On this episode of China Uncensored
China won’t help America with North Korea.
Which is unfair because
Trump gave them the most beautiful chocolate cake.
And Chinese AI robots turn against their masters...
by telling the truth.
Plus, Chinese-made smartphones
may be spying on us.
I hope they don’t find out how much
I suck at Candy Crush.
This is China Uncensored.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
You know, just when it was looking like
a slow news week,
we were once again rescued
by Donald Trump.
All the news we need
in 140 characters or less.
Actually, usually much more.
On Saturday,
President Trump tweeted that he was
very disappointed in China.
Wait, why?
WHY?
Well, an agonizing six minutes later,
I had my answer:
China refuses to help us with North Korea.
Those tweets were made a day after
yet another North Korean missile test.
State-run Xinhua responded by slamming
President Trump for “emotional venting.”
That’s odd,
coming from the media that’s always talking about
“the feelings of the Chinese people.”
The article also says the US
shouldn’t “stab China in the back.”
You see, earlier this year,
Trump had dropped the harsher China rhetoric
he had used during the elections
after he invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to join him
in Florida for the world’s most beautiful chocolate cake.
He told the Wall Street Journal that,
“After listening for 10 minutes,
I realized it’s not so easy”
for China to just stop North Korea.
“I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power,
but it’s not what you would think.”
But since that meeting in early April,
North Korea has done nine missile tests—
including one that demonstrates
it could strike the US.
So instead of waiting while Xi Jinping
deals with complicated political blah, blah, blah—
Trump sees North Korea as a threat right now.
That’s why the Trump administration
is considering a trade probe he hopes
will push China to move faster.
It would put action behind the threats
Donald Trump had made during his campaign.
But not to be outdone by North Korea,
the Chinese Communist Party has also conducted
its own missile test,
targeting a mock-up of a US THAAD
missile defense site
and mock-ups of US stealth fighter jets.
That happened just a day before
a huge parade celebrating the 90th anniversary
of the People’s Liberation Army.
We’ll have more on that later in the show.
Anyway, I’m gonna go out on a limb here
and say that US-China relations
might be getting worse.
And that would be too bad for Starbucks.
Because it just announced
huge expansions plans in China.
It’s opening more than 500 new stores a year there.
Shanghai already has 600 stores.
That’s about double the number in New York.
Honestly, Starbucks—is it really going to help anything
to give China that much artisanal,
small-batch roasted,
single-origin,
mediocre coffee?
On another note,
there is one thing
we’ve all known for some time now:
Machines will eventually turn against us.
“Elementary chaos theory tells us
that all robots will eventually
turn against their masters and run amok
in an orgy of blood and kicking
and the biting with the metal teeth
and the hurting and shoving.”
Well, a Chinese company
has shut down two chatbots—
after they turned against their communist masters.
The chatbots were on one of China’s
most popular messaging apps, QQ.
It has 800 million users.
But soon the chatbots started to go rogue.
One said,
“My China dream is to go to America.”
And when users asked,
“Do you love the Chinese Communist Party?”
one of them answered
“No.”
Wrong, answer, robot!
I suppose, when Chinese robots get more advanced,
they’ll eventually learn to bury their true feelings
deep down inside,
just like people.
But not all technology is turning against the CCP.
Researchers from the security firm Kryptowire
have discovered that some
popular cheap Chinese smartphones
are sending your data to China,
where it could in theory
be accessed by the CCP.
The software came from
Shanghai Adups Technology.
It allowed them to “execute commands...
install apps, take screenshots,
record the screen,
make calls and wipe devices
without needing permission.”
Hopefully they weren’t using it
to talk to any subversive Chinese chatbots.
And just when you thought things
couldn’t get any worse in China,
they started abusing...pandas.
This video showing zookeepers
roughing up pandas is going viral.
Now at first you might think this is
just another case of rampant animal abuse
inside zoos in China.
But state-run Xinhua interviewed the breeders
and it turns out it wasn’t abuse after all.
“I was feeding the baby pandas in the Moon Nursery with Milk.
At the beginning it was gentle.
But suddenly it became grumpy,
maybe because it was irritated in some way
and bit us badly.
It bit us so badly that we tried to escape.”
Yes, it was gentle,
then became grumpy,
then tried to bite,
so the caretaker had no choice
but to throw it across the floor.
But seriously, when it comes to abusing pandas,
I think the issue is pretty black and white.
And finally, moving on to Botswana.
A country so powerful on the international stage
that most people have no idea where it even is.
It’s here,
next to South Africa.
Well, Botswana has a lot of important trade with China,
especially in diamond exports.
So it was a bit surprising when the government
announced it would be granting a visa
to the Dalai Lama this month
for a mostly private visit.
Especially since its neighbor South Africa
has denied a visa to the Dalai Lama
three times at China’s request.
So the CCP is of course angry at Botswana,
saying the visit will harm China’s core interests.
Botswana’s foreign minister replied by saying,
“the principle of non-interference
in the international affairs of other countries
is at the core of China’s foreign policy...
We therefore expect...
China to respect
our sovereign decision on this matter.”
Sick burn.
I guess it truly takes a world superpower
like Botswana to stand up to the CCP.
You know who else is a world superpower
standing up to the CCP?
You!
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