This is a pretty interesting video from a lifelong California liberal after moving to China and experiencing it first hand. Not too surprising to most of us but I would guess it would probably be pretty eye opening to at least half the U.S.

I guess one of the craziest things is what happens when you allow the government to control what opinions you see online.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...VE&feature=emb_title

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 1s1k,

Nice post. Everyone should watch it ASAP - my gut tells me that this video will not be up too much longer.

What!? Are you implying that there are certain entities in this country that censor speech like they do in China? Shocking!!!

He touches on a number of subjects in broad strokes, and he's not wrong. Will be interesting to see how he progresses. China has a very tradition bound society, which demands not only filial piety but, all the burdens of family life is on its productive members to provide, thus they're the societal safety net. The CCP is largely a crime syndicate masquerading as a government, corruption is allowed, as long as the right people get their cut. There's very little corruption enforcement other than the show trails like he pointed-out. Making money or, obtaining material wealth under the guise of the old pillar of prosperity, by any means necessary, is perfectly acceptable, even if it means destroying somebody else, their family, the environment or, another country. That mindset is pervasive amongst many on the mainland. The CCP has utilized these for its foreign relations propaganda thus, very easy to see how the general public can get whipped up.

For more in-depth and very similar takes
https://www.youtube.com/c/ADVPodcasts/featured

Both guys lived in China for a long time, one from South Africa and the other from New England, both married into Chinese families, experienced all the cultural trappings, foibles and social issues affecting China and both are now persona non grata in China. They've since moved to the US I believe within a year and are able to be more assertive in their views of China, social/cultural commentary and the CCP at-large.
The each have their own channel as well, which provides a bit more insight into their own topics. Their older content, when they were living in China gave an interesting view on life as a multi-lingual foreigner attempting to assimilate and fit-in with modern, mainland China.

Keep in mind they're both YT content creators so, like any television show, some episodes are interesting and fascinating and some are just meeehh.

That was pretty spot on, IMHO. I've been to China five times, always stayed with local friends and family there, most recently in December, 2019.

He's right about a lot of things. I've been to China more times than I can remember over the past decade - mostly business travel, but some personal trips during my stays. So I see how projects in the 10's of millions of dollars go, how negotiations work, how corners are cut and excuses are made, how appearances can be more important than substance, how the party and local officials influence things, and presumably have to be taken care of (paid off), but I am not privy to that.

I don't speak or read Mandarin other then some basic stuff, so I don't see some of the stuff he talked about. Sure, all "communist" governments call the US imperialist but the popular sentiment was they love American culture - movies, basketball, TV, products, clothes (and European luxury stuff too). And during the Obama years they thought he was the greatest president ever. You would even see novelty T-shirts and posters of Obama dressed as Mao - the "Obamao". Why, because they knew he was one and the same. What they are definitely is "China first" and doing what's good for China regardless of what is "fair" or not. Can't really fault them for that, they are looking out for #1, and by so doing have raised the average standard of living tremendously, industrialized faster than any other country in history, and become one of the biggest economies in the world and soon to be the biggest consumer market, and many many new millionaires and billionaires. The rules are different when you have 1.4 billion people and a money + conspicuous consumption oriented culture, at least among the people with money.

Since Trump got elected and started raising tariffs and sounding the alarm, it's different. Many Chinese disliked him immensely. But it's kind of a "it's not fair they hit me back!" kind of thing. Merely approaching taking away a little of China's advantage in trade is met with fierce "unfairness" claims. But the Chinese system is extremely unfair to us. We cannot import product into China and sell it at anything approaching a market price. We have to form joint ventures with Chinese companies and build factories there to build our product for sale in China. And they get the benefit of learning how to do it.

It's complicated yes. But the government monitoring, censorship, and control are not letting up - it is getting worse. 10 years ago it was still the wild west, today not as much.

I hear that there is a nice new $800,000,000.00 factory that can build McLarens in China. Now how well did that work out for them?

Excellent video. Tells it like it is.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
And during the Obama years they thought he was the greatest president ever. You would even see novelty T-shirts and posters of Obama dressed as Mao - the "Obamao". Why, because they knew he was one and the same.

What they are definitely is "China first" and doing what's good for China regardless of what is "fair" or not. Can't really fault them for that, they are looking out for #1, and by so doing have raised the average standard of living tremendously, industrialized faster than any other country in history, and become one of the biggest economies in the world and soon to be the biggest consumer market, and many many new millionaires and billionaires. The rules are different when you have 1.4 billion people and a money + conspicuous consumption oriented culture, at least among the people with money.

What many people don't seem to realize is that the friend of your enemy is also your enemy.

Out of those 1.4 billion people, I wonder how many of them still live in shitty poverty. Not all of them can be consumers with millions to spend. China is a problem, an even bigger problem are Americans to kow tow to those bastards.

And if anyone thinks I'm racist for calling them bastards, you can ask V-Tail if that's true or not...

I wish he would have articulated the obvious comparison between censorship in China and from where and whom similar censorship exists in the US.

quote:

Originally posted by G-Man:
I wish he would have articulated the obvious comparison between censorship in China and from where and whom similar censorship exists in the US.

I agree. It seems he was trying to be fairly cautious considering he knows first hand what happens when the government doesn't like what you're saying. I think he pretty much hinted that we don't want to end up like China but it seems we are headed in the same direction as far as censorship is concerned. The problem then is obvious. More governmental control is much easier when the population is muzzled.

Oppression always begins with a muzzle.