Understanding Chinese Psyops With Athena Tong

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
It needs to become a norm for democratic countries to
understand that they have to paya premium to secure their supply
chains and their economy. It's no longer the case to just
simply go for the cheapest option.
Hello, I am Cody Allingham and this is the Transformation of
Value, a place for asking questions about freedom, money

(00:21):
and creativity. Today I'm joined by Athena Tong.
Athena is originally from Hong Kong.
She served as Director of PublicRelations for the now disbanded
pro democracy Demosisto Party inHong Kong.
Now based in Japan as a visitingresearcher at the University of
Tokyo, Athena focuses on infrastructure resilience,
political warfare and economic security with an emphasis on

(00:45):
Communist China's influence in East Asia and the Indo Pacific.
Her writing has been published by the Jamestown Foundation, PK
Asia and the China Strategic Risks Institute.
Athena, welcome to the show. Thanks, Cody.
Tell me about growing up in HongKong.
Well, I was born and raised in Hong Kong.
I've always been with my family in Hong Kong Island.

(01:09):
For me, Hong Kong has always been multicultural, very
diverse. There was almost a given, a
sentiment that it is given that we had the freedom to criticize
and to ask questions and to participate.
Even though initially I feel like in the 90s and 2000s,

(01:31):
because of how well Hong Kong economy was doing that.
It's a little similar to how participate participation in
politics today in Japan and thatpeople are doing fine.
So they don't necessarily feel an absolute obligation to vote
or to participate or to to to protest, so to say.
However, that has obviously changed since then.

(01:53):
We have had 2012 2014 20/16/2019different political episodes
where it rendered the public to have the sense that we have to
say something and rather loudly.Obviously that really altered
how Hong Kongers live in Hong Kong these days with the

(02:14):
subsequent legislation. So talking about growing up in
Hong Kong, we have had our Givens when we were in the 90s,
ten, 2000s, where life was good.The taxes still remain low
relative of law and democracy, and that has impacted how we
grew up. That meant that we grew up with

(02:35):
an understanding of our colonialhistory with, for example, the
founding of the PRC, how Hong Kong came to be after 1997.
But that has altered a lot, changed multiple times, even
throughout my 20 years years living in Hong Kong.
But it did teach us quite a lot about resilience and it taught

(02:55):
us a lot about understanding other cultures and being more,
more being, being We're able to adapt really to any environment,
even in diaspora these days. Interesting.
Yeah, they are. If you've ever spent any time in
a, a Hong Kong wet market, you'll hear people asking
questions, they'll be haggling about things, they'll be, you

(03:17):
know, asking each other things. And for me, I was back in Hong
Kong and in, in, in May earlier this year.
And you know, you get to know someone and immediately there's
20 questions, including what is your salary, where did you go to
school, etcetera. And so there is this history of
asking questions, right? And I mean, you do get a degree
of this in in China, but certainly there is a history, a

(03:41):
history of inquisition and asking questions.
And it's, it's quite markedly different with China, isn't it?
I mean, it's even different witha lot of other places in Asia
because people would not be personally offended if you ask
the hard questions and it's not just.
How much money are you making? That, but also when even in the

(04:03):
work environment, when a colleague maybe is not
performing up to standard in Hong Kong, it's perfectly OK to
just talk to them directly aboutit.
Whereas in other places in Asia that might be a little more
difficult. But I find that this directness
and this ability to be more inquisitive and, and, and
questioning things that are not going right, it did render the

(04:27):
city a lot more efficient in, inany aspect really.
Not just the work that's but theinfrastructure and how we
communicate even by the speed wecan walk in the street.
That in itself is is quite different.
Well, and if you ever go to a Hong Kong style cafe or
breakfast place, the speed at which they take your order and
expect you to leave is unmatched.

(04:49):
Tell me though, how did you get interested in politics?
Actually I started in media, so I was a fixer and an interpreter
when we were filming a documentary for this Franco
German TV channel called Acti. And it was a filming and post
production process that lasted around six months.

(05:12):
And during that I've met a lot of different political figures
in Hong Kong, be them traditional pro democracy
figures, younger ones that are more localist or pro self
determination. We also met people who are pro
establishment just to get the spectrum, really to show the
spectrum and how that has evolved.
So at the end of the post production period I was asked to

(05:36):
join one of the Legislative Council offices and that's how I
started in politics, in a work capacity, but from personal
capacity. I started in 2014 with the
Umbrella Movement. I was a second year university
student back then, just one of the many participants that were
in the street of Admiralty at the time when we were we were

(05:57):
fighting for the universal suffrage that was promised to
Hong Kong at the signing of the Center British Joint
Declaration, which of course China later on set is just a
historical document. So what, what motivated you at
that time? You know you're in the
university. What what pushed you to join in
with the Umbrella Movement in 2014?
Well, first of all, the leaders of the Umbrella Movement, they

(06:19):
are around my age. Everybody is ±2 years my age.
So I see people who are my age leading this first of all.
Second of all, because I was studying European studies at the
time. And our professors say they are,
of course, very passionate aboutsuch freedoms, not
notwithstanding, of course, the freedom of expression, freedom

(06:39):
of political participation, but of course, also how to hold the
government accountable. They talked to us about the 1968
student movement in France and they talked to us a lot about
the importance of these freedomsand whether there's a limit to
it when it has justifiably limited or regulated and when it
is not. So we actually went as a class,

(07:04):
but not just the class really, we also had people from
different years of the program joining us.
And, and that environment, giventhat it's a very university
student centric kind of movement, especially in the
beginning, we also have classmates from other majors,
but also other universities who would go together.
And it became, it became a movement.

(07:27):
And and that is not just about political elites or people who
are elected. It's really you.
As a university student, you're empowered to speak your truth
and to fight for your city, so to say, and to get what you were
promised. Yeah, Well, it's an interesting
period of youth that I mean, many of us are familiar.
We go through, we're in university, we start asking
questions, we get involved with certain things.

(07:49):
And sometimes we look back and we're a bit maybe embarrassed
that, you know, how outspoken wewere without knowing things.
But at the same, the same time, it's important to actually go
through that process of feeling like you have a voice that you
are able to rally together and, and, and give it a go.
And it seems like this was this was quite important for you.

(08:10):
And certainly the later 2019, two 1020 protests in Hong Kong,
one of the key sites of that engagement with the authorities
was was the university, right? There was I think the Hong Kong
technical I. Mean there were there were a
few, but the major ones were at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong and the Polytechnic University.

(08:32):
And there's a really good documentary behind the Red Brick
Wall. Yeah, I saw that.
That was the film I saw. That was the last film I saw
before leaving Hong Kong. OK.
It was also the last screening available in Hong Kong.
Why did you leave Hong Kong? I left Hong Kong because of
political risks, so I left at the end of 2022.
At the time, it was obvious thatsome sort of crackdown is

(08:55):
happening in addition to the many political arrests that have
that had already been made. That it would be.
It would be foolish to stay withthe with the thought that I
would somehow be immune to beingarrested given my involvement
with not only their sister but also in the movement itself.

(09:17):
Nobody knew quite sure where theline was because of how vaguely
worded the national security lawin 2020 was.
And there had been consistently a lot of my friends and former
colleagues who had been brought in either for questioning or for
arrest. Even if they didn't end up going
to jail, they would be on bail with their passports taken away.

(09:38):
I believe that they cannot leaveHong Kong even for a holiday.
So that's not something that I see myself in the role of.
Of course there are political figures who who have been
arrested and because they are injail, that we are able to
continue advocating for not onlythem but also for the cause
because they are unjustifiably incarcerated.

(10:01):
But at the same time, I'm not somebody who's super public, who
had been super public at the time in 2019-2020, because it
was more an anonymous situation,a more decentralized movement of
protest. And there were so many people
arrested that I didn't want to just become a statistic.

(10:21):
So from my position, for me it felt better to be going abroad
and working for the cause from abroad rather than being in Hong
Kong with the constraints that were that were there.
Yeah, perhaps more effective to be out of the country, right?
And I found a statistic when I was looking into this.
According to Amnesty International, more than 80% of

(10:43):
people prosecuted under the national security law likely
should never have been charged. The the wording around that, any
kind of seditious statements, very broad brush, very broad
strokes around subversion, secession, colluding with
foreign forces. And as you say it, it can kind

(11:05):
of be used to prosecute anyone for anything.
And so maybe you end up self censoring or you put yourself at
great risk. Right?
Yes. Of course, I I have great
respect for my friends who decide to stay.
There are those who I agree withthem that Hong Kong land should
be governed by Hong Kong people and therefore we can't all

(11:29):
leave, obviously. But in regards to the risks,
yes, because you have the national security Law in 2020,
but you also, as you mentioned, have the Safeguard National
Security Ordinance in 2024. And that is an added layer
without without the possibility of early release of good
behavior. OK, so is this Article 23 then?
Yes. So Article 23 is the article in

(11:50):
the Basic Law that mandates thatsuch a law has to be a local
legislation. OK.
Interesting. So there's sort of maybe they
doubled down on it with that. Yeah, with higher punitive
measures and and no early release suspension.
Interesting. So we've got this situation
where you you lift, you lift Hong Kong.
You're now based in Tokyo. What's your situation here in

(12:12):
Japan? What are you?
What are you doing? So right now I'm a researcher
here at the University of Tokyo,but I also work with think tanks
like Transitional Risk Instituteand Pacific Forum.
I work mainly on China influenceand how they are taking up a lot
of the supply chain. What supply chain?
Yes, but also how the countries in East Asia have been reliant

(12:35):
on China in terms of critical infrastructure or other
important products that could affect national security.
Things like submarine cables, things like satellites,
telecoms, those are things that I'm working on right now.
But of course, I also touch on information warfare, political
warfare, like psychological and cognitive sides of that.

(12:57):
Yeah, I'm really interested to dive into the infrastructure
piece a little bit later on. You mentioned submarine cables
and everyone would be familiar with the the arguments around
some of the 5G infrastructure that's coming out of China.
But starting off, I am keen to dive into the side of narrative
shaping and psychological operations.

(13:17):
You have just written a piece for Nikkei Asia, the fire that
Hong Kong wants you to forget. You talking about the the tragic
fire that broke out just recently in Wangfuk Court
Apartments and and Taipo district.
I think over 150 people died sadly in that tragedy.

(13:38):
Yet you write about how authorities have been pushing
this narrative around these bamboo scaffoldings, which have
been used for hundreds of years in construction.
I mean, they're an iconic part of Hong Kong visual culture.
You see Jackie Chan hanging off these and films and stuff have
been around for a long time. But you're sort of saying how

(14:00):
the narrative has been pushed that it's about these bamboo
scaffolds, whereas perhaps instead the blaze actually comes
from somewhere else, perhaps around corruption and and
neglect. And so I wonder if you could
sort of walk me through your thesis on this bamboo situation
and what what it all means. Well, it started with the bamboo
argument because not only did the Hong Kong government rush to

(14:24):
say, or maybe we should be batting bamboo and switching to
metal rods instead, but several international outlets also
interviewed. So we say experts who are in
Hong Kong, who don't, who didn'tnecessarily grow up there.
And they also did rush to conclusions, which has been
falsified in the past couple of days.
And with with PK Tang actually reversing on what he initially

(14:49):
said about bamboos. But the point is that while it,
of course we have to find why interms of physics, the fire
started, but at the root of it, it's not the material because
whatever material you're using, if it's not compliant and
nobody's checking on it, it willstill be causing some sort of
disaster. So while yes, physical,

(15:10):
physically, we want to know whathappened, but if you don't
resolve the more systemic issuesof negligence, of possible
collusion and bid rigging, we don't know yet.
We're still waiting on the investigation, if there is to be
a thorough investigation to knowif this is what happened, is
what caused it, why is there no check and balances that is at
the heart of it and that's longer battle in in this I.

(15:32):
Understand you mentioned PK Tang, who?
Who was that? PK Tang he he was born from a a
police background and he is responsible for the security
side of things. Basically what John Lee was
before, but he became the chief executive of Hong Kong.
But John Lee, before he became chief executive, he was the head
of security in Hong Kong. All right.

(15:53):
And so that's PK Tang's role now.
I understand. OK, so he's sort of changed his
position. Maybe initially was talking
about the bamboo outright, and now he's saying, OK, there's
more nuance. But this is interesting because
I want to dive into this becausethere has been some backpedaling
in I guess the news media about this.
Yet when I when I searched for bamboo flammability on Google,

(16:18):
obviously the 1st result that comes up is the Global Times.
Which is a. Chinese Communist propaganda
mouthpiece. And in fact, the Google summary
took took it from that Global Times article and it said how
untreated raw bamboo has certaincombustibility.
And it said under Chinese mainland standards can be easily

(16:41):
ignited when near flammable materials such as foam panels,
which is very interesting. But I mean, we're getting into
the menu shape of this bamboo story.
But the kind of, I think I understand what you're
suggesting is that it would be easy to point to the materials
and say, OK, it was a tragedy and it was a tragedy.
But actually there's something deeper and perhaps more

(17:02):
pernicious about the whole situation around of the
material, the the contractors, who was doing it, What was the
oversight? And as you write what used to be
a contested public sphere, lawmakers demanding documents,
journalists running data projects, civil groups
litigating and lobbying, it's now replaced by a narrower

(17:22):
ecosystem in which official messaging travels with less
resistance, helping consolidate a memory of typo as an
unfortunate accident of culture and physics rather than a
predictable outcome of collusionand negligence.
That's correct. I mean, I, I worked in that
sphere of where where lawmakers could ask the hard questions,

(17:44):
bring out the data that were discovered by journalists.
And we have very, very good journalists in Hong Kong even
today. You will see the the journalist
from Associated Press, he was questioning John Lee.
I saw that. Yeah, exactly.
I saw the reference in the Guardian and he was asking
pretty harsh questions. Yeah, He basically said that you

(18:05):
promised Hong Kong people that you would bring, you would
govern Hong Kong in a way that would bring Hong Kong out of
chaos and into prosperity. But this prosperous version of
Hong Kong has allowed 151 peopleto to to burn, to death,
essentially, or. And are you going to resign?
I think he asked. Why?
Why should you still be able to keep your job?

(18:25):
That's what He asked. Why should you still be able to
keep the job? He asked.
Yeah. But of course not, not every
occasion will allow for such a question and there may be
constraints around how much access the journalist will have
going forward. So taking this particular
situation, which is fresh in everyone's mind, it's quite
relevant right now and it's, it's still unfolding.

(18:48):
How do we begin to look at this,Athena?
Because the, the, the situation referenced in that in that
article you just referenced was these kinds of questions would
never be asked of Xi Jinping andthey would never, the questions
would never reach his ears. And so we've got a maybe a
fundamentally different approachto the role of civil society and
engaging the, the political world.

(19:10):
Yet. I mean, increasingly we do see
even out of the United States, if we're honest, you know, a
kind of a, the rerouting of information of narratives.
And it can be actually quite overwhelming.
And I mean, you're researching this field, but globally, and
I'm certainly keen to focus on China, but globally it seems as

(19:30):
a real challenge around getting to truth and what is actually
happening. And I wonder, I mean, just
starting from the top, how wouldyou even frame this field of
research, this field of understanding?
Some people will call it the basically researching the work
of the United front, but for me it's more than that.
United Front. United Front is basically the

(19:53):
mechanism, the official mechanisms being used by the PRC
government in Beijing to propagate the messages in in any
sphere basically and notwithstanding, for example,
social media or academia abroad.So you're not a front mainly.
Manipulates the information space of foreign countries?

(20:16):
Really. So this united front, is this,
is this something that is a strategy that has been
highlighted from within China oris this something that's been
diagnosed from outside? It's diagnosed from outside, but
the terminology united front, I think is is also used in China.
It's just different researchers have a different framing of it.

(20:37):
Some would call if any, like foreign information manipulation
and interference. Some will call it PRC online
influence, some will call it United French work.
OK, this is a good way to frame it.
OK, so we've got a United front project that's underway.
And I what I mean, what, what does that mean though in
practice, I guess for someone who's a, whether they're in New

(20:59):
Zealand and Japan with the outside of China, what, what
does that mean for their lift experience?
What? What are the signs of the United
front? It does evolve over time, but I
can tell you perhaps a little bit about the research that has
been done on this in the past year or two where one is the
United front is not just about the papers or the embassies

(21:19):
issuing statements to try to refute what they see as
misinformation or disinformation, which we do see
these days in Japan where they would perhaps be more combative
with those statements. But if we're looking into the
disinformation space, the Phoebespace on social media, you will

(21:39):
see, for example, a lot of shortvideos, reels from influencers
or a lot of them would be micro influencers.
They may not be the big names, but they would have the same
talking points. They will have the same
hashtags, same keywords, perhapseven the same framing and they
would all come out within the same few hours.

(22:00):
You will see a surge in certain keywords and topics at a certain
given hours. And if it is textual, like if
they are just putting out tweetsfor example, with a fake
accounts, you will see surges ofit during the working hours in
Beijing because that's what that's where a lot of their
staff is based. But of course, this evolves with
the evolution of AI. So it will and it will change.

(22:25):
Like these patterns right now are based on people like real
people alive, people who are doing the work.
But with AI, they can basically schedule and do this at much
bigger magnitude, at a much moreundetectable kind of mode
really. And kind of breaking down the, I
guess the active mechanism within this, I think it would be

(22:48):
easy to say, well, in some situations, maybe things seem
united and that there is a clearmessage that's been pushed.
But are there other goals here around?
I say goals, but what is the desired outcome?
Because in some cases, it seems as if the desired outcome is to
confuse, not necessarily to pushany particular narrative, but to

(23:11):
have several narratives that allcompete within someone's
critical space to actually basically say, hey, I don't know
what's going on. How would you sort of start to
break down maybe some of those desired outcomes of the United
front? I mean, you're absolutely right,
Cody, because that's something that we noticed that has changed
since last year because in 2024,say for example when we were in

(23:32):
Taiwan, there was a big electionlast year.
There is an obvious goal where they want people to vote a
certain way or to doubt establishments.
Whereas in 2025 we see a switch off that where they may not be
pushing you towards a very particular action or political
behavior, but they would try to divide society.

(23:55):
So instead of just putting out abrand new message or putting out
outright disinformation that is easily proven factually
incorrect, they start to exploitwhat is already contested in
society. So there are topics depending on
society, for example same sex marriage or death penalties or.

(24:18):
Trigger Topics. Yeah, like national.
Yeah, exactly. National security trigger
topics. That's, that's interesting.
I've got this theorist who I often reference and I'm not sure
if if you're familiar with his work, French theorist Jacques
Loup, he's wrote about propaganda in France in the
1960s and AU reference to student riots and there was the
Algerian war. And he talks about these kind of

(24:41):
two forms that propaganda takes.And one is sort of, how would
you say clearing the field or sort of lay laying out of of
sort of a field of possible opinions to then later seed
certain specific things. And there's sort of these two
modes. Ultimately both lead towards
some kind of action required. But you have to maintain the

(25:03):
volume constantly. Sometimes you turn it down a
little bit or you you turn it up, but there's always a
background volume, a background noise of propaganda taking
place. And so effectively we can call
perhaps United front and propaganda effort or.
I mean, it's definitely propaganda, but then at the same
time all governments engage in propaganda, right?
So where is the line? That is something that we're

(25:24):
looking into as well. What is ethical and what isn't?
Every country has its own national narrative.
When does it become a problem that has to be dealt with
internationally? When is the point of trigger?
Where is no longer abiding by international covenants or human
rights standards that we all should be abiding by?
One interesting thing as well, referencing again Jackie Law's

(25:46):
work, and I mean this is pre preInternet, but he seemed to think
that there was a marked distinction between propaganda,
which is for your people and foryour country and in propaganda,
which doesn't really work in thesame way externally.
And so breaking down this unitedfront concept further, do you
think there's a separate projectfor Chinese people?

(26:08):
Is there a is a united front encapsulate targeting the
messaging towards Chinese or is this purely for external
parties? United Front work is mainly
targeted external parties, but they would engage, for example,
their diaspora in some of the work.
Of course, not saying that all Chinese people in diaspora would
be engaging in that work, but there are people who publish

(26:30):
propaganda newspapers for the PRC when while being abroad, or
shops that are friendlier to thecause who would be doing that?
Or students who are asked to be spying on their fellow
classmates there. There are people in parties in
diaspora who are involved in this, but it does often easily
lead to pieces that say, oh, we shouldn't let in Chinese people
because they are a danger to national security.

(26:52):
And that's something that in in the field of studying United
front work, we're trying to be more nuanced and careful about
not perpetrating that sort of bias.
Well, you've written about this as well that there can be some
challenges here where the narrative, and I think you were
writing in reference to ISIS eventually ends up painting all
Muslims as potential relation toISIS kind of conceptually or in

(27:17):
in the public consciousness. Whereas in, in a sense, that
project from ISIS has succeeded in its own propaganda goal to
militizing Muslim people globally.
And are you suggesting perhaps there's a similar effect here
where by banning Chinese students, for example, that
they, they, they end up achieving a goal that is is

(27:41):
desired by the Chinese communists?
Or is it? I think that by demonizing
Chinese nationals or students who are abroad, it makes it
easier for the Beijing government to say, oh, look at
them, they're bullying us, so weshould plan together and, you
know, fight against being bullied.
We should stand up for ourselves, etcetera.
It does, you know, contribute tothat narrative.

(28:01):
Yeah, it's kind of like, I mean,a classic example that people
use as something like the the Mormon Church, which sends its
missionaries out in groups of two and I'm going to go door
knocking and they're generally going to get rejected.
And that rejection actually reinforces the identity that
that person has as part of that organization.

(28:24):
And it's sort of in a sense, it's not about evangelizing in
that situation. It's actually to sort of self
evangelize and self harden beliefs because you're, you're
now a victim of of external pressure, right?
And so potentially as you say, these situations with university
campuses and, and here we are atthe University of Tokyo even can
create maybe an US versus them. Now, exactly, yeah, I mean, you

(28:48):
spoke about my research earlier on about on ISIS.
So I did that on the cycle politics of ISIS in Europe
because as opposed to the 911 attack in the US where the
terrorists came from abroad in Europe, a lot of them were born
and raised in Europe. However, they voluntarily chose
to go to Syria to get trained and then go back to their home

(29:11):
countries and carry out the attacks.
So why was this so 1 of this theelements is that this US versus
them kind of mentality where perhaps their religious beliefs
or their identities have not been respected and in their
perspective by these countries that they were born and raised
in despite being a national. So this created, as you

(29:34):
mentioned, the victimhood mentality that OK, they are
trying to silence us, they're trying to not allow us to exist.
And in in turn, it becomes a fighting against the Goliath
kind of situation that that renders that narrative more self
justified. Like we are David with the

(29:55):
beliefs that we have, we are born how we are, but they are
not respecting this and therefore hypocritical.
So that's, that's how it could evolve with the, with the
narrative of the PRC. Of course, not saying that they
will eventually become terrorists, but it is a me
versus them. And therefore we need to protect
our own kind of narrative. I think there's something

(30:15):
psychological about it as well. When you have seen footage of
Chinese students who are tearingdown some linen wall or they're
they're abusing somebody in somesituation where the they've
maybe someone just said something against China.
And you can kind of just see in the way.

(30:37):
And a lot of those engagements, they have this kind of look in
their eye that it's like a, it'skind of like a rage.
And you can see that it's, it's almost been programmed, it's
been pushed into them. It's not, I think a, it's not a
organic self, a self developed kind of critical responses.
It's almost like a knee jerk response.

(30:58):
And I think this is really interesting because it's sort of
conditioning in a sense that that person has been, a certain
message has been sent out or certain conditions have been met
to make that person rage. And when someone's in that
state, they're not going to be thinking clearly, right?
They're going to be just sort ofand very basic images, very

(31:21):
basic terms are going to be operating on and even in violent
terms. And that's maybe kind of easier
to manipulate, right, when someone's in this mind state of
mind. Yeah, certainly.
I mean, be it on the PRC side orany social movement, rage and I
think grief are very important motivators.

(31:43):
And that often means that the messaging doesn't need to be
very profound, because it needs it.
Needs to be simple, right? Yeah, it must be simple to be
able to be picked up. Yeah.
Like it needs to be fast. It needs to be clear that
something that can be repeated very easily by any citizen
walking down the street so they can identify with that.
Yeah. And this is again, the kind of

(32:04):
coming back to this kind of the theory of propaganda, the the
simplicity of the image. It's sort of a little bit like,
I don't know if you've ever seenInception.
Oh yeah, of course. You know, like what is the
simplest form of the idea? And, you know, some kind of
nuanced relation with a foreign power.
This is kind of political stuff.Ultimately, it gets boiled down

(32:25):
to maybe a feeling of unfairness, a feeling of grief
or rage and associated with a simple, A symbol, a very simple
symbol, something like a certainindividual or, or a color or a
flag or something. And these, these images then
kind of sprawl out and people kind of get caught up in this.

(32:46):
They get enchanted by this movement.
And yeah, you get mass formation, people join in and
and you have a demonstration, right?
Yeah. And there are certain points
that are, as you mentioned, are consistently mentioned or kind
of put into the public consciousness of how the how

(33:06):
perhaps the Chinese public sees themselves.
For example, when they talk about Japan.
Obviously, with the worsening ofrelations lately, there have
there has been more demonizing. But even before this, because
this year is the anniversary of the end of the Second World War
that they will start reaching out to countries like the
Philippines saying, oh, we're, we are, we are celebrating an

(33:27):
anniversary of our bilateral relations.
Remember back then, the Japanesewere were invading us and we
worked together to fight againstthis, this sort of evil power,
etcetera. So that's something that they
are, they're perpetrating constantly as a me versus them.
We were bullied. So we stood together and we made
it happen and we won kind of kind of situation.
And that's something that in spirit has been peppered in here

(33:51):
and there during different political events or current
affairs. Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, it's
classic diplomacy, right, Using historical events and and
referencing them in kind of an abstract way.
And we'll see this even with liberal democracies, places like
South Korea still referencing imagery that has historical and

(34:13):
it kind of is, is used as a device, even New Zealand play,
you know, everywhere that there's a political sphere,
there is this use of images and stories.
In fact, it's perhaps you could say it's a human thing.
But this, this kind of approach that the PRC is taking with this
united front is very interestingthough, because it's been used,

(34:37):
it's been used to achieve outcomes.
And these have real hegemonic effects, right?
So the, the idea of China and the idea of freedom, for
example, what is China? What is the Communist Party
doing? These kinds of questions?
I find when I'm talking to people about this, a lot of the
propaganda has actually set in, even with people outside of

(35:00):
China. And I'll give you some examples
of this. You know, obviously I've done a
lot of episodes interviewing people about China.
I mean, the first thing that strikes me is all of the
comments I get whenever I do a China episode that are calling
me a CIA agent or whatever. Oh, we all have that.
They all say that, that we're getting paid by the CIA to
protest. Imagine 2 million people being
paid to protest by the CIA. But.

(35:22):
You know, I mean, I have this little, this little, you know,
this little podcast. And I mean, I'm getting these
comments and it doesn't happen on any other episode, but it's
like, yeah, whenever I do a China episode, I'm getting
called out by what you would call a $0.50 army, right?
Oh, yeah. And these are the people, as you
say, that are working away and putting these comments and in a
way that some of them don't evenreally make sense.

(35:43):
But what they do is they create like a confusion and they
disrupt, perhaps they disrupt the truth sensing mechanisms
that we might have otherwise where we look at things
critically and we sort of try toassess something based on
certain values and criteria. But when you've got these kind
of little messages and these kind of keywords that are being

(36:05):
programmed into the comments section or they're being
broadcast on on on YouTube or TikTok and, and these like short
reels and things, it's sort of like a it's like a neuro
linguistic programming, if you're familiar, like, yeah, of
course. But these keywords, you know,
and I don't know, what do you make of all of that?
I mean they have always been around.
It's not something new with the $0.05 and just trying to

(36:29):
perpetrate certain propaganda messaging or just personally
attacking you. A lot of it can be gender based.
We've seen a lot of that on X onFacebook, a little less on
Instagram. I guess we don't use TikTok so I
have no idea. We as in.
As in Hong Kong, we still don't use TikTok.
It's just a security concern. So we don't use TikTok or, or

(36:52):
any of that. But yeah, it is a little
unsettling, especially when theydocs people and they put a lot
of personally personal attacks or a lot of personal
information. Of course, you can always report
them to the platform, but when it's in the hundreds, how many

(37:13):
can you really report? You know, Yeah.
Well, it's just, I guess what I'm trying to get at here is
it's, it's kind of like a meta question.
Like we're, we're kind of in this, this, this room trying to
feel out some, you know, some kind of metastructure that's
outside of here. And when I think about it, you
know, it is easy to kind of get a little bit confused, right?

(37:33):
Like what, what is even going on?
And it's uncomfortable. It is.
And The thing is the Chinese arevery good at using the softer
side of things to, to push this sentiment of familiarity or that
oh, is that, for example, China has a very long history and
beautiful literature and our pieces, cinema, etcetera.

(37:56):
And a lot of this has been perpetrated and has shaped how
cynologists, some cynologists see China and how sympathetic,
how sympathetic they are to Beijing, particularly those who
were in school in the 60s when the cinema movements were
happening. There is this ideal version of
what China can be, what the potential of Beijing and the

(38:19):
communist idea. So there there is that part
where it's not, it doesn't seem so directly political even that
maybe somebody loves, for example, Hong Kong because of
Jackie Chan, even though Jackie Chan is supportive of the
Beijing regime and the basicallythe prosecution and persecution
of student leaders and movements.
But because they know the films,they have the sense of

(38:40):
familiarity. Or maybe they've they've been on
a language exchange program in Beijing or Shanghai, and that's
where a lot of that sympathy comes from.
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, so I recently watched man
what's that Jackie Chan movie rush hour?
Rush hour. And I re watched it recently for
some reason and it's incredible because it came out basically at

(39:03):
the at the handover basically like 9798.
And absolutely it is a piece of communist propaganda.
Yeah, it's got the characters, you know, they've got the
signing of the the handover at the beginning of the film.
We've got this evil white guy who's the got the, he's like
stolen all this treasure. And you've got these Hong Kong

(39:23):
police going, going to the US and, and going extra, extra
legal and, and getting involved.There's all of this stuff
layered into it. And I was like, wow, this, this
is it reminds me a little bit. This is not.
There's an older film that came out just after World War 2
called Tokyo Joe. Have you ever seen that?
I know of it, I've never seen it's.
Got Humphrey Bogart and again clearly this is a piece it's

(39:46):
kind of quaint now for us to look back because it's like
basically trying to brush away four years of the Pacific war
with with Humphrey Bogart. And you know these these kind of
icons of Hollywood in in like 1946, basically because
immediately they needed the the Japanese to be on side and the
Americans to be on side with theJapanese going into the Korean

(40:07):
War and to fight the Soviets. And it was like yeah, the use of
Hollywood and film for that. Again, I mean this is.
It's a whole rabbit hole. There's a book on this that's a
very good book on this. I think it came out in 21.
It might be worth looking into it.
The Chinese influence in Hollywood, basically because so,
so many films, some money that finances these films.

(40:30):
A lot of that could be from China, maybe not directly, some
of it may be indirectly, but they do result in films like
that being produced. You also have actors being
forced to apologize if they happen to say that Taiwan is a
country, things like that, you know?
But also going back to your point about neuro linguistics,
the fact that the the term handover is what is being used

(40:52):
so majorly instead of transfer of sovereignty and is in itself
is it a propaganda. But it is a framing of the PRC
of the whole situation where they asked the UN to take Hong
Kong out of a list of colonies, resulting in Hong Kong people
not having the right to vote fortheir own future as opposed to
other colonies. To this point, where the

(41:12):
official narrative of Beijing isthat Hong Kong has never been a
colony of the. British.
It was handed over, yeah. Because Hanover insinuates that
it should have been returned, but now at this point they don't
even talk about it anymore because in their eyes, Hong Kong
was never a colony. That's fascinating, as you say,
that that's sort of the policingof language because again, this
is something Chris Horton mentioned in his book that when

(41:35):
I interviewed him, even the wordmainland, What does that mean?
I mean, part of Hong Kong is on the mainland itself in the New
Territories. It's it's the island is the
island. But where did these languages of
mainland of, of, of Hong Kong, of Taiwan, like what is the
interplay And, and how do we subconsciously just use those
words now? And in fact, we're sort of

(41:56):
supporting A propaganda project.Exactly, because when you say
mainland China, well in in Mandrell be made the countries
would be naughty day. It means that you are part of
that. So if a Taiwanese person says
mainland China, they mean that they agree that Taiwan would be
part of this structure and relative to Taiwan, that part of

(42:17):
China would be the mainland, right.
But even with Hong Kong, we we always said when I was living
there, we call that part mainland China.
But they say they're trying to reframe it again as Chinese
mainland, basically perpetratingthe idea that Hong Kong is part
of the bigger collective and therefore relative to Hong Kong,
that is the mainland. Yeah, well, this is interesting

(42:39):
as well because this gets into this idea of oneness, which
Frank Dakota has spoken about quite a bit and written about.
But fundamentally, I mean, his arguments are that it's not like
China is doing something different.
Fundamentally, they are Communists.
They are Chinese communists. And the fundamental of that is

(42:59):
there's unity required a singleness.
And so all of China, I understand is on a single time
zone, single single language HanChinese kind of identity and
assimilation of non Han Chinese into that.
And then thus, of course China, there can't be any islands that
are outside of that. They will actually be part of
China. And this kind of reflects A

(43:22):
communist, fundamentally a communist ideology, right?
The thing is, the Communist Party of China is only communist
when it's convenient for them, and not so common is when it's
less convenient for them. So if anything, how they run
their businesses, it is very capitalist.
It's especially 10 to 20 years ago after it first opened.

(43:45):
It's extremely capitalist, but when it's inconvenient to be
capitalist, they start rating itin and inserting more state
power, and that state power sometimes is not justifiable.
It also does not achieve the goal of redistributing resources
so that the collective can equally have access to those
resources. So it's only convenient.

(44:07):
They only use it when it's convenient for them.
For example, this whole Oneness collective thing.
That's it, though. I mean, the the idea of
historical materialism is that you would pass through a
capitalist phase. And it's sort of my
understanding again, of referencing Frank Dakota's work
was that. Yeah, the the overarching
architecture is that it is communist in that it will use

(44:29):
little bits of of capitalism through the process towards
eventually the the utopia to getto the utopia of communism,
which again, it doesn't seem kind of relevant.
Maybe in everyday conversations.It's not as if Xi Jinping has a
utopian vision for the Chinese people, whereas fundamentally it

(44:50):
seems as if if he does, he does have that vision and everything
that gets in the way that must necessarily be destroyed.
And this is the problem with utopian thinking is that any
cost, any, any amount of deaths can be justified if it means we
achieve utopia. And I think this is a marked
contrast to kind of the practical realities of liberal

(45:12):
democracies where it's like, yeah, there is some red lines we
don't cross when it comes to human rights.
But I don't know what your thought is on that, whether
you've looked into some of the writing of say, Xi Jinping and
whether you see a fundamentally A communist ideology within that
within his his thought. I mean, there is of course
elements of of communism becausethat's the party the the party

(45:33):
official ideologies. It's just I don't think he's
necessarily always motivated by the communist ideology, OK.
I think a huge part of the decision making process for him
as his legacy, really his personal legacy instead of the
party legacy, How does he put himself in the same ranks as Mao
and Dung? Because you have somebody who

(45:55):
has started the Cultural Revolution, who basically
founded the PRC, somebody who modernized the PRC economically
to allow for it to become a modern country really.
But if it comes to see, since he's staying in power until
basically the end of his life, what does he have to perpetrate

(46:16):
him to that kind of stratosphere?
And I think it's not just about the ideology because I, I, I
would argue that all leaders of the PRC have tried to adhere
more or less to bits and pieces,if not more of it, of the
communist ideology. It's just what makes you
different is that first of all, yes, you mentioned the, the

(46:36):
lesser regard of human life or human cost to achieving what
he's trying to achieve. But I think also it's because
his decision making is very muchon resolving the hunger problem,
and now it is a Taiwan problem that he has to resolve to allow
for his legacy to see to be seenas a leader.
That has changed fundamentally the PRC.

(46:58):
So there's kind of ultimately a deep seated ego problem here.
I think so, certainly because a lot of it doesn't seem very
logical or make sense economically or in terms of
human cost. Well, it's interesting though,
because again, the other perhapsbrain worm or brain mind virus
that exists is that somehow, andI see this amongst my own

(47:19):
friends, in particular American friends, that somehow China is
this super advanced place where they're building rail, you know,
rail tunnels and high speed railways and skyscrapers and all
of these things. While in particular with the
United States, you know, you can't get anything done.
There's all these barriers and, and particularly with the Trump
regime, it's, it's may be easy to contrast those and say how if

(47:40):
only we had central planning andfive year plans and communism,
we could do this too. And I find that quite
problematic. And I'm always quick to remind
people that somewhere like New Zealand or Australia is still
very functional and democracy works and civil society works.
And it's just kind of the UnitedStates is a weak moment right
now. But I'm always caught when

(48:01):
people are like, man, those Chinese know how to get things
done right. And what's your take on that as
maybe a, it's kind of like techno nationalism, techno, that
kind of the propaganda of technonationalism?
I mean, of course, when the government or the leader has
centralized power, things are more efficient, right?
Because there's no obstacle. He, he or she or they do

(48:22):
whatever they want. If anything, the I think a
better example of that is probably Singapore, where the I
feel like it has more equal distribution of resources where
people have a much higher quality of life compared to
China. Right now, the economy is so bad
that most fresh graduates from university would not be able to

(48:42):
find any sort of job. They just be underemployed or
unemployed in China and people are not living all that well.
So I think a better example of that the centralized power
leading to efficient governance would be Singapore.
However, if you are completely immune or if you silence civil

(49:03):
society completely and thereforenot accept any sort of
criticism, things will start to go awry eventually because one
person cannot be the owner of ofall knowledge on all situations.
So you will make a misstep eventually if you would fire
anybody who would tell you something that is not your
liking. Yeah.

(49:24):
Well, essentially just coming back to some of these
narratives, which I think are we, it's worth pause for thought
when we ever we encounter these.But certainly the easy one that
everyone references is that China brought half a billion
people out of poverty, as alwaystalked about.
And I have people say this to meall the time.
And it's like, well, did the Chinese government do that or

(49:44):
did the Chinese people do that? And it's two different,
different things. And in a sense, it's almost like
what Frank Ducato would say is that it was the case that the
Chinese government finally let them get themselves out of
poverty with the reforms of the 1980s.
And, and that's like a quite a distinct difference, right?
It's almost like that the the communists are trying to take
credit for this great humanitarian project, which they

(50:07):
actually caused the problem in the first place.
I mean, that's consistent with the fire narrative of anything.
You have these people who are everyday citizens just trying to
do their part, donating not onlymoney, but also like blankets,
clothes, etcetera to the families and individuals
affected by the fire type O. But then you have these
government, government ordained volunteers, so to say, taking

(50:30):
photos in front of it, taking the credit saying, oh, hey, look
how much we're helping the the victims of the fire, but it's
not actually them. But you, you do have that
pattern of taking credit for forthings like that, for
humanitarian relief, etcetera. What I wanted to get to as well,
which is another thing that I often kind of an A discussion

(50:50):
ending statement or an argument ending statement that often
comes up, is that isn't this kind of thing coming out of the
United States as well, though when it comes to propaganda
shaping and narrative shaping, you know, they're just as bad as
each other. Da, da, da.
There's no kind of graduation ofgovernment in in a sense, I

(51:11):
mean, how would you frame and particularly the United States
with, is there an equivalent to what we see with the United
front? Is there something like that
going on or or yeah how how would you compare and contrast?
I mean, as I think it circles back to what I mentioned
earlier, where each country has their national narrative and
their version of propaganda. But with the United States, you

(51:32):
see people fighting against it vocally, not only abroad, but
also on the ground that they're not OK with this.
This is not the government or sort of governance that they are
OK with. And eventually they should be
able to change their leaders if they're not happy with the
current situation through democratic means, through voting
and through protest. Well, with the Chinese, it's

(51:53):
just no longer possible. If you're, if you're very vocal
in protest in the street saying that oh, the the government did
a very bad job with COVID leading to economic disarray in
China and therefore leaving a lot of Chinese displaced or
unemployed, etcetera. You would probably get in
trouble. Your families would probably be
phoned if they're in China, say being told by the national

(52:15):
police. Please tell your son or daughter
she stops doing a messing up or causing trouble abroad.
You. We have had that during the
white paper movement in 2023 of of Chinese students abroad who
have been more vocal against thegovernment because quality of
life is so bad in China during and post COVID and their family

(52:37):
members being harassed or asked to ask the student to stop
basically. But you don't really have that
with the US, despite perhaps things not going smoothly and,
and basically the government perhaps not adhering to certain
well, allegedly not adhering to certain parts of the
constitution and not being held accountable for it.

(53:00):
But there are people who are on the ground who are still able to
say this, and they're not experiencing mass political
arrests, you know? Yeah, interesting.
OK, so there's sort of a the thechilling effect that exists
within China and in particular the pernicious use of family
connections. The classic example was inviting
the family back in China to havetea at the police station.

(53:21):
Oh yeah. You know, it's the the one
that's always referenced and even in Hong Kong, I believe.
Yeah, these days, yes, basically.
I believe even Carmen Lao, our mutual acquaintance and mutual
friend and her, her, her family members were invited to have tea
at the police station to talk about things.
Obviously she's in exile in, in the UK.

(53:42):
And so we've got this use of family device, which is again,
court of Chinese society and it's being sort of exploited in
this very dark way. The thing is, when you are
engaged in politics or in socialmovements, you know what you're
in for. Yeah, like, you know that by

(54:02):
speaking up that there are risksand that you will face
censorship and you might have tobe in exile or imprisoned, et
cetera. But that is on you because you
did the action, you will suffer the consequence.
But when they extend it to your friends and your family members,
if anything it might be even harder if they are harassing the
family members that you're not even that close with because
they are not involved in this all in the know at all and

(54:25):
somehow they're implicated. It's strictly unfair and it's
like a yeah there. There's something pernicious
about that, which could make someone cease doing what they're
doing. Right, Yeah, it's very hostile
and very malicious. And so this is interesting.
So we're, we're kind of startingto sketch a picture here.
This this idea of the United front, which is perhaps a useful

(54:45):
tool even just for people listening to this.
Maybe it's as a way of framing it.
And you know, you don't want to get too simplistic, but being
able to point at something and, and to give it a label at least
helps you start to categorize it.
And this is maybe quite easy to see.
There's actually this New Zealand guy who's maybe the same
sort of age as me, who's based in Shanghai and I won't mention

(55:06):
his name, but he is like a basically a mouthpiece for the
Chinese communists. And he's got this super
successful YouTube channel, really big blah, blah, blah.
And I don't fully understand what, what's on the on the
backside. You know what, what's you know
how he's getting paid for this. But it's, it's interesting
because he's basically saying every, he talks to every

(55:27):
propaganda point of the Communist Party, whether it's
Xinjiang or Taiwan or whatever. He's got a video on it and it's
done in this kind of very YouTube influencer kind of a
way. And I mean, I think we can point
to that and say, OK, here we go united front.
And maybe we don't know the exact details of how he's
getting paid or who his handlersare, but there's kind of now we

(55:48):
have a label for it. And it's not like, oh, he just
happens to be there. Yeah, doing it right.
Yeah, exactly because you have these huge budgets for national
security both in Hong Kong and in China.
So that's where the money's coming from, at least
officially. And it does help to have a name
just so that we can centralized the ideas or the testimonies or

(56:08):
the collection of events that where this is happening and.
It's interesting because again, if you look up Xinjiang, you
know, and, and I've done episodes talking about this.
I mean, there is a reality on the ground and there's been deep
research on that. But then there's people walking
around with selfie sticks saying, hey, do you see any
genocide here? Yeah, exactly.
And it's a very flew people there right they.
Fly people there and they, they,they do these tours and, and
some cases are kind of wrapped in this banality of like, like

(56:32):
kind of travel vlog and stuff like they've kind of, they've
started to use the medium with adegree of sophistication, right?
Yeah, because I think it was last year, I think they flew out
bunches of influencers in fashion and beauty and basically
show them a factories in Xinjiang saying do you see any

(56:53):
forced labor? Like this is a very beautiful
piece of cloth that maybe sold on GN.
Would you still buy This is veryfashionable and you know, look
at the conditions of our of our workers in the factory,
etcetera. And that's, and they would film
it and kind of put out this image to to their audience,
which may not be their conventional audience for direct
Chinese propaganda. And that's how they get to it.

(57:14):
And speaking with Xinjiang, theyhave also, you may have seen
recent reports about the a British academic basically being
silenced by a university in the UK on her and her team's
research surrounding forced labour in Xinjiang.
Basically they they asked her tostop the research and stop the

(57:35):
centre that she's she was a director of which which does
this sort of research. It's, it's worth pointing out as
well for people who don't know almost every university and
well, certainly in New Zealand, but globally it has a Confucius
Institute attached to it. Oh, yeah.
So maybe you could explain what that is as kind of yeah.
I mean Confucius Institutes havebeen a a pretty focal point of

(58:01):
studying United Front in the past five to 10 years.
Almost every university for example in the UK or the US or
even Australia, etcetera, they would have one.
Basically it adheres to what I mentioned a little earlier,
which is the softer side of Chinese identity or China's
identity rather through languagelearning, through cultural

(58:23):
events, etcetera. But they have also been found to
have participated in more political missions, for example,
spying on people, information gathering and giving that
information to consulates or embassies of the PRC on the
ground there. And more maliciously, some of
them would be doing the harassment.
But mainly I would say their role is to foster a more

(58:48):
positive sentiment or feeling orperspective towards the PRC and
doing a lot of the information gathering.
Well, it's, it's also the kind of the role of de facto what,
what symbols are or in our medialandscape, what, what are people
saying, what are 18 year old students saying when they're in

(59:09):
university for the first time? They're saying Chinese Communist
flags and Confucius Institute, which again, in Wellington, New
Zealand, you know, where I went to university, we have a
Confucius Institute and you know, those students use it, you
know, local students and, and exchange students coming over,
foreign students coming over, they're going to be seeing these
kind of symbols, right? And, and this begins to play

(59:31):
into some of these narrative shapings that take place.
And so whether it's something like Chinese film festivals,
which of course I'm never going to have a Taiwanese film or
anything can in a non Mandarin language, some dialect of of
China or, you know, sports events or anything, you know,
you've kind of got this, this watchful eye.

(59:54):
Exactly. Sort of always hovering, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've probably heard
that in New York there was recently supposedly to a
individual, a more indie kind ofChina Film Festival happening,
but of course that was shut down.
So only certain Chinese films can be shown, according to the
government. Yeah, well, it's interesting

(01:00:15):
just kind of to to wrap up this piece on the on the propaganda
though. I mean, again, I, I have these
conversations with people about,you know, that China is building
high speed rail and railways andskyscrapers.
That's kind of the high, but we,we missed the low of, of
substandard quality, you know, scandals, all sorts of things.
And then obviously the vast amounts of rural China, they

(01:00:37):
never see there because we're talking about a number of
coastal cities that have exactlymaybe a couple of the inland
cities as well. But mostly the, you know, the,
the Chinese people in these non major cities are living in
squalor in a lot of cases. And so you kind of, you get
painted, you get one picture painted, you don't get to see
the other side. But the effect of that is that

(01:00:59):
someone's like, oh, well, look, you know, we can't even get even
New Zealand, we can't build a road.
And, and it starts to be, this may be the sympathy for what can
be done and what can be achievedwhen you have a, a single party
state and a bit of sympathy thatthe Chinese were able to do
this, they were able to bring the people out of poverty,
etcetera, etcetera. And so you start having these
narratives get kind of formed Inception style, right?

(01:01:21):
So I think this is very selective, right?
Like if you go to North Korea and you follow their propaganda
path as a tourist there, you will say, oh, I mean North Korea
is a very advanced country. They have their own, you know,
space projects, etcetera. You will say that, but that's
obviously not reflective of whatthe majority of North Koreans
have been experiencing. They say with China, you have

(01:01:42):
Shanghai, you have Beijing, all these great buildings, huge
avenues. Of course you have the R&D
companies that really look into very innovative bits of science
and development of tech, but themajority of Chinese is not
benefiting from this. Back in during the era of dung,
I believe though, there's this propaganda slogan that says

(01:02:04):
Sienna Ibu for this quote, quote.
Just that means that we will leta part of the country become
rich 1st and then the rest will become rich with them, which
obviously it seems that after like a century that was still
stuck in this this phase of the of development.
But of course, as you mentioned,that is being covered by the

(01:02:25):
more positive size of development in certain cities in
China. Yeah.
So I guess the final piece on kind of the propaganda and then
I am keen to talk about infrastructure here is at a high
level for you. I mean, how do we practice
information hygiene? How do we how do we inoculate
ourselves against some of these effects of the United front?

(01:02:46):
How do we check our own biases and how do we look at these
things with clear eyes? What are some approaches or
things that you've been able to gleam over the years to help you
understand this vast informationlandscape?
I think first of all, we used torely quite a lot on the big tech
companies, the social media platforms to help do the fact
checking. But given the changes in

(01:03:07):
governance and how they decide to allocate their resources,
they have a minimize if not non existent fact checking team
these days. So there are, depending on where
you are based in different civilsociety organizations that still
do the fact checking, but they are not part of the platform and

(01:03:27):
therefore doesn't automatically just pop up.
So I say that if there's at least any news that seems a
little fishy or if it's major news and a lot of news push has
been put out, it's worth going through the keywords and looking
into these fact checking organizations and see if they've
put a piece on it. Because with the algorithm,
they're not going to automatically show up on your

(01:03:48):
feed or your timeline. You have probably have to look
for it. And of course, the importance of
media literacy and that being part of the curriculum in, if
not all countries, at least the Liberal Democratic countries
where we understand the difference between reality,
truth or propaganda or certain perspectives and what truth

(01:04:10):
actually means, right. Because truth can be subjective,
but reality or facts cannot be. It is what it is.
So how do you identify that it should be part of the
curriculum? And thirdly, I'd say don't react
immediately. You mentioned my piece for
Nikkei Asia. The fire started in on the 26th
of November and my piece came out I think the 1st of December.

(01:04:33):
Yeah, like I, I think really take your time to let the
information settle down first because if things seem fishy
like the whole propaganda aroundBamboo, then it will probably
have encountered some sort of resistance either online or in
person or from certain politicalfigures, etcetera.

(01:04:53):
Within the next 24 to 46 hours, after which you will you will
probably see some sort of fact checking from media.
If it's not the local media, youwill see it from an
international media. So there's perhaps these lagging
indicators because obviously it takes a lot of work to Fact
Check and do real work. And so maybe take a deep breath

(01:05:15):
to slow down, don't react to things straight away.
And, and I must admit, you know,I was the one that incident
recently, there was Maki Otsuki's One Piece performance,
the famous anime. She's an anime singer.
Her performance got cancelled halfway through and she got
pulled off stage. You would have.

(01:05:35):
Seen. Yeah, I saw that, yeah.
And I must admit, I mean, I, I reacted to that, you know, I
thought, fuck, you know, this isbullshit.
And I, I needed to sort of take a deep breath because it would
have been easier to go and like say something about that and
kind of, you know, react to it in the moment.
But I think it in a way, if we actually look at that moment, I
began to hear what you think. But my my feeling was that it
was perfectly architected to create that kind of reaction.

(01:05:58):
And someone like me who was like, I could have just done it
before the show. They didn't have to wait until
40 minutes and or whatever to pull her off stage.
But they did that to achieve themaximum impact, which was to
upset people. Yes.
And I mean, would you say that sort of the that was the outcome
that they were trying to achieve, to upset people, to
make it seem as if they were putting on this pity, this pity

(01:06:20):
incident that we're trying to. Not necessarily pity, I'd say
that on the Chinese side it shows that they are they mean
business even if it means pulling you off the stage mid
show. First of all.
Second of all, with the hyper realism in AI, it is it is worth
taking a breath and making sure the video is real, which I think

(01:06:41):
in this case it was real. But The thing is by sharing that
piece of information, what are the people who are benefiting
from it? And for example, if you share it
from a length set outlook at theChinese being unreasonable, then
of course, you'll, you'll, you'll have to start thinking
about who's benefiting from it. And if you're angling from, oh,

(01:07:02):
look at the Chinese, they mean business.
They're not going to take this kind of bullying from Japan or
the US. Then it's benefiting another set
of stakeholders. The other thing is on that
particular note, it also gives this kind of omnipotence to the
Chinese Communist, which I thinkwe have to be very critical of
because, you know, was there some cadre who was like, on this

(01:07:24):
day in Shanghai, there's going to be this performance from this
Japanese singer. We're going to pull her off off
stage and we're going to architect this whole thing in
it. It would give the illusion that
they have an all seeing eye. And that makes you then want to
self censor and be a little bit careful because, you know, are
they watching us right now? When in fact, perhaps there's no
one behind the curtain. And this was one example that

(01:07:45):
was used to kind of give that impression and that maybe that's
maybe a way of looking at it. And in that case, maybe
succeeded in a degree is like, yeah, these guys knew how to how
to execute and they mean business, as you say, yeah.
Because there is an all seeing eye, because all shows,
especially from foreign artists,they have to be submitted for

(01:08:06):
approval from the Chinese government.
They have to submit their entiresong list, have all the lyrics
translated to Chinese so they can actually approve or not
approve. Well, you would have worked in
this space A. Little I know people who work in
this space, I've never, I've never been to a show in in, in
China, north of Hong Kong at least.
So I don't, I haven't been in the industry, but I know people

(01:08:28):
who who have been in the industry who have helped artists
say from Japan, do shows in China and they have to go
through that process. It's just part of the process of
approval. OK, so when you were a fixer in
Hong Kong back in the day, that wasn't like that.
In Hong Kong, no, no, no. The the point of whether that is
approved or not is certainly notbased on what songs you're
singing. It's basically just whether they

(01:08:50):
have that availability at that given venue and whether you can
pay the money. So moving on, something we
mentioned at the beginning, submarine cables as a physical
manifestation of control of the media.
This is an interesting idea you wrote for the Jamestown
Foundation. This article The PRC 6 Dominance
and Submarine Power Cable infrastructure And perhaps does

(01:09:11):
this also extend to communication cables?
Yes, it's just because at the time communications cables have
been talked about quite a bit. It's just offering a new angle
to to this and also including power cables.
So tell me a bit about this, because again, we've got this
narrative here, Chinese industrydominating these certain certain
key global industries. There's like a Chinese company

(01:09:32):
that will come in and dominate what, what is your, Yeah, what
is your high level thesis on this, in particular with these
these submarine cables, but infrastructure generally, what
does it all mean with the Chinese?
I think first of all, they planned this pretty early on and
we see this manifesting in the negotiations with the US and
their ban on rare earth exports because they already take up so

(01:09:55):
much of the processing of such materials that it is just
unthinkable at this point to have the rest of the world all
decouple from the PRC. It's just impossible.
So that becomes a bargaining trip for them.
And that is not something that just happened over the past two
to three years. It's something that has been at
least a decade if not more in the making.

(01:10:15):
And you look, you can look to made in China 2025, the whole
plan and their strategy towards implementing themselves as a key
stakeholder in the world supply chain of certain industries with
telecommunications etcetera, being being part of that.
Of course, green energy being a huge part of that plan as well,

(01:10:40):
which is why it is so difficult to do risk completely from the
PRC if you're trying to achieve the goals of a green energy
transition because they're stillholding so much of, if not the
material itself, then the processing capabilities.
And with that, it means that they can hold these capabilities
hostile hostage in any sort of international negotiations.

(01:11:04):
So if they're negotiating with Australia and they and perhaps
they could threaten a ban on exporting certain critical
minerals or rare earth etcetera,that is necessary for even the
the everyday iPhone semiconductor capabilities.
They're certainly catching up with Taiwan not only on legacy

(01:11:25):
trips, but also the more advanced versions.
And that could mean that first of all, they won't have to rely
on the rest of the world, which means they don't have to care
about what the rest of the worldhas to say.
But if there are countries whichare still reliant on Chinese
trips, which could be cheaper, then they would be affected in
negotiations. That's interesting.
You, you're right here. Reliance on strategic rivals for
critical infrastructure opens recipient states to

(01:11:47):
vulnerabilities that those rivals can exploit.
Previous previous examples include Germany's reliance on
energy supplied by Russia's NordStream pipeline and various
countries reliance on Huawei to provide critical
telecommunications infrastructure.
Yes, I mean, this was even in little old New Zealand.
This was a talking point with with Huawei and 5G roll out.

(01:12:10):
And again this sort of dominanceof Chinese manufacturing means
we're in this difficult situation, right?
We it is quite hard to decouple from that, right?
It is. And it's not even just from the
economic security side. If we're talking
telecommunications, especially with 5G for example, it means
that Chinese companies will haveto an extent jurisdiction, if

(01:12:30):
not just access to that sort of data.
And it's not just the individualdata, it could be big data that
could make Chinese have an upperhand on any sort of negotiation
and any sort of past attack in in the event of a warfare of or
of a contingency. It means that they could know

(01:12:51):
perhaps where a lot of that infrastructure is concentrated
and therefore they know where toattack, where to bomb, etcetera.
That can be intelligence such wedon't want a hostile state to
have. Yeah, there's kind of, there's
quite a lot of metadata, especially on the
telecommunications side that will be coming off of, I mean,

(01:13:12):
oodles and oodles of data comingoff these things.
And that kind of phoning home and delivering that data back to
perhaps an increasingly AI capable nation like China, which
can pause it and actually use itfor some kind of analysis.
It's kind of like a sword of Damocles hanging over any kind

(01:13:34):
of country. And especially again, these,
these countries that I like to hold up and say, hey, this is an
example of a, of a thriving democracy somewhere like in New
Zealand where there can be a, a change of government without any
bloodshed. It's those small countries
exactly that are the most vulnerable to changes in trade
or economic restrictions. You know, New Zealand,
Australia, major trade partners would be somewhere like China.

(01:13:56):
Yeah, because we are in the sameregion.
And of course it makes more sense to trade with people
within the well countries withinthe region, because it's less
shipping, it's more convenient, the needs are more similar.
So zooming out though, again, I mean we've talked about the kind
of narrative shaping before, butI think I mean there seems as
if, I mean there is like an omnipotence to this kind of

(01:14:19):
planning or kind of approach towards strategic industries
like these underwater cables. How do we frame this?
How do we understand this? Because is it a case that
there's naivety from these othercountries that everything's
going to be OK? Or is there actually a slow but
gradual ratcheting up of the stakes to a point where maybe

(01:14:41):
they don't have any chips left to bargain with?
I mean, how would you sort of frame the situation on where
it's going? With submarine cables as an
infrastructure that has been in place for the past two to three
decades, it's not something thatcan be just easily changed and
say, oh, we are rerouting all these cables, That's just not
feasible. So we're basically stuck with
the cables as they are. Of course, new cable systems are

(01:15:05):
being installed as we speak, buta lot of that will pass through
contested waters. And I think with the recent
malicious sabotage of submarine cables in initially the Baltic
Seas and eventually in the recent two to three years
increasingly in the Taiwan Strait.

(01:15:27):
And that has, I think brought the world thinking a bit more
about what this infrastructure means, how essential it is,
especially for our region given that we have that many island
nations in the Asia Pacific and how this can be a vulnerability
and how do we do risk. So it has become more of a focal
point in economic security discussions or Geo economics as

(01:15:50):
of late for the past year or twoabout how, for example, not only
the creation and laying of the cables, but the repair
capacities as a region, how do we make sure that we're not
reliant on China and therefore give the telecommunications data
access to China if they are the only choice for repairing, for
example? Yeah, I guess.

(01:16:11):
I guess when I'm getting it, I mean, the cables are one thing,
right? But then there's obviously all
of the other infrastructure thatmaybe has a heavy dependence on
some, you know, being supplied by China.
And how do we frame this? Because is it just a par for par
for the course that we need to, you know, get affordably priced

(01:16:33):
equipment we need to have, you know, there's this kind of
economic considerations. But I guess where is this all
heading towards? I mean, is it more like we need
to sort of ring the alarm a bit more and and say, hey, really
there needs to be some strategicdecisions at national level to
not use these suppliers? Or is there somewhere in the
middle? Like how?

(01:16:54):
How do you frame all of that like?
I mean, I spoke about this a little bit for some of the
Chinese language, Mandarin and Cantonese interviews that I've
done lately. I also written a little bit
about this for an occasion last month.
I think The thing is, there needs to be a common norm for
democratic countries to understand that they have to pay

(01:17:16):
a premium to secure their supplychains and their economy.
It's no longer, it's no longer the case to just simply go for
the cheapest option and to make sure that their companies or
their citizens are earning the most money.
Pure capitalism would not work in this.

(01:17:36):
In this instance, of course, it's important to ring the
alarm, but there needs to be more public private partnerships
because for a lot of the infrastructure surrounding
critical infrastructure is not necessarily profit earning and
therefore private companies would not be incentivized to
making those decisions or to have that redundancy just in

(01:17:58):
case. So the governments will have to
step in. This is an interesting concept
that kind of reminds me a littlebit of if we go back to some
with New Zealand, for example, if we go back to the 1970s,
Nineteen 60s, there were these external shocks that happened
with or in particular in the 73 with the oil shock leading

(01:18:19):
immediately to a kind of knee jerk reaction to actually
suddenly build energy sovereignty, which led to the
spate of hydro schemes and massive building of power
stations in New Zealand, which was kind of not seen before or
since. And that was only possible by
the intervention of the state. And I am generally quite

(01:18:41):
critical of the state and of public works.
But in that situation, I mean, those are pieces of
infrastructure that are still working for New Zealand.
And So what you're suggesting potentially is that is a model
we need to revisit of more engagement with the state and a
national at a national level to build our things, which
otherwise wouldn't be served in the free market or would be

(01:19:03):
served by. Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, this would also just, sorry, be looking at
Africa, which generally a lot ofthese countries have
underperforming bureaucracies and underperforming governments.
Those are exactly the victims that are being targeted here,
right. Who are the Chinese are coming
in and say hey, don't worry about it.
We'll pay for you and you will be indebted to us.

(01:19:23):
Basically the Belch Rd. initiative and eventually they
have framed this as a global self empowerment and this right
to development that they're trying to perpetuate in UN
mechanisms whereby not allowing them to do this.
They, the UN in the PRC's eyes, which is benefiting Western

(01:19:44):
countries, so to say, would be depriving these countries of
their right to development. And they prioritize this over
any other right that has been stipulated in international
covenants under the UN system. And that's a reframing that
they're they're trying to push for.
Interesting. OK.
So there's sort of perhaps a broader conversation.
I mean what would you like to see or what do you think is

(01:20:05):
important for democratic nationsto be undertaking at this time
in terms of asking these questions internally about the
reliance in China, the premium for sovereign infrastructure
that you talk about? I mean, how do you, what do you
think, what was your recommendation there?
What is your thoughts on that? I believe the word for this is
strategic autonomy. It's it's not feasible for a lot

(01:20:28):
of these countries to completelydecouple from China.
And some of them still want thattrade relationship or to try to
be civil and diplomatic about it.
And but there would be a bottom line.
It's just to make sure that you have a choice when the bottom
line is hit. So it there needs to be
investment from the government to to securitize the critical

(01:20:52):
infrastructure because as you, as you summarized a little
earlier, that they simply wouldn't happen under the free
market. There needs to be government
intervention. It's just of course with
democratic countries, the state also needs to be held
accountable. So yes, state intervention, but
also accountability measures where the public can't hold the

(01:21:12):
government accountable for this,because these are huge projects,
they would touch huge parts of the national budget, which of
course citizens would be, would be, would be, would be
contributing to via tax or othermeans.
And, and longer term, Athena, looking at this situation we
have in China, which is there isan economic downturn.

(01:21:33):
There's, you know, there's pockets of, of obviously
different situations, but generally it seems as if there's
an economic downturn, but there's also a lot of chaos
happening out of the, the US. Do you have a, I'm not
necessarily asking for a prediction, but do you have a
sort of a vision or an idea of say, what we can look at for the
next 24 months? What are you, what are you

(01:21:53):
focusing on? What are the the signs that
you're looking for when it comesto what China is doing?
I mean, first of all, given thatmy regional focus is on East
Asia, of course, Taiwan is top of the agenda.
I also look for any changes of how they respond to things in
Hong Kong, for example, how theyresponded to civil efforts

(01:22:15):
around the type of fire this time.
It's quite different from how they used the national security
law a year ago or two years ago.And you see an evolution of how
that governance or that perspective or part of the
government responsible for national security, for the PRC,
how they see things because how we understand as a citizen and

(01:22:36):
how Beijing and its governance would see things.
It's not necessarily the same. They have a different set of
logic. And first of all, that
governance bit, but also the upcoming 15th 5 year plan to see
where the priorities are. They've already had a plan to to
give recommendations to this upcoming plan, but it should be

(01:22:58):
coming out in 2026, I believe, and you will see the next five
years. What are their priorities and
where they go from here? And it's very likely that it's
going to be very focused on techand maritime infrastructure and
probably space infrastructure. That's interesting.
And then of course, this weekendwe have the Legislative Council
elections. Yes, that's correct.
In Hong Kong, so kind of interesting timing right, where

(01:23:24):
there's an election taking place, but perhaps we may see
quite low turn out from the voters.
Yes, yes. Which for me seems like not very
logical because they spend so much money and time to try to
boost voter turn out. And given the tragedy at hand,
if they carry on with their voteon Sunday, which they have

(01:23:46):
indicated that they would, that basically cancels all the
efforts that they put in and allthe money etcetera that they put
in for the past month or two on this.
And if anything, I don't, I think a lot of us don't
understand why they even care, because it's not like it's a
real choice. Well, it seems like the only, I
mean the the low turn outs I think in in the 30s, I think

(01:24:09):
some some some some sort of between 30 and 40% turn out last
time, but this time perhaps similar or lower.
The the idea is that that's the only option is to just not vote
now as your sign of kind of no confidence, right?
Is I mean, asking people to not vote or to to vote blank is
illegal in Hong Kong law and they have wanted people over it,

(01:24:33):
even people who are overseas. OK, so, so listening, pushing
for people to not vote or to blank vote is is.
It's illegal. OK, interesting.
So you have people like, I mean,before common was bountied, her
initial charge was on this because she and she asked people
to not vote or to vote blank in the last election.
Same with for example, Ted Hoy in Australia.

(01:24:55):
He did the same thing and he hada similar charge by I think the
ICAC. So yeah, there are people who
have gotten in trouble, legal trouble, because.
Interesting. But that's installed.
I mean the people themselves choosing not to vote is an
indication, a vote of no confidence for this, for what
the regime, I guess, because what else are they going to do?
The the candidates have been handpicked by Beijing.
The thing is the result will still be the same.

(01:25:17):
It's just how they they frame this.
Do I, if there's a higher voter turn out, they would say that
this is people ordained, they represent the people and look at
them, they have competence in our governance, etcetera.
But our, our guess is that they probably don't have a choice
this time because it seems that they just want to get it over
with quickly. If they do delay and really get

(01:25:38):
into an investigation of the fire, who knows when it's
actually going to happen with the elections.
It's probably going to take a year or or something.
Interesting. That's all incredibly
fascinating, Athena. If people want to follow your
work, your writing, where, wheredo you want to send them?
Either on LinkedIn or I mean my meta social profiles are public

(01:26:00):
on Instagram Athena dot movementor a little less active on
Facebook, but I am on there yeahincreasingly using Twitter a bit
more again because I realized it's a different audience that
would be Athena Tom Ki believe with my hand on.
Yeah, Athena, thank you very. Much thank you.
Thank you for listening. I am Cody Allingham and that was

(01:26:21):
the transformation of value. If you would like to support
this show, please consider making a donation either through
my website or by directly tipping to the show's Bitcoin
wallet, or just pass this episode on to a friend who you
think may enjoy it. And you can always e-mail me at
hello@thetransformationofvalue.com.

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