1 00:00:38,790 --> 00:00:42,400 None, Nick. I wanted you on my show and when 2 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:45,000 I invited you, you said yes. But there's a condition. 3 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:48,280 You want to ask me questions? I do indeed. 4 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:52,960 You know, it's been 16 years since I was lost in China at at 5 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:55,280 that time in my life, I spent quite a lot of time there 6 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:58,400 because I was starting up a business there, a subsidiary for 7 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:03,920 one of the South African banks. And so I won't say that I was 8 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,440 had an opportunity to be deeply steeped in the culture or 9 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:11,520 anything to that extent. But I did travel quite widely 10 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:14,720 and had a lot of meetings. And, you know, we were really 11 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:19,120 trying to understand as well as we could what the, the, the lay 12 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:23,240 of the land was. So it was a reasonable exposure. 13 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:27,720 And since then, I've had just an incredible paucity of 14 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:30,920 opportunities to talk to people who have, you know, be 15 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,640 thoughtful, people who have, who have visited China and done a 16 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:36,000 little bit of travelling and so on. 17 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,120 You get a lot of people coming back saying, well, you know, I 18 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:41,760 was in Shanghai and the buildings are amazing, you know, 19 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:43,880 Well, that hardly gives you any insight. 20 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:46,800 And you start asking them a question of or two about like, 21 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:49,280 well, tell me about the surveillance state. 22 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:51,560 Tell me about, you know, and they don't have any insight. 23 00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:53,920 They haven't, they haven't even crossed their mind that, that 24 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:57,200 there was something like that to, to discuss, you know. 25 00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:02,320 Well, look, this is the thing. So first and foremost, I just 26 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:04,760 want to point out because whenever we have a discussion 27 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:07,640 like this, people say, oh, but if you're just a tourist, it 28 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:09,280 doesn't mean anything. You don't get any insight. 29 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:14,520 No, I think you, you do, you get a keyhole, but it's a keyhole 30 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:17,160 nonetheless. It's it's better than nothing. 31 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:21,840 Yes, but, but I think what, what, what, yeah, what you can 32 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:25,800 definitely get very quickly is, is if a very false impression 33 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,440 has been created in the, in the eye of the, in, in the, in the 34 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:33,560 public imagination. You know, that, oh, every, every 35 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:36,400 time you move, you've got to swipe your digital ID. 36 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:39,680 And if you jaywalk, you get knocks off the you know, that's 37 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:41,840 the kind of impression that I think many people have. 38 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:50,800 I remember if we just go back, there were two crazy psyops at 39 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:55,160 in the early stage of the COVID phenomenon involving China. 40 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:58,200 The the first one, which is the one that had the biggest 41 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:01,160 impression on me was the the famous falling man video. 42 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:03,240 You know, where this guy's like walking along the street and 43 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,960 then all of a sudden it's and plunks, he falls over, you know, 44 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,680 and we are all, yeah, we're all meant to believe that this is 45 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:14,240 what the novel deadly virus does, you know, and, and from 46 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:18,480 from for many observers at the time that that was actually the 47 00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:21,360 thing that that woke them up and said, hold on, what's going on 48 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:22,400 here? This isn't real. 49 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:25,080 Why is that? Why are we seeing this material 50 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:28,440 that's on Twitter, not, you know, a platform that ostensibly 51 00:03:28,440 --> 00:03:33,960 doesn't really exist in China, that it doesn't appear to be of 52 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:37,600 Chinese origin. What, you know, who's, who's 53 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:39,960 circulating this material and to what end. 54 00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:43,000 So that was the first one. And then the second one was the 55 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,240 notion of the, the, the draconian Chinese lockdown. 56 00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:50,240 You know, it didn't take long to dispel that one completely. 57 00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:52,480 A few phone calls to people to say, well, yeah, what's going 58 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:53,560 on? Are you guys locked down? 59 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:55,360 And no, no, we're not locked down. 60 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:59,000 It's, it's it, it looked like there was a real showboating 61 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:02,360 lockdown going on. And then The funny thing again, 62 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:07,400 the material purporting to record this draconian lockdown 63 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,040 did not appear to be of Chinese origin. 64 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:15,040 So, So what was going on? And, and, and so I think China 65 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:18,519 and conditions on the ground in China and the nature of the, the 66 00:04:18,519 --> 00:04:21,480 surveillance state there, the nature of the Communist Party 67 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:25,320 and so on. We, we, we, we are once again, 68 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:30,200 as is often the case, swimming through a sea of diversion and 69 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:34,560 misinformation. And under those conditions, I 70 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:40,920 think a visit with by, you know, even remotely curious mind can 71 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:46,280 do a lot to spell these notions. I went to, I think 9 Chinese 72 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:50,080 cities and I spend most of my time in the province of 73 00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:53,480 Xinjiang, which is by far the most militarised and the most 74 00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:56,880 politically sensitive. And you get a very different 75 00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:58,840 perception there than what you do in Shanghai. 76 00:04:58,840 --> 00:05:03,160 So I think, I think Shanghai, we can all agree, is just a mega 77 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,520 city. It's very, very similar to any 78 00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:11,920 other big city in the world. It doesn't have the kind of 79 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:15,600 draconianism that you would see on X. 80 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:18,720 At the moment. There seems to be this concerted 81 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,920 campaign, this anti China, what do you call it? 82 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:26,000 Sinophobic operation? This is very concerning. 83 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:30,920 It's clear to me that that China is a geopolitical target. 84 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:35,720 And in the same way that we have to always be vigilant with 85 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:38,680 everything that gets thrown at us, this is another one of those 86 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:40,000 that we need to be vigilant about. 87 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:45,000 And the the whole idea of digital idea has just suddenly, 88 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:50,360 like in Lord of the Rings, where where the focus of Sauron, the 89 00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:53,400 eye just changes and suddenly. Yeah. 90 00:05:53,520 --> 00:06:01,800 And, and what frustrates me, Nick, is I was there, I saw with 91 00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:05,680 my own eyes and I and I spoke to people and I asked them all 92 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:09,520 these sorts of questions and still coming back home, people 93 00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:12,760 go, it's all rubbish. This, this video on YouTube is 94 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:15,840 the truth. Yeah, that's it's, it's, it's 95 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:18,720 like this unbelievably tough nuts to crack. 96 00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:24,440 Yeah, I mean, do do you remember there was this fellow who gave 97 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:32,160 off in every way the heir of ACIA asset, My Call singer, who 98 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:36,360 was yes, yes, yes, yeah. Trying to pin the entire COVID 99 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,240 phenomenon on China. And. 100 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:44,440 And it came out pretty quickly. It was irremarkably well put 101 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:48,320 together, you know, supposedly by a guy operating completely 102 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:51,280 alone with no support staff, no funding, whatever. 103 00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:56,400 He writes this book and he also put these incredible pallets 104 00:06:56,400 --> 00:07:00,800 together of social media posts that were being amplified in a 105 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:04,240 sort of human bot fashion. So yeah, there'd be actual real 106 00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:08,520 S Africans, for example, promoting some posts about how 107 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:12,400 how we needed to we needed to lock down and we needed to do 108 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:15,080 the right thing and, and look after the elderly and whatever. 109 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:20,480 And the posts would have this remarkably similar language and, 110 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:22,920 and would suddenly appear, you know, people would pick up 111 00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:25,040 amplify exactly the same message. 112 00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:30,120 So I mean, the stuff was interesting, but he was a 1 113 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,240 trick pony. You know, you could say whatever 114 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:36,040 you want to do about the COVID phenomenon as long as it 115 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:40,560 implicated China. And so, so I think there's 116 00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:42,760 that's part of the same phenomenon here. 117 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,400 Yeah, definitely. I remember, I think, I think I 118 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:50,920 was driving to the city of Kashgar. 119 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:53,400 I might, I might have my cities wrong, but I think it was to 120 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:58,600 Kashgar when you and I chatted on WhatsApp and you asked me, do 121 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:01,720 you see these things that are on social media? 122 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:07,160 And the answer is yes and no. And, and this is this is, this 123 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:10,440 is where you, I think I've hit the nail on the head so many 124 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:12,000 times. We're dealing with complex 125 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,160 systems. You know, if we, if we're 126 00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:18,480 dealing with a country that has what, technically five time 127 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:21,920 zones or four time zones, and it's the size of the US and it's 128 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:26,000 got one and a billion people, you can't apply a single word 129 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,880 descriptor to the whole thing. It's just ridiculous. 130 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:32,080 Yes, you're dealing with the system as well. 131 00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:34,919 Yes, massive. And just between the provinces, 132 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:38,000 you know, like Shanghai, it's got 30, it's got 30 million 133 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:39,919 people, right. Then you've got the, the the 134 00:08:39,919 --> 00:08:43,240 province of Xinjiang. Just that province is 1 comma 135 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:45,200 three times larger than South Africa. 136 00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,000 Yeah. So, so I mean it, it's a 137 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,960 fascinating thing that because if you speak to Americans that 138 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:54,960 they'll have no problem acknowledging that the culture 139 00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:58,560 in San Francisco is very different from from the the 140 00:08:58,560 --> 00:09:02,720 culture in Houston, you know, that that they can imagine very 141 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:05,080 easily and that life on the ground is quite different in 142 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:08,560 those two places. That's not a difficult notion 143 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:11,680 for them to comprehend or it, it's unremarkable observation, 144 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:16,800 you know, but at when when it comes to this unknown BLOB, this 145 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:21,640 massive space on the map, there's an imagined homogeneity 146 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:27,640 that is completely, you know, incompatible with just the, you 147 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:30,520 know, in any kind of country or reality. 148 00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:36,520 Yeah, it's just this imagined, you know, uniformity and and I 149 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:41,480 think that that is kind of what's exploited when trying to 150 00:09:41,680 --> 00:09:45,960 create this idea of a monolithic communist beast. 151 00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:49,880 I noticed, I don't know if you saw this when you were in China, 152 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,240 but the Chinese people, when you speak to them, they don't care 153 00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:57,720 about these words like communist or socialist or capitalist. 154 00:09:57,720 --> 00:09:59,720 They don't care. They're just practical people 155 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:01,880 for the most part. They just want to make money and 156 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:05,800 they want to get things done. And historically, you, you see 157 00:10:05,800 --> 00:10:08,120 this is what this is what people in the West struggle with. 158 00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:12,240 They don't understand the historical context that led to 159 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:15,160 where China is now. If you talk to somebody who's in 160 00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:19,160 their 50s in China, in Shanghai, they will, they will tell you, 161 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:21,800 which they did to with me. They chatted to me and they said 162 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:25,320 in the 80s we had food rationing, right? 163 00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:28,440 We got a stamp and we would be given a basket of food. 164 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:34,200 Half of Shanghai was still rural and and they had mass amounts of 165 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:40,720 crime and poverty in 30 years. The government through a through 166 00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:43,800 a series of central control mechanisms, turned everything 167 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:45,360 around. And whether or not you like that 168 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:47,680 is not the point. It's that they did do it. 169 00:10:48,080 --> 00:10:51,680 And and you can understand when you talk to somebody in Shanghai 170 00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:54,960 now and they go, we love our government because look at what 171 00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:56,760 they've done. Shanghai is safe, it's highly 172 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:02,160 efficient, everything works. You can't say to them, Yeah. 173 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:04,080 I just want to pick up on one thing though. 174 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:05,960 Yeah, sure, sure. Sure, sure. 175 00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:09,400 Yes, they had some central control mechanisms, but the 176 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:15,480 overwhelming story of China is that of Deng Xiaoping liberating 177 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:20,880 the SME sector, which had previously been subjected to 178 00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:26,920 immense central control. And, and that basically led to 179 00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:32,760 an explosion in economic growth as the, the, the markets were, 180 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:35,240 were liberalised. I'm talking about product 181 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:37,240 markets, not stock markets or anything like that. 182 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:43,200 And and commerce was allowed to flourish for the first time in 183 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:46,680 in many decades. So there's actually a profound 184 00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:50,320 decentralising move that led to the growth. 185 00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:56,480 And then when, when you, you find in recent years that 186 00:11:56,480 --> 00:12:01,040 probably, let's call it the last 10 or so, some of those measures 187 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:04,040 have been tightened up again and, and the growth rate slows 188 00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:07,160 down. But, but I think your point is 189 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:10,680 well taken that, that the, if the, you know, the, if the 190 00:12:10,680 --> 00:12:14,840 experience on the ground is that of massively improved lifestyle 191 00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:18,040 and reduced hardship, then people are not going to care 192 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:19,880 about the polity that they're living under. 193 00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:24,880 What ISM is attracted to it. And I mean, I people say things 194 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:27,040 like, oh, but you know, you haven't got freedom of speech in 195 00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:28,880 China. Well, we've just spent five 196 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:32,240 years proving that we don't have freedom, freedom of speech 197 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:34,600 anywhere. Because you know, the moment you 198 00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:38,600 step out of the Everton window, the the media and social media 199 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:42,880 control mechanisms clamped down and, and yours, your your voice 200 00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:47,200 is suppressed. So I go, OK, so we, well, we 201 00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:51,360 don't have that here either. And what you know, do you have 202 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:52,400 freedom of movement? I. 203 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:55,800 Mean, yeah. It's relative though, Nick. 204 00:12:56,160 --> 00:12:59,720 Yeah, it's relative. You can choose. 205 00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:02,520 You choose your, your, your heel that you want to die on. 206 00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:07,160 So if you want to be a political cartoonist in China, no, it's 207 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:09,600 not a very good choice, right? You're not, you're not going to 208 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:11,600 do very well there because you can't really criticise the 209 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:13,480 government. The government, the government 210 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:17,520 of China is incredibly insecure, right? 211 00:13:17,520 --> 00:13:19,640 Incredibly insecure. You can't say anything positive 212 00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:21,760 about the president and you can't, you can't say anything 213 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:23,480 negative about the president. They just don't want you to 214 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:27,160 acknowledge them at all, right. And they are very bad at 215 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:29,680 propaganda and they are very bad at marketing themselves. 216 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,040 But if you want to go there, what's that? 217 00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:35,320 Yeah, You're very bad at propaganda. 218 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:40,240 Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely, they 219 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:42,800 don't do it very well. I mean, they, they, their whole 220 00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:46,680 style is just very cheap. They're not sophisticated in 221 00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:48,200 the, in the, in the propaganda output. 222 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:53,600 But what I was saying, what I was saying though, Nick is, is 223 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:56,800 if you want to be a political cartoonist in say, Europe, you, 224 00:13:56,880 --> 00:13:58,680 you still got a pretty good chance in America. 225 00:13:58,680 --> 00:14:01,320 You can do pretty well. You, you won't do well in China. 226 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,200 But let's say you want to be, I don't know, a historian like 227 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:07,320 David Irving and you want to research the Holocaust or World 228 00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:10,400 War 2, whatever that you cannot do in Europe, but you can do 229 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:14,000 that in China. So, so it depends on what it is 230 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,680 you want to, to, to have freedom of expression around, so to 231 00:14:18,680 --> 00:14:21,120 speak. But it's, it is relatively in 232 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:24,480 the sense that, I mean, it depends on what you want to 233 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,400 discuss. South Africa, we have, I think a 234 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:30,280 great deal of, of freedom of speech, if you think about it. 235 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:32,240 And if you compare to other countries, we're still pretty 236 00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:35,040 good here in that sense because the government is so useless and 237 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:38,440 so inept that it's not, it's not really able to to crack down on, 238 00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:41,280 on, on, on us saying, you know, dissident things. 239 00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:43,520 The Chinese government is a lot more efficient at that. 240 00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:45,880 But it doesn't really go around. And that's the other thing 241 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,480 again, it's always nuanced. It doesn't go around arresting 242 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:51,360 people and filling up its gaols. It just basically gives fines 243 00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:54,160 and cuts off the social media access for two weeks or 244 00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:57,200 whatever, you know? Yeah, yeah, sure. 245 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:01,720 Whereas whereas in the states you'll have you'll have the the 246 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:04,920 SWAT teams at 5:00 in the morning breaking down people's 247 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:06,880 front doors. Well, you really do. 248 00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:09,560 Yeah. That's what you'll see on social 249 00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:11,320 media. That might be the salient sort 250 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:15,480 of video. I often look at those things and 251 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:16,720 I just chuckle. Yeah. 252 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:18,600 The ones at the moment are that are classic. 253 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:20,320 Yeah. The British ones where you have 254 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:23,920 lots of handheld video. You know, somebody was shooting 255 00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:26,000 from a cell phone. Ostensibly, the police have 256 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,920 arrived at the front door to arrest them for posting 257 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:32,680 something on social media. I look at those things and my my 258 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:37,040 intuition bells go up and say that doesn't look real queries 259 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:41,840 that somebody's going to be. Let's talk about something 260 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:43,680 actual, you know, like something that's real. 261 00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,640 OK, so the first thing you notice when you go to Shanghai, 262 00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:48,400 and you might have noticed this when you're in China already. 263 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:50,720 I mean, and The funny thing is that China works in sort of five 264 00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:53,760 to 10 year blocks. So if you were in 2015, a lot 265 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:55,760 has changed. Yeah, sure, because they are. 266 00:15:55,760 --> 00:16:00,200 So they are so fast at what they do, But nonetheless, the first 267 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:04,280 thing you notice is there are cameras everywhere and China is 268 00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:06,440 quite technocratic. There's no doubt about it, it is 269 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,440 quite technocratic. Everywhere you go there are 270 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:10,880 cameras. I think Shanghai's got around 271 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,640 15,000,000 cameras installed, which is on. 272 00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:16,280 I think it's a, that's about 1 camera for every two people. 273 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:19,160 That's a lot of cameras. I mean, I remember when I was at 274 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:23,560 the airport in Chengdu and I was waiting at my gate, I looked 275 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,480 above me and I counted 5 cameras pretty much looking in my 276 00:16:26,480 --> 00:16:30,080 direction. It is insane. 277 00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:33,600 But yes, the thing, Nick, and this is, this is where the tug 278 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:36,840 of war starts happening. London also has a lot of 279 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,760 cameras. I think, let's say 24 million 280 00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:41,600 cameras, right? But there's a huge amount of 281 00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:43,200 crime. There's almost no crime in 282 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:45,840 Shanghai. Is that attributed to the 283 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:47,560 cameras or is it just a byproduct? 284 00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:51,000 I don't know. Yeah, but it's the political 285 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:55,520 will as well to do something, you know, to use the whatever 286 00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:58,880 devices they have at their disposal to do something and, 287 00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,880 and how this information is being used and processed, all of 288 00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:05,800 that. You know, I remember in, in 289 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:12,400 2008, thereabouts, on one trip, I had the same experience 290 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:17,560 happened twice, which is we went out to dinner with, you know, 291 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:20,880 local businessman. And there were there were 292 00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:23,560 questions that you ask in a restaurant where you could just 293 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:26,079 see them get all of a sudden uptight and nervous. 294 00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:29,680 And that would sort of indicate to you with their hands, let's 295 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:32,680 just leave that for later. And then what happened in both 296 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:36,040 cases was they proposed a walk home, you know, walk back to 297 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:42,600 walk us back to our hotels. And on that walk, they then 298 00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,960 answered your questions. So these were people who, you 299 00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:50,760 know, 1617 years ago were concerned enough that they might 300 00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:55,880 be surveilled in a in a restaurant because they were 301 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:59,160 talking to foreigners that that was actually a lively fear in 302 00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:01,480 their minds. And it's not as if we were 303 00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:04,520 asking them deep, dark political secrets. 304 00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:07,680 You know, it, it was, it was entirely commercial kind of 305 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:11,200 questioning like, you know, is it difficult to get approval 306 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,640 permits or something like that? You know, how long does it take 307 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:15,760 to register a company questions of this nature? 308 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:17,200 I can't remember what they actually were. 309 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:19,560 We would have done quite a lot of homework before getting 310 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:21,360 there, but there would have been a few things that we were not 311 00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:23,640 clear on, you know. So it was that kind of question, 312 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:25,960 some of those questions even just made them very nervous. 313 00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:28,880 You know, you could, I don't want to, didn't want to be in a 314 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:30,760 position of saying anything negative. 315 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:34,760 You know, they weren't even sure sometimes whether the answer 316 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:37,080 would be negative, you know, or perceived negatively. 317 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,280 That is exactly what I experienced. 318 00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:44,560 The locals still have AAI, don't see. 319 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:47,000 I don't know where it comes from, but they have a deep sense 320 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:52,280 of suspicion if you don't look like them, if you, if you're not 321 00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:57,000 Chinese. And even within China, there's a 322 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:02,000 suspicion like with the Uyghurs and the Tajiks and, and the, the 323 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:04,840 other types of folks on the, on the, on the, on the western 324 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:06,800 side. And that's why there's a what? 325 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:09,880 I'm sorry. On the periphery, yeah, 326 00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:12,000 Basically old peripheral nations, yeah. 327 00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:15,920 Tibet, Tibet figures, Mongols, all these. 328 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:19,520 Yeah. And I'm not sure. 329 00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:22,000 I'm not sure where that comes from, where that suspicion or 330 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,960 that or that paranoia that that could be a result of of, you 331 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,080 know, state indoctrination. But the thing. 332 00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:29,080 Yeah. And what's that? 333 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:31,400 It could be results propaganda, you know. 334 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:34,760 Yeah, yeah. Othering in propaganda. 335 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:36,080 We don't. It's difficult, you know. 336 00:19:36,120 --> 00:19:40,800 And again, you, you're dealing through the, the barrier of a 337 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,000 very different language and writing system. 338 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:48,280 So, so I'd imagine a lot is lost in translation when you're 339 00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:51,240 trying to pause the, the propaganda or the the the 340 00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,720 information structure, you know? But the thing that that I've 341 00:19:55,720 --> 00:20:01,080 noticed is that people are very quick to criticise aspects of 342 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,640 the Chinese system. Now, one thing that is very 343 00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,680 clear to me, Nick, is that the Chinese system is not trying to 344 00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:10,240 impose itself on the rest of the world. 345 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:12,440 In fact, the Chinese government has said that. 346 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,160 What works for us might not work for for other countries. 347 00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,520 But yeah, you have NATO countries that are trying to 348 00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:21,280 impose their system everywhere else. 349 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:23,680 You know, let's bring democracy and they invade and they bomb. 350 00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:27,000 I don't see that happening within, within the Chinese 351 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:28,440 system. They just kind of doing their 352 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:29,440 own thing. They are this. 353 00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,560 They are this entity that exists that if the whole world around 354 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:34,440 them disappeared, they would still be OK. 355 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:40,120 Yes, yeah. I mean, it's not despite its 356 00:20:40,120 --> 00:20:45,120 immense size and and and phenomenal sort of resourcing, 357 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:48,480 China's still still very dependent on the outside world. 358 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:52,280 Yes, but that's why you can. That's why you can access the 359 00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:53,840 outside world. Sorry. 360 00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:56,400 That's why you can access the outside world they don't 361 00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:59,400 actually clamp down on on the Internet. 362 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,560 Yeah, Yeah. Unlike Russia in this regard, 363 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,960 you know, Russia's to a large extent or tactic in the sense 364 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:09,040 that they could literally just close the borders and they'd be 365 00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:10,680 more or less fine. You know, there, there are very 366 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:15,320 few commodities that they they would not be able to obtain 367 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:19,160 themselves. And I think it's probably the 368 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:22,240 case that Russia's unique in the world in that regard. 369 00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:28,160 But China's not like that, you know, that does rely on heavily 370 00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:33,200 on imports of several commodities and and of course on 371 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:38,000 exports. So it it's a different beast 372 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,360 from Russia, I think. I was. 373 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:46,080 When I was in Shanghai, I visited a an economist friend of 374 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:49,400 mine. He's been living in in China for 375 00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,000 29 years. He speaks fluent Chinese and his 376 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,800 wife's Chinese. I think he has enough St cred to 377 00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:59,440 know about how the system works. And I asked him, We went for 378 00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:03,440 dinner and I asked him. I said what in your view was the 379 00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:08,000 primary vector that led to the turn around and his answer was 380 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,840 private property. For me, and for me, it's so 381 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:13,040 unremarkable to make that observation. 382 00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:15,280 Of course it relates to what I was talking about earlier. 383 00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:19,200 It was liberalisation and property rights becoming a thing 384 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,000 and people being allowed to practise whatever trade they 385 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:25,000 wanted. And you don't start whatever 386 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,640 business they wanted and interact with whomever they 387 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:32,280 wanted in the commercial space, you know, that that's your free 388 00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:38,360 market sort of world inserting itself inside a society that had 389 00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:44,840 previously been controlled in a very top down fashion or so or 390 00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:46,960 so or so the story goes, you know. 391 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,800 Yeah. I I wonder though, you know, OK, 392 00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,400 so, so your economist friend, did you ask him any questions 393 00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:00,200 about whether he felt that his life was materially impinged 394 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:02,760 upon by any of the state apparatus? 395 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:07,760 And what did he say? So we had a very interesting 396 00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,960 conversation and I recorded some of it on my phone just so that I 397 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,080 wouldn't forget about it if I wanted to reference him. 398 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,320 But just for the sake of because I haven't asked him if I can 399 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,000 mention his name, so I won't mention his name now. 400 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,840 But yes, what's really interesting. 401 00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:30,440 So he said, look, he because, OK, so how it works in China is 402 00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:32,320 you can't become a citizen unless you're Chinese. 403 00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:34,680 There isn't really a path to citizenship. 404 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,120 Even if you marry a Chinese person, if you yourself are not 405 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:40,120 sort of ethnically Chinese, you're not really going to 406 00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:42,200 become a Chinese citizen at any point in your life. 407 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,960 But you can be a resident. Chinese meaning Han Chinese or. 408 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:48,840 Han, Han, Han, Han. Yeah. 409 00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,040 Because I mean, they, they are the Super majority, about 90% of 410 00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:56,920 China's Han. And he said to me, he's little 411 00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,800 boy, he's got a 2 year old kid. At the moment. 412 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,840 The American embassy wants him to apply for his British, 413 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:10,360 British, he's American passport and he doesn't want that. 414 00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:12,040 He says he wants him to have a Chinese passport. 415 00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:14,520 Because he says despite everything and despite the fact 416 00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,440 that he does like some of Trump, what you know, Trump's policies 417 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,040 and some of the things that Trump says and does, he will 418 00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,640 still choose Xi Jinping despite everything. 419 00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:27,680 He'll still choose China as, as the better future for, for his 420 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:29,160 kid. I mean, I, I found that 421 00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:31,280 absolutely fascinating. And I asked, you know why? 422 00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,880 And he said because despite the fact that there is censorship, 423 00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,680 he says that can change because he says in the early 2000s, 424 00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:42,600 they, China was fairly, fairly open Internet wise. 425 00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,240 And it depends on who is the president at the time. 426 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:47,640 And, and people also forget this. 427 00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,920 You have, you have this party structure that that doesn't 428 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,680 change. The party is the party, but 429 00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,000 internally the members change. And sometimes you might have a 430 00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:59,800 more liberal president or you might have a more conservative 431 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,400 president, you know, legacy. Speaking currently, Xi Jinping 432 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,480 is not very good. And he says this guy is not, 433 00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,360 he's not doing good things for the country, but the next 434 00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:10,920 president might. Yeah, that, that is really 435 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,560 interesting. I, I'm not entirely surprised to 436 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:16,520 hear it. You know, I've heard similar 437 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:21,240 comments from from other people who've you've, you know, ended 438 00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,800 up are working in businesses in China for many years, that kind 439 00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,520 of thing. So that doesn't surprise me. 440 00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,000 You know, they're similar, similar discussions to be had, 441 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:42,440 for example, about the Emirati cities and you know, people, 442 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,880 people talk about the there, there are definitely 443 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,800 circumscriptions of life that you have to put up with. 444 00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,800 But you know, they're they're sort of tried that all for 445 00:25:52,360 --> 00:25:55,800 whatever it is crime free, administratively, 446 00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,440 administratively efficient life, you know, so people make these 447 00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:03,800 traders all the time. And it's not not at all 448 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:08,760 surprising to me. But the thing for me is I could 449 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:10,520 never live there. So I mean, here's the thing, why 450 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:11,560 not you? You have to what's? 451 00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:16,000 The thing? Culture, I think, Nick, I think 452 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,240 ultimately I cannot get past that language barrier. 453 00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:21,160 I cannot get past the cultural barrier. 454 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,960 It's just too much for me. So I found if I'm just, I found 455 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,960 the place back in the 2000s to be intensely alienating. 456 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,600 And there were some things which were totally abhorrent to me 457 00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,120 are, you know, just just for the benefit of listeners. 458 00:26:37,120 --> 00:26:40,400 I mean, I know you know this, but I, I love the Wilds. 459 00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:44,720 The Wilds, you know, I go to the Bush as often as I can and I'm 460 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,600 completely smitten by forests and savannas and so on. 461 00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:51,960 Bird watching's a big hobby of mine. 462 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:57,080 The attitudes towards wild animals in China completely 463 00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,960 freaked me out. Yes, yes, I found that too. 464 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,200 Yes, it's the sort of laughing at the suffering of animals and 465 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:08,320 things like that. Now, I'm far from like a sort 466 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,800 of, you know, what's the word animal rights activist or 467 00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:15,440 something like this. I'm not a vegan. 468 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:19,640 I'm not a, you know, not trying to throw red paint on people who 469 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,520 are wearing fur coats or anything like that. 470 00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:26,400 But there was something dispiritingly inhumane about the 471 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:31,120 whole attitude towards wildlife. And I've seen that outside of 472 00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:32,880 China too. And I've gone to visit the 473 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,040 forests of the lower Zambezi River Valley and in Mozambique, 474 00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,400 for example. And, and you, you arrive there 475 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:44,800 to find that some local official has made a deal with the Chinese 476 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:49,560 to Tara Road and presumably to receive a whole stack of brown 477 00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,520 envelopes. And that road has been used to 478 00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:56,360 strip the forests of the, of their hardwoods. 479 00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:59,200 And the forest is completely gone. 480 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,080 They don't go do anything selectively. 481 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,000 They'll just raise an entire forest to the ground, drive 482 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,880 their trucks out, and with that, the road surface collapses and 483 00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:13,680 the country is left with no trees, no Rd roads and a fat cat 484 00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,320 that's now emboldened by his new found riches. 485 00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,280 So you know, from that perspective, it's incredibly 486 00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,480 rapacious. And I've seen that I'm giving 487 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,360 you one instance. I've seen that in numerous 488 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:32,120 countries and in multiple places within single countries which 489 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:37,640 this this very sort of predatory kind of in your face extraction. 490 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,920 And, and, and, and you notice this also in the, in the wet 491 00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,360 markets, all the night markets, the food markets, there's just 492 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:48,800 no sense of, of, of respect. Well, I mean, yeah, it, I mean, 493 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,120 did you, did you spend much time in rural areas? 494 00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,560 Did you talk to people? I imagine it's very different. 495 00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,160 You would have needed to work through a translator and so on. 496 00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,120 But I mean, were you, were you talking to people in rural 497 00:28:58,120 --> 00:28:59,800 areas? Did you detect a difference in 498 00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,440 the sort of agrarian world from the the the city world? 499 00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:07,000 Definitely it will. Look in Shanghai, you don't see 500 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,320 any animals because it's just a huge mega city. 501 00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,440 But when I was in Xinjiang, I mean, I was in a number of of 502 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:18,280 fairly small cities. And you still don't, you still 503 00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:22,040 don't get the impression that they have a, a sense of respect 504 00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:26,000 for for animals. It's almost as though the 505 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,680 animals are just commodities. Yeah, I was surprised when I was 506 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,920 in Shanghai to see an article in one of those English language 507 00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,120 news sheets, you know, and, and, and, and the, the thing that 508 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:41,040 drew my attention was there was an image of of an, of an egret 509 00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:46,640 in the, in, in on the one page. And the egret appeared to be 510 00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:48,760 tangled up in something. And you think, oh, that's quite 511 00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,320 surprising. Here's a, here's a story about 512 00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,640 how they rescued the, a bird out of an entanglement. 513 00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,520 And the article wasn't like that at all. 514 00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,280 It was basically an article about how stupid the bird was 515 00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,840 that it flew into this thing. And, and I, I was, whoa, what's 516 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:04,440 that about? You know, when do you get to 517 00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,360 that? How do you get to somebody 518 00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,960 thinking that that's the article you need to write and that will 519 00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,600 be consumed? And that goes beyond weirdness, 520 00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,160 you know, and that's what I meant by that sort of profound 521 00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,400 sense of alienation. And in so many interactions are, 522 00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,040 are just completely unrecognisable. 523 00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,040 And, and you know, you, you and I are people who come from a, a 524 00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,560 country that is, has remarkable ethnic and cultural diversity. 525 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,680 And, and so we're used to things not being done according to the 526 00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:38,440 lights of your own immediate reference points and so on. 527 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,400 We're completely used to that. We're much more tolerant of that 528 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,200 kind of thing or accepting or able to navigate that kind of 529 00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:47,800 thing. Then, then, then I think most 530 00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:49,880 people in Europe and America are, for example. 531 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:54,000 But still, when you arrive there with all the will in the world, 532 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,280 you just find yourself hitting that brick wall of of of of the 533 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,400 alien you know? It's interesting though, because 534 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,040 I don't know if you remember, but when you order food, they 535 00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,040 tend to bring the entire animal to your table. 536 00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:16,240 And I think that is a a sign of trust is like this is what we're 537 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,400 going to give you to eat. So here it is. 538 00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,720 I'm not used to seeing an entire lamb arriving on the table, you 539 00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,160 know, or an entire duck. But. 540 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,920 But there it's been weird that because it also implies that, 541 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:32,480 you know, if they didn't do that, they would be doing 542 00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:33,640 something. If they didn't show you the 543 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,120 animal, there would be some other con job being done in the 544 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,480 background. Or that the level of suspicion 545 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,560 of restaurant tours in the society is such that you have to 546 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,160 actually do that. I mean, Can you imagine going to 547 00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,120 a steakhouse in Cape Town and insisting that the guy bring the 548 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,920 cow? You know, it's a kind of a 549 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,720 strange phenomenon. I'm not too sure that it speaks 550 00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,920 very well of them. You know, Let me. 551 00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,760 Can I ask you though? Yeah, sure. 552 00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,080 This Let's go back to that the surveillance story. 553 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,920 Yes, yes, because we're going to get, we're going to get grilled 554 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,240 if we don't talk about that. Yeah, so let let, I mean, the 555 00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:15,080 imagery that we are asked to swallow is of swathes of people 556 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,200 being locked out of their ability to purchase basic goods 557 00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,800 and services because they've had too many traffic fines or 558 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:27,320 whatever, you know, and, and sleeping rough on the on the 559 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,040 streets. And I remember from the the 560 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,720 apartheid era how people sleeping rough were often, you 561 00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,160 know, misrepresented or a picture was taken of a guy 562 00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,960 sleeping in a park a day. And, and this is now a person 563 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,000 who's been killed by the security forces, you know, that 564 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:45,960 kind of thing. There's all sorts of 565 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:47,880 misrepresentations that can take place. 566 00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,240 And I'm not saying that images even have to be fact, they can 567 00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,840 be real images. But did you get a sense that 568 00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,640 there there's a system that's alive and well and poised to 569 00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,680 pounce on you and extract? You from No, no Nick. 570 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:06,400 So OK, all right, so here we go. So you have to break apart what 571 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:11,960 what social credit means #1 if you have a criminal record in 572 00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,320 South Africa or in any country, you're going to struggle to get 573 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,920 a bank loan. Now that is a social credit 574 00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:23,040 score right off the bat. It is based on your behaviour 575 00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,040 and you have a negative score, right? 576 00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,520 I remember in the early 2000s when I was in Sydney, I don't 577 00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,400 know if it's still like this, but I remember then already that 578 00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,320 they were implementing or they already had a demerit system. 579 00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:40,920 So if you get like 15 points as a as a driver and if you violate 580 00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,600 the road rules a certain amount of times, you lose all these 581 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,640 points and then you lose your ability to drive for six months 582 00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,640 or 12 months or whatever it is. And then you have to apply for a 583 00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,160 licence again or something like that, right? 584 00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,720 That's also a social credit score because it's based on your 585 00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,320 behaviour. Now social credit scoring, I'm 586 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,160 not saying is good or bad, I'm not giving a moral judgement, 587 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,640 but I'm saying that it is there and it is everywhere around us 588 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:12,239 to different degrees. So yes, there are social credit 589 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,239 scores in China. You will struggle to to get 590 00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:19,480 certain loans from the bank, for example, if you have a criminal 591 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,280 record. But if you're talking about 592 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,560 jaywalking, so this is a this is a popular one. 593 00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,280 I jaywalked all the time in Shanghai and in every city I was 594 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,639 jaywalking and why not? Because I was trying to be a 595 00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:32,800 rebel, but simply because I, it's, it's not something that I 596 00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,440 think about. I being a South African, I just 597 00:34:35,639 --> 00:34:37,400 across the road where, where it's safe. 598 00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,320 So I don't look for, I don't look for pedestrian crossing. 599 00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:43,440 I just go, OK, there aren't any cars coming me quickly run 600 00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,239 across the road. Now that's, that's technically 601 00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,159 jaywalking and, and in most mega cities like Shanghai, they don't 602 00:34:50,159 --> 00:34:53,840 really like that. Nonetheless, here I am. 603 00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,320 I didn't get any fines. I saw people riding motorbikes 604 00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,560 without helmets on. Apparently that is against the 605 00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:04,720 law, but I saw it many times. People were jaywalking 606 00:35:04,720 --> 00:35:07,440 everywhere. There are no big screens with 607 00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:10,440 people's profiles appearing saying, well, this person has 608 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,800 violated the law. So yeah, yeah, let's make a 609 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,600 mockery of them. So none of that. 610 00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:17,960 Yeah, OK. I guess the, the question is, 611 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,960 you know, I often just like to remind people that that social 612 00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,560 credit credit systems have been in place for, for many years. 613 00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:31,800 They're just not operated in a, in a very centralised way. 614 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,920 So like the, the, the entire social process of having a 615 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,800 reputation, you know, what is reputation? 616 00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:44,040 It's credit, social credit. So if you're, if you, if you're 617 00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:47,200 a Cape Town businessman and you, you develop a reputation for 618 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,920 sharp dealing, you might find that I hear about it. 619 00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,040 And so when I get a phone call or an email from you, I'm, I'm 620 00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,400 looking at and saying, what's the sky on about? 621 00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:59,520 No, I don't think I'm going to have a meeting with him. 622 00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,160 Whatever it, whatever's, there's no good that can come of it. 623 00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,560 And so I've asked that person out of a segment of the economy 624 00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:12,360 by virtue of my own just perhaps prejudicial responses to their 625 00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:15,160 reputation or my perception of their reputation. 626 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:20,520 And so when social creditors for millennia operated at a very 627 00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:25,000 local level and, and what's happening now is that the 628 00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:33,560 technology is sort of starting to appear to maybe enable this 629 00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,840 reputation management to be conducted at an intensely 630 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:41,320 centralised level. One where the, you know, you're, 631 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,160 you have no connection to the, the person who's making the 632 00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:47,520 judgement or the device that's making the judgement, the 633 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,240 algorithm that's making the judgement. 634 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,760 And I, I look at that as a model and I say, well, that's going to 635 00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:54,920 be horribly decoherent. That's going to collapse. 636 00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:56,600 There will be so many contradictions. 637 00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,640 Automating that kind of thing is not possible. 638 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,800 You know, the, the judgement I'm making about the businessman 639 00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,720 depends on huge range of factors, the reliability of the 640 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,440 people telling me the stories about him, you know, or, or when 641 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,680 they stack up with my past experience or, or whether I've 642 00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:14,800 heard something else that also confirms that. 643 00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:19,240 You know, there's lots of intuitional material coming into 644 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:22,200 that decision about whether I exclude them from my commercial 645 00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,440 realm. Whereas that stuff is all lost 646 00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,960 in algorithmic systems and at the top. 647 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,760 But I also think it would deco here so quickly, the decisions 648 00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,120 that would be being made that the system would become 649 00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,720 unmanageable fairly quickly. Yes. 650 00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,040 Also the thing, Nick, is, I mean, when I was in Urumji, 651 00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,280 which is the capital of Xinjiang, I mean it's a much 652 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,800 smaller city, I think for 4 million people or something, 653 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:49,800 which by Chinese standards is not very big. 654 00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,560 I did still see a lot of surveillance cameras. 655 00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,400 But something that occurred to me while I was there is how do 656 00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,120 you know that every single one of those cameras is operational? 657 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,160 We know that we have cameras here in South Africa that have 658 00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:06,600 they're just empty boxes. They're just there as an 659 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:08,760 illusion to trick you into thinking there's a camera. 660 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,480 I mean, if so many people are jaywalking and not right wearing 661 00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:13,840 helmets and all that kind of thing. 662 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,600 And it's it does sometimes look like chaos, like it's just the 663 00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,680 streets are just a mess. Yeah, you go, OK, well, I don't 664 00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:22,040 know. Do the are those cameras really 665 00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,080 working? Is it just there for for for 666 00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:29,640 appearances? This is and sorry. 667 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:35,160 And this is the other thing the the propaganda of of of the West 668 00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,520 makes it seem like the Chinese government is unbelievably 669 00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:40,400 efficient. Yeah. 670 00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,680 And it's not. No, of course not. 671 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,720 And and also the Chinese businesses are unbelievably 672 00:38:46,720 --> 00:38:48,240 efficient. I mean, I ran several 673 00:38:48,240 --> 00:38:51,480 experiments there, you know, taking South African factory 674 00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,840 managers through, you know, sending them on tours through 675 00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:58,800 plants and asking them to register efficiencies at every, 676 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,280 every point in production. And the one businessman who's 677 00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,520 still, I'm still very close to him, I'll never forget it. 678 00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:07,520 Yeah. He came back and he said it's 679 00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,720 not that they're inefficient in some areas, they're inefficient 680 00:39:10,720 --> 00:39:13,600 in all areas. There were more people involved 681 00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:14,960 each task. There was this. 682 00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:17,480 There was less thoroughness in each task there. 683 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,240 There were more rejects. There was there were more 684 00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:22,560 production errors there. There were more quality control 685 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,400 problems. You know, they, they, they 686 00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,840 reported back in this way and, and yet we were all at that 687 00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,520 stage believing that, that you couldn't compete with these 688 00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,280 Chinese guys because they were so ruthlessly efficient and all 689 00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,440 the factors of production cost less and everything that, that, 690 00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,040 that didn't actually really stack up when you scratched 691 00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,880 beneath the surface a bit. So you, you mentioned earlier in 692 00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:48,000 the conversation the, the concept of paranoia or of 693 00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:54,040 insecurity on behalf of the, the, the, the party, you know, 694 00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,880 and, and I think people who sight of that, that the, the 695 00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:06,760 main drive towards centralised control is perhaps not the 696 00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:11,880 accretion of vast resources or, or an ego trip, but a 697 00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:16,760 fundamental insecurity. That you know the reason you 698 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,360 want to see things centralised, as you're terrified about what 699 00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,560 might happen in a decentralised world. 700 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:29,280 Yes, exactly. Yeah, Well, and but also the 701 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:33,520 last five years, one of the big talking points that we've heard, 702 00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,600 you know, the sceptic folks talking about a sovereignty, 703 00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,080 everything's about sovereignty. We've got to got to got to get 704 00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,760 these foreign forces out of our country, OK? 705 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,680 But that's what China has been doing. 706 00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:47,680 I'll link it back. Let me link it back to the your 707 00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,120 observation about the lack of subtlety in the propaganda. 708 00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:54,200 I think that's, you know, I'd mentioned the example of the 709 00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:58,400 rapacious behaviour on the the forests, but I would never for a 710 00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,720 minute believe that the destructiveness of Chinese 711 00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:06,600 activities in Africa exceeded that of American activities. 712 00:41:07,240 --> 00:41:10,320 You know, there what happens is you, there's no, you won't see 713 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,600 something, you know, naked like that. 714 00:41:13,240 --> 00:41:16,840 Build a thin Rd, extract the forest, leave a sand Rd behind. 715 00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,840 That kind of activity would not be typical of America's modus 716 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,200 operandi. But what is typical is the 717 00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,800 undermining of governments and not because they're doing 718 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,800 something wrong or because they're they're infringing on 719 00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,480 human rights simply because they're actually starting to 720 00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:41,960 assert a degree of independence OR to offer the potential for a 721 00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:45,560 country to become wealthier. You know, Americans want cheap 722 00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,800 resources, so they want instability in Africa. 723 00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:53,280 And they do that through an elaborate network of of of CIA 724 00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,480 cut out organisations. They can turn that. 725 00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,440 We've seen it around the world. You know, Georgia, Nepal, recent 726 00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:05,600 being recent phenomena where where's there's just a kind of a 727 00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:10,720 switch that's turned on and the the hand of the CIA is palpable. 728 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:16,320 And there you go. Suddenly everything's upturned 729 00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:19,880 upended in that country. But I want to also point out 730 00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,280 just on that surveillance issue which we haven't touched on yet 731 00:42:23,720 --> 00:42:27,280 is the surveillance in China is very blatant. 732 00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,880 It's in your face, right? It is everywhere and and they 733 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,800 have this approach where they want you to know that it's that 734 00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,600 it's there. Let's compare that to Palantir. 735 00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:41,080 Let's compare that to Stargate. Let's compare that to what's 736 00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:43,400 going on on the other side of the world where it's all 737 00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,400 subversive. You're not sure, you know, 738 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,920 you're not sure what's going on on your phone, for example, You 739 00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:50,880 know what I mean? Now, we've all had that creepy 740 00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,440 experience where you do a Google search and for the next three 741 00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,680 days you're pelted with advertising for the thing that 742 00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:57,000 you searched for. That kind of thing. 743 00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:00,400 Yeah. And, you know, I see my 744 00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,560 information is being used in a really quite arcane fashion, you 745 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,480 know? Yeah, I totally agree with you. 746 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,920 I find Palantir a much more creepier phenomenon than the 747 00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:10,640 Chinese Communist Party. No question. 748 00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:15,360 Let's take ourselves back in Europe a couple of 100 years. 749 00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,200 Did the average person walking around in Europe believe that 750 00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:23,000 somebody was watching him? I think he did. 751 00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:28,200 There was a real visceral belief that God was watching them your 752 00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,120 every move. So it was life very different 753 00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,200 from for that European versus one in ours. 754 00:43:34,720 --> 00:43:39,040 You can see the cameras. Somebody's watching him in some 755 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:44,440 ways that that sort of the, the, the dominant belief structure 756 00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:49,200 was, was far more invasive because you had this like, if 757 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:55,120 you like a AGI, you know, not, not only watching you when you 758 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,360 were, when you had the camera pointing at you, but watching 759 00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,360 you at all times and knowing your every thought and action. 760 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:07,360 And you know, if that sense of the world was still manageable, 761 00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:13,960 then you know what, what, how, how different is that in 762 00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,960 compared to the modern case? And I guess it comes down to 763 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:19,840 what is done with the information you know. 764 00:44:20,240 --> 00:44:22,200 We all exactly. OK, so let me give you an 765 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,600 anecdote. So we were, we, we drove through 766 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,240 the Taklamakan Desert and most people don't even know what it 767 00:44:30,240 --> 00:44:31,680 is. But it's, I think it's the 768 00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,000 world's second largest moving desert. 769 00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,400 I mean, it's it, it feels alive. The dunes are moving all the 770 00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,640 time. It's it's an incredibly big 771 00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,720 desert. And you forget that a 772 00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:46,080 technologically advanced country like China does have deserts. 773 00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:51,880 And we drove through from, so we did a cross section from the 774 00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,440 north to the South of the, of the desert, which was about 11 775 00:44:54,440 --> 00:45:00,840 hour drive. And we, we stopped off at what 776 00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:05,160 they would consider a top of Grand Canyon, Very, very 777 00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:08,960 beautiful rock formation that looks like a Grand Canyon 778 00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,560 because of the way the, the mountain kind of runs parallel 779 00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:14,440 to itself. It's it's gorgeous. 780 00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:20,240 We are in the middle of nowhere, but there was a law, a by law 781 00:45:20,240 --> 00:45:24,000 that stated for the two weeks that we were in Xinjiang in that 782 00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,680 province, no drones were allowed across the entire province 783 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:33,800 because it was, it felt in into the time period of the 70th 784 00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,600 anniversary of the autonomy of the Xinjiang province. 785 00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,520 It's a big thing. Huge, huge celebrations. 786 00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:41,360 Yeah, yeah. You're going to say. 787 00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:43,440 No, no, no, I'm listening. Very interesting. 788 00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,880 Oh, right, right. And, and, and Xi Jinping flew to 789 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:50,400 the province to to, you know, form part of the celebrations. 790 00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,160 We were just there at the same time. 791 00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,360 So for two weeks, no drones were allowed anywhere. 792 00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:58,640 OK, But we now in the middle of the desert and we here by this, 793 00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:00,560 this this mini Grand Canyon story. 794 00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:04,400 And the, the, the guy that that we're with, or that's with us, 795 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,520 one of the film crew, he decides he's going to send he's drone up 796 00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,320 in the sky and just get some beautiful footage. 797 00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:11,440 I mean, we're in the middle of nowhere. 798 00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,240 I kid you not, Nick, about 20 minutes later, the police pitch 799 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:22,240 up and they asked us who was flying the drone in the middle 800 00:46:22,240 --> 00:46:25,480 of nowhere. All right, we'll come to that in 801 00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:27,880 a second. So then they they, they took 802 00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,120 down the information of the drone because you have to all 803 00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:32,640 drones have to be registered and they took it down. 804 00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:34,840 They asked to look at the footage. 805 00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:37,560 No issues. Didn't have to delete anything 806 00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,160 that they said. Look, you may not fly drones, 807 00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,200 OK? Then we, we sat in the car to 808 00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,240 was trying to figure this out. OK, so #1 it's a DJ. 809 00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:52,240 Yeah, it's a DJI drone. So we think that because it uses 810 00:46:52,240 --> 00:46:56,280 satellites to, to, to, to know where it is, it's sending that 811 00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:58,200 information to, to the authorities. 812 00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:02,120 That's I think what's going on. And it's fairly accurate. 813 00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,000 The fact that they came straight to us and asked who threw the 814 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:09,760 drone in the middle of a desert, that is very, very creepy and 815 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:15,360 that I don't like. No, that that is rather speaky 816 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,200 here. I don't like the word communist 817 00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,040 because I don't really know what that means anymore. 818 00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,160 Nick, when you go to when you go to China, you don't see 819 00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,400 communism. You do see it, but you don't see 820 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:24,960 it. It doesn't. 821 00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:26,120 The whole thing doesn't make sense. 822 00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:28,840 It does science and what is true. 823 00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:30,920 Yeah, it has. It has features, yeah. 824 00:47:31,240 --> 00:47:33,720 Capitalism, you know, So yeah, it's not a communist system. 825 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,560 No, but the government does control the banks, and it does 826 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,520 control. The utilities, enterprises, 827 00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:45,520 etcetera, yeah. But yet it works. 828 00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:47,320 And this is this is the tug of war. 829 00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:51,080 The philosophical conundrum that I find myself having is that I 830 00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:54,920 cannot make a claim that it's that is dystopian, and I cannot 831 00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,360 make a claim that it's rainbows. Yeah, it could be the case that 832 00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,600 that type of system will never see Chinese people have their 833 00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,640 living standards elevated to the level of Europe or America over 834 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:09,680 the last 50 years or whatever, you know, because they're still 835 00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:12,280 sitting at what, like a 10th of that level. 836 00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,800 You know, and I always remind people, Can you imagine cutting 837 00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:20,480 90% of your consumption? You know, just imagine, like 838 00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:24,320 you, I said to you, look, you can live exactly the same way as 839 00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:26,640 you always have, but you have to spend 90% less. 840 00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,120 What? It doesn't even make sense. 841 00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,440 You can't do it. So, so like a 90% cut in 842 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:36,520 consumption puts you, you know, in, in, in the, the position, if 843 00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,600 you like, of a hypothetical Chinese counterpart. 844 00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:41,560 That's a long way to catch up still. 845 00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,080 And I'm not sure that it's going to happen under that kind of 846 00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,120 system. That would be, my sense is that 847 00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:51,680 they're actually have accepted a trade off between the, the 848 00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,960 potential for growth and the, and the loss of control. 849 00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:00,000 Did you ever encounter a sense of that they were regarding you 850 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,440 as sort of disgusting or, you know, some kind of racist 851 00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,240 attitude towards you or looking at you as if you were like a 852 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,800 alien? You get that sense. 853 00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:10,040 What do you think? It was fairly. 854 00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:12,400 They were not. No, I don't think they looked 855 00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:16,600 down on me. I certainly think that they feel 856 00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,000 themselves to be very superior. I'm looking at the time now. 857 00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,760 We're coming in for a landing, but I think there is, I think 858 00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:25,200 there's a lot that we can learn from them. 859 00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:29,280 Their big selling point is technological advancement. 860 00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:31,520 I think there's a lot more to life than just that. 861 00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:33,760 We spoke about wildlife and animals. 862 00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,280 And like you, I prefer being in Africa. 863 00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:42,240 I want to be able to go into the Bush and, and I don't want to go 864 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:46,120 through checkpoints to do that, you know, But I think there are 865 00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:49,520 sort of cultural characteristics of the Chinese that I think we 866 00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:53,760 should, we should adopt. I think when last five years, 867 00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,040 the people that we've been chatting to have all been 868 00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,600 talking about the importance of community and family. 869 00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:03,120 Well, they, they have it. They, they do have it and we can 870 00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:05,160 learn from them and that, but I think there are other things 871 00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,440 that we can learn to avoid. And I, I think there's a lot of 872 00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,000 sort of technocratic stuff there that that I just don't like. 873 00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:15,600 Sure. Well, that's a good summary, 874 00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:16,880 Chairman. That's been very interesting. 875 00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,920 I I really appreciate it chatting to you and getting some 876 00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:24,000 first hand reporting from a from a scallywag on the ground. 877 00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,000 Nick, how can my audience follow you? 878 00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:37,080 I'm on X at at Nick Hudson CT and also on sub stack with a 879 00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,640 similar handle. So that's it.