Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Back to the G20.
As we draw the curtains on the meeting
between the world’s 20 largest economies,
and the streets are swept clean
from the several days of riots,
these 20 Gs head home.
That picture just proves that Angela Merkel
is still the OG.
But after it’s all over,
we’re left with the question—
what the heck just happened?!
The G20 had some big challenges:
Meaningful reforms on climate change,
a coordinated response to the Syrian crisis,
comprehensive solutions for refugees,
immigration, and terrorism.
But, when 20 world leaders with individual agendas
all got in the same room, they...
let’s just say they made incremental progress at best.
Outside the meetings, there were protests.
Some of them got a little crazy.
And most threatening of all...
Clowns.
But worse than the protests were the media,
which treated us to non-stop G20
body language analysis.
Because who wouldn’t want to spend days
carefully scrutinizing these bodies
of old politicians in suits?
What’s that, Shelley?
There’s G20 fanfiction?!
Wait, no, don’t tell me.
Back to non-traumatizing physical contact
between world leaders,
there’s the all-important handshake.
Clearly, Trump won the handshake with Putin.
I mean, clearly,
Putin won the handshake with Trump.
Wait, that’s a still unclear.
But remember in January
when the world first learned of
the “Trump handshake?
That awkward handshake
where he pulls the guy towards him?
Well, let’s just say China
has been learning from the West.
Speaking of China,
China.
China won big at the G20.
There was no conflict over the South China Sea,
and no criticism of China’s human rights abuses.
I think this clip illustrates the level of tension.
“The wish was expressed that this time
I would bring with me two panda bears.
I gave a positive answer.”
So Xi Jinping brought pandas to Germany
that China will loan to the Berlin zoo
for a million dollars a year
for the next fifteen years,
and then China will demand the pandas
and all their offspring back.
Pandas, yayyy!
But anyway,
on to less black-and-white issues.
As I mentioned earlier,
during the G20,
the US and China did meet.
And it looked like everyone had so much fun.
They discussed two main issues.
One:
Trump wants to China to stop its unfair trade practices
with the US.
We know that because Twitter.
And two:
Trump wants China to stop trading at all
with its nuclear-armed neighbor.
Oh sorry,
I meant the one with the dangerous leader.
The fat one.
Yeah.
Again, because Twitter.
But despite Trump’s increasing frustration
that Chinese leaders haven’t done more
to help with North Korea,
Trump remained cordial at the meeting,
telling Xi that he appreciated what he had done
“relative the very substantial problem
that we all face in North Korea.”
So against all odds,
could their friendship live on?
I mean, in April they bonded over dessert.
“And we had the most beautiful piece
of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen.”
Most beautiful piece of cake?
I’d beg to differ.
But anyway,
what if the US-China cake-based friendship
starts to crumble?
Well, that’s why Trump may be
trying to improve ties with Russia.
Uh, no, I’m not talking about Trump Jr.
I mean President Trump is trying to improve
bilateral ties with President Putin.
This marks a departure from previous US policy.
Wait, “We can do stuff to you”?
Was Obama...flirting?
What’s that Shelley?
No, I haven’t been reading more fanfiction.
Who would write fanfiction about politicians anyway?
Wait, no, don’t tell me.
What does this have to do with China, you ask?
Well, over the past several years,
Russia and China have supported each other—
economically and politically.
Both hold permanent member seats
on the UN Security council.
They’ve used that platform to block
democratic nations from certain objectives.
For example,
putting sanctions on Syria.
And most recently,
efforts to target human traffickers.
If Trump is indeed planning
to put more pressure on China—
then a friendly, or at least neutral, Russia
could be to America’s advantage.
When President Richard Nixon visited China
in 1972 to establish ties,
his goal was to give the US leverage over Russia—
then part of the Soviet Union.
It worked.
It would be somewhat ironic if President Donald Trump’s
warming relationship with Russia
is now aimed at giving the US leverage over China.
You know it could be working
when Chinese state-run media say,
“Fine.
I don’t care.”
Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that Russia
wouldn’t try to be buddy-buddy
with both China and the US.
After all,
the Chinese regime is doing its best
to promote a positive image of Putin
on social media.
But take it from me,
it never works when you try
to have two best friends.
To be clear,
I’m not saying that the US
should definitely cozy up to Russia.
For one,
Russia is an authoritarian state
that has done a lot questionable things.
Not that that’s stopped the US
from working with other authoritarian countries.
And two,
the Trump Administration’s growing Russia problems
might make it difficult for them
to have a strong relationship.
But the Trump administration may still try.
Because you know what they say,
the frenemy of my frenemy
is my...fren-en-enemy?
So we’ll be keeping an eye
on how the world’s superpowers are shifting
the balance after the G20.
At least in the fanfiction.
Speaking of frenenenemies,
China and Vietnam.
We’ll have more after the break.
Wait for it...
It happened! Oh my gosh, it actually happened!
Even they look surprised!
As for Canada's Justin Trudeau, well...
sometimes it's best not to read too much into body language.
There's probably fanfiction about this, isn't there?
Anyway, if you want to see the full half-hour episode right now, go to ChinaUncensored.tv!