The Fable of the Fake China Coup

The crew looks at a truly bizarre conspiracy theory about a coup against Xi Jinping that took social media and India mainstream news by storm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It could happen here, it's not. It's not October yet,
but this is a preview of kind of how I'll
be recording certain things when Halloween gets near. So I'm
done with my work for the day. The rest of
you can't take over. Now. I guess that that's me

(00:25):
high Yep, it's me. It's Christopher. What is that? What
is this episode about? Christopher? Is it about? No? This
is this is about a thing that did not happen
somewhere else, which I guess is slightly off kilter for us.
But yeah, it also with me is Garrison and Trean
and Sophie and yeah, yeah, excellent. Alright, seems like the

(00:47):
episodes started. Good work, everybody, all right, we did it.
We got there. We've we've've gotten through the introduction. Now
we can get to a conspiracy theory that's been like
all over Twitter, but not kind of in the usual
places where you'd expect a conspiracy three to be on Twitter.
And that is this whole thing where an enormous number
of people were convinced that she Jumping had been ounced

(01:09):
it in a coup and that he was being held
by the army under house arrest and okay, so we're
recording this earlier today. I think she jumping like reappeared
and it you know, we had the final definitive proof
that he had not in fact been like disappeared by
the Chinese army. Yeah, yeah, I remember. The way I

(01:32):
encountered this was Twitter informingly that people were like discussing it,
and I spent like three seconds looking at what accounts
were saying that Jianping was being fucking coud, and it
was all like, um, I don't know, uh anime tip
goblin four to three, like like analyzing satellite photos and

(01:52):
stuff like, No, we don't, Like I'm just gonna I'm
just gonna wait to hear what's up with this one? Great? Yeah,
someone actually did, like sorry, like a like a word
cloud of like like a network map of who was
spreading it, and it was it counts with names like that. Yeah,

(02:13):
I mean, and it has spawned like articles from alt zeera.
It's way worse than that. It's way worse than that.
Like okay, well, I alway skip ahead a slight bit
to uh. The place we were at two days ago
was the Republic Media Network, which is like was one
of the biggest news networks in in India. I saw

(02:33):
some I saw a source claiming they get a hundred
and fifty five million views a week because literally the world.
They were literally running a China Watcher's parody tweet like
he had they had a trying to watch. A guy
had a thread that was like him making fun of it,
that was like him walking to like red and empty
places and being like this is a coup. And they

(02:54):
like they straight up ran the like his tweets, like
as a news story about the coup, like unreal bullshit,
Like I I know, oh boy, well this is again
a point we make regularly on on all of our shows.
But like you can't, you can't have that kind of
fun anymore, Like it just immediately gets picked up and weaponized,
like making making jokes about like fake oh yeah, idiots

(03:17):
are spreading bullshit about a coup. I'm gonna make fakeku news. Well, congratulations,
now you've convinced the third of India that there's a
coup in China. Yeah. Like I think like the China Watchers,
I think we're like because okay, like and this is
the thing where there there are very very specific China
watch people. I am very mad at because when when
when they were interviewed by the press when they were
writing about it, they were like, wow, the coup could

(03:37):
kind of be plausible, but it's not happen. It's like no, no,
it's not it is not I'm sorry, Like it is
a joke. Like any anyone who actually plausibly suggests that
Jumping is going to get overthrown in a coup is
not serious. This is not a serious person. This kind
of happened, like this is this is this is like
this is like fucking like Steve Bannon is getting the
death penalty ship Like it's actually less plausible than that,

(03:59):
Like it's nonsense. Like there's and when you say because
I'm not I'm not a China government now, or when
you say it's impossible, is it just because like we
have a long history of what happens when like people
who are in power in the Chinese Communist Party lose
power and it's not coup's well, I mean here's the thing, right,
so people will make a there's like there's like a
whole big thing about how like Ku Jintao was like

(04:19):
the first like successful like like non violent like like
transition of power in Chinese history and like that's kind
of true, like in the modern CCP, because like, so
after Mao, there's another guy who takes power and he
gets like fucked up by Dan Joe Ping and like
his sort of minions. But like, okay, so the first
thing you have to understand about this, and this is
something that's going to come up later here, is that
the Chinese Army is not going to stage a coup

(04:41):
like this is impossible. It is not going to happen.
The Chinese Army is not a political faction that works
like this. There has never been like that. The Chinese
Army has never done a coup like like the Army
of like the People's Liberation Army has never done into coup.
That's not how this works. It is it is like
it is insane. It is like just bafflingly incomprehensible that
anyone would think they could do this because they can't

(05:02):
like this, this is this is this is not what.
This is not what the p l A us as
an institution. Insofar as people get overthrown inside of the party,
it's by other people in the party doing like factional
maneuvering against them, and that can sort of happen but like, okay,
this is the year two. She jumping has basically like
clawbered everyone in the party who like and anyone who

(05:23):
was actually going to present a serious challenge to him,
like was claubed like ten years ago, so I mean
ten tens probably slightly overseight, but like, you know, he
he just finished part part of the background to the
stories that he just finished purging like a few of
his like last remaining like kind of seriously not even
really serious, but like he's did another one of anti

(05:45):
corruption purges and he's like had a guide like executed
for corruption, right, Like this isn't like that that that
that's how stuff actually works in the party is someone
gets arrested for corruption and then put in prison for
a long time or killed like but like like you know,
executed for like corruption like that that that's how this
it f actually works. There's there's like there are no coups.
This is bullshit. I'm gonna yell at China watch her
specifically who was talking about this like at the end

(06:07):
of this episode, because I'm mad about it, um like
so like and obviously like right now, like obviously today
likes we appeared in public, so like this is obviously bullshit. Uh,
five days ago, if we turned back the clock, it
was exactly as bullshit as it was then. But there's
there is some other context here, which is that So

(06:28):
one of the reasons why anyone is even talking about
this in the first place is that um on October six,
which is like a bit over two weeks from now, Uh,
the CCP is going to have the National Congress of
the Chinese Communist Party. And this this is like the
big one, right, like every five years, like the whole
party gets together, and it's where they choose the members
of the Pullet Bureau, and it's where they choose the

(06:50):
members of the absolutely terribly named Pullet Bureau Standing Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party. And there's like another thing.
There's like another like all the stuff is like it's
it's based on like like this, the structure of like
this is based on the party structure that the Bolsheviks
set up. What would be the kind of comparison to
this for American really? Is there not? Not? I mean,

(07:12):
it's it's kind of like like the closest thing would
be a presidential election. But imagine if a presidential election
was like like I imagine if presidential election was one
party got together and that chose the president. So it's
just it's it's a committee that kind of gets the
different bureautic leaders of different sectors. Well it's it's it's
also much like so it's basically like it has all

(07:34):
of the leader sort of like going down like the
ranks of the party like that you have like like
each like like city or whatever, like people will you
send delegates to it. Like Originally it was like like
back in like the like when the Bolsheviks. You're doing
this in in like nineteen like nineteen nineteen, right, Like
it's okay, the like these are based off of like
like the whole party, like like the bullshit party would

(07:54):
have a congress and all of the sort of leading
organizers and all like everyone like all the sort of
like local party factions were like a like a person
and they would set a delegate to the thing and
then they would all fight out and figure out what
their policy was going to be. Now it's like there's
I mean, they're there are power striggles, I go on,
But the whole like this is an actual representative of
like a mass party thing is just sort of gone,
it's just this, this is this is sort of like

(08:15):
what what what was actually gonna happen at this one
is we're going to see exactly how much power, like
she j and Ping is going to take because he's
the big story that was talking about was like she's
imping at the last one of these, like, well not
the last one of these. It was it was, it
was it was a different congress. But he he was
able to like eliminate the two term limits on Chinese
leaders that have been imposed sort of like after Mao

(08:36):
because people were like maybe this is a bad idea.
So she's gonna he's gonna get it, like he's gonna
get a third term. There's a bunch of debate over
like exactly how much power he's going to get and
like what titles he's gonna get, but like I don't know,
I'll do an episode about that after it happens. But
basically there's there's this all there's all the sort of
political intrigue stuff swirling around because this is like this

(08:57):
is like this is like the big political events like
of of the sort of like modern periods. Um the
other thing that was happening, well and This is also
why he was like pershing some of his opponents because like,
well you know, so, like I guess the everything we
should we could talk about with this is like if
people have listened to revolutions, like this is how Stalin

(09:17):
took over the party, which is that you figured out
that the like the way you take over those the
state apparatus is by you. You make yourself that like
the head of the Pullit Buro, and then you have
enough you have like you you need. All you need
to do is control like three people on the Pullit
Burero and you can just sort of like dictate policy
down inline for the party and this gives you this
gives you control the states, like this is this is
sort of this that's all like that's like the like

(09:39):
ancestor of this is still a very similar kind of
structure sort of um. Mostly it's just like, yeah, there's
an important political event going on and the other things
that she Shoulping was out of the country, so he
was doing he was doing a tour of Central Asia
for like like he's doing one of those sort of
like fluff tourious people do of like we're like reaffirming
or like trade tie and stuff. So he was in

(10:01):
samarcand and then he came back, I think on the first,
and then he was just sort of vanished for a
few days. And the reason that he vanished was that
he was in quarantine, which is the thing that like
is real in China but everyone else has just like
forgotten exists. And so he was actually doing the thing
that like you're supposed to do because he was back

(10:24):
from an international trip. Yeah. Well, and also like, well,
I hate to say you've got to hand it to
z and Pain, but I guess you've got to hand
it to him. That is that what you should do
after getting back from an international trip. Like Jenny Winely,
one of the few things that will say about is
he has gotten COVID less times than Joe Biden. He
has not gotten COVID right, Like, he hasn't gotten it.

(10:44):
And the reason he hasn't gotten is because they actually
sort of like there are ways in which the way
that they take COVID policy seriously is nuts, Like they
are like anti lockdown riots happening right now because they
locked down like an entire like they locked on an
entire town because one person got COVID, which like whatever,
and you can. You could argue with the COVID policy,
but they he he doesn't have COVID. So just mind

(11:07):
that no one was like this might be an option
of why he's not around. Well, every everyone who was
like serious, like like anyone who like you. Yeah, it
was like it was all nonsense. People who were spreading
it like it was all it was all random Twitter accounts.
I think what would kind of the missing piece here
and what's actually happened is that so those of you

(11:27):
who have followed my career, uh will know that there's
a website called Belling Cat that I wrote at that
has been in the news pretty continuously for the last
almost ten years because they kind of helped invent the
modern concept of open source research UM and open source intelligence,
which has really had its biggest moments since the invasion
of Ukraine, because suddenly there's all this footage of tanks

(11:49):
getting blown up, of of Russian soldiers doing this and
doing that, and of you know, cities changing hands and
all this stuff, and people have been following the war
through a lot of these big o cent accounts. UM
kind of the last huge moment in Ocean prior to
the invasion of Ukraine was was January six UM, and
that was another big moment for people understanding it and
kind of one of the popular conceptions of open source

(12:11):
intelligence is that random guys on the internet are getting
better intel than you know, the CIA or whatever. Which
there's a degree to which that that's true, because a
lot of random people did become experts in stuff like, um,
you know, different kind of munitions tracking and whatnot, and
did a better job of tracing certain things than than

(12:31):
state agencies were doing, which is why like some of
those people. UM. Anyway, it's a whole long story, but
the problem is that it's led people to believe that
the best intelligence often comes from random people on the internet.
And No. One of the things if you if you're
trying to evaluate someone who was claiming to provide O
sent the most one of the most important things to
do is Number one, can you actually trace their work back?

(12:54):
Like is it possible to like follow their they're thinking
and their conclusions to determine whether or not what they're
saying is nonsense? And were two do they have like
a track record? Because like, for example, Eric Toler and
Elliot Higgins, who I worked with for a while, have
like a ten year track record of being consistently right
about things and breaking massive stories and doing stuff like
uncovering Russian g r U agent operations and stuff. Um

(13:17):
and these were just random accounts that no one had
ever heard of on Twitter claiming to have detailed, figured out,
detailed information about a coup in the Chinese government. There's
there's nothing behind them. Yeah, well it's it's funny too,
because like, okay, so once once, like actual people, we're
gonna get this a second. Like once actually people started
picking it up. Like if you just googled any of
the people who were like writing about this, it's it

(13:38):
takes like five seconds to figure out this person. It's
just nuts. And but nobody did it because it's it's Twitter.
And so instead what happened is, um, so this thing
starts like on Chinese Twitter, like it's it's people like
but like, yeah, it starts on like the Chinese speaking
part of like China Twitter. I'm gonna read a thing
from the Indian News at first Post, which Lie did

(14:00):
a kind of clean up job of like, hey, all
of the other Indian outlets you're covering this, I've just
have just completely lost their minds. Here's like what actually
sort of happened. Um. Quote. A Twitter account New Highland Vision,
which has over followers, wrote on September that former Chinese
President Hu Jintao and former Premier When Jaibao, had persuaded

(14:23):
Song Ping, the former member of the pulp Ero Standing Committee,
to take control of the Central Guard Bureau from she.
So I don't My guess is that makes no sense
to anyone on like anything. Yeah, so this is j well, okay,
so what this is? This is some like old school
very very weird like old school Chinese inside baseball ship. Um.

(14:45):
The first thing you should know about this is this
is completely The first way you can tell this is
nonsense is that song Ping is not doing shit and
song Ping is not doing ship because this man is
a hundred and five years old. Man was born seventeen. Baby,
it's his time. It's you know what, credit to China.

(15:09):
I thought we lived in a cleptocracy run by like
an aging ghougle cast, but damn, hundreds of five the
queen could have lived so much longer, like to be fair,
to try to have this guy's like three generations out
like this is okay. So the sort of like fantasy
here is like Kujin Tao like taking power, and hugent

(15:34):
Tao is like he was one of the guys who
came in like like when he kind of made his bones,
like purging the people in the CCP who would like
hadn't been hard enough on the Chanaman protesters. But he's
he's like he's one of the sort of perform and
opening guys. Um like song Ping is like what are
the guys who like helped like Kujin Tao advanced the part,

(15:56):
like hujent Tau is like a guy from like the nineties, right,
Like these are like like people who at one point
we're genuinely powerful and are now like I don't know.
I mean there's persistant rumors they do stuff behind the scenes,
but like it's it's I don't know. They are like
unbelievably and ferociously decrepit. M okay, do you know what

(16:17):
else is unbelievably and ferociously decrepit done? Um the Gold
company that's now advertising past guys. Listen, listeners, you're you're
probably gonna hear some Gold ads from very They're very
silly ads. People do seem to be enjoying them. I'm
gonna tell you two things. Number one, don't buy gold.
The only precious medals you should invest if you're going

(16:38):
to invest in precious metals, which I don't necessarily recommend,
the only ones you should invest in our lead, hand
and brass. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I don't care about these.
Like look, when the fucking c i A or the
FBI or the Washington State Highway Patrol is advertising on
our show, we get those ads removed. I don't care.
You're not gonna buy gold, don't buy goal, don't go.

(16:59):
But what take their money and we'll use it to
pay our salaries. It's fine, like, enjoy it. Ah, we're back, boy.
You know what, guys, I said what I just said there,
and I just bought a hundred and thirty seven thousand

(17:21):
dollars in gold. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go bury
it right now. Actually exactly exactly. I can't even buy gold.
I'm allergic to it. For really, yeah, I really really
really yeah, I'm not going to be rich. I didn't
know you could be allergic to gold. I also did.
I knew you could be allergic because like rings and stuff. Yeah,

(17:43):
that makes you I mean, like the yeah, the metal.
I'm not like like die if I touch it, but like, yeah,
I came up on an allergy test, so it's like legit.
I wonder if you're only allergic to like broke people gold,
and if you're not a lerned maybe poor people gold.
I love that there's poor people gold, the people I know,
I know. It's just very funny that that's and I'm

(18:03):
sure that people advertising on our shows are selling like
it's like asbestos bricks covered in goldlief. We should talk
about this not Let's continue, Okay, So back back back
to another kind of incredibly bizarre fantasy. So like there's
there's a group of like people who are like like

(18:24):
Chinese dissidents or whatever, but like whose thing is that?
Like they think that like jumping is like an unreconstructed
Maoist and that like you know, one day like the
like the people from the reform period who like end
in Maoism or one day gonna like sweep him out
of power. Like this is nonsense, Like it's like the
only equivalent I can think of this is like every
once in a while you'll see some Russia expert ranting

(18:45):
about how like Putin is like on the verge of
being overthrown and like some like liberal no one has
ever heard of the nineties is going to do the
same ship. By the way, the fake Osan that comes
out because it's all stuff like, look, they've closed the
streets in Moscow and like this street, you know, they've
got military out, and it's like, well, they're having a parade.
It's like a free announced parade. They do this every year.
They hold this exact parade every year and they close

(19:05):
the street down the same way. And you can find
that if you look into it. But people can take
like post a bunch of pictures on Twitter of like
cleared streets and like soldiers blocking intersections, and it looks
to somebody who doesn't know anything about Russia, like, wow,
these the Ocean people have done it again. They've uncovered
another coup against Putin. Well one thing, one thing. One thing.

(19:27):
The other thing that I'll say about cus is because
we we like in the last like maybe three or
four years, have actually been a lot of coups. But
the thing about a coup, right is it like one
of the things that happens very quickly usually in a coup.
If if the coup plotters are winning. Is that like
they there's you'll you'll you'll you'll see a message from
something called like the Government of National Salvation or some ship,

(19:47):
and they'll like start putting out statements. And if you
don't see a statement from like the the United Liberation
Army of National Salvation or whatever, like it's not happening.
That's what I'm gonna call mine. Wait, I'm just like, Okay,
I understand how it's spreads, Like I'm sure we're gonna
get into it, but I understand how it's spread to
like people on the internet that wants something to latch onto.

(20:09):
But if you're saying it got to like el Ja
Zeera and all that stuff, like there wasn't like a journalist,
it's the thing. Okay, So there there, there's a couple. Yeah,
we're gonna get to that. Like so there's just two
different kinds of things happening, right. One of the things
about this conspiracy is that there's a lot of people
who see it and are like like like there there.
I saw a guy who was like an Ultramaga account
right like his things like he was like nuclear Ultramaga

(20:32):
who posted a picture that was like, oh my God,
this is an explosion in Beijing and it was like, no,
this is how much enging explosion jails and fifteen and
they always they only have I've ever seen this. The
next day he was like, yeah, I'm sorry, that's actually
not what I thought. It was like even those guys
who at this supports to Nuclear Ultra Mega, it was
just like people you know, normally expect to get bulled
over by this stuff and they were like, this is nonsense,

(20:53):
Like what is happening? You know, I'm glad that we
can rely on the journalistic credibility of Nuclear Ultra Maga,
and well, Nuclear Ultra Maga was being more responsible than
most of the mainstream Indian journalistic outlets, which is terrifying.
So okay, So like like the thing about this, this

(21:14):
the the original version of this conspiracy though, is this
is like this is gibberish. No nobody knows what the
Central Guard Bureau is, Like I had to look that up,
Like apparently it's a it's a like the Sential Guard Bureaus,
like this thing that's in charge of like protecting like
high level leaders or whatever. Like it's nonsense, like this
is this is like pure inside baseball ship for like
like people who are like really committed, like Chinese dissident

(21:37):
what pads. However, what happens next is so people start
kind of picking up on it, and in particular there's
a person of Jennifer zang Zeng, who has like two
hundred thousand Twitter followers. Um starts, she starts posting this
video that claims to be p l A military vehicles
heading to Beijing on September twenty two. And this is
like ghost viral. UM. So yeah, I mean, I mean

(21:58):
give us three options. One footage, it's footage from a
video game. Three video game, let's think, let's think, you know,
so I I actually think this is real military footage.
And I think it's actually kind of recent. It's just that,
like it's really easy in China to just like look
at a road and see a military trip. Option three,

(22:20):
it's footage of some fucking like tank on the road
in China. I'm gonna take it was just like armored cars,
which is like I think that like like I just
moved troops around. I just did a road trip up
to northern Washington for a Parker conference and nerd I know,
and we we we passed three military helicopters flying this
guy we passed like we we we passed like two

(22:44):
uh like a troop carriers, we passed a whole bunch
of military equipment. I'm not gonna fill then be like
they're invading Oregon, like like what no, like this this
is this is a thing. Like if you take one
thing out of this episode, is that any time someone
says that they are seeing true movements, it is always
alive that this is a Houston dream Hong Kong because
everyone was like terrified the army was gonna show up,

(23:06):
and like every two days there'd be another videos alone
like there's an army conflict moving into every It's always fake,
it's never real. It's like the only time it's ever
real is if there's actual shooting, Like if there's a
literal war going on, maybe well, and it's never real.
You're gonna know when it's real. It's also if you
want to look about at times, because there are times
where people do osent on military movements and it's meaningful.

(23:29):
A good example would be the months that led up
to the invasion of Ukraine, in which case you were
able to clearly show here is satellite footage three months
ago of this place from the air and here is
it now, and there's like a million more guys. They're
clearly something is going on, and we can show this
pattern repeating in a bunch of areas, right, And this
is this is a very different thing from the thing
that goes viral on Twitter. Is someone will just post

(23:52):
a video of it and if so, and if what's
happening is they're posting a video of some military looking trucks,
that person is and that's all it is. Nine percent
at the time, that person is full of shit. Yeah
it's And this is this is like one of the
most common patterns of just like weird bullshit conspiray stuff.
Is this stuff people like love this. Again, the thing
that's happening to open source intelligence is the thing that

(24:14):
happens to everything cool that comes on the end. You
have this, you have this, This thing is figured out
that is made possible because of new technology. People do
really rad ship and in the case of O Sin,
it's like, prove that the Russian government shot down in
h seventeen over fucking Ukraine, and um, you know, solve
all of these war crimes being committed in different areas
by figuring out exactly who the perpetrators were and where

(24:34):
they were committed in all this ship based off of
like sketchy video footage, and then the thing goes viral
and elements of the aesthetics of it are taken by
people who just want to spread bullshit um or in
some cases who think they're actually doing real research and
they're just dumb, and you know, then then you you

(24:55):
get to this point where kind of this thing that
was pretty wild and pretty um, pretty free for a
while has to there's a degree to which it has
to become professionalized so that people can know who is
full of shit and who is not, and like who
has a track record and who doesn't. UM And I'll
go back to in terms of like how you can

(25:15):
tell if something is real osent kind of the the
the earliest big case study of like ocent researchers breaking
something is proving that the Russian government shot down MH seventeen,
this Malaysian air flight over Ukraine when the Russians were
blaming the Ukrainians for it, and the way they did
it is there were pictures in the wreckage of the
aircraft that were taken numerous ones that showed pieces of
the missile. Some of those pictures had numbers on them.

(25:38):
All weaponry, military grade weaponry has serial numbers and ship
and using those serial numbers, people were able to track
it back to the Buck missile battery that the mistil
had been on. And because the Buck missile battery also
has like numbers and ship and you can trace its progress,
they figured out what base had originated at. And then
using a mix of like videos civilians had taken and

(25:58):
like other stuff, they were able to kind of trade
the path of this Buck missile as it left Russia
and entered Ukraine and then found it in a village
like a video evidence that just some taxi driver was
literally a guy who had like a fucking car camera
on and he just uploaded footage from like driving around town.
You see in this town next to where the plane
was shot down, the Buck missile launcher that has the

(26:19):
missile that shot down MH seventeen driving through that town
the day that the plane is shot down. It's like, oh, okay,
well there you go, and and and again. It's the
thing in terms of like how to tell if something
is valid ocent. You can track all of that back
every stage of it makes sense. Every stage of it
is repeatable to a lay person. And um, and and

(26:39):
if they're good, they're gonna demonstrate their work as they
tell this as they like show. Here's the steps that
I took. Um, they're never gonna just say. Here's a
video of two army vehicles. Look troop movements. You know. Yeah, Okay,
we're gonna be getting into who she is after these ads.
O oh. Um. You know, when I'm thinking about shooting

(27:02):
down civilian airliners, I wish I had gold in my basement.
I was wondering how we're gonna be. It came around
next year we're launching our first tribute sche exclusively using
gold as the projectile and the the end. The end mission,
by the end is to set up next to the

(27:24):
airport and shoot down as many planes as possible using
the Gold tribute Garrison Garrison Davis threatening international air travel.
I hope your passport comes in soon, buddy, Before about
this in the State Department. Here's here's the bads. I

(27:52):
just got my my gold purchase flag. I don't know
what's going on, but it's not letting me buy anymore.
So I think they're on to me. Wow, Um, yeah,
that's that's on. Listeners. We need you to just buy
all of the gold you can and mail it to
Garrison so that Garrison can fight climate change with his
gold powered anti aircraft catapult. So Chris, how's it good? Okay?

(28:19):
So okay. So the thing that also should include people
in like that something was going wrong is if literally
any of the people who were reatween Jennifer zan had
like literally just googled her name because it's okay, So
if you if you do this, what you find out
is that she is a self proclaimed human rights activists
and journalist who writes for like really weird right wing
outlets of Japan and also right for the Epoch Times. Now,

(28:45):
finally we could pull back the curtain and reveal what
has been going on this entire time, which is that
and then this is, yeah, what what's actually going on
here is that Jennifer Zang is part of the Fallen Gong,
which is like a very very weird right wing Chinese cult.
She was like like she had to leave China because
you went to write a book about them, like this,
this whole thing has been a food falling Gong off

(29:07):
thew there we go back, Yeah, okay, good, So yeah, okay,
so people who don't know what the fallon Gong is
there they were, okay, so it's the thing that kind
of emerged out of a bunch of these sort of
like meditation practices. But in late eighties and nineties, like
the Falling Gong, it turns into this like this full
scare will agist cult. That's like and as as as

(29:30):
the CCP like increasingly sort of represses them, they become
like increasingly anti communist. Um you've they're they're like literally
like you cannot be a Chinese person in the US
and not running too these people fucking everywhere they'll just
like march through China town. I mean there's billboards for
their fucking music show thing like everywhere around fucking where
I live, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah that they have.

(29:51):
They have a show called Shen You and like I'm
betting most yeah that's yeah, that's the China before communism,
ye yeah, and everywhere everywhere words it is. The actual
show is wild. Yeah, yeah, they have they have a
huge network in the U S. And like the actual
thing that it is, it's like it's mostly like China
for companies and the actual things this is weird combination

(30:13):
of like half as Buddhism and Taoism and then like
absolutely insane anti evolution ship like a giant Christian Buddhism
as well. It's like this, there's a whole bunch of weirds.
It's not just like it's a bigger well, it's it's
more Buddhist, but like, yeah, it's it's it's very it's
very it's it's a very very weird cult thing. And

(30:33):
like the Times, yeah, the fascist newspaper. Yeah, although weirdly,
weirdly the Epoch Times. Okay, so this is this is
a part of the story that's very odd, which is
that I'm about sure at that original so so the
original account that did this, that um that did the
original conspiracy, that the New Highland Vision thing. It was

(30:57):
like a pretty new account and had a bunch of
followers and it just vanished, and there were a bunch
of other accounts, like tiny accounts that were also New
Highland Visions. I'm about eight sure, but this is that
that was a fall and gong thing. But weirdly, the
Epoch Times doesn't really touch this. It's it's it's, it's
it's very weird. Um, they're like, I'm gonna read a

(31:18):
passage from from the Epoch Times, and it's like the
epot Times, as far as you talk about it, are
citing x Indian officials talking about it, but like here here,
here's a pack. Here's like a quote from a passage
of like the thing they're writing about, like a potential
like stuff like okay Yang noted in this article that
Lee was promoted to Commander of Northern Theater Command in

(31:40):
nineteen sorry in two thousand seventeen by g and that
Lee led the formation of flags in the military parade
on the anniversary marketing the CCPs takeover of China, which
shows that she values him. Like this is just like
the most boring, asked China watchers ship I've ever seen,
Like that the Epoch Times didn't like cover this as
like like they they didn't do the like the thing

(32:01):
that all the rest of all people were doing, which
is this sort of like oh my god, there's a coup,
Like they just that kind of makes sense because if
they're on the inside in any way, they kind of
know it's bullshit, so they don't want to kind of
ruin some of their reputation at least in like the
far right in the States, So it makes sense that
they would only cover it in the extent of them
quoting like other people, so that they're actually not actually

(32:24):
giving their kind of definitive opinion on it. Yeah, it's interesting.
And I think also because I mean think, I think
the thing is that they also knew that this thing
has limited shelf life because the moment that she should
being reappears in public, everyone knows this bullshit, yep. But
before then. So the new version of this of this
conspiracy codest is around like four things. One is the
sort of military convoys going to Beijing thing there too,

(32:44):
there's I guess there's five because there's also technically that
there's there's the image of the explosion that they claim
is in Beijing that's like not in Beijing, it was
from like seven years ago. Um, there's there's the they're
the big The big one is there's this image going
around that is like partially it's fake, and then people
try to do on Stana and it sucks. Um is
they there's this thing that that's like Beijing has canceled

(33:04):
six it's flights and trains, and there's like there's the
original pictures of it are fake, right, And then people
try to go on flight trackers to like check if
it's happening, but they don't know how to use flight trackers,
so they look at the planes are like, oh my god,
has been canceled. If you look at the actual map,
there's just a bunch of planes over Beijing, which is

(33:25):
the thing you would expect there to be happening. And
they were like and it was one of those normal
things where like like the actual thing that was happening
was there were there were some cancellations, but like that's
because flights get canceled. Yeah, Like it was just completely
normal flight cancelation stuff or like it wasn't even like
assistically significant number of which is regular flight cancelations. And
then like planes that had landed, but people were being
like they were canceled. It's like no, like they got there,

(33:47):
you know. So that happened. There was a lot of
people trying to like do research stuff and just failing. Um,
there's there's this whole thing about she's being like missing
this really important military meeting, which like he actually he
genuine only wasn't there, but he wasn't there because he
was quarantining and he like sent he sent like a
message to its interesting because the like the Epoch Times

(34:08):
actually reports on that, like that that passage that I
read about, like the weird the like people trying to
figure out who's holding a flags you get promoted like
that that that's about that meeting. Um, but yeah, and
then then the last thing, it's just like where is
she jumping like blah blah blah blah. If he's fine,
why isn't this stuff Like it's it's the especially the
flights and the convoy stuff like starts spreading like wildfire

(34:29):
and the thing that happens that like this thing should
have died, like there shouldn't have been enough stuff to
keep it going. But it hit b JP Twitter, which
is like so like so the b j P is
just basically like it's it's the fascist party that controls
India there like like really fanatical like Hindu extremist right wingers, Um,

(34:51):
they hate Muslims. They suck there, Like I I would
I would argue I think there's a decent argument for
this that this is the closest thing to like a
conventional twenty century fascist party that exists on Earth. We've
talked about Theong and the and the epic times on
here before or at least on pastards. I know, I've
talked about them a decent amount of christ you have

(35:14):
you have, Yeah, they're kind of they're kind of one
of the one of the recurring characters. Um yeah. But
but what what's what's interesting here is is that one
of their ops, like it just the op doesn't really
go towards sort of like American right wing Twitter. It
goes towards Indian right wing Twitter, which that which which
is notable. Yeah yeah, well and and the reason I
think this is a lot of this is happening is that, like, so,

(35:36):
do you have everyone number a couple of years back
when like a bunch of Indian and Chinese soldiers like
be chartered to death in like the mountains with sticks.
It was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, So like this is
like a thing that there's there's been border disputes between
China and India, like since India was created. Basically like, um,
they fought like okay, the the war that people want

(35:57):
to talk about the least in the nineties two Sino
Indian War, where Mao just kind of like invaded a
bunch of India and just like absolutely kicked the ship
out of the Indian Army. And this has been a
sort of like there's this sort of like a recurring
in like Indian nationalist like bug bear thing where like
I mean, when when border attentions flare up, like the

(36:17):
India people, you get a bunch of like really terribly
animated things of like an Indian soldier with a giant
staff like beating the shout of a dragon or something.
This is just sort of like something that happens on
like Indian right wing Twitter and Jordan Paterson ship. Yeah, literally,
like it's it's really funny because you you get two
of the like absolutely funniest Like you get the sort

(36:39):
of like the Chinese like wolf warrior like accounts and
the like b JP people going at it, and it's
just unbelievably funny to watch because they're too like two
of the most like absolutely psychotic, like insane nationalists in
the world. You just you just gonna watch them fight
for a bit and it's it's a good time. Unfortunately,
like so these guys pick it up and it rapidly

(37:01):
like okay, one of the things like that there's the
right wing Indian astrologer predicted that he was going to
get overthrown stopping. That's that's one of the worst as ever. Wait,
that's kind of interesting to me. That's kind of interesting
a right wing Indianogy's there's a lot of people who

(37:25):
are into astrology, and specifically a lot of that is
very influential in the RSS, which is kind of the
Indian fascist movement that is backing Mody, who's the guy
who runs the country right now, who's yeah, it's it's
not it's not weird that that that that's happened. Given
the context of Indian politics, it's not surprising to put

(37:45):
it sucks. It does suck. It's for sure sucks. We
can say that for certain. I wonder what sign he
is am? I right, guys, fucking liberals. The energy actually
so superbar in some Swamy who was a guy who
was this guy was a six term b JP MP,

(38:07):
he was a he was a this man was a
government minister. At one point starts tweeting about this whole
thing and then like it just it's just like this
thing just like goes through the actual Indian media sphere
like fucking wildfire. Um that the z News, which is
an outlet founded by the deceased right wing media like
in Indian media billionaire Supross Chandra, who rest and Pissed

(38:29):
by the way died in August, runs a story called
China Coup Beijing hiding something big jij and ping in
deep trouble what rumors suggest, Like The fucking Economic Times,
this is the second largest English language business paper in
the world, runs a story titled quote Chinese President ge
removed from power in a coup. Here's what we know

(38:50):
so far is nuts. Like, like I mentioned this in
the beginning, like what part of part of the reason
this goes viral is that Republic Media network like like
like probably India's largest he the network is just just
runs with the fucking like runs with it as a
story and well it's yeah, it's like it's like there,
I guess the way I would describe it's like they

(39:11):
don't like Fox News has like a really really elaborate,
like like system because they've been doing this for ages, right,
they have a very very elaborate system for like running
like running a dumb thing from Twitter like and turning
it into like turning into like a package story. Uh
that this is not what's happening here. They are just
like like live reporting from Twitter. And I think this
is I don't know, like I think it's like it's

(39:33):
it's it's it's a degree of laziness that like you
see this in American journalism a lot too, where like
people just literally report like report Twitter like things that
happened on Twitter like this. This this is how. This
is how like goblin mode became a thing. Like there's
a lot of stories that are just it's just linking
to Twitter and they're basically doing this. And part of
the everything that's going on here is that, like you know,
so like Indian media has just become increasingly right wing

(39:55):
over the past decade, and they've gotten like increasingly more
fascist and when you and you know, the everything is
like fascist are incompety and like this is basically the
result of the sort of hollowing out of the Indian
media sphere is that these like Matt like he's absolutely Titanic,
Like cable and news networks are running this just like
like stuff that is so bullshit that like like the
fucking news Match, Like there was a news Max anchor,

(40:18):
Grant stitching Field, who was a news Max host like
has like a video about this, and the video both
starts and ends with him going this is probably bullshit,
and then in the middle there's like some incomprehensible thing
that he like half read an Epoch Times article didn't understand.
He starts ranting about like the general of the Northern
War who has just been relieved of his duties as

(40:39):
a direct quote, by the way, absolutely nonsense, like yeah,
but like even even those guys were kind of like
this is whack, Like we we can't run with this,
but that like the sort of like like the the
sort of like Indian fascist people are like so incredibly
desperate for just like any like like even more so

(40:59):
than the or can write and more are desperate for
just like here's an anti China story we can just
sort of like throw out because of the sort of
like increased tensions around the borders that exception, this stuff
just this stuff just explodes um and eventually you get
like that the Indian media outlets who are like still
actual like outlets who are like, hey, guys, this is nonsense,

(41:20):
like the Hindu stand Times and the Tribune and right
stories that are like really, like, are you guys kidding? Me, like,
come on, this is like obviously fake. Um yeah, and
and and and at certain point, like this whole thing
it's sort of like phase, but it has this there's
there's no there's. But then there's a sort of second
wave of it, which is there are a bunch of

(41:41):
people who are like weird like Chinese dissident quote unquote people,
but who aren't like who aren't following Gong, people who
like looked at this and we're like, this is obviously
a lie. I'm not going to jump in on this
lave of the bulshit. But then we're like, okay, I've
got a second layer of this. Um there there there's
there's someone Dr Lee mag Yan, who's like she's like

(42:03):
an old school like COVID bio like bioweapon like lab
truther person. Um. She was like okay, okay, no, no, no,
hold on, hold up, what's happening here? That this whole
discourse was a she jumping op to distract everyone from
the the alliance with Putin that he's going to announce
at the party Conquress. Yeah, and like like he needs

(42:26):
to like secretly cover up the fact that he's going
to create an alliance to destroy the free world. It's
just like it's it's it's a real it's a it's
a real circus of just like like all like you
gotta see like this whole sort of second and third
waves of media grifters like looking at the story of
being like, Okay, how do we spin this hop and
it's I don't know, like I I feel like that
this is a part of like this part of Twitter,

(42:48):
like the sort of like it's just this kind of
there's a kind of intersection of like weird Chinese cranks
and like China watch her Twitter, where you get a
bunch of these very weird things. But yeah, I've talked
about this, but like the thing's interesting to me is
it's like the sent to which the right doesn't pick
this up, Like this is the kind of thing like
you would expect like Alex Jones to be talking about,

(43:10):
and its best I can tell, Like Alex Jones doesn't
cover it, like fucking Bucky Barnes like even talks about
it like briefly like on like but like while Alex
is like walked out of the room, talks about it
for like five seconds and then stops, and I was like, really,
like Alex Jones isn't gonna cover this, like, uh, maybe

(43:31):
it's it's possible I missed part of it. Paying is
is if like less secure in power and can be
overthrown by other elements in the Chinese government, than China
is kind of less scary that. Alex Jones tens. Yeah,
that's so that's might be part of it. I know,
we'll give him some time. Maybe he'll get on this later. Yeah,

(43:52):
I don't know. He's got a lot going on right now. Yeah.
Oh god, Okay, So the last thing I want to
talk about is like, so I've been saying I'm talking
about China watchers this whole time. There's like basically there's
kind of a academic careers last profession like in the
US that's like being a China watcher. And so you
get like some international relations degree, you get some like

(44:14):
cultural studies degree, and you go to China for a
bit and you come back and then like your job
is to write about like the inscrutable Oriental mind. And
I they're like one or two of these people are
like a couple of these people who I like have
some respect for real at large. I literally cannot with
these people. Um, well, so what did. The Guardian writes
an article about this. Later on, they're like, yeah, because

(44:36):
this is not happening. But the guy they quote writes
in a Twitter threat, I'm just gonna read this tweet
because I Jesus Christ. A palace coup in a time
of political pressurization is not implausible. Gorva Chevan Yeltson were
detained during the USSR Russia transition period. A coup is
not an anathema to China either. Emperor guang Hu was

(44:57):
arrested by dowager Emperor is see she when he attempted
reforms that, by the way, the same the second thing
is talking about that is from like I think it's
eight ten is the last coup he can find? Like
you could just say ship like there's like you you
would you could literally say whatever the funk you want
and people will be like, oh yeah, no, no, no,

(45:19):
this coup. That is literally two political there are there
are two entire political systems that China has had between
right now and the time that the Emperor's regent like
overthrew the emperor to stop him, Like just just calm on,
like why why why why are people allowed to say this?

(45:42):
Like why why are people allowed to go, oh yeah,
Gorba Trough and Yelson got cooed, So that means that
there can be a coup in China like this this
this is one of the experts. Like I just like
like one of these every single every single one of
these articles has this passage where they're like, oh, well,
part of the reason why this happening is because the
Chinese government is so unbelievably not transparent, and I'm like no, Like,

(46:04):
part of the reasons is happening is because you guys
just literally will say bullshit, which means that people will
just believe like literally you can just say anything about China.
You can say it like it's all like it all
comes down once again, as every problem in the world does,
to the twenty far hour news cycle. Where is this bullshit?
But like got to fill air time. It's happening right now.
People are talking about it, so we get to talk

(46:25):
about it. We don't have to say it's true. We
can just like talk about it and then we filled
some airtime and uh, you know, we keep making money.
It's good and now we're talking about it. Yeah, And
it's like if it's a topic that people are not
like I'm gonna say something, then add a caveat. If
it's a topic that people are not very knowledgeable about,

(46:46):
like the inner workings of Chinese politics, then they're going
to be easier to believe it now even now, obviously
this strategy can work even for topics that people are
knowledgeable about sometimes um, but especially in something related to
like foreign countries that most Americans know very little about,
then yeah, that's super easy to believe. Like remember a
few years ago when everyone convinced themselves that uh Kim

(47:09):
jongon died. Yeah, yeah, because because people because people are
really to believe something. It's yeah, it's like like they're there,
there's there's there's a thing I've been like, I've run
into a lot where like that, there's there's a bunch
of like there's a bunch of people in the American
left who's like basically and I don't even really know
how they came to believe this, because this isn't something

(47:30):
that that CCP even says about itself, but like they've
they've come to believe that China has universal health care,
which it doesn't. They used to have one and then
they got rid of it, Like they literally dismantled the
universal health care system. Like there are people who believe
that like like China has like a right to housing
and that everyone in China just gets a house, and
and like like this is all of this ship that's
like it just has like it's it's so completely uncoupled

(47:52):
from reality that like I can't I can't even trace
the source to where they got this stuff. But it's
really easy to spread because yeah, it's just like nobody
knows and especially like, yeah, it's it's a foreign country,
nobody knows anything about it, and you can and like
the actual people who are experts will just like start
spouting shit about how it's plausible there could be a
coup against Ji jumping because fucking emperor was overthrown a

(48:14):
hundred fifty a hundred and twenty four years ago. Like
it's it's it's endlessly frustrating. And yeah, anyway, so don't
don't use the internet, attack global communications infrastructure, um and yeah,

(48:38):
buy gold, buy some gold, and if you see something
on Twitter or really anywhere online, instantly believe it no
matter what it is. Yeah, live your life that way.
It's it's fine. Also, should we plug our our lives
our live show that wrong. Yeah, So we're doing a
live virtual it could happen here and Q and A,

(49:01):
the entire squad will be there. You can get tickets
from moment dot ceo slash I see h h. It's
all over our socials you're looking for it, and that
will be on October that's six pm Pacific time. Mark
your calendars, market Calendars, Calendar, dot ceo slash I c

(49:24):
h H. I feel that was beautiful uloud for you, Sophie,
and I know we've had a lot of debate about
what we're gonna be talking about, and I think one
of the most important things in current events right now
that kind of indicates the kind of collapse of American
society is all of the Try Guys discourse. So we
are going to be preparing a two hour Try Guys

(49:47):
two hours, two hour presentation of the evolution of the
Try Guys discourse and what really happened behind the scenes
and how it impacts American politics. Going spoilers, none of
them were ever married, but it could happen. Here is
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

(50:09):
cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot
com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could Happen here, Updated monthly at
cool Zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.