Jensen Huang, AI Smear Videos & CCP's "Borrowed Knife"

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Inconvenient Truths. I'm your host, Jennifer Zeng. Who is behind the Jason Huang affair? Former Tiananmen student leader Tang Baiqiao says the Chinese Communist Party is behind this. He means the online mob now attacking NVIDIA CEO Jason Huang Why would the CCP smear a man it once needed so badly? And why did the internet suddenly fill with AI videos made to humiliate him? Today I'll walk you through Tan Baiqiao's main argument. 1. A wave of mockery videos. 2. A classic CCP method called killing with a borrowed knife. 3. A warning to other wealthy and powerful people in the West. The Chinese title of Tang Baiqiao's long article on eggs is Why Did Jason Huang's Scandal Break Now? He says he wrote it for Huang himself, and for other rich and powerful people who might become the next Jason Huang. 1. The Video Campaign After the Jason Huang scandal broke out, a huge wave of AI videos suddenly appeared on the Internet. I have noticed that too. Tang says these videos are made to tease and humiliate Huang. He says it reminds him of videos from the Iran war showing Iran pounding the United States and Israel. Same pattern, he says, same arm, same unseen hand. He says he looked at the accounts behind many of these clips. In his judgment, a lot of them belong to deeply hidden CCP water armies. Let me explain that term. In Chinese, people call them 水军 or water armies. These are organized online commenters and fake-looking accounts. Some are paid, some are directed. Their job is to flood the Internet with one message until it looks like ordinary public opinion. In English, you may also hear the term 50 cent army. That name comes from an old claim that some were paid 50 Chinese cents per post. Tang means a more sophisticated version. These accounts usually post lifestyle content or pretend to be crypto fans, then they suddenly join a smear campaign. Tang says anti-CCP users on X almost never make this kind of polished AI videos, and this is not something an ordinary person casually throws together. By November 9, a firm that tracks AI accounts copy leaks and had already found at least 70 such posts on X. Those posts had more than 8 million views. Here are a few examples. One clip records a famous mystery scene from the Chinese TV drama Darling Narrowly. In that story, a married official flirts with a younger woman. The spoof puts Huang in that role. Another is an AI music video of Huang dancing with Alice Huang to the K-pop song Troublemaker. One version came from a crypto-themed account, the kind of disguise Tang described. A third remix, the viral kiss came from a Coldplay concert, with Huang supposedly caught on a stadium screen. There is even a fake surveillance video of an affair presented as a gank. Please remember, these are AI mockeries, not evidence. The question Tang asks is not, are the jokes funny? The question is, who wanted this humiliation to spread so fast and so wide? 2. If the CCP did not want this, it would not be everywhere. Tang does not believe this online pile-on is just a random internet joke or a simple American political hit. His key evidence is the CCP's own information control. He says that if the Party still wanted to protect Huang, it would have blocked the attacks on Chinese social media. Why? Because the story is embracing for the CCP, and because, in Tang's view, Huang had been useful to them. The Party, he says, is very careful in its united front work. United Front Work is the CCP's long-term system for winning over, using, and controlling people outside the party. That includes overseas Chinese business leaders and foreign elites. Tang gives examples of how precise this control can be. Take Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang, a Chinese woman who cultivated ties with US politicians. Tang says mainland Chinese websites show none of that. When the CCP launched a campaign against soccer star Kylian Mbappé, it banned Mbappé's own words. So if the CCP still wanted to protect the so-called godfather of AI, this flood of abuse would not be allowed. His conclusion is blunt. The CCP, he says, is the main driver of the online mobbing of Jason Huang. And that, Tang says, tells us two things. First, Huang once did dirty work for the CCP, second, he later stopped fully obeying. If either piece were missing, Tang says, the party would not have struck him so hard. Tang also uses an old Chinese phrase, 借刀杀人, it means kill with a borrowed knife. This is one of the 36 stratagems of classic tricks of Chinese statecraft. You do not strike the target with your own hand. You let someone else's law, someone else's court, or someone else's media do it for you. Number three, why now? They end the honey trap. Tang believes Huang recently fell out with the CCP. He recalls that Huang used to say, I'm from Taiwan, not I'm from China, to Tang that meant Huang did not treat Taiwan as part of the People's Republic of China. Tang says the CCP tolerated this because it needed him. In United Front language that is called differentiate treatment, you pamper the person you still want to use. Then Tang recalls Huang told CCP media he was Chinese first, then American. Tang compares this with Alan Gu, the American-born skier who competed for the People's Republic of China. Tang says the turn surprised him. He believes it looked like a CCP suggestion or instruction. After that, he says the CCP asked for more and more. Huang is a billionaire. Tang does not believe he would stay under someone else's control forever. This is where Tang talks about a beauty tramp or 美人计. In Chinese intelligence slang, female honey tramp agents are often called 燕子 or swallows. Tang calls the wider pattern Yan Zi Jun or Swallow Army. He says the Soviet Union used this method too, and the CCP has taken it even further. He claims that in recent years, many much younger Chinese women have appeared beside American tankers. He calls this a CCP strategic game. Tang believes Huang later realized he had been caught by a swallow but could not get out. He also alleges that after the honey trap, Huang began lobbying for the CCP, and that Huang looked the other way as Nvidia chips were resold to the CCP through third parties. Tang says this may have violated the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. That law requires people who lobby for foreign principals to register with the U.S. government. He also points to U.S. bans on selling advanced technology to the CCP. These are Tang's allegations whether Huang himself broke those laws have not been established in court To explain the end game, Tang compares this to the case of Gao Zhan. Gao Zhan was a Chinese-born scholar living in the United States. In 2001, the CCP detained her in China and convicted her of spying for Taiwan. After US pressure, she was released. Then, in 2003, she pleaded guilty in the United States. The charges included illegally exporting controlled microprocessors to China and tax fraud. Tang recounts a sharper vision. He says U.S. officials had been ready to honor her, then stopped her at the last minute. He says Gao later wrote that the CCP handed Washington evidence she had sold advanced chips to Chinese companies. In Tang's words, that was the classic borrowed knife. He says the party has used similar methods against other overseas figures. Figures including Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Guo. The pattern is this. collect evidence quietly If you obey, nothing happens. If you stop obeying, the evidence goes to U.S. law enforcement. Tang also cites former U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke. He claims the CCP uses a sex scandal against him, and that Locke's family and career were destroyed. There were public rumors of an affair around the time Locke left Beijing in 2013. Some Chinese language media outlets reported on it, but Locke's wife denied them. That is Tang's claim not a proven intelligence operation. So what does Tang want people to do? He says do not fall into the CCP's trap by simply piling on, but do not defend Huang either. Huang did wrong, Tang says, and is facing the consequences. The right approach is to expose both sides. Despite the CCP's dirty methods and condemn Huang for acting as a CCP accomplice, the message is simple, do not collude with the Chinese Communist Party. He also argues that the US government should enforce the law so a billionaire is not above it. But he says Nvidia itself should not be damaged. In Tang's view, the CCP's goal is to weaken America's need in AI by destroying Huang's reputation. What does this tell us about the CCP? First, the CCP still uses very old, very dirty tools. Honey traps, borrowed knives, public struggle sessions, now updated with AI video. When the party wants to break a person, it does not only argue with him, it tries to strip him of dignity and let someone else finish the job. Second, the party treats people as tools, not as partners. When you are useful, it flatters you and looks the other way. When you stop obeying, it turns on you harder than it turns on its open enemies. That is the real face of united front work. It is not friendship, it is a leash. Third, a regime that can manufacture a mob overnight and erase a story overnight cannot be trusted, not with anyone's secrets, not with anyone's reputation. If it can do this to the so-called godfather of AI, What does that mean for ordinary people with far less protection, and what does it mean for Western elites who still think they can do business with the CCP and stay in control? The Chinese Communist Party will smile at you for as long as it needs you. The day you cannot satisfy it, it will try to ruin you. Is any contract, any market, or any affair worth that price? Not long ago, I reported an exclusive on the $6 billion theft from Binance. According to my source, the real hand behind it was also the CCP, and the goal was to force Binance to open its backend to the Party. If Tang Baiqiao is right, and the CCP really is pushing the Jason Huang affair, then these two cases may share the same logic. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Well, that's all for today. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe if you haven't already. You can also visit my website at jenniferzengblog.com to sign up for a membership or make a donation. Any kind of support means the world to me. Thank you. See you next time.