Go to China At Your Own Peril

In other news, uh, should we talk about the prisoner exchange? Since, since we were talking about, uh, President Biden, we're, we're ticking, the clock's ticking on his time as president. Only 40 some more days on office. Oh, actually, by the time this episode comes out, maybe less than that. Yeah, I mean, that's enough time for a global flood to recide. Recide. Recede? Recede. Thank you. Okay. I was like, this isn't sounding right. You know, when you suddenly swing a biblical reference out of the middle of nowhere, then I have to be like, wait, what is he? Okay, Noah. Yeah. Got it. Uh, okay. So yes, there's enough time for a biblical flood that had already happened to recede if that's what it was now. Uh, but it's also time for Biden to do some prisoner exchanges with China. Shelley, over to you. I thought you were going to take it. So right before Thanksgiving, uh, the U S and China swapped, um, three Chinese prisoners in the U S for, uh, three Americans that had been imprisoned in China. Yeah. We had, we had talked about some past, but yeah. So this, um, the three Chinese, uh, citizens that the U S had released were, uh, essentially Chinese spies. Like two of them had been convicted of spying for, uh, China and had been serving. One was serving like a 20 year prison sentence. One was serving an eight year prison sentence. And then the Americans that were released were this guy, Mark Lee, who had been held in China since 2016 on spying charges. Um, people say he was not actually a spy. Um, God, 2016. So eight years in Chinese prison. Yeah. This guy, Mark's swine in, which I think we've talked about him before in the past. He had been sentenced in 2012 to, uh, drug trafficking charges, which carries a death penalty. Yeah. And he was since 2012, he had been detained and possibly was going to be executed. And, uh, again, some people say that he was not actually, yeah, that that was drugs and then this guy, who's 78, eight had, uh, left, he had been in the U S and seemingly to be an agent of CCP influence in the U S actually. Um, he had started several pro Beijing groups in Houston, Texas. And then it turns out that he is actually been secretly an FBI informant for years. Yeah. And so he had been, uh, he, he was arrested several years ago in China. Uh, and so oddly he went back to China when he was 75. Yeah. It was, I have to say that if you're being an informant for the FBI, it's possibly not safe to possibly not go to China again, but what they did to those CIA agents. Yeah. Yeah. They just like rounded them up and shot them and their families. Like it was awful. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, okay. And then there were also three Uyghurs who were released. They weren't under custody, but they were allowed to leave the country and go to their relatives in the U S including the mom of a, uh, you know, someone we've had on the show several times, Nury Turkel, who made it into the U S government. Yeah. He was, uh, a, I can't remember the acronym anymore, but it was basically the U S has a commission on religious freedom. Yeah. I mean, that's the nice thing about DOE. It's easy to remember. That's true. That's true. That's true. When, when, when you name your government programs after means, is this going to be the mean administration? It really could be. It could well be. Yes. Anyway. So back to, so can I say administration? I said it first here on China unscripted. Okay. Yes. That, that actually was good. That's a good, good pun. Thank you. I hope that does get clipped administration anyway. Uh, so the prisoner exchange was interesting because I think some of the, it's been negotiated for a long time, but what was also interesting is that after the prisoner exchange, the U S state department lowered their warning travel warning for China. Do you want to know about this? Oh no, I didn't. Yeah. So the, for several years now, since COVID the U S state department has travel warnings on their website. Right. And they had given China, I don't know if it was the highest level three, they gave China. It was like a pretty high one where they were like, okay, do not reconsider. Yeah. As opposed to like, do not go. I mean, I think do not go is probably reserved for like the DPRK. Yes. Yeah. Uh, and yet people still go, well, they just love the Juche and the true Korea freedom. Not like America. Yeah. I don't know how some people get to their conclusions. I don't know. I'd like to see them show their That would probably be North Korean propaganda or maybe Russian propaganda or, you know, so at any rate, so the, the prisoner exchange, the U S then lowered their travel advisory from level three to level two. Yes. So it's like a sort of, it's just, um, like just be cautious, I think. Yeah. So that's, that is like a weird part of it, I think, because that was probably a lot of Americans who are not necessarily directly in prison in China, but I think there are Americans like citizens or who are in labor camps. There are many American citizens who are in, uh, what they call exit bands. So you cannot leave the country. You may not be in custody officially, but you're just not, your movements are restricted. You're not allowed to China. Yeah. I'm sure this was part of the deal because China wants more Americans to come to China, bring some money. Yeah. They're looking to become less of a, uh, you know, the travel to China since COVID has just never recovered to the levels it was before. So, and on top of that, there's the business issue, which is a lot of companies are quietly, uh, pulling out or partially, uh, you know, removing some assets from China, but they're not saying they're not, they're not saying it. And I mean, very few companies are going to be like, so our plan is to pull out of China two months from now. So just watch. And then, you know, then they get raided. They get, well, all their assets get nationalized by the Chinese government and they lose everything and their people get arrested for being spies or drug dealers or something. Yeah. I think it wasn't Mary Kissel we were talking to about this, you know, that she's talking about a lot of companies looking to get out now. Yeah. You can't, I mean, like on China Uncensored, I, we, we told the story in 2020 in January, right before COVID. So it didn't get a lot of traction, but our, there was this company that had been sponsoring us, Mova Globes. These are the ones that have the, like that blue spinning globe back there. Um, really cool globes that they, they, uh, had moved manufacturing to China. And then basically the CCP screwed them over their, uh, their designs because some of their designs had maps, uh, and those maps of the world were not approved because they didn't show, for example, uh, the nine dash line. And Taiwan is part of it. And Taiwan is part of it. And, and I'm not talking about just like a regular political map from 2020. I'm talking about like one of the designs, I don't know if it's on here, but it's like an, it's like an ancient, like, like a, like a historical map, like a 15, 1600s, uh, whatever it is. It's like an, like an old style map. Like it needed to have the nine dash line. It wasn't just an old style map. It was a reproduction of an actual map from the 1600s or 1700s. So, which is critically important to the CCP because they like to bring out the old maps and say it was always. So, so the, the, the point is that the, the CCP was going so nuts over trying to force MOVA globes to redesign their globes, to put in the absurd territorial claims that they have now, uh, that MOVA was like, like, we can't do this. Uh, and like they were halting production. It was just a mess. And so they, they, they, uh, wanted to leave, but then the, and this is the thing that happened. The Chinese government came in and they basically, uh, like took over their facility and nationalized it. And, uh, like all of their like physical assets that were still in their warehouses and their production facilities were confiscated. So they lost like all of the, all of their products. And so they had to start not entirely from scratch, but like to a large degree, they just lost so much trying to get out of China, even though they felt like they were being forced out. So this is going to happen with, and they're in Taiwan now, they're in Taiwan now, um, to China. Uh, I'm not sure we want to make the connection between Taiwan and North Korea. I was going to say, yeah, like, and I'm not sure everyone in Taiwan actually feels like that. A lot of them feel like they're just Taiwan. Yeah. I think a lot of young people are just like, they just want to be Taiwan. So, uh, anyway, so we're talking about pulling out of, of China and it's going to be hard to do. And like, you know, we've seen how much, uh, trouble it's been with Apple and they've been, uh, you know, they've, they've built new facilities in India and Brazil, but they're still, you know, the new iPhone sold to Americans are still made in China. Well, and also this is the problem with all of the talk of any kind of trade war tariffs on China is you have like these business elites who will be like, Oh, but everything's will get more expensive for Americans. And it's like, well, these were the same people who said it would be great for America if we just moved all of our manufacturing to China to get cheap stuff. And it destroyed entire towns, ruined people's lives in America. And now, yeah, we're, we're poor and hooked on like cheap Chinese goods from a country that's trying to destroy us. It's like, have you ever thought about secondary effects? Like the primary effect of moving to China was cheaper goods, but the secondary effect was the complete gutting of manufacturing. It also wasn't just, it wasn't just like the cheaper goods angle. It was the idea that there's 1.4 billion customers in China who are going to buy American products. Yeah. So that was a large part of it too. And that was also a lie. Yes. Right. It was, I think from the CCP's perspective, they were lying, but a lot of American companies and politicians were just dudes. Well, but this is the idea of like, that we were talking about earlier about how China is very good at political warfare. The U.S. is not. And so that allows for people to be duped. Right. And yeah, it's very, we're very naive in a lot of ways. Yeah. Not the three of us, but you know, the elites. No, we're cynical and jaded. I'm not jaded. I'm optimistic. So, okay. So the, the pulling out is, is difficult, but it is, it is going to help because if there's secondary impact of going to China, there's also going to be a secondary benefit, I believe, of moving manufacturing back here, which is more jobs, higher wages for Yeah. I mean, they're rebuilding of communities, bigger tax base. It also kind of reminds me of the argument that some people are making. Well, well, if we get rid of like illegal immigrants who are like basically the slave labor population, then, then like, who's going to cut our lawns and like all these things will be more expensive. And it's like, you're arguing for essentially slavery. Um, also that's offensive to a lot of people who do those jobs who are not illegal immigrants or paid. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, many of the people, and we found this out, you know, during the election, a lot of the people who, um, basically voted, uh, against illegal immigration, uh, are recent immigrants. I mean, I don't, I don't know if you can say a lot, cause there's more non-immigrants, but then immigrants in the U S but the idea that a lot of immigrants are against illegal immigration is apparently stunning to the democratic party. Yeah. Or that like mostly Latino communities on these border towns that are dealing with illegal immigration are also not happy with the situation. Yeah. It's, it's pretty bad anyway. But, but about China, the main thing is Biden did a total art of the deal move by getting these prisoner exchange done. I'm sure Trump was very proud. And when they met, they probably had a slight nod. What? I thought, I thought that's what you were going to say. What? No. Matt. This is, this is why we need to move things on the web. No, this is why we need that spray bottle. Yeah. Well, anyway, so, so at least the prisoner exchange thing seemed to have gone well.