- Joined
- Apr 12, 2021
Hasan's 30 minute interview with the CCP propaganda official has dropped:
YouTube
Let me ask you why you talk positive about China so much in your lecture. Cuz I think that uplifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty is an incredibly impressive feat. Being able to develop this country in the aftermath of colonial extraction, World War II, infighting and civil war and to to become a a competitive force that is slated to overtake America as a in a multipolar world is uh very impressive. And I think we should learn from that in the United States of America. We should look to that and learn some lessons from that. And that's the reason why I always try to use China as a as an alternative, as an example, because I also want highspeed rail in America. I want highspeed rail in America. I I want Americans to to not have to fear uh about where their next meal is coming from or uh potentially taking on medical bankruptcy, which is an insane concept to begin with, and doesn't even exist in other OECD nations.
Anyway, what I'm saying is I want Americans to wake up and I think China is a decent example to showcase. Hassan also known as Hassan Abi, is a prominent Twitch streamer offering political commentary and media analysis as a content creator, influencer, and political commentator. He speaks to young Americans like mainstream media could only dream of. His unique take on current affairs has helped him amass a combined 4.5 million followers on Twitch and YouTube. A recurrent topic of conversation on his platforms is China. From analyzing China's governance and development to the international bloggers travel boom the country is experiencing. He shares dimensions of the greater China story that Western audiences rarely get to hear about.
How does this one feel? Yeah. And they're on a different planet out here, brother. Yo, it's got that classic Huawei vision. Yeah. Yeah. It's got It's got a little filter on there. We're like caveman discovering fire for the first time. Chinese filter like to be in China after being in America for so long. No problem, chat. Oh, no way. It is a small one. It's the first version of It's the first Wait. Yeah. Really? Is that a Bible? No, that's a little red book. It's basically the little red book. The little red book. It's the red bible is what it is. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much.
This is incredible. Hi, Hassan Pucker. Such a surprise to see you in Beijing. Wow. It was inevitable. It was bound to happen. I know Beijing is your first stop in your whole travel plan in China. It's too early to ask. I know. Uh but uh I'm just wondering what's your expectations for your China trip? And it's probably just been two days for you to arrive China. How's your experience so far? It's been amazing. I haven't slept at all, but you know, I'm just carrying myself because I'm so excited. So, it's uh it's been it's been a remarkable experience thus far, but I was always very excited to come to China. So, this has been a dream come true for me.
What do you want to experience the most or what do you want to try the most? The food. I want to see all the big tier one cities, but most importantly, I am super stoked that I'm going to get on a highspeed uh train tomorrow to go to Shanghai. So, that's what I'm mostly looking forward to. That's what I've been most excited about.
Why Why are you looking forward to visit China? Well, part of it is because I talk about China quite a bit as far as like lessons to learn and what America could adopt and emulate. and seeing it in real time I think is is a lot different. I also wanted to show my audience and the western world in general that uh there are a lot of rumors about China. there's a lot of misunderstandings and also just outright lies and that uh it's just another normal country just like every other country is and I know that but one experiencing it for myself is good and seeing it for myself is good and then two showing it to other people as well I think will be a good opportunity.
As someone as journalist who travel to different countries and talk to local people I noticed there's a huge gap like there are a lot of misconceptions from the west in general about Chinese people. I think there's a I really appreciate your effort trying to help a lot of people to see, hey, there are also just just normal people. There are things going on that news are not reporting. But I'm just wondering in general from your observation, what are the common misconceptions that the say people in the United States have about China?
Where do I begin? I mean, if we're going to talk about the government, there is a tremendous amount of of misinformation. oftentimes one of the things that I think uh our press does to our adversaries which is really strange especially when we consider China being such a significant trade partner to America 30% of manufacturing is coming from here nonetheless the state department officially designates it as like a competitor or foreign adversary we will look to things that every other country does our allies do for example and we will assume that it's like somehow sinister or totally different or totally exaggerated when it's coming out of China.
One example I always think about is like uh there was a new museum I think was it the it might have been the revolutionary museum that was uh was launched in China and American there was a New York Times article. It was like China greatly whitewashes its own history in its museum and it's like first of all every museum is going to show the best parts of that about their history. It's totally normal. We do that in America as well. So there's that and then there's just like outright misinformation. And I think for a lot of people uh or for a lot of the press in general, they're just not very intellectually curious about what is actually going on here.
I see this in my own experience, like there are a lot of analysts I talk to, very smart people, very well educated people, but when it comes down to it, when they want to analyze China, they have this horse blinder on where they just think, you know, why are they doing these sorts of things? Oh, it's China's about to collapse any day now. And uh one of the best examples I love to use is is the GO cities. Development style here is very different than places like America or liberal capitalist nations. And they build housing with a long-term plan in mind.
And it's been incredibly successful. But at the time when the housing units were being constructed, Western analysts looked at that and said, "Oh, this is not for people to live in. They're just doing it because this is a speculative bubble and it's going to collapse at any moment." And now you look at those go cities and 10 years in the future from when those articles used to come out from the New York Times and many other places. These are cities with tens of millions sometimes 20 million people living in them.
I never want to have that kind of uh I I never want to stunt my own uh uh analysis in that way. And I feel like a lot of people do that partially because they want to cope and partially because it's just all they've known and they've just never really been interested in understanding uh that there are different ways of governance out there beyond uh what we see in the Western world.
So this is your first time in China. I watched some of your videos analyzing China and I would say most of your videos talking about China are pretty pretty good. As someone who who had never been to China before, how did you manage to understand what's really going on in China?
I grew up in Turkey, so I think I have a different attitude about different modes of governance in general. And I also grew up in that region. So I have an understanding of like what America likes to do to its adversaries or or countries that it declares uh enemies of the state and and therefore I was already skeptical about state department narratives in general. I don't know. I just did some reading and and uh I think that the Chinese development especially has been so undeniable that as long as you're even a little bit interested and and uh don't just read foreign policy magazine analysts you can you can very quickly realize that no like this is not the the backward state that uh people have presented as and I think more and more people are also coming to that conclusion as well because in the age of the internet.
Um, especially with like how accessible China is, it's it's fairly difficult for people in the west to to maintain this position that this is a scary country, almost like a hermit kingdom, right? And that's just not the case. There's a lot of businessmen that come in and out of this country. Surely there are cultural differences, there's differences in governance, but ultimately it's just like it's a it's a fully developed nation state that is constantly in touch with the rest of the world and maybe even in some ways in more meaningful ways than the the uh American government is in touch with the rest of the world.
I think um I wanted to talk more more like your career because I think your uh career is very unique uh because you live stream on Twitch a gaming platform but talking about politics and you gained millions of followers and from the young generations in the United States actually from my at least from from my experience people who told me they are your fans they're not just from the United States they're from like everywhere so I mean what motivated you to talk politics um Twitch and and live streaming hours every day is really exhausting job.
So yeah, it's not the best medium for sure. Um I played video games and I was already at the Young Turks, another news network. And I wanted to uh get better off the cuff cuz at the time when I was at the Young Turks, I would write all my scripts. And I just basically thought I already play video games. This is an environment and an audience that is uh very diverse in their opinions, but unfortunately all of the commentary side of it was very right-wing, like incredibly right-wing. And I thought that uh the the gaming space deserved better political voices.
and I was already invested in it. So, I just strapped on a camera to my PlayStation while I was playing Fortnite and just started talking about politics with a bunch of my other friends who were also journalists and and activists themselves talking about the exact same issues that I'm talking about today. And u slowly but surely it evolved from there. Um but that was my starting point.
I see your often I mean people from different groups attack you, put on put like different labels on you, attacking you. I think I'm on our way here. I was seeing someone on Twitter saying calling you a liberal. Uh yeah. And someone call you a spy. Someone call you people even from the leftist socialist also uh criticize you. So I mean I mean uh I mean how do you identify yourself? How do you what would you prefer to call yourself? And how do you see this attack from different groups?
Well, I say I'm a leftist because I think uh looking at the material conditions and and lack of class consciousness in America, I feel like leftist is the broad categorization because a lot of people who might have socialist tendencies don't even realize it because like the mass political movement in the country is is liberalism. So most people selfidentify as liberals even if they do actually think if you ask them directly like do you think you should have more autonomy in your workplace? They would say yeah of course I like that. you think that the government should create a base level of material equality for all workers unconditionally? They say, "Yeah, I love that. That sounds like a great idea."
So that ranges everywhere from even in a country like America uh with capitalist social democracy all the way to, you know, Marxist Leninism. And so I just say leftist. But uh yeah, I mean it's not a secret. I'm a socialist. And as far as uh people on the right attacking me, that's a given. Liberals sometimes criticizing me, that's also a given. in most circumstances they refuse to identify the same exact problems and they think I'm being antagonistic to the left flank position in the country which is the liberal democratic party and as far as the broader leftist uh movement goes which is fairly tiny in in uh the United States of America that's also a given leftists always fight with one another socialists have historically always identified marginal delineations or or ideological differences and have made that a massively consequential problem even at moments when we have no power whatsoever.
Have those uh labels attacks ever bothered you? Because like for from like my experience is when I decided to go on social networks and talk about like what I saw in China and I saw huge amount of attacks and racist comments and uh meaning from everyone. So it bothered me for like for a really long time until one day I realized what I want to do is tell the stories I saw and I I shouldn't be you won't shut me shut me up. So I mean I went through this transition of like mental uh struggles but you are much much more influential like you're I would consider you're a really influential influencer. You see a like even bigger amount of text from everyone. So have you ever been through those same mental struggles?
Yeah. Uh, for sure. I think in the beginning I always couldn't understand it. I just I was I was confused like people would be like, "Oh, you're this or you're that when it was very clear that I I didn't believe the things that people were saying." But at this stage in my career, I I understand that it just comes with the territory. A lot of people would rather attack uh the the false characterization of someone rather than the actual argument that they're presenting uh in an effort to make it much more much easier to to straw man someone. It is what it is.
Um I think truth usually does end up prevailing in the long run. So I just stay the course. I'm a very stubborn person and u I think that is my my secret sauce uh if you will where I just continuously uh hammer on the same issues that I care about and eventually people will find their way to arriving at those conclusions. And I've seen that throughout my career, whether it be on Israel Palestine or even whether it be on uh liberals in America getting very frustrated with their lack of options uh within the Democratic Party, experiencing failure after failure, they inevitably come to the same conclusions that that I've been yelling about for quite a while.
So you just got to wait it out because at the end of the day if you are true to yourself, true to your values, you can sleep comfortably at night and also people will more often than not come to the same conclusions no matter how long it takes.
You just mentioned many Americans are feeling maybe hopeless, seeing less of options. So um what are the struggles that some like young generations in United States are experiencing? I think many people in China would want to understand affordability, lack of hope in general. Um, everything is very costly. Uh, wages are relatively stagnant. There's no really there's there's no good jobs. Everything is so expensive.
You go to college and you take on 100,000 sometimes $150,000 in student loan debts cuz college is not free, which is ridiculous. Um, and then you have healthcare on the other side. God forbid you you take on $150,000 in debt to go to college. You can't get a job that is applicable to your degree. So you just take whatever job you can because now you have to pay those student loan debts. And then if you lose that job, you lose your healthcare.
So there are very real fears on that front. And then also housing is incredibly costly in the country. Half your wages are automatically going to your rent. And people just don't think, especially young people, don't believe that they will ever retire and certainly not retire at a reasonable age. Um, and uh, they will never be able to own a home. So that the notion of the American dream is completely lost. So uh, a lot of people feel uh, entirely hopeless.
Entirely hopeless. That's a pretty strong Oh, for sure. I think I think young people like people my generation and younger if you're under the age of 35 these are the pressures that you feel on a daily basis. There are very few people who are like no everything is actually really great. I know so many people that are working in careers that previously would have been thought as like high-profile professional careers, highly specified uh jobs with a lot of training and a lot of experience and a decade in they feel stagnant.
These are supposed to be like high earning positions and yet they are they're they're there's so much discontent and they they feel like things are too expensive.
Do you think they can make a change with the current circumstances with the US government or policies? I always have to assume that change is possible or rather inevitable otherwise everything I'm doing is for not. So there is always an opportunity to make change. It's just uh you just have to keep on pushing and you have to keep continue the struggle and especially in a place like America where there is no uh there is no labor militancy even um there's not a lot of organizing uh at least even at this point and it's been completely destroyed.
Those networks have been uh eradicated in this country by force or capital is one. It's very difficult but we still keep going.
What do you see the China US relations right now and do you think we can will eventually at a war and how can we make people from those two countries understand each other better? Dialogue is good and uh I think the more Americans realize that their conditions are not as great and that their leaders are lying to them about how it's the it's currently the greatest country on the planet. I mean, it is the wealthiest country on the planet and yet there is nothing to show for it for the average everyday working-class person.
Uh, and the more they recognize that and the more they look to other countries and communicate with the people from other countries directly without any sort of media filtering, the more they realize that like everyone is the same. They want a roof over their head. They want a hot meal. They want clothes to put on their back. They want a better future for their children. They want upward social mobility. They just want an easy life and they want a meaningful place on this planet. They want a they want a good job. And that's the same whether you live in China or you live in the United States of America. And uh we have a lot more similarities and a lot more closeness with one another than we have differences. So dialogue I think is is one of the best ways to do it. But like I said, as conditions worsen in America and and people look to other countries, even in China, and they realize that maybe they weren't right about the way they perceive, you know, everyday Chinese existence, the more they will think that uh they were lied to, hopefully yearn for something more from their own governments.
I saw China has been one of the very frequent topics in your videos in your live streams like you analyze the governor of China, China's development, but in general you always say like China very positive things about China and then there are people calling you maybe saying you're a CCP paying you to do this. You're a CCP agent uh to talk good things about China. So let me ask you why you talk positive about China so much in your live streams.
Um because I think that uplifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty is an incredibly impressive feat. being able to develop this country in the aftermath of colonial extraction, World War II, u infighting uh and and civil war and to to become a a competitive force that is slated to overtake America as a in a multipolar world is uh very impressive and I think we should learn from that uh in the United States of America.
We should look to that and learn some lessons from that so that we can at least try and incorporate some of those lessons and that's the reason why I always try to use China as a as an alternative as an example because I also want highspeed rail in America. I want highspeed rail in America. I want I I want Americans to to not have to fear uh about uh where their next meal is coming from or uh potentially taking on medical bankruptcy, which is an insane concept to begin with and doesn't even exist in other OECD nations.
Anyway, what I'm saying is I want America to wake up and uh I think China is a decent example to showcase even though there is a tremendous amount of propaganda. Ultimately, the results are there and it's it's very difficult to argue against said results.
So, the CCP didn't pay you to say all these things. No, but it doesn't matter. People will say it regardless. But, uh I mean, look, I I I'm I'm pretty straightforward. like I criticize uh the the Chinese government as well just like I criticize the American government when it's like worthy of of criticism. It's just that I think we have to be honest and uh the problem is a lot of people would rather be dishonest and and uh heighten negative aspects of of foreign countries while simultaneously totally understanding uh why certain things happen in their country.
Um, so it is what it is, but they're just not used to someone being like, "No, I don't think this is as consequential as you think it is." They just immediately assume like, "It's very black and white. There's no nuance. There's no nuance thinking." If you don't automatically present China as a foreign adversary, they go, "Oh, you you're you that's crazy. I've never heard that before." But instead of being like a little bit curious about why I'm saying that, they automatically just shut it off.
Today is your second day, third day meeting. Second day in Beijing. The first thing you did was go to the flag raising ceremony in Tman Square. How was your feeling? Um, it was interesting. I mean, it's not for me personally. I'm not a very patriotic person in general, but uh what I found fascinating is that people from all around this massive country were traveling sometimes for an entire day. I talked to an elderly woman there who said that she traveled for a whole day to come to the flag raising ceremony.
Something that happens every day uh in TM Square and yet it was packed and uh I find that fascinating and I think it's because especially for for uh older Chinese people I think they just have a lot of pride because you know they have seen this country dramatically change over the past couple of decades and that gives them a sense of pride and uh I wish we had something to be more proud about as well in the United States of America rather than like the fake pride that people try to create around endless militarism.
I totally agree what you said, especially for the older generations. Um because I traveled to many rural regions in China to do stories about like the poverty alleviation, how they changed the villages and I found the most patriotic Chinese people in those regions, not necessarily in big cities, the people who already pretty rich who people who already pretty have like you already have everything but they always complain about many things.
But if you go to say Yunan, Guan, Tibet, all those southwest China who used to be so poor, everyone I talked to, they are so patriotic. They they wear the CPC badge voluntarily just because they are feel like happy. I think just like you said when you ask them like why why you you love the party so much or why you feel so proud so emotional they say I you I I had no home in the like back in the days or someone one person from a ethnic minority living in Vietnan this ai auntie said I used to run from wars I run from China to my back to China I had no nationality I was running hiding in caves but now I have a nationality as a Chinese living here.
So like of course uh telling us like a young people don't complain about anything because we used to have nothing. So exactly like you said those people at the TMS square watching the flag raising ceremony I guess just like you described they saw the most dramatic changes in their life. So they're emotional. I was very emotional every time I go to the flag raising ceremony.
Yeah. So like I said it was an interesting experience for me. It's uh it's interesting to see that cuz it's not that's not something that you can force people to do. You know what I mean? There's not it's virtually impossible for uh I think a lot of Americans to comprehend. And and I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who feel a sense of patriotism when they see, you know, F-35s flying over a football field uh before a game, but like I said, what that represents is not uh a material improvement in their lives.
Mhm. Uh so whereas I feel like for the average Chinese person, especially from an older generation, they have seen that material improvement in their lives, a dramatic improvement in their lives. So they have this this sense of pride, which I I found uh interesting to observe right there in person.
What's your travel plan in China? Besides the cities you're visiting, do you have any thing that you want to do on your travel list? Yeah, highspeed rail. But aside from that, uh I want to see I want to see these major cities. I want to see uh all of these cities that are I mean they're they're all over Tik Tok, especially nowadays. Like I think the younger generation in America is like a lot more open-minded to to coming to China and seeing it uh for themselves.
But uh I I see the current status of China around the world as like maybe Japan in the '9s where it was at its peak, right? It was actually lapping America in in technological developments and uh I I wanted to see it for myself before it's established as the norm pretty much.
And what's your goal for this long awaited China trip? It's basically to to experience it for myself and to show that there are, you know, normal people here that are living their lives just like Americans are. and they have fun, they like to drink, they like to party, and uh and that we're not all that different from one another. And it's not this like scary dystopian country in the way that like a lot of Americans think.
Are you going to live stream every day when you're in China? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I have been already. Outdoor indoor and outdoor. Indoor and outdoors. Yeah. So, I do I do my regular American political commentary and then I uh go and and uh experience uh something in the morning usually around that time frame. Like tomorrow we're going to be going to the uh the Forbidden City. Forbidden City. Yeah, we're going to the Forbidden City. So, that's going to be cool.
Wow. Okay. Oh, it's going to be packed by the way. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people in China. Yeah, there's there are a lot of people everywhere. If you think the people that you saw at the Tman Square for the flag raising ceremony yesterday was a lot. Oh, it's going to be come back during the summer June and July.
I was there uh uh with a friend who also who is also visiting China. We went there during the summer time. We went there at 300 a.m. It was packed. We packed like what you saw because it's warmer and people are napping, sleeping on the ground. Yeah. waiting for the And when they allow people to go to the flag pole, everyone was sprinting.
Oh, yeah. Or people were sprinting in the morning. And it was it was like 30° out and so it and people were just running. Yeah. Like preschoolers and and elderly people were just booking it as soon as they opened the the square. And then apparently people were like sleeping uh the night prior as well, just to get like front placement. Mhm. which is wild. Yeah.
You have to get used to like there's no personal space in public when you're in China. Oh, no. For sure. No, I' i've gotten I've gotten used to that. Definitely. Okay. Like Chinese people are very straightforward and they will they will get up in your personal space. Not many people realize people are very straightforward. Yes.
like my parents or grandparents i.e. They will tell you not only because they are your kid. They will tell you like your friend, oh you got fat. Yeah, you got fat or like a a foreign friend visiting. So, oh, you wear such a big size clothes. So, all these things so straightforward, but there's no bad intention at all.
I'll tell you a story. Right before we did this interview, I went to this park and at the park they had the dating resumes on the ground and it was fascinating. It's a bunch of old people. They bring their resumes of their daughters and their granddaughters and they put it on the ground and then a bunch of old people they're like, "Oh, I have a son. I have a daughter." They talk to one another and they try to set up these like relationships.
They try to arrange them and we went there to check it out and an old man walked up to me and I was there and I had a translator and the old man asked me like, "Oh, where are you from?" I said, "America." And he turned around and said, "Why don't you find an American girl then?" Really? Yeah. What are you doing here? and he walked away and I was like damn I'm very looking forward to hear more interesting stories that you're going to have in China.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Seriously. So I will if your time permits I will ask you your experience in China after you finish the trip. Okay. Yeah. So I really hope you have a good time in China and uh hope you have a good journey and hope to have you more on the show to share your experience. All right. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.
Anyway, what I'm saying is I want Americans to wake up and I think China is a decent example to showcase. Hassan also known as Hassan Abi, is a prominent Twitch streamer offering political commentary and media analysis as a content creator, influencer, and political commentator. He speaks to young Americans like mainstream media could only dream of. His unique take on current affairs has helped him amass a combined 4.5 million followers on Twitch and YouTube. A recurrent topic of conversation on his platforms is China. From analyzing China's governance and development to the international bloggers travel boom the country is experiencing. He shares dimensions of the greater China story that Western audiences rarely get to hear about.
How does this one feel? Yeah. And they're on a different planet out here, brother. Yo, it's got that classic Huawei vision. Yeah. Yeah. It's got It's got a little filter on there. We're like caveman discovering fire for the first time. Chinese filter like to be in China after being in America for so long. No problem, chat. Oh, no way. It is a small one. It's the first version of It's the first Wait. Yeah. Really? Is that a Bible? No, that's a little red book. It's basically the little red book. The little red book. It's the red bible is what it is. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much.
This is incredible. Hi, Hassan Pucker. Such a surprise to see you in Beijing. Wow. It was inevitable. It was bound to happen. I know Beijing is your first stop in your whole travel plan in China. It's too early to ask. I know. Uh but uh I'm just wondering what's your expectations for your China trip? And it's probably just been two days for you to arrive China. How's your experience so far? It's been amazing. I haven't slept at all, but you know, I'm just carrying myself because I'm so excited. So, it's uh it's been it's been a remarkable experience thus far, but I was always very excited to come to China. So, this has been a dream come true for me.
What do you want to experience the most or what do you want to try the most? The food. I want to see all the big tier one cities, but most importantly, I am super stoked that I'm going to get on a highspeed uh train tomorrow to go to Shanghai. So, that's what I'm mostly looking forward to. That's what I've been most excited about.
Why Why are you looking forward to visit China? Well, part of it is because I talk about China quite a bit as far as like lessons to learn and what America could adopt and emulate. and seeing it in real time I think is is a lot different. I also wanted to show my audience and the western world in general that uh there are a lot of rumors about China. there's a lot of misunderstandings and also just outright lies and that uh it's just another normal country just like every other country is and I know that but one experiencing it for myself is good and seeing it for myself is good and then two showing it to other people as well I think will be a good opportunity.
As someone as journalist who travel to different countries and talk to local people I noticed there's a huge gap like there are a lot of misconceptions from the west in general about Chinese people. I think there's a I really appreciate your effort trying to help a lot of people to see, hey, there are also just just normal people. There are things going on that news are not reporting. But I'm just wondering in general from your observation, what are the common misconceptions that the say people in the United States have about China?
Where do I begin? I mean, if we're going to talk about the government, there is a tremendous amount of of misinformation. oftentimes one of the things that I think uh our press does to our adversaries which is really strange especially when we consider China being such a significant trade partner to America 30% of manufacturing is coming from here nonetheless the state department officially designates it as like a competitor or foreign adversary we will look to things that every other country does our allies do for example and we will assume that it's like somehow sinister or totally different or totally exaggerated when it's coming out of China.
One example I always think about is like uh there was a new museum I think was it the it might have been the revolutionary museum that was uh was launched in China and American there was a New York Times article. It was like China greatly whitewashes its own history in its museum and it's like first of all every museum is going to show the best parts of that about their history. It's totally normal. We do that in America as well. So there's that and then there's just like outright misinformation. And I think for a lot of people uh or for a lot of the press in general, they're just not very intellectually curious about what is actually going on here.
I see this in my own experience, like there are a lot of analysts I talk to, very smart people, very well educated people, but when it comes down to it, when they want to analyze China, they have this horse blinder on where they just think, you know, why are they doing these sorts of things? Oh, it's China's about to collapse any day now. And uh one of the best examples I love to use is is the GO cities. Development style here is very different than places like America or liberal capitalist nations. And they build housing with a long-term plan in mind.
And it's been incredibly successful. But at the time when the housing units were being constructed, Western analysts looked at that and said, "Oh, this is not for people to live in. They're just doing it because this is a speculative bubble and it's going to collapse at any moment." And now you look at those go cities and 10 years in the future from when those articles used to come out from the New York Times and many other places. These are cities with tens of millions sometimes 20 million people living in them.
I never want to have that kind of uh I I never want to stunt my own uh uh analysis in that way. And I feel like a lot of people do that partially because they want to cope and partially because it's just all they've known and they've just never really been interested in understanding uh that there are different ways of governance out there beyond uh what we see in the Western world.
So this is your first time in China. I watched some of your videos analyzing China and I would say most of your videos talking about China are pretty pretty good. As someone who who had never been to China before, how did you manage to understand what's really going on in China?
I grew up in Turkey, so I think I have a different attitude about different modes of governance in general. And I also grew up in that region. So I have an understanding of like what America likes to do to its adversaries or or countries that it declares uh enemies of the state and and therefore I was already skeptical about state department narratives in general. I don't know. I just did some reading and and uh I think that the Chinese development especially has been so undeniable that as long as you're even a little bit interested and and uh don't just read foreign policy magazine analysts you can you can very quickly realize that no like this is not the the backward state that uh people have presented as and I think more and more people are also coming to that conclusion as well because in the age of the internet.
Um, especially with like how accessible China is, it's it's fairly difficult for people in the west to to maintain this position that this is a scary country, almost like a hermit kingdom, right? And that's just not the case. There's a lot of businessmen that come in and out of this country. Surely there are cultural differences, there's differences in governance, but ultimately it's just like it's a it's a fully developed nation state that is constantly in touch with the rest of the world and maybe even in some ways in more meaningful ways than the the uh American government is in touch with the rest of the world.
I think um I wanted to talk more more like your career because I think your uh career is very unique uh because you live stream on Twitch a gaming platform but talking about politics and you gained millions of followers and from the young generations in the United States actually from my at least from from my experience people who told me they are your fans they're not just from the United States they're from like everywhere so I mean what motivated you to talk politics um Twitch and and live streaming hours every day is really exhausting job.
So yeah, it's not the best medium for sure. Um I played video games and I was already at the Young Turks, another news network. And I wanted to uh get better off the cuff cuz at the time when I was at the Young Turks, I would write all my scripts. And I just basically thought I already play video games. This is an environment and an audience that is uh very diverse in their opinions, but unfortunately all of the commentary side of it was very right-wing, like incredibly right-wing. And I thought that uh the the gaming space deserved better political voices.
and I was already invested in it. So, I just strapped on a camera to my PlayStation while I was playing Fortnite and just started talking about politics with a bunch of my other friends who were also journalists and and activists themselves talking about the exact same issues that I'm talking about today. And u slowly but surely it evolved from there. Um but that was my starting point.
I see your often I mean people from different groups attack you, put on put like different labels on you, attacking you. I think I'm on our way here. I was seeing someone on Twitter saying calling you a liberal. Uh yeah. And someone call you a spy. Someone call you people even from the leftist socialist also uh criticize you. So I mean I mean uh I mean how do you identify yourself? How do you what would you prefer to call yourself? And how do you see this attack from different groups?
Well, I say I'm a leftist because I think uh looking at the material conditions and and lack of class consciousness in America, I feel like leftist is the broad categorization because a lot of people who might have socialist tendencies don't even realize it because like the mass political movement in the country is is liberalism. So most people selfidentify as liberals even if they do actually think if you ask them directly like do you think you should have more autonomy in your workplace? They would say yeah of course I like that. you think that the government should create a base level of material equality for all workers unconditionally? They say, "Yeah, I love that. That sounds like a great idea."
So that ranges everywhere from even in a country like America uh with capitalist social democracy all the way to, you know, Marxist Leninism. And so I just say leftist. But uh yeah, I mean it's not a secret. I'm a socialist. And as far as uh people on the right attacking me, that's a given. Liberals sometimes criticizing me, that's also a given. in most circumstances they refuse to identify the same exact problems and they think I'm being antagonistic to the left flank position in the country which is the liberal democratic party and as far as the broader leftist uh movement goes which is fairly tiny in in uh the United States of America that's also a given leftists always fight with one another socialists have historically always identified marginal delineations or or ideological differences and have made that a massively consequential problem even at moments when we have no power whatsoever.
Have those uh labels attacks ever bothered you? Because like for from like my experience is when I decided to go on social networks and talk about like what I saw in China and I saw huge amount of attacks and racist comments and uh meaning from everyone. So it bothered me for like for a really long time until one day I realized what I want to do is tell the stories I saw and I I shouldn't be you won't shut me shut me up. So I mean I went through this transition of like mental uh struggles but you are much much more influential like you're I would consider you're a really influential influencer. You see a like even bigger amount of text from everyone. So have you ever been through those same mental struggles?
Yeah. Uh, for sure. I think in the beginning I always couldn't understand it. I just I was I was confused like people would be like, "Oh, you're this or you're that when it was very clear that I I didn't believe the things that people were saying." But at this stage in my career, I I understand that it just comes with the territory. A lot of people would rather attack uh the the false characterization of someone rather than the actual argument that they're presenting uh in an effort to make it much more much easier to to straw man someone. It is what it is.
Um I think truth usually does end up prevailing in the long run. So I just stay the course. I'm a very stubborn person and u I think that is my my secret sauce uh if you will where I just continuously uh hammer on the same issues that I care about and eventually people will find their way to arriving at those conclusions. And I've seen that throughout my career, whether it be on Israel Palestine or even whether it be on uh liberals in America getting very frustrated with their lack of options uh within the Democratic Party, experiencing failure after failure, they inevitably come to the same conclusions that that I've been yelling about for quite a while.
So you just got to wait it out because at the end of the day if you are true to yourself, true to your values, you can sleep comfortably at night and also people will more often than not come to the same conclusions no matter how long it takes.
You just mentioned many Americans are feeling maybe hopeless, seeing less of options. So um what are the struggles that some like young generations in United States are experiencing? I think many people in China would want to understand affordability, lack of hope in general. Um, everything is very costly. Uh, wages are relatively stagnant. There's no really there's there's no good jobs. Everything is so expensive.
You go to college and you take on 100,000 sometimes $150,000 in student loan debts cuz college is not free, which is ridiculous. Um, and then you have healthcare on the other side. God forbid you you take on $150,000 in debt to go to college. You can't get a job that is applicable to your degree. So you just take whatever job you can because now you have to pay those student loan debts. And then if you lose that job, you lose your healthcare.
So there are very real fears on that front. And then also housing is incredibly costly in the country. Half your wages are automatically going to your rent. And people just don't think, especially young people, don't believe that they will ever retire and certainly not retire at a reasonable age. Um, and uh, they will never be able to own a home. So that the notion of the American dream is completely lost. So uh, a lot of people feel uh, entirely hopeless.
Entirely hopeless. That's a pretty strong Oh, for sure. I think I think young people like people my generation and younger if you're under the age of 35 these are the pressures that you feel on a daily basis. There are very few people who are like no everything is actually really great. I know so many people that are working in careers that previously would have been thought as like high-profile professional careers, highly specified uh jobs with a lot of training and a lot of experience and a decade in they feel stagnant.
These are supposed to be like high earning positions and yet they are they're they're there's so much discontent and they they feel like things are too expensive.
Do you think they can make a change with the current circumstances with the US government or policies? I always have to assume that change is possible or rather inevitable otherwise everything I'm doing is for not. So there is always an opportunity to make change. It's just uh you just have to keep on pushing and you have to keep continue the struggle and especially in a place like America where there is no uh there is no labor militancy even um there's not a lot of organizing uh at least even at this point and it's been completely destroyed.
Those networks have been uh eradicated in this country by force or capital is one. It's very difficult but we still keep going.
What do you see the China US relations right now and do you think we can will eventually at a war and how can we make people from those two countries understand each other better? Dialogue is good and uh I think the more Americans realize that their conditions are not as great and that their leaders are lying to them about how it's the it's currently the greatest country on the planet. I mean, it is the wealthiest country on the planet and yet there is nothing to show for it for the average everyday working-class person.
Uh, and the more they recognize that and the more they look to other countries and communicate with the people from other countries directly without any sort of media filtering, the more they realize that like everyone is the same. They want a roof over their head. They want a hot meal. They want clothes to put on their back. They want a better future for their children. They want upward social mobility. They just want an easy life and they want a meaningful place on this planet. They want a they want a good job. And that's the same whether you live in China or you live in the United States of America. And uh we have a lot more similarities and a lot more closeness with one another than we have differences. So dialogue I think is is one of the best ways to do it. But like I said, as conditions worsen in America and and people look to other countries, even in China, and they realize that maybe they weren't right about the way they perceive, you know, everyday Chinese existence, the more they will think that uh they were lied to, hopefully yearn for something more from their own governments.
I saw China has been one of the very frequent topics in your videos in your live streams like you analyze the governor of China, China's development, but in general you always say like China very positive things about China and then there are people calling you maybe saying you're a CCP paying you to do this. You're a CCP agent uh to talk good things about China. So let me ask you why you talk positive about China so much in your live streams.
Um because I think that uplifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty is an incredibly impressive feat. being able to develop this country in the aftermath of colonial extraction, World War II, u infighting uh and and civil war and to to become a a competitive force that is slated to overtake America as a in a multipolar world is uh very impressive and I think we should learn from that uh in the United States of America.
We should look to that and learn some lessons from that so that we can at least try and incorporate some of those lessons and that's the reason why I always try to use China as a as an alternative as an example because I also want highspeed rail in America. I want highspeed rail in America. I want I I want Americans to to not have to fear uh about uh where their next meal is coming from or uh potentially taking on medical bankruptcy, which is an insane concept to begin with and doesn't even exist in other OECD nations.
Anyway, what I'm saying is I want America to wake up and uh I think China is a decent example to showcase even though there is a tremendous amount of propaganda. Ultimately, the results are there and it's it's very difficult to argue against said results.
So, the CCP didn't pay you to say all these things. No, but it doesn't matter. People will say it regardless. But, uh I mean, look, I I I'm I'm pretty straightforward. like I criticize uh the the Chinese government as well just like I criticize the American government when it's like worthy of of criticism. It's just that I think we have to be honest and uh the problem is a lot of people would rather be dishonest and and uh heighten negative aspects of of foreign countries while simultaneously totally understanding uh why certain things happen in their country.
Um, so it is what it is, but they're just not used to someone being like, "No, I don't think this is as consequential as you think it is." They just immediately assume like, "It's very black and white. There's no nuance. There's no nuance thinking." If you don't automatically present China as a foreign adversary, they go, "Oh, you you're you that's crazy. I've never heard that before." But instead of being like a little bit curious about why I'm saying that, they automatically just shut it off.
Today is your second day, third day meeting. Second day in Beijing. The first thing you did was go to the flag raising ceremony in Tman Square. How was your feeling? Um, it was interesting. I mean, it's not for me personally. I'm not a very patriotic person in general, but uh what I found fascinating is that people from all around this massive country were traveling sometimes for an entire day. I talked to an elderly woman there who said that she traveled for a whole day to come to the flag raising ceremony.
Something that happens every day uh in TM Square and yet it was packed and uh I find that fascinating and I think it's because especially for for uh older Chinese people I think they just have a lot of pride because you know they have seen this country dramatically change over the past couple of decades and that gives them a sense of pride and uh I wish we had something to be more proud about as well in the United States of America rather than like the fake pride that people try to create around endless militarism.
I totally agree what you said, especially for the older generations. Um because I traveled to many rural regions in China to do stories about like the poverty alleviation, how they changed the villages and I found the most patriotic Chinese people in those regions, not necessarily in big cities, the people who already pretty rich who people who already pretty have like you already have everything but they always complain about many things.
But if you go to say Yunan, Guan, Tibet, all those southwest China who used to be so poor, everyone I talked to, they are so patriotic. They they wear the CPC badge voluntarily just because they are feel like happy. I think just like you said when you ask them like why why you you love the party so much or why you feel so proud so emotional they say I you I I had no home in the like back in the days or someone one person from a ethnic minority living in Vietnan this ai auntie said I used to run from wars I run from China to my back to China I had no nationality I was running hiding in caves but now I have a nationality as a Chinese living here.
So like of course uh telling us like a young people don't complain about anything because we used to have nothing. So exactly like you said those people at the TMS square watching the flag raising ceremony I guess just like you described they saw the most dramatic changes in their life. So they're emotional. I was very emotional every time I go to the flag raising ceremony.
Yeah. So like I said it was an interesting experience for me. It's uh it's interesting to see that cuz it's not that's not something that you can force people to do. You know what I mean? There's not it's virtually impossible for uh I think a lot of Americans to comprehend. And and I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who feel a sense of patriotism when they see, you know, F-35s flying over a football field uh before a game, but like I said, what that represents is not uh a material improvement in their lives.
Mhm. Uh so whereas I feel like for the average Chinese person, especially from an older generation, they have seen that material improvement in their lives, a dramatic improvement in their lives. So they have this this sense of pride, which I I found uh interesting to observe right there in person.
What's your travel plan in China? Besides the cities you're visiting, do you have any thing that you want to do on your travel list? Yeah, highspeed rail. But aside from that, uh I want to see I want to see these major cities. I want to see uh all of these cities that are I mean they're they're all over Tik Tok, especially nowadays. Like I think the younger generation in America is like a lot more open-minded to to coming to China and seeing it uh for themselves.
But uh I I see the current status of China around the world as like maybe Japan in the '9s where it was at its peak, right? It was actually lapping America in in technological developments and uh I I wanted to see it for myself before it's established as the norm pretty much.
And what's your goal for this long awaited China trip? It's basically to to experience it for myself and to show that there are, you know, normal people here that are living their lives just like Americans are. and they have fun, they like to drink, they like to party, and uh and that we're not all that different from one another. And it's not this like scary dystopian country in the way that like a lot of Americans think.
Are you going to live stream every day when you're in China? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I have been already. Outdoor indoor and outdoor. Indoor and outdoors. Yeah. So, I do I do my regular American political commentary and then I uh go and and uh experience uh something in the morning usually around that time frame. Like tomorrow we're going to be going to the uh the Forbidden City. Forbidden City. Yeah, we're going to the Forbidden City. So, that's going to be cool.
Wow. Okay. Oh, it's going to be packed by the way. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people in China. Yeah, there's there are a lot of people everywhere. If you think the people that you saw at the Tman Square for the flag raising ceremony yesterday was a lot. Oh, it's going to be come back during the summer June and July.
I was there uh uh with a friend who also who is also visiting China. We went there during the summer time. We went there at 300 a.m. It was packed. We packed like what you saw because it's warmer and people are napping, sleeping on the ground. Yeah. waiting for the And when they allow people to go to the flag pole, everyone was sprinting.
Oh, yeah. Or people were sprinting in the morning. And it was it was like 30° out and so it and people were just running. Yeah. Like preschoolers and and elderly people were just booking it as soon as they opened the the square. And then apparently people were like sleeping uh the night prior as well, just to get like front placement. Mhm. which is wild. Yeah.
You have to get used to like there's no personal space in public when you're in China. Oh, no. For sure. No, I' i've gotten I've gotten used to that. Definitely. Okay. Like Chinese people are very straightforward and they will they will get up in your personal space. Not many people realize people are very straightforward. Yes.
like my parents or grandparents i.e. They will tell you not only because they are your kid. They will tell you like your friend, oh you got fat. Yeah, you got fat or like a a foreign friend visiting. So, oh, you wear such a big size clothes. So, all these things so straightforward, but there's no bad intention at all.
I'll tell you a story. Right before we did this interview, I went to this park and at the park they had the dating resumes on the ground and it was fascinating. It's a bunch of old people. They bring their resumes of their daughters and their granddaughters and they put it on the ground and then a bunch of old people they're like, "Oh, I have a son. I have a daughter." They talk to one another and they try to set up these like relationships.
They try to arrange them and we went there to check it out and an old man walked up to me and I was there and I had a translator and the old man asked me like, "Oh, where are you from?" I said, "America." And he turned around and said, "Why don't you find an American girl then?" Really? Yeah. What are you doing here? and he walked away and I was like damn I'm very looking forward to hear more interesting stories that you're going to have in China.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Seriously. So I will if your time permits I will ask you your experience in China after you finish the trip. Okay. Yeah. So I really hope you have a good time in China and uh hope you have a good journey and hope to have you more on the show to share your experience. All right. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.
