WEBVTT

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To win the trade war, the 
CCP just needs one thing.

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Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.

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The US-China trade war has been going on for 
three weeks now,

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and you know what that means.

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It’s time to panic!

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If you go on X, you’ll see posts with millions 
of views claiming that US ports are empty.

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That there are zero cargo ships.

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That you should panic buy rice and toilet paper.

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Yes! Finally! My time has come!

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I’ve 
been hoarding toilet paper since 2020.

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It’s made living in New York 
City slightly challenging.

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But it’s all worth it now.

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Time to sell it all for profit!

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Wait, what’s that, Shelley?

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None of that is true?

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Ports are not empty, and there are 
definitely cargo ships heading to the US.

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And people should not panic buy 
rice,

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which is grown in America,

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or toilet paper, which is made in America.

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Fine, fine.

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I guess if you start seeing toilet paper 
shortages,

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that’s not because of the trade war,

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that’s because people got freaked 
out by stupid social media posts.

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The vast majority of food 
shouldn’t be affected, either.

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If you panic buy anything, 
it should probably be things

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like back-to-school supplies 
and Christmas decorations.

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I’m not saying there won’t be shortages of 
made in China stuff.

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There probably will be,

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but we won’t see that in stores 
for weeks,

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or even months down the line.

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Chinese products will also get more 
expensive.

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But we don’t know how expensive.

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There’s a lot of uncertainty right 
now, and a lot of fearmongering.

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Which is great for the Chinese 
Communist Party.

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Because they need the Trump administration to back down on tariffs.

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And if the CCP can convince Americans they 
should hate the tariffs,

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they might have a shot.

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I’ll tell you why the CCP wants this so badly 
in a minute.

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But first, you know YouTube has been soft censoring this channel

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, but you can 
subvert YouTube’s censorship by subscribing

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to our free weekly newsletter.

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Each newsletter 
has links to all our episodes each week,

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plus extra analysis you won’t see anywhere else—

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and 
it’s free.

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Sign up now. The link is below.

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Ok, so the CCP wants the US to lower their 
tariffs.

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Because if the tariffs continue at this level,

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China is going to 
be much worse off than the US.

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Yes, US consumers will feel some pain.

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But 
like I explained in a previous episode,

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China now more than ever depends on exports

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to 
keep its economy going and people employed.

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That’s because the Chinese real estate market 
has already collapsed.

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And that’s the other major driver of the Chinese economy.

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So they 
NEED to export stuff. That’s all they have.

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Now, Goldman Sachs estimates that US tariffs

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could endanger 16 million export jobs in China.

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And that’s probably on the low end.

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In a trade war, the country 
that’s the bigger exporter

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will generally be hit harder.

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And that’s China.

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Chinese workers are in even more trouble

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because 
China’s been fighting deflation for years.

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China’s economy is in a deflationary spiral.

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That’s when prices fall, which means 
companies can’t afford to pay people as much,

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so wages fall.

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And that means 
people don’t want to buy stuff,

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so consumer demand falls, which means prices 
fall even further.

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And it keeps on going.

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China’s been fighting deflation ever since 
their disastrous Zero Covid policy.

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Turns out it's hard for businesses to survive when 
everyone is locked inside their apartments.

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The real estate crisis also made deflation worse,

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because people’s savings were wiped out.

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And a bunch of people lost their jobs, too.

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The New York Times talked to a guy who 
was a construction worker and a plumber.

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“When times were good, Mr. Wang said,

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he could make as much as $13,600 a year.

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Now he’s lucky if he can make half that.”

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Think about that for a second.

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Even during 
the good times, his income was several thousand dollars

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below the poverty line in the 
US.

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Now he’s not even making half of that.

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So China’s economy is on shaky ground.

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And tariffs are making things worse,

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by endangering more Chinese jobs.

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But the Chinese Communist Party is digging in.

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And they’re really good at narrative warfare.

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I’ve shown you why China is going to be hit 
harder by tariffs than the US.

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So the trick is, the CCP needs to make Americans THINK

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they’re 
the ones who will be hit harder instead.

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And to do that, the CCP is relying on the perception

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that Chinese people can 
eat bitterness,

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but Americans can’t.

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Eating bitterness is the Chinese term for 
enduring hardships.

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Basically, suffering.

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly told

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the Chinese people that they need to eat 
bitterness for the good of the nation.

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I talked in a previous episode 
about how young Chinese people

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don’t seem quite as willing to eat 
bitterness as previous generations.

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But in narrative warfare, that doesn’t matter,

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as long as Americans THINK

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Chinese 
people are willing to suffer more.

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Which is why China’s Foreign Ministry

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is 
releasing propaganda videos like this.

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“History has proven compromise won’t earn you mercy

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. Kneeling only invites more 
bullying. China won’t kneel down.”)

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The rest of the video calls America 
an arrogant imperialist,

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and shows China leading the world in solidarity

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against America over some heroic music.

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The message is clearly that America is the bad guy

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and it better give up, because China never will.

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That same message is being repeated 
in the CCP’s domestic propaganda.

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Earlier this week, Beijing Daily 
published an article called “

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Today, it is necessary to revisit On Protracted War.”

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On Protracted War was a series of speeches made by 
Chairman Mao

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during the Sino-Japanese War in 1938.

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This Beijing Daily article is very 
Marxist.

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It blames America’s problems

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on the capitalist system

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, it talks 
a lot about dialectal materialism,

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and it repeatedly refers 
to the “US-China struggle.”

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I’ve talked before about how “struggle” 
or “douzheng”

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is the communist concept of

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designating an enemy and mobilizing the 
entire society to “struggle” against it.

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In this case, the enemy is obviously the US.

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According to the article, “The 
Party Central Committee

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had already anticipated the long-term 
nature of the China-U.S. rivalry

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and proactively laid out plans for 
future major power competition.”

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In other words, the CCP is in it for the 
long haul.

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The gist of the article is

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warning that the US-China struggle will 
not be over quickly,

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but that the CCP,

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sorry, “the people” will ultimately 
win over the imperialist Americans.

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So that’s what the CCP is saying.

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But what’s 
actually happening in China right now?

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Well, since it’s an authoritarian state 
with total control

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over its domestic media

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and a huge online censorship apparatus,

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we’re 
not going to get a totally clear picture.

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But we do know some things

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. And it 
looks like the CCP is saying one thing,

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and doing another. What a surprise!

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First, you know that earlier this month,

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the 
CCP put additional tariffs on US imports,

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in retaliation for US tariffs.

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But now, 
it looks like the CCP is going to exempt

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some US products from those tariffs,

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because they really really need them.

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“Those products include certain semiconductors and

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chipmaking equipment, medical 
products and aviation parts.”

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They could also exempt chemicals like ethane,

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which China uses to make a ton of plastics.

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Does that sound like a compromise,

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even though 
the CCP swore they would never do that?

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Yeah, they’re going to be flexible with their 
tariffs on US goods when they need to be

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—but they don’t want people to know about it.

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In fact, Caijing Magazine, which was 
the first to report that China was

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going to exempt semiconductors,

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seems to have been censored.

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Meanwhile, Chinese export companies

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are trying to survive the US tariffs.

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Some smaller factories are temporarily pausing 
operations

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or even completely shutting down.

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(Others are trying to get around tariffs by using 
transshipment—

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for example sending products to be assembled in countries like Cambodia

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and 
Vietnam, which then get re-routed to the US.

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There are even reports of Chinese companies asking

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Indian exporters to fill their 
orders for their US customers.

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The idea is the Indian companies 
would fulfill the orders,

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and pay the Chinese companies a commission.

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And foreign companies are trying to move 
their manufacturing out of China, too.

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For example, Apple is trying to 
source all of its US iPhones

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from India instead of China.

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And they’re 
looking to do it as soon as next year.

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The CCP isn’t a fan of that idea though.

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CCP officials are trying to stop Apple 
from moving their iPhone manufacturing equipment

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out of China. Yeah, they’re 
kind of taking machines hostage.

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Well, that’s awkward.

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Foreign clothing manufacturers are 
also trying to get out of China.

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Or even sending Chinese workers to 
factories

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in the Philippines or Vietnam.

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And factory owners from Hong Kong and Taiwan

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are trying to avoid physically being at their own factories in China

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, because they’re worried 
about being kidnapped by Chinese authorities.

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Ok, so forget taking machines hostage.

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People 
are worried China will take people hostage.

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Wouldn’t be the first time.

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So doing business in China is like 
staying at the Hotel California.

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You can check out anytime you 
like, but you can never leave.

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Side note: I don’t know if it still is, but in 
the early 2000s,

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Hotel California was one of the most popular Western songs in China

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. You could 
not get away from it.

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And I have no idea why.

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Anyway, the point is,

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Chinese factories are 
trying to get their products out of China,

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and foreign companies are trying to 
get their factories out of China.

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Which means, the US tariffs are…actually working.

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At least in terms of decoupling 
US manufacturing from China.

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And that’s good news for Americans.

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Because 
we don’t want our economy to be held hostage

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by a regime that will…literally hold 
people hostage to get what they want.

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Especially since the CCP also sees 
America

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as a threat to its survival.

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And it’s not just me saying that.

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Here’s 
Cold War historian Professor Stephen Kotkin.

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“The existence of the American 
system ipso facto threatens

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the survival of the Communist Party

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because it's a 
freer—it's an open, successful alternative.”)

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Kotkin goes on to say that it doesn’t 
matter what US policy is toward China,

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the CCP will always see the 
US as standing in its way.

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That’s pretty clear from their 
latest propaganda narrative.

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“China won’t kneel down”)

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So what happens now?

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The CCP refuses 
to back down, at least publicly.

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But companies are actually leaving China

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and China’s economy is getting wrecked.

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Can the CCP actually force people to eat 
bitterness and ride out the trade war?

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Yes they can, because they’re an authoritarian state

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. But that doesn’t mean there 
won’t eventually be consequences.

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Look at what happened during 
the Zero Covid lockdowns.

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Eventually Chinese people reached a breaking point

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and started to protest.

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Which is the 
Communist Party’s worst nightmare.

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The best case scenario for the CCP

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is that 
the US simply backs down from all the tariffs,

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under pressure from various interest groups.

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To do that, the CCP needs to convince 
Americans that China

00:11:47.278 --> 00:11:49.420
is too strong to get hurt,

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and America is the one getting screwed.

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In other words, China needs 
to win the narrative war.

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Which means these posts 
are exactly what it needs.

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And unfortunately the Trump 
administration

00:12:03.143 --> 00:12:05.880
doesn’t seem to be doing a good job of telling Americans 


00:12:05.880 --> 00:12:09.680
why tariffs on China are important.

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Maybe it’s just me, but

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I don’t think we 
should have a country that sees America

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as its enemy making everything from 
our children’s toys to our medicines.

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But you know what they don’t make?

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Our toilet paper. USA number…2!!!

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And if you liked this episode,

00:12:29.616 --> 00:12:32.960
remember 
to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:34.571
so you can see all of our episodes,

00:12:34.571 --> 00:12:36.409
even when 
YouTube doesn’t want you to.

00:12:36.409 --> 00:12:38.240
The link is below.

00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.120
Thanks for watching. I’m Chris 
Chappell. See you next time.