Running A Marathon In North Korea + Arrested In China With Johan Nylander

Johan Nylander is an award-winning author and freelance correspondent from Sweden. His work covering Asia has been published by CNN, National Geographic Travel, and Forbes.

Johan wrote "The Wolf Economy Awakens – Mongolia's fight for democracy, and a green and digital future." He also wrote “The Epic Split – Why ‘Made in China’ is going out of style.”

Johan on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannylander/

Johan's website - https://www.johannylander.asia/

SUPPORT ME: https://www.thetransformationofvalue.com/support

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
He had a gun at the back of his jeans, right?
Like a bloody gangster, right? He was walking up and down like
this, right? At the same time they were
putting newspaper on the floor. And I was not afraid.
I was just so focused, right? The fear comes later, right?
I was just so focused. And there's where my blood is

(00:21):
going to be. And he's the one who's going to.
OK, Yeah, no. So you do indeed look like a
journalist. And I have just come from
Kamakura, which took an hour in the humid, sweaty Tokyo train
system. But this is what we do, man.
We travel from place to place and we meet people, We have
conversations. We're just sort of ease into it.

(00:45):
This isn't an interrogation. The police are not waiting
outside, though we may get to that part of the conversation.
I'm really keen to just talk about your work, what you've
been doing and kind of what motivates you.
So if that's all right, I'll read a little introduction and
then we'll we'll get into. It all right, OK, yeah, shoot.
Hello, I am Cody Allingham and this is the Transformation of

(01:07):
Value, a place for asking questions about freedom, money
and creativity. My guest today is Johann
Newlander, an award-winning author and freelance
correspondent from Sweden. His work covering Asia has been
published by CNN, National Geographic Travel and Forbes.
Johann wrote the wolf economy awakens Mongolia's fight for

(01:29):
democracy and a green digital future.
He also wrote the epic split Whymade in China is going out of
style. Johann, welcome to the show.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
It's a real pleasure. Yeah.
Thank you so much. You know, I sat down to plan out
what we were going to talk about.
And of course, the topics that come to mind first are the

(01:50):
technological rise of Communist China, the decline of Hong Kong,
and the emergence of regional powers in places like Mongolia.
But something that struck me as profound amongst all of that was
your Instagram. You have these photos of running
marathons in places like Pyongyang, North Korea,

(02:11):
Ulambata, Mongolia, and of course, the Hong Kong Marathon.
What is it about running that helps you make sense of the
world? Well, that's a good question.
Like a lot of people, I'm kind of new to running right.
I just started a few years ago for like a hell of three since
like physical and mental health streets.

(02:35):
And a lot of people ask me because I do this like crazy
long distance runs when people ask me like, oh, oh, you must
love running. It's like, no, I hate running.
Like I really hate it. But if I don't run, I go a bit
cuckoo upstairs. It's it's a way to find a
balance in life, right? To find some, almost like

(02:55):
meditation. Well, it's hard to think about
anything else when you're tryingto, you know, just keep going,
right? Yeah, I mean, the first 5
kilometres can be a bit rough. Like the first 8 kilometres be a
bit rough. But after 810 kilometres, you,
you, you, you, you, you come into this zone of, of like your
mind. The voices in your mind go

(03:16):
silent, right? It's this state of meditation,
almost. Do you find though your with
your work and we'll get to that in in a minute, but with your
work you are always thinking about things and you're always
sort of running over ideas in your head usually.
Yes, OK, I cannot switch off. I cannot switch off.

(03:37):
This is my like a strength and and a problem.
Like my mind is always like busting.
Yeah. I mean, that's a good thing
because I think of ideas about stories.
Like I talk to myself a lot whenI'm out walking on the street,
like preparing interviews, right?
Or, or going through interviews.Like I'm, I'm, I'm trying to

(03:58):
write my stories with my feet, right.
I write after my stories when I'm out walking.
Then I type them down with my fingers.
But I do have an issue. I find it difficult to switch
off my mind. So running is one of the ways to
to get some mental stability. You know, I think I really
understand what you're talking about, Johan.

(04:19):
I I often go for walks and those, I think there's a big
difference between The Walking mode and the running mode,
because when you're walking, yeah, you can talk to yourself
and you can think things through.
And I do this quite often, you know, like a Sunday evening,
I'll go for a long walk and think about everything and, and
kind of have this dialogue with what it is I'm working on, you

(04:42):
know, my, my life's work. But when you're running, you
know, and you're, you're breathing heavily, it's, it's a
lot harder to do that right. And for me, I mean, the thing I
do actually to get away from it is I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu,
which is like, man, you can't really think when someone's
trying to choke you or, you know, you're wrestling on the
ground like you, you have to be present.

(05:02):
So it's kind of this idea of presence, right?
And not being stuck in the future or the past.
And also when you do this longerdistance, when you, well, I
talked when you passed like 518 kilometers, but when you pass
3035 kilometers, you, you're in a very, very different state of
mind then it's like overcoming something that is bigger than

(05:24):
you. Like you're in so much pain.
Like your whole body says like, stop it, don't do it.
Yeah. And, and the other part of your
mind said like, what did you say?
What did you say? Come on, you can do it.
You can do it. And, and you're all alone there.
Like no one is there to help you.
And it's, it's, I think you, you, I learn a lot from that

(05:44):
about myself and. Yeah.
Well, no, that's, that's profound.
And I think, well, again, with your journalism, which we'll get
to just that that, that, that that centre of control or that
kind of place of action that exists to propel you to
somewhere like North Korea, to then go and have run a marathon

(06:07):
in North Korea. But you know, actually to get
out of the comfort zone and pushyourself there is really quite
profound. So I want to talk a little bit
about your your work there. And so you previously lived in
Hong Kong, and in 2017, you published the Amazon best
selling book, Shenzhen Superstars.
How China's smartest city is challenging Silicon Valley.

(06:28):
Now, a lot of people might not know this, but Shenzhen and Hong
Kong are pretty close by. Indeed, that larger Pearl River
Delta is effectively the world'sfactory for electronics.
But you wrote this book eight years ago, and I am struck by
the optimism. It's it's a relatively short
book. It's got a very positive outlook

(06:50):
and there's this promise of growth in a city without a
history, only a future. I mean, you, you quote an
American veteran of Silicon Valley who said Shenzhen has an
energy of growth. It's not just in technology.
It's this idea that whoever you are, whatever you're into, you
can come to China and especiallyShenzhen and do it.

(07:10):
Has your view changed on this? Well, it's a quite Yeah, I like
the the book is very short. Like you read it in one or two
hours. Maybe that's why it became so
popular. Now the it's it's an overall
quite positive outlook of the city.
Like I'm, I'm not, you know, a cheerleader for, you know, a

(07:32):
dictatorship, like quite the opposite.
But the people are meeting in South China around the Pearl
River Delta, right. They say that which is down
South in, in, in China, they saylike the, the mountains are high
and the emperor is far away, which means that what's
happening in Beijing, what the, the communist regime is doing,

(07:54):
telling people to do it doesn't always, you know, translate what
people down in the Pearl River Delta are doing, right.
It was the first experiment soldof China, the 1st place back in
the 70s eighties where people got the chance to choose their
own future right to, to work what they wanted with they got
the chance to make money to start companies.

(08:15):
And so I started travelling there.
So I moved. So I still live in Hong Kong
today, but I live between Hong Kong and, and here in, in Tokyo,
right. But I moved to Hong Kong at 14
years ago And, and back then, people in Hong Kong, they used
to warn me about Shen Shen. Like they said, oh, it's really
terrible. It's polluted.
Like you cross the border, you get lung cancer, they will rob

(08:38):
you. It's really bad, right?
So naturally I went there, right?
And I realized like, wow, there's really something
happening here, right? Something happening that people
in in Hong Kong, which is like right next to Shen Chen, don't
know about the people in the world don't know about is that
this city is is is about to become like the world's leading

(09:00):
or among the world's leading technology hubs.
Yeah. I mean, you have this tech
start-ups, small tech start-ups,big tech start-ups.
And and today, some of the world's most prominent
technology companies come from there.
Yeah, well, you, you quote, you talk about BYD who are famous
for the electric vehicles and I think you talk about them having

(09:22):
made 100,000 vehicles in in the book when you wrote it.
And I think I looked it up last year, they had put out 4.7
million electric vehicles. So in that time it's gone from
it, you know, this still incredible number to the just
overwhelming number of vehicles produced and this kind of super
structure of not just one city, but you've got the entire region

(09:45):
sort of effectively become this cluster of of cities.
And I mean, it's really quite incredible.
But it's also, you know, you this current geopolitical moment
wherein people can look at that and be quite concerned that
maybe there's a centralisation and that right.
And so I just wondered whether that political element plays

(10:06):
into the way you look at it or whether you still think it
Shenzhen has its own kind of technological future outside of
politics, but perhaps. Yeah, I mean, under, under
President Xi Jinping in, in, in,in China, it's it's difficult to
have any kind of independence. I mean, I don't want to
exaggerate his influence over day-to-day life of of how people

(10:29):
live their lives and how people conduct business.
But if your company is in any kind of strategic industries,
like if it's connected to AI, Internet of Things, anything to
do with national security, surveillance, anything with dual
use like military civil use, yeah, the government will have

(10:50):
their fingers in your business. And this is something that can
support individual companies. You can get finding, you can get
contracts. It's also something that can
like naturally hold everything back.
And there is a political elementin in everything, right?
We have a tech war. People took my trade war between
United States and China. I think that technology war,

(11:14):
it's not a conflict. It's, it's much more interesting
to talk about, much more important.
I mean, who will dominate technology in the future, right?
And it doesn't really matter whois inventing something.
The most important is who is developing it, right?
It doesn't matter who invented the gun.
The most important, who's got the most guns today, right?

(11:36):
And, and China are very good at catching up with everything they
do it with. I mean, they used to do it by
copycatting, right? And now it's by research and
development and innovation. And everything's got a political
or military element in, in today's technology.
And this is something that affects the global supply chains

(11:57):
and, and technology chains, right?
So it's a very important question.
And we don't know how this is going to play out, right, But.
Are you familiar with the work of Frank Dakota, who's a Hong
Kong based academic? Dutch academic, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. He's very famous.
Yeah, so he he's a so Frank Dakota is a Hong Kong based
Dutch academic and China critic.And he has strong thoughts on

(12:22):
the Chinese Communist Party. In particular.
He's very critical of the communist propaganda that has
made its way into the English speaking world.
And you know, I have heard my own friends say things such as,
you know, China has been able toraise millions of people out of
poverty. It has these clean, high tech
cities like Shenzhen. It's putting the West to shame.

(12:45):
If only we could plan better, maybe we would be like that.
And according to Dakota, this isthe work of propaganda and it
seeks to attribute everything good to the party and everything
bad to the West in a sense. What do you think about that?
Yeah, I mean, it's a very interesting question And and I

(13:07):
think the way when I was growingup, right.
I'm a I'm a child of, of the Cold War, right?
You are the good guy. You have the good guy.
No, I'm from Sweden. We are like always floating in
between somewhere. No, you have the good guy and
you have the bad guy and the badguy is always failing, right.

(13:28):
It was Russia, and then you had like North Korea and it was like
totalitarian, like dystopian dictatorships, right?
But now we have modern China, which is also like authoritarian
dictatorship, but they're very successful, right?
So the propaganda really works. At the same time, you have a lot

(13:50):
of people in the West, in the United States who doesn't
believe in the democratic principles.
They don't believe in the media.They are like complaining, trash
talking everything. And then you see China and it on
the surface, it looks like it looks good, right?
You have the high speed trains, you have the skyscrapers.
They have, I mean, the CommunistParty, they always claim that

(14:13):
they, they lifted 800 million people out of poverty.
You, you can also twist it and say that they stopped depressing
people. They allowed 800,000 people to
lift themselves out of poverty, right?
They, they take the, the credit for the good things and they
blame the bad things on, you know, the foreign influencers
like the black hand. But I mean, I spend a lot of

(14:36):
time in China and, and I can seethe good, I can see the bad,
right? There's been a tremendous that
mean no country on the planet inhistory have had a quicker,
stronger, more powerful development.
Like I, I, I spoke to a Swedish academic who spent some time in

(14:59):
early 80s in, in a small town in, in, in northwest China,
right? And he explained how people
there, they were like undernourished children, like
running on the street, hauling the clothes on, like absolute
poverty. He said he was trying with his

(15:20):
backpack and he probably had more possessions, more things in
that backpack than a household had in in total, right.
And from that like absolute poverty to, to becoming the
world's biggest economy in termsof purchase power and
skyscrapers and technology companies and, and also feeling

(15:41):
in China among the people that what we are doing is, is right
and correct and, and our time has come.
Our time has come. Our time has come.
We've been in the shadow, we've been like humiliated, We've been
in in trouble for 100 years, butnow we are back.
But with that said, with that said, when you cross the border
from Hong Kong, Hong Kong is is special economic, special

(16:02):
administration administrative part of China.
We still have freedoms and institutions and media, free
Internet that people don't have in mainland China, right?
So I live in a society with much, much higher degree of
freedom than they have in mainland China, although that is

(16:23):
being eroded. But when I cross the border into
mainland China, in the first second, you feel the
surveillance, You see the cameras everywhere, police
presses everywhere. Everywhere you look, there's a
police looking at you. It's freaky.
I think if you live in China, ifyou live there every day, you
maybe you don't see it. You get acclimatised, like you

(16:45):
get so used to it. But even when I came from North
Korea back back into China, it's, it's freaky the level of
surveillance, right? In China.
Yeah, I mean, naturally I grew up in a free and open social
label society, right? So, and and this is quite the
opposite. So when you look at China, on

(17:06):
one side, it's very impressive. The West can learn a lot from
China. Like, we have so much to learn
from from what they do in China,and there's so much to be afraid
of. So this is interesting to me
because again, I'm in between these worlds.
I've, I've been to China a couple of times and I think
substantial, if I'm honest, but certainly it was quite awe

(17:29):
inspiring. And, you know, I live here in
Tokyo and I, I kind of missed out on the boom years, You know,
the 1970s, nineteen 80s, Tokyo was a very different place.
And I meet people who lived through that.
And today it's this kind of shadow of growth.
You know, things are very calm and slow moving now, whereas in
the 70s it was really pumping. And there's this idea, which I

(17:52):
want to run past you, that when things are good, you know, maybe
it's it's OK. But really the challenge with a
political system is when things are not going so good.
And obviously Japan has been in 30 years of decline, yet it's
still an incredibly safe, clean,liberal place.
And in many regards. And I wonder what your thoughts

(18:13):
are on, you know, as maybe there's some economic turmoil,
you know, what does that mean for what you've experienced in
China? Like, how do you see that maybe
playing out? Well, I think first, if you look
at Japan, it's, it's very interesting when you, when you
look from a country from inside or from outside, like when I
talk to local people here, they are like not very happy about

(18:34):
the economy. They feel like all small
companies are in the shadows of this big giant.
And, and as an individual, there's nothing I can do.
There's a lack of, you know, howyou look at the future, right?
But when you look from the outside of, of Japan, it's,
it's, it's been 30 years of, yeah, it's been no big growth.

(18:57):
But I mean, the lights are stillon.
It's a thriving society. It's maybe the safest country in
the world, among the safest countries in the world.
The big companies are still verysuccessful.
I think Japan is like tackling alot of the problems in in a
quite good way. So I think again you can see the
good and the bad. Yeah, I guess the one I'm

(19:18):
getting at, man, is so I was in the library just next door
reading 1976 press review of basically what happened in that
year. And that was the year Mao Zedong
died. And there's this quote that
really stuck with me that a revolution is not a dinner
party. It's not an essay, it's not

(19:40):
embroidery. It is the systematic, an
overthrow of one class by another.
And it's really quite striking when you look back at these
photos from 1976 from, from, youknow, the old days of China, you
know, it really was a bloody revolution.
Millions of people were were murdered, millions of people

(20:02):
starved to death. And now we've arrived at this
place where it is, you know, maybe it looks like it's
prosperous, but still. You know, how do you sue the
government? How do you have these systems in
place that enable individuals tothrive and, and, and, and own
private property in a way that is respected at all levels of
the state? There's, there's this kind of

(20:22):
systematic things that only seemto be issues when they become
issues. And China and Japan has
inherited a lot of the stuff after World War 2, the
separation of powers. And I realized, man, it's, it's
actually quite an important thing.
Like, I mean, it sounds a bit blase to say, but yeah, it is
important. And you don't you don't get that

(20:43):
in Communist China. And I don't know, man, that just
that seems to be something that maybe they're sleepwalking into
this kind of system. I yeah, I mean separation of
power. And I think I've learned more
about democracy over the last few years living in Hong Kong
when I see how the Hong Kong hasnever been a democracy, but it's

(21:04):
based on democratic principles. Like the pillars of society, the
institutions were based on democratic principles.
And after the like the Umbrella Movement about 10 years ago and
then the 2019 pro democracy protests and then this national
security law that was implemented five years ago.

(21:28):
After that, all local pro democracy media are gone, right?
A lot of more than a dozen journalists are in prison.
A lot of the most famous pro democracy politicians and
activists are in famous. Many of them I interviewed like
many, many, many times, or they are in in exile.

(21:49):
And there's no opposition in, inthe parliament anymore.
Like in the the Legislative Council, there's no, there's no
real opposition anymore. And what happens when you have a
government, even if it's a localgovernment with no opposition,
you have no checks and checks and balance.
You have no debate. You have no arguing, right,

(22:11):
which means that any kind of decisions will go through like,
doesn't matter how dumb they are, right?
And I mean, they say that freedom of speech, freedom of
media, democracies can be noisy,right?
But then you have the silence ofauthoritarianism, right?

(22:31):
And I mean, which one do you prefer?
And, and this is what you see insee in China even more today
under Xi Jinping, also in, in, in Hong Kong.
It's not a failed system. I wouldn't say it's a failed
system, but it's a very different kind of system.
Yeah. And, and I think that's part of
it, to be honest, part of the work I'm trying to do with this

(22:52):
show is to have these conversations and understand
what is going on. Because there is, I mean, I'm,
I'm pretty open about my distaste for the legacy media
and some of the structural biases about things.
But actually, I mean, we are going through a, a sea change
politically, economically, There's a lot of things
happening. And I, I, I do come back to

(23:14):
Frank Dakota's comments about that, that propaganda that's
making its way out there, because I'll be honest, I'm from
New Zealand. I mean, the infrastructure is
not doing too well, man. Like the country is just unable
to get anything done. And you see people, people's
comments around the way China's being able to roll out these E
VS and these high speed rails and stuff.

(23:35):
And it's like, well, New Zealand's never known
totalitarianism ever. And so it's like it kind of has
this, this allure. And I'm reminded a lot of the
early Soviet Union, which had, you know, this kind of image of
putting the first man in space and these kind of technological
wonders and this kind of equality.

(23:56):
And it, it seems like we're forgetting these lessons of the
past when we look at China for any kind of guidance on
technology, even at the expense of what these core fundamentals
are. And but at the same time, I
mean, we can't ignore it. As you say, there's a lot to
learn and so I mean, it's an open-ended thing.
I don't, you know, I don't expect you to have the answers

(24:16):
for me, but I just wanted to sayI think it's very a very
interesting thing. And I mean, in China, it's
always been, I mean, Chinese people are not dumb.
I mean, they know that it's state controlled media.
They know that like Big Brother controls everything.
They know that and they they go on with their lives.
Pragmatic. Pragmatic, almost as free as we
are in the rest of the world. There's some things don't touch

(24:38):
this, right. And there's been this social
contract in China that, that that's been very successful.
And this is something that all China watchers are, are well
aware of and been talking, debating.
And it's this social contract that you can make as much money
as you want, like you can since the 80s, maybe you can send your
kids to to universities in America, you can make as much

(24:59):
money, you can own property, youbecome rich, you do whatever you
want, but don't touch politics, right?
Politics is for the the Communist Party, right?
So you can do whatever you want,but we take care of politics,
you can make money, we take careof politics.
And this social contract has been quite successful, right?
People from like poverty, they could move into nice apartments,

(25:22):
get a washing machine, buy a car, send your kids to
university. The kids come back, they get a
good job at 10 cent or Huawei orBYD, right, make a good career.
And but what's happening now is that the economy in China is
really changing like dramatically.
I've been, I've been covering Chinese politics for a long
time, like a decade and 1/2. And often you hear people saying

(25:47):
that the crash is coming. The crash is coming, but it
never comes, right? I remember New York Times had a
headline about China saying likeChina is the economy that fails
to fail, right? But I've never seen like the
question Marks and like the darkclouds over China's economy so,
so strong as now, right? You have the property crisis,

(26:12):
which is the prices are down by some good 30% since the peak.
And most of the households, mostof their money is locked up in
property. So property wealth boom down the
basement. You have consumption down the
basement. You see, like Chinese tourists
when they come to Tokyo or Hong Kong, they don't they don't

(26:34):
spend money anymore. Like they might buy an ice
cream, but they don't go to Louis Vuitton anymore, right?
They live in cheap hotels. They don't live in the five star
hotels anymore. And there's a lack of believing
in, in in the future among youngpeople in in China like and
1:00. So this contract, this social
contract between the people and the government is cracking,

(26:55):
right? I don't know what's going to
happen, but I see I've talked toa lot of people who say that
they're the trust in the government is not as good as it
was maybe 10 years ago. So there there there is
something happening. And you mentioned this kind of
idea of China watching and this is quite interesting because
coming back to Frank Dakota, he,he talks about it in his book

(27:18):
China after Mao. He says like he, he was never
interested in China watching andtrying to read the tea leaves
like people would would say the Kremlin as well.
But he, he preferred to look into history to get answers
because I mean, it's, it's a closed system.
You know, there's, there's not much to watch in terms of the
political world. But as a in addition to that,

(27:40):
many years ago, James Palmer wrote for Foreign Policy
magazine. We foreigners don't know China,
nor however, do the Chinese, noteven the government.
And there's this kind of idea that maybe despite all their
surveillance systems, they don'tknow what the fuck's going on.
And they're trying to stop unrest and being very day-to-day

(28:01):
and very tactical as opposed to some grand vision.
And it's US foreigners who seem to think that there's maybe a
grand plan in place, right? Yeah, it's good.
Palmer is one of my my favourites.
Like I love his writing. Like he's tremendously.
It was a good he's got a nice pen, as you say in Sweden.
Like he's a good writer. No, I mean, we do our best,

(28:26):
right? I think especially journalists,
we do our best to try to understand.
Like sometimes you write the day-to-day, the new numbers come
in export numbers, GDP numbers, and you don't really know are
they, are they true or not, right.
But we're still right there. Hallucinations.
Yeah, hallucinations. I mean, yeah, never
underestimate hallucinations. But what I'm trying to do is

(28:50):
that I look at the numbers, so Idon't really look much at
history and I know the history, but I try to maybe look more to,
to watch now and, and, and what view does people have on, on the
future? Like how does people feel today?
What decisions are they're making?
Because decisions you make todayare based on your belief in what
is going to happen, right? And so I try to travel quite

(29:15):
much, not just in China, but thewhole region and, and then sit
down and talk to people like howdo they feel about their
children's education? How do you feel about your job?
How do you feel about work security?
And from there you can get like some understanding about the
feeling of the situation, right?And it, it's very hard to know,

(29:38):
right? But it's very difficult to know.
But I think we all do our best, like the academics, the
historians, the economists, the,the geopolitical analysts, the,
the journalists like me, people who travel in the country, the,
the diplomats who also have also, you know, China watches in
a way. I think it's just a group

(29:59):
effort, right? You can't just read one article
and say that that article will explain everything.
It's it's an ongoing research. Well, I, I, I think the other
thing that's interesting, yeah. I was back in New Zealand for a
few years and, you know, my bestfriends were all Chinese people
living in Wellington and the capital.

(30:19):
And, you know, I felt more at home with that than I did in
many ways with local Kiwis, you know, sort of having a hot pot,
you know, having dumplings, you know, having a party at my
place. You know, it was, I mean, that
really responded to me. And I mean, that's one of the
reasons I'm here in Asia. You know, I've felt that
attraction and I've become very conscious that, you know, this
isn't some monolithic thing. I think it is clearly the

(30:41):
Chinese people and then the Communist Party of China.
And I've spent quite a bit of time in Taiwan, which is, you
know, in many ways the opposite story, incredibly liberal,
progressive, and that's still same familial Chinese culture.
Yet there is also an incredible passion for law, rule of law and

(31:03):
democracy. And I don't know, man, it seems
as if really the critique does need to be focused on what is
happening with with the communists.
And this is where I look at Frank Dakota's work.
And I think, yeah, man, it's, itfeels as if it's just a matter
of time for the communist systemto really, you know, finish
itself. It's not even necessarily an

(31:23):
external force, perhaps. Yeah, I live in Hong Kong, bro.
OK. We have a natural security law
there. You can't say anymore.
It's OK if you I can cut this out if you.
No, no, no, it's fine. No, here's the thing.

(31:44):
I speak to a lot of people in made in China.
I mean the and the, the trust inthe government is changed
dramatically like I heard from, from business people.
I've heard this for quite some time, especially after the
crackdown on Jack Moore and Alibaba and some some years ago
during COVID, a lot of people started to, you know, question

(32:05):
this like authoritarian, like top down system.
And now when the economy is going quite not, not very good,
I even hear politicians, politicians say like, we don't
know what's what's going on anymore.
But I, I don't think there's the, the, the Communist Party is
going to crack. I don't think the Communist

(32:25):
Party is going to crack. If it's going to be any change,
it's going to be within the system, right?
I mean, I think that the old traditional view was that one
group takes down the other. I think if if it's ever going to
be in a major shift, it's going to be a shift within the system.
Yeah, OK. No, that's OK.

(32:46):
Sorry. I'll put you on the spot there.
No, it's fine. I mean, this is what we do.
I'm a journalist too. So I'm from New Zealand, a
country similar in in some ways to Sweden.
I also, you know, like Sweden, we inherited this history of
liberalism, Christianity and enlightened political discourse,

(33:07):
many other things. And you know, given your
background and, and the time you've spent in Asia, how have
you been able to situate those things which are so natural for
you and I with this life you nowhave in Asia?
Well, I think the most importantspecialist says, OK, my life and

(33:30):
my journalism. I think sometimes you separate
them, but no, they, they go morehand in hand, right?
I, I live here a long time. I've learned a lot about this
part of the world. I really feel at home like in
Hong Kong, Tokyo, this, this, this mentality, this values
people have here. But when I do my reporting, I do

(33:54):
believe in democratic system. I believe in freedom of speech,
freedom of the press. Everybody's equals, right?
Equals responsibilities, right? They have to go hand in hand.
There are a lot of societies, there are a lot of partly sites
to say that I might not agree with, but in my writing, it's
not about what I agree with or not, right?

(34:14):
I interview people and I love them to, to speak their mind,
right? People I agree with, people I
don't agree with, to have like abalanced view of things.
And that's very important. Then then of course, it's, it's
challenging to write for a European, American or Western
audience because often the the level of knowledge is not that

(34:35):
high, right? I don't know how many times I
met people coming into Hong Kongand they go Konichiwa, Oh, I
thought we were in Japan. Oh man, right.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, more than once I
met people who, who fly into Hong Kong and think it's going

(34:55):
to be a Japanese society or a friend of mine in Sweden, like
when we were moving to Hong Kong, she said, oh, Hong Kong.
I love Hong Kong. It's a great place.
Oh, you've been to Hong Kong? No, but I've been to Thailand.
Like what? So the, the, the challenge for
me when, when I write about thispart of the world is that I get

(35:15):
to know and understand the culture here, but I, I still
need to, to, to write from a perspective where, where the
people don't know much, right? So it's a bit challenging
sometimes. So looping this back to this
kind of economic situation and this outlook for China, there's
sort of the three, the three no go zones, which are money,

(35:38):
politics and arguably God. And I wonder, you know, you grew
up in Gothenburg, Sweden, Swedenas a country of the Lutheran
state church, long history of Protestant Christianity.
I know, or I've heard from friends and, and seen this idea
that there's an increasing amount of people in China who

(35:59):
actually becoming Christian and seeking to spread the gospel.
Is this something that you're just given your cultural
background that you've been ableto apply this lens of the, you
know, Protestant Christianity toyour work exploring China?
First of all I wouldn't call Sweden a Christian country, it's
quite non religious right when Igrew up recent.

(36:23):
Phenomena or. No, I mean, when I grew up, we
we read from the Bible during Christmas, right?
We went to church before the summer holiday and so on.
And it was part of the culture about I think religious studies
were called Christian studies when I was screwing up.
But it's atheist country. I would say like you're marrying

(36:46):
church not to marry in front of God, but because it's just the
thing you do. So it's never been.
I think Christianity is very, very non issue in Sweden, right?
I mean, it's it's more that likeIslam is taking a bigger part of

(37:06):
society today, right? That's, that's another big
topic. But when you look at China, this
is very interesting. Christianity not just in China,
but in, in Japan and especially South Korea, like South Korea,
these Christian groups are tremendously influential in, in
politics, right, especially the conservative politicians, right,

(37:29):
who tend to end up in prison. And in, in China, there are some
movements in, in Christianity, but it's very dangerous.
But you have the churches in China, you have a lot of
underground churches. There's been a crackdown under
Chi Jinping. It was easier before to be open
Christian in China. Today's less, less so, right?

(37:55):
I don't have it confirmed, but Iread stories that in some in
some churches they they have taken down the 10 commandments
and replaced them with the thoughts of Chi Jinping in the
churches. Yeah.
Sorry for laughing, but it's kind of yeah, yeah.

(38:17):
And actually there's been cracked down on, on these
churches. They, they demolish the
buildings, right? Also on, on the mosques, right.
It's, it's, it's a very difficult situation.
You have Buddhism and, and to some degree in, in, in China.
But no, it's, it's the the Communist Party, right that you
should look up to. Well, I think that's what I'm

(38:38):
getting at here because when times are tough, it seems as if
a transcendent power, you know, I mean, people need that they
have that, that God shaped hole in their heart.
And I think this is interesting to me because again, I, I have
heard stories of, you know, these, these people operating
underground missions, underground churches.

(39:01):
And increasingly there's a church in Tokyo that talks about
the number of Chinese converts into Christianity outnumbers all
other nationalities. And this is, I think, a very
interesting piece of informationbecause it says there's some
kind of desire for some kind of bigger redemption than you could

(39:23):
get from something like a political party.
And with a, ultimately this is, you know, relevant here.
Yeah, when I spend time in China, like I never see anything
connected to Christianity. Like never.

(39:44):
I'm trying to think back, right.I've been, I've been travelling
in Sanya Qin Yang. I can see mosques, churches.
Have I? Have I ever seen any churches?
Maybe I. Have there's a few in Shanghai.
There might be maybe because I'mEuropean it it it doesn't stand
out for my eye. I never heard anyone talking

(40:06):
about it. It it's it's but I I think also
over. I mean you had communist China
was so dominant for so long timeand then after the economical
like opening up in the 80s, likemoney became the God.
Right, money is driving everything in China.

(40:27):
Money is the God, right? And I think maybe now when,
when, when you don't you, you can't like people are sliding
back into poverty again. The, the, the economic security
is, is, is fading, right? And and maybe I should say when,
when, when times are hard, right?
You, we are, you're grasping forsomething to hold onto, right?

(40:47):
So I mean from logic point of view it it made it would make
sense that people might turn to these kind of corners.
What disconnect, Johan, do you see between English speaking
commentators and audiences and the reality on the ground in
China and perhaps North Korea aswell?

(41:08):
Well, I think we have a view in the West that we are the best,
right? It is true, isn't it?
Yeah, of course, of course. No, But I mean, I think wherever
you're from, you think that my system is a bit better, right?
I mean, in Sweden we think we'rea bit better than the people in
Denmark. Oh, really?

(41:30):
The Danish thinks they're a bit better than the Dutch.
No, but I think especially people in the United States,
they look at China from like a superior, what they think is
superior perspective, right. And when you are in China, you

(41:51):
realise like, well, they're doing things quite well here,
right? They are like in terms of
economy, in terms of technology,they're doing really well.
So there's a mismatch sometimes,right?
I, I still hear people saying that China is poor, Chinese
people are dumb. It's just copycat like the, the
factories are dirty. It's like super modern, right?

(42:11):
And people are quite well off. So there's a mismatch of the
reality. Like people look at Vietnam and
still think of, you know, children bomb with Napon, right?
You go to Hoshi Min Sit and it'sjust skyscrapers everywhere,
Like Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur is, you know, like skyscrapers

(42:32):
everywhere. And and like Southeast Asia is
just booming in terms of economy.
Like those are the most important consumer markets in
the world, right? And a lot of people in the West
don't know that, right? So a lot of things happening in
China, Southeast Asia that that that people have no idea of,
right? There's an ignorance, right?

(42:53):
A superiority complex, right? That is not always correlating
with reality, right? I think that's important that
you read about what's happening in Asia, but also come
travelling and not just travelling to the beaches and,
you know, go to, you know, Bangkok and smoke weed and, you
know, go to the beaches, but actually try to speak to local
people, right? Had to integrate a bit with the

(43:15):
people who live there, right? With, with North Korea in
particular, your, your time there because that's a little
bit maybe more closed off than China and people's public, the
public perception, you know, is the hermit Kingdom.
I mean, tell me about your your experience with North Korea.
Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's very
important. So I've been to North Korea two
times, right? First, I was there for Cnni was

(43:38):
writing for CNN International. My second time in North Korea is
very important to point out thatI was not there in capacity as a
journalist, right? I was there.
It was a, that was a few, two, 2-3 months ago.
It was a marathon, the PyongyangMarathon.
I was there as an athlete, right?

(43:58):
Amateur athlete. I did not report anything from
there. It's just really important to
point this out, right? But it's, it's really
fascinating, like when you go toNorth Korea and again, this,
it's also important to to point out, I'm not a cheerleader for
totalitarian dictatorships, right?
I do think that democracies are a tad better societies than

(44:21):
totalitarian dictatorships. But when you go there and you
talk to people like you realise that the North Korean people
are, it's just like people everywhere.
Like they wake up in the morning, they have their
breakfast, they go to work. They want the best for the
families. They work hard to have a better,
a better tomorrow, right? Again, it's been 10 years since

(44:44):
my last trip to North Korea. And when we came to Pyongyang
now, we were the first foreigners in five years who's
been there, right? So it's been really isolated.
And first of all, the guides I speak with like we have the
guides and we have the people from the Ministry of sport and
they were so happy to see us, right?

(45:05):
Because they haven't had any contact with the outside world,
right? They, they don't have any
Internet, They can't watch news,they can't watch Netflix, right?
So their, their connection with outside world is often when
tourists come so they can have achat with, with outside people.
And now we could sit in the bar and have a drink and talk about
everything. Right.
So they were very happy to see outside people.
Yeah. As a glimpse into the outside

(45:27):
world. And when, when you spend time in
North Korea, I mean, of course, again, it's the, the, the, the
regime. It is one thing when you talk to
people is one thing, but there'sa lot of development also there.
There are skyscrapers and tall buildings everywhere in, in

(45:48):
Pyongyang, like modern buildings.
And over the last five years there are huge new residential
areas and, and buildings, Eightyfloor buildings, right?
It looks Pyongyang looks like a mix of ulaanbaatar in Mongolia,
like old Soviet style architecture mixed with Kuala

(46:09):
Lumpur, like modern, modern buildings shooting up
everywhere. It's a it's a it's a funny
hybrid. There are Toyotas and BMW and
Mercedes on the streets everywhere.
A lot of Chinese BYD that are normally electrical cars, but

(46:30):
here they're not electrical. All the taxes are B bydi mean
OK. It's it's important also to to
point out that what you see in downtown Pyongyang might not
translate to what's happening onthe countryside.
Like the capital is is the most prominent.
It's, is it, it's, it's, it's more developed than the rest of

(46:53):
the country, right Have. Been able to see any of the rest
of the country. I've been travelling to some
parts outside of Pyongyang and I've been up to northern part of
North Korea, but naturally they don't show me the poverty,
right? I mean, it follows the same
logic if you're going to press tour with the authorities from

(47:15):
Thailand, right? They're not going to take it to
the slum areas of Bangkok, right?
They're going to show you the nice, like the banyan tree, you
know, spa and resort, right? They're going to take you to the
flashy places. They don't take you to the
dirtier underbelly of society. But in North Korea, naturally,
they want to show us the best things.
And it was fascinating to see that everybody or most people

(47:37):
have mobile phones, right? They're they're all you see
commuters on, on, on the buses going to work with their eyes
glued on on their smartphones, right?
So they don't have Internet, butthey have an Internet like
internal Internet, like a closedoff Internet.
So they can they get their text to each other.

(47:58):
They have like the North Korean WhatsApp, right?
They have North Korean Netflix like they can watch movies,
movies from North Korea, from China, from Russia on
television. They had this Indian Bollywood
movies, right, which is quite funny, dubbed to Korean.

(48:21):
You they can order Uber or the OR the taxi.
They can follow Premier League, right?
So, so the people from the Ministry of Sport, they had wild
arguments with my son. My son is 18 years old.
He came with you, right? Yeah, yeah.
My son, 18 years old. He was the youngest on the trip
and so he's a Manchester United fan.

(48:42):
Our our closest guy that we got to know from the miniature of
sports. She was a Liverpool fan and they
had like wide arguments. I was I was happy to stay out.
They all, you know, they all knew about Donald Trump.
They follow American politics, right?
Everybody knows everything aboutDonald Trump and no one

(49:04):
remembers Biden. You know, he's just forgotten
the other guy they call him and Chinese politics and and so on.
I mean, people are not dumb. They have very limited insight
into the rest of the world. But there are information you
know coming in via via other other channels.
Let me put it this way, I, I think I'll again, I'll reflect

(49:28):
on New Zealand and there's this apathy, disinterest and the
deeper questions related to political systems or economics.
But what we have in our favour is that because of the checks
and balances, the system still enables them to have the freedom

(49:50):
to do those things and ask thosequestions if they desire.
And so I can ask questions and Ican question the legitimacy of
the state. I can look at the foundational
documents of the country of New Zealand and and critique it
openly, publicly, No problem. And that's something that not
everyone is able to do. It is almost like an anointed

(50:11):
task for intellectuals, academics, journalists, lawyers.
And these are the exact kinds ofquestions that are very hard to
ask in North Korea, China, and increasingly in Hong Kong.
And we get into this place wherevery much like 1984, you can
watch the football or you can enjoy a beer with some friends,

(50:33):
and you can enjoy the music and the TV.
But you cannot fundamentally question the legitimacy or the
mandate of the state or how we even got to where we are.
And I think this is almost the biggest concern I have on this
whole project with the podcast is like, well, what if we forget
what it means to ask the question?
Yeah, it's very important. Like, again, I I've learned more

(50:56):
about democracy over the last few years in Hong Kong when I
see how it's being dismantled, like when when checks and
balance are are disappearing, when there's no opposition,
there's no debate in the parliament.
I think when I grew up, born in the 1970s, like Sweden was rich,
stable and there were no big, nobig problems, right?

(51:20):
Well, of course, all these problems in societies, but I was
kind of born with a silver spoonin my mouth, right?
A. Political silver spoon, right?
But it's a silver spoon we didn't have to fight for much
like take it for granted. Like things are changing now, I
think in the West. But when when I moved to Hong
Kong, right? And now I see, like, wow, how
quickly is being eroded and how quickly there are topics that

(51:44):
you can't really talk about in Hong Kong because of your
personal safety. And also how difficult during a
dinner to raise some topics, right?
And it's very damaging for society.
Or you start self censoring. Self censoring, I mean, all
censorship starts with self censoring, right?
And and this really disturbs me when I see in the West this like

(52:06):
cancer culture that you can't talk about this, You can't talk
about that. You have to be worried.
So you don't, you know, make people feel emotional about this
or that or like hurt anyone's feelings.
And for God's sake, man, of course we have to hurt each
other feelings. I mean, don't buy deliberate,
but like we have to have open debates, right?

(52:26):
We have to agree that we can't agree on everything, right?
I mean, I, I, I listen to your arguments.
I don't have to agree, but I'm willing to learn.
I listen from you and it, it, it's, it's so damaging for
everybody in society when you, when you can't have open debates
anymore. Well, I think I've got this
memory. So I mentioned, you know, I had
a lot of Chinese friends back inNew Zealand and you know, have

(52:46):
hot pot party at my house. And I remember we were getting,
we got quite drunk once and we were doing karaoke at my house
and I thought it would be funny to throw the next song on and,
and go to the Chinese Communist national anthem.
And the, the, the ear just sucked out of the room.
And one, the one of the girls said, Hey, you sorry, you can

(53:09):
just just, she, she just clammedup.
And it was as if I had just triggered this repressed memory
of her childhood growing up or something.
And I remember that quite clearly because we were all
having a really good time listening to pop music, singing
along. And when I, when I put that song
on, it was like, no, I, I, I hadsort of stepped over the line.
And she was from China. Yeah, yeah.
Grew up in China. And you did it as a as a joke.

(53:31):
Yeah, I was like, hey, you know,like we're just like mucking
around. But.
And she had been in New Zealand for for years.
And it was like, I realized, youknow, there's because there's
nothing like that really in New Zealand that would stop someone
in their tracks. But I think that's a bit of a
different issue that probably triggered some childhood
memories or trauma or something more than it's politically

(53:55):
incorrect. Oh.
So that's what I'm getting at isit's like fundamentally she had,
I'm just sort of projecting heremaybe, but I felt like maybe she
had an, an integrated that political system so deeply that
to kind of point at it when she's here in New Zealand in a
free country, it was like like the PTSD of, of totalitarianism,

(54:16):
like reared its head, you know? PTSD of totalitarianism.
Wow, it's like a book title. Yeah, Speaking of this though,
just come back as well. You, I remember last time we
talked you mentioned actually a lot of North Korean or Korean
refugees came to Sweden when youwere growing up.
Is it you told me about that. So after the Korean War, they

(54:37):
grew up like. Children, not North Korea and
South Korea. South Korean refugees, sorry.
No, they were like adopted. Adopted.
Yeah. From.
South Korea. After the war, so they had lost
parents. Especially back in the 70s.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, but Sweden's history with both North and South Korea is is

(54:57):
fascinating. OK, yeah.
So Sweden, I mean, Sweden was quite socialist when I was
growing up, right. So after the after the war,
Right. So North Korea had a lot of
backing from Russia, right, fromSoviet Union.
So the economy in North Korea did did quite well, right.
And Kim Illinois Sung Sweden thought that oh, North Korea is

(55:18):
going to be the new Japan of Asia, right.
So Swedish companies start to invest heavy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like Volvo sold like
thousands of cars and like ABB was rolling a power, power
transmitters, right. And like all the Swedish
industrial companies investing, right?

(55:39):
Well, South Korea was falling deeper and deeper into poverty,
right? It became among the the poorest
countries in the whole world, right?
And the problem with North Koreawas that they bought like
thousands of cars from Volvo, but they never paid for them.
I see. Yeah.
So still today's North Korea's got this massive depth to Sweden

(56:00):
and but also Sweden opened an embassy back in the 70s in
Pyongyang. And I think Sweden was the only
Western country for some good 25years with an embassy in North
Korea. And still today when when United
States are having diplomatic, the United States don't have
official diplomatic relationships with North Korea,

(56:22):
so they go via Sweden's embassy.Interesting.
Sweden's ambassador is speaking on behalf, I don't know the
right terminology, but speak on behalf of the Americans.
I see. And also Sweden and Switzerland
are still guarding the border between North and South Korea
the the demilitation zone Swedenand Switzerland.

(56:46):
And during the war, the Sweden'sRed Cross had field hospitals
everywhere in Korea helping people did that.
Affect your When you went to North Korea, did that
relationship affect you as beinga Swedish?
Sweden's got a very good reputation both in North and
South. When I'm in South Korea, when

(57:07):
people here, I'm from Sweden, especially old people, they come
up and say thank you for your support over the war.
So Sweden has like a quite unique relationship both with
North and South, right? That's fascinating.
And I think, I mean, I don't have to support North Korea's
political system, but I think it's good to have open
diplomatic dialogues. Of course, yeah.

(57:28):
Communicate, right? Yeah.
You mentioned actually in an article for the Foreign
Correspondents Club of Japan that you have indeed been
arrested by the police in China before, but you were very scant
on the details. Can you tell me more about that
situation? Oh, shit, really?
Yeah, this is. Yeah, that was quite bad.

(57:52):
There's some some 10 years ago, I was travelling in Qin Yang,
like it's the the province in the northwest where the Muslim
Uyghur population live. There's been a lot of reporting
on oppression on the Muslim population, on the been reports
on human rights violations and so on re education camps and

(58:16):
like true horrors, like even theUnited Nations have been writing
about this. So yeah, I was going on holiday
and where do I go on holiday? Like I don't go to a beach in
Thailand. I go to the desert in, in
Xinjiang. Notice I was travelling around
there for a few weeks and again,I met a lot of very nice people,

(58:36):
both Han Chinese, you know, the,the, the Chinese people and
Muslim Uyghurs. I got invited to weddings, I got
invited to people's houses and so on.
And I've been travelling to the South of the Takamaka desert,
right, one of the biggest deserts in the world, right to
the to the South of the Takamakaand etcetera, and to this small

(58:59):
village, like sand village, likeyou, you had sand everywhere.
And we were, we were having dinner and suddenly like we saw
sirens, like a police coming. They stored me in the house.
They pushed me up against the wall.
They had guns. They stripped me off, My, my,

(59:21):
my, my, my, my, my belongings, my passport, everything.
And I got arrested right along with my Muslim friends, right?
And they put me in a interrogation room in, in a
police station. And it took a long time before
my, my, my Chinese den was better than it is today.
But it's very, very bad. My machine is very bad.

(59:43):
But I could say I'm from Hong Kong.
I'm a tourist. I work as journalist.
I don't want to lie, right? I don't want to lie to them.
But I'm a journalist in Hong Kong.
I'm a tourist here, right? I had been writing for CNN from
there. I've been writing for Swedish
media, right? But I don't, I, I, I do my

(01:00:08):
writing when I'm back in Hong Kong, right?
It's, it's what most journalistsdo, right?
And. And, and this is my way of
working from after speaking withChina's embassy in, in, in, in,
in Stockholm or so like you travel in China, then you write
when you're back in, in Hong Kong, right?
So that is what they say you, you can do.

(01:00:31):
Anyway, I was sitting in that room.
Then interpretator came. They were playing good cop, bad
cop for a long time. 1 was really aggressive.
One was trying to, you know, button me up by the door.
Next to the door was a young boy, like he was probably 1819,
but he looked like 14 with a automatic rifle, like looking

(01:00:56):
really nervous, right? I was sitting on a small stool
and then this guy come in this, this, he looks like a thug,
like, like a jeans T-shirt, short hair, no uniform.
He had a gun at the back of his jeans, right?

(01:01:16):
Like a bloody gangster, right? He was walking up and down like
this, right? At the same time, they were
putting newspaper on the floor, right?
And in. I was not afraid.
I was just so focused, right? The fear comes later, right?
I was just so focused and there's where my blood is going
to be and he's the one who's going to hit me, right?

(01:01:39):
And, and, and I know since before, like you, you, you want
to get eye contact. The people, the person is going
to interrogate you, the people'sgoing to torture you.
You try to get eye contact. If you get eye contact, you can
get some empathy, right? Where you, when you meet some
other eyes, you have a bond, right?
So I was trying to get eye contact with this guy, but not

(01:02:00):
once did he look down on me and I realised, oh boy, this guy is
professional. Damn.
And he was walking up and down by nothing ever happened, right?
I think he was there to intimidate me, right?
The interpreter came, I was there for like many, many hours.

(01:02:22):
They, they found my stories eventually in my, in my, in my
computer, right? The story I had been writing is
that I had been to a town calledKaramai in the, the northwest.
It's an oily town, Karamai outside town.
We have this like knotting donkeys everywhere, like sucking

(01:02:44):
up oil from it's a really rich town, poor people, rich, rich,
rich town. And I've, I've been going to the
hospitals there and outside the hospitals, they had these big
signs, posters. And if you have Muslim clothes,
like if you cover your hair or if you have like a big beard as
the man, you're not allowed in, right?

(01:03:05):
So it's pure apartheid. If, if you're a Muslim woman
wearing Muslim clothes and you, you need to give birth, they
won't let you in. If, if, if you're, if you need
an operation, they won't let youin, right?
You need to strip yourself off your off your, off your clothes,
right? Take, take your headscarf off
Humiliating, right? That was the story I wrote.

(01:03:27):
And then they found the story and they were furious.
They were furious. Why do you write bad things
about China? And I said, what do you mean bad
things? Like, I'm not the one doing
this, you are the one doing it. And they got even more angry and
I realised I should stop talkingnow.
Now. But the thing was that they had

(01:03:48):
also arrested my Muslim friends.They were in in the other rooms
and, and I knew from these weeksin Xinjiang, I know that they
are not safe. Like, people are disappearing.
People are disappearing. People told me how their
cousins, uncles, yes, were gone,just disappeared, right?
They don't know where, if they were locked up, if they're
killed, what happened, right? The oppression of the Muslim

(01:04:10):
people is immense. So I knew that I'm a foreigner.
I have a Swedish passport. I was writing for CNN, Swedish
media. I'll be fine, right?
They might rough me up. They might throw me behind bars
a few weeks, a few days, something.
I'll be at the end of the day, I'll be fine.

(01:04:31):
But my Muslim friends, they might not.
So my number one priority, like get them out.
I'll be fine, but get them out. That's my number one priority.
So after they found these stories, I said, yeah, I brought
these stories. I give you my my word as a
gentleman that I will. They will not be published.

(01:04:52):
You get my friends out. I'll give you my word as a
gentleman that these stories will be spiked.
I will not publish them. But you get my friends out.
And these police officers, I don't know if what I said made
any difference or not, right, But I tried, right?
And a few hours later, like I would say I have like, I don't

(01:05:17):
know, 789 hours in the middle ofthe night, they they let me out.
And then my my Muslim friends were already out.
And, yeah, and they told me to leave town.
It's like, you know, Clint Eastwood move like, you leave
town, you're not welcome back. So, yeah, I met my friend

(01:05:39):
outside the police station, and she was furious.
She like, you have to write this.
You have to publish it. I said I cannot, right.
But she said, I don't care if I die, I don't care if I die.
You have to publish it, right? It's my decision, right?
As a journalist, I cannot take that to my responsibility to put

(01:06:00):
her in danger, right? She was already in danger enough
anyway. The next day I left town.
I had to take a bus 1820 hours through the Taklamakan Desert to
Urumqshi, the capital. I remembered this during middle

(01:06:21):
of the night in the bus. I was just waiting for like the
blue light to come up, like a police car to come up, stop us,
Take Me Out of the bus, Take Me Out in the desert and disappear
me. But I I came.
I came to Urumqi. I took the flight to Shenzhen.

(01:06:41):
From Shenzhen, I took the train down to Hong Kong.
I took the ferry to the island in Hong Kong, Glam Island where
I live. My friend came down to the to
the fairy pier to pick me up. We went to his house.
He gave me a beer. I opened the beer.
I took a first sip and then my whole body started shaking and
the tears came right like like this fuck I get goosebumps now.

(01:07:06):
So all the long he has kept my guard up like like stay focused,
don't be afraid be focused right?
But then when I got the first sip of beers, they were like,
Bah, the big crash came, right? And what happened after like the
day after my friend got beaten up by the police, My other
friend got beaten up by the police.
Some of the friends around who I've been been around, they lost

(01:07:30):
their jobs, but I can't get in contact with them anymore now.
I don't know if they are what happened to them, but it's, it's
very hard to talk about actually, I worry, I worry very
much about them. I think of them, it's been 10
years, right? I did write to go there.

(01:07:52):
I did write to try to write about this.
I worry I don't know if they're alive or not, right?
Yeah. Yeah, let's hope for the best
for them. Yeah.
And thank you for sharing that, Johan.
I mean, it's I know it's very personal story for you.

(01:08:12):
Were you were you able to get support from CNN or from the
embassy or anyone with like while you in China or were you
on your own in the, in the Yeah.I got a lot of good support.
I spoke to my editors at CNN andand more for the the the news
agency, the TT news agency I wasa Stringer for in Sweden.

(01:08:34):
I was sending texts to them oncean hour, once I have a second
hour to make sure that we had ongoing conversation.
And then afterwards we have longdiscussions.
And both my editors at CNNII wasa freelancer.
I was not employed, right? It's important.
Everything I did was on my own initials, right?

(01:08:54):
My, my own, my own decisions, right.
But I, I got very, very good, like afterwards, like we spoke a
lot. Yeah, it's fine.
I mean that that's life, Yeah. And I appreciate you sharing
that because I think for a lot of people, New Zealand, Japan,

(01:09:19):
Sweden, that feeling that you'vejust described, which I can see,
you know, it's, it's coming backinto your body.
This kind of this feeling of almost helplessness of, of being
this object at the whim of some system which you have no power
over whatsoever. That's not something that we

(01:09:40):
very, very familiar with in the democratic world.
And I think it can be almost a body shock, a mind shock to see
that and to feel it, even if it's only for a few days or a
few hours. But it's like, wow, I didn't
realize how vulnerable I was. And maybe this is something

(01:10:03):
we've forgotten. And the waste.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to exaggerate my own story.
Like people have spent days, weeks, months, years, decades,
right, locked up in this system,right?
The Swedish citizen gwheeming high, for example.
It's been the like many, many years now locked up in a, in a

(01:10:26):
in prison in China, right. So I don't want to exaggerate my
own story just a few hours, but could have been worse.
But it's, it's it's freaky like when you suddenly are stripped
off all your all your freedoms, right?
And I had I hadn't done anythingright.

(01:10:47):
I hadn't broken any, any laws, right?
And and no one told me why I wasthere.
There were no charge. There were no, no phone calls.
I couldn't contact that no one right?
If if someone you described, I think some very interesting
insight though, when you are in a situation like that,
maintaining eye contact with theperson on the other side.

(01:11:07):
Is there anything else you've picked up over the years for
dealing with an interrogation orsomething of that nature?
I think try to stay calm, to be focused, think like don't start.
I mean, we, we all react differently in, in, in the
extreme situations, right? You know, some panic, some some

(01:11:28):
freeze up, right, some start screaming, some, some, you know,
start crying, right? I think I'm lucky that I in, in
those situations, I, I get superfocused, like super focused.
I think what to say, what not tosay like don't lie, but maybe
don't say everything, right, because you don't want to be

(01:11:49):
caught lying, right? But also you don't want to
overshare and and also. But you can still be friendly.
Can you get a laugh and did you manage?
We were, we were laughing a lot in that integration of, oh,
really, some really crazy thingshappened.

(01:12:10):
Oh man. So when I was sitting there,
like I told you, they were threatening to beat me up and
and this guy with like the rifleand everything.
And they suddenly this guy came in and he had Meadows and he was
a Uyghur Muslim with that policeuniform with medals.
And you could see he had he has had a shower.

(01:12:30):
He was smelling of shampoo and and perfume.
And this was like in the middle of the night, like one or two AM
and he came on come in as like started to speak French.
Like I don't speak French, but Monsieur, like whatever you say
in the middle of the night. And I was like, hello, NIA.
And he started to speak French with me and and so I don't speak

(01:12:54):
French. And he said but, and he tried
again, like like Fred Astaire walking.
And I said, I don't speak French, but he said, but but
you're from Sweden. Yeah, but I don't, we don't
speak French in Sweden. And naturally all the, the
police, they're like, hey, what is going on here?
And he said, well, you're royal family.

(01:13:14):
They are French, aren't they? And I said, yeah, like the
Barnard family, they are French,but that's like 3-4 hundred
years ago. They also speak Swedish now,
right? And he so you don't speak
French, No. And he got really disappointed.
And this is a small desert village and he was like the only
guy in the village speaking French, like the only

(01:13:37):
Francophile in the village. And for the first time, someone
came to the village that he could practice his French with.
And he was so disappointed, right.
And then he then they were goingthrough my camera, right?
For, for the photographs, right?So it's nothing, you know,
incriminating or anything bad I've done.
And they came to my photographs from Hong Kong and and they

(01:14:00):
asked is it OK if we look at Hong Kong?
And I thought, yeah, it's just in my favour.
They can see my family, they cansee my life in Hong Kong.
And they came to one photograph of two friends of mine, woman
from Philippines, she's playing piano.
And my friend from the UK, he's on the guitar, and he's got
this, like, messy, kind of blonde, yellowish hair, right.

(01:14:21):
They're on stage. And this Francophile guy, he
looked at the photograph and like, what is that?
Kurt Cobain? And I said, yeah, it's my friend
Darren, like, yeah, that's Kurt Cobain.
And he like, wow. You know, Kurt Cobain and I
like, Yeah. And then he said, oh, I love
European music. And then he started to sing

(01:14:44):
Rammstein, John Duhast, Duhast mish.
He started to sing Rammstein, thinking like mixing up Nirvana,
European music in a fucking interrogation room with guns
pointing at my head. That was so surreal.
That was so surreal. Like even now when I think about

(01:15:06):
it, it sounds like like. So your your relationship with
Kurt Cobain in a sense, maybe this saved your ass, man.
Like, you know, this guy came inwith all his medals and.
Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean they're doing their job, but I I
don't have to be an asshole. Of course I need to be like,

(01:15:28):
stand my ground and think of what I'm saying and so on.
But I think, I mean, I think my style is like if, if they can
see the person within, right, because they are afraid, OK, I'm
a journalist. Maybe they thought I was there
to spread, you know, propaganda about democracy spread like an
uprising. Because the week I came a lot, a

(01:15:50):
lot of people were, were killed.Like 99 people were killed
during that first week when I came right in in in shootouts
between Muslims and and Chinese police.
High tension. Yeah, high tension now you could
feel it everywhere. Like very tense.
So naturally, maybe they thoughtthat maybe they didn't care.

(01:16:11):
I'm a journalist. I think they they were afraid
that I was read to, you know, towhip up some, you know, emotions
about democracy or try to influence people there, right?
They don't really care about journalists much in China.
Honestly, they don't. They don't really care, but they
care about if people try to to be, you know, activists, right?

(01:16:32):
That, that's a very different story.
Right. So it was, it was really surreal
in that room, right? So I think the more they get to
know me like the person, maybe it can benefit.
Me. Yeah, no, that's, that's
incredible and thank you for sharing that.
The final thing I just wanted tocover, Johan talking about
technology, coming back to your work exploring Shenzhen, you're

(01:16:54):
writing about technology in China.
Can you tell me what you know orwhat you see when it comes to
Bitcoin please? Bitcoin in everywhere or?
As it relates to your, your own knowledge, but also in relation
to China. Well, I mean, China's got the

(01:17:14):
very interesting history with Bitcoin.
I made it used to dominate everything.
All the mining used to be in Bitcoin.
It's I've seen photographs from this mining villages.
It's like street up street town.And it's just what's it called
like servers, right? It it looks like a village,
right? And also they were trading and

(01:17:35):
speculating, counting for 95% ofglobal trade in Bitcoin and then
the government said no and just fell off the Cliff.
And China wants to create this own E currency now.
Like I, I, I, I don't really know what's happening there.
I think people are still talkingabout it a lot.

(01:17:56):
In terms of the ability of something like Bitcoin though,
to be a currency that isn't controlled by the government,
how does that factor into your into your world view?
Well, I mean, I've been writing about economy for a long time
and I think having a central bank is quite important for
stability to fight inflation andto have a currency stability.

(01:18:20):
And actually the, the strength of Bitcoin is that you don't
have a new control mechanism. And the, the backside is that
you don't have the control mechanism, right.
So it makes it, you can use it for speculation.
It's very difficult today to useit for, as a, a payment system
because one day it is up from next days it's down.
And then maybe you can't pay your rent because your rent is

(01:18:43):
in normal currencies. OK, Stablecoin is a different
story. I think most people I speak to
in Hong Kong, when they invest in Bitcoin or crypto, they do it
via ETFs, right? It's easier on on the apps and
so on. I think the the the most

(01:19:06):
important is the technology behind it, right?
I think it's like the gold rush in America, like the people
making money to the cold rush were not the one finding the
gold. It was the bank selling the
equipment like the furs, the theboots, the what called the all
the equipment shovels, the shovels, right.
And maybe it's the same with Bitcoin.
That is the people doing the blockchain technology and so on

(01:19:28):
that that is the most important,the blockchain technology.
And I am far from an expert. No, no, no.
Understood. I mean, I guess I do ask in the
capacity of everything we've talked about today for me, and
maybe this is something we can talk about afterwards even
further. But I do think there is a
revolutionary potential with Bitcoin that I'm always keen to

(01:19:50):
test with people who have actually been in difficult
situations like yourself. I, I tend to think that the
ability to have money that's outside of the state, especially
in a totalitarian system, that'slike, man, that that's, that's
got some power. And it's kind of hard to model
exactly how that manifests, I think.
But regardless, it feels to me as if it's got some kind of

(01:20:12):
power. Yeah.
And in China, everything you buythe other pay or we should pay
is is monitored somehow, right. And in Hong Kong, a lot of
people prefer cash not to be monitored.
Yeah, I prefer we have Octopus in in Hong Kong.
It is a payment system for, for the metro, for 7/11, for like

(01:20:35):
day-to-day convenience buy. And it's, it's anonymous, right?
In cash anonymous. Also here in Tokyo, a lot of, I
still think for a lot of people,cash is king if you don't want
governments or companies to track everything you do.
And yeah, so it's it's, it's an important discussion.
Yeah, well, I think that there could be a discussion for

(01:20:56):
another day. Keen to explore that maybe
further with you at a later date.
But certainly today you've shared some incredible stories.
I, I feel very privileged to hear that if people want to
follow your work, your writing, your, your, your various
projects, where where can you send them?
Where would you like them to go?Well, I have a new book coming

(01:21:17):
out soon. It's about the Thai boxing.
My Thai is a biography about a good friend of mine, a former
world champion in Thai boxing. It's a heartbreaking and
inspiring story. How to overcome trauma with the
help of combat sport, right? It's got nothing to do with
Bitcoin or politics, right? I think the best way is to

(01:21:39):
follow me on LinkedIn, Johan Nylander or Instagram is Johann
Hong Kong. Well, I have a question for you.
All these episodes you've done on your podcast, like you, you
interviewed a lot of people on very interesting questions.
What are the most important things that you have learned

(01:21:59):
like sitting down with with people like like this?
How was your worldview changed? Maybe?
I think I realise how important discussion is and the
commonality that we all have as brothers and sisters of the
human race. And that sounds a bit simple,
but really there's all kinds of people out there.

(01:22:21):
And I think in a hyper mediated world, it's easy to create
stereotypes and images of someone who we think are maybe
our enemies or we we're told that they're our enemies, but
actually we all have something in common.
And that commonality I think is really important to hold onto

(01:22:42):
and to build bridges and to put in the proof of work, to step
away from the political desire to create categories and to push
people away. I think out of all my
conversations, I realise that that's that's what's happening.
And unfortunately a lot of it ishappening through economics,

(01:23:04):
through the media and, and so I'm kind of looking at how we
can go back the other way, I guess.
And, and a lot of the conversations are, are taking me
there. So I mean, that's, yeah,
probably one of the bigger things I've learned here.
No, it's very good. And it's easy to fall into this
stereotyping. I mean, we all do it and we all
sometimes we, we have to becauseto simplify our view of the

(01:23:26):
world, right? But as a journalist, it's, it's
deadly, right? It's very important to know that
we all come from maybe differentchances in life.
Some come from poverty, some comes from richness.
But I think at the end of the day, we all have the same goal
and ambitions going forward, right?
Yeah, it's very important. Exactly what you said, Yeah.

(01:23:47):
Yeah, I think that also this whythis kind of podcasts, this kind
of discussions are so important.Yeah, yeah, I think getting away
from the the day-to-day blows ofwhat you might read in a
newspaper and actually getting back to the the context and, and
I think the importance of going along format, letting people
open up and talking with people on different sides, you know,
left, right, of this political spectrum, different countries,

(01:24:09):
different religions, just hear what they have to say and with
nuance and understanding make them in the middle, you know?
So Johan, I do appreciate your time though, seriously.
And I've got a book here from Bangkok for you, which we'll
talk about and maybe we'll go grab some lunch or something,
but we might wrap it up there. Thank you so much for.
Your thanks, man. It's my pleasure.
All right. Cheers.

(01:24:32):
I am Cody Allingham, and that was the transformation of value.
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