Two long-term China-resident foreigners drop China truth bombs

Click above for the video

Megyn Kelly talks to recent China-based YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye.

I was lucky to live in China, in the seventies, when it went on an upswing. When it went from closed to open. 

Matthew and William talk of going through a downswing. When China changed from open to closed. From welcoming foreigners to anti-foreign. 

I know old friends and colleagues, long-time residents in China, who confirm Winston amd Matthew’s observations. Me too. I never got to do, as they did, the motorbike trip around the country, but I did do car trips and train trips and bus trips. And even some bicycle trips, way back when. 

These lads describe it well, the richness of the cities, the poverty in the country just past city limits. And the growth of anti foreigner sentiment. My China-based friends confirm all this and that it’s got worse in recent times. 

From the Megyn Kelly show notes: 

“YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye join to discuss the toll of China’s Zero Covid lockdown policies, the rare protests late last year and China’s response, American media not understanding the China reality, how China tries to control the message and silence criticism, the nationalist movement in China., how China became more authoritarian in recent years, their personal experiences living in China as foreigners, and more”.

I agree with them this hyper-nationalist anti-foreign stuff began with Xi Jinping. I’ve said that for years. There’s his infamous “Document Nine” which kicked it all along.

I’d note too that this anti-foreigner wave is just the latest in a cycle that has repeated over the centuries, millennia, even. Examples: the Boxer Rebellion at the beginning of the 20th century, the Taiping Rebellion in the century before; even the wonderful Ming Dynasty cut itself off from foreign influence. So today is a bit of Plus ça change.…

This interview is well worth a watch. Especially if you’ve an interest in China. And who shouldn’t have, in these interconnected days? These guys know whereof they speak, at least from the POV of foreigners in China. Which will always be me. No matter what I do. No matter how much Chinese I know, just as it was for these lads. (And eventually their Chinese wives too, as they describe).

ADDED: I just realised that I’d come across their YouTube vids before this one. I’ve watched some of their stuff in the weirdest foods they’ve eaten in China. Which are weirder even than my weirdest ones which include Bull Penis and Live Fish. Oh, and Civet cat. And of course that western bête noire, Dog, aka “fragrant meat”. 

ADDED II: Their comments in the Chinese education system, from the POV of teaching in it, are particularly interesting. Towards the end