same place.

Okay. Yeah, that would make sense. Borders don't exist. It's just a line.

I know, I know. Anyway, I was just thinking like as a kid, you you're in like uh, class or whatever, and you learn about Mosmbique and the zebras are running around.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Uh, now it's time for us to get on. Guys, listen. I... everybody knows right now the world's talking about the tariffs and this trade war, this absolutely crazy thing that's going on between America and China, and we're going to get into that. We've got a lot to talk about that, but we have a full show here, guys. So we're going to have to ease into it.

Yeah, I mean, don't get yippy. We'll get to it. We have a couple things though that I do want to to let you know.

Oh, okay. One of our main topics today is not only the tariffs and the trade war, but is also some absolute damning stuff that we found that goes against what the Chinese government is claiming right now about not sending soldiers to Russia. Yes, to fight Ukraine. We found proof that uh, well, there is... we got we got some extra proof. Not the stuff you've seen. We got something very special for you. Anyway, let's uh, saunter right into it with what's new. This is where we talk about what's new specifically with regards to China. We got some funny clips to show you here. And we're starting off with a rat in a restaurant.

Well, a mouse. What would you call that? Yeah, it looks like a mouse. No, actually, you know what? It is a rat. It's like a small rat. It's a little baby rat. It's a baby. It's like a young rat. I don't know. It's very mouselike to me.

I know, I know what you mean. But it's got rat hair. You know that rat... you know... you know when you pet a mouse, it's like very soft. You can ask the audience what they think, mouse or rat. Just leave your leave your comment. Anyway, let me explain to you what this is.

Yeah, let's do a poll. Um, feel free to answer it at your leisure. Now, guys, what you're seeing here... I'm going to go back a little bit so you can actually get it. Is it... it's one of those um, conveyor belt belt type restaurants, you know, like you get conveyor belt sushi, you know, round sushi as they call it in Japan. Um, they have this for malatang. Now, malatang is a is a dish in China where you can see... you get different things like the rat mouse hybrid is sitting on cow stomach.

It is. That's like the actual one of the most... it's horrendous to eat for me, personally. I don't like it either. It's like furry in texture. I can't stomach it, you know.

You know there's multiple stomachs. There's the one texture and then there's the furry one.

Yes. The different stages. Yes. Cuz cows have multiple stomachs, right? Well, it's pretty bad. Anyway, the thing is you get your skewers or whatever. You'll see some... I wonder what's in the front here. Is that that kelp seaweed? No, that's just... no, that looks like cow stomach. That's the white one. Okay. Either way, you get different bits of things and then you stick it in like a boiling soup.

Yes. You know, and it's usually kind of a spicy soup and then you eat it. So spicy.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So um, the idea is you've got all like a sushi thing. You got different kinds of ingredients going past and you grab it. I'm sorry. And this won't make sense to you guys if you haven't had it, but the idea of having like conveyor belt malaang is so disappointing compared to...

It really is. It really is. Especially if you've got a a little mouse rat, you know.

Yeah. And especially cuz they use gutter oil in these kind of places.

Yeah, for sure. Oh, big time. Spit oil specifically. But yeah, that's not what you want to see. But if you go to a fancy Mala restaurant in China, well, you may get more than you bargain for. Yeah. Pause that quick cuz I'm going to pull the poll here. Um, it was very close. Yeah, it was very close. I thought it would be... it would teach us something, but mouse got 53%. Rat got 46%. So it's really hard.

I'm team mouse. I'm team mouse.

I think I might go mouse too.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What we've got here is um, you know, when you get those fire extinguishers in in offices and in houses and stuff. Yeah, like the sprinklers, the sprinkler systems, and they've got a a little system there that when it detects heat, it it actually like breaks and then the water comes out. Yeah, there's like a micro thermometer thing built in each one. Well, apparently this uh, one made in China doesn't work very well, cuz even a blowtorch directly to it is not causing it to activate.

Maybe it's too hot.

It's too hot.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's possible. Anyway, just be aware. Uh, we can't continue an episode without a little bit of tofu drags though. Oh, brought your appetites. Let me take that down. Um, unfortunately, this almost new building complex over here... all six... I think it's six balconies... you can see almost new. It's literally just built. It's just built. Yeah. One, two, three, four, five... I think there's six over there... right there's probably one hidden. Six-floor walk up. Yeah. They all collapsed simultaneously now. Thank goodness nobody was standing on them.

Yes. And... and I mean, look, just... this is the risk you take because those are doors, okay? People walk out onto the balcony. That's where you go hang your clothes or do something, right? Um, and they all collapsed. It's very unsettling to think that families could have moved in there.

I know. And kids have gone... could be playing on the balcony or something. Break on through to the other side. Just saying. You know, should play that song. Okay. It broke. And you said the doors?

Yes. Yeah. I suppose that didn't work out there. All right. Exactly. Anyway... oh... oh, I got to go back cuz we didn't hear the proper... I'm so sorry. I was trying to put up the volume. Come on. I'll get... I'll get back to the ball report. We got... we got our baller report coming. I'm sorry, guys.

Here. It's all right. It's not your fault. Here comes... I get how it works. We can see a little more drag. Yeah. See the drags of the tofu. Don't film. Don't film. Don't film. Ballard. Ballard. Ah, today's Ballard report. What do we have today? What looks like a very strange situation. Okay. Okay. Um, so I'll just take the volume down. What you have here is urban management. They're there to try to get rid of the food stalls, unregulated food stalls. And this guy has his food stall in the back of like a three-wheel tricycle. And I mean, he's rolling. He managed to get away. Here's another one where a guy's just trying to pull his cart... well, the the cops... look at the the kerosene... yeah... the the propane just being dragged on the floor. The urban management are stealing his store because that's what they do is they they're thieves.

Mhm. They confiscate, but then they never give it back. They steal. Thugs.

Yeah. So it's a ballard report. Why? Well, look at those ballards. Cuz there's some very special colorful ballards over here. China's been putting down... China's been putting down ballards around the country to stop mass murders. People are running each other... each other in droves on purpose.

Yeah. So they... revenge against society. Revenge against society. So they thought, hey, if we put up these ballards, it'll stop it. Unfortunately, a lot of them are fake. A lot of them are hollow, as we've shown. A lot of them are very easy to just pick up and move out of the way. Some guys are humping them in the streets. We showed last week.

Exactly. If you crash into them, they just go flying. Yeah. It's like a... what is it? Like a... you know, it's like air hockey.

Yeah. It's like air hockey.

Yeah. Sorry. Exactly. Same idea. Um, see these ballers though, they're very interesting colors. We had not seen... have you...? I had seen these. Oh, I think it's... I think it's a good idea. It raises awareness to the ballards that are there.

It does. Yeah. Anyway, and at the same time, you can see how the urban management thugs work in China because listen, I'll be honest, street sellers, street vendors, they take the piss in China. They really are a nuisance a lot of the times. They just set up anywhere.

Yeah. But that's part of why China is great.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, cuz you can get street food in random places. But the urban management are way worse. They're way worse. I would pick the the... I choose... I choose the side of the street food vendors, even though they're selling you poison most of the time.

Yes. But those those Chongua or the urban urban management Chonguan, those guys are vile. They they literally punch old women. Yes. They're horrible and they they destroy like if someone's got fruit or vegetables or watermelons, they smash them or stand on them or they get rid of them and they steal them and then they steal all their carts and their bicycles and stuff too.

Yeah. We've actually done on on our supplemental show on on patron. We've done a whole thing about uh, Chonguan because they are a part of Chinese society and they're the like the lowest rung of society.

Yes. And he's busy selling what... cha fun? Chamian. So fried rice and fried noodles. Yeah. At least he was until these guys turned up. Okay. Oh, we are doing a super chat. Go reward. Pause. We're going to tell you what we're going to get. Oh, you tell them. Double. All right. In fact, how about this? We did an episode about the '90s in China on our secret show, Shabanho. If we reach our super chat goal today, which you'll see will pop up, then we're going to release this publicly to you guys uh, in the chat right now.

Yes. You know, if we reach the goal and then of course uh, we'll put it in the description and in the pinned comment for people later. Only only if we reach the goal.

Yeah. So this goal today is for again for everyone. You'll get an episode which is really fun. It was fantastic. Well, I mean, let's just show them.

Yeah, let's show a couple just a couple bits for...

Yeah. Yeah. Like this is what you're going to get. Let me get this volume up. Sorry.

Yeah. It's okay. You're a live DJ. Yeah. I'm... I'm doing a poor job at this today. But let's play this. You'll see if we reach the Super Goal. Super Chat. This is what you get to see. Okay. It's a gift to everyone. Nine people killed. Here's a Blackhawk helicoph... helicopter surveying uh, the scene. We know the NTSB... I know you did.

Yeah. Yeah. The development of the uh, economy or something... something else. And we tell the teacher our wishes and the teacher will uh... and we will be assigned according to the need of the country, our own... our own will and the need of the country. I... I'm so deeply in love with the streets here, with the city, with the with every rivers, with every mountains, every park. Oh, I love this place. Of the time. This is my favorite song of the '90s. Is actually the biggest song uh, chartwise of the entire '90s in China. She's still... oh no. You're missing this out. That's your favorite. You set up some photos. I haven't seen them yet.

Yes. And you guys are going to vote. I'm going to look... I'm not going to do a poll, but I'll...

No, we're just going to look. Okay. So let's take a look. '90s or Now? Yes, your guess is as good as any today on '90s or now. Pause it. All right. First up, so Winston is going to play with you guys at home. Oh, it was the '90s. It was the '90s. Very good. For those of you who guess '90s... '90s. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now sticker. It's now. Anyway, my favorite thing about this though, this entire ad is the 8-second unadulterated chug. Yeah. And she's like, as she drips it, it's a one-take chug. There's no cut. Usually it'd be like a quick sip.

Ah, exactly. It's like, let's hold the shot for 8 seconds and let it run down your face. Yeah. And somehow it does make it more appealing. Horrifically brown teeth. Yeah. Not the best choice. [Music] You missed the spot. She's like, "Oh, I can breathe again." But yeah, you know, like seriously, she's got some some really brown teeth. Oh, look at that Sony Ericsson. Oh, nice. Shop selling those paper things you can burn. Oh yeah. Those offerings. This is nostalgic. Family planning is a citizen's uh, responsibility is what it said. Okay. So um, that's if we reach the super chat goal, that's the episode we're going to release.

Yes. So if we get hit those 50 super chats, make sure you uh, put it in if you want to. And if you don't, you're still going to get it because if you even if you can't afford to do... do so or whatever... the generous people that donate to the today's episode and make that possible... you everyone gets it. Everyone gets the link. If we... if we reach the goal, yes, everyone gets it. And that episode is chalk full of nostalgia of China in the '90s, teaches you a lot about what life was like. Has... has very rare interviews with like English-speaking people. Yeah, we got some very good old footage to show you. Some footage that uh, we shot ourselves and things. Yeah, it was fun. Anyway, time for us to continue with the show, guys. Um uh, please uh, let's see what's up next. Now, a little bit of a throwback to what we did a couple weeks ago is uh, remember when robots were a big thing? They still are in China. They're still pushing this humanoid robot thing, but we've got something very flashback, very interesting. So quick flashback. A group of dancing granny's are enjoying their relaxing time. But did you notice a special friend joined them today? A friend. A friend. A friend. A friend. A friend. Various types of froheads. Various types of froheads. Okay. So memory. So yeah. Update. Give us an update. Well, first of all, you know, China's been doing a lot of propaganda about these self-driving delivery uh, vehicles that they've got because that's a dystopia I want to live in.

Yeah. Well, it turns out that they're also very good at crashing into people, potentially... potentially grinding them into mince meat and then stealing their bike and taking it... you know, who knows where... to eat them. Goes... it's like when you're a kid, you think that's how a robot would... they eat a metal to like stay alive.

That's right. But but quite honestly though, this is pretty scary. The fact that it's crashed into a motorcycle, electric motorcycle... it's one wheel is actually stopped and it's dragging this motorcycle along. What happened to the rider, dude? That's what I want to know. Where is the rider? You know, they probably were though cuz it was probably out of traffic.

Yeah, there probably was a collision. Yeah. Um, that's a very worrying thing. Seriously. Pretty shocking. Yeah. So there's some mince meat somewhere on the road and they're just taking the evidence away. They're like, "I better hide this minced eye."

Yeah, I know. But seriously though, this is not a good idea. It shows you how poor it is because I think any kind of auto... like what do you call it... um, automaton or whatever... like a... any vehicle that can... autonomous vehicle. That's what I was looking for. It should be able to notice that one of its wheels isn't turning at the very least.

Yeah, cuz that is autonomous. Yes, exactly. But you know, it should have sensors to tell it, hey, I've collided with something. Let's stop. Bro, I can't stop thinking about this having sharp teeth going... eating there. He's gonna eat it. Oh, dude. This is gonna... I'm telling you this is going to go viral. I'm calling this in isolation. This is the reality of China's robotics industry. Let's have a look. Yeah. Look at all the awards this place won. This is a massage parlor. Yeah. China's at the forefront of robotics. Yes. Let's go through. Okay. Let's go through this. Um, so I'm sorry, but like the fact that they got fake hands doing this, it's dystopian. Is that not like steampunk... like torture chamber? It's horrible. And what is this one? Okay, this has got like... there's like a cloth there. Yeah, I guess it's probably doing some kind of vibration thing. What's that ball? Yeah. What is this dong-looking thing here? This... everything about this is disgusting. The mold on the walls, but yet it simultaneously has every award in the history of... yes. You can see it all in those cloth awards. Those are awards from the CCP. Yeah. I mean, what... okay. So then you've got an assistant positioning something here on someone's hip. Doesn't that look like a torch? You know, like... no, it looks like a sewing machine. It does. Doesn't it look like they're going to... she's about to go like in a sweatshop? Yes. It sounds like Chewbacca there. It reminds me of, you know, Princess Leia. She's... they're like in a torture and they bring that like torture thing in, you know, like whatever it is. Very, very much so. Yeah. This is disturbing. Yeah. I don't know what that specific thing is supposed to be. This person's just like, what's happening here? That was actually the ebike driver. Yeah. I mean, she's just... she's just lying there. Looks like a corpse. Yeah, quite seriously. Um, and then this guy... it looks like it's like wiggling his finger or something. This is my favorite. Yeah. There's a man laying down to do this. Laying down and that thing's wiggling his finger with like a little rubber band or something. Like his fingers get like... what's going on? They got an award for this. Yeah, he got an award for the finger wiggler for like high technology. I mean, dude, what is this dystopian nonsense? This is China's robotics industry. Yeah. This is shock. It's shocking. Yeah. Can we go back to just before we get the slap? I just want to see... you can see the slap with the with the with the audio. Okay. Cuz I love his voice. Okay. Yeah. We'll go from the beginning. Sorry. We'll just go... yeah. Just have to see the slap. That's... that's disturbing. It's not even relaxing. No, you're a dismembered robot slapping your ass. Yeah, while you're sitting there... all these other people trying to like figure... waggle. Yeah, it's like sitting there. I just love it. Yeah. I'm sorry, but that is... that's just absurd. That's China-level absurd over here. That's my favorite clip this month is... is this. I mean, dude, you know, you think you're going to like a spa or something for a nice massage, but like... you give your wife like a coupon. They're like, "Go to the ladies to the spa" or whatever, and this is where they go. They get their fingers waggled and slapped by a robot that swears at them in a Cantonese egg. Yeah, it's so bad. Anyway, uh, let's... let's... I'm sorry. Okay. Let's move on to the more important stuff.

Yes. Yes, of course. Okay, so the more... the more important stuff, which I'll fast forward. We've seen it. Can we make... can we have a sound bite by the way of this... of that? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think so. I'm going to write it down. Yeah, please do. I'll make that into a song cuz it's absurd. It is. It's just absurd. It is. Okay, so trade war time, guys. Yes. Do you want to... do you want to know something ridiculous? What... before I even get into this... people seem to forget...

Mhm. That the same... the exact same political party, the exact same government that was in charge during the Tiennaman Square massacre is still in charge today.

Yeah. They didn't change. It's the exact same party, the exact same people that were in charge during that time are still there. And before that, the exact same political party, the exact same structure, everything that killed tens of millions of Chinese people... of their own.

Yes. It's the same government.

Yes. Can you imagine a government that failed their their own people so badly and yet still remained in power? No.

Yeah. It's bad, right? Actually, I think it's the only kind of lasting example of that in a way. Yeah. That murdered what? 70 million people? And you know the thing is, the Chinese government has for a long time kind of try to distance itself from the image of Maadong killing everybody, you know, of the Tiennaman Square massacre. They pretend it never existed, right? That type of thing. They've been on the international stage. They've kind of, you know, like... distin... portraits of Mao everywhere. There's a lot of open... they openly praise Maong. Okay. But now the veil has slipped. So this is something that when I... I mean, when I was learning history, we learned about how Mao was one of the worst mass murderers in the history of mankind.

Yes. This... like you said, this is something that China keeps internally versus externally.

Right. Right. So internally they say Mao was good. He made new China. He made communist China. Externally they go, "Oh, don't worry about that guy." Yeah. Yeah. There were... there were mistakes in the past, but now it's all good. We're different now. I cannot believe China's... this is official. Yes, this is Maing. She is the official China spokesperson, you know, for the foreign ministry. Okay, never mind the fact that she's probably related to Mao. We... we are making... we could be making this up, but first of all, she's got the same surname as Ma Zadong. She's from the same hometown. Yes. Literally town, not city... town. Not only the same area, but the same hometown, and she got a high-level government position, which would all check all the boxes of... yes, she's a relative of Mao. Took their pictures and you did like a... and now... and now she's like, oh, like great grandfa... grandfather Mao. I can show him again. They claim she's not related to, obviously, but that's just speculation on our our behalf, but the fact of the matter is they've pulled out this old archival crap about Maong saying we'll never yield to the Americans, right? Yeah. I don't want to tell you guys how to feel, but I... I have to tell you how important this is in in rhetoric shift for the CCP. We read China. We read Chinese propaganda. We tell you... we interpret it for you. This is very bad. Very bad. It is very bad. Also specifically since it was only a very short time after the speech that Mao ended up basically killing tens of millions of Chinese people. And I mean, I don't want to... I don't want to sound like a a crackpot here, but like, you know, what history repeats itself. And if they're going down this road again, you know what happened last time is he made this speech... we'll never yield, will never back down... and tens of millions... somebody... some people say up to 80 million Chinese people died because of his disastrous policies because he wouldn't back down. No. If you are... if you follow like milit... like military strategy or like try to read like what countries are trying to do, if you're in that sphere of things like defense or something, you... you would look at this... look at what just happened here. This is a signal to the rest of the world that China is about to do something bad. This is a signal to the rest of the world that China is now willing to sacrifice its own people just... just to protect its pride.

Yes. Yes. And they will. They will. And they have over and over again. Yeah. Why are you clapping for that douche? Little did they know what was about to happen. We will fight until we completely triumph. Okay. So here's... we've all seen this... my dictator's uh, you know, like blood graph, but just to remind people that you know, Madong is responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin combined. Yes. Okay. So when you think about bad people, a lot of people always...

Say, "Oh, Hitler was a bad man." You think about Stalin. Yeah, he was a bad man, but not that many realize that Mao is worse than all of them combined. And Paul, in terms of numbers? Yes, in terms of the amount of Chinese people that he killed, and he killed more Chinese people than the Japanese invaders ever did, by leaps and bounds.

Yeah, exactly. He's a bad guy. You shouldn't be putting him out there as your, your state image. He is the, he has the OG high score. Yes. I mean, this is like when you go to the arcade, and then his is at the top, you know, you write "assess slaughter," you know, the game. He's like your ass. You're like, "ass like 10 billion." He's like, you know, he's up there.

Yeah, that's right. Anyway, he's a horrible man. So anyway, rather than just do it once, they double down. Okay, so mounting put this out again: "China never bluffs, and we see through those who do." I don't want to fearmonger; I'm telling you though, when you read the tea leaves here, this is very bad because China was playing this whole, "everyone needs to work together, we need to trade together, China is so peaceful, we don't get involved in international conflicts," which you're going to see is not true later.

Yes. Um, they are putting out imagery and quotes and videos of something that represents China at its worst and most belligerent. It's not good. Yeah. So, you know, here it's Mao Zedong calling America a paper tiger. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting because at the end of the day, if you look at it, the, the kind of rhetoric that Mao Zedong was putting out, he was just describing himself, describing his own country.

Can I reply to his quote there? Sure. No, you… Can I do a "no you"? You can. [Applause] We should have a "no you" with that Mao. You know that dude that made the… Oh, the slap? Yeah. Shot the Mao? Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Anyway, so um, I, I have to point out now this very stupid thing has started to happen, which happened last time during the, the tariffs.

Yeah. During the trade war. Sorry. Um, and you've seen this… Well, it depends on what country they're angry with at the time. Can be Canada, can be France, can be Japan, can be… Today is definitely America. So we're winning. You've got businesses now in China putting up signs like this: a jewelry business is putting up a sign saying that all American customers will be charged an additional 104%. Um, and if, if you've got problems with that, you know, you can go to the embassy.

Basically, I got to rant about this, but maybe I'll, we'll look at it first. First of all, I want to say this. Okay. Well, you want to start with… I just want, I just want to say like the chances of him ever getting an American customer are like minus 10,000.

Minus 10,000. There's no American going to walk into this little shop in this little area of this place to go and try to buy something. Winston, tell me that is not the most pure analogy for this very trade war. Yes, to pretend like the Americans are going to come out on the bottom of this. To pretend that Americans are going to go to, want to this, this little shop in the middle of nowhere to buy this… It's pretending your value is so elevated in this global economy and this America-China trade. Even though the statistics consistently point that China needs America so much more than vice versa, it's not even funny. Yeah. How does this logic work on a small and large scale? Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't. And I just wanted to show you that, of course, when something like this gets done in China, people start to just go with the trend. So, you know, lots of stores are putting up on their digital signs and on their signs things like this: "Starting from today, our store will charge a 104% service fee to American customers. If you have any questions, please consult the US embassy."

The previous sign… I just want to say somebody in the chat said, um, "what are the chances an American's going to be able to read it?" He just wrote it in moon. Yeah, exactly. They're like, "You think Americans can read Chinese?" Yeah, we do. And I pro… I promise you this: If an American did walk in there and said they wanted to buy something, and then they're like, "Oh, I'm going to like this," they'd be like, "Well, okay." They'd walk out and they'd be like, "No, no, no, no, come back, I was just joking." Yes. Because they want the sale. Yes. Um, here you can see it at a restaurant outside the, the front here. Again, the same copy-paste thing. This was before… this is before the thing went up to more… Yeah, 125. This, you can see the date there is yesterday, by the way, at the bottom. See, this is a handwritten version of it at probably like a coffee shop or a hair salon or whatever that no American would ever go to anyway. Yeah. They're gonna read them, be like, you know, they're gonna walk outside and go, "Shucks." Yes.

But now I wanted to show you something because we called this from the beginning. We did. Remember when Mao Ning, who is the foreign ministry spokesperson, opened her Twitter account? It was only in February 9th. Okay. Not that long ago. Two months ago. Yeah. All right. "Excited to join X, looking forward to sharing updates on China's foreign policy and relations and much beyond. Let's work together to foster understanding and friendship." You have this outward kind of like photo of her getting involved with a bunch of people from foreign countries, being like, "Look, let's take a selfie." Yes. So it always works this way. They worm their way into the, like, whatever foreign platform… Chinese government. Yes. The Chinese government… Here you go. This is an Chinese government official. This is a, the official spokesperson. It's the foreign ministry of China gets an X account, a Twitter account, and then all of a sudden they're putting stuff out about like, "We will never yield. We are Chinese. We're not afraid. We won't back down." And then it's like wartime rhetoric against the US. Yeah. And then it's like, yeah, exactly. We're from 0 to 60 real effing fast. And it's like, "look who you are, the ones who will lose." To find out who truly pays for tariffs, simply ask the ones footing the bill. And they like interview American people about how bad it is. So it goes from, "let's foster understanding," to like, "now we're going to blame you. We're going to use your own system to blame you, to attack you, to insult you." This is what happens when you let the Chinese government on platforms they block for their own people. They use it only to hurt America. We've said this for how many years now? Look at where we are with the TikTok situation. Now we're in some sort of like weird thing where you have to bargain and, you know, maybe make a deal and all this kind of stuff. China shouldn't have been involved from day one. Sure. If, if this is what's happening on X after two months, think about what happened to the TikTok audience. Yeah. What happened with Red Note? Yeah, exactly. It's so simple, guys. You can, you can see it. It's literally like, "let's be friends and let's like… we want to use a platform for understanding." "You suck. You're the worst. China's better than you." All that kind of stuff. It is weaponized information warfare. Try to do that on a Chinese platform. Good luck. Chinese people can't even do that. No. A Chinese person who likes America? You cannot go onto a Chinese platform like Weibo and say that America is better than China. No. No. Never mind an American… An American can't imagine the American government going on and creating an official way and saying like, "we will stand resolutely and beat you down because we're better than you." Do you think that could happen? No. Because in this world, only America's bad. Remember ABP? Oh yeah, of course. Only America's bad. Yes. And whataboutism? We trust anyway… Another thing that's been making the rounds now is a 1960s children's song which goes, "America is a robber." Okay, let's take a look. "Smile on your face…" I just wanted to show you the translation of what it says, cuz it's hot right now. "US tariff policy… Will this '60s children song become popular? This battle we have been preparing for a long time…" No, you haven't. Yeah. It says like, "smile on your face. A big knife in the back. Stab you in the back. Want everything, what if you don't get him, grab it. Get to him, grab it. Occupying land and houses. It's ambition. His ambition is greater than the sky. Want to grab the earth and move it home." Kind of reminds me of how, how China is actually digging up all this earth in Africa and stuff and shipping it back to refine it in China to get the aluminum. You know what, China? I'm so happy… Actually, I'm incredibly devastated that you're just saying the quiet part out loud now. All these horrible, horrible ambitions of war and pain and suffering to bring to your own people, to sacrifice them for nothing, is coming back and, and you're proud of it. Yeah, it's ridiculous. By the way, I can't stand it when they use children in wartime propaganda. I think China loves that. Yeah, it's their thing. Yeah, it's their… This is projection. Yes. Like America… But oh, better watch out, guys, because China announces it will reduce Hollywood movie imports. Oh no. Good. Yes. Yes. I want to, I want to say good. There was a time period, and I talked to, um, I talked to some Hollywood people, some execs. Yeah, we, we actually were interviewed by someone and, uh, spoke to people in the industry. Can you make us big for this? I just don't want to be him looming over me. Yeah, we can loom… loom over him. We can loom over him. So have a, have a drink of… shut the hell up in these conversations. In the beginning, Hollywood goes and it's good soft power. Hollywood goes, you know, we're going to use, we could, we can use, uh, a new open market of China to get American ideals in there: equality, freedom, open road, right, all the things that people like about the US. And we can use those films not as propaganda, but as a way to bring those two countries closer together because we can understand each other. And unfortunately, it kind… I mean, to a certain extent, worked. It made people interested in, in America and China. But what China did was the China thing. They said, "No, not all of the films. We'll cherry-pick some that we approve." And what that ended up doing was force the market to change to China's tastes. So then now you couldn't make a movie for America that had the wrong map of China in it. You had to get rid of certain things that China found insensitive. You had to, you had to actually play into the hands of the CCP to make a Hollywood film. Infuriating. I mean, you would see, you would see like a Transformers movie that's got like China-only milk products being advertised in it, like Mengniu and stuff. But worse off is the censorship. Yeah. I mean, of course, it's sens… everything got censored. You couldn't say things, um, you know, that would upset the Chinese government, not the people. Cuz it's not the people that ever get upset, the Chinese government. Then you're like, you hurt the feelings of the Chinese people because you had this actor in it. Hollywood had to go to the censorship board of the Chinese government… Those… if those days are over, then I celebrate it because it's not worth it because you know what? Hollywood films deteriorated in quality so much when they started to have to self-censor, and they did self-censor because they want their film to end up in China, so they start act like they will hire an actress from China or something that sucks, that's a bad actress. Not about… there's nothing wrong with Chinese actresses, but they will just… yeah, you, you hire a sucky actor just because you want to appeal to the Chinese market and hope they pick your film… film to be sold in China. Yeah, exactly. Uh, they really messed up the industry, so I'm glad about this. We don't need to sell movies to China. No, you know… No. Good. Good. Thank you, Xi Jinping.

Now this is, um, very telling and very, uh, worrying for the people of China because look, as much as we, uh, we make fun of the CCP, as much as we dislike the CCP, we got nothing against the people of China. And it's actually one of the main reasons why we criticize the CCP so much is because we actually do care about Chinese people. We have a lot invested, having lived there for over a decade each. You know, having Chinese family, Chinese wives, Chinese friends and colleagues in China. We actually do care about Chinese people. And what's happening now is going to affect the Chinese people drastically. And I just have to say off the bat here, the average American person, even a very low-income American person, will be able to struggle but still survive when the, the prices of, uh, groceries go up, when the prices of rent go up, people will be able to make a plan. Okay, it's going to be horrible for people. But in China, they don't have that luxury. People are struggling already. When the prices go up in China, and when the orders go away from all the factory workers, people are going to lose their jobs, and it's going to be very difficult for the average Chinese person. Very, very difficult. Far more difficult than it will be for the average American person. Not… is no comparison. Yeah. It's just you can't even come close. That's why it's so worrying when they're putting out Mao Zedong, because they basically are saying, "we're willing to sacrifice. We've done it before. We'll do it again. We're willing to sacrifice the average Chinese person, their livelihood, their happiness and their lives, you know, just to keep face rather than back down." And this is a good example of that. This is a state-owned enterprise putting out an advert that says, which means "eat bitter." Yeah, exactly. "Do meticulous work and earn less money." What kind of an adverb is that? Suffer. Suffer, do a good job and earn less money and like be proud of it. Yeah. This is like framed as a positive thing. Like it's kind of like, "everyone, let's, let's, let's suffer together. We got this." Exactly. But I mean, come on. Like, does it make… does that make you want to work for that company? It's literally saying, "suffer, work real well and earn less money." It's not something that you want. This is worrying. It's very worrying. So, um, this, these adverts were all over, as you can see here, also in digital form. And, uh, for those of you who don't know, that the way it works is in your apartment complex, when you go down to the elevators… it was quite embarrassing because I was once on these digital adverts. Yeah, you told me. Yeah. So, you know, you go into like an apartment complex and you're waiting for your elevator, they play adverts, right? It's kind of dystopian in a way. It is very… They've been doing it way before anyone else. Yeah. I mean, they also play it inside some of the elevators in the more fancier places and, of course, bus stations and train stations and wherever else. Right here you can see it says L1, level one. Okay. And I like the fl… the fact that you've got a reflection. It says Huawei and Luk Jewelry. So this is definitely inside a mall. This is inside a shopping mall. Anyway, so they were putting them all over the place, and it's the same ad. And, uh, they started to get a lot of backlash because people were worried when they started to see this ad. Yeah. I mean, this is again saying the quiet part out loud. This is a state-run company. This is like the government-run company putting this out. So, um, apparently from what we can see here, this internal message, uh, leaked out and what it says is, uh, "all units should immediately check…" So basically what they basically want them to remove. Yeah, they were like basically saying, "you can take a look…" It's very small. Our screen… we got to move it closer. It's like way up there. It's up on the wall. Like if you can imagine a, a gym hall ceiling. Yes. Like far away. It's… It's… Our office isn't that big, but it feels like that cuz we got a tiny TV up there. Anyway, so, uh, basically they were saying, "quickly take it down because this is causing too much, uh, too much uproar," and then they like removed the ads completely. Yeah. But it's very worrying that that kind of thing is going out right now. It is. It really is. And that's, uh, here's something else. Can you… Yeah. Put it in full volume. So this is Victor Gao. This is a very important person within the CCP. And they basically send him around when they need people to stop arguing about how China is being really bad. So they… he's a… this guy's despicable. Oh yeah. I mean, well, at least what they tell him to do is… Well, remember what he said about the Uighurs? Like… Yeah. So he did this, uh, forum debate type thing, and he sat there and basically said, "Uighur people in Xinjiang… Uighurs are not allowed to see their families." Yeah. It's like a, "we will, we will deal with you." And they had Uighurs in the audience and they were like, "Then stop, stop being a Uighur. Basically, stop breaking the law, you know." And, uh, this guy is just, for all intents and purposes, you have to understand he's like an attack dog. Yeah, she's like an attack dog. And they, uh… this woman was this… on, on British media, right? Yeah, Channel 4 asked him a very poignant question. What you'll hear in this is that she uses an actual fact and asks him about it, about it, and he can't reply with any facts. Yeah. Let's see what he says in this scenario. "…use your metaphor, the US has the bigger gun, and so China ends up having more to lose from this trade war, doesn't it? You know, it can't sustain the loss of 15% of its export market, i.e., what you export to the US." "Not at all. China is fully prepared to fight to the very end because the world is big enough that the United States is not the totality of a market in the world. So if the United States wants to go in that direction of completely shutting itself out of the China market, be my guest. Yeah. And China will lose the US market, which as I've said is 15%. We don't, we don't care. China has been here for 5,000 years. Most of the time there was no United States and we survived. And if the United States wants to bully China, we will deal with the situation without the United States and we expect to survive for another 5,000 years. Okay." Can you go back to just do a freeze frame there? Everything he said was just emotionally charged [__]. He didn't reply with an actual fact or solution. She said, "You need… this is in layman's terms, you need America. Perhaps America doesn't need you as much." Right, yes. His reply is, "We don't care." That is literally like a 13-year-old boy that slams his door and says, "Mom, stay out, I'm gaming. Only gamers allowed." Exactly. Like that's that energy. You don't get to win an argument by not saying anything and just being an annoying little immature brat. Yeah. Oh, we don't care. You care. You care. By the way, let me just, um, quash this 5,000-year thing. It's [__]. I'm sorry. But first of all, it's very debatable about the whole 5,000 years of history thing. I'm not going to get into that. The fact of the matter is that China's only what? 75 years old? 70? 1949. Yeah. Well, what… you better at math than me? 70. Yeah, 74 years old. Yeah, 74. So China is, is younger than Trump. 76 years old this year. Uh, China's younger than Trump. Like China… Actually is China, with this Communist Party, China, what this guy represents, is younger than Trump. I mean, let's be honest. It's kind of crazy, the whole idea of China as we know it today, a China that manufactures, a China with fancy flashy buildings and high-speed rails, a China that, that we know today is a very young country. It hasn't been around for 5,000 years. In fact, let's be fair though, it's not a rich country. The fancy buildings is like city centers. I do… Come on. The GDP of Shanghai is way less than the GDP of Mississippi. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the nicest city in China. Yeah. When you see all those flashy buildings, the worst place in America has a higher per… per person GDP, per capita GDP, which is the best, most expensive city. Yeah. You have to actually sometimes put these things into perspective. But what I'm saying is, before 1949, China was not really in, in a very good state. It got real bad during the communist war, much worse, and then it's recently raised up. The only reason why it is in its position right now is because of trade with the rest of the world. Particularly, particularly America, because China allowed investment. Okay. So people went to China to invest. People helped… the international community helped lift China out of poverty by using labor, by setting up factories, by directly investing. China would be still a struggling, starving North Korea-esque place today if it wasn't for the United States. This whole thing about 5,000 years of history is crap. Anyway, every single place in the entire world where there are humans can claim 5,000 years of history. There's… you'll find some, some bones there. Also, also it's wrong even by his example. I'll tell you why. China's collapsed how many times? 5,000 years ago it wasn't called China. It was some warring states in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. You've claimed… captured and captured land when you weren't even called China. When you were under many different dynasties, they weren't China. Genghis Khan, the Yuan dynasty conquered all of China under Mongolia. You are not China. Yeah. China is a new concept and has failed over and over again, in collapse and imploded, and it's going to do it again if it continues. Yes. If they… This is the wrong attitude to have. This is wrong. And China has been taking advantage of the rest of the world for the longest time. You know that saying, "give a bully an inch, they'll take a mile"? Yes. That is China. Yes. They… once they were added to the World Trade Organization, they have abused every single loophole. Uh, they've been very bad when it comes to stealing IP, trillions of dollars in… They haven't allowed litigation in their own courts. If you find that your product has been knocked off in China, you can't go and sue them for copyright. They won't allow you. You're not allowed to… I mean, remember Michael Jordan's whole logo and name and everything was stolen? He lost… If you make a product right now in America… can you get rid of him? I can't look at him anymore. Sure. If you got the Ballard here, there's a little… here's a little Ballard report. If you, you and I start a business, okay, we go and start a business. It's called ABC Corporation, whatever. And we make the cool Frisbee that goes really far. Sure. Right. Within a month, that will be taken by a Chinese company. Even if we don't manufacture in China, they'll figure out how to copy this design, make their own version and sell it at 90% less cost. Yeah, we will get pushed out of the market by Chinese copycat companies, not even in our country, that are able to then take that cheap product and then for free ship it across the world to the American customer and it'll… Yeah, ship it cheaper here. Remember the guy who made that mousetrap? Yes. He made that really good mousetrap, and it went viral because it was so effective. Within like a week, China had copied it, and we're already underselling him in his own market because he can't ship it to Americans in America. Even though it was made in America, couldn't ship it door to door as cheaply as China could send it across the world with his ripoff copycat product that he can't sue them for. Exactly. That's just an example. Personally, um, we both know people who lost out big in China, who went there to do the R&D, that set up the factories… like that guy who made the Bluetooth speakers. He made this fantastic idea of a one of the first ever small Bluetooth speakers that had good bass and it was amazing, and the people that he was working with stole his designs and started to make it on the side and undercut him because there are no repercussions. Yes. And yet China thinks that they can attract international investment because they… Why do you think they're putting up such a fight and actually like arresting people?

That are restricting, like, or making it look bad to do foreign investment in China because they need it so bad. Because that's how China got wealthy—when I say wealthy, relatively compared to the past. The country, the entire country's economy, is based on the fact that they were allowed to trade with the outside world.

And remember this, guys, one thing I really have to make very clear is you hear this statistic going around about China lifting 800 million people out of poverty, and they attributed it to the Communist Party. This is 800—now I thought it was 600. Whatever. It changes. It's a lie. First of all, they lowered the benchmark for what being poor is. Okay, but that's not the main reason. The reason why Chinese people managed to become more rich has got nothing to do with the Communist Party. In fact, it's the fact that the Communist Party lifted the boot off of their necks for a minute and allowed them to do business and allowed them to use their entrepreneurial spirit. And yeah, you know, like, cuz Chinese people are very good at business if you let them; very good at, like, mustering all their ideas and getting down to work and doing stuff. But the Chinese Communist Party didn't allow them to. So as soon as they allowed them to work and earn their own money and make their own way, they actually lifted themselves out of poverty. This has got nothing to do with the Chinese government; it does not get that credit. It's only restricted them.

Yes. It's done nothing to help the people.

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, let's move on to Slovaganda, guys. This is so tasteless, what they've done here. Okay, so we all know this Blackmith Wukong game, right? Yeah. Every—all the—the gamers were really excited about this a while ago. Blackmith Midcon. Yes. It's okay. I played it. Fine. It's fine. I mean, a seven; I lowered it to a six when I finished it. It's one of those bigotry of low expectations things, like, "Oh, China made a game that's actually not bad looking." Anyway, here's the thing. They put this out. Oh my gosh! This is the official Chinese military put this out. This is what gives me hope—China is just bluffing, and they suck. Their military sucks. Yes. Take a look. Sick quarter pipe. Yeah, I want to do tricks. Dropping paratroopers. Look, he—he multiplies, and then all of a sudden they've got lots of helicopters. That is—this is official; is official from the Chinese government. It's from the PLA. Yep. Platinum? Is this platin—no, it was like there some strategic command or some [ __ ] I can't remember. But it is official. It's official. So they peppered in Blackmith Midcon. Yes. Look, it's like he's invisible, right? Then they're stealth fighting. [Music] This is like a parody of itself. Yes. Look, he freezes a frog, and he's—I'm sorry. Okay, I'll turn it down a bit. So he freezes a frog, and then drone. What does it have to do with anything now? And then they're—Okay, that's the bad part. Yeah, here's the important part. Now they're showing that they're targeting Taiwan, and they're going to blow it up pretty much. I mean, it's about—this is all about their reconnaissance abilities and how they can attack Taiwan. Teimu stealth. Yes. Take a look. That's Taipei. That's disturbing, because you know what? Mhm. When you talk about attacking another country, right, because you need to def—like, defend yourself, or in this case invade Taiwan, right, maybe you show a military target. Cuz what you just did was target the capital city. There are schools in this shot. Yes, there's schools in this shot. Yeah. This is Taipei. This is like the middle of a city. This is all civilian—civilian city. There's nothing military in the city. There's not one military post here. Maybe a recruitment office. There's nothing else. There's school. I know this area. Yeah, there are schools right there. Yep. Yeah. It's kind of sick. It's kind of sick that dirt. They're using Blackmouth Wukong, you know, the people who were enjoying playing the Monkey King, to be like, "We're going to murder children." It's pretty much it. Yeah. Anyway, it's—it's disturbing and ridiculous. Well, guess what? There's an analogy. Yeah. America hits back. Okay. Okay. Let's see. Right, guys, cuz I mean, look, China's just released its Blackmouth Wukong attacks and kills, you know, children in Taiwan. What's America going to do? Well, let's just preface this by saying this would be like if America did this. This is a parody. Yes. [Music] [Music] Wow. Yeah. Got to say America's footage is way cooler. Oh yeah. It's badass. Sonic ripping it up. Look at him go. Yeah. I mean, literally imagine if America did this. It's the same thing. But the three coordin—Oh no. Oh no. Sonic, don't do it. No, it's civilian infrastructure. Oh no. See, is that not the same? Yeah, it's exactly the same. Sonic, put it away. [Music] No high five over that, Sonic. I mean, that is literally the same—the same thing. But you know what? Somehow that would be considered ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous when China does Blackmith Woo Kong and bombs Taiwan civilian infrastructure. Come on. And drops paratroopers and stuff. Freaking dirt bag. I know. I tell you what, though, until Sonic bombs the Three Gorges Dam, starting to get pretty patriotic there. Yeah. I mean, Sonic, we don't approve—you know, we don't approve of that because that would lead to lots of civilian casualties, and we're not about that here. But that—that is a good analogy. It's a good analogy. Yeah. Honestly, we're just poking fun. You see how absurd it is to take a video game character—It is so—The Blackmouth Wukong is a video game. They took a video game character and footage from a video game and incorporated it into an actual military war propaganda showing how they can target Taiwan very successfully and easily. Isn't it pathetic? It's the same as Sonic blowing up the Three Gorges Dam. It is the same thing. It's the same thing. Okay. Wow. Good. Uh, doing well on our goal. We're over halfway to our goal. Oh, wonderful. So keep in mind there is a goal—a super chat goal right now. If we hit it, we're—you're going to get a free episode of our Shiaanho episodes. Yes. Um, and it's not a random one. It's about the '90s in China. Correct. So keep it up. Wow. Fantastic. Okay, let's get back to uh Soft Power Hour, guys. This is where we talk about how China is trying to change your mind. This is just as important. Yes. Just as important. Yep. Uh, because you guys probably heard about this—China is now denying—well, they're kind of backtracking, but denying that there have been Chinese soldiers fighting for Russia in Ukraine. And there's a reason they have to do that. China's been trying to broker this, like, "We're going to solve this conflict. We're never involved in international conflicts. We have nothing to do with anything. Our people would never join an international conflict." Right. The thing is, what just happened was Ukraine has found 155—well, like, actually identified 155 Chinese soldiers. Yeah. Fighting for the Russian army that they've captured. But they suspect there's a lot more right now. China is in a—in a kurfuffle right now, cuz like, "We don't—we didn't take sides in that. What are you talking about? We don't have anything to do with that." Right. So they're putting out these things. They're like—they're actually kind of making it illegal to make irresponsible remarks. You can't say that, like, there are Chinese soldiers in—fighting for—I'll give you a little bit of an insight here because when the story broke, when they released footage of these two Chinese nationalists that they captured—nationalists. Yeah. Okay. They're nationalists, and they are nationals too. Yeah. They're both—okay. These two—You're right, though. Two Chinese nationals. They show their passports. Okay. With their pictures. They're actual Chinese passports. They interviewed them. They're speaking Chinese. And I still—when I shared it, I still have people saying, "Those are fake Chinese. They're North Koreans or Russians." Russians said, "Yeah, they're Russians that just look Chinese, cuz you can get some Asian-looking Russians." Yeah. Um, the amount of copium that was being spread, it's insane. Well, it was clearly a campaign. They were trying hard to deny this. Let's see what the foreign ministry said themselves. Yes. Okay, let's take a look. Oh, let me—um—get us out—get us out so you can read that. Um, really? Yeah, I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Yeah. So—so first the co—first the copium was they're—they're not actually Chinese, and this is a big false flag. Well, then—then Ukraine goes, "All right, let's interview these." Yeah. Let's interview. Okay. This is the first—first—just to confirm, he is speaking Chinese—natively speaking perfect Mandarin and with a slight Djangi accent, and we can recognize that. So there's no denying that this guy's Chinese. You can't try to pretend that he's a—a Chineselooking Russian or someone else. He had his passport for crying out loud. They show it. Yeah. But I've—It's interesting. I mean, th—this guy, he's just said that it's the first time he's fired a gun. It's the first time he's been in any kind of combat. Just doesn't know what on earth he's doing. But suddenly he's in the middle of this conflict. You'll see why. Yeah, we're going to show you why. That's the important part is we uncovered some things which you won't see elsewhere. You may have seen this interview before, but you won't have seen what we've uncovered. [Music] foreign [Music] host foreign [Music] Mhm. Very, very [Music] So China's freaking out about this. And I'm going to take you inside their internet from the stuff that I guess they forgot to hide. Yeah. Because they're claiming that there are no—there is no recruitment for Chinese people. There's no recruitment for Chinese people to join the war effort in Russia. Yeah. And they tell that the Chinese people they shouldn't—they shouldn't be involved. They should stay away from armed conflicts. You know, that type of thing. Here's the deal. It doesn't matter where you stand on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It literally doesn't matter. What matters is China doing what it says versus what it secretly does in the background. And the problem with this is that if you allow something on the Chinese internet, it means it's allowed to be there. Means you endorse it. The—the government gets rid of anything that's against what they're supposed to be doing. That's something people have to realize is that the censorship of the Chinese internet is the most sophisticated censorship of any internet—anything in the entire world. They can, in an instant, get rid of keywords, get rid of topics, get rid of channels, shut down entire social media. It doesn't matter. If you type—if you literally type down with Xi Jinping, you're going to get a knock on your door in minutes. Within minutes, all of your social media will be instantly disappeared. Yes. And if you are talking about a subject that they don't like, it gets completely removed. So, for instance, recruitment videos to join Russia—the Russian army—are being allowed, as we can see here, on the Chinese internet. In fact, a ton of them. So they're denying this at an official level and just play it. Yeah. And I just want to tell you once more that if the Chinese government was against this, it wouldn't—it would not be allowed. It wouldn't have—owed. It's not allowed on the Chinese internet. If you tried to type in like Russian recruitment or Russian army or anything, it'd be blocked. They would block the keywords if they were so concerned about that. If they wanted to follow the rules. So these are just some of the examples of the recruitment videos that are out there. They're everywhere. And you could say, "Oh, maybe they're just like a little window into Russia. Maybe they just want to know what recruitment looks like in Russia, right?" Well, that's just not true because there are so many examples of this. We can prove—prove to you that these are recruitment videos to get people to join. And we'll show you some proof here. Yeah. So I just want to show you some evidence here that it's prolific. It's all across Chinese video media, right? It's every—literally everywhere. It's not—It's so—It's—It's so funny to be able to go to the internet—like the foreign ministry—to go—go like this, "This doesn't exist." And meanwhile, we go, "This exists." Yes. Right. Who do you believe? Can you scroll forward? We don't need to. Yeah, we don't need to keep seeing this. Um, I do want to show you some actual—Well, I just want to show you the scope. Okay, that's a good point. It's good to show the scope. I mean, this is—it—it's good to know. That's true. That's—you make a good point. You make a good point. I'll—I'll fast forward it a bit, like, but here. Okay. So it's one thing to show, "Oh, this is what the Russian army looks like," but then they translate these recruitment videos. Yeah. Why would it be—why would they be translated with Chinese subtitles? So that's what got me started thinking. I was like, "You know, there's going to be some overt stuff that actually is trying to recruit people," right? Yes. So they have all these—these Russian—these are from the Russian military recruitment video. How much is that in RMB? He—he says this is a Chinese—speaking Chinese, just so people know. Okay. Yeah. So he's in Russia. He's speaking Chinese. He's looking at recruitment—looking at the recruitment—translating to Chinese people. Yeah. Um, okay. Okay. So you get uh $6,800 when you join up. That's pretty good actually. You think you get that? No, but I'm just saying like, let's—That's—Let's—Let's separate—No, I can—I can understand why you'd get these random dudes turning up that never held a gun before. They see this, right? [Music] There's your—um—early retirement. Early retirement. I just accidentally forgot to uh do the subtitle there. Yeah. Uh, 50% house purchase per—So they're saying you earn $1,400 a month, which, by the way, is a large salary for China. That's why it says you want RMB. Yeah. Right. So in China, 10,000 RMB is like a great salary. Yeah. Yeah. That's more than the average. I know that doctors, for instance, earn—um—they earn more than that, but not that much more. It'll be closer to $2,000 US for a doctor. So I mean, you're earning a very high-level salary then. Okay. And you get discounts on public transport in St. Petersburg. I can't wait. Yes, that's what I want. Anyway, let's focus on what the real problem is here. Free shipping. [Music] So he literally says all of the details to sign up are on the back of this, and who knows what's in the other videos—like the media. There could be screenshots of it. So that got me even more thinking. I was like, "Now this is getting dangerously close." First, there's plausible deni—deniability in the beginning to be like, "Oh, I just interested to see what recruitment ads are like in Russian." Then I'm like, "Wait, why are they translating him?" Now there's a guy standing under a recruitment sign in Russia. Yes. Translating a brochure of all the benefits you get and then asking them—after saying, "This is where you contact"—every—decide if this is—if you were in this position, what would you do? Yeah. What would you do? Would you do this? So I started thinking, I'm like, "There's got to be more overt stuff than this, cuz this is like a tease." It keeps getting worse. Right. Okay. Continue. All right. Let's see. So there's videos at the wazoo of all this stuff. People have a big fascin—either people have a massive fascination or this stuff's being—it's a fascination with recruitment. What's with this? So then I look at this and I go—I blocked out the QR code so we don't do any recruitment here—but pause this. Okay, this is a recruitment ad on a Russian street. All over Russian street there are recruitment ads with clear price tags. Okay, you're like, "Hm." Then it says, "Foreigners can also join up. If you want to enlist, just call. There's always a need for new recruits." It's active recruitment for the Russian military on the internet. Yeah, look at that. Put out by Chinese people. So this—there was a concerted effort. In fact, I found tons of these. Lots of these. Yeah, they're still up. They're still up as of right now. Okay, I got these yesterday, I believe. Um, look at this. It's just over and over again. There's QR codes. There's signups. This is how you sign up. This is how you participate. This is what you get. Right. Yeah. One-time payment—um—or whatever. Yeah. Tells you how much you get, what it's for. And then it got even worse, right? Okay. There's active recruitment posters, and they translate—like, line by line—what you get. Yeah, with the money, and then a guy showing, "This is my passport. I'm going to do this." Yeah, that's—this weird pixelated mess is what we saw was not—he's like, "This—I can do it. I'm Chinese. Here's my passport. I'm in Russia. I did it. You can do it too." There was lots of these. Yes. Right. So this is—it went from, "Oh, plausible deniability," to, "No, this is active recruitment for the Russian military in China." Right. Correct. Now, what the involvement of the Chinese government is in this—at least at the very minimum—is endorsing it by not censoring—by not censoring it. Because they censor everything. They censor everything that they don't want and they don't like. Yes. If it's allowed, it means that they are okay with it. Yes. So again, doesn't matter how you feel about this conflict. You can even be Ukrainian or Russian watching. This has nothing to do with that. What this matters is China breaking its own rules of what it says it does or doesn't do. Yeah. And in reality, it's completely different. And like we said, China is this outward-facing sheep. Mhm. And within its borders is a mass—the CCP is a massive wolf. Yeah, that's correct. That's just how it is. So again, um, if you can't look at this—this is—this is even worse, isn't it? Can you read that? If you can't handle the pressure of life, you absolutely must be able to withstand the recoil of an AK-47. I mean, these are just active recruitment for getting Chinese people to join. Yeah. Right. Exactly. When you got people on the ground in Russia doing it too—like, Chinese people—there's got to be some sort of level of cooperation there, right? Correct. And again, the fact that this is still up is shocking to me—that this—they're trying to claim that there are no real numbers of Chinese people doing this. You know what I mean? Yeah. The fact that they're saying, "No, we tell Chinese people to stay away from armed conflict, but then we allow Russian recruitment videos to be translated and disseminated." Yes. All over the Chinese internet—Chinese internet—and then pro—people showing their documents proving they're going to do it. Yes. And proving that they're there. It's like—even—it goes both ways too. If you show this—there—there is a proc—uh—ad shown in Russia. Yes. And what they've done is re-translated back into Chinese to show, "Look at our cooperation." Right. So there's—I mean, there's all this deniability of like Russia and China cooperating on any sort of official level. Yeah. And then you have things like those Russia friendship shops popping up all over China where they're trying to fund the war with getting Chinese people to—to buy things. So again, there's reality and there's what's hidden, right? And that's—that's a big problem, I think. Like, whether you want to talk about this conflict or anything else, you have to look at China not at face value. You have to look a little bit behind the scenes and figure out what its true ambitions are. Absolutely. I mean, they've been backing Russia from the beginning. Yeah. I mean, again, that's—that's a different issue than anything—just look at China—say what's behind the curtain there. Yeah. You know, and there it is. Yes. You can see proof that uh active recruitment—um—you know, videos are going around on the Chinese internet. Yeah. And then denying it on an international level. Yes. Anyway, time for World View, guys. This is where we talk about everything in the world, specifically with regards to China. And I wanted to start out with this—um—tea leaf thing, which has got nothing to do with the world and everything to do with China. Yes. But it does because it's kind of related to unemployment, which is tariff-related as well. Now, I would like you guys to pay attention to the video. Forget the one that's right next to me here. The one that's on the far right. Okay. It'll be the far left for me—the right for you. Whatever. The one on that side. Okay. What are you trying to say? The one that my right hand is pointing towards. Okay. You're not saying I'm far right and you're far left. No. Cuz then you'd be far left, and I'd be—Yeah, cuz I'm on the—Yeah. The right. Yeah. Anyway, um, we're both moderates, by the way. Yes. I'm more conservatively leaning, maybe. I don't know. Maybe—definitely not socially. I am Catholic. Anyway, continue. That's true. That's true. Um, I can eat meat or whatever. Yes. I'm meatree today. Yeah. So guys, take a look at the—um—the one with the mattresses because it's important what the guy says. Okay. Two people per mattress. Yes. This is the working conditions at the—You notice these are young people. These are young people that are not country bumpkins. We know a country bumpkin when we see one. We've been literally on hand-built motorcycles across the entire country of tens and tens of thousands of kilometers. We've seen everything. These are young unemployed people working on tea plantations. And what he said next was—um—another—another busload is about to arrive. That's why he's like, "Okay, two people per mattress because another—well, another busload of workers are arriving soon." So make—make space. Yeah. Can you imagine having to sleep two people to a mattress in those kind of conditions—in what looks like a—a corrugated iron shed? This—this is the current condition. You do—you do realize, by the way, if you look at these corrugated iron sheds, okay, there's no insulation. Um, tea plantations are in the hottest parts of China. Yeah, it's some of the hottest parts. Exactly. And just depends on the—the season. You're either going to be freezing or you're going to be boiling. It could be wicked cold or wicked hot. But I guess you got the body warmth of the person stuck next to you—like a sardine. Yeah. In these bedbug mattresses. Uh, the thing is that the reason to even show this is the conditions of people in China right now; the conditions to work are definitely getting worse. Young people with degrees. Yeah. You know, you got master's degrees—people coming out. Yeah. And they're making a $100 take-home a month. Yeah. In some of these professional positions, it's quite disappointing. It's terrible. And the fact that they're blustering about these tariffs—You know, before we continue, I just have to reiterate because I know a lot of people in China and a lot of—know a lot of people who have office jobs and I know a lot of people who work in factories. Yes. And the amount of people that are going to lose their jobs is staggering. Absolutely staggering because China cannot—if you're—the majority of the stuff that gets shipped out ends up in America. Yep. Okay, quite seriously. The majority of stuff that they're making—all these gadgets and—and gizmos and little fixtures—out of their percentage of exports—it's—Yeah. For them. Yeah. I mean, it ends up in—in Home Depot or it ends up on Amazon or it ends up in whatever shop. Those factories that are making all this stuff employ so many people, and when the demand goes away, the factories are going to have to shut down or scale back massively. They cannot afford it. It's going to affect so many people's lives. It's actually devastating when you think about it. It's horrible. And it's not that—that's not a joke. It's actually going to be devastating. Yeah. And they can bluster all—But that's not true. Without the American public buying all this tat—all the time—which I'll be—I'm against that stuff. I don't need cheap rubbish Christmas decorations. I—I made a video literally about that exact thing that will probably be out tomorrow, right? Check it out. But at the same time, those cheap crappy Christmas decorations that you use for one season and probably never again because they're not great, they are supplying jobs to countless people in China. Tens of millions of people to make this tat. And it's just horrible that it's going to go away overnight because families are going to be affected. The whole country is going to be affected. And you know what? It's avoidable. It was all—play by the rules. If the Chinese government weren't such blustering wankers—if they weren't care—they didn't care about face that much—they would really be—

Able to spare the lives of the Chinese people. Now in China, they're putting out all these mocking AI, you know, videos of fat Americans, like making Nike shoes or or whatever, and they're all haha about it. But it's not going to be—it's not funny to the factory workers. No.

The 100 million factory workers. Exactly. Because you know, like you can make fun of it all you want, but all you're doing is hurting your own people.

Yeah. For for face. Yeah. That's the thing is this was avoidable, not because of—I don't even want to bring up the Trump trade war thing. This was avoidable from decades ago when you entered into the WTO. If you stuck to the rules, if you stuck to the rules like the rest of the world and traded with everyone, you could be a prosperous, rule-abiding country that offered freedom to your citizens.

Yeah. But they're sneaky. Yeah. Because it's the Communist Party of China. They cannot operate with a rules-based system. They just can't. Break the rules—you know, rules for these and not for me. CCP is a disgusting, despicable dictatorship that pretends to be something it's not.

Yeah. It's the same people that were in charge of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It's the same people that um annexed Tibet. Yeah. It's the same people that caused millions and millions of people to starve to death. It's the same people that have polluted the world, destroyed the seas, outfished the seas.

You want to see something scary? Yes. This is everywhere in the Beijing airport. Beijing airport. Now usually you have adverts up there for like Wang La or something, you know, or Coca-Cola or watches or whatever watches.

Yeah. Yeah. Seagull watches, cuz that's what you want in your life. Chivas Regal. Yes, that's right. Hennessy VOP, you know, vis Hennessy. Yes, that's what you'd see. But now they've been replaced with Sep Wolves.

Yeah. Sep Wolves socks and cigarettes. Yeah. Um, they have been replaced with these messages which says, "Unify and defend national sovereignty and mainland national unity." No pun intended. Reading the tea leaves is very important for this episode.

And again, if you're watching this and you kind of want to read on where China is going, that the fact that they're posting Mao overtly with like war threats and now the Beijing airport—and this is the face of the world, is the Beijing airport, right—is putting up basically preparation for war propaganda, unification propaganda based on what we're seeing right now, particularly like if you go Google something later, look up how barges are going to make the invasion much easier for China.

Yeah. Of Taiwan. There's a lot of things that really, really are building up to the precursors of war. Yeah. And probably an invasion of Taiwan. And I think we're—our timeline is much sooner than we previously had thought. Everyone—I think everyone's like kind of looking at it now like sooner than later now, probably.

Yeah. I mean, I was thinking in a couple of years, maybe two years, and I'm thinking a couple of months. I was thinking two to five years if it was—if it was going to happen. Again, it's always too difficult. And I've never—I've never wanted to put a timeline. And I've never wanted to be like, you know, it's actually going to happen because they always kick the can. They always like—it's looking very creepy right now.

But I'm a little bit concerned because of the current rhetoric, because of the the the current trade war. I really do think China's being backed into a corner of their own making. Yeah. You know, they've done it to themselves, but now they're like might lash out.

Mhm. They might actually do something foolish. Yeah. You know, and it'll be all their fault.

Yeah. Be the Chinese government's fault. It's true. If something does kick off. Yeah. Um, and it's just unfortunate. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not good to see this kind of rhetoric going around. By the way, can I just say, and you can back me up on this, dude?

Yeah. I know. When you're in China, isn't it so freaking insulting how you see these ads and stuff that basically paint the outside world as an enemy? You know, they actually have like recruitment ads and stuff where they're like, "We're going to fight America," that like type things in your face all the time.

Yeah. But then to the outside world, they're like, "Oh, it's racist if you say the CO 19 came from Wuhan." Yeah. You know what I mean? Doesn't it piss you off? Is that not an analogy for what I just said? What they put out is very different than what's inside.

Correct. Yeah. Anyway, um, for those of you who don't know, let's lighten the mood a little bit here. Uh, sorry about getting dark there for a minute, and hopefully things work out. We'll see. Um, we have a Monday secret show.

We do. Uh, by the way, did we hit our goal yet? We did. Oh, we did. Yes. Oh wow. Okay. Well, come on. Before we do anything, I've got a special thing for that. Goal achieved. Ah, yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, can you share it out? We do it right now.

Yeah. I mean, come on. We hit the goal. That's the—that's the rules. Let's freaking do it. We're going to put in the live chat now. I'll pin it, and we'll put a pin comment. Um, just making sure it was right. Yep. That's right. Okay. For the uh China in the '90s episode that we put out on on our secret show, we'd love you all to go and take a look and see if you enjoy it as much as we did. It was a good one. People loved that one.

Well, I mean, we did. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's do it. I'm going. And by the way, thank you to the generosity of everybody who participated in the uh super chat goal. We promise this is not something that we'll ever abuse. We just every once in a while, you know, we want to put something out there for everyone. Thank you. And you guys are freaking amazing for helping us out like that. That helps a lot, especially right now.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Speaking of Shiaanho, while everybody gets that link loaded up to watch later, uh, this is what you missed last week. Let's take a look. Who goes in here with hairy long bushy animals, sees a whole ass bird that you'd see on a power line and goes, "How much for that one please? I want the bird feathers and all garbage juice and bleach and fish. You've never put something so big in your mouth that you're—your—My claim was that I actually saw the Easter Bunny." It was somewhat misrepresented because I think the whole world thought the Chinese people just eat bats, and they don't. But they do. If you had to pick one person you'd screw over to save yourself, who's catching that bus and why? So uh, yeah, that was our episode. It was, "Why do Chinese people eating dangerous stuff for medicine?" It was pretty ridiculous. We also had Hey by Die, which is an interactive game. I hate that game cuz I always get the bad questions and you never do. They're always very uncomfortable questions to answer. If you join the live tier on patreon.com/advppodcast, what you'll do is you'll be able to actually participate in our interactive games during that episode. And if you're not—if you want to take advantage of the half-price sale, you get the episode right after it goes live.

That's right. You also get access to our entire library. China's stupid fake van life epidemic. That was episode 142. China's sus delivery cord driver videos. That was very sus. That was interesting. We did a blind beer taste—tasted all these beers. We got some of them right. Actually, most of them. China's racy weird homemade soap operas. What China was like in the '90s, which you just got. Yes. Um, and again, if you—Can you pause it there? I will. If you join us right now at the live tier, at the top tier right there, you'll be have access to our live games, what we do live. You get to watch it live, and you also get to pick the next episode. Also, you, if you want to, you can enter the Wheel of Fortune. And if you win—every every week's got a new winner—we write you your own personal Chinese name, very well thought out. We take a week to think about it.

Yes. And we write it out, show you what it's like. Um, it's all good fun. Half price right now for Shiaano. This is the best way to support us because you get access—it's not just like, here have some money for a donation. You get access to 100-plus episodes of some of the most fun we have all week.

Yeah, we really enjoy Shab. We love it. So join. Yes. And if you join the $10 tier as soon as uh we finish with the live show, we then publish it for you, and you get to access it directly after the the live tier. Nice. Um, and if you just join the $5 a month, you get access to our Discord server. And on top of that, you get access to the full shows with the full Q&A that we cut out on Monday.

Yeah. Anyway, speaking of—do we have a a title for the for for Shaunho? What this—I've got the old one. So yeah, patron.com/advpodcast. That's where you get access to it. Absolutely. And now it's time for Yamcha. This is our Q&A segment where we answer your questions and you question our answers. Now for those of you who are watching live and on the weekend, we can stick around. But for those of you who are watching on say Monday or something, we bid you adieu. Stay awesome, and we'll catch you next time. Anyway, it's Friday—dance.