- 1 day ago
Episode 10: “Identity politics or class solidarity?” with Tianchen Wei
Hosted by: Belen de los Santos
Latin America and China discuss the reality behind the identity politics that plague the Western political spectrum, and the motivations of the figures that represent these dogmas to the world. Enjoy
Hosted by: Belen de los Santos
Latin America and China discuss the reality behind the identity politics that plague the Western political spectrum, and the motivations of the figures that represent these dogmas to the world. Enjoy
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NewsTranscript
00:05hello everyone and welcome to one more episode of overlap this conversation from across the world
00:13on a particular week for the americas in china as we're speaking as we're recording this episode
00:21actually the visit of u.s president donald trump is taking place to china so a historic moment that
00:30has given a lot of things to talk about across the continents both here and there so i'm so glad
00:38to be
00:39talking to you tiang chang once again thank you for joining us and please tell us how is everything
00:45over there in regards to this visit sure uh as we are recording this episode right now
00:53uh donald trump uh just landed in china i believe that half an hour ago and i think most chinese
01:04people are not excited so we kind of like believe these visits will not produce any substantial
01:13results especially uh just last week that the iranian uh foreign minister has also have has also just
01:23visited china and from the american side i don't think the trump administration is truly looking for
01:33any real achievements or deals with china right now like many of the things trump does this feels more
01:40like a political show regardless of what happens like donald trump will always claim that he wins
01:47a big win big win every day so uh but there's one one particularly interesting interesting thing that
01:56uh when the list of the american ceos on trump's uh trip was released everyone is asking where's jensen
02:05huang so because like many of us felt that if there is there is any room for uh negotiation between
02:13china and the u.s at this moment nvidia may be the the only real breakthrough point but he was
02:20missing
02:21soon afterwards that news reported that jensen huang joined joined trump as a last minute addition to
02:28the trip and trump then once again accused the media of uh making fake news
02:35there was a lot of a lot of speculation on on the u.s side regarding who was going i
02:43understand like
02:44media was reporting that just up to the very last few days everything was about like who was going and
02:51it wasn't defined and the u.s like even businessmen did not understand how much of the private sector
02:58would be involved or not so a lot of division in the u.s side regarding this trip as well
03:06yeah and that was the only funny things i found of this trip so uh the jensen huang just like
03:14boards in alaska at the very last minutes so uh i think that for uh at this moment that uh
03:23time is
03:24with china because the u.s is now approaching the midterm elections and the trump administration is
03:31under tremendous pressure in particular uh the situation surrounding the iran wall it remains
03:38uncertain while the latest uh inflation data just came out and uh gas and food prices have increased
03:47significantly significantly uh putting enormous pressure on the the american voters a couple of
03:55weeks ago i saw an american posted on his social media he said that i never thought that sometime in
04:03my life i would support iran over the u.s government so in his whole life in most american uh
04:11americans
04:12whole life they have been told that iranians are uh terrorists and they have been exposed to the to
04:20this kind of like anti-iran narratives from a very young age but now even their attitudes towards iran
04:27are beginning to shift which shows how much pressure of uh daily life they are facing so i think that's
04:35uh one of the few points we can uh pay attention to in uh for the rest of the year
04:43and regarding the
04:45trump's visit to china this time we don't have many information today and uh we can keep an eye in
04:51um what will happen in the next few days we were talking about the midterm elections that are coming
04:58and we've been going through like what is causing so much division within the u.s society and how this
05:09society is preparing for this elections what are the factors at play i think that we are on a moment
05:17that is changing some of the core factors that maybe were determinant for prior elections and we'll
05:25definitely need to see what is of more value for this midterms that are coming but definitely a factor
05:33that was important before was identity politics and this was such something that was very much
05:40descriptive of liberal politics from the u.s downward to other western nations this idea of identity
05:50politics sort of dominating the scene dominating the struggle dominating the discourse and the divisions
05:57and therefore the campaigns the electoral candidates and just how the things played out what is your
06:06perspective from china on this topic that was very much the way that the u.s characterized its own
06:15politics through the last years but china has like a different perspective right sure uh i think uh
06:23all of the exact the the fundamental uh issue can be chased to economic economic problems uh like i just
06:33uh
06:33talked about for a little bit like the inflation in the u.s is going a little bit that crazy
06:40for the past few years
06:41and that's it this is why the united states relies so heavily on identity politics because they have to
06:50use these uh kind of weapon to overshadow the broader economic problems and this stress strategy is especially effective
07:02within uh americans two-party uh electoral system a very recent example is the u.s eyes under the trump
07:13administration
07:15were deployed to uh carry out raise and arrested of the so-called illegal immigrants across the country
07:23especially at the beginning of the of this year uh with uh increasingly violent aggressive enforcement
07:31tactics which has also triggered uh widespread uh domestic public protests this year in the u.s
07:38so many americans believe that uh especially the maga group they believe that the these uh immigrants are
07:48uh thieves uh thieves are like drug uh drug uh traffickers are violent criminals who rely a lot on uh
07:59the american welfare uh
08:01uh they took the jobs from local u.s citizens so this their perceptions these kind of perceptions are
08:09the direct results of the u.s political propaganda and mainstream media narratives so donald trump even
08:17spread rumors that haitian immigrants is cats so they are trying to uh shape the immigrants as like
08:24uh not human so if they are not human we can do anything we can we can do the worst
08:31thing to to them
08:32so such narratives help intensify public hostility towards the immigrants no matter they are illegal or legal
08:42so however the u.s economy is also heavily dependent on immigrants labor so many industries such as
08:50agricultural hospitality uh construction and healthcare rely extensively on these undocumented workers
08:58because they are hard working and they are low paid they are most of them are like paying even below
09:06the minimum wage without these immigrants the inflation in the u.s would go even crazier so if the republicans
09:15truly attempt to uh crack down the immigrants they would target uh these large employer and prohibit
09:23them from hiring a such a big number of these undocumented workers yet this is not what they are being
09:32they are doing instead they deployed eyes to conduct arrested on the streets even detaining u.s
09:40citizens sometimes sometimes so the real purpose is not on immigration enforcement itself but creating
09:48like visible crackdowns by us to encourage like mass reporting to foster internal divisions among the
09:56working people and ultimately fragmenting society so when people start to hate and fight each other they
10:05they naturally lose the energy to think about like who the real enemy is not to mention to fight against
10:11the enemy and this is also very evident in taiwan china they they also play the exactly the same tactics
10:20there uh for example that the uh democratic progressive uh party stirs up resentment among the young people
10:28towards the elderly so many taiwanese families are torn apart and turned against one another so i think this
10:37doesn't seem unique to the united states doesn't seem unique to uh taiwan china and similar trends can
10:46maybe can also be seen in latin america so how does the uh how does the identity politics shape the
10:54elections and political discourse in latin america today adam so i think that i was just hearing about
11:04everything that you were describing and i think it's a really good read on like not only why the us
11:11at
11:12this moment decides to do this crackdown on migration and and the repression of migration also these
11:22smearing of migrants in the public media um because of course that is linked to the heart of the
11:32mega campaigns it is one of that one of those core principles on which trump campaigned got elected
11:42and at a moment of great crisis it is like one of his flagship projects almost as if we were
11:51thinking
11:52that the deportation of millions could be a flagship project for everyone but that is basically the
11:58world that we're living in right now but besides that being a core campaign campaigning point for the
12:06mega movement that is very close to the conservative ideas that are part of that mega movement i think that
12:15it's a really good explanation of what you were saying regarding the effect that the
12:23that the government is trying to achieve by just going after
12:30and demonizing that group in particular as a way of fragmenting that working class and we know that
12:40that has always been one of the objectives of those who would like to remain in power basically uh
12:48particularly governing elites so i was thinking that was a really good read on on what is happening in
12:56the us and in the in latin america in general identity politics of course you know we've talked about
13:02this before latin america south america is culturally very close to the us in terms of the
13:10media we see around here in terms of just cultural exchange in general when we're talking about migration
13:16in the us we're talking about a great amount of people from latin america and the caribbean those are
13:23families that are divided between south america and the us those are friendships that are maintained so
13:30there's a lot of cultural communication between one sector and the other so of course it's only natural
13:38because of that closeness that a lot of cultural trends and political trends if you will will flow
13:48almost also because of the power that the cultural center exercises over the the other parts of the world
13:59how that trend would flow into our territories as well and i think that we need to be very careful
14:06when
14:06we're talking about identity politics because i was thinking also going back a few years in latin america
14:13we've had great feminist movements for example that really got a lot of agendas across that were really
14:20necessary and continue to be very necessary and that really struck a chord emotionally with great parts of the population
14:27the same the same for the lgbtqi plus community there was a lot of things the the same could be
14:35said for black movements across the continent
14:38also very much fueled by the movement in the us so all of those struggles if you will that also
14:46have a very much an identity
14:48identity based um idea to that movement it's i think it's very complicated to think thoroughly because of course they
14:59are coming
15:00they connect emotionally very much with real true oppression so they are good in the sense that they are able
15:09to
15:10to make visible a lot of true oppressions a lot of true sufferings in the population and they can manage
15:19to put those in display put those on agenda and be able to call for true action against them
15:27and then there is the counterpart of like the dangerous part of identity politics that is
15:36that transversality like losing the connection among all those movements and the link that unites all of
15:47those oppressions that from a leftist perspective is always the class division the idea that a lot of the
15:55like stronger oppressions regarding the oppressions against women against black people against the lgbtqi plus
16:04communities as well are class based in the sense that they are also overlapping the most working
16:12sectors of society because they have been removed from the elite sectors of the market and the capital so i
16:22think that those identity movements and we've had as we were saying a lot of that in in south america
16:30also in
16:31the past decade it has the i always think it has the potential of great solidarity and the potential of
16:39moving
16:39forward great agendas and it also has the potential of turning into a liberalized individualistic agenda that
16:50instead of pushing forward real common change it pushes forward the change for select elites of people
17:01so that is something that we also always need to be looking at and i think that
17:07what happened in the last years can be explained as the downplay of that movement like if you will
17:16some sectors that were very active that were struggling and that were campaigning and very very much
17:25involved involved in political life and a lot of that brought real change but a lot of that then turned
17:33into more individualism and more liberal politics and no no true class consciousness but i still think
17:44that at a moment in of great crisis as the one we are living in right now in the us
17:51as you were saying with the oil
17:53prices with the um every every indicator in the economy showing that great impact across the working
18:01class and of course in latin america and south america as well this moment of economic crisis has the
18:09potential of rebuilding retouching on those core elements of that identity struggles but reconnecting them with a more
18:19more class-based solidarity movement of course we'll have to wait and see what does that sound like from
18:27china does does it make sense does it connect with something that's happening over there as well
18:34yes yes of course uh
18:38as you just mentioned that uh like the political trends and that cultural trends in latin america uh often
18:47follows that those in the us so uh something similar also happened in china uh not the fortunately not
18:57the political trends but the cultural trends definitely that the cultural trends in uh in chinese society
19:05uh a lot of time a lot of times also follows what have what what is happening in the us
19:12for example that the
19:14the feminism movement you just mentioned so uh identity politics does not really work in china's
19:22political political system but it have have has some like very big influence in chinese society especially
19:31on the internet uh since china does not have the same racial issue as western society has but gender issue
19:40have become the dominant focus of identity-based discourse on social media so today uh even like very minor
19:51trivia incidents can trigger intense online controversy along gender lines escalating into
19:59broader hostility and uh polarization between men and women so this poses a big challenge for
20:08uh social governance uh social governance in china for example uh one day if there's a girl uh she failed
20:15to buy
20:16a tampon on the high speed high speed uh trends and it will become a viral topic online and everyone
20:24is like
20:25arguing and even want to fight each other that uh and china suddenly become the worst place for women to
20:33live in the world so
20:34things can be crazy like that so uh this has been uh i will say maybe the biggest challenge for
20:42uh internet
20:43governance in china and we do not really have a uh an effective uh strategy to solve it uh also
20:53uh sometimes
20:54there are some voices on chinese social media that try to uh insight hostility hostility
21:02toward foreigners or even like stir up hostility between china and other uh global south countries
21:09undermining uh solidarity among the global south so this is also uh another big challenge for
21:17social governance in china currently uh so balen have you observed like similar uh phenomenon in
21:26latin america like on social media for example like uh sometimes like uh some people on social media they
21:35are trying to like divide uh divide uh some countries in latin america uh against other countries or against
21:45china i think it should be pretty common there
21:51yes i i think well social media is a whole topic on its own and of course there's a lot
21:58to to
21:59understand and to go into how that is shaping the way that we perceive ourselves or societies other
22:07societies and well of course it's a complete reality and it's part of our lives i think that almost all
22:18governments and countries in the world right now um have some form of first notion that there's no
22:27outright combating social media as a whole but now nowadays there's an increasingly notion that
22:38ai sovereignty media sovereignty and internet sovereignty is very important and i think that it has to do with
22:46that because if there is no way of not not just controlling but of being able to like if my
22:56population is going to be interacting with each other using a specific tool and that will shape the way
23:04that they relate to themselves their families their society as a whole well it would be good that we
23:11have a say on how that tool works like how does it um share content what sort of not only
23:20content but
23:21formats are we trying to push across is that building a more um communal society or is that building a
23:30more
23:31more individualistic society i think all of that is at play and as long as at least i can speak
23:39for
23:39um this hemisphere the hemisphere that the u.s is so gladly always saying it's their hemisphere and
23:49they are apparently going to work a lot in order to secure their dominance over the territory that
23:56includes latin america and the caribbean for example uh social media is of course mainly
24:03right now u.s based social media and that means that it's their logics their formats their discourses
24:13a lot of the times that are circulating over there so even if social media in in south america and
24:21latin
24:21america can be a platform of resistance as well we always need to keep in mind that it's not our
24:30own
24:30tool so i think that it does um make room for a lot of what you were saying the the
24:40format is itself
24:41and i'm i'm talking about format because i i think it's very important that we think of social media not
24:48only about like a lot of people focus on the content like what is being shared like what content who
24:55is
24:55creating it who's behind it and i think one of the most um difficult things regarding social media it's
25:03not so much the content you can put on but the format you are forced to put it on as
25:09so if you can only
25:12talk in very short uh one minute videos regarding something it is much easier to make a caricature
25:21of um of the ideals of another country for example it's very easy to grab three pictures one line
25:30and make a video of how china is this way and it goes viral and i think that that starts
25:37to shape
25:38how the people think about that outside person government country object whatever but it
25:48it's a platform that allows for a lot of those stereotypes a lot of those like not in-depth
25:57analysis just very superficial a lot of times it's it's like a caricature of the outside and that is
26:06reinforced and the idea of something going viral is is basically that it's just repeated non-stop so
26:15definitely i think that is at play um that we see it for example when um major events in the
26:24world right
26:24so we've had the genocide and gaza we have the uh war on iran right now we have the situation
26:34of the
26:35attack on venezuela and now the constant aggression against cuba i think we really need to look at what's
26:42going to and what is happening right now in cuba because the media attention is in other points of
26:49the world right now but the u.s is constantly um ramping up the pressure and saying some things
26:57like cuba's next and cuba is coming now and we're going to do this that and all of that comes
27:04to
27:04social media and a lot of the times it's just without context and and just imposing and reinforcing
27:13a narrative that really is only justifying the western narrative on all of these issues um so we have
27:23the western narrative that iranians were always bad so they sort of um they sort of deserved the attacks
27:31and that um we've seen it done against palestinians of course and and against cuba and against venezuela
27:40as well and the amount of that content in social media is so much that it almost creates the illusion
27:49that
27:50that's the only thing that you can think i think that is one of the great um the great problems
27:57of
27:57social media but also once again i think that we are at a moment of such crisis for example genocide
28:07in
28:07gaza this was happening but then reality became so so terrible so um the the massacres were so much the
28:18genocide was so much for people to bear that it started to break through and i think that it
28:25really changed how a lot of people felt about palestine sort of like what you were saying regarding
28:32iran before right i i'm sure that a lot of the u.s population had never given it a second
28:40thought
28:41about palestine and its history and its demands like the the population that came from palestine
28:49from palestine and similar struggles of course but the general population i think that they were not
28:55culturally um empathic with the palestinian struggle and yet because of everything that happened
29:03the we've seen like massive mobilizations and it changed the way that u.s citizens a lot of them
29:11at least felt about palestine and and a lot of analysts say that that was the decisive factor
29:17on the 20 24th election for example and that also happened in social media so it's it's difficult
29:25because it's not like a one-way direct street um i think it's a very dangerous tool if you will
29:34that
29:34we need to be very aware that we're not managing it that it's a platform that will set off stereotypes
29:42and it will set up caricatures and it will not allow us to think but it can also be a
29:49platform of
29:50resistance if used with that awareness so i think everything is happening and in south america and
29:58latin america that is beginning to erupt as well so so you are beginning to see more and more content
30:06that is talking about like hold on cuba is actually this right now uh it's not what trump is saying
30:14and
30:15and and venezuela is this other thing and you have like massive mobilizations against milay and that
30:23struggle is happening do you see it like that yeah yeah i think uh definitely like uh the the genocide
30:35in gaza is uh one of the symbolic events on social media and also uh the i would say the
30:48maybe the tiktok
30:49refugee that's yeah that that that one is was also symbolic that for especially like for uh american
30:59people that they suddenly realize that the the the platform uh the social media platform they're using
31:06and the information uh they are seeing every day they're exposed to every day is not uh it's like
31:14it's like totally controlled by the government by the capitalist class i think they suddenly uh realized that
31:22and uh there was uh there was a uh there was a like millions of people like uh flooded into
31:28uh chinese
31:29media uh a chinese social media platform called uh at the beginning of uh last year last year yeah
31:39so they came to a chinese media chinese social media platform and uh some of them see a completely
31:47completely different words from what they thought before so i think the the the social media in general
31:57this platform must do like uh come still uh like controlled uh by uh these uh by these like uh
32:09big uh
32:09corporate power but they are still people can still like using uh some of the tactics
32:17to try to explore uh try to break through uh try to break their uh echo chambers they used to
32:30live before
32:31so but uh it's a it'll be a long way to go yeah it's still we we are still having
32:37a long way to go but
32:38we are seeing some uh positive positive uh signals coming and also there's a like a popular uh movement
32:47called like china maxim or like like travel china travel something like that and people are starting to
32:53uh to to learning some chinese uh lifestyle and they are kind of like pursuing like uh for example uh
33:03to
33:03like uh drink some hot water and some some weird things like we thought before and i would say like
33:12it's
33:13like a very superficial uh almost a very superficial way but that's a good starting point yeah to learn
33:22some uh like just like lifestyle thing and to learn some other countries from maybe just like uh travel
33:30from the travel side from a travel perspective from the tourism perspective from the cultural perspective
33:37perspective perspective that maybe that works well for them to uh to to to to to break the echo chambers
33:46of course and i think that idea of echo chambers is definitely like very descriptive of what we were
33:54talking about i completely agree and you were talking before about divisions and is there this is this
34:03phenomenon of something causing divisions happening in social media and i think that what we were talking
34:12before about identity politics definitely plays into that that is why when we look when we look back in the
34:20past 10 years we really need to i think we'll have years to sit down and analyze what happened and
34:28and take apart
34:29some of those struggles and see okay what is the core oppression that was good to fight for and that
34:39we need to keep
34:40in order to foster more solidarity and what part of those identity-based movements was actually division based
34:50because i think that when we see attempts to divide a society right now it is sometimes coming from a
35:01place of um
35:04pointing out like this this idea of of minorities struggling among each other deciding like who has
35:14the greatest oppression upon themselves instead of thinking about something remotely close to uh class solidarity i think that um
35:25nancy fraser uh an analyst and philosopher from the u.s described it very well when she was actually describing
35:33a moment before like from the
35:35previous trump administration and she was saying she was describing the the u.s
35:41scene scene political scene and saying something like that like if there is ever going to be like a true
35:47leftist movement it needs to come from the um core activism of the feminist movement and the black movement and
35:59the lgbtqi
36:00plus movement but with a true class awareness not from an elitist perspective not from like it it won't be
36:10google doing a pride parade like that will not be the the left and and it also needs to connect
36:18with the
36:18working class that feels disconnected from that and that ended up voting for trump it needs to be like that
36:27that class solidarity and i think that that is one of the key areas of divisions that i think we
36:35are in an era of
36:36true struggle in that way with some pushing to continue dividing the society but with many understanding
36:44that things are so bad and the world crisis and national crisis in some cases are so are so crude
36:52right now that there is no more normal space for those kind of divisions actually i wanted to share um
37:00there was for example one important moment in movement in argentina um last year
37:09almost two years ago right now or a year and a half ago right now after mille gave gave a
37:16speech
37:17in davos and it was met with a lot of rejection because he was speaking he was basically repeating
37:25all of trump's talking points talking about the western world and and the capitalism advance of
37:34the world and everything else was the complete enemy even inside our own societies and he was talking
37:41against all of these sectors of uh society and basically what happened is that in the rejection to
37:51that speech he ended up uniting that reuniting that working class that is so fragmented so what happened was
38:00the first anti-fascist demonstration in argentina it was it was quite big at that moment and it was all
38:08these
38:09different sectors that for the past decade in argentina had been mobilizing a lot but always in separate
38:16ways they came together so the feminist movement and the union workers and the lgbtqi plus movement
38:25they all did one single demonstration saying like okay he is coming for all of us i think that idea
38:35is very powerful i think that idea is maybe the core of what could be a resistance against all of
38:44these movements of course it's very difficult to build of course everything in place is pushing for
38:50class division and not solidarity but i think that those key moments could be hiding like that solidarity
39:01underneath and i think that that is what is at play right now this idea of is the individualistic
39:10um liberal way of looking at the world going to um going to be the most important force or
39:19is this solidarity against different movements with an idea of class awareness going to push movements forward
39:28i think we should maybe talk about it or or think about it on on another conversation um
39:36that maybe the no kings demonstrations this massive demonstrations in the united states also have a
39:44similar component they're bringing in a lot of different people a lot of people who are rejecting the
39:52the repression of migration but not only migrants it's it's a whole different sectors of society who are coming
40:03together in struggle in rejection of the current government and i think that the us government is is very much
40:11aware
40:12that that is a dangerous thing and and that is why it keeps on building foreign enemies even though uh
40:23trump did not want to
40:25allegedly continue continue with the external pressure i think that this moment of a lot of struggles uh
40:35inside a lot of divisions in the conservative movement as well is pushing him to okay let's focus on the
40:44war on iran
40:45let's focus on the attack on venezuela let's focus on the attack on cuba um
40:52and because nations have always done this the idea of an external enemy in order to to bring unity
41:01but it's not working really right now so we'll need to see like what is going to happen
41:09yeah i totally agree with that and i have also observed uh similar trends in uh within the uh u
41:19.s
41:19movements like the knocking protest uh for example uh i remember like in uh around 2014 2015 at that time
41:32uh uh there was like the first round or or the second round the blb blm protest but at that
41:40time like
41:41people yeah at that time like people's uh people's uh demands are pretty like uh reformative they are
41:50pretty it's it's pretty moderate they are just saying that oh like these uh these uh police they cannot uh
41:58be
41:58these aggressive these uh violent to uh ordinary people and they are uh they are demanding that the
42:06policemen should uh get their uh monitor their they like the 20 24 24 hours monitors equipped it for
42:14uh the whole time so uh the so so so it can uh better uh protect the people but i
42:22think uh since last
42:23last year and people's uh demands are becoming increasingly uh radical they are asking to uh cut the
42:31budget for uh cut the budget for uh these uh uh police office and also that the uh the military
42:40uh they
42:41are starting to realize that the uh these uh these kind of institutions are just like violent weapons uh by
42:49the
42:50governments and they are using that to target the ordinary people so more and more people in the
42:55u.s are realizing where is the uh who is the real enemy and what's the fundamental issue and more
43:05and more
43:06people are starting to realize it's not a gender issue it's not a race issue it's not a religion or
43:12like
43:13sexual orientation issue is actually a class-based issue as the uh as at its core so i believe that
43:23uh
43:24the same things can be observed in that american as you just mentioned in argentina so uh we are
43:32definitely facing that more and more uh crisis or the crisis crisis are deafening but uh the crisis often
43:42the crisis is often contain opportunity opportunities because these kind of crisis can better bring
43:50people together uh so people can uh people had to pull their uh limited resources together and plan
43:59collectively in order to get through the very difficult period so i hope uh that that is what we are
44:08seeing that now and um maybe maybe maybe we are getting maybe we are on the driveway
44:19we may be getting there we we we may be approaching that moment i think definitely this will be a
44:27good year to
44:28follow everything that is happening of course that midterm election in the united states is going to
44:38i think shape it is already shaping the the entire year sadly that has so many effects on all of
44:46our
44:46territories because apparently the the campaign for midterm elections in the u.s means that you can
44:54open a war some place and then attack another place and everything has to do with how the poles are
45:02measuring in one state or the other um that is really a terrible thing to when you break it down
45:10and
45:10analyze it and it's also a true representation of how the united states understands it is at the center of
45:19the
45:19the world and that the world and that the world seen its its own political sphere of influence so
45:28its actions on any part of the planet has to do with the the same government maintaining or not
45:37maintaining power and that is what is at play at this midterms and i think that a lot of these
45:44things are going to
45:46do coming to play of course and also that there's so many tensions all of the things that we were
45:53talking about they are really tensions because the the core identities the core uh divisions that
46:04structured the society in general in in in the u.s in particular have shifted they are like turning around
46:15the you see now that people who were always um spokesperson for the conservative movement are now
46:27defending iran and saying that like killing the supreme leader was something that no state could do and you
46:37you see people that were always against certain things like going and supporting them and there are key elements
46:47within the mega movements that are breaking away and as you were saying citizens who maybe never thought about
46:55feeling in solidarity with with the palestinian movement the iranian movement having a notion and awareness of what that is
47:06i've listened to a lot of podcasts and a lot of um just u.s media in general particularly in
47:14this in this
47:15genres when it's more conversation like free conversation um a lot of people from different
47:21spectrums like from the liberal left to the conservative people think saying things like but we were the good guys
47:31like what what what is happening so i think that there is something shifting um and and regarding latin america
47:41in particular
47:44that will come into play as well with a lot of strength this year because it's first a year of
47:52very much increased aggression towards latin america it is pushing the the government into either completely
48:02align or think of if there's any other alternative because the pressure is it's so terribly ramped up
48:12that there is no other way to understand this moment as it other than just the united states is trying
48:20to secure its control of the territory they understand that if they're losing power the territory that
48:27they cannot lose is latin america and the caribbean there cannot be any dissidents over there because
48:34they are already their position as the supreme leader of the world is already tumbling so that is happening
48:43at the same time at the same time that they are having this increased repression on migration inside the country
48:52that is
48:53targeting among others uh the the latin population in the united states and that is also causing a lot of
49:01rejection so
49:02all of that is happening at the same time and i think again if there is an opportunity for solidarity
49:11we need to play pay close attention to the solidarity between the working class and the latin movement
49:21in the u.s and the solidarity of the working class in the in latin america south america and the
49:30caribbean
49:30i think those connections if if that they're already happening the idea that if they become as aware as they
49:40became as they became regarding what was happening in the middle east regarding what was happening in latin
49:46america and they understand that both things are connected then there is a possibility for true solidarity that
49:54could at least stop the the intensity and the aggression regarding these territories and at least impose
50:03another way of dealing with this tension so that is something that will happen and while we're talking
50:13trump is already in china that is going to happen as well and i don't know do you think that
50:21there could be
50:22any relevant any relevant announcements or as you were saying just propaganda just campaigning just um
50:32one person saying we're good the other person saying no and everyone is going to share their own story
50:43um yeah i just cannot think about what what i just cannot think about the possibility of china and the
50:56u.s
50:57making a real deal at this point uh in what only maybe the the as i just mentioned before maybe
51:06the
51:06only possible breakthrough point is nvidia that's the only thing china maybe seek for from the u.s and
51:16the other the other ceos uh coming with trump this time like in like in finance in fear of finance
51:24like
51:24in the fear of uh manufacturing i don't think uh there's uh there's that necessities for china to
51:36cooperate with with with the with these u.s firms so and i don't think from trump's perspective i don't
51:46think
51:46he's going to uh he's going to uh to to like to truly looking forward to make a deal with
51:59china it's no
52:00longer it's not it's not like the it's not like in the first trade war it's already like we had
52:08the
52:08second trade war last year and it's almost like uh yeah the the trump is had had had all these
52:18uh crazy
52:19terms and he said that something on the first day and he can like uh just like just like uh
52:27turn turn like
52:29totally turn turn upside down the next day so there's not even one word you can listen to him to
52:37to
52:37believe him so he's just not a reliable uh a reliable leader to to talk to and i believe that
52:48china has the
52:49has has the has all this consideration of uh of what is the current situation uh look like and uh
53:00there's very uh there's not not a lot of possibility that we are going to see uh any big news
53:08in the next
53:09few days yeah but in the long term i think yeah things may be things may happen faster than we
53:16anticipated
53:19things are moving faster into the long term that is something that like something is shifting
53:27for real and it seems to be happening right now even if it's not going to have direct consequences
53:33like in the next coming months i think that is something that a lot of people are perceiving through
53:38different lands and i am holding on to your phrase from before that time is with china right now i
53:46think that is capturing something there and we'll need to see in our following conversations what what
53:52happened and and what are the consequences both to the u.s and china but also to other parts of
53:58the
53:58world because we are all looking at that as something that will definitely mark the years to come of
54:06course thank you tiang jeng so much for this conversation it has been so good as always
54:13thank you bella and that was one more episode of overlap be sure to join us in our next conversation
54:20from across the world
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