My China Watcher Channel List & Media Commentary

I've accumulated a regular list of China Watcher channels over the last year or so. Here's my regular rotation:

• The China Show: This is the creation of the ADV China duo, and they stream live on Fridays at 4pm Central Time. Clips from these streams go up on a separate channel, China Fact Chasers, and both men put up topic videos on their own channels (SerpentZA, laowhy86). The ADV China channel (which is archival footage from their years in the Mainland) is still up.

  These two men speak Mandarin fluently, are married to (and have children with) Mainlander women, and combined have 30 years of first-hand experience with China and how it really works. That's why they are so effective at countering CCP propaganda, especially the stuff put out by CCP Shills, and they show recepits (in video form, hence why ADV China is a big deal; that's the recepit pile). Aside from that, they are shitlibs and never apply any of the skepticism to anything Western, which comes out now and again in their live shows; so long as you see them in their lane, you can rely on getting good info.

• Lei's Real Talk: Lei is an expat Mainlander that defected to the West. Mandarin is her first language, and she too knows how China actually works. Her perspective allows her to break down how the CCP operates in terms common Westerners can understand, and she is also good about showing recepits. She streams a few times a week and does stand-alone videos on the same channel. Always a pleasant and informative time with her. She's also a liberal, but she also rarely slips out of her lane so you rarely notice it.
• China Update: A business-focused channel by a Westerner expat in Shanghai that is not afraid to tell it like it is. He walks a knife-edge because he is monitored, but he also shows recepits in his reports and that shields him from most dangers from the CCP; because he sticks to what officials says in public, and cites available data, to a foreign audience (i.e. not Mainlanders in China) he skirts the "starting quarrels/spreading rumors" statute just enough to avoid getting pinched.
• China Observer/China Insights: Channels that show video that covers the same topics that the other do, but also shows locals talking about it (with subtitles). This is a supplement to the three above, good to show by example things talked about such as how horrible Chinese construction is ("Tofu-dreg") or how terrible the economy is.
• China Uncensored: This is a biased pro-Western channel, no doubt about it, but nothing shown here is contracted by the insider channels above. Not that they give the US any slack; they have a US-centric sister channel all about that. They are pro-Taiwan and pro-Falun Gong, and being more sensationalist the recepits are lacking; they make up for it with interviews with people the other channels would or could not get.

This means that I avoid CCP media as much as I avoid Globohomo. Just as I shun CNN, the BBC (and its Commonwealth counterparts), ABC/NBC/CBS (and their sister networks) so do I shun CGTN and other CCP outlets. I also avoid "independent" pro-CCP channels like iChongging; they're CCP Shills, some of whom (like i-boy) are paid agents of a hostile foreign powers. The China Show is at its best when it hammers this beat and exposes them.

These White Monkeys (as they're known) sucker well-intended dissidents into becoming assets of the CCP Shillsphere by conning them into buying into the CCP line. This is where I put The Duran, for example, and even Gonzolo Lira. I put Brian Bertilec and The New Atlas into the agent camp, because it's through him that those two got sucked in. (Lira sure ain't getting paid by either Beijing or Moscow; have you see his arrest photo?)

(Yes, Moscow plays this game also, but the CCP is better at it by far. Yes, I'm starting to collect Russia Watcher outlets; no I don't have a list to share yet.)

What Western dissidents need to realize is that all three Imperial powers play the Narrative Warfare game. Globohomo is the master, for certain, but dissidents need to see that Russia and China are no better.

The utility to grasp is this: all three powers lie about themselves and tell the truth about their enemies. That's the sickening thing about it all; when someone at the State Department talks about the Uigher Genocide, they're don't need to exaggerate. Both Russia and the CCP is getting better at hitting back with airing Globohomo laundry in response- but they fail to grok what actually does damage and what does not because their institutional Theory of Mind is dogshit (they do not, contrary to claims, understand the West), which is why their attacks hit like wet noodles so often.

This is also why dissidents need to build their own media outlets and networks. All of the established ones are held by rival Thralls of Empire competing for his favor.