636: Is this the End of the Communist Chinese Party!?

Brian Nichols  0:05  
From zero COVID to zero freedom. Yeah, let's talk about that. Not winning arguments. We're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where the rent on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, happy Monday there, Brian, here on The Brian Nichols Show. Thank you for joining us on another fun. I am as always your humble host joining us live from our Stratus ip Studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana. Don't let cyber attacks or outdated Business Technology put your company at risk. Learn more at the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash Stratus ip Stratus ip Business Technology simplified. All right, well, let's talk about this zero COVID policy stuff now go back to April, march 2020. Here on the program, we were talking about this, what should the approach to dealing with COVID 19 be should we do what the Chinese were doing and that is approach this zero COVID mentality locking down society to keep us all safe? Or should we take on some assumed risk understand that there are old folks out there are those who are higher risk, who are going to be more at risk for COVID. And then if you're younger or more healthy, you're gonna be less at risk for this thing. So use caution. What should we do? And we saw this conversation breakdown here in America, it's still carrying forward to today we had relationships, friendships, families just split apart because of this divisive pneus on this very issue. And then you look at China, China brought up as the model of what we should be looking towards as how to approach handling COVID 19. And using their lockdown model because well, they had zero COVID cases. Of course. Yeah, of course. Fast forward almost three years. Oh my god Three years later, and China still is promoting this zero COVID mentality and approach from the government while the rest of the world has seemingly moved on. And now it seems like a lot of folks in China had had enough and to be able to talk about what's happening right now in China with all the the protests riots taking place. Jason Loftus, from China unraveled returns to the program, Jason, what's going on? My man, China's been going crazy.

Jason Szeftel  2:25  
Yeah, it's been pretty, pretty nuts. I mean, we're gonna dive into it. But there are major protests going on around China, like we haven't seen in quite a while. There's great controls on it, too, if you're the Chinese government, but it's, it's a real live situation.

Brian Nichols  2:40  
This this kind of feels eerily like Tiananmen Square. That 1989 or 1989. All over again, it hit the rear. You're right.

Jason Szeftel  2:49  
Yes. 99. That was the year. Yeah, no big year, it was fall, you know, the Soviet space was collapsing. China was worried about something similar happening in China, justifiably, and they did a massive crackdown. But that is, what we're actually seeing is a very, it's more ominous, actually, even the gentleman's Go champion Square was localized in Beijing. And it was big, you know, there's 10s of 1000s of people there. And it's a it was a major protest. This is systemic across the current Chinese state, it is a totally different level of crisis for the Chinese government. And it's at a very different stage in their development. Right. That was early on. That is, China is backwards coming out of the cultural revolutions coming out of Maoist era, they are trying to become a capitalist state, they had a game plan for what to do. And they used what was going on in Eastern Europe as a, as helped to try and align them back onto their path to basically get wealthy. And they don't have that anymore. The Chinese economy is in total shambles. And they're, they're wondering about what to do, and their options are really, really bad.

Brian Nichols  4:00  
We jumped the gun, I wanted to get right into the meat and potatoes of today's episode, we're talking about China, obviously, going from zero COVID, policy 2020, to where we are today. And I started jumping into now Chinese history and where we got to, to where we started with this approach. But let's kind of rewind a little bit, Jason, you're joining the program, once again, to talk about what we're happening over in China, but you join us, you're the host of its China unleashed podcast focusing on all that's happening in China, both from a historical context, but also what's happening nowadays. And last time you were on the program, we are kind of at the very beginning of what was happening with COVID. And you fast forward to where we are to today. And this kind of all was really the spark and I hate the use of the word Spark as it was actually a fire that launched off these a lot of these protests that took place in China where you had it was 10 people perish because they were quite literally not just locked in their homes, welded in their homes welded the doors welded shut. Government government officials, and were unable to get out of their homes. And you can hear them screaming for help in these videos that were released. And that just sparked national outrage in China. So you mentioned this this is not localized, it started localized. But this zero COVID policy has been across the entirety of China impacting literally over a billion some odd people. And now you're seeing the turn away from folks being, I'd say, okay with this, but more so just kind of going along, because they didn't know what else to do. And now starting to fight back, Jason, talk to us about what what has really been the change? Was it this one event? Or has this been growing over the past few years?

Jason Szeftel  5:40  
Sure. So first, let me give everybody context about me, this is the second time on the show, I'm really happy to be back. My name is Jason chef, tell, lawyer is like kind of a pseudo economist. And what I've been doing for years now is basically presenting providing consulting services for a whole swath of companies that are trying to deal with their own local operations in the United States, and then also how to deal with all the changing factors in the broader geopolitical context, specifically focusing on China. In the last few years, I have been really moving to helping people on the ground find better strategies for actually what to do not just provide this view from 30,000 feet, but also like, Alright, how do we climb this specific mountain for our business or our personal service? Operation? That is what I do. And yeah, we were I was on here a long time ago talking about it, and things have really moved forward, they really changed and it has really become a much more dangerous situation. So like you said, this is not just a small local issue, right? The city Ruchi in that, that really horrible incident happening with the people welded in their, their homes, that was in far western China. Right, that's 1000s of miles away, you know, you're talking New York to Los Angeles type distances. So that is, first of all, just a sense of the scale of what's going on. And yeah, Americans don't realize that in China right now, we're looking at a situation that is worse than the lockdowns and the cascading problems that we had back in early 2020. Right. This is a country that has not solved the public health crisis and is using using massive authoritarian measures to try and do it. It's implementing those measures with a ruthless hand at the local level using a whole system of very shady things in our mind. And what's happening is you have these horrific situations you have people in apartment complexes just that just get locked in. They all right, the this apartment block been locked down, cannot go outside. There's I mean, it's dystopian, dystopian is the word for what China has looked like, for the last two years. And the reason why is zero COVID. I really want to give people some context on to COVID. Just really quick, because no one even understands like, what's up, right? Why are they still doing this? Right? Just what's going on. And the real reason the core reasons they don't have vaccines at work. They don't have vaccines that were the ones they tried to develop locally, the guard, they were garbage, they weren't able to do what they need to do. They couldn't get the foreign ones, they were actually too proud in a lot of ways to get, let's say Pfizer and moderna vaccine, one that they knew work that would be updated at a reasonable schedule. And so they have almost no natural immunity across the population. Yes, China did lie about early COVID. But it did use authoritarian measures to eventually clamp it down. Yes, there were way more deaths and all that. But there isn't actually a natural immunity throughout the population. So now the COVID is rampaging through the country, people are going to die. And so we have information controls, again, about who's dying, how much and all this, and people are seeing, right, they're seeing the terrible measures going on, that are leading to people dying in their homes. And there's also people literally dying from COVID. And then finally, you have the World Cup, where people they saw outside of China, that there are people not wearing masks and going into big events. And excuse me, the Chinese government is just, it's basically it's playing Whack a Mole with all of its lives. And this isn't North Korea, in the sense that, you know, this is over a billion people, right, trying to keep this together with him controlling everything, every single facet of every piece of information of every store, not going to work. And so this will collapse. I'll tell the audience now we are seeing this is the Doom is approaching for China. This is really the scale of what we're going to see is no one's ever seen anything like where we're going to see the rise of China was really epic. And the fall collapse really is going to be even more spectacular.

Brian Nichols  9:35  
Hmm. Okay, so that you set me up right there for I kind of see this going away now, because we talked about this beforehand, like Is this the end of China and we've been talking about this here in America, like are we watching the fall of the American empire from within the inner turmoil politically speaking, culturally speaking, and I see a lot of folks particularly in the more the like rah rah GOP camp, look at China. As like China as the main threat. And and yet to your point, China is actually having a lot of its own problems, a lot of it economically speaking to start, but now we're seeing the cracking in the armor when it comes to a lot of the cultural stuff where they're losing that the top down control that they once had. So I guess you set this up there. And you're maybe you're seeing it this way as you're you're obviously more involved in the conversation as it pertains to what's day to day in China. But is this the end of China? And if so, what happens next?

Jason Szeftel  10:35  
Yeah, I mean, so, smart manufacturers, they have very seen the writing on the wall here, right? You zero COVID was really something that was really the a lot of really a lot of ways it was the the nail in the coffin here. So the companies that were smart and moved out before this really got chaotic, are going to benefit but the nature of zero COVID means you had rolling shutdowns in manufacturing centers across the country. This is so disruptive to industrial output. It's almost ridiculous. I mean, this is like having rolling blackouts. But But worse, you have ports that get shut down. You have intermodal distribution centers, you have energy facilities, you have so many things that get hit by this era COVID policy, like we saw massive protests at the the iPhone facility, right? This is an it's there's no answer. There's no answer to COVID. If you don't have vaccines, and you're trying to have endless, endless shutdowns, it just is actually economically disastrous. So it is a real part. But it's only one part of this, this whole problem like China has so many cascading and interlocking problems by themselves, like one of which by itself could destroy the state. We're looking at so many we are looking at financial problems across the really bloated Chinese financial sector, there's the real estate sector, as people shouldn't forget, is imploding, and is about a third or more of China's GDP. There are obviously there's these public health crises and the quality of the Chinese healthcare system is atrocious, again, 1.3 ish billion people. And there's no health care infrastructure equivalent to what you see in United States, not just for something like hospital beds, but for Basic Care, Right. And so COVID, you know, the Chinese government knows if COVID spreads, millions people will die. And so they've been trying to avoid that not because basically to protect their own authority and the collapse. Basically, we got the collapse of the Chinese economic model going on. Right now. Not only do you have the, the onshoring going on to the United States, the massive economic and trade attacks that have increased under Biden as opposed to Trump, there are just pause,

Brian Nichols  12:54  
just just a pause. Like that was so funny, because that can 2020 it was the exact opposite. Biden was like saying that we were going to do less when it came to try to do is take what Trump did it and ramped it up times. 11. It's just it's funny. Sorry.

Jason Szeftel  13:08  
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's 100% True, but it's funny too, because you can't listen to you can actually listen to what the politicians are saying. But the core of what they're gonna do these days is actually so similar policies of Biden and Trump, on China are identical and escalatory. It didn't matter. It was basically continued continuation, and then it just be ramped it up, way more. I mean, the recent attacks on the Chinese semiconductor sector have destroyed it. Right? We don't quite realize it is dead, is dead, you cannot produce high quality world beating chips in China anymore. Basic, which,

Brian Nichols  13:44  
which is really quick that might open up China wanting to I don't know, invade Taiwan, who happens to have? I don't know, lots of super good conductors or chip conductor? Yeah. Like,

Jason Szeftel  13:57  
yeah, the problem is they won't be operable. So there's no answer, you can't. And that's actually one of the funny things is like, if they actually hit Taiwan, it would destroy all those facilities, they would not have the skilled labor to actually operate them. So it'd be a disaster. And it's hundreds of billions of dollars, they would actually lower the number of chips they had access to, so that you had access right now, which is fine to a lot of chips. But they can't do the development. They can't actually leapfrog American technologies anymore. The US is closing all the seals. And we are also showing China had this whole fantasy that it would conquer Taiwan and the US would wouldn't get involved and it would just sort of make it a fait accompli, he would just do it really quick. And Japan wouldn't do anything and South Korea won't do anything. And Taiwan would just cave. United States would figure out, you know, we can't stop China know, the conflict in Ukraine is showing us what the United States is willing and going to do. And it's destroyed the Chinese strategic policy towards Taiwan as well. That is gone. And she's ability to actually implement it would lose China would lose 1/3 to one half of its military capacity for tribal storage. If it tried to invade Taiwan. It just wouldn't not succeed.

Brian Nichols  15:00  
This dude use nukes though. I mean, isn't that a real threat?

Jason Szeftel  15:04  
This is like Russia. I mean, the WMV WMD thing is been kind of taken out of context, biological chemical weapons suck from a military perspective. They don't work well, they disperse and you can control them. It's actually, it could be a terror weapon, but it's completely useless. If you're a major state, we realized this back in the 1960s and 70s. Like it just not useful for powerful militaries. nukes are a bit different. But China has so many internal problems that if you start nuking other Chinese people that you say, are Chinese and part of the Chinese nation. That's a great way to just accelerate the destruction of the Chinese state. And it's also wouldn't you the real challenge for China is actually occupying and taking over the island. And that requires the a massive naval, mobile combined arms joint operation to basically take over this island. That is the most complex military operation you can do. No one's done it in over 50 years, they have no experience to do it. And also the US. I mean, there's a couple of strategies you could do that would make it impossible and they actually won't have the ships to bring over the troops to bring over the fuel beat to to you know, advanced the beachheads do any of it? It would be? It'd be a humiliating disaster that would probably end Chinese CCP rule. Almost certainly, I didn't know that at this point.

Brian Nichols  16:20  
So I guess then it goes to my follow up question, I guess. So what is next? Do you see this kind of being the path forward in terms of this is inevitable that China, the CCP rule? It's coming to an end? And if so, what do you see China looking like let's say over the next 10 years will be a shell of its former self or will be something brand new, it's gonna be turning into God only knows why is it gonna be the worst version of itself.

Jason Szeftel  16:44  
China is returning to the way it's always been. So China, forget everything we've learned about modern economics and politics, China has always been the same thing. It's been a place of imperial rule. Typically, one man rule whenever it's successful, the new founder of whichever empire, or the like, basically the grandson of the founder of an old empire, and they've managed to come together. And then in between that you have basically horrific internal violence. This is the story of China's history, right? You actually looks like, oh, all these beautiful dynasties stacked one after the other. It's so orderly and you know, it's so orderly, beautiful, it's like a China, it's just it's like state, it's almost like a phoenix just rises from the ashes, one after the other. And this this new Chinese debt, that is such garbage, it is actually mostly total chaos. And the reason you get these massive states get into it some other time. The reason got these massive states is because of the the internal political and economic dynamics in China, which are really, really difficult, you actually need a powerful totalitarian state to even try and keep the thing together, otherwise, it wouldn't stay together. It's not like other countries it's in this is really something where people were at the point now, where if you've been avoiding American politics, and forgetting what the left don't want to hear what the left says, or the right says, that's probably the right thing to do. But to understand other countries, you know, we need a much broader understanding of like, what is possible the politics in a place like Russia and China, they've actually been the exact same thing for China's case to at least 2000 years, Russia's case at least 500 years, and that's the way they're gonna stay. And in China's case, it means unimaginable internal chaos, that's where things are headed. So Ukraine showed us that the world is like returning to form and we're gonna have major conflicts between nations, that there's going to be struggles over resources, all this stuff that's kind of been out of our mind, out of sight, out of mind, since the 90s. And the Cold War, yeah, that's all done, what's going to happen in China is going to be 10x Worse than least an order of magnitude worse than what we see in Ukraine, because they're gonna have trouble feeding themselves, they're gonna have trouble getting the fuel to maintain all of the massive industrial systems that are built. And the answer to a lot of this is going to be who who gets to survive, and then the remaining areas of authority of central authority or government authority, all are gonna have to make really, really, really, really tough decisions about who lives this isn't going to be a place where you're going to see anything like a functional state, like we've seen, and it's not going to be a pleasant place at all.

Brian Nichols  19:12  
Fun. All right, well, there's all the good things or two, well, that that being said, time for final thoughts. And obviously, I'll kick things off here, folks, these are important conversations, right, like, learning about what's happening over in areas that we frankly don't really get to see behind the scenes of what's happening, to be able to have these conversations. Yeah, let's keep doing that. And if you want to support shows, like The Brian Nichols Show, will it requires you to do so with your dollars so please, you want to support today's program, the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support you can become a recurring supporter at $5 A month or you can do a one time donation. 510 20 100 Whatever you can do, it goes right back into the programs we can have. Yes, amazing. Guests like Jason here on the program. So yes, one more time, Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support. That's my final thought. And then you can find me at BT Nichols liberty, Twitter, Facebook, minds.com, truth, social, you name the platform, I'm probably there. And then for YouTube rumble and Odyssey you can go ahead please was from your there hit the subscribe button in that little notification bell so you don't miss a single time we go live Jason, final thoughts for us and of course working with folks go ahead and follow you they won't continue the conversation.

Jason Szeftel  20:20  
Sure, guys, the main final thought here is even though everything I've said about China is really depressing. The net effect of it for the United States means likely one of the largest industrial and broader economic expansions that we've seen in a very, very, very long time. So there's massive opportunity in the United States, right, a lot of the industrial output that is failing and disappearing in Europe due to energy shortages, and that is failing in voucher fail in China due to massive political dislocations. I mean, this is going to one place on earth. And that's, that's the United States. So there are huge opportunities. If you're interested in that side of the equation and less of the miserable what's going on the rest of the world side, definitely reach out, you can find me on YouTube. Look for Jason chef tell, that's j s o n s ZEFTL. I have a podcast trying to unravel, there'll be a lot more content on there. And then I also have two companies. There's something called Zuma consulting, which is where I've worked with businesses over the last five years to help them navigate all these challenges going on, try and create a business strategy that goes forward. And then you can also check out the Darrow media, which is a digital marketing sales development agency that's been actually giving really cool new modern strategies for these companies. And I've actually been asking, like, Hey, this is really great. The world is this. That's really, really nice to hear. But what do we actually do right now? And so that's where I've been helping give some answers on that front. But thanks again, Brian. It's been a really great conversation.

Brian Nichols  21:42  
Absolutely. Jason, thank you for joining us. And, folks, if you got some value today, do me a favor. Go ahead, give today's episode a share. When you do, I will include all the links Affer mentioned in the show notes at the Brian Nichols show.com where you can find Okay, listen, I know 95 some odd percent of you guys are the ones who listen over on podcasts, you're missing the video version of the show, you're like, Where can I find it? No worries, all those links, plus the transcripts, plus all social media links all available in the show notes over at Brian Nichols show.com You can find that and plus, I'll include some of our awesome episodes here last week and plus a YouTube's gonna recommend a video just for you. So go ahead and click one of the two links. It's here on screen. They will bring you to some awesome videos with of course some awesome guests who will leave you watch, educated, enlightened and informed but with that being said, That's how we're going to end things on our Monday. Thank you to Jason Sappho for joining the show. But with that being said Brian Nichols signing off.

Disembodied Voice of Matt Ultan, Vocal Artist Extraordinaire  22:36  
We'll see you on Tuesday. Listening to The Brian Nichols Show. Find more episodes at the Brian Nichols show.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai