Two Weeks In China Blew My Mind

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We don't usually do long segments um about our holidays on Navara Media, but as many of you will know, I've recently come back from two weeks in China. Um and given me and Aaron love talking about the country so much um I thought it would be worth sharing some of my thoughts here on the show. Um of course going to China, seeing some new buildings, some bright LED lights, and coming back with your mind blown by cool infrastructure, um is not exactly original. Lots of people are doing it at the moment. Um, and it's something actually that the Chinese government seem keen for Westerners to do. So, hypermodern cities like Chongqing, um, a city of around 80 million people in central China, um, often forms the backdrop of videos exing the wondrous virtues of modern China. And my Twitter feed is currently full of short videos showing the drone show in Chongqing, which the city put on for their Mayday Bank holiday. Um, unfortunately, um, I wasn't there for this. I missed this. I still I'm yet to see a drone show. Um, which I would love to do. Um, some influencers have been explicit about the message we're supposed to take away from the impressive skylines of China. This is a warning to any Westerner visiting China. The first thing that's going to happen is you're going to question your reality of living in the States or living in the West. As in, what the hell are we getting in the West? As an American born and raised my whole entire life, I could not imagine living in a city that looks as beautiful as this.

[00:01:23]This is Shanghai. And here in Shanghai, I could leave my bags right here unattended, probably for the whole day.

[00:01:30]It would still be there or the police would probably pick it up for me, right?

[00:01:33]You could not do that probably anywhere in America. It's worth being clear from the outset, the China phenomenon seems partly manufactured. The Chinese government has been courting influencers to improve its image in the West. Um indeed they even invited me on an all expenses paid trip to the country last year. Um I I suppose reluctantly but also politely turned that down um and went this year off my own back instead.

[00:01:57]Um now you might notice my phone camera isn't as good as some of the influencers online. Um I didn't take a gimbal um or even a selfie stick, but I still thought I'd share some moments I thought would be interesting for you guys to see and which would spark some interesting conversations um with Aaron and myself.

[00:02:13]And I did go um for my sins to some classic influencer haunts. Um this is the restaurant in Chongqing where you can cook your own meat barbecue. Um as you look at the lit up Chongqing skyline um covering your skyscrapers with LED lights really does create quite the impression. Um I do believe they go off at 10:30 so everyone can sleep. You're not sort of stuck with that in your city all throughout the night. And this is my friend Lewis um doing the the Western Tourist Chongqing barbecue pose. Um, this is the view as you ride the Montreal. So, it's the train that goes through the apartment block, which has become the iconic image of Chongqing.

[00:02:49]Um, and I mean, one thing that just stands out to you is is the density um of of Chongqing in all of these cities.

[00:02:56]Um, makes me even more of a Yimi than I already am. Um, sort of most of these buildings would probably get blocked in London because I'd say this is not within the uh the character of the local area. Um, so it's nice to go somewhere where they're not afraid of of density.

[00:03:14]Um, that's some of my terrible camera work. Then you can find better portrayals of Chongqing's architecture elsewhere on YouTube. People with drones, um, people who are really sort of committed to the bit of of sort of filming fancy buildings um, from high uh, locations. Um what I thought I could probably add though here um is how the local government is very actively using this infrastructure to build legitimacy um in public relations campaign. So these are all posters from a metro station in Chongqing um put up by the city-owned rail network. Here you can see a photo of of the Montreal and the text in Chinese says promote highquality development create highquality life which is pretty much my politics in a sentence. This one has the image of the Montreal going into the the apartment building that's sort of iconic now. It says speed up and run, move forward. And then this one says, "Accelerating the construction of a metropolitan area on rails." Uh, I want to take a pause here, Aaron. Um, you don't see many posters like that on on the London Underground.

[00:04:15]They're normally telling you, you know, not to look at people funny or to do sexual harassment or not littering.

[00:04:20]Whereas in China, you've got this sort of constant vision of, you know, the future is bright. We're building infrastructure so you can have a brilliant life.

[00:04:28]>> Yeah. Well, it's because we're not a country anymore, Michael. We're a Ponzi scheme. This country is a Ponzi scheme.

[00:04:34]It doesn't have a vision of the future.

[00:04:36]Uh it doesn't have a sense of collectivity and meaning like many other places do. And those kinds of messages that you saw on those posters were exactly what you'd see on British rail posters basically from 1945. That's kind of true.

[00:04:47]>> And before then as well, but basically from 1945 all the way through to privatization. And if you don't believe me, put in retro British Rail poster and you you'll see a ton of stuff that's just really optimistic and bold about the country and about what we're going to build together and how it was better than yesterday and better than today.

[00:05:05]And we should be optimistic about what's ahead of us. That's gone because we're no long we aren't a country and people might think I'm being flippant when I say this, but we are not. We're an economic zone. We're a Ponzi scheme.

[00:05:16]We're a market for US capital and big tech. We're a place where US asset managers can exploit us. Uh we're a place where US big tech can open servers um and can actually hire pretty cheap, efficient, effective labor when it comes to their industry. We're a nice little entrepreo for US finance and for global finance which is effectively a US industry. Um we're an aircraft carrier in terms of US bases being in the North Atlantic. We have many of the many US bases in this country. So Britain is not a country anymore. Sadly, and I I say that with sadness because I'd like it to be. When I go to places like Birmingham, when I go to places like Wales, I am so excited about what I see. I think the country has enormous potential. I think its past is extraordinary. I think its people are amazing. I think even though it's a small country of 16 million people, there's an enormous amount of variety, but our political and media elites don't want us to be a country because it's it's not how they maintain their wealth. we're a Ponzi scheme. So that's why you can't have these kinds of displays of what are frankly propaganda.

[00:06:23]Uh and I don't mean that in a negative sense. They are propaganda, right?

[00:06:26]They're telling you what to feel about something. Uh instead, we have an empire of the mundane and the malicious, like you say, uh don't harass people. Uh if you see anything, you know, contact British Transport Police.

[00:06:40]But of course, the funny thing is, Michael, British Transport Police don't exist. They've been cut, right? There are there are no BTP. You know this. I know this. They barely exist. I know people that work on the trains in this country. The entire train carriage is smashed up. They can do nothing. I talked to people in the TSA the RMT as there is no BTP. But don't forget three times on one journey 10 minutes. See it say it sorted. Contact BTP. We've replaced the reality of the BTP with a with a sim similacrim. You know a mirage. uh and and this is basically the the post 1979 British state. It's it's not real. There's nothing really substantial to it. So, how could it forge a a distinctive, interesting, vibrant idea of the future? China can do that. To some extent, I think France does that. To some extent, I think Spain does that. Um Britain certainly doesn't.

[00:07:33]Hasn't for a long time. And it's something, you know, I'm in politics. I helped start Nvar Media. I want to change that. But I think that's a really sharp distinction between our culture today and what we're seeing in places like China.

[00:07:45]>> Yeah. And people do sort of poo poo the China maxing thing because they say, "Oh, these people looking at these shiny buildings actually there is oppression yada yada yada." Now obviously the shiny buildings and the great infrastructure doesn't make a country perfect. But if you are seeking legitimacy through fantastic infrastructure, I mean there are many worse ways one can seek legitimacy. You know, one can seek legitimacy by talking about how your neighbors are evil or talking about how you're a brilliant ethnic group and you have to defeat outsiders. If if the source of your legitimacy is like actively and explicitly, we can build brilliant fast trainings. I think that's one of the better forms of propaganda a state can have. Um, I want to move on to the next city I went to because I suppose images of impressive infrastructure I knew I was going to see. Um, because I'd already seen it online, right? Everyone knows that China can build stuff. So, one of my uh concerns is the wrong way to put it, but sort of something I was really looking for is sort of joy. Now, obviously, it'd be ridiculous to sort of say, oh, the 1.4 billion people having a good time.

[00:08:47]But when I see sort of major fast development, my worry is sort of there isn't time for people to sort of just relax and have a good time if it's a very hyperco competitive society. Um and that meant that Changdu uh I suppose to to sort of put to bed some of those fears is a brilliant place to visit. Now Changdu um is the capital of Sichuan province. Um it is a couple of hours of train um a couple of hours by train from Chongqing. Um another mega city. So, it has around 20 million people. Um, known as China's most relaxed city. Um, which definitely seemed true to me. So, it's full of relaxed streetscapes, calfs by rivers, people eating hot pot, having beers out in the street. Um, it felt surprisingly like being in Barcelona or Berlin. Aaron asked me yesterday what I found most surprising about China. I said, "One, it's a bit more communist than I thought, which is what we're going to get on to. And two, it felt more like a European city at times um than I had had thought. didn't feel sort of that different walking around on hot evening felt like in in Changdu in particular felt like you're in Barcelona or or Berlin people having just a really nice time obviously not everyone but but lots of people um and my big takeaway from Changdu this is what sort of surprised me not about China but about sort of like my overall philosophy in general is that major roads apparently don't have to be miserable places now this is of course mainly made possible in China because nearly everyone drives an electric car. Um so you don't have all the noise and pollution that you would sort of with petrol powered engines. Um but it's also because in Changdu and they very creatively covered all their major roads with climbing vines and flowers. Um I think we can get up a picture here. How lovely is that?

[00:10:31]Um you also have silent cars again. So you can see there you've got a Chinese electric vehicle with all of those vines going up those concrete motorways. Now, I'd never imagined a concrete motorway could be beautiful. Um, and when you walk around at night under those motorways, they're actually quite pro-social places. So, here you have people um having beers and a barbecue under a pretty major road junction. And this was perhaps my favorite thing I saw on my whole trip. It's a musical gathering by retired people under a Chungdu motorway junction.

[00:11:23]Now, I love that now cuz I was thinking when I got invited by the Chinese government to go on the influence tour, you know, it was very attractive because it's all expenses paid, etc. Um, but I was worried that anything I saw I would feel like, oh, I'm just being shown this because it's a statebacked influencer tour that literally I just wandered past it in the street and it's like just loads and loads of old people who gather on a weekend under a motorway to all sing to each other. Like it it were quite organized performances. We had different people go up playing different musical instruments, singing songs.

[00:11:57]There was a guy, the video's a little bit abrupt because, you know, I felt like, is it appropriate to be filming this? And there was a guy who was it was an older fellow, but in I couldn't work out if it was a police uniform or whatever, but he sort of wandered up to me and I thought he was going to say, you know, this isn't for you to film, etc., but he said, "Come sit down. Come sit down." And then he sung the next song. So, like he really wanted us to come and see him him sing his song. Um, I should also say going back to the car issue, um, Changdu, Chongqing, every city I visited, so I went to Beijing, Changdu, Chongqing, Shanghai have a brilliant metro system. So, I'm not saying let's not bother with public transport. Let's just have mega roads um all across the city. Changdu especially, they all live in mega blocks. So, you have lots of car-free spaces sort of in the courtyards um in between the office buildings. But yeah, it did sort of being in Shanghai where most of the cars I think all the cars actually seem to be electric. I think maybe they've got more regulation in Changdu it felt more like 80%. But it does really change sort of the urban environment sort of not having petrol cars everywhere. And I feel warmer to cars than I once did. Um I wonder what you think about that, Aaron.

[00:13:04]>> Well, the sound of electric vehicles is almost quite soothing, isn't it? It's a bit like water, you know, just gone past me. Wow. It's like the wind. um the images you uh had up a minute ago from Changdu with the the vines, you know, the clam artists and the the creepers on the um on the road infrastructure could never happen in Britain, right? Why?

[00:13:28]Because capita G4S would say, "Sorry, mate. 100 grand to to plant the creeper." But what are you talking about? It's a creeper. It's it's literally it's literally a a problem.

[00:13:38]They grow so quickly and so much. It's literally a problem. What do you mean £100? Sorry. £100,000 and then £20,000 a year maintenance costs. Now, if you think I'm joking, would you categorize Britain as a country, Michael, with lots of trees?

[00:13:54]>> Yes. Yeah. Lots of lots of trees, right?

[00:13:56]Lots of trees. Great climate for trees.

[00:13:59]Uh, where I live, Kolass charge Portsouth City Council £5,000 to plant a tree. £5,000.

[00:14:07]Now, you might say, well, they've got to put the protective, you know, guard around it and uh they've got to make sure that it's a healthy tree and then they'll make all kinds of arguments, but that's the fundamental reality.

[00:14:16]£100,000, by the way, for a zebra crossing. £100,000.

[00:14:21]China can do a ton of that stuff because they don't have rent seeking at the heart of how they do public services with things like PFI, outsourcing, and whatnot. So, it looks great. We should do it, but we cannot do it with the setup we presently have. By the way, that contract we have with Kolass in Portsmouth, 25-y year contract, right?

[00:14:40]What mugggin signed that, I don't know.

[00:14:42]I think it was a Liberal Democrat. Uh, but the idea that, oh, well, Aaron, that sounds terrible. Let's get out of it.

[00:14:47]Many local authorities are tied into these contracts for another 5, 10, 15 years. The point is, if that's an authority where you live, when it's up for renewal, my god, make sure you get out of it. Say, we want to bring as much of this stuff inhouse as possible. Uh that's a no it's not about value for taxpayers money. If you want creepers and you want vines on your roads and your dual carriageways uh and your overpasses and your underpasses this is what you need to do. It needs to be in house otherwise you have these parasitic companies in the case of Kolas. It's not even based in the UK it's a French company absolutely screwing you. So it looks great let's do it. It would require a political break with the the consensus on public service in this country. Let's get on to one of mine and Aaron's favorite topics um to debate on this show um which is the extent to which China is meaningfully communist. And as I I said a moment ago, I came away feeling a bit more like I'd been a communist country than I had expected I would. So in Shanghai, we went to the Cowyang model village. Um it was built in the 1950s for industrial workers moving from the countryside. Um and just around the corner from that you have a very hipster looking now I suppose guess what that building is Aaron >> community center >> local communist party headquarters they had a a hipster coffee shop on the ground floor um you could read books by Xiinping we can see this the quite sort of hipster shelves there and this was the health the help desk it was unmanned at that point um which I thought was quite felt coded they had a sort of the nicest coffee brand um on the ground floor um which called manners which is sort of like nicer than prep. Um so it's very fully automated luxury communism.

[00:16:31]Probably more meaningful though um were these buildings. Um so they have this is a community canteen um run by the party.

[00:16:39]They have them sort of in cities everywhere. Loads in Shanghai and they're specifically designed for elderly people to get cheap meals and to get out of the house. Um young people can go though as well. We did. The the the meal was delicious. Cost about two pound. And you can see, can you imagine a more balanced meal for two pound? And it was completely heaving. I saw a sort of article online saying they were shutting because of not enough demand.

[00:17:00]But all the ones we went into were were heaving. And I don't have an image of it actually because, you know, I didn't want to film sort of in private. But there was one of these sort of communist party community centers which was sort of one of my most sort of meaningful moments there, which was downstairs.

[00:17:17]because they had the canteen which was closed at at that time just because it wasn't the right time of day. But I wandered upstairs mainly cuz I wanted to use a toilet and there was a crash which was empty at that point in time. I think cuz it was early afternoon maybe people were in school. But then there were these two um rooms full of elderly people. So one of them were sort of these people playing this sort of interesting wind instrument that I hadn't seen before but sort of all in a circle playing this wind instrument. And then another one was um a dude, an older fella sort of playing a saxophone with older people all around him sort of singing along. And I was like, this is this is the kind of this is how I want to grow old, right? It's just like singing songs in an afternoon um in a local community center where they have like a lovely canteen downstairs and then a crash next door. It's like very very cool. Also, I hadn't realized till we spoke to someone sort of towards the end of the trip sort of saying how brilliant this was and he said this is a really new thing. So, this was the Xiinping thing. So, Xiinping thought we're not communist enough. Um, let's bring in these sort of community cantens. Um, I suppose partly because there was a need there, but also because, you know, he he wanted the party to be more in people's lives. So you have more of these community centers opening up which are sort of quite communist party branded and then have various functions um in the community.

[00:18:37]Um on the Xi Jinping sort of let's make the country more communist. There's also a lot of that sort of in the more formal sense um communist and nationalist mythmaking. So in Shanghai, we went to a a very new building. Uh well, the building wasn't new, but the museum seemed sort of done up recently commemorating the resistance to the Japanese um in the Second World War. Um in Shanghai, they've also opened a massive museum celebrating the founding of the Communist Party. That was in um 1921. So it celebrates 100 years of the party, goes from revolutionary struggle to China's technological flourishing.

[00:19:12]And there's also a lot of space devoted to Xi Chining um and some quite fun communist escalators. The museum was opened in 2021 for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. Um and it seems like in in regions across the country they were sort of doing events to celebrate this. So in Chongqing um they commemorated that anniversary by launching a pretty spectacular Broadway type show which we we went to. This is our uh picture by my friend um of of Chongqing 1949. Um so it portrays the communist liberating Chongqing um from the KMT. So the nationalists um during the Chinese civil war um has if you squint there you can see that above those lights there's lots of people sort of flying across um the ceiling uh which is when whenever they were representing sort of fighting they had people marching through the air. The seats span it was all very very high-tech. Um obviously though in many ways China doesn't feel very communist. So to get to the Communist Party Museum in Shanghai, which I just showed you, and you get off at a station called um site of the CCP first founding conference, it's a very good name for a metro station. Um but this is what greets you um when you walk out of that station. Um so you can see here that's site of the first CPC National Congress um South Hang Road. Um and then you sort of turn around, you see, um a a Chanel shop there. Then you get the Apple shop which is is very prominent on a street corner.

[00:20:38]Um it's really built up sort of Oxford Street type area and then you get Tiffany's and Co. just a bit further down you had Victoria's Secret sort of all the major consumer brands in the world and lots of quite wellto-do people sort of around shopping. Um, I suppose Aaron, I'm not going to be the first person to sort of comment on the coexistence of capitalist consumerism and sort of communist imagery. And also sort of I mean the conversation I was having with the people I went with was to what extent those community centers were a communist thing or would have just been sort of in any reasonable social democratic country as well. Um, but I suppose yeah, we're often talking about whether or not China is communist.

[00:21:23]Um what do you think of of my discoveries on my holiday?

[00:21:28]>> Well, the things you're observing with regards to the subsidized cantens, etc. There are many countries, right? You go to Malta, you've got the Labour Party in every town, basically you can get nice cheap beer and you can get chips and so on. That's a party cafe, a party restaurant, party uh botchi like boule.

[00:21:48]Uh so that's not that's not unique. You get something similar in Poland. Of course, it's a bit of a hangover from not a bit of a hangover, it is it is a hangover from before 1989 of subsidized kind of cantens. You get that many places. That's not unique to China.

[00:22:02]Although I think the shine on that was particularly impressive, Michael, I must say. Um, do I think China is a communist party country? No. It's a Marxist state ruled by a communist party with a market system. It has markets. China has markets. It has market actors. has very successful one in integrated into the global economy. Um but it's a unique model because those market actors often are wholly owned or partly owned by the state or a local authority, a municipality. Um you have a parallel structure with local governments but also within businesses which is party political CCP. You have party cells within businesses I think of more than nine uh employees. uh when you have you know city governance you have the the leader of the city but you also have the leader of the local communist party so yes it's a market system it is not a a command economy in the way that you know George Orwell talks about in animal farm by the way you're kind of stupid if that's your way of viewing conceiving capitalism and communism it's literally from a children's book partly funded by the CIA um it's quite different to that it's a market system then of course some people say we're state capitalist. You know, I don't think it's state capitalist. Actually, that has a very particular meaning. Um I think it's somewhat different. Uh I I think fundamentally China posting Xiaoing fundamentally pursues the same economic policies that the USSR does with Bkar and and the NEP in the 1920s. There's a big difference there, Michael, and I think people really forget this. People say, "Well, hold on. Yeah, the USSR was doing interesting things with the NEP and they threw it all away. Not really.

[00:23:46]I think Dominic Lero, an Italian philosopher, historian, amazing guy who's now dead, he said that basically Europe had a second 30 years war between 1914 and 1945.

[00:23:57]And Stalin was very aware of this. And the reason why after 1937 you have a ton of purges, you have huge centralization in the economy is to prepare for the inevitable war with the Third Reich.

[00:24:09]China hasn't got that problem, right?

[00:24:11]Because China is in a much more peaceful neighborhood. Uh it's much bigger. Um it's just huge by the standards of East Asia. Um whereas Russia was comparatively very underdeveloped compared to countries like Germany in the early 20th century. So it didn't have to necessarily build a war economy to defend itself. When it won, when the communists won by the end of the 1940s, you know, it could develop its its own economic model. There were mistakes.

[00:24:38]There were successes. Um, but it it was a sovereign country that could embark on its own future. That wasn't really true of the USSR in the 1930s. So I think when you look at China, it's really a it's a path that wasn't followed by the Soviets.

[00:24:55]after the late 1920s. You can say that was inevitable because of the threat of the Third Reich and the imperialist European colonial powers or you can say it was a choice by Stalin. That's what Trosky say. But regardless, I think this is very much in keeping with what a coherent Marxist would say you need to do in developing a worker state.

[00:25:18]>> Yeah. I mean what I find very interesting about China I suppose is sort of interesting in terms of anyone's relationship to ideology is that yes the communist well the communist party of China do seem to believe that they are communist. Um I mean Deng's line um was let some people get rich first. So Deng Xiaoping of course sort of the Chinese leader who did reform an opening the reason China is rich is basically because of Deng Xiaoping. um that's still not disproved. Like obviously there is massive inequality in China, but maybe they are just letting some people get rich first and then the party is going to sort of step in and say, "Well, now's the time for equality."

[00:25:52]Could be the case. I mean, some people might think that's a bit naive, but it's not disproven. Um but I suppose >> they have also eliminated rural poverty, right?

[00:26:01]>> Yeah. Yeah. No, 100%. I mean I suppose what I am resistant to is when sort of people look at China and see it as confirmation that what they understand as communism works because if you look at China there are lots of things which the western left would you know be out on the streets condemning and opposing um you know the repression of of trade unions the lack of free speech obviously it's not a liberal democracy um allowing massive inequality to to develop giving quite a lot of bungs to I don't know have they I don't think they've allowed massive inequality to develop. I mean China was a much more unequal place in the 1920s and 1930s than it is today surely.

[00:26:40]>> I mean definitely I mean it's more unequal than sort of Britain.

[00:26:43]>> No but hasn't over time it's not become more unequal.

[00:26:45]>> I mean it's certainly become more unequal since the 1980s. Yeah. I mean it was it was very unequal and poor under Mao and now it's very unequal and rich.

[00:26:51]>> Sure. That would be one critique that you'd get within China, but I don't think anybody would say it's more unequal now than it was at the start of the 20th century when you had British, Russian, Italian, German, French concessions inside the country.

[00:27:02]>> But no one's really more unequal now than they were at the beginning. I mean, Britain and the United States are not more unequal than they were at the beginning of the 20th century.

[00:27:08]>> Well, we've gone back to, haven't we? I think the the if you look at the GD coefficient in the US, it's the highest it's been since I think the Great Depression, >> but I think China's probably still higher. Any anyway what I'm saying is that it's it's difficult to look at China and see confirmation of your own sort of ideological prejudices because they have taken such an interesting route and and partly I haven't got pictures of it here but we went to the propaganda museum in Shanghai where you've got like Dung's statements or Dung sort of propaganda.

[00:27:35]So obviously Mao very revolutionary.

[00:27:36]Dun's propaganda is all believe in science, science brilliant, work very hard. Like it's all obviously his most famous line is it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice. And so you can either look at China and sort of this is a vision of the importance of communism.

[00:27:50]Or you can look at China and say this is a vision of the importance of pragmatism.

[00:27:54]>> And I think you probably do need a bit of both.

[00:27:57]>> Yeah.

[00:27:57]>> His other great quote of course is to be rich is glorious. Dang Xiaoping he really had away with uh these phrases.

[00:28:05]Of course he was purged twice. He came back a third time. Never give up in politics folks. When people say oh I was thrown out the Labour party I'm leaving politics. Just a good thing Xiaoing arguably the most important politician in the 21st century. Quite an achievement given he died in the 1990s.

[00:28:20]But he laid the foundations for the for for the success of China that we see today. I'd add one more thing Michael. I think you're right. Just because it's a successful state which is led by people who view themselves as Marxists. Yes, it's at odds with the idea that trade unions and multi-party democracy works.

[00:28:36]It's a one party state. I'd say one other thing as well. You know, it's questionable whether its developmental model can be achieved by other places.

[00:28:45]So why is China for instance, you know, swallowing I think something like 70% of lithium-ion batteries made in China. I think 75% of drones, UAVs, similar with electric vehicles, right? A global hub for things like 5G, you know, it's just all these frontier technologies. It's just huge market share, right? Huge. Why is it able to do this? One reason is, of course, it's got loads of people, so it's got a huge domestic market. And once you've got a market of 1.4 billion, you have economies of scale, all of a sudden the European Union is quite easy.

[00:29:20]Um, tons of talented people. You know, I talked about this with you before. You know, uh, uh, BYD, I think, has an R&D team of 100,000 people, you know, incredible.

[00:29:32]Um, so that's true, of course, but also because they've basically socialized finance, the banks are broadly owned by the state or by local authorities, um, or partly owned, the way that credit is allocated to private firms, which also aren't private. They're often owned by the state or by workers. Huawei is apparently owned by its own workers. Um the way that credit is allocated is very different to what we have here. So what you have is very very low interest rate loans made by banks to a company like cattle which makes these lithium batteries or BYD or Huawei. And that ultra low rate of credit uh allows them to basically operate in industries which are huge scale but ultra low margin and very competitive which allows you to get a company like BYD right uh or cattle or Huawei. Um and Europe can't really build those kinds of companies for a bunch of reasons because we haven't socialized finance and we haven't got the scale to operate with these razor thin margins.

[00:30:33]When you basically have socialized finance and the domestic market of 1.4 billion people, even if your, you know, unit profit on one BYD car is tiny, you're selling hundreds of millions of them over a 5-year period, who cares?

[00:30:45]You're still going to make a ton of money. So, it works. It's a real success story. The people overseeing it are absolutely inspired and driven by teachings and marks. you know, even the the senior figures at places like Huawei, Ren, Renj Fang, I think I think his name is, or BYD, you know, these guys read marks, they've read marks, they're party cadres. You might think it's all for show. You're welcome to think that, but they are. They're both party members, those two CEOs. Um, it's a separate question. if you think we could replicate it here in Britain for instance. Um maybe across the EU you could maybe you could maybe you could have a successful one party state and a market of 450 million people in in the European Union 500 million people. Uh but right now I think it's it's quite unique. I mean Vietnam for me is the more interesting case for a country like Britain or France or Germany. You know, it's 90 million people, exporting powerhouse, but it does things in a really different way to China, but it's also much more exposed, right? If America wants to screw Vietnam tomorrow, it can.

[00:31:50]>> I mean, it's also got much >> it can't do that to China lower wages, right? So, I don't I don't know why we'd want to I mean, it's at a completely different stage of development or China.

[00:31:57]Vietnam.

[00:31:58]>> You know what I'm saying? China does. I I think if you're a if you're a middle- inome country in central Europe, if you're hungry, >> I think Vietnam is quite an interesting country because actually it's quite feasible that within 15 20 years per capita, it's a richer country than you are. So, you know, Vietnam has a domestic EV company. They have Vietnam has a company that can build EVs. It has businesses that could um create COVID vaccines. Right? I as as I understand it, Hungary doesn't have those kinds of firms. It's much smaller by population.

[00:32:27]I'm just giving you an example, a middle inome European country. I think Vietnam would be somewhere you think, okay, what can we learn from those guys? You know, I think of >> we always talk about China, but there are lots of countries out there which are really successful, doing really interesting things which aren't China.

[00:32:42]Taiwan, how the hell did they build TSMC?

[00:32:44]>> A1 trillion dollar company. You know, it's a small country. How do they do that? Vietnam, 90 million people exporting powerhouse 30 years. Yes, it's cheap labor. Lots of countries have cheap labor. They're not they're not doing it. is what Switzerland people's got to learn the lesson. So I think I mean China don't think they can export the model. Like China thinks that we can do this because we're an exceptional people with brilliant state capacity. Obviously we're not going to you know we're not going to go to Ethiopia and say do the Chinese thing, right? They think we're developed like this other people are going to have to develop in a different way. I suppose if if what you are is a pragmatist and you're saying what works for many countries Bangladesh is going to be a better example than than China. And I suppose that's why I think sort of like the lens >> Bangladesh be a better example. So what you're saying you're saying foreign direct investment >> foreign direct investment export-led growth um and they have massively increased their incomes without having the state capacity of a country like China. I think there are many countries in the world where if they try and do the Chinese model they'll fail and it will be a disaster. I mean there are many countries in the world who have tried to do policy >> say country >> that's tried to do that.

[00:33:42]>> No say country and and and why they should follow Bangladesh not China. Say a country I mean everywhere is different right? Democratic Republic of Congo DRC.

[00:33:48]Yeah. I would say they should follow Norway, you know, because of the immense mineral and energy wealth that country country has. Right. That would be the the bedrock affluence in in somewhere like Congo would be public ownership of resources.

[00:33:59]>> But that's not I mean that's not the bedrock of affluence in Norway. It's not that oil. The bedrock of affluence in in Norway is that they moved up the value chain. They got a very educated population and they had successful mixed market.

[00:34:09]>> The first thing a socialist regime in in the DLC would do is that that's what Lumba wanted to do. I'm just giving you one example. Name a country. I think >> don't talk in abstractions. Tell me a country that should follow Bangladesh and not China. Tell me a country.

[00:34:20]>> Um I think probably Ethiopia would be better off following Bangladesh and China. I think they probably are following more Bangladesh and China, which is to say we want to do export-led growth. Um we want to get foreign direct investment in. We want to be very open um to sort of international expertise because we we don't think we've got the capacity to do a China, right? China has exceptional capacity and you don't need so much state capacity to do a Bangladesh. Do you think that wealthy countries then have more to learn from China than low or middle inome countries? Like does does Britain or Germany have more to learn from the success of China in the last 15 years than Ethiopia? Potentially. I mean I think you can learn different things, right? I mean I think in a way also China is just quite unique. There is sort of no other country that can be like China and China doesn't want to make any other country like China. So I think because it is so sort of exceptional as a sort of exceptional >> thousand year old civilization 1.4 4 billion people. The oldest continuous state in the world. Like >> Iranians might disagree, Michael.

[00:35:21]>> Uh well, I mean, the Chinese think that they're the oldest state in the world. I mean, they they they put it back 5,000 years. I think the Iranians probably put it back 3,000 years, do they?

[00:35:29]>> I mean, is up the debate where the China does go 5,000 years.

[00:35:32]>> They take it back to what? The Jong Dynasty.

[00:35:34]>> The Chinese.

[00:35:35]>> Yeah. What's the first dynasty?

[00:35:36]>> Well, it goes back to 5,000 years partly sort of mythically.

[00:35:41]>> Yeah. I don't think that's I don't think that's true. Anyway, I I would say I I would say that um I sort of disagree. I think wealthier countries and that's that's really interesting. I think wealthier countries can learn more from China than poorer ones. I agree with you. I think the future of someone like Ethiopia is probably to say you know what ultimately some production presently happening in China will happen here some >> and you know we'll be producing the Chinese EVs and the batteries etc. some of them bit like Japan did as it got older right um and they'll go back to China or they'll be here for domestic consumption but I think some like Germany Britain France Italy Spain and Spain is doing this I think they should be looking at China and saying actually the relationship between politics and economic production should be fundamentally different um we should look at energy differently you know energy is the is the is the foundation upon which you build affluence and I think China got that with renewables but also coal. Uh but I think fundamentally finance is the one right. If you look at of all the bad decisions the west has made in the last 18 years so many are in finance. QE disaster. Yeah. QE was a disaster. The banking bailout parts of it probably weren't that clever. QE was the big one.

[00:36:53]So how were we allocating credit in the west? We were basically giving it to older asset owners. How are they allocating credit in China? they were building highspeed rail, you know, and so for me that's a really provocative challenge. How do you allocate resources, which is what finance is ultimately that's never explained by like that by our media, but that's what it is. So I think Britain, the US, and this is part of um what Dan Wong and what Ezra Klein talk about, right? I I think they really and it's an insightful observation actually. The US has a lot more to learn from China than a country like Ethiopia or Nigeria does.

[00:37:28]>> Yeah. No, I think that is probably true.

[00:37:29]I mean, especially when it comes to that kind of infrastructure. Anyway, I've got you a gift, very felt coded.

[00:37:34]>> No.

[00:37:34]>> Yes. It is a battery from the Chinese Communist Party Museum that says, "Believe in power."

[00:37:42]>> Wow.

[00:37:43]>> Which I thought was very fal.

[00:37:46]>> Wow.

[00:37:47]>> This is the nicest thing anybody's given me in a really long time. I'm not even going to take it out of the box.

[00:37:52]>> You should take out It says believe in power on the Well, you're not to read it anyway. Yeah.

[00:37:55]>> Huh.

[00:37:56]>> Um, we should wrap up there. I'm going to learn pin yin just to read my charger.

[00:37:59]>> Well, that's not in pinion. That's in pinion is is is the Chinese in English characters.

[00:38:05]>> So, it's Oh, it's in Oh my goodness.

[00:38:06]>> It's in Chinese characters.

[00:38:07]>> In what do they call them again? The letters.

[00:38:09]>> I don't know what they call I mean just traditional Chinese characters.

[00:38:12]>> There's a letter there's a there's a there's a Wow, Michael.

[00:38:16]>> 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China.

[00:38:18]>> Wow. You know me so well.

[00:38:20]>> Yeah. Uh let's wrap up there and thank you so much for joining me this evening.

[00:38:24]>> My pleasure, Michael. And it's great to have you back from China. I feel like you've invested in yourself. You've invested in the organization by going and also lucky China. You know, you're saying they they tried to pay me to go to pay. I know >> they didn't need to.

[00:38:36]>> I should have taken it anyway.

[00:38:38]>> Well, now I can heap praise on China without people telling me that I've sort of been bought.

[00:38:43]>> Um let's wrap up there. Um big shows for the rest of the week. Um come back for a 2-hour show on Friday. Um, and of course, Helena and Dalia will be here tomorrow with some updates um on those local elections.

[00:38:57]>> Oh, Michael, how are you voting? I have to ask. I'm doing something interesting which is this might be controversial with our audience is I'm going to vote green where I live in Hackne and I'm going to campaign for the Labour Party in Wsworth um because my friend died in Dickardm is the is head of housing there and builds social housing and I really want them to stay in um because the alternative would be the conservatives. I hope that doesn't get him into trouble. You are allowed to campaign for a party when you're voting for a different one, aren't you? As long as you're not a member.

[00:39:26]>> I presume so. I mean maybe not in Karma's party but I presume so. Look, they need all the help they can get.

[00:39:30]right now.

[00:39:30]>> Yeah, I think so. Uh, let's wrap up there. Aaron Masani, pleasure to be joined by you. Thank you for watching.

[00:39:35]You've been watching Nvar Media. Good night.