A Chinese nuclear power plant needs to be shut down
Another disastrous meeting between the US and China
And China meets with the Taliban
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark. If you’re going to be doing stuff on the internet—like
watching videos about Chinese coverups—you should be using a VPN to protect your identity.
So, you may remember, back in June, the Taishan
Nuclear power plant in China had a wee bit of a problem.
French power group EDF said on Monday it had been informed of a build-up of inert gases at its plant
in China, and had called for a meeting with its Chinese partner. CNN also reported that Framatome,
the EDF unit which designed the reactor, had warned of an "imminent radiological threat."
But China said everything was fine.
State-run China General Nuclear Power Group, the majority owner of the joint venture with EDF
said in a statement on its website on Sunday that operations at the nuclear
power station met safety rules and the surrounding environment is safe.
Yes, it met safety rules...that the Chinese regime changed.
“China’s nuclear regulator had raised the plant’s radiation emission limits” to avoid a shutdown.
It’s not a problem if you just change the definition of what is a problem.
Well we now have an update on the Taishan Nuclear Plant.
The French co-owner says the problems are serious enough that the plant should be shut down.
But, even though they’re a co-owner of the plant, , it’s the Chinese side that
gets to make that call. Which means it's not shutting down.
But that’s fine. EDF says it’s “not an emergency situation”.
It’s just a “serious situation that is evolving.”
Like when a Magikarp evolves into a Gyarados.
It’s perfectly harmless. Until it becomes a gigantic dragon. Or something like that.
But nuclear power plants aren’t the only concern.
China is also radically expanding its nuclear missile capabilities.
According to satellite images obtained by the Federation of
American Scientists China is building 110 new nuclear missile silos in Xinjiang.
Not to be confused with the 120 new missile silos discovered earlier this month.
Those are different recently discovered missile silos.
I don’t want to be an alarmist here or anything.
Now, we know Chinese state-run media always like to criticize America’s Cold War mentality.
However, “The Chinese missile silo program constitutes the most extensive silo construction
since the US and Soviet missile silo construction during the Cold War.”
You know what the Cold War mentality was? The US doing
everything in its power to stop a hostile Communist regime from
taking over the world. I think we could use a little more Cold War mentality.
Then maybe we could have good James Bond movies again.
A new report from the RAND Corporation has sort of a good news,
bad news take on China’s military development.
So on the one hand, China’s rapid military build up has been almost
entirely based on stealing from the West. That’s bad.
But “China’s reliance on theft of intellectual property for its weapon development
has helped keep it competitive but has pegged it several years behind the cutting edge.”
Yeah, they’re only just getting to Cold War era nuclear build up.
But President Biden has a chilling new
message about where all the cyber attacks from China may lead us.
If we end up in a war, a real shooting war with a major power,
it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence.
A shooting war with China? Good to know. That way, I can follow the New York Times’ advice,
to invest in China but without illusions.
Sure, “American officials say China is now America’s most
threatening adversary and engages in pervasive human rights violations.”
“But it’s also worth noting that since the reopening of China in the 1970s and 1980s,
there has been ‘a remarkable improvement in the quality of day-to-day life
for hundreds of millions of people,’” according to an investment strategist.
Maybe this article should have been called “Invest in China but keep your illusions.” Like the
illusion that the Chinese regime isn’t committing genocide and killing people to sell their organs.
Otherwise, you might have to stop justifying investing in China.
And after the break,
there’s an even easier way for China to catch up with American military technology.
Welcome back.
China doesn’t need to always hack the US
to steal military technology. It can just buy people off. I know, shocking.
An electrical engineer from Los Angeles
has been sentenced to five years in prison for selling missile technology to China.
The guy was from Hollywood Hills. Now that’s a real box office bomb.
The US and China have held another high level meeting this week.
And it went about as well as the one in March.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with China’s Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng. Then
she met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. It was here, in the Chinese city Tianjin.
And it got spicy.
Xie said the US was turning China into an “‘imaginary enemy’
to reignite its own ‘sense of national purpose.’”
Right, the imaginary enemy that’s building hundreds of nuclear missile silos.
According to the State Department, Sherman raised concerns about human rights,
including the crackdown in Hong Kong, the genocide in Xinjiang, and abuses in Tibet.
And yes, the State Department is still calling it a genocide.
Meanwhile, Wang demanded the US not cross “‘three bottom lines;’—Xinjiang, Tibet,
and Hong Kong—claiming that the three issues had ‘nothing to do with human rights or democracy.’”
And in a way, the Chinese Communist Party is right. Those three regions
no longer have anything to do with human rights or democracy.
China also demanded the US end sanctions on Chinese officials.
That came right after China sanctioned US officials.
And Beijing thrusted long lists of demands at the Biden administration.
It was what the State Department called a “frank and open” discussion.
Sure sounds like it.
So that might not have been
the most successful meeting. Hopefully Secretary of State Antony Blinken has better luck.
With the meeting he had this week. With a representative of the Dalai Lama in India.
I guess the US is also trying its hand at troll face diplomacy.
The Chinese regime, eager to show that there’s no genocide in Xinjiang,
gave AP journalists a tour of a detention center in the city of Urumqi.
As one official told them, “See, the BBC report said this was a re-education
camp. It’s not—it’s a detention center.”
First of all, saying “it’s not a reeducation camp, it’s a detention center” does not make it better.
“See? It’s not a camp where we’re imprisoning and torturing people!
It’s a detention center where we’re imprisoning and torturing people!”
Also, the AP reporters investigated and found out that it was a re-education camp in 2018...that
the authorities then turned into a detention center.
So that tour kind of backfired.
But some of the Chinese Communist Party’s repression is going just swimmingly.
The first person tried under Hong Kong’s
national security law has been found guilty of secessionism and terrorism.
“The trial...was held in the High Court with no jury, under rules allowing this exception
from Hong Kong’s common law system if state secrets need to be protected,
foreign forces are involved or if the personal safety of jurors needs to be
protected.” )
In other words, they can abolish trial by jury now whenever they want.
With this conviction for secessionism and terrorism, it’s clear Hong Kong has become
just another Chinese city. Only a little less Shanghai, and a little more Urumqi.
Just waiting for those reeducation camps. Sorry, detention centers.
The Chinese Communist Party
loathes terrorism. And they proved it by offering a warm welcome to the Taliban!
As American forces and their NATO allies withdraw from Afghanistan,
Chinese officials are meeting representatives of the Taliban. . . who they say will play a quote,
"important role" in Afghanistan's future. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the nine-person
delegation in the Chinese city of Tianjin. Foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian:
“Wang Yi pointed out that the Afghan Taliban is a pivotal military and
political force in Afghanistan and is expected to play an important role
in peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan."
Because when I think of peaceful reconciliation, I think of the Taliban.
Just like when I think of human rights, I think of China.
And finally today, a wealthy Chinese pig farmer has been jailed for “provoking trouble.”
Incidentally, he was also “an outspoken supporter and friend of Chinese political dissidents.”
Sadly, this pig farmer will no longer be able to bring home the bacon.
My advice is, if you’re going to support Chinese political dissidents,
at least hide your identity so the government can’t spy on you.
And the best way to do that is with a VPN, like Surfshark.
When you go online—especially in China—you
need to be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect your identity.
Everytime you write an online comment, or send an email to your dissident friends,
or visit a subversive website, governments and your internet service provider can see
everything you do. And that’s scary. Especially if you’re in a country that arrests people
and puts them on secret trials without juries.
So whenever you go online, especially if you ever use public Wifi,
you really should be using Surfshark to protect yourself.
Plus, you can use one Surfshark account on an unlimited number of devices.
Surfshark is also a cool company because they’ve been sponsoring China Uncensored
for more than two years—supporting us even as YouTube censors and demonetizing us.
So if you need a VPN—and trust me, you do—check out Surfshark.
Go to surfshark.com/uncensored
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.