Xi Jinping: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

China the country responsible for huge technological advances and yet it still can't seem to get pandas to china is a gigantic and consequential country where roughly one out of every five people on earth live it is also the place that trump has been ranting about for years China is killing us what China's doing to us is horrible China cheats they devalue their currency we can't continue to allow China to rape our country and that's what they're doing okay so even in the context of a metaphor the word rape is pretty jarring as verbs go it's not exactly bandied about it's like if Trump said Congress is really toe me on this border wall the underlying point is clear what he chose to express it that way is not and yet for all that Trump talks about China it seems that he's very much in the process of learning about it just watch what happened when microphones picked up this exchange with China's president during a state visit back in November actually learned something there rest assured the only thing you took away from that conversation was that Egypt is older and therefore less though China okay great note to self don't a gyp t' too old but the truth Erie's a lot of us are probably under informed about China and that's something that its leaders have historically been absolutely fine with Deng Xiaoping famous we had a lay low International Strategy summed up by the same hide your strength and bide your time but in recent years there has been a significant shift regarding that because when China's current leader Xi Jingping assumed the highest office in the land he said this kumoi shock and awe that China needs to learn more about the world the world also needs to learn more about China you know what he's right we probably should talk more about China we should probably have talked more about it on this show especially considering we've done roughly 4,000 different stories on New Zealand and multiple pieces on testicle receptacle from the 2005 Russell Crowe film Cinderella man so so tonight tonight let's talk about China and let's put America aside for most of this piece and talk instead about China on its own terms because it's been going through seismic social economic and political changes which have happened head-spinning Lee quickly and many of them Center on its leader Xi Jinping who just recently tightened his grip on power the most dramatic political change in China in decades a vote to scrap term limits for China's president the move clears the way for Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely and possibly for life of nearly three thousand ballots only two voted against the unprecedented move three thousand to two which means after that vote there were two members of Chinese Parliament thinking whoopsy you really thought that would go the other way maybe an edible arrangement will smooth things over with the man who's now emperor for life and that followed on the heels of what was arguably an even bigger change the fact that last October she's political doctrine known as Xi Jinping thought was enshrined in the party's constitution and that may not sound like much to you but it's roughly the equivalent of Donald Trump making himself a founding father and including Donald Trump thought into the Constitution which would mean that historians in the future would have to pass the meaning of while Bette Midler is an extremely unattractive woman I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct and she's consolidation of power has been aided by the fact that unlike many of his predecessors who tended to be dull bureaucrats he's gone out of his way to form a cult of personality about himself for a time state media called him she Dada or uncle she both of which are objectively weird names for an adult to call another another adult but fantastic names for a pair of hairless cats see Dada uncle she dinner's ready creepy weirdos and she carefully presents eight man-of-the-people image his origin story is famous in China are born into an elite family his father fell from grace and like many during Mao's Cultural Revolution she was sent to work in a rural village a place which has now become a tourist trap the smartly dressed tour guide shows us where she slept an old picture on the wall we see a well he helped dig and a sewing shop he set up old farmers who knew she back then still roam about these pseudo mascots of this Bazaar theme park yeah that is a bazaar theme park and I'll say that knowing full well that this country's most beloved theme park features vomit-inducing teacups and a massive pantsless sailor duck with no genitals and she's branding isn't confined to tourist attractions state media has also featured folksy moments like this video of him ordering pork buns at a Beijing restaurant now that visit was huge news in China and that could be hard to believe because our politicians eat junk food in front of us all the time you can find photos of 12 of the last 12 presidents shoving ice cream into their faces it's actually legitimately challenging to find a single photo of Obama where he is not about to inhale half a pint of vanilla I didn't even remember that he'd been demolishing a waffle cone during the bin Laden raise but clearly I'd remembered it wrong I was wrong but but the reasons for Xi's popularity go beyond marketing himself as a cuddly XI data that you can grab a pork bun with because for starters he is riding an economic wave that long precedes him over the last 30 years China's GDP growth has averaged nearly 10 percent a year making it the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history which has enabled more than 800 million people to lift themselves out of poverty and many in China's growing middle class are pretty content with how things have been going the tremendous public optimism is striking everyone is doing better than their parents did in their day I think we'll be able to move to a bigger house within the next 5 years and I expect my life to improve a lot whatever happens I'm very optimistic about the future Wow a sense of optimism about the future I've got a say as a British person I just find that utterly incomprehensible if you look up optimism in the OED and this is true the definition simply reads no so for many in China things are going undeniably well but she has even greater ambitions and I'd like to focus on two massive signature projects one global and one domestic first there's his so-called belt and road initiative a plan which is absolutely gigantic in scope basically involves China spending a trillion dollars on infrastructure projects in more than 60 countries things like ports bridges and roads with the idea that it could eventually span international land and sea routes and reshape global trade with China at its center to hear China tell it it is the most ambitious infrastructure project in modern history they've even produced an english-language propaganda video to tell the whole world about it [Music] okay if I could just if I could just interrupt this irritating Old Navy commercial Hawking a trillion dollar infrastructure plan I know I know that you're probably thinking right now if I have to listen to one more second of that it's going to be stuck in my head all week well just be thankful that you haven't heard the rap break until now I can't take it anymore either they basically made communist kars4kids that is too early to say whether the belt and road is going to be a success but she's second bold project has already seen results because he's undertaken a massive crackdown on political corruption a long-standing grievance among Chinese citizens it's led to the investigation and punishment of hundreds of thousands of government officials some at the very top of the party and this has been widely celebrated with the state media even producing a crackdown themed computer game the People's Daily a Communist Party mouthpiece released a computer game where users can give electric shocks to corrupt officials what could possibly be sinister about being invited to electrocute prisoners in a government-issued game that is the most entertaining way to package something disturbing since FDR smash-hit board game Candyland just kidding it's a japanese-american internment camp and this this is where we reach the point of the story that you're kind of knew was coming because so far everything that I've shown you is what she data wants you to know about China but there is a lot of troubling stuff under the surface for instance conveniently for she some of those swept up in the corruption purge were his political rivals and those accused were often funneled into a system that's been described as a secretive extra legal process where interrogators seek to extract confessions sometimes through torture and it's worth knowing that those term limits that he successfully eliminated were put in place for a pretty good reason specifically to avoid another maou under whose regime some horrific things happened in China from a collectivized farming attempt that was responsible for at least 45 million deaths - a Cultural Revolution that was estimated to have killed at least another million - his belief that this swimsuit was flattering which I realize now that I say out loud really doesn't belong with the other two in that list the point the point here is she is actively removing the post male guardrails that were put in place and while China has never exactly been known as a haven for free expression he has clamped down noticeably on any form of dissent whatsoever there is dissent online and China's censors are working hard to quash it they temporarily ban the use of phrases such as personality cult and my Emperor and also references to Winnie the Pooh a character long used to mock Xi Jinping based on an apparent resemblance apparently Xi Jinping is very sensitive about his perceived resemblance to Winnie the Pope and I'm not even sure it's that strong a resemblance to be honest but the fact he's annoyed about it means people will never stop bringing it up trust me she if your face even remotely resembles that of a beloved cartoon character the smart move here is to lean in and backing down on Winnie the Pooh comparisons doesn't exactly project strength it suggests a weird insecurity in him and experts say that she is deeply concerned the public opinion will turn on him China's economy is already slowing and she's reportedly haunted by the specters of the Arab Spring and the Soviet Union's collapse and that paranoia may be why he's so anxious to micromanage Chinese daily life the government has a list of untrustworthy people which can restrict citizens ability to travel buy a house or take out loans and over the next few years there are plans to take things much farther every Chinese citizen is being assigned a social credit score a fluctuating rating based on a range of behaviors it's believed their community service buying Chinese made products can raise your score fraud tax evasion and smoking and non-smoking areas can drop it if a score gets too low a person can be banned from buying plane and train tickets real estate cars and even high-speed Internet yeah you could be cut off from a high-speed Internet although that could actually be a huge opportunity for the finest purveyors of shitty low-speed Internet I'm talking of course about AT&T as of this week our parent company so goodbye everyone it's been fun it gets much much darker here in fact she's crackdown on human rights he's apparently the most intense since Tiananmen Square and that is not good because Tiananmen Square is on the short list of places so infamous you don't even need to describe what happened like Chernobyl or Jonestown or that one Cheesecake Factory we can't go to anymore and she has intensified government suppression of certain religions in one province Christians have been told to take down the image of Jesus and Hank portraits of she instead something I've also done by the way so yeah I think it really ties the room together it's a nice accent piece and a Muslim population known as we guys have been singled out for dystopian levels of surveillance and persecution here is one man talking about a form that the government had him fill out this piece of paper was sent to everyone people had to fill it out they asked things like if you are weaker if you have a job if you have a passport if you pray all these answers were turned into a scoring system they would categorize people into safe regular and unsafe people that's pretty chilling cuz generally speaking whenever people are placed on lists it's not really turned out well for anyone involved many of history's greatest monsters put people on lists Nixon the Nazis Santa all of these animals did that I looked sure enough if you are deemed unsafe for whatever reason you're in big trouble because China has incarcerated Muslims in reeducation camps with as many as 800,000 individuals in facilities which reportedly to rewire the political thinking of detainees arrays their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities making uncle Shi less like your fun uncle and more like your creepy uncle who imprisons 800,000 people in his basements and if you want to see what it looks like when she's jumping thought gets put into Xi Jingping practice just just take the story of Nobel Peace Prize winner huge elbow he was imprisoned in 2009 for writing a pro-democracy manifesto and last summer he died in state custody and even China seemed concerned about how that might look fearing domestic backlash government censors went to work social media post mentioning Liu's name were deleted online searches with his name were blocked even simple candle emojis were deemed illegal on some sites CNN signal in China has been cut by government censors every time we mention his name exactly the Chinese media wouldn't allow mentions of a Nobel Peace Prize winners name which is a pretty intense level of censorship but it's also my personal policy towards Guatemalan activists Rigoberta menchú do not bring her up around me she knows what she did you know what you did Rigoberta you know what you did I don't hear our name on your lips that's not what this meetings about but the point is what it is what happened to you she'll bo and his wife who is still under house arrest is absolutely tragic although to his credit he didn't go down without taking a final swing one of the last known photos of Lee you was with his wife Lucia at first glance unremarkable but notice the mugs they're holding yep that's really the true good for that chuckling I think deep down we all know when you need to really tell someone to go themselves why not do it with a mark what the hope the whole point here is under Xi Jingping China is becoming more authoritarian just as it has major plans for expansion onto the world stage so the era of hide and bide is over and the era of do as we say may be dawning because China has significant economic leverage and it has been using that to silence criticism even when criticism is very much warranted the European Union hardly squeaks about human rights anymore or certainly the British don't you don't get much on Tibet either because whenever anyone raises any of these issues China turns around and says do you want to do business or not of course because China knows no matter how badly they behave the world will still want to do business with them they're like Facebook oh I'm sorry you don't like us mining your data and undercutting your democracy what exactly are you gonna do about it male people printed out photos of your meals you ate call your friends and tell them happy birthday and out loud words I don't think so go yourself here is where having set America aside at the start we should bring it back in because it is arguably more important than ever than America be strategic and tactical about how to deal with China sadly those qualities are not hallmarks of this guy who couldn't play chess for longer than 29 seconds without screaming my horse eats your big lady and pouring nacho cheese all over the board Trump is blowing up the traditional alliances that have helped influence Chinese behavior on important issues and that has been great news for Xi Jinping as has the fact that human rights don't really seem to be a big trump priority in fact just hours after the death of you gel polo even has it as his administration issued condolences Trump himself said this president she is a terrific guy I like being with him a lot and he's a very special person Wow that was not the best time to give Xi Jinping a pat on the back it's the equivalent of saying how much you love Kevin Spacey in American Beauty right now first you shouldn't it was objectively terrible and second you're picking the worst possible time to bring that up the point is Trump is leaving a vacuum on the world stage and China is more than happy to fill it by telling the world its story and leaving out some very important details so for everyone's benefit if they're going to send out cuddly propaganda videos about Xi Jinping at his achievements someone might want to make a companion piece the kind of rounds out the picture [Music] [Applause] taina bandung now it's growing big enjoy let's learn about it now in this annoying hum they have a president so call him uncle she bunny can with you instead [Music] he'll add a shield for you [Music] you [Applause]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 11,795,141

Rating: 4.7432489 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: OubM8bD9kck

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Jayr1994]

The social credit system is scary, like China decided that Black Mirror was a guide not a warning.

[u/Baktab]

I think he should've expanded on the chinese "re-education camps".

That topic could warrant it's own entire segment.

[u/Firebird12301]

If you want to read more, here is an article from The Atlantic. It details some of Xi's (winnie's twin) initiatives in recent years.

[u/mbelf]

Mirror?

[u/reddoorcubscout]

He didn't even cover the creation of islands in the South China Sea which they have built military bases on - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/06/photos-beijings-militarisation-south-china-sea-philippines

[u/moffattron9000]

I would have liked if they spent a bit more time on the Belt & Road Initiative, as that thing is all kinds of fucked. After all, that is starting to less like a program to reroute trade trade though China, and is now more looking like a neo-colonialist plan to get more things to and from China, with little regard for the nations that China is trading with. In fact, those rail lines and roads that China is loaning money to build are not being built by locals, but are in fact being made by Chinese workers working for Chinese firms. Also, the loans that countries receive are often unable to be repaid, so as a result, China gets the infrastructure built in the first place.

[u/triggerdtimbers]

Man I’m so glad John Oliver is going into this, I have a feeling that a lot of Hollywood and the media in America too afraid to go in too hard on china looking at how much they’ve been spending on movies in the past few years.

I talk to my Chinese friends about this and they all say basically the same thing of “well it’s not a problem if you’re not going to do anything bad”

Unfortunately China’s doing too well right now, the middle class I doing very well so they don’t complain. The lower class are too busy trying to get up to the middle class to really care about overarching government policies and of course the upper class is the upper class and obviously happy with the way things are as long as it doesn’t affect their bottom line

[u/mrwelchman]

kevin spacey is despicable - no doubt about it - but "american beauty" being objectively terrible is a take i haven't heard.

[u/Blythyvxr]

The big takeaway I got from this, is that if things go to shit with China, we can placate the leader with a pot of honey.