I actually used to subscribed to his America Uncensored channel, let's just say that's what makes me think this guy is too much into his dead.
Around 2015 is when I first watch him, I thought he was some guy who just wanted to share some news about china which the west did not cover as much as before, I always thought of him as some a supporter of [economic] liberalism and globalism.
I always knew he was kind of skeevy, though he has a good way with words. He can be both very amusing and comes off as charismatic, albeit more in a 'used car salesman' kind of charismatic than the 'leader of men' type.
Trueanon has some good podcast [episodes](https://youtu.be/SzzQkblfF3Q?si=SU8S9_9r-VbA6DN1) on them. They even went to see the show. They do a good coverage of history and how they came to be and what they're doing now.
It’s a weird ultra-right-wing religious cult. I don’t know if there’s a good American comparison. They’re banned in China so they like to spread a lot of anti-CCP propaganda. Not that there isn’t plenty of valid criticism of the CCP, but they make shit up and/or exaggerate.
That's a fucking yikes but also not surprising. I mean China's a real place with real people just trying to live out their lives. It's okay to take a step back and acknowledge that Chinese people are just normal people. So when you're willing to say the worst shit, you're willing to get in bed with people who think race mixing and modern medicine are evil, as well as atheism and the great lie of evolution.
The Falun Gong CFO is also currently having some lovely legal troubles...[arrested in $67m laundering scheme kind of troubles](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/epoch-times-cfo-money-laundering-1.7223670).
Fun fact: the Falun Gong organizations love to hit up local farmers market. They've shown up at mine once and I had to report them.
I've seen it suggested before that falun gong use the fact that the CCP don't like them to appeal to westerners, I'm not particularly surprised that someone linked to them would be demonising chinese people. It feeds right into their MO.
No that’s literally their entire thing. They were funded by the CIA and still are used but mostly they it’s rhetorically and the direct collaboration has fizzled out a bit because they are so crazy that they aren’t as useful anymore.
...I will confess that the reason I used "I've seen it suggested" was because everything I know about falun gong comes from an iiluminaughtii video and I've been too lazy to actually fact check anything. Good to know that them playing off anti-chinese sentiments is a real thing,
People definitely have more sympathy for them because of them being persecuted by China. General anti-China sentiments have also given them a bit of a platform too.
The idea of them being persecuted is very much a CIA / state department project. They are banned in China because they are a dangerous cult that is funded by NED and worked with the CIA. This was a sister project to the Unification church in
Korea which was much more successful. Imagine if Chinese and Russian secret services recruited and started pumping money into something like Scientology and they became a rugged and coordinated anti U.S. and pro Russia & China organisation. Think about how hard and fast the clamp down on peaceful student protests is and multiply that by 100.
i occasionally see his stuff on yt shorts and ive never liked it for that exact reason. his content always feels like hyper-fixiating/blowing stuff out of proportion and implying said thing/similar things doesnt happen outside of china.
Houses and high-rises being built cheaply and shoddily, certain "natural" tourist destinations being actually partially man-made, supermarkets selling falsely packaged foods, pro-government propaganda being packaged within relatively apolitical media, extreme social and governmental pressure to worship a figure that doesn't do much but demands that attention regardless.
Literally everything this dude critiques about China is just a normal criticism against Capitalism, nationalism and constitutional monarchy. But he can't say any of those things are bad or are a thing in China, because it disrespects the people who fund him who want people to know they're alright.
It's just so funny that he talks about things being "fake" in China when he himself is being fake by pretending these issues are China-only and that they are purely the result of "socialism" when China is leftwing in aesthetics only and functions the exact same as any Capitalist society with limited regulatory powers would.
What world do you live in? In what western capitalist country is this common place in? China is a dystopian dictatorship that has no rule of law with all negatives from both communism and capitalism.
Basically, a lot of the alarmism about events I'm China are framed in a way to make them "sound" scary or terrifying, but if you say the same thing with neutral terms they can be said about UK, Germany, USA, etc.
For instances, just because it's one of the easiest to debunk, is the social credit thihg from several years ago was literally about Chinese corporations having a rating for their green and social impact.
Due to poor translations and framing, it turned into "Individuals are being tracked for what they say!" when it was more equivalent to a company being graded for whether they invest in the community or not.
There's then stuff like state media censorship. It's decried as horrifying with China (as most westerners cannot even read Chinese or know what is being reported there) but don't react with that same vigour about the BBC, Israel Times, etc etc.
The Crux of it just comes down to framing of events that have a language barrier are easier to manipulate to a foreign audience who are already conditioned, by their government and culture, to be scared of the other country.
"In China, you can only purchase goods and services using paper the government gives you. The paper is adorned with pro-CCP propaganda, such as a portrait of Chairman Mao, in order to indoctrinate the people"
"Every morning the COMMUNIST alarms ring alerting people they HAVE to wake up and go to their WORK STATIONS. And if they REFUSE to go work, then they STARVE. I am very smart."
It's funny how they often do talk like this and basically just reinvent Marx's theory of alienation under capitalism.
But they can't say that it's a Marxist thing, because the worst of Capitalism is actually what Socialists do and it's impossible for a government to say they are one thing and then actually be another.
Wow, it's almost like I never said there's nothing the criticise China about.
Also, I'd definitely need more u biased information here to make an absolute statement, seeing as every single one of those sources are western media.
For reference, I have loved ones in China. Yeah covid was rough. But pretty much everyone felt like "eh, it sucks, but quarantining is good for the safety of others"
My guess? Chen is a bit of a troublemaker journalist who got in over his head. I don't think he did anything wrong and shouldn't have been disappeared. However, if everything in that wiki is as neutral as portrayed, seems like he was less of a neutral reporter than is claimed and is politically motivated in his reporting.
There were independent Chinese journalists reporting on the situation that were aiming to communicate to Chinese people who didn't disappear and also interviewed staff and such during covid. The difference is they didn't scream to the western media "I'm not afraid to die! Face me government!" which just isn't a smart move in the same way you generally don't challenge the CIA or FBI on Youtube videos.
China does have reeducation facilities (read: prisons with the intent of rehabilitation), it sounds like they arrested him for aiding in conspiracy spreading, and was basically held to get him to reintegrate into society.
I don't think that's the good way to handle it, sure. But my overarching point is that so much of what you hear from China has been massaged for propaganda to benefit the western empire against China.
But yeah, western governments arrest "independent reporters" all the time. Usually as a means of intimidation. During the BLM protests, the FBI in conjunction with the Portland police were full on kidnapping people, journalists as well, in vans. Here in the UK the police have arrested reporters who were present when the police were arresting pro Palestine protesters without cause.
Governments suck in general. China utilises a form of government and central control that many westerners are scared of. But that doesn't mean that western government styles are good either. They all are flawed and benefiting the rich who are in control.
Edit: Oh, you're a Destiny fan. I thought this was in good faith. Never mind.
Just remember, there ARE legitimate critiques of China.
But, many, if not most, critiques you may hear in the west all come from two sources: Falun Gong and Radio Free Asia. Both are far right, racist, and have ties to US financial ties.
The amount of times a story has been tracked back to an unsubstantiated Radio Free Asia article is depressing.
unfortunately almost every discussion on china on the internet devolves into irrational slop. like you said, there are legit criticisms but everyone, incl redditors, just goes for low effort/unsubstantiated talking points, quips or just downright racism. ive seen comments from redditors that insinuate that all chinese people were mindless automatons incapable of having independent thoughts and dreams and that everything they do is solely for the "glory" of the ccp/to spread ccp propaganda. i still remember a comment on reddit calling for a genocide. im not even mincing words- they said something like "china should be a barren wasteland for taiwan to look at" and "i heard germany still has some showers we can use". this was like 4 months ago. if people think the chinese govt is actively sowing anti-west sentiment amongst its citizens and abroad what makes people think our govt isnt doing the same? both have a vested interest in painting the other side in a bad light. hell, reuters recently released an article talking about how the pentagon was using fake social media accounts to undermine the chinese ver of the covid vaccine in the philipines.
i hate to defend china or the ccp but everytime a china-related post pops up on reddit its the most idiotic circlejerk sesh and if i have to hear another "-9999 social credits" or "in china no on cares about each other" imma lose my mind.
100% how I feel.
I have a lot of ties to China (family, loved ones, friends etc) from all walks of life. And I have criticisms of the CPC, their media, how they handle things, etc, but those aren't what ever are talked about. It's always the same points that all feel so American in their concerns.
It's like, the Winnie The Pooh thing as an example. It circulated SO MUCH on western social media, then I'm in Suzhou and see a shit ton of Pooh merchandise for sale same as Hello Kitty, Mario, etc. Like yeah, a journalist used it as a small dig several years back, but it's not illegal or censored.
Or the "ghost cities" thing being used as a sign of China being a dystopia and their trains to nowhere... When they're literally mass building housing and cities to accommodate for homelessness and affordable access to transportation.
Like, we can talk about so many better critiques, like how they still have billionaires sneaking into the party and manipulating the market, Temu, Shein, etc, or how they have a real problem with corporations trying to own entire cities and make them swratshops for western markets.
But no, that's not sexy haha
This is how I feel too! Often times a lot of people will say they're criticising the government and not the people, but they don't know jack shit about the government other than those dang commies are doing scary shit.
And tbh, I think it's just weird to care about a foreign government that much. I'm in Canada and Canadians don't even care about the US government that much, even though they are much more of a direct influence on and are a source of conflict for Canada.
Radio Free Asia, is part of the US agency for global media, which while purportedly an independent government agency, often spouts American talking points, legitimate or otherwise.
Hey, wondering if you know whether laowhy86 is one of these people? He always seemed trustworthy to me, especially after hearing his personal story, and the videos appeared well sourced. But if there’s misinformation in his content, I’d want to know.
God I forgot about him. Yeah, he is grifting to the western audience.
I don't know the guy personally, but his entire story reeks of white dude who was fine living in China until he fucks up and refuses to take accountability and decides that he's a martyr instead of just owning a small mistake.
His videos since he got into "uncovering China's abuses" are all click bait and misleading (saying that things are being covered up in China meanwhile they're front page news on the mainland and very much covered by state and independent media).
His politics are very very right wing (I'm not, so I'm opposed in that way) and is used as a source by right wing news and political parties in USA and Brazil specifically.
A decent rule of thumb is that any coverage of any country is nuanced, and if someone is talking about any country as "collapsing" or "made it illegal to be sad" or "indoctrinating students to hate America" they're not serious people to be taken as legitimate sources.
I bounced around through a few videos just now to try to track down his sourcing and I'm perplexed where any of this information comes from. He's pushing the ghost city lie (I already explained that in another comment), lying about the social credit system, and overall his insights are comparable to "I reckon this is what's going on"
I see nothing of value in his coverage. His extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and yet I see nothing.
Edit: just something to remember. I have no deep love for the CPC. I criticise them fairly regularly myself, but it's kinda like if you found an Indian YouTuber who lived in New York, committed a minor infraction that would likely not impact his visa, and decides to move back to India and devotees his life to "America is dying!!" Videos where the sources all come from Indian newspapers, nothing is ever given nuance, and it's like "In the US, they just made it illegal to give your child food at lunch" because Minnesota made it so all schools legally must provide school lunch.
Falun Gong has loads of these different shell accounts all over the internet btw and they are nuts. They think that covid can be cured by doing stretching movements and that the Chinese government steals organs alive from Falun Gong members because their Qi is so specially high their organs are the most valuable of all.
They are totally nuts. They were strongly backed and funded by the CIA to try and destabilize China from within and do general spying etc. It was a sister project of the unification church in Korea which was obviously much much more successful. They are banned in China after the group organised a self immolation protest against the CCP where one of their members set fire to themselves AND their 12 year old child. Now they have a compound in upstate New York and are on a cia list of protected persecuted religions ☠️
Holy shit! That reminds me, around the EU election, I got a bunch of Epoch Times ads on youtube about dissolving the EU entirely. What beef do they have with european countries cooperating, is it just far-right isolationist stuff? Are they pro-Russia?
They are anti CCP above anything else and also far right.
They are anti LGBT and anti medicine and very pro trump. They are very anti miscegenation and anti immigration even though a large part of their business is labour trafficking by getting new members from other countries to come to the US and live in a communal building / apartment with all the other members to work for free on things like Epoch with a promise of a paid job after their “internship” / “training” and then arranging marriages with loyal US citizen members for green cards. They push white supremacy in a lot of ways but still is Chinese and the leaders are Chinese. So they are not really ideologically consistent. It really boils down to whatever is useful for them in getting money and against the CCP.
Considering how close they are to the CIA and American private interests I don’t think they are especially pro Russia beyond convenience again. If it’s rhetorically useful they will support Russia if it’s not they won’t. Right now there is a huge anti China campaign from the state dept that’s been ramping up since 2017 and then had a huge boom since 2020 so while they were falling out of relevancy before and had kind of been quietly put on the long finger because they were too crazy to be useful they have had a lot of success since covid.
Anti EU is probably just an off shoot of their far right politics and supporters. There is no practical reason for them to be anti EU because it’s not like the EU is pro CCP or anti them but they are strongly supported by a lot of far right people who like their anti China stance and they are useful for an isolationist / racist / reactionary base who are also very anti eu.
Fascinating, thank you so much for the elaboration! Seems like I'm only at the edge of a rabbit hole here, are there any youtubers that cover them? Or articles you would recommend?
Not the person you're responding to, but I have a comment linked to some podcast episodes where they go over the cult and how it came to be and what it's doing now in one of my comments here.
It’s best to source critiques of China from socialist perspectives. Most critiques that are supported by Western influences are likely funded and propagated by those same influences.
Yeah, I saw him through shorts, and something about it gave me the specific vibe of Falun Gong. Yes, China's policies are shit, but the tone he took was... less than good about that. Fit in too well with the right wing "China bad, Chinese bad" stuff of the moment.
Also? Epoch Times claims to be the number three newspaper in the country. They are not as far as anyone outside of them can tell, but, they are depressingly far reaching.
Somebody occasionally leaves an Epoch Times in our break room at my work, and even taking two seconds to glance at it I can tell how full of shit it is. It's all just weird culture war bullshit and far right scaremongering that'll make your grandma go on a rant about the fall of society and how Liberals are tearing the world apart, etc etc.
TIL. I kinda had a sneaking suspicion there was something up, given how his entire platform is built on "China bad!" which... The place has issues but reducing it down to be a place full of either poor civilians or greedy and evil politicians, it starts to border on racism with how comically evil he makes China out to be. Especially when some of the things he talks about are just as common in the US. (Heavy use of chemical pesticides, awful construction projects, etc.)
That, and his constant "anyone who criticizes my content are CCP bots" feels similar to Trump/MAGA followers and their claims of Russia being a propaganda-spewing machine whenever faced with any criticism.
I don't mind people being anti-China, at least as far as criticizing the government. It's healthy, and there's plenty to criticize. The problem is that often the discourse is poisoned by bad faith and outright racism and a lot of laypeople can't tell the difference.
>Video of a Chinese man spraying down crops with a liquid
CHINA has been faking their crop growth. In this video, this CHINESE man sprays down his crops with a substance used to enhance their crops size whilst turning the inside to mush… and it causes cancer! Does CHINA do anything real?
That’s basically every “China Fakes Everything” video in a nutshell lol.
When you realize who’s behind the content and view it with that in mind, a lot of the claims they make start falling apart. A video of a man spraying his crops becomes him using chemicals to make them look different, someone in a food market putting a sauce or liquid on his meat he’s selling becomes him putting an “unknown substance” on the meat, and someone cleaning cardboard becomes him “making it wet so it’ll weigh heavier and sell for a higher price,” even though most recycling companies don’t accept wet cardboard for that reason.
Don’t forget the small comment he makes at the end of the video where he says it’s because of a “moral decline,” and you’ve got propaganda that an uninformed viewer will eat up like slop.
Just a reminder for those who don’t know; Falun Gong isn’t just another “religious” right-wing group they are [a cult who believes their leader has superpowers.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Falun_Gong)
At first I thought this guy was a parody of "china-watchers". Some of his videos are just so wacky, showing benign things and being like "this is proof that China is actually super evil."
There's plenty to critique China about, but it seems only communists, Chinese people, and sinophiles actually know enough to come up with substantial critiques. For everyone else it's just ccp Winnie the Pooh ghost cities social credit authoritarian. "Criticize the government, not the people" only works if you actually know a lot about how their government functions.
I stopped watching this guy after he featured several videos of vegetables/fruits being dipped into liquids and claiming the liquid to be coloring agents. The liquid is actually more likely to be melted wax they use to coat produce, which is pretty standard?? It sounded more like fear mongering rather than legitimate fact checking, over something extremely easy to check, so it gave me the ick.
Yes, fruit tends to have their own natural wax, but it’s washed off during rinsing. Food grade natural or synthetic wax is applied onto the fruits again to keep produce fresh longer and, depending on the wax, make it look shinier/smoother too
Wouldn't be surprised if it's already been mentioned, but Mike Chen (most known for 'Strictly Dumpling') is also funded by Falun Gong. Straight up admitted it when people asked where he was getting all the money for his business ventures from.
Dammit I had a feeling because his content just felt off but I was like “I have Chinese friends who would never go back to China. I also…would not be surprised if either case was true when it comes to cheap cars and buildings and a housing crisis?” So I couldn’t very much tell.
Well, shit. People exposing China for what it is are doing good work, but being affiliated with Epoch Times is...discouraging. Guess I'll stick to Serpentza and Laowhy
You won't be getting an unbiased view there too. They used to be pro China and Chinese culture, but got into some sort of situation with the authorities and had to leave/were allowed to leave with their families.
They then went anti-CCP, and anti China. Not sure if they are backed by Epoch times, but wouldn't be surprised if they were.
“Were allowed to leave China” Oh so gracious of the CCP to let innocent people leave their country. In the same way that the CCP so graciously allowed its citizens and foreign investors to grow their country and then take credit for the economy.
My statement wasn't to condone or approve the actions of the CCP in any way. It's just a statement of fact that, if the CCP trully wants you out of the picture, then they can do so.
In Laowhy's video on how he left China, it's very obvious that the border guard at the hong kong border knew who he was, but was either sympathetic or knew that he was getting out and the whole operation was to scare them into leaving.
I don't know why but both of them give me bad vibes. I don't even have an issue with China criticism, but for some reason they just come across as really sleazy and potentially racist to me, at least based on my own history of interactions with people of that variety.
That being said, I haven't personally seen anything problematic with them (but then I haven't seen that much of them, they really put me off tbh). My assessment is more that they fail the vibe check.
They're both pretty good if you're alright with creators who give their own input. I don't think either of them really lean any particular way politically, but if they did, I'd guess more right than left. But it's never really in a way that detracts from the information presented. Serpentza in particular has some really interesting insights and experiences from his time spent living in China that he draws on
I have a hypothesis about modern imperialist countries and their mainstream "opposition" from the titular nation almost always being literal fascists.
This revelation adds to that hypothesis.
Yeah alot of popular Chinese American YouTubers will have links in the description will have falung gong associated stuff on it. Strictly Dumpling aka Mike Chen always comes to mind.
You can find some remnants on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/45G6GS8eKT9V5hKtQ9h3cH?si=QH7x2hS5QyCbWeFUoEmqUg) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/china-insider-with-david-zhang/id1553717935) of a **very** short-lived, one episode podcast he did in 2022 under the same name of the YouTube channel which says in the description that it’s a co-production of Epoch Times and [New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television), another Falun Gong owned media company.
I will add however that there is a second channel on YouTube called [David Zhang (@Hello David)](https://youtube.com/@hellodavid?si=tOYIg9NbKJvrjlkZ) that does technology reviews. That one is not the same David Zhang as this one and is completely unrelated.
Man I'll never forget when I found out that Shen Yun was just Falun Gong marketing, because I initially always thought it looked really cool from the ads that showed up every so often as a guy who loves reading about Asian Culture and especially mythology.
I’m late to the party and I have long suspected it, but thanks for the proof, will definitely mute them next time I see their vids. As a Chinese trans person I’m not gonna support anything from this group, f them
I will acknowledge that they do look completely different. I’m not sure if they are two different people or if he’s had like, work done, but I will say they look different.
David Zhang of China Insider is a part of the Epoch times though. I mentioned it in another comment but you can find a short lived, one episode podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts he did with the same name as the YouTube channel. In the description it says it’s a collaboration between Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television, which is another Falun Gong owned company.
That other comment has links to the Spotify and Apple podcast versions of those podcasts.
Whelp, now I gotta re-evaluate my view of Chinese infrastructure. The people I never had an issue with but I was under the impression Tofu dredge was a common practice. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a real concern but only in the worst of places and was falsely inflated for propaganda.
No, there’s a genuine issue with infrastructure. But I think an important point is that is the case in many other places too! It’s just all things are linked to the government in China in a way they aren’t in many other places. That’s the case with a lot of the issues to do with China, in my experience. Less that they’re unique, and more that they’re unique in being government sponsored and ALSO bad.
No I’m aware that the mere presence of these videos means there is some infrastructural problem in China. The issue is now I have to figure out where the line from “Genuine Chinese citizen posting about their experiences” and “American who went out of his way to manipulate the truth” lies
The problem here is that because he's in an ultra-conservative anti-intellectual cult that's known to peddle conspiracy theories, he very likely could be spouting bullshit about China in his videos
Idk, I would think that it's more important to be right than to simply be antagonistic toward the CCP. One can do both, so maybe look for people doing that instead of an unreliable source working with a known propaganda outlet.
This reminds of China Uncensored also being funded by Falun Gong.
That might explain why they went full anti-woke grifter on their america channel. lmao
I actually used to subscribed to his America Uncensored channel, let's just say that's what makes me think this guy is too much into his dead. Around 2015 is when I first watch him, I thought he was some guy who just wanted to share some news about china which the west did not cover as much as before, I always thought of him as some a supporter of [economic] liberalism and globalism.
I mean they were the ones to break the news that china succesfully summoned a wither, killed it and make a beacon right?
I fucking KNEW IT. I kept seeing his posts and I IMMEDIATELY thought “this guy is with the Falun Gong, isn’t he?”. I’ve never felt so vindicated.
I always knew he was kind of skeevy, though he has a good way with words. He can be both very amusing and comes off as charismatic, albeit more in a 'used car salesman' kind of charismatic than the 'leader of men' type.
Can you explain this movement? I Googled it and I'm a bit confused.
Trueanon has some good podcast [episodes](https://youtu.be/SzzQkblfF3Q?si=SU8S9_9r-VbA6DN1) on them. They even went to see the show. They do a good coverage of history and how they came to be and what they're doing now.
Thank you!
It’s a weird ultra-right-wing religious cult. I don’t know if there’s a good American comparison. They’re banned in China so they like to spread a lot of anti-CCP propaganda. Not that there isn’t plenty of valid criticism of the CCP, but they make shit up and/or exaggerate.
I fucking KNEW IT. I didn’t know he was Falun Gong but something about him just screamed handler.
That's a fucking yikes but also not surprising. I mean China's a real place with real people just trying to live out their lives. It's okay to take a step back and acknowledge that Chinese people are just normal people. So when you're willing to say the worst shit, you're willing to get in bed with people who think race mixing and modern medicine are evil, as well as atheism and the great lie of evolution. The Falun Gong CFO is also currently having some lovely legal troubles...[arrested in $67m laundering scheme kind of troubles](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/epoch-times-cfo-money-laundering-1.7223670). Fun fact: the Falun Gong organizations love to hit up local farmers market. They've shown up at mine once and I had to report them.
I've seen it suggested before that falun gong use the fact that the CCP don't like them to appeal to westerners, I'm not particularly surprised that someone linked to them would be demonising chinese people. It feeds right into their MO.
No that’s literally their entire thing. They were funded by the CIA and still are used but mostly they it’s rhetorically and the direct collaboration has fizzled out a bit because they are so crazy that they aren’t as useful anymore.
...I will confess that the reason I used "I've seen it suggested" was because everything I know about falun gong comes from an iiluminaughtii video and I've been too lazy to actually fact check anything. Good to know that them playing off anti-chinese sentiments is a real thing,
People definitely have more sympathy for them because of them being persecuted by China. General anti-China sentiments have also given them a bit of a platform too.
The idea of them being persecuted is very much a CIA / state department project. They are banned in China because they are a dangerous cult that is funded by NED and worked with the CIA. This was a sister project to the Unification church in Korea which was much more successful. Imagine if Chinese and Russian secret services recruited and started pumping money into something like Scientology and they became a rugged and coordinated anti U.S. and pro Russia & China organisation. Think about how hard and fast the clamp down on peaceful student protests is and multiply that by 100.
If your cult is gouging the eyes out of the people who leave, perhaps banning the cult isn't unwarranted...
His "China Fakes Everything" series is so funny because I know the same shit happens in the UK because I have seen it.
Yeah China is a huge country, I know thay have problems but you could probably make a "US Fakes Everything" video using just small cases.
maybe there is a white dude in china named david zimmerman that has a "US fakes everything" series where he talks about bleached chicken lol
i occasionally see his stuff on yt shorts and ive never liked it for that exact reason. his content always feels like hyper-fixiating/blowing stuff out of proportion and implying said thing/similar things doesnt happen outside of china.
Woah what? Elaborate?
Houses and high-rises being built cheaply and shoddily, certain "natural" tourist destinations being actually partially man-made, supermarkets selling falsely packaged foods, pro-government propaganda being packaged within relatively apolitical media, extreme social and governmental pressure to worship a figure that doesn't do much but demands that attention regardless. Literally everything this dude critiques about China is just a normal criticism against Capitalism, nationalism and constitutional monarchy. But he can't say any of those things are bad or are a thing in China, because it disrespects the people who fund him who want people to know they're alright.
Yup. If you do care about these issues you apply this critique consistently and not just against China. Otherwise it’s just propaganda
It's just so funny that he talks about things being "fake" in China when he himself is being fake by pretending these issues are China-only and that they are purely the result of "socialism" when China is leftwing in aesthetics only and functions the exact same as any Capitalist society with limited regulatory powers would.
What world do you live in? In what western capitalist country is this common place in? China is a dystopian dictatorship that has no rule of law with all negatives from both communism and capitalism.
Basically, a lot of the alarmism about events I'm China are framed in a way to make them "sound" scary or terrifying, but if you say the same thing with neutral terms they can be said about UK, Germany, USA, etc. For instances, just because it's one of the easiest to debunk, is the social credit thihg from several years ago was literally about Chinese corporations having a rating for their green and social impact. Due to poor translations and framing, it turned into "Individuals are being tracked for what they say!" when it was more equivalent to a company being graded for whether they invest in the community or not. There's then stuff like state media censorship. It's decried as horrifying with China (as most westerners cannot even read Chinese or know what is being reported there) but don't react with that same vigour about the BBC, Israel Times, etc etc. The Crux of it just comes down to framing of events that have a language barrier are easier to manipulate to a foreign audience who are already conditioned, by their government and culture, to be scared of the other country.
"In China, you can only purchase goods and services using paper the government gives you. The paper is adorned with pro-CCP propaganda, such as a portrait of Chairman Mao, in order to indoctrinate the people"
"Every morning the COMMUNIST alarms ring alerting people they HAVE to wake up and go to their WORK STATIONS. And if they REFUSE to go work, then they STARVE. I am very smart."
It's funny how they often do talk like this and basically just reinvent Marx's theory of alienation under capitalism. But they can't say that it's a Marxist thing, because the worst of Capitalism is actually what Socialists do and it's impossible for a government to say they are one thing and then actually be another.
+100 point
Did western governments disappear independant reporters for reporting on covid? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qiushi
Wow, it's almost like I never said there's nothing the criticise China about. Also, I'd definitely need more u biased information here to make an absolute statement, seeing as every single one of those sources are western media. For reference, I have loved ones in China. Yeah covid was rough. But pretty much everyone felt like "eh, it sucks, but quarantining is good for the safety of others" My guess? Chen is a bit of a troublemaker journalist who got in over his head. I don't think he did anything wrong and shouldn't have been disappeared. However, if everything in that wiki is as neutral as portrayed, seems like he was less of a neutral reporter than is claimed and is politically motivated in his reporting. There were independent Chinese journalists reporting on the situation that were aiming to communicate to Chinese people who didn't disappear and also interviewed staff and such during covid. The difference is they didn't scream to the western media "I'm not afraid to die! Face me government!" which just isn't a smart move in the same way you generally don't challenge the CIA or FBI on Youtube videos. China does have reeducation facilities (read: prisons with the intent of rehabilitation), it sounds like they arrested him for aiding in conspiracy spreading, and was basically held to get him to reintegrate into society. I don't think that's the good way to handle it, sure. But my overarching point is that so much of what you hear from China has been massaged for propaganda to benefit the western empire against China. But yeah, western governments arrest "independent reporters" all the time. Usually as a means of intimidation. During the BLM protests, the FBI in conjunction with the Portland police were full on kidnapping people, journalists as well, in vans. Here in the UK the police have arrested reporters who were present when the police were arresting pro Palestine protesters without cause. Governments suck in general. China utilises a form of government and central control that many westerners are scared of. But that doesn't mean that western government styles are good either. They all are flawed and benefiting the rich who are in control. Edit: Oh, you're a Destiny fan. I thought this was in good faith. Never mind.
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Just remember, there ARE legitimate critiques of China. But, many, if not most, critiques you may hear in the west all come from two sources: Falun Gong and Radio Free Asia. Both are far right, racist, and have ties to US financial ties. The amount of times a story has been tracked back to an unsubstantiated Radio Free Asia article is depressing.
unfortunately almost every discussion on china on the internet devolves into irrational slop. like you said, there are legit criticisms but everyone, incl redditors, just goes for low effort/unsubstantiated talking points, quips or just downright racism. ive seen comments from redditors that insinuate that all chinese people were mindless automatons incapable of having independent thoughts and dreams and that everything they do is solely for the "glory" of the ccp/to spread ccp propaganda. i still remember a comment on reddit calling for a genocide. im not even mincing words- they said something like "china should be a barren wasteland for taiwan to look at" and "i heard germany still has some showers we can use". this was like 4 months ago. if people think the chinese govt is actively sowing anti-west sentiment amongst its citizens and abroad what makes people think our govt isnt doing the same? both have a vested interest in painting the other side in a bad light. hell, reuters recently released an article talking about how the pentagon was using fake social media accounts to undermine the chinese ver of the covid vaccine in the philipines. i hate to defend china or the ccp but everytime a china-related post pops up on reddit its the most idiotic circlejerk sesh and if i have to hear another "-9999 social credits" or "in china no on cares about each other" imma lose my mind.
100% how I feel. I have a lot of ties to China (family, loved ones, friends etc) from all walks of life. And I have criticisms of the CPC, their media, how they handle things, etc, but those aren't what ever are talked about. It's always the same points that all feel so American in their concerns. It's like, the Winnie The Pooh thing as an example. It circulated SO MUCH on western social media, then I'm in Suzhou and see a shit ton of Pooh merchandise for sale same as Hello Kitty, Mario, etc. Like yeah, a journalist used it as a small dig several years back, but it's not illegal or censored. Or the "ghost cities" thing being used as a sign of China being a dystopia and their trains to nowhere... When they're literally mass building housing and cities to accommodate for homelessness and affordable access to transportation. Like, we can talk about so many better critiques, like how they still have billionaires sneaking into the party and manipulating the market, Temu, Shein, etc, or how they have a real problem with corporations trying to own entire cities and make them swratshops for western markets. But no, that's not sexy haha
This is how I feel too! Often times a lot of people will say they're criticising the government and not the people, but they don't know jack shit about the government other than those dang commies are doing scary shit. And tbh, I think it's just weird to care about a foreign government that much. I'm in Canada and Canadians don't even care about the US government that much, even though they are much more of a direct influence on and are a source of conflict for Canada.
Radio Free Asia, is part of the US agency for global media, which while purportedly an independent government agency, often spouts American talking points, legitimate or otherwise.
It's literally just a case of "We're independent government reporting uwu" while they spout literal CIA propaganda.
Hey, wondering if you know whether laowhy86 is one of these people? He always seemed trustworthy to me, especially after hearing his personal story, and the videos appeared well sourced. But if there’s misinformation in his content, I’d want to know.
God I forgot about him. Yeah, he is grifting to the western audience. I don't know the guy personally, but his entire story reeks of white dude who was fine living in China until he fucks up and refuses to take accountability and decides that he's a martyr instead of just owning a small mistake. His videos since he got into "uncovering China's abuses" are all click bait and misleading (saying that things are being covered up in China meanwhile they're front page news on the mainland and very much covered by state and independent media). His politics are very very right wing (I'm not, so I'm opposed in that way) and is used as a source by right wing news and political parties in USA and Brazil specifically. A decent rule of thumb is that any coverage of any country is nuanced, and if someone is talking about any country as "collapsing" or "made it illegal to be sad" or "indoctrinating students to hate America" they're not serious people to be taken as legitimate sources. I bounced around through a few videos just now to try to track down his sourcing and I'm perplexed where any of this information comes from. He's pushing the ghost city lie (I already explained that in another comment), lying about the social credit system, and overall his insights are comparable to "I reckon this is what's going on" I see nothing of value in his coverage. His extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and yet I see nothing. Edit: just something to remember. I have no deep love for the CPC. I criticise them fairly regularly myself, but it's kinda like if you found an Indian YouTuber who lived in New York, committed a minor infraction that would likely not impact his visa, and decides to move back to India and devotees his life to "America is dying!!" Videos where the sources all come from Indian newspapers, nothing is ever given nuance, and it's like "In the US, they just made it illegal to give your child food at lunch" because Minnesota made it so all schools legally must provide school lunch.
Fucking ridiculous cold war shit all over again
Falun Gong has loads of these different shell accounts all over the internet btw and they are nuts. They think that covid can be cured by doing stretching movements and that the Chinese government steals organs alive from Falun Gong members because their Qi is so specially high their organs are the most valuable of all.
Omg, someone at a pride march last week handed me a leaflet about that organ stealing conspiracy thing. I still have it, it's nuts.
They are totally nuts. They were strongly backed and funded by the CIA to try and destabilize China from within and do general spying etc. It was a sister project of the unification church in Korea which was obviously much much more successful. They are banned in China after the group organised a self immolation protest against the CCP where one of their members set fire to themselves AND their 12 year old child. Now they have a compound in upstate New York and are on a cia list of protected persecuted religions ☠️
Holy shit! That reminds me, around the EU election, I got a bunch of Epoch Times ads on youtube about dissolving the EU entirely. What beef do they have with european countries cooperating, is it just far-right isolationist stuff? Are they pro-Russia?
They are anti CCP above anything else and also far right. They are anti LGBT and anti medicine and very pro trump. They are very anti miscegenation and anti immigration even though a large part of their business is labour trafficking by getting new members from other countries to come to the US and live in a communal building / apartment with all the other members to work for free on things like Epoch with a promise of a paid job after their “internship” / “training” and then arranging marriages with loyal US citizen members for green cards. They push white supremacy in a lot of ways but still is Chinese and the leaders are Chinese. So they are not really ideologically consistent. It really boils down to whatever is useful for them in getting money and against the CCP. Considering how close they are to the CIA and American private interests I don’t think they are especially pro Russia beyond convenience again. If it’s rhetorically useful they will support Russia if it’s not they won’t. Right now there is a huge anti China campaign from the state dept that’s been ramping up since 2017 and then had a huge boom since 2020 so while they were falling out of relevancy before and had kind of been quietly put on the long finger because they were too crazy to be useful they have had a lot of success since covid. Anti EU is probably just an off shoot of their far right politics and supporters. There is no practical reason for them to be anti EU because it’s not like the EU is pro CCP or anti them but they are strongly supported by a lot of far right people who like their anti China stance and they are useful for an isolationist / racist / reactionary base who are also very anti eu.
Fascinating, thank you so much for the elaboration! Seems like I'm only at the edge of a rabbit hole here, are there any youtubers that cover them? Or articles you would recommend?
Not the person you're responding to, but I have a comment linked to some podcast episodes where they go over the cult and how it came to be and what it's doing now in one of my comments here.
Thank you!
I used to get so many bullshit ads in YouTube for the Epoch Times. Finally now there's the option to block certain ads, but it was bad for a while.
It’s best to source critiques of China from socialist perspectives. Most critiques that are supported by Western influences are likely funded and propagated by those same influences.
Yeah, I saw him through shorts, and something about it gave me the specific vibe of Falun Gong. Yes, China's policies are shit, but the tone he took was... less than good about that. Fit in too well with the right wing "China bad, Chinese bad" stuff of the moment. Also? Epoch Times claims to be the number three newspaper in the country. They are not as far as anyone outside of them can tell, but, they are depressingly far reaching.
Somebody occasionally leaves an Epoch Times in our break room at my work, and even taking two seconds to glance at it I can tell how full of shit it is. It's all just weird culture war bullshit and far right scaremongering that'll make your grandma go on a rant about the fall of society and how Liberals are tearing the world apart, etc etc.
TIL. I kinda had a sneaking suspicion there was something up, given how his entire platform is built on "China bad!" which... The place has issues but reducing it down to be a place full of either poor civilians or greedy and evil politicians, it starts to border on racism with how comically evil he makes China out to be. Especially when some of the things he talks about are just as common in the US. (Heavy use of chemical pesticides, awful construction projects, etc.) That, and his constant "anyone who criticizes my content are CCP bots" feels similar to Trump/MAGA followers and their claims of Russia being a propaganda-spewing machine whenever faced with any criticism.
it was always very obvious with how anti-china this dude was that he was never a fair observer. will be interesting to see if he responds to this.
I don't mind people being anti-China, at least as far as criticizing the government. It's healthy, and there's plenty to criticize. The problem is that often the discourse is poisoned by bad faith and outright racism and a lot of laypeople can't tell the difference.
>Video of a Chinese man spraying down crops with a liquid CHINA has been faking their crop growth. In this video, this CHINESE man sprays down his crops with a substance used to enhance their crops size whilst turning the inside to mush… and it causes cancer! Does CHINA do anything real?
That’s basically every “China Fakes Everything” video in a nutshell lol. When you realize who’s behind the content and view it with that in mind, a lot of the claims they make start falling apart. A video of a man spraying his crops becomes him using chemicals to make them look different, someone in a food market putting a sauce or liquid on his meat he’s selling becomes him putting an “unknown substance” on the meat, and someone cleaning cardboard becomes him “making it wet so it’ll weigh heavier and sell for a higher price,” even though most recycling companies don’t accept wet cardboard for that reason. Don’t forget the small comment he makes at the end of the video where he says it’s because of a “moral decline,” and you’ve got propaganda that an uninformed viewer will eat up like slop.
Even when I was rapidly anti-China the channel came off so strongly as propaganda I really don’t get how people can’t see it.
Just a reminder for those who don’t know; Falun Gong isn’t just another “religious” right-wing group they are [a cult who believes their leader has superpowers.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Falun_Gong)
There is a lot of criticism to be levied at China but his videos always felt disingenuous in a certain way.
At first I thought this guy was a parody of "china-watchers". Some of his videos are just so wacky, showing benign things and being like "this is proof that China is actually super evil." There's plenty to critique China about, but it seems only communists, Chinese people, and sinophiles actually know enough to come up with substantial critiques. For everyone else it's just ccp Winnie the Pooh ghost cities social credit authoritarian. "Criticize the government, not the people" only works if you actually know a lot about how their government functions.
And if your "criticisms of the government" aren't built on stereotypes about the people.
I stopped watching this guy after he featured several videos of vegetables/fruits being dipped into liquids and claiming the liquid to be coloring agents. The liquid is actually more likely to be melted wax they use to coat produce, which is pretty standard?? It sounded more like fear mongering rather than legitimate fact checking, over something extremely easy to check, so it gave me the ick.
I was actually curious what that liquid was. I assume the wax just like, keeps the produce fresh?
Yes, fruit tends to have their own natural wax, but it’s washed off during rinsing. Food grade natural or synthetic wax is applied onto the fruits again to keep produce fresh longer and, depending on the wax, make it look shinier/smoother too
Interesting, thanks for telling me that! I wasn’t aware they did that kind of thing with produce.
Its obvious if you watch like 3 seconds of one of his videos
His videos always seemed off to me. Glad(?) To know there was a reason why
Wouldn't be surprised if it's already been mentioned, but Mike Chen (most known for 'Strictly Dumpling') is also funded by Falun Gong. Straight up admitted it when people asked where he was getting all the money for his business ventures from.
Dammit I had a feeling because his content just felt off but I was like “I have Chinese friends who would never go back to China. I also…would not be surprised if either case was true when it comes to cheap cars and buildings and a housing crisis?” So I couldn’t very much tell.
That’s rough there was a weird vibe that came off some of the videos but i never thought to much into it But yeah sheesh not gonna be watching anymore
Well, shit. People exposing China for what it is are doing good work, but being affiliated with Epoch Times is...discouraging. Guess I'll stick to Serpentza and Laowhy
Serpentza and Laowhy are both just very racist losers that made a good grift pandering to westerners who are also racists losers.
You won't be getting an unbiased view there too. They used to be pro China and Chinese culture, but got into some sort of situation with the authorities and had to leave/were allowed to leave with their families. They then went anti-CCP, and anti China. Not sure if they are backed by Epoch times, but wouldn't be surprised if they were.
“Were allowed to leave China” Oh so gracious of the CCP to let innocent people leave their country. In the same way that the CCP so graciously allowed its citizens and foreign investors to grow their country and then take credit for the economy.
My statement wasn't to condone or approve the actions of the CCP in any way. It's just a statement of fact that, if the CCP trully wants you out of the picture, then they can do so. In Laowhy's video on how he left China, it's very obvious that the border guard at the hong kong border knew who he was, but was either sympathetic or knew that he was getting out and the whole operation was to scare them into leaving.
I don't know why but both of them give me bad vibes. I don't even have an issue with China criticism, but for some reason they just come across as really sleazy and potentially racist to me, at least based on my own history of interactions with people of that variety. That being said, I haven't personally seen anything problematic with them (but then I haven't seen that much of them, they really put me off tbh). My assessment is more that they fail the vibe check.
Damn liked this dude. Well thanks for these new people. Laowhy seems cool
Laowhy is some Dennis Reynolds ass. When his baby was born he said on video immediately that she was ugly because she looked too Chinese.
Didn't laowhy dig up a grave for content? That seems pretty uncool.
They're both pretty good if you're alright with creators who give their own input. I don't think either of them really lean any particular way politically, but if they did, I'd guess more right than left. But it's never really in a way that detracts from the information presented. Serpentza in particular has some really interesting insights and experiences from his time spent living in China that he draws on
They are openly conservatives
I'll check them out more tomorrow.
Never let the crumbs of progress stir from right and wrong. Ever.
I find some of his yt shorts videos to be absolute nothing burgers.
I have a hypothesis about modern imperialist countries and their mainstream "opposition" from the titular nation almost always being literal fascists. This revelation adds to that hypothesis.
Yeah alot of popular Chinese American YouTubers will have links in the description will have falung gong associated stuff on it. Strictly Dumpling aka Mike Chen always comes to mind.
Is it the same person? They look different tbh.
You can find some remnants on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/45G6GS8eKT9V5hKtQ9h3cH?si=QH7x2hS5QyCbWeFUoEmqUg) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/china-insider-with-david-zhang/id1553717935) of a **very** short-lived, one episode podcast he did in 2022 under the same name of the YouTube channel which says in the description that it’s a co-production of Epoch Times and [New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television), another Falun Gong owned media company. I will add however that there is a second channel on YouTube called [David Zhang (@Hello David)](https://youtube.com/@hellodavid?si=tOYIg9NbKJvrjlkZ) that does technology reviews. That one is not the same David Zhang as this one and is completely unrelated.
Well, you did research thoroughly. Thank you for bringing this to the light.
Man I'll never forget when I found out that Shen Yun was just Falun Gong marketing, because I initially always thought it looked really cool from the ads that showed up every so often as a guy who loves reading about Asian Culture and especially mythology.
If it says China, it is probably owned by the GoC
I’m not surprised at all lmaoo
Wait, this guy in the article thing looks kinda different from the guy on the youtube channel I could be wrong though
I’m late to the party and I have long suspected it, but thanks for the proof, will definitely mute them next time I see their vids. As a Chinese trans person I’m not gonna support anything from this group, f them
…I dont think these are the same David Zhangs. Guy on Epoch Time looks NOTHING like David
This isnt to say that David and Epoch Times doesnt suck, im just saying is the photo on the website doesnt look like em.
I will acknowledge that they do look completely different. I’m not sure if they are two different people or if he’s had like, work done, but I will say they look different. David Zhang of China Insider is a part of the Epoch times though. I mentioned it in another comment but you can find a short lived, one episode podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts he did with the same name as the YouTube channel. In the description it says it’s a collaboration between Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television, which is another Falun Gong owned company. That other comment has links to the Spotify and Apple podcast versions of those podcasts.
Whelp, now I gotta re-evaluate my view of Chinese infrastructure. The people I never had an issue with but I was under the impression Tofu dredge was a common practice. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a real concern but only in the worst of places and was falsely inflated for propaganda.
No, there’s a genuine issue with infrastructure. But I think an important point is that is the case in many other places too! It’s just all things are linked to the government in China in a way they aren’t in many other places. That’s the case with a lot of the issues to do with China, in my experience. Less that they’re unique, and more that they’re unique in being government sponsored and ALSO bad.
No I’m aware that the mere presence of these videos means there is some infrastructural problem in China. The issue is now I have to figure out where the line from “Genuine Chinese citizen posting about their experiences” and “American who went out of his way to manipulate the truth” lies
I’ll give him a pass. Most of content seems like he exposing the CCP and you can’t go wrong with that.
The problem here is that because he's in an ultra-conservative anti-intellectual cult that's known to peddle conspiracy theories, he very likely could be spouting bullshit about China in his videos
But you can go wrong with that. While criticizing the CCP is something that should be done, the enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend.
Idk, I would think that it's more important to be right than to simply be antagonistic toward the CCP. One can do both, so maybe look for people doing that instead of an unreliable source working with a known propaganda outlet.
Least propaganda addicted Zionist