I Was Told This Was Impossible & Dangerous! - China Shocks Me, Taiwan Isn't What I Expected

I do think the boys are stitching me up here because it it's very smelly. So mix it? Yes. Oh it's not. It's very hot, very hot. You can eat but take care. I'll take care. I'm gonna have that much. I'm a bit nervous. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like you're like There's an Aussie guy coming. Let's, let's, let's get in. It's okay. Okay, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. It's all right. That's all? Yeah. No, it's all right. And this? But this, this, this. Stinky tofu. Stinky tofu. Try this. So it's, yeah, okay. Let me. Yeah, it's directly. Wow, yummy. Like this, that's a lot, man. Breaking it down a bit. No, it's very good. Trust me. I'm having a lot. Stinky tofu. That was good. You just think it tastes bad? Yeah. Tastes bad, this one. It tastes like the smell. Okay, okay, fine, fine. G'day legends. I hope you're having a great day. It's my last evening here in China. My last few hours in Beijing. You might hear a bit of yelling. There is an exercise group on behind me. I'm in Ratan Park, which is basically right in the center of China's capital of Beijing. And well, I thought that I would do a video basically in closing remarks or reflecting on the trip. Now, the trip's biggest error was the time of year. It's just been unbelievably hot, whether in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Nanjing, Beijing. Hot, hot, hot, hot. High 30s, low 40s. Now 110, 120 degrees every day. But the more I come back here, the more I learn. And I want to learn and experience a lot about this behemoth, this ancient state. A state which has had the fastest growth and industrialization in history. In the last decades alone, 800 million people out of abject poverty. The cities at least that I have been to, and Beijing's probably the fanciest city I've been to, but I haven't been to like your Shanghai or Chongqing, your Guangzhou. These like super picturesque cities, but safe, clean, kind. You don't feel like you're going to get stabbed. You don't feel like you need to pay a euro to go and take a piss. But of course, there's still a lot of unknowns. There's a lot to learn about a state as old, as large, with as many people as China. And of course, what you'll see from this trip, I don't know how the videos will be released, but the first week was spent in the Republic of China, in Taiwan. The second week in the People's Republic of China, the internationally recognized mainland, of course, under the CCP. So exploring both sides across the strait. And there's lots that I was very surprised by in Taiwan. And I will talk about this in something in another video. But really, by the lack of cleanliness and infrastructure and how everything looks a bit old and run down, surprised me. It feels very safe, very kind, wonderful. But I was very surprised. I just thought with, maybe this is my naivety, but the monopoly on one of the most crucial products in the world, chips, and a small island, relatively small population, unbelievable industry. I expected Singapore. I didn't expect what I saw. And that's fine. It's safer and cleaner than Australia, any city in Australia. But the infrastructure is far more worn down, run down, older than I expected, and far more than the areas I've been to here. Now, as I walk around this park, I've got a number of notes, if you'll allow me to go through them, just well, I write these as I go to see my closing remarks. We spoke about the growth, the industrialization, the people lifted out of poverty. And of course, this continues, the continual development. And I've seen a few people say that, ask why is China considered a developing country? And people say, because it continues to develop, where some countries appear as if they've developed and are now eroding. And I'm sure the BBC or the Guardian or the Wall Street Journal will say, 800 million people lifted out of poverty, but at what cost? That is actually a running joke in China, of, you know, something happens, all the new high speed systems are open, but at what cost? Of course, we've seen the cost through decades and centuries of humiliation, of atrocity, of external and domestic influences as well, sometimes costing millions upon millions of lives. So there is a cost, but China now is a ancient behemoth that is really returning. It's not rising to its significance, it's returning to significance that it has had at periods, epochs, through the, depends on which timeline you want to go on, but we'll just go on the, say, 5,000 year history. And China is a bit of an alien world. It's a little bit, I think, of the most alien world you could go to without leaving Earth. It's not just a country, it's not just a state, it's not just a party. It's a complete civilization of well over a billion people. And that is something of which you come here and it can be intimidating of just the scale, the culture, the timeframe of everything. If you hear like a horn, I know there's a big Turkish community right here because I ate at a Turkish restaurant for dinner. I'm trying to see if maybe it's that. But you need to come here, I think, with an open mind and observe that you are looking at things in a different way and that this country looks at things, this civilization looks at things in a different way. It looks at the individual different, it looks at the collective different, it looks at governance, at the use of military just differently. And that doesn't mean that you're in agreeance, it just means you must observe it to analyze it. But everywhere I've been, it's clean, it's polite, things are pristine, people will help you, but there's always a large language barrier. Even in Beijing, where there is significantly more English, significantly more foreigners, it's still very, very limited on English. And you are reliant on translate and apps and whatever. It's fine, it's easy. I can get around with speaking two words of Chinese. But it's something which could be intimidating to people. And I think just the scale is intimidating too. You're in a city of 30 million people. It's huge. Something I've noticed in Beijing almost instantly. And this isn't all of Beijing, because I'm staying in and around where the embassy district is, I believe. I think there's three different areas where the embassies are, but I'm actually right near the North Korean and Russian embassy, and the Romanian embassy is near me as well. But there's a heap of Russians, like even in my hotel, I hear just Russian all the time. There's a few Ukrainians, but a lot of Russians and a lot more tourists here. Heaps of tourists in Beijing, very few in the other cities I've been to. This trip, what have I done? Well, you're probably going to see a fair bit of this, but I'm on a personal development trip learning about this. So I've been to a lot of tourist sites, been to a lot of memorial sites. I went to a factory that builds textiles for airlines for the biggest hotels in the world. I had lunch with some of the workers at the factory, at the cafeteria. He will stop if you walk in front. And then he's off. Sorry, mate, I'm in charge. I mean, I'm in the way of his hard job, mate. Right, well, we have to do a taste test and you will be able to see me fail at using chopsticks as well. As much as I've been practicing, I'm still hopeless. And my friends all are saying, hey, you guys laugh at me every time I use chopsticks. I'm a bit of a poker. Good. Pork, chicken, meatball of some sort of mystery. See, what I don't get is why the Chinese choose to use chopsticks, but then make the most slippery food in the world. So potatoes, meat, rice, heaps of food. Just at the cafeteria with the workers. I'm getting a lot of stares because I was told, well, very, very few white guys like you will actually come through here. So I'm going to enjoy my lunch, talk to some people and continue on. Really good. I met with academics on both sides of the street for very open, honest conversations. I had drinks with some former soldiers and I will say that I did assert Australian dominance by winning the drinking competition of Bejo, of the clear liquor. So I'm very proud of that. Go Australia. And I've met with a heap of locals, a heap of foreigners, and just discussed everything as you have seen in my videos previously of when I travel anywhere in the world. And I have no agenda. I don't visit anywhere like this with an agenda. I am here to gain an understanding and further my knowledge and share with you of unique cultures, countries, people, and perspectives. And of course, of a country of which its global significance is massive now, equal to, at a minimum, that of America. And it will continue to grow into the future as we see that, especially as we see that China's reputation in the international sphere is gaining ground rapidly due to America's erosion of reputation. And reputation in international affairs matters very much. Now, I was actually asked by one of the academics here, basically, what have you found difficult in your travels here? What did you find intimidating about coming here? And I was completely open and honest like I always am about, I had real concern that I was going to get bundled up and work on a railway for the rest of my life. And I don't have the rig or the back that would allow me to do that. And of course, that may be overly dramatic. But I said, well, people still have that sort of prejudice and feeling towards here. And I said, as well, as you know, it is hard because there is a huge lack of English. And I do believe the government here is not doing enough to support maybe tourism. I will talk more about this contradiction at the time, like these major train stations. I'm a pretty confident traveler, but like Nanjing, including the metropolitan area, I believe it's about 30 million people, massive railway station, just platforms out the wazoo. But at like the help desk where there says English, well, the person speaks maybe two sentences or two words of English that's not English. And I'm pretty like, look, if you're asking me like the troubles I've had is, you know, I still am wary about what I say, what I do. And the lack of this makes it difficult. And this is a conversation I've had with a lot of people is they do see there's a bit of a contradiction going on at the moment if you live in China. I'll get into this internal politics is there's this idea publicly of opening up, being more foreign friendly, being more friendly to people coming, even working here or visiting here. But then they also see the government is tightening down on certain elements. And the people I've spoken to have gone, there's a bit of a contradiction that we see taking place. And I also sit in that, in that to to these academics around, you know, the censorship around phones, whatever, although that's very easy, you can just get these in the routes through Hong Kong, and you can use your phone as if you're living in any other country on earth. But I said, even that turns away a lot of people to visit here, as well as other, other reasons, some, some real some overhyped in the media, if you don't think that every country on earth, major players don't do propaganda, well, if you don't think that your government does propaganda, that just says that they do it very well. What I have noticed, too, is there is open criticism of the current government, and some of those in power, and a bit of a belief that this is just a and that things will relax once there is a change in governance. Now, of course, the government doesn't change, but the system can change with the leader or leadership. And many people have noticed that this had a significant change after COVID. Now, it may have been more severe here. But I think we noticed this all around the world, tightening of screws, distrust in government distrust in citizens, I think we noticed that everywhere. In Beijing, economically, I talked to a lot of people, and they've noticed a lot of shops have closed. And there is a bit of a struggle for some of the remaining mom and pop businesses here. And there's been a significant downturn in tourists, particularly post COVID that there's still a lull in this. And this is where people saying, people see the impacts of decisions made around the spicy flu as having a permanent effect. As I said, I believe this is worldwide. I think the entire generations of people around the world have permanently been more suspicious, more cautious of governments on their advice on restrictions, the treatment citizens and the treatment back up as well. So it's interesting to see pretty open discussion about that about how you're sort of just waiting for things to change, which will come in time, and we'll probably see a relax. Taiwan talking about this is not taboo, it's not something you can't talk about. And this something I've noticed in all my conversations here is maybe on the official apps, but in person, people talk to you basically about everything, even some of the most sensitive pieces. What I've noticed about Taiwan is there's people that are indifferent. There's people that want it taken immediately. But everyone recognizes the political cost of such actions, whether it's done in an afternoon, or whether it protracts, which is more likely retract into a protracted campaign, the political cost of doing so would be astronomical. Look at just the political cost upon America for its actions in Iran, or Russia for its actions in Ukraine. And China would incur even larger. You think the propaganda and the cost for Russia is large in the political sphere. And for America in Iran, we'll imagine it here, and how much the media would, the government would utilize on that to try and contain this and give them the opportunity of that. It's just the political cost. The military cost, I think, is underestimated. People I've spoken to, I think, greatly underestimate, at least my military appreciation. When I was looking at the density of the civilian centers in Taiwan, from the north to the south, crossing an open body of water, the mountains, my military appreciation, looking at that as an infantryman, and now a military analyst, is I go, the cost here is going to be astronomical on civilian casualties, on military casualties outside the political realm. I think that is underestimated from the conversations that I have had. I've spoken to a lot of people about surveillance, as I did last time. And apparently, my videos that have gone viral on Chinese YouTube, called Billy Billy, would apparently have millions of views. They always say, he looks around a lot as if he thinks he's being followed. I'm not doing that on purpose. I think I just sort of scan. I don't know. But speaking about this, and to quote Tim Dillon, I think he's honestly, although a fantastic comedian, the best comedians are because they can observe society, and they can use humor as a way to speak truths, which may be too taboo. Many a true word is spoken in jest. And he said that in an effort to beat China, America risks becoming China. And in my conversations, and there's been a consensus between locals, foreigners, and my own opinion, is that this is a surveillance state. But it's a centralized surveillance state. It's centralized to the singular government entity. Whereas the becoming surveillance states of Australia, or America, the UK, that these are decentralized to private industry, with few oligarchs at the top, focused on shareholder value of collection of data of sale of that data, rather than in the government. So it's decentralized amongst people that can bid on contracts for it. Both concern the hell out of me. But that decentralization of things, of course, government can use it against you. But do you really trust Palantir with this information, they have to pay out their shareholders, and they're using this as a way to make money. But the people I talk to here, they see it as just a measure that is safe and secure. I think that this may look different in a reasonably homogenous state. China is one of the most homogenous states on earth of Han Chinese. And of course, we've seen the controversial ethnic unity go through here as well, that China is a Han Chinese state, other people can live in it, but the unity is to be under that. But I've spoken about this before, where people will say the laws would look far more radical in a diverse state than in one that is more homogenous regarding surveillance and censorship and ethnic unity as well. That doesn't mean that there isn't discrimination and things happen against groups. That the outcome of the application of the same policy in a diverse country versus homogenous country would look different. I don't trust anyone with the amount of information anywhere that is being tracked all the time and probably run through AI, speeding up the capacity, the ability to use this information potentially. But it being between these oligarchs who are like antichrist, whoever worshipers in Palantir or this or that, Jesus, good Lord. But censorship here, and I speak to people about this and they're willing to speak to me fine about it. It seems to be something that is far more prominent on official apps. Although they say it's incredibly rare for someone to actually ever have a knock on the door or be arrested over this. It would have to be very, very severe, like planning an attack for that to occur. And that's what people tell me here. And it's so funny when people go, it's not like the UK. It's funny when you have a young person who's Chinese going, what the ****'s going on with the censorship in London? But as I've found in my trips here now over a couple of weeks, probably my first trip as well, is the discussion of sensitive topics around me as a foreigner is far more open than I expected and doesn't seem taboo. And I hear again and again, last time and this time, that really the censorship is to keep influence out because we see that how many times has Western influence attempted to disrupt, upend, stir political shifts in countries like this. And I say that's what the censorship is really. It's not to keep us in, it's to keep you out. The government know that everyone uses VPNs. They know that we can get an eSIM that routes through Hong Kong like I use right now. And I just got a message from them of a Western app. They know that's all accessible, but it's just the en masse ability to push certain narratives through that, yes, there is an ability to maintain party narrative. But I say, yeah, it's partially that, 10-20% that. The other 80% is to keep that other part out. And what I'll say, as I said the last time, as far as social media censorship, the stones in the glass house that countries like Australia or the UK are throwing, they don't have a ******* leg to stand on. I ran the numbers a while back because UK had X amount of arrests for the year of 2025 and China had X amount. But what they do is they only look at the amount. They don't look at the population difference. And I remember, I don't remember the exact amounts, but I remember the difference that there was 166 times more people arrested in the UK for online stuff than here. And I'm not saying that therefore it's not surveillance and censorship here, and I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying it would be a little bit of throwing a stone if Mr. Starmer stood up or Mr. Sunak or whoever's bloody, they chop and change faster than, to quote Katy Perry, like a girl changes clothes. So yeah, it's a bit of a glass house, that one. But what I'll say, maybe in closing on the censorship, is at least the censorship here is run by and for the power that be in the state. That the censorship isn't on behalf of a foreign entity, on behalf of foreign lobbying groups, or on behalf of large businesses of a foreign state that is pushing everything from speech restrictions to bad speech, to pushing further immigration. Meanwhile, trying to obfuscate then atrocities or genocide or any level of criticism. So as much as I disagree with any censorship, I'm a freedom speech absolutist. Something here is it exists, it's large, it proliferates. But at least it's done by the government here in, at least the government must see in their interest to do it here. Where in Australia, in the UK and America, it's not even being done by the government of that country. It's being lobbied for by a foreign entity. I don't agree with any of it. But **** me. And that goes back to what we spoke about earlier about that diverse versus homogenous, etc. Where some things that will look radical in a country that is highly diverse, may end up being less in a country that is homogenous. But you can have then minorities who are then greatly discriminated against. So once again, I feel safe, I feel comfortable to talk about these things. And I've openly spoken with academics here who speak with me. And you know, in a system like this, people have contacts, of course. And I'll, I'm more than comfortable just be like, look, this is how I feel. I don't agree with this. I am interested to know what goes on in Xinjiang, which is where, of course, the majority of Uyghur Muslims are. Although there's Uyghur restaurants here, and I've eaten at Uyghur restaurants here and in Xiamen, in Fujian province, etc. But you know, I have concern about that. I have concern about other bits and pieces too. And I've never felt uncomfortable to like, bring that up. Maybe that's my naivety, but I think I've got my head screwed onto that pretty tightly as well, given the amount of environments I've been in, in sensitive areas around the world anyway. Just checking that was on, that would have annoyed me. So that's, I guess, the wrap for this trip. I hope you enjoyed. I've discovered all new areas. I haven't been to any cities here, which I've been to previously. And so far, if you were to say I was coming to visit China, and I've got one city, Nanjing is just stunning. It blew me away, just how pristine and clean and friendly it was, with catastrophic modern history, really interesting modern and ancient history as well. Just down here, there's a memorial, just in here, I believe, to a guy who was killed in 1928, and he was memorialized, excuse me, by the party. Well, they actually use the word martyred by the party here as a revolutionary. So you see a lot of that. But I will say, there's a lot of stuff from the KMT, from the Nationalists that you do see, actually, memorials and people talk about, etc, which I didn't really expect to see. And when I bought up, of course, when someone asked me, oh, where have you been? And I was, you know, last week, I was in Taipei, or I was in Kaohsiung, or I was in XYZ. I didn't know how that was going to go down. And people, oh, that's interesting. How was it? Yeah, good. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I'd love to go. That was weird. And even people going, what do you mean, you can fly from Kaohsiung directly to Nanjing? I had no problems at all. Not a question even asked at the airport. Easier immigration here twice than in the US, especially in the UK. The hardest entries I've ever had was in the UK. In hindsight, the way the immigration officer treated me in the UK, if I was my age now, and the sort of the more confidence that I have against someone who might be in a uniform, I should have told him to go and **** himself and asked to be deported because he's a prick. What happened was basically, he was going to deny me entry. Three weeks after coming off a British military operation, being on a British military base, didn't want to grant me entry because he didn't believe my bus ticket from London to France was legitimate and treated me like a, and I was like, mate, I was on a tour in Afghanistan with your boys three weeks ago. I have a massive regret. I feel like going back to Heathrow just to find that prick. Anyway, sorry, digress. Another wonderful trip and I will be back. I hope you've enjoyed. I know that these videos might have no relation to each other. It might bounce all around from look, you know, exploring the Mukden incident, Makapolo Bridge, Japanese in Nanjing. I know it might bounce around a lot, but I really hope that you get something out of this and thank you again for the ability to do this. The only reason I can do these things and have the once in lifetime privilege to do this is because of you. So I can't thank you enough from the bottom of my heart for all of that and the opportunity. And we'll end with a bit of a funky, a funky dance, eh? With the aunties. I need to go get your plane. Thank you. Buh-bye.