Democracy in China: Two Sessions explained
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Outside of China, folks simply don't understand China's political system, so we're going to try to demystify the whole process. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Hey everyone, my name is Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. Although today I'm joining you from Xi'an. Today's guest is Fernando Munez Bernal. Fernando is a journalist and influencer with more than 42,000 followers on YouTube. It's probably more now because that was the number I got when we created this show.

He creates content in both English and Spanish. He is a regular contributor for CGTN, The Global Times, CRI, China Daily, and now is a reporter for, I'm going to say this wrong, but I'm going to try, Alianza Informatica, which is Latin America.

Welcome back to the Bridge to China, Fernando. Thank you, Jason. Thank you very much. And thank you to all of those who are watching and listening to us today. Before we get to the political system, I actually wanted to ask you a different question. Have you seen Najatu? Yes. Yes, I did. I went to see it about a week ago. It just come out. We came back from a holiday and we went to see it. And it's just a very amazing movie to watch. It's quite long as a movie.

But it's very vivid and it's very different from a lot of cartoons or this kind of animation movies that you see in the West. So I invite anybody to go and watch it because it's very unique. And it's interesting for me to see how it has been received so well here in China. The story of Ne Zha is very similar actually to the story of the director.

He's also had a very long journey. So it's a great movie to see and great to support the work of so many animators here in China. So, yeah, if you have a chance, just go watch it. I actually had to go see it without subtitles. So my Chinese isn't that great. I was really struggling. But my impression was that it was made for kind of adults. It's very...

very adult in its content. It seems to be about a metaphor for geopolitical situations. It's very deep and very complicated, very unlike the kind of content that we see out of the Walt Disney Company, for example. But let's switch gears. I want to ask you about China's political system and trust. Various studies have come to support the idea that Chinese people trust their government. And

I guess the first question I have before we get into the details is, does this reflect your experience on the ground? When you talk to regular Chinese people, because you live here in China, do the studies that have been done saying this reflect your reality of talking to people in China? I think they do. What?

What I always tell people is when you doubt this, what you should do is talk to a 50 year old person here in China because he'll tell you all the transformation, all the changes and all how their lives has changed. So that's a person that is going to be replying to some of these surveys and is going to tell people, yeah, of course we trust because look how far we've come.

There's something that a lot of people don't understand that operates differently here in China and the West is that in China, the government earns the trust of people by delivering. In the West, it's more like

Give me your trust and then we'll see what happens. So it's these promises versus accomplishments. So of course, there is a lot of trust because there's a lot to show. I think that most Chinese people look around and what they see is all these different changes, the different reforms, the different protections.

Everything that takes place in China is pushing in the positive direction, in a direction of betterment. So, of course, that builds up trust. I found it very interesting when I looked at some of the statistics. There were some statistics that did this in 2023 and it showed that China was at 85% just behind Saudi Arabia at 86%.

And at the same time, the US was at 22 with 40%, way below the average, which was 51% that day. So that year, sorry. So yeah, you can name so many different studies from Edelman to Statista to the Harvard studies.

All these show that there is great trust in government and in media as well here in China. So if you're going to question one, you've got to question all of them. I guess my question is because when I post these studies or I talk about these studies, people say, oh, yeah, but Chinese people, when they take surveys, are forced to

to say that they trust the government. If they don't say that they trust the government, then they're going to get arrested and put into, you know, I don't know, whatever their imagination is telling them. So when you talk to like normal Chinese people, would they tell you, yeah, like, you know, I'm a, I'm a patriot or I love China or I love, you know, the PRC or I love the CPC. Do they say that kind of thing? Or, um,

Do they say, oh, shh, they're listening? No, I think that what I've experienced is that because I've seen it also on TV and I've talked to people on the streets and all the different provinces of China that I've traveled to. And then people have different perspectives. They have like a personal view and they have a view of the government as a nation.

So as a nation, all they say is very positive because really it's all very positive. But as a person, we all have grievances. We all have issues that we don't like. We all have things that we don't appreciate, right?

that we have complaints about. So when you put a camera in front of people, they put that personal view away. That's not their role. They're here to represent and they represent the nation. But nobody is punishing them for their views. Nobody is telling them what to say. It's interesting because when you walk around, you're basically seeing people display all their grievances. They talk about the things that they don't like,

the things that they dislike. But at the same time, you also feel some patriotism, which is very different from nationalism. I don't think that there is nationalism here in China.

People are very welcoming here. They're far from exclusionary. There is this principles, they're called the five principles of peaceful coexistence that are taught to children from very early age. So far from nationalism. What I do see is patriotism. So it's just the people don't air their grievances when you put a camera in front of them. That's how I feel. That's what I think.

So, yeah, it's...

Very different from what people see on camera because they're just telling you how they feel about the nation. But if you talk to them about their problems, then they'll just share with you all the things that they don't like. You have issues. I have issues. We all have issues. So, yeah, it's no different from any other country. You know, my own experience is that when you're talking to people like out having a beer or having lunch, dinner, whatever, people do, you know, they're very candid.

and they talk about things. One thing that I would like to see someday in the future is two-wheeled electric vehicles or motorized vehicles like motorcycles not on the sidewalks. Because, you know, there's old people pushing their wife on a wheelchair or there's children playing there. And I don't like it that delivery guys especially are zooming by on sidewalks. They should be using the streets, in my humble opinion. I know I'm just a guest here in China. But, you know...

I can say that. What I mean by that is I can say that in this video, which will be aired on the radio in China, and I can say that publicly. I can say that at a dinner. I can say that when I'm having beer with someone. It's not a problem to complain about some aspect of life in China, and there's no problem. No one's coming to get me. So...

I think that, yeah. You can say it to authorities. Like I have a, I have an issue, a very personal issue with drivers, driving licenses. There's a new category of driving license called the C6 for trailers. When we talked about in the past, we talked about that and it's not possible for me to take that theory exam in English.

It doesn't exist. So when I had this experience, I very clearly stated my disapproval to this situation. The same happens with motorcycle driving license test. It doesn't exist in English. There is the issue of native speakers, non-native speakers not being able to teach English in China, for example.

I asked the question to some of my friends in government. I said like, so explain to me what a Chinese English teacher is, if not a non-native. You can talk about these things. You can say what you feel is wrong and nothing is going to happen. It's very different if you are, I don't know, violent or aggressive or whatnot. But people talk about these things and change does happen. Things do happen sometimes.

in their own time, in their own time. They don't happen when you want them to happen, but they happen in time. And that's why it's important to keep an eye on all the changes that take place in China because things change very, very quickly, not only in infrastructure, but also in reforms and new laws and changes in regulation. You're here on the ground, then you're keeping an eye on what's happening. But if you're outside, you really don't see what's taking place. It's a very dynamic place in that sense.

You're listening to The Bridge. You know, I also want to talk about the people's perspective of the Communist Party of China, because there's a museum I like to frequent. It's near a very good cafe I like to go to. And the museum is free itself. It's in Wuhan. It's a museum of when the Communist Party was hiding there.

while it was fighting against the Japanese. And I go there and sometimes I, you know, everyone there is going of their own accord. It's usually like moms bringing their children to learn about history. But there's like this plaque of the party that's been there since like 1930.

And so a lot of the kids will stand in front of the plaque and make this fist, which is like part of like, you know, celebrating the Communist Party of China. And the children are always like beaming and moms like smiling and taking a picture. And, you know, when I hear people outside of China saying that there's oppression or whatever, I just remember things like this. And it's obvious to me being on the ground in China that no such thing. People are very proud of

of, you know, not just the government, but of the CPC also. And so when I see these people who've never been to China from Arkansas or something online saying, oh, everyone's oppressed. I'm just, how do you convey to this person who has this perspective on China, like that it's not even remotely like their perspective. It's not even, it's like completely

complete opposite of what they've been told. And it's just very strange to me. You know, you've also been here. Yeah, go ahead. What I think is that is very different from what they are used to. They're used to a system that is easily represented as a tug of war, as opposed to what we have here in China, which is a dragon boat. That's my own image.

So everybody's on board. Well, everybody's on board and everybody's going in the same direction. Everybody's pushing in the same direction. But in other countries, you have these two party systems where I want to stay in power. So the other party is going to say, oh, I'm going to do everything I can to oppose that so I can go back to power. And then there's this tug of war. It's this, I'm pushing in my direction, I'm pushing in this direction and nothing. Just ask yourself, which will take you further forward?

fastest, a tug-of-war or a dragon boat?

And that image is what I present to people when they talk to me about this. So, yeah, it is much more effective. It is much more responsive. And the thing is that that direction that the Dragon Boat takes is chosen via deliberation. People talk about it. People discuss it. People research it. But everyone is pushing in the same direction. It's not a tug-of-war. You ain't going nowhere in a tug-of-war.

Now, that's my perspective. That's how I see it. Now, from a Chinese person's standpoint, I think that they see it in a very paternalistic way. It's a lot to do with the trust that they feel in government. They trust the government as you would trust your parents. It's, in a way, kind of like an expression of chastity.

Chinese filial piety that is actually integrated into Chinese law and governance for centuries. I think that the first time that that happened was during the Han Dynasty, some 100 or 200 years BC. And it's all about respect. It's all about obedience. It's all about caring and supporting your family, your neighbor, your community. It's about worshiping ancestors. It's about family harmony.

So all this is integrated in how they see the government. How does it represent in today's world, in a modern world that we are living here in China? Well, there's lots of cultural practices that are kept and we've all experienced. For example,

There is the Qingming Festival, the Tong Sui Bing Festival. That's something that's hundreds and hundreds of years old and still maintained today. And it's that idea of family, that idea of respect, that idea of worship for ancestors that has come down through the centuries and again is reflected in how they feel about their government.

It's, in my opinion, something that has to do with a civilization. It's connected to who they are as Chinese people. You cannot separate that from who they are. Again,

generalizing. There might be exceptions, but to the great part, you see that sense of respect. Like whenever they're in trouble, who do they call? The police. That's what you tell children. Like whenever you have an issue or problem, just go to the police. And there's all these videos and all these social media posts where you see it actually happening and taking place. They are the people who are trusted and who are going to protect you and help you. Government and authority here are there for you and

And that is not something we can say about other countries, unfortunately. You know, you remind me of a joke. I don't know if I can tell the joke well, but my wife loves this joke. It's about a bunch of children. And I think this is actually this might have actually happened. I'm not sure. Maybe this is my wife's story from her childhood. I'm not sure. But a bunch of children are in a classroom and the teacher basically says, oh, you know,

Each one of us can take on a responsibility to help the people. What can you do for the people? One kid's like, I want to be a firefighter to help the people. And another person, I want to be a doctor to help the people. Another person, I want to be a police officer to help the people. Another person...

I want to be the people because everyone's taking care of them. That's a pretty smart kid, yeah. Do you want to be Steve Jobs? Do you want to be? No, I want to be their wife or their kid. I think it tells a lot about Chinese society that, you know, a lot of kids want to grow up to be something that helps society. Can you remind us how long have you actually been living here in China? Well, I arrived on December 28th of 2001. So 24 years. Wow. Yeah.

wow wow that you remember the date yeah yeah that was a change of life so i do remember that day don't ask me about other people's birthdays and things like that i'm horrible at that but that day yes well i hope you remember your wife's birthday that's the important one so okay every year china has this uh

meeting of two groups of people two sessions which is the National People's Congress or the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress or CPP CC and they meet

What is Two Sessions? Well, as you said, is the meeting of these two very important bodies, right? They meet every year and what they do is just they discuss different issues, different things that are taking place in the country, and they make decisions on China's future. It's that simple.

Now, what is interesting to see is the actual composition of these two bodies. You have the NPC, which unlike in other countries is unicameral. It's about 3000 members, if I'm not mistaken, and they're in charge of, well, discussing the constitution, the different laws that are going to be passed, the budget, what takes place with the Supreme Court, etc., etc. There's a lot of things that take place at the NPC.

Now, who goes there? It's usually members of government in all the different provinces and regions, members of minorities, members of the military as well.

And you can be anywhere in, what should we say, the income bracket. You have people who clean streets. You have people who lead companies. You have people who are celebrities. You have people who are doctors, teachers. You get chosen because of the ideas and the proposals that you have brought forth that actually are helping to build the country, are helping to change the country. So it's...

is quite different just in the number of members is quite different and the idea of representation is extremely important to them.

Then you've got the, it's a tongue twister for me, is the CPCC, right? Which for most people who don't know this, you should understand it as an advisory body. They don't have like too much legal power, but they present different ideas, different voices.

a lot of that what they do is supervision um always side of government and all these different grievances that we were talking about are actually brought to these meetings and it's where they sit together and say like this is what's happening these are the problems that we have these are the solutions that we have researched and

Again, they agree. And at the end of these two sessions, then there is some communication that takes place. This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing about that. This is what we're doing about this. It's a long meeting. I think it's almost two weeks. And it's...

It's a very important meeting because basically that's where that dragon boat sets the direction and then everybody gets to work. A lot of people like to refer to it as a like a rubber stamp meeting, but nothing could be further from the truth because what you are actually seeing there is how they all converge in this place with issues.

research, information, and solutions. So it's all taking place right there. It's a super important meeting and well, they've been having them for many, many, many years and they're very effective in deciding course of action. Changes in the economy, changes in legislation, changes in this and that, they all come from these meetings and it's

something that represents democracy in China, something that we're often told online and by critics of China that China does not have.

But that's exactly what it is. If anybody is worried about democracy in China, just look at the two sessions. It's taking place right there before your eyes. You know, I think it's difficult for people in the West to understand China's version of democracy where everyone is included in these meetings. Because I wanted, before I continue this, I was also looking at the CPCC's makeup.

And it includes all these small parties, like, you know, there are democratic parties and parties representing Taiwan and all kinds of stuff that are represented in this meeting. And every ethnic group has guaranteed amount of seats. So there's every one of 50, 56 ethnic groups, including the Han majority, but also the other 55 minority groups are all represented all in, like you said, you know, plumbers and construction workers and,

in teachers and doctors and scientists, they're all meeting to talk about how to move forward in this consultative process where the NPC will ultimately make the law based on the feedback they're getting from all strata of society. Whereas in the West,

You get rich people, I don't know about in Colombia, but in the United States, I'll just use the United States as an example. We have very rich people who buy our campaigns and lobby our politicians, and we get to vote for one of two figureheads every four years and nothing gets accomplished. In my thinking, as an American politician,

in China, I think China's process looks more democratic. And again, we go back to your first comment about outcomes. China has, you know, life is getting better. Life is improving. We can actually see on the ground every...

couple of years that things are better, that people are better off, that people have more disposable income, that there's high-speed rail, that there's improvements in technology and industry and science. And whereas the United States is basically just like a car with wheels in the mud spinning, and it's not going anywhere, but everyone in the car seems very angry. It's a total war. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I know from visiting, I've actually visited the center in Beijing where they answer the calls for one, two, three, four, five, because most people don't know this outside of China.

but you can just pick up a phone, like the phone in the hotel behind me or your cell phone. And you can dial one, two, three, four, five and complain about anything. You could complain about a government policy, but also you could just be like my neighbors too loud. And they'll figure out a solution. You know, if it's your neighbors too loud, maybe a police officer will be like, Hey sir, can you keep it down? Or, you know, if it's a government policy, maybe they'll go in, they'll file some paperwork with the proper authorities. And there's also a website. I understand you spend a little time on that website, uh,

What is that? What can you do there? Let me tell you one short thing about 12345 that a lot of people don't understand. This is local. Each city has its own team that handles all these things. And there's one aspect before I tell you about the website.

is that there is a legal duty to handle your case. There's a legal duty to communicate with you. I've had instances where I called and I say, hey, I have this issue, I have that issue, and they follow up. They have a duty to follow up, to call you after two, three days, like how was your situation handled? Are you satisfied with this? I'm like, sorry, am I paying for this service? Well, through my taxes probably, but that's exactly what takes place.

Now, with regards to the website, there's actually, when people have grievances or when people have ideas, suggestions, things that they think, oh, this could improve the country, right? Or my region, my province, my city. What they do is they go to a website called gov.cn. I think it's www.gov.cn.

And in there, there are forums where they actually can type in whatever issue they have or whatever idea or suggestion they have and submit it to the representatives that are going to go to the two sessions. It's a way that people can engage with

higher levels of government with their particular issues. What happens is that a lot of this communication is handled by regional, those who are related to whatever issue, not necessarily go to a national discussion unless it's pertinent.

So that's fantastic. That's how it works. Anybody can actually send a message to the representatives that are going to be meeting at the two sessions and tell them this is an idea that I have or this is an issue that needs a solution. I'm actually going to do an interview tomorrow because.

some people want to know if I have any ideas. So I'm going to be recording a couple of ideas that are going to be read to some of the representatives of Guangdong, where I live, and we'll see where that goes. I don't know, right? We just get the ball rolling, see where it goes. So even a person like me can find ways to communicate what we think is a good idea, is a good plan, is a good change, is a good

way of improving China. That's that website. It's a great website that actually is very democratic. As long as you have a Chinese ID, you can send a message to your representative and let them know what you would like addressed during the two sessions.

I'm sure this is not unique to China, but we're talking here about a lot of people who don't understand Chinese systems. So this is one of those tools that are very important to explain to people. This is how it happens, actually. You're listening to The Bridge.

I understand, and we've talked about it briefly before, that you had an effect on the signage in the city in which you live. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. Basically, I noticed that there's a lot of jokes on the internet about, or there used to be, not anymore, not so many, about incorrect signage and making fun of China because their English signage on the roads was incorrect.

So I felt, well, maybe I could help because that's like my line of work. So one day I just took to the streets, started driving around, taking photos of the signage and put together a book. And I tried to explain like the different categories of issues, as in there's issues of mistranslation, there's issues of, you

You know how Chinese like to be very poetic. So sometimes I describe things in very poetic ways that it's a challenge to translate. And the other issue, or the most common issue, is lack of quality control. And I know this for a fact because I also participated in a signage project here in the city, something called the Green Way, which is like 3,000 kilometers of bicycle path around the whole province.

And the government from Beijing dictated that it had to be bilingual. I was in charge of my city. Wow. Not the whole project, but just my city, which wasn't still something like 300 kilometers or 200 kilometers of signage that had to be bilingual. So we worked for about eight months, just putting everything together, like itemizing everything and translating and making sure that everything that we sent to the factories was proper.

And that's what we did. The problem is that the person who gets this at the factory, who has to take our little, I don't know, Excel or Word document and put it into their own AutoCAD system, right? There's going to be copy paste, copy paste, copy paste. And it's going to make mistakes. It's going to leave something out. It's going to, right? And that's what happened. So my suggestion at the time was, hey, why don't you send me to the factories?

I just sit there and go through everything that we've done and make sure that what they're doing in their own software is proper. And basically there was no budget for that part. And I was like, okay.

And in the end, there were a few mistakes here and there. And that's when basically a lot of people started telling the government, like, why are we not fixing this once and for all? Why are we not doing a definite, a final solution? And there was a lot of discussion in society and

And a lot of people were calling for me to become an honorary citizen because I was actually trying to improve the city and giving effective and positive feasible solutions to what was taking place. So it actually changed how things work in the city and

And that'll be the honorary citizen of Dongguan, sorry. So there is room for, even for foreigners, to bring forth ideas, suggestions, and betterment of the country. And they are very receptive. They're very receptive.

when the time is right. That actually meant from 2007 when I submitted the book to 2010. That's three years. So it doesn't happen when you want it. It happens when it happens. Well, I mean, that's pretty good for any government. Three years. I wish I was. So a lot of the problems in the United States can be solved in three years. And you're like, oh, that took a little while in the United States. I

I remember being in high school in the early 90s and I wrote a paper about how California was eminently building high-speed rail. It's 2025 and it's still being built. So, yeah, sure. Okay. What does it mean to be democratic? What does that actual term mean? Well, I think when people ask this question in the West vis-a-vis China, it's

They're a little bit confused between direct democracy and representative democracy. What we have in China is representative democracy. What you have in America is direct. You go, you vote, and hey, I did my duty. But it goes beyond just that here in China. I think that the main thing that could define democracy is rule of law. There is law that protects the rights of people.

that protects the sovereignty of people, the sovereignty of the nation, transparency in their processes. I had the opportunity to do something for CGTN the other day in which I reported on a village here in Dongguan that had reached 10 billion yuan in assets. And you're like, hold on, what do you mean? Well, basically...

The village actually deputizes the leaders of the village to invest whatever assets they have. So the land, for example, is rented. The different projects are allocated to different companies and they are supervised and there's oversight. This city, sorry, this village, their assets had already reached 10 billion yuan. And it's a tiny little village,

right in the corner of my city bordering Shenzhen on three different sides. And the people are doing phenomenal. So every year you go and there's actually boards with all the different accounting of the money that has been spent, the money has been received, the investments that have been made.

I visited, and this happens everywhere. So let me tell you, I visited just a few days ago with our good friend, Jerry Gray, Zhongshan. I went to a very small village where they still have this community village service.

They're farmers, okay? So people get paid for how many days they work in the field. It's communal fields. So, oh, and they post the different tasks that they have to do. Oh, we need to clean the gutters. Okay, so who wants to go? You write your name, how many hours did you work, and that's how much you get paid for all the work that you've done. This is done on billboards in the city council.

square. So that transparency is something that defines democracy because you work, you make an effort, but you also see the results of all your work. And well, like people like you and me, we don't do that, but at least our taxes. So I think that that's what democracy is for me. Having a rule of law that is going to protect your rights and protecting

the transparency to see what the government is doing with your work, your effort, your taxes. And I think that, well, all you have to do is just walk outside here in China to see where that money is going and how well it's being spent.

It's a wonderful country that is living in, I don't know, 2050, 2100, as opposed to other countries that are still catching up with 5G and high-speed rail and things like that. You mentioned the tomb-scooping festival, something China has held on to for hundreds of years and kept replicating in this familial piety. One thing I think is interesting is that the West has had this experiment with a very specific kind of demarcation

democracy. And it's only just been going on for a few hundred years, really. And China is this civilization that is 5,000 years old. So I oftentimes feel as a Westerner watching Western politicians try to naysay China that they need to be more like the West. You realize that the United States is a brand new country, basically, and China has all

thousands of years of actual history that you can read. You know, you can pick up a book in China that was written 2000 years ago and a Chinese person can still read that script and they can actually still read what it's just.

How can Western politicians be so arrogant as to think that they have the answer for a country they basically know very little about? I mean, I've lived here for 12 years. I still don't understand China. I mean, it's it's there's so many layers of culture and it's so complicated. So for some person in Washington, D.C., to have some arrogant attitude about how China should be operating itself, according to his whim, really kind of irks me.

You know what I mean? It's baffling. It's where do you get this idea that you would be able to run China better than the Chinese by looking at today's results? And in the last, well, right now, we'd say 50, 60 years, only in the last...

few years have we seen this development and this growth with whatever they had, right? They didn't have a very easy hand from the formation of the Republic in 1949. They haven't had an easy hand, but came 1979, 1980, and it just took off. Look what they've done. What has your country done?

with cards that were not the best. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the world is still dealing with what Europe did to them. And the last three or four hundred years of colonial exploitation and imperialism have left a lot of countries poor that used to be rich. I mean, India actually used to be one of the richest countries in the world. And then along came the British, and it's not anymore. But, you know, China also went through that process of being exploited by the West. And

it seems to have come out of it very quickly compared to a lot of other places. Once China had a more fair hand, it was like, okay, the WTO is okay. You can go ahead and try and see how you do. China would just exploded with growth. The most growth of any major nation in the history of the world. It's just

But I wanted to ask you about minorities, like the Zhuang Hui, Uyghurs, the Miao. How are their voices heard when the Han majority is like 90% plus? Well, the same way, the same way that just regular people are heard. First of all, they get elected.

This idea of governance by representation is really important. So each community will choose a leader that is going to be as effective as they can. If you're not effective, we're not voting for you next time. So the person learns to be effective.

in your small little village and then he represents you before the city and then he represents you before the province and then he represents you before the NPC. So that representation is very important no matter if you are a majority, no matter if you are a minority. In fact, if you're a minority, there are more chances

that this small community is going to be represented in an NPC other than, I don't know, in a province like Guangdong when there's millions and millions of people from different provinces. So that's how it works. But there's also, as we talked about, there's the website, there's one, two, three, four, five. There's multiple ways for people in minorities to express their grievances and

And to basically communicate what the issues are, what their expectations are, what their ambitions are. And then the work that the government does is make sure that they can satisfy those requests. They're guaranteed, as we talked about, is the protection of the rights of all the people, not just the hands. You know, I also see another argument.

about China's political system that comes from like online trolls and bickering. Sometimes I'll make a really good point. I'll be like, you know, here's China's high speed rail travels 350 kilometers per hour.

The government loses a little bit, so the SOEs make up for that. So everyone in China is able to go anywhere they want freely throughout the entire country at a very affordable price. And they can go there very quickly and it has very little negative environmental impact because it's not one of these planes that uses enormous amount of fossil fuel. You also have access to this high speed rail. People will be like, yeah, but I would rather have freedom.

So I wanted to ask you, what freedoms does China have that maybe the West doesn't have? We would probably, you and I, say that we have more freedoms here than in the West. And people are like, what are you talking about? Well, tell me a freedom that you don't have here. You can complain. You can protest.

China has protests all the time. You can. The only thing that you don't have is that universal vote, that universal suffrage for a leader. You do have the right to vote for the local leader. But other than that, we have the same rights and freedoms that we have in other places. Now, as a civilization, as a country, as a nation, they put different values before others. And harmony is one of those.

So if you're going to be disruptive of harmony, then there is going to be controls because for them, harmony is more important than anything else. A good example of this is what's taking place in Xiaohongshu, this red note.

A lot of these TikTok refugees came to the app and soon enough they realized like, hey, we cannot post offensive things. We cannot. You have to behave yourself in a way. What's wrong with that? I say to people.

But talking about freedoms, one of the freedoms, and I've talked about this for many, many years, because coming from Colombia, I feel it. I feel it in my core, the freedom from fear. When you are in China, you're not afraid. When you're in China, I can walk out with my cameras. I can leave my car parked.

outside in the street, my children can go out and play. You're not worried about violence and crime. Am I saying that there's no crime in China? No. I'm saying that proportionally speaking, in terms of the size of the population and the number of crime, the criminal events that take place, you cannot compare. You simply cannot compare. You visit a

A place called, a website called mappingpoliceviolence.org in the U.S. And you realize that police are killing one person every seven hours on average since 2013 that that website started keeping records. That's in America. And that's the police. You don't have it.

any of those here in China. So that freedom from fear goes a very long way. And sometimes when you go back home, you get counter culture shock. You're like, I forgot that I can't walk with my phone in my hand.

Oh, I forgot that I need to look left and right before I open the door of my car as I exit. I need... Do you know what I mean? When you live in a country like mine and in some places in America, I'm sure, you're constantly looking behind you, over your shoulder. You're always worried and concerned. There are things you cannot do. I would not walk at night alone if I'm a lady in a park. Go to any park at night here in China. What do you see? Just...

All the aunties doing their dancing, doing their singing, doing sports. We get to enjoy the country much more than people in my country. For example, you want to travel from one city to the other. You might be crossing sections of the country that are not safe and everybody knows and you just...

kind of like pray that everything is going to be okay. That doesn't exist here in China. There's just none of that. None of that. So that freedom from fear for me is very valuable as a person coming from Latin America. And I'm sure anybody in America would feel the same way. They would love their kids to go out and play in the park without fear. They would love their daughters and their wives to go out

at night without fear from, I don't know, getting mugged, getting shot, getting anything that can happen in places in the West. We have none of that. And we value that quite a lot, particularly when you have experienced the opposite. Yeah. And these statistics from the United Nations show that a person is 13 times more likely to be the

be the victim of a homicide in the United States than in China. So I understand that feeling also. It's one of the things I like most about being here. I can, you know, and a lot of people have made videos. There was a YouTube video someone made where they took their laptop, opened it, turned it on and left.

And then from a very far distance away, they were filming for like a couple of hours. No one even looked at it. Like in the United States, that would be gone in a minute, less than a minute. So it's a really interesting, really impressive experience. I'll tell you an experience from December 28th, 2001. I just arrived in China. The person that was going to pick me up, pick me up. We got on a taxi.

And I brought my laptop with all my lectures and all because I was working at a university in Colombia and I was going to work at a university here in Xi'an, actually. And we got off the taxi. I go to register at a hotel for the night before all the procedures at the school. And I turn around like, God damn it, my laptop. I left my laptop in the taxi. I haven't even turned around when the taxi driver is coming with my laptop. Oh, you left this in your car. And I'm like, what?

You don't know what this means to... You know what I'm saying? Yes. That in Colombia would have never happened. I have another interesting example.

When we were traveling with the RV trailer, we carry a lot of things inside, right? So whenever we got to a place, in this particular case, it was a park in Xinjiang, just a park. We parked in the parking lot and we took out our dishwasher. Sorry, a washing machine, not dishwasher. We took a washing machine and we put it outside because there's more room in the RV.

But then we were going to visit the Pamir Plateau. That was a two-day trip. So we left the cats in the RV, took the dog, went to the Pamir, had a lot of fun, came back to find the washing machine in the same place. This is an open parking lot next to a park in a place like Xinjiang. And we came back. Ah, our bicycles were also on the rack in front of the RV trailer. Everything was there.

nobody took what's not theirs. That was, and I made a video about that, a very short video about that. Hey, we've been gone for three days and look, come back to see the washing machine is still there. Is it worth a lot of money? I don't know. But in my country, that would not be the case. We would not be there three days later. There's a lot of videos in the United States on Instagram and other places where they show like people stealing people's porch packages. You know, Amazon drops a package off on their porch and then

People try to steal it as fast as they can. And I think that's really interesting because in China, there are these, you know, just, uh,

areas where whole communities that just drop the package off there. You know, the delivery guy drives up, he unloads a bunch of packages and leaves. And then sometimes the packages sit there for hours and hours and hours in the community. No one's watching. You go there and look for your package and maybe you find something that you ordered, maybe not, but, but they just sit there all day, every day, 24 hours a day. And there's,

millions of places like this all over China that are just completely open to the public and nothing disappears. It's crazy to think about. It's all about surveillance. And people in the West, they concern themselves a lot about surveillance. Oh, they're watching me. They're watching me.

Surveillance is a tool and what you create with that tool, it's the decision of the craftsman. That's it. You can make it surveillance for evil or surveillance for good. If you go to one of these delivery places where they bring your packages and whatnot, you put it in front of the machine, right? Tick, tick, scatter, but it's also looking at you. So if you're taking the package that does not belong to you, they'll find you. They

They don't know who you are, right? So it's protection for the people. It's really something that people misunderstand. Surveillance can be used for bad things. Surveillance can be used for good. Here in China, it's mostly used for good.

So, yeah, this example of the packages is a great, great example of just people don't do that. People don't steal. There's one thing that is talked about very little in the West is what kind of crime is there in China? And

Probably the most worrying crime in China is online fraud. That's the one that it's increasing and the government is trying to do everything they can to, well, slow it down, control it, stop it, eliminate it. This is why we don't have online anonymity. It's so important to not have online anonymity because if you're calling from a phone line, then...

We know who you are because your ID is registered with a phone company. And then we know these kind of things are seen as an impossibility in many countries in the West. Why do you want my information to protect you? But why do you want to serve you? Do you know what I mean? So it's a key thing in how you look at the use of different tools. For me, camera.

Cameras, surveillance, government asking me for my information. I don't mind it. Why? This circles back to your first question. Trust in government. I trust the government. They have earned my trust.

My trust in most countries is just give me your trust and I promise I'll try my best. That's what they do in the West. Here, you don't have any issues with that kind of dilemmas. You can trust a man and you see it, put it into effect. You know, it's really interesting because London also has a lot of cameras, but they still have very high crime. I think the way that surveillance is used matters.

considerably because it doesn't look like it's helping in a lot of other places around the world where they do have a lot of surveillance. Although in China, surveillance works. I also think it's not just surveillance itself. I think there's a cultural attitude that people generally...

are less inclined towards crime here. Maybe it's part of like Confucianism. I'm not really sure. But I wanted to ask you, how would you characterize the strengths of China's political system as compared to, say, the U.S., U.K. or even Colombia? The ability to deliver and the ability to get things done. China speed, as we call it.

And the ability to really listen at any level from local, village level, community level, city level, all levels. You see things happening and things changing and things getting better. I can walk out of my road and just relax.

Five days ago, they improved the separation, the divider on the street because it used to be an issue for people parking there. That's three days ago. That's local improvement of my life and the civility just by doing something. But these things also go to city level, to provincial level, country level. It's...

It's all the time improving, all the time getting better. So you can't complain. What would you like for the West to learn from and maybe try to replicate back in other countries? Or what can other countries learn from China's political system? What would you like to see some other countries replicate in the future?

in their nations. The one thing that I see that is very different is a lot of countries say that they're one nation, we're one country. Yeah, but the two parties keep you split. The two parties keep you divided. The two parties keep you busy and distracted and not pay attention to what is actually happening behind closed doors. Here in China, they truly are one nation. Everything is done for the country as one. Again,

that dragon boat, right? If countries in the West were able to identify and understand that these systems that are in place in our countries are designed to divide us when all we are is one country, when all we are is one nation, when together we are strong, but they divide us for a reason. That doesn't happen in China. How?

would a country in the West accomplish this? I don't have that answer. If I had that answer, I'd be president of Colombia already. But it's what I think is most significant in terms of differences in governance between China and other countries, how they would get their

I really don't have an answer to that. Thank you so much for your time, Fernando. No, no, no. Thank you, Jason. And it's great to talk to you once again. And to all of you listening, thank you for waiting until the end of this podcast. If you want to add to this conversation, please email us at welovethebridge at gmail.com. Tell us we're right. Tell us we're wrong. We just want to hear what you have to say. Thank you for your time, listeners. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.