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Telesur English presents a new episode of “China Now”, a wave media's production that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian Giant.
China Now is a show that explores the past and future of the Asian Giant.
Telesur English presents a new episode of “China Now”, a wave media's production that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian Giant.
China Now is a show that explores the past and future of the Asian Giant.
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00:00Hello, Telesur English presents a new episode of China Now, our media's production that
00:13showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian giant.
00:16In this first segment, we are going to start with topics talking about how Israel carried
00:21out part of its targets, ornaments, attacks against Hezbollah by hiding explosives inside
00:28Pagard batteries brought into Lebanon, according to senior Lebanese security officials who
00:33said the technology was so advanced as to be virtually undetectable.
00:39Also in China, Coren talks about Egypt's flight jets lost in China, how Lebanon Pagard's attacks
00:46affects iPhone sales in China, Chinese workers providing they are the best in France, and
00:51much more.
00:52Let's see.
00:54Welcome to TopX, your daily news related to China, I'm Derek.
00:59On 80th of September, a new wave of a remote exploding attack blasted in Lebanon, which
01:05was widely believed to be carried out by Israel, has killed at least 20 people and only 415
01:12wounded.
01:13According to Al Jazeera, several blasts took place simultaneously, which were similar to
01:18the explosions on Tuesday, but the second round was mostly related to walkie-talkies
01:24or radios.
01:25Lebanon's state news agency said some of the explosions occurred in a brand of two-way
01:29radio with images from the scenes showing walkie-talkies labeled with ICON and made
01:35in Japan.
01:36ICON is a Japanese manufacturer of wireless communication equipment producing amateur
01:42radios and navigation products.
01:44Its products are sold in more than 80 countries around the world with subsidiaries in the
01:49U.S., Australia, Germany, and Spain.
01:52According to the company, it has also supplied electronics gear to public safety organizations
01:58and the U.S. Department of Defense and the Marine Corps.
02:01A statement on the company's website said that the ICVA-2 handheld radio was produced
02:07from 2004 to 2024 and exported to overseas markets, including in the Middle East.
02:13The company also emphasized that its products were sold overseas only to its authorized
02:18distributors, in line with Japanese government regulations.
02:23When it comes to the devices that exploded in Lebanon, ICON explained those devices were
02:28not fixed with a counterfeit prevention sticker, making it hard to confirm whether they were
02:33produced in Japan.
02:35However, the company refused to specify how it determined that radios did not have the
02:40label.
02:41Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government accused Israel of making these attacks.
02:46Israel has not yet directly commented on the blasts, but Israeli Defense Minister Yoav
02:51Galland said in a speaking to Israeli soldiers on Wednesday that Israel is at the start of
02:57a new phase in the war.
02:58Despite no mention of the explosions of electronic devices in Lebanon, Galland praised the work
03:04of Israeli's army and security agencies, noting the results are very impressive.
03:10The U.S. denied having any pre-knowledge about the blasts.
03:13However, according to Reuters, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity stated
03:19that Israel told Washington on Tuesday it was going to do something in Lebanon.
03:24The exact cause of the explosions remains unknown, but several analyses have suggested
03:30that the supply chain of the devices was tampered with or manipulated before reaching Lebanon.
03:37Bomb Disposal Specialist Chris Hunter told Al Jazeera that Israel may have gained access
03:43to the supplier.
03:44In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Lebanon's Mission to the United Nations reported
03:49that a preliminary investigation by Lebanon's authorities found that the communication devices
03:54involved in the blasts had explosives planted in them before they arrived in Lebanon.
03:59Interestingly, in 2020, the U.S. had led a so-called Clean Network initiative against
04:05China, which says it seeks to eliminate the long-term threat to data privacy, security
04:11and human rights posed to the free world from authoritarian malign actors.
04:16According to the State Department's website, Israel, Japan and Taiwan authorities are still
04:21among U.S. partners in this initiative.
04:25However, the latest attack makes Chinese people doubt whether a pair of dirty hands can really
04:30clean the Internet.
04:34China Current is a weekly news talk show from China to the world.
04:38We cover viral news about China every week and also give you the newest updates on China's
04:43cutting-edge technologies.
04:44Let's get started.
04:55Welcome to China Current, your weekly news report on what's happening in China.
04:59I'm Lisa.
05:00In this episode, In Egypt, American Flight Jets Lost to China's, Lebanon Patriot Hacks
05:07Affect iPhone Sales in China, Taiwan Hacker Army Won the Chinese Netizens' Laughter
05:13with a Hilarious Performance, Chinese Workers Prove They Are the Best in France.
05:18First, let's focus on the latest achievement of China's arms sales.
05:24According to Chinese media, the paper, on 16 September, the Egyptian Air Force will
05:30purchase Chinese fighter jets to replace America's F-16.
05:35The Egyptian Air Force plans to purchase the J-10C fighter jet, produced by China's Chengdu
05:41Aircraft Industry Group.
05:43The aircraft can carry 5,600 kg of either missiles and bombs and can fly at a maximum
05:50speed of 1.8 miles.
05:53Its combat radius is 550 km, while the direct distance between Cairo and Tel Aviv is 402
06:01km.
06:02This means that if Israel has an airshow, Egypt's J-10C would only need 11 minutes
06:08to get there.
06:09While Egypt's specific procurement quantity has not been disclosed, Voice of America claimed
06:14that China is expanding and targeting the Middle East regional market.
06:19However, according to information disclosed by other American media, the Middle East regional
06:25market is evidently being messed up by America's unreasonable pricing strategy.
06:30In fact, the Egyptian Air Force operates 220 F-16s, making it the 4th largest F-16 operator
06:38in the world.
06:39Washington had offered Cairo the upgraded F-16V, but the price of it was unreasonably
06:46expensive.
06:47For example, the U.S. once sold 66 of them to Taiwan Island for US$8 billion, which means
06:54each flight jet cost US$121 million.
06:58In contrast, Pakistan signed a US$1.4 billion deal with China in 2009 to buy a reported
07:0436 J-10Bs, with a unit price of only US$39 million.
07:10Compared to the products that the U.S. is trying to sell to Egypt, Chinese flight jets
07:15are not only half the price, but also perform better.
07:19As Bulgarian Military.com reported, the J-10C offers superior combat capabilities compared
07:26to the enhanced F-16 model, or at a comparable cost.
07:31Military Watch Magazine also reported that the close to 200 F-16s that form the backbone
07:37of the fleet are considered among the least capable 4th generation flighters in the world,
07:42and have been heavily downgraded and restricted to using obsolete Cold War-era weaponry, and
07:48no beyond-visual-range air-to-surface weapons whatsoever.
07:52In fact, the F-16 is an excellent fighter jet that has been tested in actual combat.
07:58However, due to relations with Israel, the U.S. has imposed varying degrees of air combat
08:04capability restrictions on the products sold to Egypt, preventing them from posing a significant
08:10threat to the Israeli Air Force.
08:13For example, they refuse to sell the AIM-120 missile, which should originally have been
08:18paired with the F-16.
08:21This means that Egyptian pilots must rely on AIM-7 missiles with a range of less than
08:2670km, while Israeli pilots have missiles with at least 105km range.
08:34On the other hand, China's J-10C flight jet can carry the PL-15 missile, which would
08:39allow pilots to strike enemies 300km away.
08:44And the relations between China and Israel is obviously not as close as that between
08:48the U.S.
08:50According to the Eurasian Times, China is also promoting its latest stealth fighter
08:54jet, the FC-31, to the global market, which has gathered attention in the Middle East.
09:01With the American F-35, Israel is currently the only country in the Middle East with stealth
09:07However, how long this advantage will last is uncertain.
09:12Next up, let's turn our attention to Lebanon, which had a profound impact on Chinese customers.
09:19On the 17th of September, hundreds of pages in Lebanon simultaneously exploded by remote.
09:2512 people have been confirmed dead, including an 8-year-old girl.
09:30And 2,750 more have been injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon.
09:37The pager involved in explosions belonged to a Taiwanese manufacturer, Gold Apollo,
09:43and their products have been sold to 260,000 units in the U.S. and Australia in the past
09:50two years.
09:51A second wave of remote exploding occurred just a day after the first blast, which killed
09:57at least 20 people and nearly 450 wounded.
10:01According to Al Jazeera, several blasts took place simultaneously, similar to the explosion
10:07on the 17th, but the second round was mostly related to walkie-talkies, which were labelled
10:13with the Japanese manufacturer ICOM.
10:16The New York Times reported that Israeli's intelligence agency Mossad allegedly hid explosives
10:21inside the pagers, later triggering the explosion remotely.
10:27The operation may have been going on for several months and involved at least 5,000 pages.
10:33The exact cause of the explosion remains unknown, but several analysts have suggested that the
10:38supply chain of the devices was tampered with or manipulated before reaching Lebanon.
10:45Bombs disposal specialist Chris Hunter told Al Jazeera that Israel may have gained access
10:50to the supplier.
10:52The pager attack sparked concerns about the security of supply chain on Chinese internet.
10:58In 2020, the U.S. led a so-called Clean Network initiative against China, especially Chinese
11:04technology giant Huawei, which says it seeks to eliminate the long-term threat to data
11:10privacy, security, and human rights posed to the free world from authoritarian malign
11:15actors.
11:17According to the State Department's website, Israel, Japan, and Taiwan authorities are
11:22all among the U.S. partners in this initiative.
11:25The recent pager attacks have led many in China to question whether U.S. and its allies
11:30are really endangering the global supply chain by pushing Chinese products out of the market.
11:37On China's largest social media platform, Weibo, Xiangligang, a blogger with 1.6 million
11:42followers, commented that the pager attacks have seriously undermined the credibility
11:48of electronic devices worldwide.
11:50He noted that many people in China are now questioning the security of products like
11:55iPhone and Tesla.
11:57Several days after Apple released its latest iPhone, both Pinduoduo and Taobao, the two
12:03largest e-commerce platforms in China, have slapped a 4% discount on the high-end iPhone
12:0916 Pro Max, which only came out for three days in China.
12:13For Chinese consumers, iPhones used to sell out immediately upon release.
12:18Before Q-Up, I even had to pay extras to scalpers to buy them.
12:22Things are changing.
12:23Next up, a Taiwanese hacker group were caught by Mainland China.
12:27On 23 September, China's Ministry of State Security exposed a Taiwanese hacker group
12:34specializing in fabricating fake news.
12:36Originally, their mission was to hack into the websites of universities and airlines
12:41in Mainland China to steal confidential data and to spread misleading information through
12:47bot accounts, and they unsurprisingly failed.
12:51The hacker group, named Anonymous64, is led by members of Taiwan's Cyber Army, established
12:57in June 2017 by Taiwanese authorities.
13:00Interestingly, the Taiwanese government denies any involvement.
13:05This group operates an ex-account, where they boldly claim to have hacked the official website
13:11of 40 Mainland Chinese universities and frequently posted images of hacking Mainland China's
13:17digital billboards and internet television to spread hate speech.
13:22In their propaganda, they portrayed Mainland China's cybersecurity as highly vulnerable.
13:28However, according to the investigation by China's Ministry of State Security, the
13:33images they posed were fake and edited by Photoshop, and the hacked university website
13:38were counterfeit replicas, with no actual user trafficked.
13:43Despite their largely unsuccessful hacking attempts, the group successfully exposed their whereabouts.
13:49China's Ministry of State Security accurately identified three active Taiwanese military
13:54personnel involved in the project, Luo Junming, Hong Liqi, and Liao Weilun, while this marks
14:01their first successful entry into a general Mainland Chinese official website.
14:06Next, on the 15th of September, the 47th World Skill Competition concluded in France.
14:13China claimed the top spot in the event, winning 36 gold, 9 silver, and 4 bronze medals.
14:20Chinese workers have won gold medals in projects such as aircraft maintenance, automotive technology,
14:26autonomous mobile robots, 3D digital gaming art, and cooking.
14:31Known as the Olympics for Workers, the week-long competition brought together over 1,600 workers
14:38from 69 countries and regions.
14:40The players competed across 59 skilled disciplines within six major categories, including construction,
14:47arts, communication, manufacturing, transportation, and services.
14:52Workers from Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia also pulled off amazing results in fields
14:57like information technology and engineering.
15:00South Africa also sent 26 workers to complete an event related to renewable energy and autobody repair.
15:07In fact, outside the competition, Chinese workers also remained close ties with their fellow athletes.
15:13Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the Luban Workshop, a vocational education and training
15:18network developed by China, allowed workers across Africa and Asia to learn skills from
15:24each other.
15:25According to the South China Morning Post, there are 33 new Luban workshops across 29
15:31Asia and Africa countries.
15:33It was a scheme that was first launched in Thailand in 2016.
15:38According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, more than 22,000 students have received vocational
15:43training there, with more than 10,000 have gone on to graduate with degrees from affiliated
15:49universities.
15:51China's main foreign aid agency recently said the Ethiopian Luban Workshop, based in
15:57Addis Ababa, has been designed as a high-quality skills training center for the entire African
16:04continent by the African Union headquarters.
16:08Despite the Luban Workshop providing a valuable platform for global workers to exchange technologies
16:13and improve vocational training, some Western outlets have cast doubts on its intentions.
16:19The Washington Post, for example, suggested that the Luban Workshops serve China's ideological
16:24goals, drawing parallel to the Confucius Institute, which have also faced criticisms and suspicion
16:31from the West.
16:32At the closing ceremony, Leon handed over the flag to Shanghai as the host of the 48th
16:38World Skull Competition.
16:40Let us wish workers from every country good results in the next competition.
16:45And that is all for today.
16:46Thank you for watching this episode of China Current.
16:49If you have any thoughts or comments about our show, please reach us at the email address
16:53below.
16:54And we look forward to hearing from you and see you next time.
17:05We'll go for a short break, but we'll be right back.
17:07Stay with us.
17:17Welcome back to China Now.
17:26In this second segment, we have Thinkers Forum with Jan Orberg, academic and director of
17:31Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.
17:34Likewise, in Global Arena is Charles Liu, senior fellow at The Hague University, both
17:40talking about interesting topics.
17:42Let's have a look.
17:47Now, if you go to 9-11, it was a lousy conflict analysis because everybody asked, how was
18:03it done and who did it?
18:06The attack, you know, on World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the third one was meant
18:12to be the White House, but the plane crashed.
18:16They did not ask, why was it done?
18:20And so if you don't ask why, you cannot solve the problem.
18:25But that was not the intention for the U.S.
18:27The U.S. wanted to exploit that victimhood, and I'm not underestimating it, but 3,000
18:35people, less than 3,000 people were killed on 9-11, 2001.
18:39The majority of which, or at least half of which, were not American citizens, but people
18:44who sat from all over the world in the World Trade Center.
18:48So, with due respect to every life that cost, the United States decided to exploit that
18:55situation for saying, now we're going to have a global war on terror, the GWAT, the
19:01global war on terror.
19:03Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there.
19:11It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and
19:19defeated.
19:23That means wherever we think that the guys who did this came from, we are going to bomb
19:28and occupy.
19:29So, on the 7th of October, they invaded Afghanistan.
19:33And so, over the time, these 23 years, figures from Brown University and elsewhere in the
19:41U.S. and other statistics have it that somewhere between one and five million people have lost
19:48their lives as part of the GWAT, the global war on terror that the U.S. started and still
19:55has running.
19:56So, instead of asking, why did they take the financial center of the world, the military
20:02center of the world, Pentagon, and the political center of the world, namely the White House,
20:09which was telling, you know, they didn't bomb any kind of, you know, museum building or
20:13hospital or something.
20:14They took the three centers at that time.
20:18That should have been a message to someone.
20:20If you had read Bin Laden's book, he starts out saying that the West has done enormous
20:27harm, not the least mass killing people in the East, by which he referred to Hiroshima
20:34and Nagasaki.
20:35So, long story short, you overreact because you consider yourself a victim.
20:43Namely, you try to kill terrorists and say that thereby you will fight terrorism.
20:51That's not the way it works because when you kill terrorists in the Middle East, Al-Qaeda
20:58or Al-Nusra or whatever, and by the way, the West has cooperated with a lot of them, for
21:03instance, in Aleppo in Syria.
21:04I've seen it myself.
21:06When you go for killing people, you don't solve the problem.
21:10What you should do is to ask yourself, why do people become terrorists?
21:15And when you have talked with terrorists and found out what their criticism and grievances
21:20are and how they feel marginalized and why they use violence to get attention, then you
21:25begin to have a sense of what can be done.
21:29And I think that has been a devastating development for the Western world.
21:36The fighting after 9-11 all around the world by the U.S. has contributed to making the
21:44U.S. more hated and having a more negative image than it otherwise would have had.
21:51That goes together with all the wars the U.S. has lost.
21:56There's no wars it has won since Vietnam.
21:59It has lost all the wars morally, politically, legally.
22:04The strong country, the strong society is one in which your different elements of power
22:12are balanced equally much.
22:14A strong economy, strong political status, strong culture, strong social patterns, cohesion,
22:23strong legal power and legitimacy in the eyes of others.
22:28Now, if all these are sinking, but there's one you have, and that is the military power.
22:33You become a kind of drug addict, in this case a weapons or militarism addict.
22:40And you will militarize yourself to death.
22:43Because the reason you have all this military is that you have taken the power from the
22:48economic power, the political power, the cultural power, and invested that in your military
22:53and warfare capacity.
22:55And the bottom of that, the basis that should carry this is becoming smaller and smaller.
23:02And the West at the moment is the best at military power.
23:06It is declining in economic power.
23:09It's declining in political power.
23:11It's declining in cultural power.
23:14It's declining in trade.
23:16It's declining in global legitimacy.
23:19But one thing the Americans and NATO can say is, we're strong.
23:23We can do things.
23:24We've lost all the wars since Vietnam.
23:26But put that aside, we can still blow you up if you don't behave like we want you to behave.
23:31That's what happens at the moment because of this militarization against Russia.
23:35Which is perverse because Russia was already a dwarf before all this started.
23:40Russia had 8% of NATO's military expenditures.
23:44Excuse me, nobody with 8% or 8 horses does not start a war against somebody who has 100 horses.
23:52So this whole thing is fantasy.
23:55It is a way to legitimate your own or cover up your own blunder called Ukraine and membership of NATO.
24:02If you ask me why NATO is spreading, it's because our leaders in the West believe that we're number one.
24:08We're second to none in the military sphere.
24:11That means you will see all problems around you as something that can be solved by weapons.
24:16By means of weapons or more weapons.
24:19That's why diplomacy has basically disappeared.
24:22That's why economic sustainability underlying defense has disappeared.
24:28That's why you don't care anymore about whether the rest of the world finds your policy is legitimate.
24:34And that's why you fight to preserve what you think you can preserve while everything else is falling apart.
24:43It takes no intelligence to start a war.
24:46It takes a lot of knowledge and intelligence to stop a war and create peace.
24:50And that's why I say there is a connection between intellectual and moral disarmament in the West.
24:56It doesn't matter anymore. We don't do diplomacy anymore.
24:59We don't take the other into account.
25:01We don't go for common security.
25:04We don't go for disarmament anymore.
25:06We don't respect the UN Charter because it's easier not to and just send some weapons.
25:10You see, the response from the Western NATO countries has been all the time, send more weapons.
25:15What do we do at the moment?
25:17It's a totally intellectually indefensible position.
25:21And the presidential candidates in the U.S. have it and built on it.
25:25We want a ceasefire while we pump in weapons and ammunition to Israel.
25:29Does that make sense?
25:31I think a child can see that that is stupid and doesn't make sense.
25:35I think there is a clear connection between militarism, armament, just hammering, you know, when you have a problem,
25:46whereas you need intellectual rearmament and moral rearmament if you want to solve conflicts
25:54the productive and lasting sustainable way.
25:59It cannot be done by weapons. I'm sorry.
26:02And so this kind of intelligent conflict resolution is over.
26:07It's not used anymore.
26:09When I say these things here in the West, they say, oh, that's very idealist.
26:14I don't know where it happens, but I think it had to do with the fact that the Soviet Union broke down,
26:19Warsaw Pact disappeared, and then you could do anything you liked.
26:22There was a free world for the West in 20 years where you could start any war.
26:26You could bomb here and there.
26:28There was no Soviet Union that could prevent it.
26:30There was no China that could prevent it.
26:32There was nobody else who could prevent it.
26:34Now let me give you a personal experience that I had in the 80s.
26:39I'm that old.
26:40Our colleagues, me and my colleagues, were working for the Swedish foreign ministry,
26:45writing reports, doing conceptual analysis, what is deterrence in psychological, political, and moral terms and things like that.
26:56And they would get the material, and they would then say, come up that and that day,
27:00and we will go through your text, and we have a lot of questions to you.
27:04Why?
27:06Because Sweden needed, as a non-aligned, to a certain extent neutral country,
27:11to devise, to develop its own policies and be unique,
27:15because it did not just call Brussels or Washington, what shall we do?
27:20It had to, because it had its own policy,
27:23it had to be very, very solidly based in knowledge and clear concepts.
27:29Now, that's not the Sweden today.
27:31The Sweden today is a foreign policy that is completely in the interest of the United States.
27:37As a member of NATO, it has no independent foreign policy anymore.
27:41In my view, you could just as well close down the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
27:45apart from ambassadors around the world, that's nice.
27:48And it is a total de-intellectualization.
27:53It's a foreign policy and security policy formulated without you needing any knowledge,
28:02because you get the inspiration, the words, even the Twitter statements for press conferences,
28:09you get them through the Western influence.
28:12That's how Sweden, where I come from or live in,
28:16I've seen this setting up of not only NATO membership, but 17, I said 1717,
28:23American military bases on Swedish territory.
28:27Fifteen in Finland, three in Denmark, and four or five in Norway.
28:31More than 40 bases in one year, set up in what used to be a peaceful corner of the world.
28:37Not only NATO membership, but bilateral agreements about bases,
28:42bases that will be under American jurisdiction, where, for instance,
28:47the sovereign state of Sweden has abdicated parts of its independence and sovereignty
28:53and given it to the United States.
28:55For what reason?
28:57For being used if there is a conflict with Russia.
29:02Not that we have something that we can contribute,
29:05not something that NATO is interested in,
29:07not something the Western world could make good means of,
29:10such as a mediation capacity, such as a strong disarmament policy,
29:16such as an inspirational UN relationship.
29:23We don't have it. We have nothing to give anymore.
29:26You can add to that Ukraine with NATO expansion is a factor that makes the West go down,
29:32because everybody who is not NATO can see that NATO was a main conflict creator until Russia,
29:40unfortunately, and I would say not very productively, invaded Ukraine.
29:45And then you had Nord Stream, and now you have the genocide in Gaza.
29:50All these things are contributing to undermining the authority and credibility
29:56and legitimacy in the rest of the world's eyes of the United States
30:02and the Western world, NATO and the European Union.
30:05I have never been anti-Western or anti-American,
30:09but I feel it's painful to see how nobody is threatening the West,
30:15but thanks to its own confrontational policies, its own militarism,
30:20its own we-can-do-nothing-wrong, the hubris, we are demolishing ourselves in the West.
30:28I think that's very sad, and I wish there would be some leadership somewhere in the West who could say,
30:33hey, we've got to find out before it's too late.
30:37It has all the time been we're doing nothing wrong.
30:40It's the others who are foolish or dangerous or a challenge.
30:44We keep on doing what we will. We step up what we do,
30:47not seeing that what they do has been self-destructive.
30:52And that's intellectually, you know, it's disarmament,
30:56while you promote rearmament with military means,
31:01and that's very sad to see for those of us living in the West.
31:04A spokesman of the Turkish government has announced that Turkey is thinking of joining BRICS,
31:13or BRICS+, as it stands now, because now it's more than the five original countries.
31:19And this is fascinating because for Turkey,
31:23which has been seeking to join the EU for a long time, has had problems.
31:29But it's also a member of NATO, a member of the U.S. military alliance,
31:34is now seeking to join BRICS.
31:37Now, what does this mean?
31:39Of course, the U.S. would not be very happy,
31:42because for Turkey, a member of NATO to join BRICS
31:46is clearly taking a stance for and with the global South.
31:52I think what we have is a situation in which
31:55I think what we have is a situation in which
31:58countries, independent and sovereign states,
32:01are seeking the best for their countries, the best for their people.
32:06And it seems that participation in NATO does not seem to measure up
32:12in terms of improving the lives of the people of Turkey.
32:16But joining BRICS may actually help in promoting South-South collaboration
32:22and promoting better trade, better financial terms,
32:26better everything among the members of BRICS.
32:30And given the fact that BRICS is now talking about
32:33a settlement currency for members of BRICS,
32:37starting with the settlement in local currencies,
32:40but possibly a BRICS currency for trade settlement,
32:44which will be very helpful to BRICS members,
32:47and other financial institutions being established,
32:51BRICS bank, BRICS development institutions,
32:54all of this would be quite meaningful for Turkey.
32:57I think these are real things, concrete things,
33:01much more than the imaginary enemies
33:04that NATO gets together to fight against.
33:07For the West, there's a concern that this taking a position
33:11on wanting to join BRICS, not only by Turkey but many others,
33:15is actually siding with China, siding with Russia.
33:20Now, this is absolutely ridiculous,
33:23because BRICS was something that was created by a Goldman Sachs banker.
33:28Brazil, India, Russia, China, and South Africa.
33:33It just happened that BRICS sounded good.
33:38It is not a political or geopolitical formation.
33:42It's just that these five countries,
33:45at the head of the state level,
33:47decided that it would be interesting to have a collaborative effort
33:51along the lines of these five countries' interests.
33:54And that's why it was formed.
33:56And then they found lots of commonalities
33:59in terms of what they have to deal with,
34:01in terms of their development efforts.
34:03So they worked along those lines.
34:06Now, very good.
34:09Many other developing countries discovered this is very helpful,
34:13and hence decided to join and actively participate.
34:17And this is why Turkey is now seeking to join.
34:21It has nothing to do with taking the side of China
34:25or taking the side of Russia.
34:27It's just common sense of exercising your sovereignty
34:32and wanting to improve your relations with other Global South countries,
34:37improve trade, improve the livelihood of our people.
34:42I think the way things are moving is not just Turkey,
34:46but others will probably be joining.
34:49But the way things are going,
34:51BRICS Plus will become quite an entity,
34:53quite a sizable entity very soon.
34:56But it's a good thing.
34:58It's a good thing where the Global South collaboratively
35:01tries to accelerate their development efforts
35:04and improve the lives of their people.
35:08A Few Weeks Ago
35:11A few weeks ago, a researcher,
35:14very well known actually, a neuroscientist,
35:17Dr. Wu Ying, committed suicide.
35:20And the National Institute of Health formally declared
35:23that many of the researchers have found
35:26that there have been discriminatory practices
35:29and really a lot of emotional and psychological pressure
35:33on Asian Americans,
35:35especially those of the Chinese descent.
35:38This is nothing new.
35:40We've known that this has been happening after Donald Trump,
35:44while he was president,
35:46launched a program to target Asian Americans,
35:50especially Chinese Americans,
35:52for national security reasons, quote unquote.
35:56And thereafter, there have been other legislation
36:00in U.S. Congress targeting the same
36:03and even more ridiculous targeting the Chinese government
36:07in terms of whether or not they had influence
36:10over researchers to capture U.S. information
36:14or science and technology secrets.
36:17Now, for someone who's been, I guess, subject to the same thing
36:22more than 50 years ago,
36:24I can actually talk quite a bit about this
36:27because I remember the days of Martin Luther King.
36:30Reverend Martin Luther King leading demonstrations
36:33for civil rights against discrimination.
36:36I remember in 1968, the massive march on Washington.
36:40At that time, America talks about everybody being equal,
36:45human rights for all, and so on and so forth.
36:48But sorry, the N-word, you go to the back of the bus
36:52where you don't even get a seating.
36:54And the N-word was prevalent all over,
36:58and it was commonly used.
37:00But it's nothing new for Asian Americans either
37:04because at that same period, during that same period,
37:08you had many expressions used,
37:11derogatory expressions used against Asian Americans.
37:16Many of you probably have not heard of the expressions used at that time.
37:20And I was subject to exactly that.
37:24That continued on until today,
37:27but now it's become an international thing.
37:31It's China, China, China, Chinese Communist Party.
37:35But behind it all, underneath it all,
37:39is still racism and discrimination.
37:43A couple of years ago, fellow alumni of
37:46my alma mater, Princeton University,
37:49was putting together a scholarship fund
37:52for Chinese students to study at Princeton.
37:55And eventually the thing was dropped
37:58because we were told, let's not say by whom,
38:02but let's say by university officials,
38:06that there is a discriminatory practice
38:09against foreign students from China
38:12where FBI required reports on a regular basis
38:16on their activities.
38:18And even university officials
38:21were unhappy about what they had to do
38:24and were absolutely outraged
38:27by the discriminatory practices
38:30being imposed on them by the U.S. government.
38:33Of course, we know that the U.S. government
38:36has now other regulations coming out
38:39that, oh, come and study in the U.S.,
38:42pay full tuition, but don't touch the sciences.
38:47You can study the non-science subjects.
38:50It's really amazing when you think about it.
38:53I think back 50 years, more than 50 years ago,
38:57when Dr. Martin Luther King
38:59and against the war in Vietnam
39:02and demonstrations against the bombings in Cambodia
39:06and so on and so forth, going back over 50 years.
39:10And now the very same,
39:13however under a different guise,
39:16is now being practiced as racial discrimination
39:19seems to be so deeply ingrained in this country of the U.S.
39:24that all the talk about equality
39:27and the human rights and so on and so forth
39:30just seems so hypocritical.
39:35And this was another episode of China Now,
39:38a show that opens a window to the present and the future
39:40of the Aishwaryan.
39:41Hope you enjoyed it.
39:42See you next time.