Month: November 2021

Very interesting video. Chinese people hate America, cheer for Osama bin Laden, but when asked whether they would like to go to America, they get all excited. While some of them appear to support what their mainstream state-controlled media is saying, they do know that they can’t trust what their government says. How confusing!

The high speed rail HSR in China is bleeding cash, subsidised by the government (people’s money) and caters mostly to the wealthier Chinese.

The Wenzhou HSR collision accident occurred 23 July 2011. As of 31 July 2011, Chinese authorities had failed to provide any logical explanation of why the safeguards built into the CTCS-2 signal technology had failed to work in the Wenzhou collision.

It’s interesting that Leonard should bring this case up now because it shows a sharp contrast in China’s freedom of speech and the press back then as compared to now. Of course, there were lame excuses and coverups back then, but the people dared to question the authorities’ explanations. The authorities’ shoddy “investigation” and a prompt burying of the wreckage caused a huge uproar among the Chinese public.

How much have Chinese people changed over the last 10 years? They have all bottled up their feelings like Yang Feng. The acccident would almost certainly have been ruled as a natural disaster. All reporters challenging the official account and netizens raising their doubts will be silenced.

Many cloistered wumao (China’s 50-cent army) are under the impression that Taiwanese are stubborn and shallow fools who oppose unification simply because they would miss Facebook or other platforms. They think that these can easily be replaced by WeChat and Weibo. There could be so many other reasons why Taiwanese would rather fight than surrender.

Thousands of years ago, made in China was considered high quality. Now?

An ingenious business plan. First, they organise an antique appraisal conference. You can tell from the scale of the event that the scammers have invested quite a bit into it and were all out to make it look convincing. Next, they invite collectors from all over the world to bring their collections in for appraisal. Each appraisal by the panel of experts cost every collector 800 RMB. Every single one of the collectors were told that they were in possession of a valuable antique including the undercover journalist who had bought his “antique” for a mere 80 RMB.

Holding such a valuable item, many of the collectors would be anxious to sell. Here comes the certificate of authenticity which would set them back another 8,000 RMB. Employees at the company had to put up staged transaction “disputes” and other kinds of drama to convince the victims that their collections could really be sold at those inflated prices.

It’s revealed in the video that experts are easily bought. So why not we engage the experts directly and get those certificates without going through the middle man?

In this video, Leonard shares with us some “Mao miracles”. An old veteran on the Long March claimed on CCTV that when they ran out of petrol and diesel to power their motors and charge their batteries, they used pig fat! While many netizens mocked this obvious untruth, someone went all the way to prove that pig fat can be burned to generate energy.

The most interesting part is of course the somewhat convincing defence of that veteran’s claim that pig fat could power generators and recharge batteries. It’s like a case of smart people defending myths and mistakes to perpetuate blind faith among the gullible. It doesn’t just happen in China.

The apologist brought out a classic Stirling engine which is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air at different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work. It is an example of an external combustion engine without steam. The apologist for that lying veteran showed that burning pig fat could power such an engine.

Leonard pointed out that the Long March took place between 1934-1936 while the Stirling engine had been largely replaced by the internal combustion engine in the 1920s. A Stirling engine that would meet the requirements of Mao’s army would have to weigh a ton. Could an army constantly on the move over rough terrain be lugging a few of these monsters? Besides, the photo of the generator found on the PLA’s website is actually a very much more portable internal combustion engine which decidedly cannot burn pig fat.

Before you laugh too loud, note that China has enacted a Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Heroes and Martyrs in 2018. This law effectively makes it a crime to 歪曲中国近现代历史，丑化、诋毁、贬损、质疑英雄烈士 “distort modern Chinese history”, vilify, slander, pass derogating remarks and cast doubts on “heroes” and “martyrs”.

Only the “distorting modern history” part is specific. It means that the only history that is real is the one told by the Party. The rest can mean a lot of things and that includes doubting that Mao inspired non-medical staff to cure deaf and non-verbal kids from the curse of Liu Shaoqi. All you have to do is to keep repeating 毛主席万岁.

Nicholas William Leeson (born 25 February 1967) is an English derivatives trader who created fake accounts to cover up mistakes and losses, ended up bankrupting Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank. He was a rogue trader who made fraudulent, unauthorized and speculative trades, which led directly to the 1995 collapse of the bank, for which he was sentenced to prison.

After his arrest, he even took a dig at the bank’s senior management.