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00:10Hello, Telasur English presents a new episode of China Now, a Wave Media's production that showcases the culture, technology and
00:16politics of the Asian giant.
00:18In this first segment, China Currents take a deep dive into the week's top stories from how important it is
00:24to get a job after for a fresh college graduate in China to Chinese agricultural machinery entering the UK and
00:32the security risks it could create. Let's see.
00:43Hello and welcome to China Currents. How important is that first job for a fresh college graduate? For many young
00:50people, it can shape the entire beginning of their careers and in China, missing the campus hiring season can make
00:56finding another job much harder.
00:57But in July, 107 young graduates suddenly found themselves without a job just a month after starting work.
01:05The company at the center of the controversy is Changzhou Singyu Automotive Lighting Systems.
01:10Singyu is a publicly listed Chinese auto parts maker whose customers include Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
01:17In 2025, the company reported more than 15.2 billion yuan or about 2.1 billion dollars in revenue.
01:24And at the time of the controversy, Singyu was also preparing for a Hong Kong listing.
01:29So when this company suddenly moved to restructured jobs it had only just offered these graduates, one question emerged.
01:37Why would a profitable publicly listed company preparing to expand into another stock market suddenly turn on employees it had
01:43just recruited?
01:44From the fall of 2025 through the spring of 2026, Singyu signed employment agreements with 440 members of the graduating
01:51class of 2026.
01:53After graduation, 372 of them formally joined the company.
01:56These were not temporary workers on short-term contracts.
01:59They had been recruited for positions in R&D, technical roles, management training and corporate functions.
02:06Among the 107 whose contracts were eventually terminated, 75 held bachelor's degrees and 32 held master's degrees.
02:14Then, only a month after they started.
02:17In July, management proposed restructuring the positions, citing changes in future orders and staffing names.
02:23Eventually, 140 graduates were asked to negotiate their employment status, 33 kept their original positions, and the other 107 signed
02:32agreements ending their employment.
02:34And the biggest controversy here in China is over how that negotiation was handled.
02:39According to the graduates, they were essentially given two choices, which were to resign or accept a transfer.
02:44Those who resigned would only receive only half a month's salary, and those who refused could be transferred to production
02:50line jobs, including assembly, wiring and tightening screws, with their pay adjusted to the standards for those positions.
02:57For people who had just graduated and started their first jobs, this was far more consequential than an ordinary job
03:04reassignment.
03:05In China, being a fresh graduate is more than simply having graduated recently.
03:08It is a distinct status in the job market.
03:11Many government positions, state-owned companies, and public sector employers reserve or prioritize positions for recent graduates.
03:18And that status is time sensitive.
03:20For many young people, the first year after graduation is a crucial window to find a job while they still
03:25qualify for these opportunities.
03:27Local governments may also offer subsidies or other incentives to companies that hire recent graduates.
03:32So, losing a job after the campus recruiting season is over can mean losing opportunities that may be difficult to
03:38recover later.
03:39And the way you handled the situation pushed these seemingly powerless young people to fight back.
03:44They started organizing, they collected employment contracts, chat records, and recordings of conversations with the company, and put together documentation
03:52of what had happened.
03:53Then, they took a step XingYu probably did not expect.
03:57They did not keep their complaints inside the company or treat them simply as a labor dispute.
04:02They translated their materials into English and began submitting them to XingYu's overseas customers and business partners, including the supply
04:10chain and compliance channels of companies such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.
04:14On September 1st, Volkswagen China confirmed that it had received complaints and launched an investigation.
04:20The dispute was now reaching a very different level.
04:23What had started as a labor dispute between one company and 107 graduates had moved into the compliance systems of
04:29major international automakers,
04:31because the graduates themselves had gathered the evidence and taken their case to the company's customers.
04:37They also submitted their materials to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which was particularly sensitive for XingYu.
04:44Remember, the company was pursuing a Hong Kong listing at the time.
04:47A workplace dispute inside the company was now touching labor rights, supply chain compliance, and the scrutiny surrounding a potential
04:54public listing.
04:55And Chinese authorities soon stepped in.
04:57On August 25th, the Changzhou Human Resources and Social Security Bureau set up a special task force to investigate the
05:05case.
05:05The People's Daily also weighed in.
05:07Widely regarded as the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China,
05:11it criticized the mass termination of newly graduated employees and argued that employment contracts should not be treated as something
05:17companies can simply tear up whenever business conditions change.
05:21The intervention mattered not only because of the newspaper status, but also because of the unusually strong language it used.
05:28The commentary criticized the company for disregarding workers' legal rights, the spirit of its contracts, and public trust.
05:35The local government then organized dedicated job fairs for the graduates and recommended positions based on their qualifications and preferences.
05:42XingYu also promised to give each of the 107 graduates a job search allowance equivalent to three months of living
05:48expenses.
05:49The company further promised that anyone who still had not found a job after three months would receive another six
05:54months of compensation based on their original salary.
05:57On September 7th, XingYu announced its final internal disciplinary measures.
06:01General Manager Zhao Xiaoping received a 12-month pay cut.
06:05Human Resources Director Yu Jiming was dismissed.
06:07This story is not as simple as saying that young workers won and the company lost.
06:11Companies can face changes in orders and may legitimately need to adjust their workforce, but the issue is whether a
06:16company should be able to pass the cost of its own business decisions directly onto young people who have just
06:22graduated and have almost no marketing power.
06:24This time, they did not simply accept it.
06:26The graduates organized, gathered evidence, and took their complaints beyond the company.
06:30Public scrutiny and media attention followed, along with government intervention.
06:34The episode is a reminder to employers that workers are not just numbers that can be adjusted whether circumstances change.
06:40And new graduates should not be the ones paying the price for a company's business mistakes.
06:45Now, let's shift our focus to the UK.
06:47A recent British security report has turned its attention to something that seems to have little to do with intelligence
06:53work.
06:54Tractors made in China.
06:56The report argues that as Chinese agricultural machinery enters the British market, the equipment could create data security risks.
07:03It sounds serious.
07:04But what exactly has Britain found?
07:06The report was published by the Security Technology Coalition led by Labour MP Graham Downing.
07:12But Zhang Jian, the deputy head of the China Institute's Contemporary International Relations, pointed out that the report does not
07:19cite specific cases.
07:20Identify a particular machine that has carried out surveillance or provide any relevant data.
07:25As of now, there is no public evidence showing that Chinese tractors have actually been used for espionage.
07:31Instead, much of the argument rests on what could happen.
07:35Modern tractors are highly digitalized.
07:38They can connect to the internet, collect data, and transmit it remotely.
07:41So, in theory, that data could be misused.
07:44But collecting data is nothing unusual in modern farming.
07:48Tractors can record a field's location, operating routes, soil conditions, and crop information.
07:54For farmers, that data can help improve planting, fertilizing, and harvesting.
07:58So, the act of collecting is not inherently suspicious.
08:02The question is, why that same data collection suddenly becomes a national security issue when the technology comes from China?
08:10And this is not the first time Britain has raised similar concerns.
08:13Over the past few years, Chinese-made communications equipment, smart devices, drones, and electric transportation
08:19have all faced additional security scrutiny after entering the British market.
08:23And now, it is tractors.
08:25But there is something different about this case.
08:27These machines are not mainly being sold to ordinary consumers.
08:31They are entering Britain's agricultural sector.
08:34And Chinese agricultural machinery is becoming increasingly competitive in international markets.
08:39In 2025, China's tractor exports surpassed India's for the first time, making China the world's largest tractor exporter by volume.
08:47Chinese tractor exports also continued to grow in the first half of 2026.
08:51One of their biggest advantages is price.
08:54Compared with traditional European and American brands,
08:57Chinese manufacturers can often offer similar mechanical and digital functions at a far lower cost.
09:02They are moving into a market that has long been dominated by Western manufacturers.
09:06And that makes the timing worth watching.
09:08As Chinese manufacturers move beyond consumer electronics and electric vehicles into traditional industries such as agricultural machinery,
09:15security scrutiny of Chinese equipment in Britain is becoming more sensitive as well.
09:20That does not by itself prove that Britain's concerns are simply an attempt to protect domestic industry.
09:25Security risks can be real and governments have every reason to assess them.
09:29But if a government is going to restrict a product on national security grounds, it should be able to answer
09:35a very simple question.
09:37What is the risk?
09:39Has anyone found data being illegally transmitted?
09:42Has anyone discovered a backdoor in the equipment?
09:45Or is the concern simply that because the equipment comes from China, it could potentially be used for surveillance?
09:51If no actual security incident has been found, but British farmers are still discouraged from buying cheaper equipment over a
09:58hypothetical risk,
09:59then who pays the price?
10:01Are they addressing a genuine security threat or creating another barrier as industrial competition becomes more intense?
10:07Alright, now let's turn to AI.
10:10A new kind of TV drama has just landed in China's primetime lineup.
10:14On August 31st, the Chinese AIGC series The New Journey to the West premiered during primetime on Hunan Satellite TV.
10:22The series has 30 episodes, each around 40 minutes long.
10:26Its characters, setting, and much of its footage were generated with AI.
10:31It draws on The Journey to the West, one of China's best-known classical stories, but it tells an entirely
10:37new story.
10:38For viewers that are unfamiliar with it, think of it as a long-form adventure series built around characters
10:43and a fantasy world from a classic Chinese legend.
10:46And this time, there are no actors, no studio sets, and no conventional location shoots.
10:51MangoTV used AI to create digital assets for 109 characters and 143 settings,
10:57while a production team of nearly 100 people handled the script, storyboarding, prompts, and post-production.
11:03The entire project went from development to broadcast in just over three months.
11:08The production team says each episode cost around 900,000 yuan, less than one-tenth of the cost of comparable
11:15traditional animated series.
11:17The director also gave one striking example.
11:19A three-minute action sequence that would previously have cost four to five million yuan to produce was completed for
11:26just 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.
11:28And the producers did not test the series on TikTok or other short-form video platforms.
11:32They sent it straight to primetime on Hunan Satellite TV.
11:36For a television series, that is a demanding place to compete.
11:39It has to clear regulatory requirements, meet audience expectations, and attract advertisers.
11:44The new journey to the West made an immediate impact, ranking first among provincial satellite channels in its time slot
11:51on its premiere night.
11:52There is also a notable change in how the AI is being used.
11:55In the past, AI-generated video often involved a lot of trial and error, generate an image, see what comes
12:01out, and try again.
12:02But the new journey to the West was made using Mango TV's own Mango Lingchuang platform, which allows the director
12:08to control things such as camera position, focal length, depth of field, and camera movement.
12:14The 109 character assets and 143 setting assets can also be reused.
12:20The show's director, Li Dongshin, has said that AIGC has broken through the barriers of traditional film and television production.
12:28Whether that claim holds up is still being debated.
12:30But for now, one thing is clear.
12:32AI-generated long-form content is no longer confined to experiments and short videos.
12:37At least in China, it has made its way onto one of the most mainstream stages in television, primetime.
12:43Thanks for watching China Currents and we'll see you next time.
13:06We have a salt break now, but don't go away because we'll be right back.
13:37We'll see you next time.
13:39I'll use political commentator to deepen on different topics.
13:43So, let's have a look.
14:02so just let put this this way without the textbook language so in any market economy
14:11so no matter which country most the business are only owned by a few people
14:17maybe a dozen people when we even say it go public this is a list of firm and the
14:23investor the number is limited and finally these companies if we want to
14:29give profits to society mainly be making by paying the tax or making donations
14:35the problem is the this in modern society we need a lot of spending on the
14:41health care education and the social welfare and the tax and donation are
14:46obviously obviously not enough and more governments are running to deficits or
14:51even go bankrupt so here's the hard part raising tax for the companies or asking
14:57rich peoples to donate is very difficult because people can transfer their
15:03industries abroad or move their company to some low tax islands and economic
15:09speaking that's a rational behavior because the profits belong to themselves
15:12they can decide whether to pay more donate or avoid so how could we solve this
15:19problem so just imagine if some companies are not owned by few in private
15:25individuals but the whole public then the profits from these companies can
15:30directly pay to the public welfare and the lawmakers do not have to fight over the
15:36tax hikes all the times and the public do not worry about that they do not have
15:41enough benefits and this is the kind of ownership where companies in the market
15:46belong to all the people in the society is what we mean a socialist ownership
15:52structure at this stage I give you a real example of the benefits and China has
15:58many large state-owned companies that belong to the whole public like the
16:03pet china and the sinal pack and the very large banks and a portion of their
16:10profits is directly transferred to pay the social welfare that's the big reason why
16:15health care and education China are so affordable and cover so many people so
16:21just take the university tuition as example I work at a university myself and in
16:27China average only about $1000 per year for the tuition fee that's very cheap and this price has
16:35barely unchanged in almost 30 years so students never just worry about their tuition fees and the
16:42tuition law is not a very serious problem in China as far as you are smart then you can receive
16:49the world class educations and the students only pay a very small share here so just a more detailed
16:56example just like the very famous Chinese university like the Beijing University
17:01Tsinghua and also the Zhejiang University and they have similar amounts on research and the
17:07faculty salaries as they appears in other countries or around the world and the study just estimate if to cover
17:14every student the cost themselves they have to pay about 50,000 to 80,000 US dollars for four years
17:23but in reality they only pay four thousand dollars that's a huge gap who pay this gap the state-owned
17:30firms always call it the firms belong to the whole society because it belongs to whole society then the
17:36profits can be transferred theoretically to the people in this society and not based on the tax
17:43or the donations so this is a one example here these large companies I just mentioned these state-owned
17:52companies they theoretically and legally belonged to all the people every individual in the society
18:02so they can transfer the profits to their owners so when when we say the social benefits they pay the
18:09social benefit actually they just use their own money to give to their firm owners so this is a different
18:16but in the some high welfare the western countries all these transfer are depending on the tax policy
18:27and the tax policy we know so every time they argue for that whether we should charge more or not
18:33and
18:33some firms then will maybe transfer the industry or move their cooperation to a low tax island and that's very
18:41normal in the world
18:48so first we just talk about the traditional reasons that have mentioned in the press maybe for
18:56so many times why the ant groups ipo was blocked so ant financial uh this cooperation the core business
19:04was using the data they collect through the third party payment service alipay i believe you also use
19:12it that you also use this one and they use the information get from alipay then they could provide
19:18loans to the individual to the individuals who didn't have enough collateral and and claim that even
19:25though it was doing pretty much the same thing as a bank lending the money to the individual but
19:30he only playing the role as a financial innovation intermediary so they argued the ipo should valued
19:37like a tech company not as a bank we know as a tech company they can get a much higher
19:44price to earning
19:46ratios this means their value was inflated at least four to five times and their market value would have been
19:54below 500 billion yuan if as a bank but their original ipo plan was aiming for two chile yuan that's
20:02a huge gap
20:03if the economy slowed down and the money many borrowers couldn't pay back their loans from the uh
20:10from the ant financial group but these bad debts would not bomb by the ant they would fall on the
20:17banks
20:18and that would massively increase the systematic financial risk during our economic downturn so
20:25those are the classical reasons we could see this event from a new angle from the perspective of our ai
20:33area it just drew a bottom line something we call it negative externalities then let's talk about the
20:42negative externalities in the age of big data and air today big companies just collect our personal
20:50information for free our data for free our id data our face our fingerprints and even the body measurements
20:58when you buy the t-shirts or trousers and the travel plans and who you chat with who we follow
21:05even
21:05who we secret look up online every time you use app for medical care investing shopping eating your dates get
21:14collected by these large firms and the public the real owner of this data get nothing paid so our privacy
21:24is
21:24violated if that data get leaked we might face real harm and that has already happened many times so
21:33big comment big companies use our data to create innovations and making money but the public gets
21:42nothing and actually is harmed so this exactly like smoking or pollution we mentioned so it's a negative
21:50externality in the big trader area so why was the intergroups ipo blocked not because the socialism set
21:59a ceiling of the financial innovation actually they just set a bottom line against the negative externalities
22:06that harm the public we just mentioned they use it to offer loans and they use the data to decide
22:13your
22:13credit limit and interest rate this is the core business but you will never paid from that data and
22:19you also take the risk of the data abuse or leaks it's just about the negative external externalities
22:26and the line just reflect the fundamental relationship between the chinese state and the pride private
22:33enterprise the state sees itself as the guardian of the public interest when a private companies
22:39innovation come at the cost of having the public the state will step in like the big data we still
22:47in
22:47a very early age to understand the ownership of the data rights and how should the data rights performed or
22:55work in the age of the ai so to be fair every economy is struggling with this same question in
23:03nowadays
23:04so there is no global consensus on who owns the personal data and why the citizens should be compensated
23:11when companies making profits from their information and china's socialist ownership structure of
23:20government just offer a new perspective when these corporations might do harm or might do some next
23:30external things they can have a strong regulation on that or they can just step in and to say we
23:39just
23:39stop for a while and think what the profits generate from the big data should be shared between the
23:47public and the corporations
23:55this is a very long history just about almost one century so today we maybe just have a very short
24:03version
24:03on this so at first china actually do not have a store market or even we say we do not
24:10have a capital
24:10market why because at first we tried to build a system where all companies were owned by the public
24:18or just mention as the state owned companies and all the price and supplies were decided by central
24:25planning in that systems companies did not need to raise money themselves or from the public so a capital
24:33market or financial market is not necessary in that stage so this is the case but this is the things
24:43almost one century ago without the big data and without the super computers and soon the government
24:50in china found it's impossible to calculate everything the surprise the price of every single product
24:57it's so complicated that we even could not do it in our days so after trying for a while trying
25:04to
25:04realize this 100 percent plan economy just wasn't possible with the technologies available at that
25:12time so we started reform and opening up many private firms were created and innovations would
25:20encourage it as far as the private firms were set up they need fundings so we just start our capital
25:28market
25:29you could look at the past 40 plus years many innovation companies have grown with the help of the
25:37financial markets like some ai model companies and advanced manufacturers they all got help from the
25:44financial market in a variety of ways some already profit ones just went through our ipo directory and
25:52some not yet profit ones just use a star market a new kind of uh some marketing financial markets in
26:00china and some early stage stops can got the angel investment so that's the role of the financial system
26:08has helped or support the innovations and providing the funds so this is the uh financial markets the effect
26:17on the socialist uh country in china i think maybe the controversial things is just about the socialist
26:26economy structure and the financial markets and they have the definitions on the textbook and everyone
26:33interpreted in different ways because everyone has different backgrounds and they have different life
26:41experience so people's understanding of these two things can be completely different or someone said
26:48these two could not co-existed and the one would dominate as the other but i think we just forget
26:57the
26:57definitions instead i said the financial markets actually is a tool a socialist economic structure is also a tool we
27:06just look at
27:07the functions of these tools and do these structures or the markets actually perform the functions they are
27:14supposed to be performed and more importantly do these functions benefit the public or just a small group of people
27:22if the
27:23purpose of these two is the purpose of these two is the same the socialist economic structure want to serve
27:29want to protect want to guard the public and the financial markets would also benefit the public then the purpose
27:37is the same
27:38so if the purpose of these two tools is the same then these two tools can be co-existed in
27:45one country i think this
27:47means we get much closer to the truth we get much closer to the truth it's not necessary to just
27:51uh to uh uh explain
27:54the original definitions on the textbook because when you refer to textbook there are hundreds of textbooks
28:01they could give hundreds of different definitions on the socialism economic structure and the financial markets
28:08we just forget these definitions and look at the functions of these two tools the purpose are the same
28:16then these two can co-exist
28:21i view guizhou as like the west virginia of china okay in that it had a lot of resources and
28:29they
28:29could not have been nicer they were like no come on it's a celebration of his life come on come
28:35hang
28:36out you went to a funeral game and then you were talking about political economy yes so now i try
28:42to carry a
28:43package wherever i go just to seduce chinese uncles just to seduce chinese uncles and at the same time
28:49in the very factory that supplies your batteries you have an eight-foot statue of maybe the most famous
28:57communist at least in modern history mao zedong
29:03did you see any temples in guizhou because you just came back yeah we just came back from guizhou yeah
29:06did you see it was that was a very good segue that was a fantastic segue i'm very proud of
29:09myself we
29:10saw some temples we saw a handful it was i feel like honestly i was more so looking out for
29:17the
29:17infrastructure i was just looking for bridges and solar panels and bridges and highways and bridges
29:24there were so many bridges have you been to guizhou no i haven't but curious why do you think for
29:29you
29:30infrastructure attracts you so much more the spiritualist buddhist traditions listen i got
29:36nothing against buddha however i will say you talk to a therapist about that i talked to my therapist
29:40they said don't worry about it okay he did say listen you might be a little autistic because he
29:44likes trains a lot i said i am that is true i think when you go to a place that
29:49i i view guizhou as like
29:52the west virginia of china okay in that it had a lot of resources in west virginia had a bunch
29:58of coal
29:58right guizhou had manganese they had a bunch of different resources a bunch of different minerals
30:03food spices yeah tea and so they had all these like big sort of capitalists here exploiting like the
30:10labor markets exploiting locals um making enormous sums of money but by and large it was completely
30:18impoverished there were mountains all over the place so it was hard to build up infrastructure to get
30:22uh people outside of guizhou uh folks from outside of guizhou into guizhou goods back and
30:29forth to do any meaningful commerce unless you had a lot of money to do it yeah so i think
30:34going around
30:34and seeing these enormous bridges like the like literally the biggest bridge in the world the
30:40third biggest bridge in the world i think like the tallest concrete bridge in the world i mean like
30:44basically you look at the top 10 like tallest bridges in the world basically all in guizhou except
30:49for one dumb one in france but i don't consider that a real bridge because it's french so the real
30:54ones the real biggest ones are in china specifically in guizhou and you see these bridges spanning these
31:02valleys that like i mean it looks like the grand canyon they're massive they're huge and to think that
31:08they were able to build these in just a couple of years and connect communities that were never able
31:13to interact with the outside world and introduce them not just like you know you're able to like go
31:19there and back but like allow them to interact not just with like the domestic economy but now the
31:23the global economy as a consequence of now being connected to high-speed rail being able to have
31:29high-speed internet all this different infrastructure that allows people to like interact with the
31:35material world around them is so unimaginably cool because in places like west virginia even just a
31:41few years ago i don't know if you've heard about this yeah but like the un commissioner came to
31:45west virginia and toured around like this was probably like a decade ago now but he went around
31:49and he's like i never thought this would be like the united states like i never when i was going
31:54around
31:54it felt like a third world country right i've driven past west virginia a couple times and if you go
32:00to
32:00rural parts of west virginia appalachia in the mountains very similar to guizhou in that it's very
32:05mountainous very very mountainous filled with minerals and overly exploited by the capitalist class
32:13you know like these are the material realities of the people living in the richest nation in history
32:19versus what used to be and what i think might still be one of if not the poorest provinces in
32:25china
32:26which is now all connected in the past few years with all these huge infrastructure projects i don't
32:32think there's anything that can sum up the the shock that i felt when we saw an entire mountain
32:39in guizhou covered in solar panels and not just like oh they're like propped upright but no it looks
32:45like it's like it almost looks like a fluid it looks like a liquid like or like a cloth draped
32:50over the
32:50mountain of just solar panels taking in the energy from the sun and like giving it to like the local
32:56villagers i feel like it happened within a very short period of time because i remember when i was in
33:00high
33:00school guizhou was still considered like one of the poorest it's still probably one like you said
33:04one of the poorest regions but when i was in high school it was considered like not just one of
33:08the
33:08poorest in china but also just poor period yeah i remember there was a kid coming from i can't
33:13remember which city in guizhou but beijing high schools have these kind of friendship programs where
33:18poor areas would send one of their kids into a high school a relatively good high school i didn't go
33:23to
33:23a really good high school but somehow they got one quota to have one kid from guizhou and every time
33:28there would be like a presentation about my hometown her presentation would just be like
33:34poor and that's all i know about guizhou i didn't even know matcha came from guizhou i just know it's
33:38poor but since i came back this year what i heard about guizhou wasn't that it's poor it's that it's
33:45no
33:45longer poor yeah or that something has something has been done to it that is on a level that is
33:52shocking
33:53why do you think people build those roads those bridges you talked about because when i think
33:58about it it's poor in west virginia if you ask joe mentioned why he wouldn't try to attract like a
34:03multi-hundred million dollar infrastructure investment package from the government to do like
34:08a bridge or or highway construction there he would say it's because there's no economic
34:12like activity going on there's no justification for why you should build it why guizhou did it though
34:18i think in guizhou i think the opposite is true where you have politicians in power i'm sure there's
34:23good politicians there's bad politicians but i think the the general direction of the country and of
34:28i'm sure the region is considerably different than that of someone like joe manchin the people in charge
34:33do not own the means of production the people in charge are the ones who are trying to ensure that
34:38the the folks in that province do own the means of production and that even if they themselves don't
34:45that state-owned enterprises can go in and ensure that you know the profits that they make from these
34:51endeavors go to the people to improving their lives and i think there there could not be a clearer
34:56cut example of this than the tire factory that we toured which sounds so boring it's like who the
35:02hell who the hell wants to go see a tire factory right yeah why was it on even on the
35:06agenda well
35:06that's what i would say i was like what the hell we doing but then we got there in this
35:10story i felt like
35:12it was so clear-cut they set up this tire factory in guijo maybe 20 30 years ago or something
35:20i don't
35:20remember the exact date i could be wrong about that but it was a you know a couple decades ago
35:24thousands of jobs coming in thousands of jobs decently high-tech jobs making big industrial
35:30tires for big automobiles not like little cars and like sedans and stuff but like big like dump trucks
35:36sort of things for like mines which makes sense if you're in a mining area you need you know the
35:41infrastructure to maintain the big vehicles to extract the minerals like selling shuttles to
35:46like gold wine exactly gold rush people and so over the years this plant has become more and more
35:53automated which if you're a capitalist if you own this factory yourself you would think oh that's awesome
35:59because you don't have to pay as many workers you can make more profit you can hopefully at some point
36:06automate away all of the labor and have as little as possible and have a fully automated factory that is
36:11simply printing you cash right however the factory was a state-owned enterprise so that meant that that
36:20profit wasn't just going into like the pockets of like some random dickhead who owned all of the means
36:25production these are the very like meat and bones the bolts nuts and bolts of the decisions that go
36:31into structuring the economy so that it isn't just run by a couple of super rich uh jeffrey epstein
36:37adjacent billionaires but rather ideally the state so that the money can go back into the pockets or back
36:44into the infrastructure around people to allow them not just say like hey here's like welfare take care
36:48of yourself but like hey here's the tools to like not only take care of yourself but thrive and be
36:53able
36:53to continue innovating continue doing great productive work to improve society around you
36:58that is so cool that isn't it's incredible did you talk to any of the people whose life was affected
37:04by
37:05those factories those bridges we talked with we went to this really beautiful village i believe it was
37:11called longling yeah we went to this little village called longli and we get there and it's myself
37:18our producer uh my girlfriend and then one of the other influencers who were with and we're going
37:25around in this group we're doing this whole thing and he's a fairly famous guy his name is dante munoz
37:30he got a he got a little bored of what we were doing so he left and he didn't tell
37:33anyone and then
37:35all of a sudden he starts texting us saying guys come here i found this big party it these uncles
37:42are feeding
37:42me by joe and cigarettes i'm a little drunk they're giving me some pork i don't even eat pork but
37:46i'm eating the pork
37:46and we're like okay that sounds like a good time and he sends us his location and so we walk
37:51across
37:52this little village and when i say village i don't mean like you know the chinese village of five
37:55million people it was like a village of i don't know maybe like 500 people it was pretty small so
38:00we walk across this village and we get to this like pond sort of area it's like sort of just
38:05like this
38:05field of of crops and we look out across the field and there's these big lights and these big sort
38:13of ornament things i don't even know what they're called i know what you're gonna say and our
38:17producer looks over and he looks at us he says oh my god it's it's a funeral he's at a
38:22funeral oh my
38:23god oh and we look at each other and we're like oh my god he doesn't speak any chinese he's
38:29there yeah
38:30with his camera out probably yo what's going on everybody today i'm hanging out with the uncle and so
38:38and so we we book it over there yeah and we go up to the uncles and we're like oh
38:42dude we're so
38:43sorry man where i i didn't i hope i'm so sorry about your loss i'm sorry our dumb ass friend
38:48is here
38:49and they could not have been nicer they were like no come on it's a celebration of his life come
38:55on
38:55come hang out and thankfully they were extremely welcoming they were very adamant about feeding us by
39:02joe actually no it was homemade mijo some sort of rice wine i don't i hope it doesn't give you
39:07a
39:07headache no it may be blind in one eye trying to recover from it but no it was actually pretty
39:12good if i'm being honest and homemade pork peppers it was delicious it was very good it was all homemade
39:17food they just whipped up and or probably their wives had whipped up in the back while they were
39:21smoking having a good time which it was a very good time yeah so we hung out and thankfully through
39:26our producer we were able to talk with everyone there right i'm like having they were i i hate to
39:33sound
39:33like a dickhead american but for yeah i guess i'll put this in context okay if i go to rural
39:39virginia
39:40or west virginia yeah and i'm talking with someone in rural appalachia if we're being real the education
39:47system is not that great there they don't get the opportunity to go to universities and learn about
39:53worldly things they don't get much of a technical education i think generally speaking the best you're
39:58going to get is sort of a trade school position maybe a plumber a carpenter there's nothing around
40:03with that that's fantastic those are like the most essential parts of society i have nothing against
40:07i guess that at all generally speaking these aren't people who have read you know copious amounts of
40:12books they haven't they don't have this extensive knowledge of uh i don't know meaningful political
40:17theory or whatever right so my expectations were fairly similar well we get to start talking with
40:23them they start telling us about all these like you know they're pretty advanced political theories
40:29about how you know donald trump is this like crazy man and how like you know it's it's sometimes good
40:35for china sometimes not the tariffs are not great but you're fairly like complex like nuanced thought
40:41you went to a funeral game and then you're talking about political economy yes wow and so we we asked
40:48them and i mean the house was nice it was nice it was like a decent like village house right
40:55and by
40:55village i think again as a dumb american when i think of village i think of like a straw hut
41:01or something
41:01like that it was like a nice it was a nice house it was like made out of bricks or
41:06concrete or something
41:06like that yeah it was like a very like you know it looked like a half decent house and there
41:10were
41:11electric mahjong tables to the automatic mahjong tables so i was like okay they have some money
41:15i know they don't cost that much but you're not using the the analog ones so they have some money
41:20so we started asking them like so what do you do like what you're in this the middle of this
41:24village
41:25it's kind of in the middle of nowhere it's like it's not that far from the high-speed rail but
41:28like
41:29what is your profession are you guys all farmers and he said they looked down they're like they're like
41:35we make these and we're like what they're like yeah you know we've been working in guangzhou for
41:40years or over in like uh guangdong making phones making consumer electronics i'm like
41:46what the hell but do they work in guangzhou and then live in guizhou or so some of them had
41:52been
41:52working in guangzhou uh-huh literally making phones making consumer electronics okay and then
41:59their parents were getting old these gentlemen were probably their 40s 50s 60s somewhere around
42:03they're probably 40s and 50s gotcha their parents were getting a little bit older yeah yeah it's my time to
42:08come back and take care of my parents i'm like you're the guy who yeah maybe i assembled that
42:14one you're like what the hell yeah they like actually no i remember the specific one in your
42:19head i remember it's the real number yeah no they checked out they're like yeah i made that one a
42:24couple months ago i was like wow that's incredible but no they had they had made their money making
42:28consumer electronics in guangzhou and it decided to come back and take care of their parents in rural
42:32guangzhou yeah and you know i can't imagine cost of living is very high so they probably made enough
42:37money to come back and right hang out with their family and i assume that the rest of their family
42:42is working unfortunately there was still a language barrier but um they spoke perfect mandarin and were
42:47able to communicate with our producer who could speak mandarin yeah so i saw a picture of them sharing
42:52a cigarette it was good stuff can i be honest yeah up until that day i didn't smoke cigarettes
43:00really and now i've realized i think like i've seen it online you know you see people
43:06you know mcmungo no he's like this instagram influencer guy some british white guy he's one
43:11of the only good brits i think but he was going around he was i think studying in china for
43:14a bit
43:15he would post these mega viral videos on instagram you know go around to like random restaurants and
43:20go into like the back rooms and uh you know where like the private tables are with the the spinning
43:24circular tables yeah and he would go into these back rooms with like little bottles of by joe and
43:30like packs of cigarettes sometimes even like uh the like lottery scratcher tickets and just hand
43:34them out to the uncles in these rooms and they would be like oh welcome to china you are my
43:39best friend
43:39i love you i love you and so like i've seen stuff like that online where you can go up
43:44to unks with
43:44the cigarettes and you'll become their best friend instantly but after this interaction i was like oh
43:49man it really it made it more concrete so now i try to carry a pack of cigarettes wherever i
43:57go just
43:57seduce chinese just to seduce chinese uncles what do you think the biggest difference between someone
44:03you met in guizhou is versus some some of your friends in shanghai is the folks i met in guizhou
44:09the
44:09ones who i talked with were only through a translator in uh the rural village that we went to right
44:17those people i don't know if they're indicative of the entire region yeah but they were
44:23so down to earth they were like the the kindest people i've ever met they were like please come
44:31back if you want to stay with us stay with us here's all this alcohol here's all these cigs have
44:36our food if you want go you know pay some respects to the the grandfather who just passed away he's
44:41in
44:41the coffin over there and we did we went over there we paid our respects it was kind of a
44:45wild
44:45experience yeah they give you like incense or something you got to burn the incense and do the
44:49bowing which i had never done before um but it was very much so like it was like a family
44:55gathering
44:56they had like some of their neighbors there but they welcomed us in even though we were dumb ass foreigners
45:02who didn't speak chinese they were extremely welcoming to almost a ridiculous extent we were
45:09going to go back the next day and have lunch with them but then we realized we we had to
45:14leave early
45:14in the morning so we had to we couldn't we couldn't end up going and having the lunch so once
45:20we left
45:20the funeral we went and we grabbed multiple packs of chonghua cigarettes and we're like we gotta we
45:26gotta just pass these out we gotta run back and just be like hey sorry we realize we can't come
45:30back
45:30tomorrow best in class and so we passed those out and they loved that they had a good time come
45:34on
45:34stay they fed us watermelon i've never seen watermelon that big and it was delicious they i'm assuming just
45:40grown it right there speciality at this point it was it was a full like it was a it was
45:45a whole thing
45:46a whole ordeal i think in shanghai from the folks who i've met everyone's been very welcoming it hasn't
45:53been to that extent but i also think that might just be because of the circumstances too like when you're
45:59in
45:59a small village you know it's relatively safe what's gonna happen wait you're not gonna rob
46:06each other where you're gonna go there's fields all around you there's one road going in and out
46:10like there's not really a big risk of anything bad happening so i think there's just a lot of trust
46:14that
46:15that is maintained among the folks there as long as people's material conditions are taken care of
46:19which they were like they were living very decent well-off lives if they have a electric
46:25mahjong table i'm assuming their life's pretty okay they had probably eight of them
46:29it was funny there was like a very distinct moment in the night
46:31we're like you know we're sitting there hanging out eating some some food and they're like okay
46:37we looked around what the hell's going on like basically everyone stood up at the same time
46:41all the ladies came over they grabbed the dishes some of the men did whatever other nonsense
46:44and within like maybe 30 seconds the entire setup that was there's probably 40 or 50 people there
46:50the entire setup changed from like eating and smoking and drinking to okay we're playing mahjong
46:56and there were probably eight tables that just materialized i don't really know where they came
47:00from but then everyone started playing there was mahjong there was maybe they're playing poker as well
47:05there were a bunch of other different table games they were playing but it was just like like like
47:09someone literally flapped their hands and like the entire party shifted vibes very instantly like
47:15pneumatic steps but it is very close to the to the great wall whenever i say i'm from beijing
47:21people assume i'm from like uh the very inner city kind of forbidden city area of beijing not
47:26really like i grew up mostly i grew up much closer to the great wall than than to the forbidden
47:30city
47:31really yeah wait how big were you in like a subdivision of beijing or was it like i was in
47:36proper as in so beijing is a is a city yeah and the city is divided into districts and the
47:43most
47:44central two districts are called the western district and the eastern district and i like
47:49went to school in the eastern district but i lived mostly in a district that's far to the north in
47:55haitian and that's about an hour and a half drive do you see commute an hour and a half every
48:00day each
48:00way uh at the time yes so so i did that for seven years so for the for five years
48:09until until one day
48:11a line of subway called subway line five got built every time i say this i sound like a propagandist
48:17but that one subway line cut the traffic time from an hour and a half to 30 minutes
48:23what it's cut across if you look at the map of beijing subway line five cuts across the central
48:29line of beijing it goes straight north to south and it's right in the middle what wait really yeah
48:38i gotta see a map of it cuts across like military compounds like rich suburban neighborhoods this is
48:45subway line five did that take you directly to school do you have to transfer i go from like pretty
48:51much from one end to the other end oh my god yeah what year was this this was uh either
48:562010
48:58or 2009 that does sound like s to your propaganda yeah it happened they built this so you could
49:05not for me that's why no they built it so you could do propaganda just for me yeah chat we
49:10got them
49:11that's funny that's crazy yeah i didn't i didn't have it i had i had a 25 or 30 mile
49:18drive each way to
49:19school which was long but arizona that's like nothing that's 50 or 60 kilometers i don't know
49:25right each way it's 1.6 kilometers is one mile really why do you know that because i have to
49:31move
49:31to america that's fair actually yeah that's fair yeah you know what i can do the mile to kilometer
49:37mass in my head no problem but i cannot do the ons versus like milliliter and litter thing that one
49:44makes no sense i think like gallon and ounces that's ridiculous man all right so i'm on board
49:49with changing america to kilometers and ounces to whatever milliliters or whatever nonsense right
49:57i think fahrenheit's better than celsius that's insane no one that's an indefensible take what is
50:04zero what is the temperature freezing 32. why why because it doesn't matter what you need to know you
50:11why why is it not zero because in fahrenheit zero is cold 100 is hot in celsius right zero is
50:19cold 100
50:20you're dead come on it's water goes boiling it makes sense when have you ever in your life aside
50:28from maybe chemistry class right had to sit there and be like um actually wait oh no the water's only
50:3399
50:33oh shoot i forgot it had to be 100. no one's ever done that you make coffee or tea yes
50:39and you know
50:39you do you boil it you put it on the you put on the fire you requires like 56 72
50:43some requires like
50:4486. this is china there's a button that says oolong tea there's a button that says rooibos tea there's
50:49you just press the button you don't have to know the temperature people have to know the temperature
50:52they figured it out china fixed it we don't have to do it anymore this is fahrenheit's better you know
50:58like
50:58no one's gonna be with you on it in the comment section there is a comment section on this video
51:02to
51:02extent anyone watches this you know anyone's got so deep in the video there's some debates about
51:07whether or not fahrenheit's better than celsius whether or not you're using imperial or metric
51:11yeah this is really riveting content i hope everyone enjoys this right so since you come back to shanghai
51:16yes which is what two weeks ago from great show yeah about two weeks ago have you seen any movies
51:21i have not have you seen any chinese movies since you moved to china which is about a year at
51:25this point
51:26right yes what have i seen um i saw movies in movie theaters in shanghai
51:32they were not chinese movies okay because they don't have english subtitles generally speaking
51:37right and why is it the case that your mayor zora mamdani can speak several sentences of full-on chinese
51:44don't do this don't do this ah shame on you eric that i've been here for a year and i
51:47can't speak
51:48chinese shame on you i think it's more fun but yeah so which movie did you watch uh i think
51:57i saw
51:58i saw like the the avatar movie the james cameron avatar movie which is not chinese but it's about
52:04a white man discovering indigenous culture and being like wow look at this really you'll see yourself in
52:09a movie we're really gonna we really gotta take care of this one and what else we saw one other
52:13movie
52:13recently i'll be honest chinese movie theaters i love china don't love the movie theaters interesting i don't
52:22love i don't love the massage seats oh that's weird they're strange you sit there you get a scan
52:27a code and then you pay for a massage and you have these like you have things like i've done
52:31it once
52:31oh but it's like it's kind of annoying yeah i can't i can't have someone do that to my back
52:36and then
52:36focus on the movie that's the thing i couldn't focus i can't i was like i don't remember it was
52:40we
52:40watched some other movie recently we were sitting in the theater and i was getting this dumb ass massage
52:44right this is like an intense scene right now a little too intimate too erotic for me yeah it
52:49goes down to your butt i know hold on wait this is like an important scene in the movie i
52:54don't
52:54want you like tickling my taint you know like what the hell's going on yeah but i am with you
52:59on that
52:59i do think i do think oh god this is bad i hate to say this american movie theaters are
53:04better
53:05especially animal draft house have you been i've actually never been to alamo draft house but i know
53:10like i know all right i know the vibe i support fully importing that to to china just i agree
53:17100
53:17dude can you imagine how good it would be if they did that i know i know you sit down
53:21you can have a
53:21meal if you want and get some beers just in a nice big comfy seat even if it's just hamburgers
53:26and french
53:27fries yeah i feel like people would like that i know wait okay i want to be clear we haven't
53:32talked
53:33about this on this episode this is maybe your final episode you're leaving potentially soon this is
53:40and the reason why you're leaving is because after this podcast we are starting a business
53:45where we're opening up a movie theater called chinese alamo drivers and it's not gonna be in
53:52chinese we're just calling it chinese alamo draft house and it's gonna be in china and we're
53:56just hoping that all the dumbass foreigners see it and they're like yo chinese alamo draft house
54:00and then we can scam the foreigners right we're gonna include a kickstarter link that was a fun
54:04one actually real quick while we were talking about guijo i forgot to mention this when we were in guijo
54:09we were that day we were going to a factory that builds the components for tesla's batteries
54:16among other evs as well yeah but they build the batteries for all these big ev companies
54:21and earlier that day elon musk had seen a hit piece that was written about me saying it was in
54:29reference to a video of a uh an american suicide drone that had been downed i think it was like
54:35in
54:36iraq or jordan or something like that and they'd posted photos of it and there was a starlink on it
54:41you know like the the radar thing the satellite uh internet thing so very clearly elon musk's company
54:48spacex is selling equipment to the american military to help guide their suicide drones in their wars of
54:57imperial aggression so i said uh elon musk is a valid military target which i stand by i'm not saying
55:06he should be harmed in any capacity that's for a different podcast but for right now like i'm saying
55:12i'm saying listen just if we're being honest that makes him a military target and i that would in any
55:18other circumstances if there were someone arming isis we'd be like yeah that is a valid military
55:24target if you're giving him guns you know that is like that makes sense no one would dispute that
55:30so i had tweeted that a while ago and they included that in the hit piece that was written about
55:34me
55:34the co-founder of palantir saw that joe lonsdale and tweeted something about how extremists need to
55:41be dealt with or whatever and then elon musk he actually went on your twitter and pretty much
55:46checked out your twitter feed and your youtube channel right i'm sure yeah he referenced very specific
55:50lines you made like in the in the youtube video uh yes i mean i think they they were referencing
55:55stuff that i had tweeted so i don't know if they were necessarily watching all my youtube videos
55:58although that would be very funny if they watched the videos where i go around wall street and i try
56:03to play north korean music to wall street brothers who are trying to make millions of dollars or billions
56:09of dollars like robbing the working class of the united states and the global south but uh that would
56:13that would be very funny although i don't know if that necessarily happened however that day elon musk replied to
56:19it saying like uh these forces need to be dealt with and uh you know i will finish the job
56:25myself
56:26if i have something like that yeah um basically insinuating that you know he will kill me
56:33i'm like all right man go ahead dude go ahead you dork yeah south african nazi you know come over
56:38to china because you know you can't you can't do anything crazy over here because he got your factories
56:44here and as a matter of fact you have it's like 51 of your teslas made in china right right
56:51here in
56:51shanghai right shanghai and then we were in the battery factory in uh in guizhou and there were
57:00not only of course you know batteries being made all over the place many of them were for tesla but
57:05at
57:05the entrance of the factory there was a big eight foot statue of chairman that's where it's from and i
57:12thought that was the funniest damn thing because here's a man a south african nazi saying we need
57:19to eradicate the communists and at the same time in the very factory that supplies your batteries
57:26you have an eight foot statue of maybe the most famous communist at least in modern history right
57:33mauzadong yeah i don't know maybe i would say it's a little it's a little ironic i would say it's
57:38a
57:38little ironic for the south african nazi to have that in there someone should use that as a starting
57:42opening movie scene or a podcast or a podcast that would be a great idea for a podcast if anyone's
57:46listening no so that was an interesting time to be in in guizhou but shout out shout out elon musk
57:52shout out co-founder of palantir joe lonsdale it's for saying they want to kill all of us it's okay
57:58what are you gonna do it's all right he'll forget about it in 20 minutes and on that note we
58:02should wrap
58:02it up we should wrap it up fellas this has been very fun uh yunpeng this is maybe your final
58:08episode
58:08do you have any parting words do you want to look into the camera and say thanks to the people
58:14who
58:14have watched you yap or maybe haven't watched you yap yeah i just want to say this show is called
58:19roughly chinese but at no point do i admit that i am only roughly chinese so let that be clear
58:26on my
58:26last official episode that i am fully chinese you're fully chinese damn well hey me too cheers
58:34to that uh shout out jongwa shout out the roughly chinese bot thank you so much for being here thank
58:39you eric this was fun i'm saying it like i'm the host but you're really the host of this all
58:43right
58:43we're gonna miss you it's fine yeah i'll still be here i'm not dead i don't i don't have cancer
58:47yet
58:48so 50 50 we'll find out tomorrow i guess hey cheers to that okay thank you on that note thanks
58:53for
58:53watching everybody bye bye and this was another episode of shine and our show that opens a window
59:05to the present and future of the asian giant hope you enjoyed and see you next time
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