- 2 days ago
Political scientist Michael Beckley joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about modern China. When does the history of modern China begin? What do Westerners get wrong about China? Who is winning the current trade war between the U.S. and China? What about the tech war? Why would China ever want to invade Taiwan? Does China own American farms? Answers to these questions and many more await on China Support.
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Michael Beckley
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer
Camera Operator: Christopher Eustache
Sound Mixer: Brett Van Deusen
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Richard Trammell
Expert: Michael Beckley
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer
Camera Operator: Christopher Eustache
Sound Mixer: Brett Van Deusen
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00If Russian bots exist, do Chinese bots also exist?
00:03I think, first of all, you should look down at the comments in this video
00:05and you'll probably get a taste of whether there are any Chinese bots.
00:08I'm Michael Beckley. I study modern China.
00:10Let's answer your questions from the internet.
00:12This is China Support.
00:18S. Sheepherder wants to know,
00:21what do Westerners get wrong about China?
00:23Well, China's really big.
00:24There's 19 countries around China.
00:26And so that big military that China has is spread quite thin,
00:29having to defend all of China's borders or the big economy.
00:32You have to feed one of the largest populations on the planet.
00:34You have to maintain control over those people.
00:37That all drains resources from the country
00:39and means just that it's much more complicated to analyze China.
00:42You have both a lot of assets, but also a lot of liabilities.
00:45At Snow Lions wants to know, when did modern China start?
00:49Let's answer that with a timeline.
00:51Let's start in 1911 with the collapse of the Qing dynasty
00:54that ends thousands of years off and on of imperial rule.
00:58China then collapses into the warlord era,
01:01which is every bit as bad as it sounds.
01:03Then the Japanese in the 1930s really step up their aggression in China,
01:08conquering big parts of it and basically starting World War II in East Asia.
01:11The Japanese are defeated in 1945,
01:14but at that point, the Chinese Civil War comes roaring back
01:17between the communists and the nationalists.
01:19The communists win that civil war in 1949.
01:22They found the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong.
01:24China initially sides with the Soviet Union in the Cold War,
01:28but about halfway through,
01:29they realize that the Soviets are actually their main enemy.
01:31That paves the way for the U.S. president, Richard Nixon, to go to Beijing.
01:35And at that point, China and the United States
01:37basically become allies in the rest of the Cold War.
01:40The Soviet Union collapses in 1991,
01:42and that sets the stage for the U.S. and China
01:45to become major trading and investment partners.
01:47That culminates in 2001 with China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
01:52But especially after the 2008 financial crisis,
01:55you start to see the United States and China looking at each other more like rivals,
01:59feeling like their economies are under strain
02:01and that the trade relationship is not working out as well as they had hoped.
02:04And that really paves the way for the era that we're currently in,
02:07which is one of tremendous hostility between the United States and China.
02:10Hecubus asks,
02:11Why would China even want to invade Taiwan?
02:14So first of all, Taiwan is the seat of a rival Chinese government that is democratic,
02:20essentially tied security-wise to the United States.
02:24And so if you're the Chinese Communist Party
02:26and you insist that this is all your territory,
02:28you can't have this renegade regime going in a different direction.
02:31Taiwan is where the nationalists fled to when they lost the Chinese Civil War.
02:35So they want to finish that job.
02:36It's smack dab at the epicenter of the East China Sea and the South China Sea,
02:41where about half of world trade flows through.
02:43So this is probably, pound for pound,
02:45the most strategic, important waterway on the planet.
02:48And Taiwan itself is, you can see,
02:49the center cork of what the Chinese call the first island chain in East Asia.
02:54That runs from Korea and the Japanese islands down through the Philippines.
02:58These are all American allies.
03:00They host American troops.
03:02China has no California.
03:03It has no West Coast.
03:04Its only coast is completely hemmed in by rival powers that are allied with the United States.
03:09Smashing Taiwan and taking it over would give China an unsinkable aircraft
03:13carrier in the most important waterways and blast a hole,
03:16not just geographically in the U.S. alliance system in East Asia,
03:19but really in the credibility of U.S. alliances,
03:21because no one would trust the United States if the U.S. just let Taiwan go down.
03:25Every single Chinese leader has said,
03:27it's only a question of time.
03:28We're going to take Taiwan one of these days.
03:30Xi Jinping has said that it's a situation that cannot be passed down generation to generation,
03:35which some analysts worry means he intends to do this on his watch.
03:38B.W. asks,
03:39is there something America can learn from China?
03:42Is there something that they're doing right?
03:43China is really good at mobilizing resources for national missions.
03:49For example, China has installed more solar and wind power than any other country.
03:54China is the world's largest trade power in the world
03:57and has forged trade relationships with a majority of the world's countries.
04:01And China has built infrastructure faster and on greater scale than any country in human history.
04:07And just the miraculous development of bringing hundreds of millions of people
04:11from living on less than $2 a day to average disposable incomes of $5,000 to $10,000 a year,
04:18that is a tremendous, almost miraculous undertaking that China has been able to pull off.
04:23And I think that only comes from having a sense of national unity
04:26and a willingness to pool resources for national purposes.
04:30The United States, it's a dynamic, open, decentralized system,
04:34but the downside is it also generally does not mobilize its resources on a national scale
04:40and unify unless it's really confronted with a crisis like a global war or a depression.
04:45So there are areas of the United States that are neglected in terms of infrastructure.
04:49There are neighborhoods that could be built up.
04:51There are education systems that are failing.
04:52And so that type of rallying resources and coming together
04:55is something that the U.S. I think could look to to China.
04:57But obviously, you don't want to go too far
04:59because part of what allows China to do that
05:01is just a lack of civil and political rights for the Chinese people.
05:05At Great Historian asks,
05:06Who is winning the current trade war between America and China?
05:10China is very much an investment and export-driven economy.
05:14This trade war is really bad for a lot of those major export industries.
05:18There's been lots of closures, especially in eastern China.
05:21There's been mass layoffs, even just in the short time that this trade war has been going on.
05:25Now, on the American side, the consumer market is roughly three times the size of China's.
05:29So consumers are the ones who are being hurt by this trade war
05:32because they're going to have to pay higher prices for goods that were manufactured in China.
05:36Xi Jinping cares a lot less about GDP growth.
05:39He cares about power and about developing self-reliant, strong industries.
05:44And if this trade war enables China to decouple and reduce its dependence on the West,
05:48I think he counts that as a win, even if it crimps economic growth in the short term.
05:52And for the United States under the Trump administration,
05:55they similarly want to decouple from China because they view it as a national security threat.
06:00I see these two countries as having a distinct interest in trying to get away from each other economically.
06:06These dependencies, they both seem to want to push those away.
06:08Chase the Taco.
06:09Serious question.
06:10Is China truly a communist country?
06:13I know it seems crazy.
06:15You look at the Shanghai skyline, you fly in through the Beijing airport.
06:19That is the gilded veneer on the outside that's been built up.
06:23But if you look at the superstructure of the economy, what's actually the driving force behind it,
06:27it's a very strong state presence.
06:29All of the land in the country is owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
06:33The energy industry, the banking sector is state-owned.
06:3790 plus percent of the financial assets flowing around the country.
06:40So these are all what Lenin called the commanding heights of the economy.
06:43And it can produce incredible output.
06:45It can produce shiny high-speed rail.
06:47It can produce gleaming skyscrapers.
06:49But this is sort of like a new modern form of a communist system
06:52where you still have the party running the show economically,
06:55insisting on a one-party state and a dictator ruling over it all.
06:59Take Jack Ma, the former head of Alibaba, a major company in China.
07:04He gave a speech a few years back criticizing the way that the government was running the economy.
07:09He had his wings totally clipped.
07:10He was sent out to Tokyo.
07:11He had his empire completely dismantled and now has basically had to come crawling back.
07:16He's had many other billionaires simply just disappear.
07:18And so at the end of the day, even the high-flying titans of China's economy
07:22know that their livelihoods depend very much on their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party,
07:27which is why you see many of the top titans of industry in China
07:30in the National People's Hall during these major conclaves sitting next to Xi Jinping
07:34because they are effectively part of the same party system that he operates.
07:38The standard answer taught in Chinese schools is that he was 70% right but 30% wrong.
07:50Here's Mao as a young revolutionary.
07:52He was a journalist for a long time.
07:54He actually wrote a whole pamphlet in 1940 about democracy and freedom in China.
07:59Of course, once he becomes Chairman Mao, a lot of that stuff goes away.
08:02The 70% right was he unified the country, which had been ripped apart by decades of civil war.
08:08He instituted a mass education campaign because he wanted to lift China up, so that led to widespread literacy.
08:14He wanted women to be active participants in the labor force.
08:17Now, in terms of the bad, his so-called Great Leap Forward,
08:20which was this scheme to turn China into a superpower in just a few years,
08:24took millions of peasants off of their farms, put them in communes,
08:27had them melt down their pots and pans.
08:29As a result, the food supply ran out and 45 million people starved to death or were beaten or shot along the way.
08:35And then, in order to insulate and protect himself, he then launched the Cultural Revolution,
08:39where he basically turned the Chinese people on the Communist Party to purge many of his rivals.
08:44That probably killed another million to two million people.
08:47So, ruthless, brutal, but effective in terms of bringing China together,
08:51which, for much of Chinese history, has not been the case.
08:54At Supercoach137 asks, how did the one-child policy work out for China?
08:59It resulted in several hundred million abortions when people starting in the late 1970s weren't allowed to have more than one child.
09:06You'd be subject to massive fines, equivalent in some cases to a year or more of your income if you had a second child.
09:13In the 50s and 60s, China had a massive baby boom because Mao Zedong wanted to turn China into a superpower,
09:20so he encouraged Chinese families to have lots of children.
09:22So then, when China did a 180 and implemented the one-child policy in the late 1970s,
09:27you had this baby boom generation coming into the prime of their working lives,
09:32and they had relatively few children to take care of because they weren't allowed to have them,
09:36and they had relatively few elderly parents to care for because so many of them end up dying in the famines and the Cultural Revolution.
09:42So in the 90s and 2000s, you had anywhere between 10 to 15 working-age adults available to support every elderly retiree in China's population.
09:52That's two to three times the global average.
09:54It's five times what the United States currently has.
09:57And so as a result, China's population was primed for economic productivity,
10:01and demographers think that alone explains about 25% of China's rapid economic growth over the last 30 to 40 years.
10:08The problem for China is now the situation is flipping,
10:11where that huge baby boom generation are retiring and falling onto the backs of this tiny one-child generation.
10:18That 10 to 15 ratio is going to collapse to 2 to 1 in the 2030s.
10:22China's going to lose somewhere like 70 million working-age adults in the next 10 years
10:26and gain 130 million senior citizens.
10:29That's going to be catastrophic for China's fiscal balance for its economic productivity.
10:34At right side of MB says,
10:36Siri, what are Chinese ghost cities?
10:38Ghost cities refer to entire apartment complexes, airports, shopping malls that are either mostly or entirely empty.
10:46And it's a result of China's economic model,
10:49which is very much about collecting the resources of the Chinese people under the state
10:54and then plowing them into certain industries, including into the real estate sector.
10:58It works really well for an authoritarian government because it's easy to pay off cronies
11:02who own the companies that are doing all of the building.
11:05The problem is it runs amok.
11:07These companies, they're getting paid whether the apartments are occupied or not.
11:10So they build a bunch of stuff, but then people aren't moving into them.
11:12And now that China's population is declining,
11:15there is going to be ever-lowering demand for a lot of this base infrastructure.
11:19Mehmet Topol wants to know,
11:21how much power does Xi Jinping hold personally?
11:23Is he an absolutist like Louis XIV or like Stalin?
11:27I'm going to reserve a certain category for divine right monarchs like Louis XIV
11:32and distinguish that from Xi Jinping.
11:34So Xi Jinping is probably the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
11:37He's made himself president of everything for life.
11:40But at the end of the day, he's one guy.
11:42And so his ability to pay attention to everything that's going on
11:46in his vast sprawling country is inherently limited.
11:50So the real estate crisis that's going on,
11:52he's demanded that people be more frugal and not speculate on real estate.
11:55But the market is kind of doing what it's going to do.
11:58And as a result, you still have that ongoing crisis.
12:00Zero COVID.
12:01You know, he locked down Chinese people in their apartments for months on end.
12:04At a certain point, the Chinese people had it.
12:06And you saw protests emerging that seem to have encouraged Xi to back down and undo that policy.
12:12And he also has to worry about rivals in the party,
12:15which is why he's embarked on this massive anti-corruption campaign,
12:19purging more than a million senior CCP officials along the way.
12:23We do know a bit about his backstory.
12:25His father was a high-ranking official serving under Mao Zedong.
12:29But he was purged.
12:30And in fact, Xi himself and his family were purged during the Cultural Revolution.
12:34Xi was sent out to the countryside to basically dig a bunch of holes.
12:37His father was humiliated.
12:39Xi himself was denounced by his own mother and his half-sister died during the Cultural Revolution.
12:44It's all speculation, but people think this may have had a big effect on him.
12:47And that's what he thinks of when he thinks of rule by the people,
12:50which may explain partially why he seems so committed to centralizing all power under himself
12:56and basically installing himself to the point that he's literally written himself into the Constitution
13:00and obligates other people in China to read what he calls Xi Jinping Thought,
13:04which is his own sort of philosophy about how to guide the country.
13:07At Nick Moneypenny wants to know,
13:09what was China's ultimate role in the COVID-19 pandemic?
13:13We don't know for sure, because China, the government has gone to extraordinary lengths
13:18to cover up how COVID emerged and details about the virus.
13:22We know that in late 2019, they basically got rid of a lot of their virus samples
13:27that were related to coronaviruses.
13:29They floated conspiracy theories that the virus actually came to China
13:33from frozen food that was imported from outside of the country.
13:37And they didn't really allow international inspectors until very late.
13:40And even then, when the WHO came to try to figure out where the virus came from,
13:44it was a highly scripted, almost sort of like North Korean tour around the facilities.
13:49And as a result, we just don't know where it came from.
13:52The two major theories are that it either emerged from this wet market in Wuhan
13:56because of the animals that were being eaten and slaughtered there.
13:59The other major theories that emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
14:03which is China's premier place for studying coronaviruses.
14:07And we know the virus itself has certain features that you really only see
14:11if it's been modified in a lab rather than naturally.
14:14The bottom line is we don't know, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence
14:16that it was done in this lab, which is a center of not just Chinese research,
14:21but of a multinational research attempt to analyze coronaviruses.
14:25At Jerry Dunleavy asks,
14:26So what Jerry is referring to is that famous image of a man standing in front of several tanks
14:38that are rolling into Tiananmen Square to run over demonstrators,
14:41mainly students that were protesting there in 1989.
14:44We have no idea what happened to Tank Man.
14:46He's never been heard of since.
14:47It wasn't just a crackdown in Beijing and Tiananmen Square.
14:50There were massive protests in basically every provincial capital around China.
14:54More than 80 cities had mass demonstrations that were then forcibly put down.
14:58According to the party, roughly 200 to 300 people were killed,
15:02but most Western estimates suggest it was 10 times that amount.
15:05The way that the Tiananmen Square protests are often portrayed
15:07is as a pro-democracy demonstration by the Chinese people.
15:11And certainly there were elements of that.
15:13A lot of the students in Tiananmen Square were calling for more democratic governance.
15:17They built a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty in the middle of Tiananmen Square.
15:21But really the crisis starts and the reason why it spreads across the country was economic.
15:26There was massive inflation.
15:27This led to massive demonstrations.
15:29A lot of people weren't being paid for jobs that they were employed to do by the state.
15:32And also keep in mind that communist regimes were starting to crumble,
15:36especially across Eastern Europe.
15:37So the tail end of the Cold War and this belief that the legitimacy,
15:41the functioning of a communist system is under question
15:43and led to mass demonstrations and even a split among the elites in the Chinese Communist Party.
15:49Since then, now the Communist Party is very much,
15:51we have to stay together.
15:52We either stay together or we hang separately.
15:55I think that informs a lot of the emphasis on repression put on in China today.
15:58Milton Merlo XD wants to know,
16:01how does censorship work in China?
16:03So there's an actual propaganda department.
16:06That's what it's called in China.
16:07They set guidelines about what is allowed to be said
16:10and what is not allowed to be said.
16:11It's all pretty predictable.
16:13You know, criticizing the Chinese Communist Party,
16:15promoting democracy,
16:16Western liberal methods are all kind of looked down upon and squelched.
16:21What the regime then does is they have this vast,
16:23great firewall to control the internet,
16:25where they use a combination of artificial intelligence
16:28and then hundreds of thousands of people
16:30that are actually working to monitor China's internet,
16:33which is partially sealed off.
16:35What the censors really go after
16:37is not so much people going off
16:39and mouthing criticism about the leader,
16:41but much more about trying to organize politically,
16:44whether it's a house church or a student group or anything
16:46where you get people together
16:47who can then talk and then rally
16:50and potentially grow their numbers.
16:52That looks too much like the start
16:53of an alternative political party.
16:55And the Chinese Communist Party says,
16:57no, we have a monopoly on power.
16:58We're the only political party
16:59that's allowed to be had in this system.
17:02And that seems to be what the censorship regime
17:03is primarily dedicated to squelching out.
17:06At M Bateman says,
17:07wait, China's domestic surveillance system
17:09is actually called Skynet?
17:11I know it's kind of on the nose.
17:12It is called Skynet.
17:13The idea is that there's hundreds of millions
17:16of surveillance cameras
17:17that have been set up around the country
17:18as if it's a net coming from the sky.
17:21China has pioneered methods
17:22to take all of the images
17:24that are being absorbed by these cameras
17:26and then use artificial intelligence
17:28and speech and facial recognition technology,
17:31even gate recognition.
17:32So how you walk can be identified.
17:34And at this point,
17:35they are starting to export elements of this system
17:37to more than 80 countries.
17:39Cuba, Pakistan, Cambodia
17:41have all imported aspects of this system.
17:43And so some scholars think
17:44this is the emergence
17:45of a new type of authoritarian system
17:48that seems to have a lot of advantages
17:49in terms of population control.
17:51At Spencem OC asks,
17:53how does China's social credit system work?
17:56So in addition to video cameras
17:58and speech and facial recognition technology,
18:00the Communist Party has access
18:01to your financial statements,
18:03to your police record,
18:05your education,
18:06any kind of disciplinary action.
18:07And so what they've done
18:08is basically created a dossier
18:10on every single citizen.
18:12And so what they can then do
18:13is instantly punish Chinese citizens
18:15by saying,
18:16oh, you jaywalked.
18:17That's a point.
18:18And so now you're gonna have to pay more
18:19if you want to loan.
18:20Or you may not be able to travel as freely.
18:21Or it may take longer to get your passport
18:23when you go to a government office.
18:25There essentially is like a score.
18:27And sometimes they will actually post names
18:29of people who have been blacklisted
18:31because they've committed certain crimes
18:33or they've been in fraction
18:34of certain regulations
18:35encouraging people to report on each other.
18:38It's All Over Again wants to know,
18:40why is China so godlike
18:41in the world of manufacturing?
18:43Well, it's so godlike
18:44because it's designed to be godlike.
18:46You have an authoritarian system
18:47that essentially obligates the Chinese people
18:49to put their life savings
18:51in a state-owned bank.
18:52That means the government
18:53has tons of money,
18:54a war chest that they can then deploy
18:56at what they call strategic industries.
18:59So they've spent hundreds of billions of dollars
19:01every single year
19:02for more than a decade.
19:03That's 10 times what other rich countries
19:05in the OECD or the United States
19:07spend as a share of their GDPs.
19:10So in, for example,
19:10the electric vehicle sector,
19:12China has spent about $230 billion
19:14semiconductors, biotechnology,
19:17all of these key strategic industries.
19:18And at the same time,
19:19many foreign companies
19:20have sent over lots of investment and training.
19:23So Apple, for example,
19:24has spent about $275 billion
19:26in investment in China.
19:28That's more than the Marshall Plan
19:29that the United States used
19:31to help Europe recover from World War II.
19:33Apple also trained millions of Chinese workers,
19:3628 million,
19:36which is more than the labor force of California.
19:39And also a lot of this
19:40is determined by their geography.
19:41China has a long coastline
19:44right in the heart of East Asia,
19:46which is the most economically dynamic region
19:48in the world.
19:48So many of the world's supply chains
19:50flow through these waters.
19:51In the 1970s and early 1980s,
19:53you had China setting up
19:54what they called special economic zones,
19:56especially in the Southeast,
19:57in places like Shenzhen,
19:59as well as in Fujian province.
20:00In some industries,
20:02whether it's electric vehicles
20:03or in rare earths,
20:05China currently produces
20:06anywhere between 60 to 90%
20:08of the global market.
20:10And now China has ports
20:11lining up and down its coastline
20:13that serve as export platforms,
20:15essentially,
20:16for the rest of the world.
20:16In addition,
20:17China has extremely low labor costs
20:19because several hundred million people
20:21from the poorer provinces in the West,
20:23they move to the richer East Coast provinces
20:26to work in factories
20:27for very low wages.
20:29But that provides essentially
20:30a bottomless source
20:31of cheap but effective labor
20:33for China's manufacturing juggernaut.
20:35Roxy USA asks,
20:36what percentage of pharmaceuticals
20:37does the U.S. import in from China?
20:40In terms of antibiotics,
20:41basic antibiotics,
20:42it's upwards of 90%
20:44that include at least some ingredients
20:46that are made in China.
20:47And so this has become
20:48another national security threat
20:50where the United States worries
20:51that China could potentially cut
20:53the United States off
20:54from basic pharmaceuticals
20:56if there's some kind of crisis over Taiwan.
20:58Whether China would actually do that
20:59remains to be seen.
21:00Attoxiccowboy1 asks,
21:02are we headed to war with China?
21:03It's not completely out of the question.
21:06In addition to the conflict over Taiwan,
21:09there's also the risk of a war
21:11around the Philippines.
21:12That conflict really stems
21:13over who controls the South China Sea,
21:16where a lot of trade passes through,
21:17where most of China's oil imports pass through.
21:20Under international law,
21:21the Philippines gets 12 miles
21:23out from their coastline
21:25that is their territory.
21:26And then another 200 miles out
21:28from their coastline
21:29that is their exclusive economic zone.
21:31China says, no,
21:32that's just all Chinese territory.
21:34And they've been building
21:35artificial islands there.
21:36They've been turning them
21:37into military bases.
21:38And they formed what they call
21:39a maritime militia.
21:40So thousands of fishing boats,
21:42coast guard vessels,
21:43and naval ships
21:44that are basically shoving
21:45other countries out
21:46of their exclusive economic zone
21:48and confining them
21:49to narrow bands
21:50along their own coastlines.
21:52The Philippines took China to court
21:54in 2016,
21:55the world court,
21:56which ruled that China's historical claims
21:59to the South China Sea
22:00are null and void.
22:01And in recent years,
22:02China's really been turning the screw
22:03on the Philippines.
22:04One, I think,
22:05to invalidate that ruling
22:06and shatter its credibility.
22:07But second,
22:08because the Philippines
22:09has started opening up
22:10new military bases
22:11for the United States
22:11because they say,
22:12we need some protection
22:13from China
22:14so that we can have access
22:15to our territorial waters
22:16and our exclusive economic zone.
22:18The Chinese have a saying,
22:19you should kill a chicken
22:20to scare the monkeys,
22:21meaning you should make
22:22a bloody example
22:23out of a relatively weak adversary
22:25to send a message
22:26to the more powerful ones.
22:27The Philippines have very little
22:28offensive air or naval capability,
22:30so you just have to worry
22:31that Chinese would look at them
22:32as a very juicy target.
22:34Weak, but symbolically important.
22:36Adam Check asks,
22:38is TikTok just a China app
22:40to make Americans do dumb stuff
22:41to get likes and views
22:43and keep us distracted
22:44while they take over?
22:45The Chinese version of TikTok,
22:47you're only allowed to use it
22:48for 15 minutes to an hour or so,
22:50depending on your age and status.
22:52And they also try to insert
22:53educational, wholesome content
22:56in addition to all the fun cat videos
22:58and everything else
22:59that people are watching.
23:00So I think the Chinese know
23:01that this system
23:02is maybe not the best thing
23:03that kids should be spending
23:04all day on.
23:05TikTok is owned by ByteDance,
23:06a Chinese company.
23:07Under Chinese law,
23:09ByteDance is required
23:10to hand over data to Beijing
23:12whenever and in however much
23:14it wants it.
23:15It's like putting a Chinese spy balloon
23:16in your cell phone
23:17with your biometric data,
23:19everything you've liked
23:20and disliked.
23:21There's been studies done
23:22suggesting that the algorithm
23:23in TikTok in the American version
23:25was promoting certain views,
23:27like after the October 7th massacre
23:29in Israel,
23:30more pro-Hamas views
23:32were being amplified
23:33or pro-Russian views
23:34on the Ukraine conflict.
23:36At N-O-Y-K-1-8-4-7 asks,
23:40if Russian bots exist,
23:41do Chinese bots also exist?
23:43I think, first of all,
23:44you should look down
23:44at the comments in this video
23:46and you'll probably get a taste
23:47of whether there are
23:48any Chinese bots.
23:49China, it's been well documented,
23:50uses both bots
23:52as well as what is called
23:53a 50-cent army.
23:55Basically, it's a bunch of
23:56mainly kids and young adults
23:58who are paid 50 Chinese cents
24:00per internet post
24:01that they make
24:01to destroy,
24:03undermine the credibility
24:04of messages
24:05that may be cut against
24:06the Chinese Communist Party.
24:07It's reported
24:08that there's probably
24:08several hundred thousand people
24:10that are essentially employed
24:11as internet trolls
24:12by the Chinese Communist Party,
24:13in addition to obviously using
24:15artificial intelligence and bots.
24:16At Psalm69 asks,
24:18why would China want Tibet?
24:20I think it becomes very clear
24:22when you look at a map of China.
24:24You can see that most of it
24:25is the highest mountains
24:27in the world,
24:27the Himalayas,
24:28and a lot of it
24:29is also desert.
24:30And so most of China's population
24:31is packed in here
24:33and they're desperate for water
24:34as well as strategic space
24:36to defend themselves
24:36against enemies.
24:37And so Tibet,
24:38which is in this area here,
24:40is highly strategic.
24:41For one,
24:41a lot of the glaciers
24:42up in the Himalayas
24:43are where the major rivers
24:45of Asia start,
24:46both flowing down into China
24:48as well as flowing down
24:49into Southeast Asia
24:50and into India.
24:51So if China can control
24:52that territory,
24:53it controls the source
24:54of vital water supplies.
24:56At the same time,
24:57China and India,
24:58which is now the most populous country
25:00on the planet,
25:00have a longstanding rivalry.
25:02And Tibet is the high ground,
25:04literally looking down
25:05onto India.
25:06In addition,
25:07the Chinese Communist Party
25:07essentially inherited
25:08the borders
25:10of the previous
25:11Qing Dynasty empire,
25:13which included Tibet,
25:14led by the Dalai Lama.
25:15And so when China
25:16took over Tibet
25:17and conquered it in 1951,
25:19the Dalai Lama fled to India
25:21and has been running
25:22a government in exile
25:23in India ever since.
25:24This next question
25:25is from Tapestry Girl.
25:26Mom says China
25:28could take over
25:28the United States
25:29because they own our debt.
25:31China does own
25:32some U.S. debt.
25:33It's in the 3% to 4% range.
25:35It topped out
25:36at about 7%
25:37about a decade ago,
25:38generally in the form
25:39of treasury bills.
25:40And a lot of this emerges
25:41just from the economic relationship
25:43between the United States
25:44and China,
25:45where China is exporting
25:46a lot of goods
25:46to the United States.
25:48And the United States
25:48will often pay for that
25:49essentially with a piece of paper
25:50that says IOU
25:51in the form of a treasury bill.
25:53Analysts have looked at
25:53whether they could use this
25:54as a coercive weapon
25:55and basically concluded
25:56they'd be shooting themselves
25:57in the foot.
25:58The value of that asset
25:59would suddenly plummet.
26:00Japan owns more U.S. debt
26:02than China does.
26:03So I don't think
26:03that this is a unique China thing
26:05or that they could use it
26:06as some type of weapon
26:07to coerce the United States.
26:08Let's take a question from Quora.
26:10Is modern China
26:10more influenced
26:11by Confucianism
26:12or Marxism?
26:13I would say both
26:14because they lead
26:15in similar directions.
26:16Marxism-Leninism
26:18stresses the idea
26:19of public or communal ownership
26:21of the means of production
26:22to produce wealth.
26:23That is owned
26:24by the state in China.
26:25It's led by what Lenin
26:27would call
26:27the vanguard party,
26:29staffed by a top leader
26:30that is making decisions
26:31on behalf of the people.
26:32And that's consistent
26:33with certain elements
26:34of Confucianism.
26:35Confucianism obviously
26:36has a long lineage,
26:37thousands of years
26:38in China.
26:39Confucius,
26:39a philosopher
26:40who emphasized
26:41a natural harmony,
26:43people knowing
26:43their place in society,
26:45that everyone has
26:46a certain role
26:47to perform
26:47in that society,
26:48and that you have
26:49to have a benevolent leader
26:50that leads
26:51on behalf of the people.
26:53That obviously appeals
26:54very much
26:55to Chinese dynasties
26:57over the millennia.
26:58You have Xi Jinping
26:58today grafting that
27:00onto a Marxist-Leninist
27:01structure of the party.
27:02At Gus802 asks,
27:05what happened
27:05with the Chinese
27:05spy balloon hysteria?
27:07In January 2023,
27:09the United States
27:10detected a balloon
27:12floating over areas,
27:14including a nuclear
27:15missile silo
27:16in Montana.
27:17What it was carrying
27:18was all this
27:19advanced surveillance
27:19equipment that was
27:20about the size
27:21of a regional jet airliner.
27:23So we're talking
27:23about a major piece
27:24of hardware floating around.
27:26China's done this
27:26in more than 40 countries.
27:28In Japan,
27:29over Taiwan,
27:30they've been floating
27:30balloons even over
27:31potentially over
27:31American bases in Europe.
27:34And there's a fear
27:34that China is testing out
27:36this alternative
27:37surveillance system
27:38because balloons emit
27:39almost no radar signature.
27:41They're really hard
27:42to detect.
27:42They hover around
27:4360,000 feet,
27:44which is higher
27:45than a commercial airliner,
27:46but below satellites.
27:48In this area
27:49where people really
27:50aren't looking,
27:50it gives China
27:51eyes and ears
27:52over sensitive U.S. sites
27:54that otherwise
27:55they wouldn't have.
27:56The U.S. sent a fighter jet
27:57up eventually
27:58to shoot it down,
27:58and then the U.S. grabbed
28:00all of the technology
28:01that was there
28:01and observed
28:02the balloons' flight.
28:03That might have actually
28:04helped U.S. intelligence
28:05more than Chinese intelligence.
28:07At All Four Stops asks,
28:09who is winning
28:10the tech war
28:11between China
28:12and the United States?
28:14I think they are each
28:15dominating different
28:16types of technologies.
28:18The United States
28:19is still doing quite well
28:20in high-value areas.
28:22So advanced computer chips,
28:24aerospace,
28:25the complicated jet engines
28:26that you need
28:27to fly a jumbo jet
28:28or a fighter.
28:28China, on the other hand,
28:30dominates scale,
28:31taking existing technologies
28:32from other countries
28:33and then mass-producing
28:35highly effective,
28:36cost-efficient electric vehicles,
28:38run-of-the-mill computer chips,
28:39rare earths,
28:40pharmaceuticals,
28:41medical PPE.
28:42There's so many areas
28:43where China can just
28:43flood the market
28:44with sheer scale.
28:45Both of those types
28:46of technologies
28:47are really important
28:48for a modern economy.
28:49They're also very important
28:50for military power.
28:51So each in their own way
28:52is sort of winning
28:53in some ways,
28:54but also has major
28:55vulnerabilities.
28:56At Joe Bart 85120716
28:59asks,
29:00does China own
29:00American farmland?
29:01Yes, China does own
29:02American farmland.
29:03It's like 0.05%
29:05of American farmland,
29:07but some of this farmland
29:08is near American military bases,
29:10especially air force bases,
29:11including some of those
29:13where American strategic forces,
29:15nuclear forces,
29:15could be taking off.
29:17And so there is a fear
29:18that if China has this land,
29:19they can put things on it,
29:21explosives, missiles
29:22that could potentially attack
29:23American bases
29:24if there is some kind
29:25of major war
29:26and destroy U.S. aircraft
29:27on the ground
29:28before they even get up
29:29into the air.
29:29We don't know the details
29:30on that.
29:31You'd have to get
29:31classified information,
29:32but the amount of farmland
29:33is small.
29:34The location is a bit scary
29:36and questionable.
29:37Cakebot asks,
29:38can someone explain
29:39Hong Kong to me?
29:40So Hong Kong was
29:41a British colony
29:42after the first opium war
29:44in 1839,
29:45all the way up
29:46until 1997,
29:48where Britain agreed
29:49to hand back
29:50Hong Kong to China.
29:51And in exchange,
29:53China pledged
29:54to grant Hong Kong
29:56a, quote,
29:56high degree of autonomy.
29:58Because within Hong Kong,
30:00there was a different
30:00rule of law.
30:02There was an independent
30:02judiciary.
30:03So you saw massive protests
30:05there over the last
30:06five or six years
30:07when China was basically
30:08trying to erode
30:09a lot of those freedoms,
30:10crack down on the press,
30:11crack down on the free flow
30:13of investment,
30:14and also on the way
30:15that the Hong Kong government
30:16is selected.
30:17The Chinese government
30:18passed national security laws
30:19that made it possible
30:20for them to remove protesters,
30:22take them to mainland China.
30:23So at this point,
30:24it seems like Hong Kong
30:25has basically become
30:26another large cosmopolitan,
30:28but ultimately Chinese city
30:30run by the Chinese
30:31Communist Party.
30:32Ironlover64 asks,
30:33how does the quality of life
30:34for the low class in China
30:35compare to that
30:36of the United States,
30:37let's say in a red state?
30:39So why don't we compare
30:40the poorest of the poor
30:41in China to, say,
30:43average wages in Mississippi,
30:45which is the poorest state?
30:46For China,
30:46roughly half the country
30:47is living on something
30:48like $5 to $10 a day.
30:50In Mississippi,
30:51that's going to be
30:52three to four times
30:53that amount.
30:53There's a lot more obesity
30:54in a place like Mississippi
30:56than there is in China.
30:58On the other hand,
30:58in rural China,
30:59you have a severe problem
31:00of malnourishment
31:01and rudimentary health care.
31:03Researchers at Stanford
31:05went out and they found
31:06that roughly a third
31:07of rural children,
31:08their IQs are around 90,
31:10which is really low
31:11because of malnutrition
31:12from a young age,
31:13a lack of education.
31:15The average education level
31:16is about an eighth grade
31:17or seventh grade level
31:19in rural China
31:19because high school
31:20costs money
31:21and so a lot of Chinese families,
31:22their kids will just
31:23drop out of school.
31:24And the other issue
31:25is that your citizenship
31:26in China is tied
31:27to your locality
31:28and so if mom and dad
31:30go to an eastern,
31:31rich coastal province
31:32to work in a factory,
31:33they can't bring their kids
31:34with them because they won't
31:35be allowed to go to school
31:36so they're just sending
31:36money back and maybe
31:37only seeing their kids
31:38a few times
31:39or maybe only once a year.
31:40So just in terms
31:41of the basic health care
31:43and education level
31:44and then just in terms
31:45of the amount of wealth
31:46that someone in Mississippi
31:47might have versus someone
31:48in poor rural China,
31:49it's a very stark difference.
31:51At Captain Trips333 asks,
31:53what's going on
31:54with the Uyghur Muslim
31:55population in China?
31:56So there's about
31:5710 to 12 million
31:58Uyghur Muslims.
31:59They live mainly
32:00in a province called Xinjiang,
32:01which is in the western
32:02part of China.
32:03Basically since 2017,
32:05China set up
32:06what they call
32:07re-education centers
32:08or vocational education centers,
32:11what people in the west
32:11have called concentration camps
32:13and what the U.S. government
32:14deems an attempt at genocide
32:16and basically put in
32:17a million to a million
32:18and a half Uyghur Muslims,
32:20so a substantial part
32:21of the population
32:21in these centers.
32:23We've heard from people
32:24that have come out of them
32:25that there's a lot
32:26of indoctrination,
32:27that they are enforced
32:27to renounce their heritage
32:29and to learn Mandarin
32:31and basically to assimilate
32:32with Chinese society.
32:34A big part of what
32:35the Chinese Communist Party
32:36is about is making sure
32:37a Soviet-style collapse
32:39never occurs in China.
32:42And one of their theories
32:43about why the Soviet Union
32:44broke apart
32:45was that the Soviet Union
32:45was like one of those
32:46Hershey chocolate bars
32:47that's divided into little squares
32:49that you can break apart.
32:50It was these disparate republics
32:52that all went their own way
32:53when they suddenly could.
32:55So there was a fear
32:55that a minority region
32:56like Xinjiang
32:57where these Uyghurs were living
32:58was going to try to separate
33:00from the mainland
33:01or was going to become
33:01a base of terrorism
33:03directed at China.
33:04So unfortunately,
33:04the Uyghur Muslims
33:05are experiencing severe repression
33:07right now
33:07under the Chinese Communist Party.
33:09Lo Farah fail asks,
33:11does China support
33:12or promote communism
33:13around the world?
33:14I don't think China
33:15is promoting communism anymore
33:17the way that the Soviet Union
33:18used to bankroll
33:20revolutionary movements.
33:21They have engaged
33:22in this Belt and Road Initiative
33:24where they've loaned out
33:25more than a trillion dollars
33:27to more than 100 different countries,
33:29mainly so that those countries
33:30can employ Chinese companies
33:32to build infrastructure
33:34on their territory.
33:35So whether that's building ports
33:36or roads
33:37or soccer stadiums
33:39or what the Chinese call
33:40smart city systems,
33:42there's a port in Greece,
33:43for example,
33:44that is highly profitable.
33:45It's an important,
33:46valuable piece of infrastructure
33:48that China helped fund
33:49and build.
33:50One out of every three
33:51infrastructure projects
33:52in sub-Saharan Africa
33:53over the last 20 years
33:54has been built partially
33:56or entirely by Chinese companies.
33:58So you see a massive spread
33:59of infrastructure.
34:00And part of the reason
34:01really stems from
34:02the 2008 financial crisis
34:03and the resulting
34:04trade protectionism
34:05that was emerging,
34:07backlash against Chinese products.
34:08The Chinese decided
34:09we need to open up new markets.
34:11We can also get these countries
34:13more hooked on our ecosystem
34:15of technology standards,
34:175G networks,
34:19smart city systems.
34:20And that way we'll have
34:20dominant market share
34:21in a lot of these areas
34:22that are going to be
34:23really the growth of demand
34:25in terms of consumption
34:26going forward.
34:26They also bring
34:27that surveillance system
34:28that allows would-be dictators
34:30to keep easier tabs
34:31on their populations.
34:32I think chaos
34:40could potentially ensue
34:41because he has not
34:42designated a successor.
34:44He's written himself
34:45into the constitution.
34:47He's basically treated
34:48like a demigod
34:49in terms of Chinese propaganda.
34:50And if you look at the history
34:51of the Chinese Communist Party,
34:53there has only been
34:54one completely orderly
34:56and peaceful transition of power.
34:58And that's when
34:58Xi himself came to power.
35:00All of the previous leaders,
35:01it was a vicious power struggle
35:03and there were split authorities.
35:05So for example,
35:06Deng Xiaoping is purged
35:08and then eventually
35:08comes back to power
35:09and has to put down
35:10his enemies
35:11and imprison them
35:12in order to take the helm.
35:13Then Jiang Zemin
35:14comes to power
35:15after the Tiananmen Square
35:16massacre in 1989,
35:18basically because the party
35:19realizes it needs to unify
35:20behind a candidate
35:21or they're just going
35:22to disintegrate.
35:22Then when Hu Jintao
35:24comes to power,
35:25Jiang Zemin is not willing
35:26to give up
35:27a lot of his power
35:28and he keeps himself
35:29as commander-in-chief
35:31even after Hu Jintao
35:32becomes president
35:33and general secretary
35:34of the country.
35:35It'd be like as if
35:35Joe Biden was still
35:36head of the Pentagon
35:37and the military
35:38and commander-in-chief
35:39even though Donald Trump
35:41is now president
35:41here in the United States.
35:43In other words,
35:43in Chinese politics,
35:44it's very rough and tumble
35:46even though it happens
35:47behind closed doors.
35:48Chaos is entirely possible
35:49and if you just look
35:50at the broad sweep
35:51of Chinese history,
35:52vicious power struggles
35:53tend to ensue.
35:54Some people hope
35:55that you'll get
35:55a Chinese Mikhail Gorbachev,
35:57you know,
35:57the Soviet leader
35:58who made nice with the West
35:59and liberalized a bit at home.
36:01I think you might actually
36:02get a Chinese Vladimir Putin.
36:04It seems like the one thing
36:05that everyone
36:05in the Chinese Communist Party
36:07can agree on
36:07is that the Chinese Communist Party
36:09should continue
36:09to rule China in perpetuity.
36:11So those are all
36:12the questions for today.
36:13Thanks for watching
36:13China Support.
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