President Trump’s State of the Union Address
singles out Chinese theft of US jobs
as US-China trade talks continue.
That and more on this week’s China news headlines.
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
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This week’s China news headlines.
You’ve been waiting all year for it.
No, not the last Stars Wars movie.
President Trump’s State of the Union address.
They hyped it up big time,
what with that whole, Nancy Pelosi blocking it
if we don't have a government thing.
Man, they know how to sell out a show.
And may I just ask, have you been enjoying
your government shutdown purge?
I know I have.
What’s that Shelley?
Crime is still illegal during a government shutdown?
Yes of course I know that.
Anyway, this week we finally got
this year’s State of the Union address,
and the state of the union is…great...again?
I assume.
But in the hour plus long speech,
President Trump delivered on his crowd pleasing favorite—
China.
“We are now making it clear to China
that after years of targeting our industries
and stealing our intellectual property,
the theft of American jobs and wealth
has come to an end.”
And the crowd goes wild!
Although, that’s still just aspirational.
The Chinese Communist Party hasn’t actually
stopped stealing American jobs and wealth.
But that’s what Trump hopes to get out of
the latest round of trade negotiations.
There’s less than a month left for the US and China
to agree to a new trade deal.
If that fails, President Trump will levy a 25% tariff
on 200 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports.
Or, I guess, they’ll just extend the deadline.
Which would be great,
since if all the US-China conflicts are suddenly solved,
I’d go out of business.
I’m not worried though,
because getting the kind of trade deal
will be tough.
“I have great respect for President Xi
and we are now working on a new trade deal with China.
But it must include real structural change
to end unfair trade practices,
reduce our chronic trade deficit,
and protect American jobs.”
All of that would mean real structural changes
to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule—
the kind authoritarian states don’t like to make.
According to Bloomberg,
“U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
will lead a delegation to Beijing next week
to lay the groundwork for a meeting
between Trump and Xi later this month.”
The last time Trump was in China,
Xi Jinping pulled out all the stops,
including giving Trump a rare tour of the Forbidden City.
And man, Trump had an unreadable poker face.
Do, do dooo, no plans to launch a trade war.
And then he launched a trade war.
We’ll have more on the trade war as it develops.
Unless it ends in a few weeks.
But it’s not going to.
The Chinese Communist Party has been,
let’s say, encouraging wealthy
Chinese billionaires around the world
to influence politics in foreign countries.
Australia had a bad case of it—
thanks to loose campaign financing laws.
So loose, Chinese nationals like this guy,
Huang Xiangmo,
could contribute to their favorite political parties.
Over the years, Huang donated millions
to various Australian political parties.
The problem is—
he’s connected to the Communist Party’s
United Front Work Department,
“an arm of the Chinese Communist Party
that promotes Chinese foreign policy abroad.”
But last year,
the Australian government changed campaign finance laws
to restrict foreign donations.
And just this week,
Australia canceled Huang Xiangmo’ permanent residency,
and denied his citizenship request,
and effectively banned him from the country.
Of course, the shady links to the Communist Party
and generous donations played no part in the decision.
No, not at all.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald,
which first broke the story,
it was for a range of reasons,
including character grounds.
Obviously, I mean,
who wears a belt with his initial on it the buckle.
That’s pretty tasteless.
Shelley!
You take that down!
Happy Lunar New Year!
Or as they call it in China, “New Year.”
February 5th marked the year of the pig.
Not the capitalist pig, mind you.
More like, the animal farm pig.
Anyway, both China and Taiwan
decided to use the Lunar New Year Celebrations
as an excuse to release propaganda videos.
Now with all these beautiful shots of Taiwan,
you might think the Taiwan tourism department
made this one.
Nope!
It was the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
They juxtaposed images of PLA jets and bombers
soaring through the sky
is kind of the giveaway.
It’s kind of like taking a girl out for Valentine’s Day, saying,
“Babe, I got you a little something.
It’s a gun!
For me.
To force you to marry me.
Which I’d like to do peacefully.”
So Taiwan released this video
with tanks firing and missiles launching
saying we are ready
Which is like the girl saying, “Bring it.”
I never thought I’d say it,
but, by comparison,
I have to give the Chinese PLA points for subtlety.
Though Taiwan’s Premier did win
some subtlety points back in this video,
where he criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s
handling of swine flu.
Why Winnie the Pooh?
It’s a reference to Xi Jinping,
that Xi Jinping does not like.
Good news in a kind of...horrible news sort of way.
An Australian-led study is calling for the retraction
of 400 scientific papers because the organs
may have come from people
who didn’t voluntarily give them up.
We’ve known for a while now that
the Chinese Communist Party kills both criminal prisoners
and prisoners of conscience for their organs.
But apparently, some in the medical community
have been a bit slow on the uptake.
Probably because they don’t watch enough China Uncensored.
Anyway, the study “exposes a mass failure
of English language medical journals
to comply with international ethical standards in place
to ensure organ donors provide consent for transplantation.”
This is not the first time something like this has happened.
In 2017, the prestigious medical journal Liver International,
retracted a scientific paper by Chinese surgeons.
Over four years,
Chinese surgeons examined the outcomes
of almost 600 liver transplants.
Problem is, it's basically impossible
for a single hospital to do that many liver transplants,
especially at a time when China barely had any organ donors.
But hey, to save a few lives,
you have to commit a few crimes against humanity, right?
China’s Skynet is really making progress.
And no, I’m not talking about Skynet from Terminator.
Chinese authorities actually named
their mass surveillance program Skynet.
And according to Radio Free Asia,
by 2022,
there will be almost three billion surveillance cameras in China.
In other words,
there will be about two cameras for every person in China.
Smile!
Chinese hackers have...hacked...
a Norwegian software company.
“Visma is one of Europe's largest
cloud-based managed service providers,
with over 850,000 customers
and net revenue of over $1 billion.”
The hackers released malware in Visma’s internal system,
but the company says none of their client servers were infected.
The attacks were carried about by
a well known state-backed hackers
called APT10.
In December, the US Justice Department
charged two Chinese nationals believe
to be a part of APT10.
They were charged with being part of
hacks on 45 US companies
and many more in 11 other countries.
Very prolific.
A group of human rights... groups...
are calling on the UN
to look into the Chinese Communist Party’s
persecution of the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang.
Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International,
the Geneva-based International Service for Human Rights,
and the World Uyghur Congress,
have called on the UN’s Human Rights Council
to investigate the mass detention of Muslims in China.
“Human rights activists say it is
one of the dozens of political reeducation camps
where up to a million Muslims are said to
have been detained in China's northwest Xinjiang province
in recent years.”
Now, appealing to the UN Human Rights Council is a good thing.
The problem is, China sits on the UN Human Rights Council...
for some reason.
But if the Chinese Communist Party
uses its position on the UN’s Human rights council
to block this inquiry, well,
these human rights groups can always go over their heads
and appeal to the UN Security Council.
And I’m sure that’ll put
the Chinese Communist Party in its place.
I’m just kidding,
China’s on the UN Security Council too.
I’m sad now.
And finally, in a story that really stinks,
Malaysian rainforests are being threatened..
.by Chinese demand for durians.
If you don’t know what a durian is,
I’m envious of your ignorance.
Durian has been called the king of fruits.
It smells like a mix of rotting garbage,
an everything bagel,
and my grandma’s basement.
And yet, “Soaring demand for durians in China
is being blamed for a new wave of deforestation in Malaysia,
with environmentalists warning
vast amounts of jungle is being cleared
to make way for massive plantations of the spiky,
pungent fruit.”
And it’s looking pretty bad.
This is a durian plantation on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.
If you put your nose up to the screen,
you can actually smell it.
And look,
there’s a lot of great reasons to destroy our planet,
but durian is not one of them!
Do it for money,
or power,
or to eliminate pandas...
but don’t do it for durian.
That’s this week’s China news headlines.
Before we go,
now is the time when I answer questions from you,
my loyal 50-cent army—
fans of the show who support what we do
through the crowd funding website Patreon.
Largezo asks,
“Does the PRC have universal healthcare?”
Good question!
Despite all the promises of communism,
or socialism with Chinese characteristics,
it turns out, taking care of the people
isn’t one of the Communist Party’s top priorities.
It’s more interested in...taking care of the people.
According to the New York Times,
“The country does not have
a functioning primary care system,
the first line of defense for illness and injury.
China has one general practitioner
for every 6,666 people,
compared with the international standard
of one for every 1,500 to 2,000 people,
according to the World Health Organization.”
Hospitals are understaffed,
overworked,
and doctors underpaid.
Plus, constant vaccine scandals.
It’s gotten to the point where public hospitals
rely on bribery to survive.
And people are literally scalping tickets to see doctors.
Now in 2016,
Xi Jinping launched Healthy China 2030.
It’s basically the first long term plan
to improve China’s health care
since the communists took over in 1949.
On paper,
China has some degree of
cradle to grave healthcare coverage.
But in practice, well,
it’s socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Thanks for you question.
Why am I answering questions on the show?
It’s because a lot of advertisers
don’t dare to work with a show
that criticizes the Chinese Communist Party.
So we rely on support from viewers like you
on the crowdfunding website Patreon.
Answering your questions on the show
is one of my ways of saying thanks.
So head over to patreon.com/chinaucnensored
to find out how you can keep China uncensored.
Thanks for watching.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
See you next time.