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Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.
Victory Lane?
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Hello and welcome to another episode
of the Silk and Steel podcast.
I'm your host, Karazah.
Today I walk on back, a French entrepreneur
on North of Chamba back to our show.
Arno is a long-term resident of China.
He writes very passionately about various Chinese topics.
And I invited Arno, first of all, welcome back
to the show, Arno.
Always good to see you.
Thank you.
Glad to be back, Karazah.
Yeah.
So we have recently, a French president, Macron,
just spoke at Davos, you know, like,
I never imagined Davos would be like exciting, you know,
a new spaking because normally I expect
all these politicians just make platitude,
boiler, template speech.
But this year, Davos is quite lively.
I think thanks to Mr. Trump, you know,
first you have Mark Carney, the PM of Canada,
leading with a speech saying,
the rule-based international order was a lie.
We just went along with the lie because he benefited.
He does, in the past.
And then you have the French president, Macron, openly saying,
we need more investment,
or we need more Chinese investment in Europe.
So do you think there's a pivot going on,
like a pivot to China from, you know,
US allies like Canada and EU?
Think it's not so much a pivot to China
and it is a pivot away from America.
In fact, it's actually America that is decided to
end the rules-based order explicitly,
so because they just don't respect any of the rules anymore.
So, you know, at some point countries
just have to acknowledge that fact.
And that's exactly what Carney did in his speech,
which I think was by far the most important speech in Davos.
In fact, he used a very striking analogy in his speech,
which he took from that club Havel,
who is the famous decident in Czechoslovakia,
back in the time of the Soviet Union.
So the analogy was that of shopkeepers
who at the time of the Soviet Union
all had to have a sign in their window
with Soviet slogans, like workers of the world unite,
but at some point, you know, when the Soviet Union
was becoming quite weak,
everyone knew those slogans were lies
that workers of the world would not unite, right?
And so what Carney, what the analogy says
on what Carney repeated in his speech
was at some point, one shopkeeper has to take down the sign
because it's just acknowledging that that's a lie.
And what he was saying is that basically he is that shopkeeper
in Davos, he's taking down the sign
and he encourages everyone else to do so,
which is of course quite a stunning analogy to make
because that's comparing the US to the Soviet Union
with all the implications that that has,
which is quite something for Canada to say
because as your remainder, like there are G7 countries,
there are 5i countries, there are NATO countries
on their America's neighbor.
So for them to say that is quite something.
So, but taking down the sign does not mean
that those countries are somehow shifting sides to China,
like Carney is not going to adopt socialism
with Chinese characteristics, right?
What he's saying is that they want to basically
be independent somehow, like not be on any side.
And he was coming for middle powers,
so countries that are not great powers, basically,
so not China, not the US, not Russia,
to unite together, so they are stronger
on two together assets,
put their interests together,
so that they together have more leverage.
So that's more the direction that he wants to go,
whether that succeeds or not,
that's an entirely different matter.
And to be fair, it will mean that they will probably
do more with China, like more trade, for instance,
which is exactly what Carney promised to do
when he was engaging just a few days before Davos.
So, for instance, they changed the rules on Chinese EVs,
remove the tariffs on that.
So they will to some extent sort of de-risk
from the US, when it de-risk from the US,
you do more with China,
but that does not mean shifting side also.
And so it's sort of rebalancing the Russian ships,
so it's more or equal between China and the US.
Yeah, I think Mark Carney also made that clear.
He said he want to reduce dependence on United States,
which means maybe taking the trade balance
from like 80% trade with US to maybe about 50% trade,
and he would redirect some of that trade to China.
And when he made the speech about mid-power,
got a huddle together,
I think he's making a appeal to the Europeans
and say, hey, us, we have similar values,
unlike that barbarian Trump.
We got to stick together.
We can't still make it a go,
but what do you make out of that?
I mean, you have Macron echoing similar sentiment.
And Macron made, to be fair,
Macron made similar sentiment before about you,
indeed, strategic autonomy,
but then Macron is famously saying the right thing
to the right audience and then end up doing nothing.
At this time, he also said,
we need more Chinese investment in Europe.
Do you think there will be anything coming out of that?
Yeah, so on your first point,
another thing that I found interesting in Carney's speech
is that it did speak about values,
but actually not in the way that,
not in the meaning that values used to have.
So under the Stockholm-Russ-based order,
values was all about democracy promotion,
I mean, liberal democracy promotion on so on and so forth.
That's not the way he meant it.
He actually said that decades cooperate
with countries like China and so on,
on values, but on specific topic.
Like he did say that, for instance,
on free trades or the defense of some aspects
of international law,
he shares China's values more than the US values.
So that's more the way I think he means it.
It's cooperation on, I will say, more principles than values
with countries that are not only within liberal democracies.
So I don't think it's really limited to Europe,
but it's much broader than that.
On that sector, it does not trade to do it, I think,
because if they continue sort of the,
the old game of liberal hegemony on so on,
then that's the world that's dying.
That's the world that failed.
So you need to adapt to the new reality.
The new reality is multiplicarities
sort of adapting yourself to a world
where which is much more complex than the world
where the West dominated and could dictate its values
to the rest of the world.
And when it comes to Macron,
I mean, I'm basically like you.
I think that what Macron says
can be almost automatically dismissed as just worlds,
because he has a history of speaking,
I mean, first of all, Macron has no constant position.
He is famous for on-empting in French.
So he always says one thing on the inverse.
So one day you listen to him and he sounds like a Marxist
and then the next day he will sound like a fascist.
So yeah, it's very difficult to keep track with Macron.
For instance, on this Chinese investment thing,
so he did say that.
But then just a couple of days after,
you have his minister of commerce, I think,
who said that his exact expression was that
France would bash the Chinese head in
or something like a very aggressive statement,
which is not exactly attractive
for Chinese investment, right?
So that is the messaging of France right now
is just completely contradictory.
So it's very, very hard to take Macron's words seriously
unfortunately.
That being said, there is in fact
a general movement in Europe to be a bit like Canada,
they've understood basically the risk
that the US constitutes like a public opinion
or shifting dramatically.
So now everyone sees Trump as a threat in Europe.
I mean, everyone like a very, very big share
of the European population.
When you listen to French TV these days,
it's all about Greenland and the defending ourselves
defending our sovereignty.
There is no political party zero that defends Trump,
even nominally Trump allies like Lopin and Sun,
they're actually very anti-Trump right now.
So yeah, the mood is definitely risking from US.
But what now, we know that Europeans have been,
European leadership at least,
have been despising Trump in private or not so privately.
But whenever US Trump summons them to the White House
and asks them to jump, they will say, how high?
Like, does this whole Greenland mess
make a meaningful break in the transatlantic relationship?
Yeah, I think it is changing.
I mean, you saw that they posed the investment
that the deal that they made with Trump back last summer.
So this is quite meaningful.
I would say it's a strong reaction on this deal
was very shocking because it was basically
imperial tribute to the US.
It was about sending hundreds of billions of euros
to the US, buying an enormous quantity of US weapons,
of US energy and so on.
It increased the dependency on the US.
So the fact that the deposit is, I think, quite meaningful.
And I don't know if it will remain posed.
I certainly hope so.
And you're starting to see more and more actions
in the opposite direction.
So just yesterday, for instance,
the French government announced that it will start
to remove all US tech from governments
for government employees.
So it's a, they're starting small,
like they're starting with a visual conference
so starting to use Microsoft Teams or stuff like that.
But you can see that they're starting initiatives
in that direction.
So yeah, definitely, I think that there has been
a move shift for sure.
Okay, well, what now, this is for Europe.
So I actually, before our show,
I was listening to you on a panel
that you had with my other friend, Daniel Dombrio
and Ben Norton, to talk about this new polarity.
You know, you made a point that US itself actually
recognized it now lives in a multi-polar world.
I think that correlates also with the latest release
of US national security strategy
and the new Pentagon document,
which sets specifically that they will deprioritize China
as a threat and they will focus on the Western hemisphere,
which is what we have seen, you know,
the action going both to Europe and Israel
but also, you know, land grab tour Greenland
is all part of ensuring the US position
within its own hemisphere.
So I would like to hear your take on that.
Yeah, so I think this is actually the key roots
behind the latest changes that the US,
this is the US acknowledging that it lives
in a multi-polar world.
And so when the US was in a unipolar world,
it made a lot of sense for them to back rules
because rules were, you know,
when you only game in town, basically,
then it's your rules and it's all about, you know,
everyone, everyone sort of,
it's like if you're the state of a country
and then you have the law of the country,
it's in your interest as the state to make sure
that the law is respected.
But if suddenly there are different powers,
if said there is a civil war in a country,
which is kind of what multiplicity is at the global level,
then it doesn't make sense for you to be like the policeman
of that country and make sure that the rules are respected
and that also benefits the others, right?
Like you're the one, from the US standpoint,
like you're the one assuming that burden
of being the policeman and that benefits
everyone sort of to your detriment.
So I think this is a key reason for them
stepping to respect for us.
And there is the fact that I think the reassession
of the Monroe Doctrine on their retrenchments
on the western and his fear is also very meaningful
because the Monroe Doctrine was not part
of US political language for decades
because they used to claim the entire world
as their sphere of inference, right?
When they were a unipolar, the only great power out there
on the fact that they reassert the Monroe Doctrine,
which is a doctrine that was born when they were basically
a regional power, sort of says that they're a regional power
again, right?
So that also goes to show that they accept the acknowledge
that they live in, in multiplicity
and may debate with, what, discussion rather
with Ben Norton and Daniel Dumbrill in Chongqing last week,
in Chongqing last week.
The question, I think we all agree on that,
but the question is, what is the ultimate objective
of the US, is it to re-become the unipolar hajaman,
global hajaman, or is it more, is there acceptance
of multiplicity more permanent and they've basically agreed
that in the long term they will,
they have no option than to coexist with China.
And that's why we had a difference of opinion with Ben
because he thinks that they will do everything
to regain unipolar power.
My point was that I have no doubts that they want to,
but I also have no doubt that they can't at this stage
that it's over, China is just too big, too powerful
to basically be renegated to second right power again.
So even though they want to, it's not about will,
but it's about power, it's about not about what you want
to do, it's about what you can do,
it's about capabilities, and I don't see a scenario
where the US can regain the capabilities
to once again become a unipolar power anymore.
But you know, I completely respect Ben's opinion as well.
Konos, it might be right, let's see.
But in any case, that's an interesting debate
and I wouldn't encourage people to watch it.
It's exactly the kind of discussion
that we need to have at this moment.
Right, I want you, now I'm asking to speculate
because for decades after World War II,
United States have constructed this post world order
where it was it sits on top
and with the so-called rule-based international order
that benefits US the most, you know,
of course, as Mark Carney's point out,
the Europeans and Canadians, they all went along
really nearly because they benefited them as well.
Why then does Trump administration
is seeming hell-bend on destroying
this whole international framework that US has set up?
And why does Trump use the language that seems to suggest
that he thinks somehow European and NATO
are these free riders that's ripping Americans off?
And that's why he wants nothing to do with NATO.
When most of us, you know, as observers, seems okay,
NATO is set up to benefit US
is to keep the Germans down, keep the Russian out
and keep American in.
What's going on here?
Do you want to take a stab at it?
Yeah, so what I called it was America's crutchef moment.
I actually wrote an article on that.
If you recall, so crutchef was a Soviet Union leader
after Stalin kind of in the middle of the Cold War.
And interestingly, crutchef has been
the similar features to Trump and America right now
because he pursued the policy of, he called it,
peaceful coexistence with the West.
Because again, Stalin was all about, you know,
global conquest of communism and so on.
On the overextended the Soviet Union,
in a way that was unsustainable.
And so what crutchef said is not posed here
because that's not sustainable,
let's not overextend ourselves.
Let's focus on us, on the Soviet sphere,
on agreed to sort of pose the ideological struggle
against the West to sort of regain our strength
within the Soviet sphere.
And so it goes through that,
but that was very badly seen on the Chinese side.
In fact, Mao's reaction was to call Trump,
crutchef a revisionist traitor.
And that's actually what triggered the Sino-Soviet splits.
On the really hated each other,
in fact, there is a funny story,
I think, around, I mean,
the came to blows,
they even killed each other as soldiers in several battles.
At some point, I think it was the Soviet minister
of defense who called the hotline in Zhongnan High
to negotiate on the attendee of the hotline was like,
we don't even call him Mao or John Lair.
He immediately replied, we don't speak
to revisionist traitors of the end of the phone.
So that was the level of,
we're saying, okay, that's too bit
because together, united, you're much stronger,
you don't want to do that.
Much like we're saying that for Trump on Europe today,
but it's just seeing the world differently now.
So to Europe, Trump is a revisionist traitor, basically.
It's, I think, somewhat similar, similar dynamic.
That's fair, that's fair.
Although, okay, I mean,
I think, Sino-Soviet split,
it's like a whole different dimension,
like we can spend hours just on that,
but right now with US,
recognizing that it's lifting a party polar world
as Marco Rubio himself, I have mentioned,
and it's now it's focusing to be the regional hedge
among the US hemisphere,
and then Europe and Canada are trying
to find their own way, post-Trump.
Where does this leave us?
Where is this, so I mean,
China obviously is setting pretty,
because the mean is that Xi Jinping
just doing that thing, but when?
And because a lot of the problem faced by US empire
is self-reflected.
And so interestingly, at this particular juncture,
we're getting that Wall Street Journal reporting.
I'm supposedly Xi Jinping purged his top military guy
for leaking nuclear secrets to the United States.
What's your take on that?
Yeah, so I looked into it,
and so first of all, this article
in the Wall Street Journal is by Ling Ling Wei,
who is kind of infamous for a bad reporting on China.
I mean, there are many instances of stories
that were later proven to be made up.
So the latest example, for instance,
is if you record Trump and Xi
at the phone code ring, the whole Japan row,
where afterwards Trump called Japan
to tell them to turn it down.
And her article on that was that for the first time,
Xi initiated the call, which was extraordinary on time.
But literally, within a few hours, both sides,
the Chinese side and the US side said,
no, the US side initiated the call.
So that's quite typical of her.
And how will Xi know?
If, because she said it was,
you know, according to Chinese sources,
like those people don't click this type of stuff.
Or don't click period.
Like what advantage would there be for it up?
Someone with knowledge about the stuff to leak
to the Wall Street Journal.
It's, I don't know, it makes little sense for me.
And how would, you know, also that,
that genre, I think the way the nuclear,
nuclear weapons are organized in China
is actually decorated to,
to, I mean, the general question,
the vast chairman of the,
some from military commission,
could not have had access to those,
to the secret that was a great friend on it
by, I can't remember.
Let me, let me look at his name,
a think tanker,
that who basically said it was just impossible for him
to, if another access to this information
in the first place, there you go,
Nilton us,
who said, yeah, the Chinese nuclear secrets
are within the China National Nuclear Corporation,
which is decorated to,
to the army, apparently.
So, yeah, he,
so it doesn't make sense for plenty of reasons, basically.
Yeah, now I already seen some social media,
a hot social media take,
they're saying, oh,
this is why Chinese, China will not invade Taiwan,
because we, we, we were so awesome,
our CIA were able to bribe the top one Chinese military guy
to be, these are nuclear secrets to us.
So now Xi Jinping have to purchase
number one military guy, that's why by 2027,
China will not be able to invade Taiwan anymore.
Great props, great props to our CIA folks.
I don't, I don't know what to do but laugh.
I mean, nobody outside of, you know,
beltway of bubbles would think, you know,
there's serious threat of military action in Taiwan
straight in 2027, but now they already have,
come up with excuse why that didn't happen.
It didn't happen because China didn't intend to do it,
but because the CIA did such a great job.
They were able to hack you too.
I mean, the top Chinese military.
Let them believe that's if they, if they want to.
Yeah, on, on, on, on the topic of, of Taiwan,
actually the, the, the, the latest national defense strategy
and the national security strategy is, is, is quite interesting.
And I just wrote an article saying that Taiwan should read
the writing on the wall.
And on, in fact, they are reading the writing on the
wall because so far so Taiwan is not even mentioned
in the latest national defense strategy.
Which I think is, is, is the first time ever that's,
that's the case.
So in on of itself, it's quite, quite a signal on,
on the importance of Taiwan right now for, for the US.
So what they do mention is the first island chain.
But basically it means that for, for the US Taiwan now
is nothing much more than, you know,
basically a military outpost, right.
And on, this is the, the, the, the, the triumph of the
average curbie type of thinking.
So average curbie is, is the undersecretary of war right now
on is the guy who wrote the, the national defense strategy
on his, of course, famous for having written a book called
a strategy of denial, where he basically sees the Taiwanese,
or Taiwan as, you know, completely dehumanized,
like he doesn't care at all about them as people
or doesn't care at all about them politically,
like democracy and so on.
Doesn't care whatsoever is it's that they're basically
of military, US military puns
on the, the, the only usefulness is as a geographic feature
against China.
But my point is that, you know, of course,
the Taiwan is themselves, there are people, sure.
And, you know, if they start to be seen that way by, by the US
that should be like, this is basically the, the,
the analogy I use is like the shepherd sort of,
you know, riveting himself as the guy who's gonna bring you
to the slaughterhouse, right?
So as soon as they present themselves as the shepherd
and so on, it's, it's, it's all good, you can be fooled.
But if they, you know, black and white, black and white rights
that, no, in fact, they don't care whatsoever,
but you, you're just a useful pun.
Then, you know, that, that changes the,
at least it should shift public opinion in Taiwan.
And you can see that they are shifting.
I mean, what the KMT is saying is if you,
if you look at the latest declaration by the new leader
of the KMT, she's saying we, we shouldn't be a pun
of the US, we should have our own voice
on negotiate directly with the, with the mainland.
So, so you're seeing quite, quite some changes on that
as well.
And I think more and more people in Taiwan are realizing
that it's in their interest to sort of also de-risk
from the US and on negotiates on their own directly
with, with the mainland for their own interest rather
than having the US do that.
Yeah, she actually says she's going to go to mainland China
to meet with Xi Jinping, which I believe might happen this year.
And this, so this, we live in interesting times, Arnold.
But what do you think, where does that leave,
say, cooperation between China and Europe?
You know, China very much would like to invest in Europe.
I mean, that they have expressed interest
to invest in Europe for a long time, except, you know,
Europeans on American beheading,
on behalf of the United States, you know,
have really put a, throw a wrench in that relationship.
We talk about that last time when the Dutch government sees
a Chinese, 100% own Chinese company in this area.
And is that going to change?
I mean, like UK just approved the, you know,
construction of a big new Chinese embassy.
Is this, does this signal a shift in the wind
in Europe, in Europe, in China?
I think it will take time.
But I think bit by bit we're going to see more and more
of a shift.
I think Karni is leading the pack.
So with his policy on EV and so on.
And that's just the sensible thing to do.
Like, of course, we don't want to shift everything to China.
But right now the Russian ship is very unbalanced.
Like they're basically only in America.
And on quite distant from China, especially on technology
and on sort of high-value added stuff.
So it will make sense to rebalance somewhat,
which is the geopolitically smart thing to do.
When you're in a multiple world, you don't want to depend
only on one part, you want to be in a position
where if one part is being too coercive on you,
you can always say, well, we have the other guy, right?
So that makes sense.
But I think what makes even more sense is for Europe
to try to be a poet in its own way.
And so I think that the smart thing to do for Europe
will be to actually learn from China more than, you know,
be like just by Chinese goods and so on.
So basically do what China did when it comes to the West,
learning from the West in order to become
growing power on some to become the way China is today.
So I'm trying to understand that.
I don't know, I have to remind you,
that took China a whole century of humiliation
before there's a vipeshift,
before there's a change in mentality.
Europe were not quite there yet.
We're just nowhere near the century of humiliation
in Europe, yeah.
There might be some humiliation from Trump,
but it's nothing compared to what China has experienced.
So I don't know, you know, what that means for Europe.
Yeah, I completely agree.
It will take time and I really believe in the sentence
that, you know, good times create weak men with weak men
create bad times.
And so we're in the weak men create bad times era.
We haven't been released through the bad times yet.
I'm the strong man, I'm definitely not here.
So that we completely agree on,
but yeah, medium to long term,
that is what I wish for Europe.
I wrote another article advocating for gullism
because Europe needs an ideological shift
first and foremost, which is all about, you know,
having strong men emerge.
So it was in that kind of beautiful world
of the end of history where everyone will become
liberal democracy and so on,
that they're still kind of in this mindset.
They're sort of starting to see that makes zero sense anymore.
So they're starting to realize that the old ideologies
is dying.
So it means they will need a new one.
And when Europe needs a new ideology,
you know, it can be very bad news historically, right?
So we always like to call others extremists,
but where the ones who started both were wars,
where the one who started the crusades,
the inquisition and all of this stuff
who had a huge bit of something.
So it can be pretty bad.
So that's why I was thinking about what European ideology
can be positive and well suited to a time like this
on to me, gullism is the only one
because it's very positive.
It's constructive.
gullism is all about grandeur, greatness,
which is very similar to the chain's concept
of national rejuvenation,
but it's not at all about hatred.
So it's not about hating on, I don't know, foreigners,
hating on the based on religion and so on.
It's about loving yourself much more than it's about hating others.
So it's on, it's about strength as well,
which is exactly what Europe needs right now.
So if I advise anything,
it would be a shift to this rather than fascism or goodness, what?
But aren't we even speak of Europe as a whole?
Because I think a lot of times we're talking about Europe,
we're thinking about what Donald Ranzfeld calls the
oh, Europe, France and Germany.
And then there's what he calls a new Europe,
which is the Baltics, the Poland, etc.
And right now, you know, especially the Baltic countries,
they have a vested interest in continue,
like the standoff with Russia, right?
Like they, for their own reasons,
that you know, for historical reason, whatever.
And like this,
can Europe really stand on its own as a poll
without resolving this current conflict with Russia?
I mean, like, because the whole reason they thought,
the European leaders thought they needed United States
is because they thought they needed US
to contain Russia in Ukraine, right?
And, and, and, and some,
I remember some commenter put a comment in our interview
last time says, can we even call this one Europe?
Apparently, the Baltic countries have very different priorities
than say France or Germany or Spain.
Yeah, on this is why actually,
tourism is also something that I recommend on this,
because he has a radically different view on Europe
than the current Europe.
So his own vision of Europe was a Europe of nations,
rather than a supra-national state Europe,
which is, I mean, right now,
we kind of have a weird mix of both.
Europe is both supra-national for, you know, some stuff,
like there are quite like nations
don't have sovereignty on a lot of topics anymore.
So it went at the supra-national level for Europe.
But nations still have some power, right?
So nation like France can still do its,
in pursuits independent foreign policy to some extent.
So the goal was much more on the,
let's not have any of the supra-national aspect,
let's create a Europe of nations
where as sovereign nations,
we collaborate on on some topics.
So he's not anti-European,
but he's very much pro-national sovereignty,
if that makes sense.
And he wanted to build a Europe of defense, for instance,
a European army to some extent,
but not as a European army,
but more as, you know, national armies
having some sort of European alliance,
much more than, you know, an army at the upper level.
So I think that vision is still very relevant today
because the girls' key insight is really believes in peoples.
So he says that, you know,
there is such a thing as a people,
as a French people, as a German people,
Polish people, and so on.
And you're not going to change that.
In fact, there were some projects in the past,
in your past, to change that,
you know, Napoleon, the Roman Empire, and so on.
On Europe kind of always re-baconized
to re-become different people.
So it's very, very hard to change that.
So his point was,
let's not even attempt it.
Let's just acknowledge the basic fact
that peoples exist.
So the nation will always be a thing,
but let's agree to cooperate as sovereign states
for our common benefits.
I think that makes much more sense.
And when there are some countries to your points,
where, you know, that disagree on some topics,
like they will probably always do,
like the Baltics on Russia and so on,
when, you know, France, for instance,
which is much further away from Russia,
sees them as much less of a threat.
The state was, we should have a core European countries,
like the big powerful states,
like France and Germany, for instance,
try to put their pressure to convince others,
not force them, but convince them.
If that doesn't work, you know,
then we can also agree to disagree on some topics.
That's fine.
That's fair.
That's fair.
That, this has been a very fascinating conversation.
Is there any topic that you wish to cover?
I mean, I think we covered most of the latest stuff.
This one here was just writing on the nine-dash line
because for some reason, the South China Sea issue
is trending again.
And the racism uses me, how people completely
understand this question,
but it's not that current topic.
Right.
Yeah, I don't trust these social media trending anymore
because it seems, it's easily manipulated, right?
I mean, like, because I remember when,
even back in 2018 or so, when Israel were bombing Gaza,
they are all the big news media, like New York Times,
coming out with headline, like Xinjiang
is the largest open air prison in the world, right?
I mean, it's almost like a blatant attempt
to gain the search engine, you know,
because everybody knew the largest open air prison is Gaza.
But now they have, they're pumping out all these articles
trying to gain the search engine results.
So I don't trust these.
I don't think how, you know, I don't trust the
organicity of all these trending topics
on social media.
I mean, what?
Yeah, one interesting topic on that is TikTok
because that makes it so obvious, right?
The fact that TikTok was just handed over,
TikTok US was just handed over to the new channels
and everyone can see that, actually,
they had much more freedom of speech
under Chinese ownership than under US ownership,
which is, it's completely,
compared to the narrative that you've always been told.
To your point, it shows the extent to which you can
censor on game social networks,
with the algorithm, and so on, like,
apparently as soon as you start to speak about some,
some topics like Zionism in a negative fashion
or something, that is just completely,
yeah, or Epstein or, yeah, it's just completely blocked.
Or ice, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of big account have reported problems
where their view sketch, their new latest posts
just get zero views.
I mean, it doesn't say they're blocked,
it just nobody can see them.
Even people who go visit their profile
won't see their latest posts, you know,
maybe because they talk about Epstein or ice
or any anti-Trump topics.
And this goes to show, you know, like,
all the accusations is like confession, you know,
whatever that keeps China of doing
is what they plan to do themselves.
And, you know, like, one guy, I think,
under my comments, oh, yeah, yeah.
Of course, you can also go to Tiam and Square
and yell down with Reagan.
But again, this is completely besides a point.
TikTok, US, is an American platform,
you know, where it's mostly American users
who air their views, right?
And right now with American ownership,
your freedom of speech has been limited on that platform,
which was in the case when Chinese had ownership
because why we China care about political topics
in the United States exactly.
So that's why you had the freedom to discuss it.
And this is the point I make repeatedly, you know,
like whatever your opinions of Chinese government,
you know, the Chinese government policy
primarily affects Chinese citizens residing in China.
So I have no reason to be worried about Chinese government
even, you know, to read, to somehow spy on me
through my EV because I do own a Chinese EV
because Chinese government has no jurisdiction over me.
We're asked if it's Uncle Sam is completely different
because they do have jurisdiction over me.
You know, I will be much more afraid
if the US government have that kind of power over me.
But you know, somehow people don't get that.
I think it goes even beyond that
because China, I mean the China on TikTok in the US
actually used to respect US law.
So they even did some censorship
when it was owned by China.
I went on it a couple of times.
On the French side, even if you compare with X,
it was much less assertive when it comes to topics
like Palestine and Zionism and so on.
It was actually quite mild compared to X in many ways
because they were respecting US law.
But TikTok did in each country,
they respect the local laws.
So that's the strange thing with this one
is the American government even going beyond much beyond
its own laws.
They wanted to be even more strict
than their own local course for.
So it's quite crazy.
Yeah, I'm quite scared.
There is a very, very scary trend in the US
towards some sort of fascist state.
Yeah, I mean, it's crazy.
Like I never thought I would see the day
when they're opening, opening,
openly executing American citizens.
And there will be a significant
a bite of minority,
but still a significant minority of people
cheering for it a lot,
cheering for the government executing American citizens.
And this is not even brown people.
They're executing white people,
like white mothers and white men
and all these people,
all these magas supporters still openly cheering for it.
I mean, it's mind-boggling.
And the government is cheering for it,
calling them domestic terrorists,
and so on.
It's quite scary.
It's not dissimilar to like the brown
or black shirts in Europe.
Yeah, and it's like all these people,
all these outright or maga people,
they don't, you realize that they actually don't care
about the so-called principle they stand for,
because they decry every day about why genocide,
like why white women not having enough children.
And they're supporting the ice executing
a white mother, a white child.
And then you have people, they say,
oh, they support second amendment to carry arms.
We need weapons to protect us from tyrannical government.
But now you actually have a case
where a registered nurse was legally carrying arms,
and then he was executed by government agent,
and then they're cheering for it.
And so it's just like, it's tribal.
These people just like, you know what?
I will support my tribe to execute the other tribe.
I don't care.
Damn the consequences, damn the principles.
I just don't like the other group of people,
and I want them dead.
And that's a level of political discourse
right now in the United States.
So I'm glad I got out, you know, but I didn't plan it.
But now I'm glad I'm in Bali.
I just looking into the US is such a shit show.
Now, now I completely agree, yeah, it's very scary.
It's almost like a bit by bit.
You can see it's stepping in some sort of civil war,
like status where there is just so much open hatred
between each other.
And I encourage by the US, I mean,
that's one of the big feature of the Trump government,
the national security strategy, and so on.
The reprioritized domestic enemies,
they cured them like, like that's curing their own system.
Number one priority now.
Yeah, yeah, America is only second priority.
The number one priority is domestic terrorism.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And those people are, yeah, they're not terrorists at all.
I mean, the gay was a nurse, right?
Yeah.
On that, well, on that happy note, we can wrap it up.
If people want to follow your work,
or no, where would they go?
I mean, Twitter or a sub-stack, I'm done my name.
Okay, well, thank you very much, Arnold,
for making the time to speak to us.
And thanks to everyone for,
and thanks for everyone for tuning in until next time.
Bye-bye.
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