China’s Most Powerful Weapon Is NOT What You Think
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of China Uncensored, Chris Chappell discusses the Chinese government's strategy of renaming places both inside and outside China to control narratives and territorial claims. He highlights instances in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet, and Xinjiang, emphasizing the political and cultural implications of these name changes. Chris also promotes the digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall project, encouraging global support for Hong Kong's democracy. He touches on the CCP's influence in various sectors, including video games, and invites viewers to support the show on Patreon.
Takeaways
- 📜 The Chinese government is renaming places inside and outside China as part of a strategy to control narratives and territorial claims.
- 🚶♂️ Five years ago, 2 million people in Hong Kong protested against the Hong Kong government and the CCP.
- 💻 China Uncensored partnered with the Hong Kong Democracy Council to create a digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall for global support.
- 📍 Place names matter significantly for national identity and geopolitics, as seen in Greece's protest against Macedonia's name change.
- 🇨🇳 The CCP has a history of renaming regions to assert control, including renaming the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China.
- 🗺️ In April, China renamed 30 locations in Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet, as part of its territorial claims.
- 🇹🇼 The CCP insists on calling Taiwan 'Chinese Taipei' internationally, despite Taiwan's official name being 'the Republic of China'.
- 🏔️ China has renamed Tibet as Xizang in official documents to reshape international perceptions.
- 🚸 The renaming in Xinjiang aims to sever Uyghurs from their history, culture, and identity.
- 🎮 Chinese game developers like Game Science are using games to spread China's soft power, but there are concerns about spying and the CCP's influence.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video by Chris Chappell on China Uncensored?
-The main topic of the video is the Chinese government's strategy of changing place names inside and outside China as part of a long-term effort to control the narrative and territorial claims.
What is the significance of the digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall mentioned in the video?
-The digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall is a platform created by China Uncensored in partnership with the Hong Kong Democracy Council to allow people around the world to show support for Hongkongers by writing digital post-it notes of support. It aims to gather 10,000 unique posts by the end of June.
How does the video illustrate the importance of place names?
-The video illustrates the importance of place names by highlighting historical and contemporary examples, such as the renaming of Constantinople to Istanbul, Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, and the recent Chinese renaming of locations in Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet. Place names are shown to be significant for national identity and geopolitical narratives.
What examples of name changes by the Chinese government are mentioned?
-Examples include the renaming of locations in Indian-controlled Arunachal Pradesh, now referred to by China as Zangnan, and the official replacement of 'Tibet' with 'Xizang' in Chinese and international contexts.
Why do place names matter in the context of international relations and national identity?
-Place names matter because they can reflect and influence national identity, territorial claims, and geopolitical power dynamics. Changing place names can be a tool for asserting control and rewriting history.
What concerns are raised about the renaming of places in Tibet?
-The video raises concerns that renaming Tibet to Xizang is part of an effort to reshape international perception and control the narrative about Tibet, obscuring human rights abuses and historical facts about Tibetan independence and cultural heritage.
How has the Chinese government used name changes as a part of its strategy in Xinjiang?
-The Chinese government has renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, replacing culturally significant names with ones like 'Unity Village' and 'Red Flag Village,' aiming to sever Uyghurs from their history and culture as part of a broader strategy of control and assimilation.
What historical event related to Hong Kong is commemorated in the video?
-The video commemorates the 2019 Hong Kong protests, where 2 million people marched through the streets to protest against the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
What is the stated goal of the digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall project?
-The goal of the digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall project is to show global support for Hongkongers, aiming to collect 10,000 unique posts by the end of June and to demonstrate that the world has not forgotten Hong Kong.
What broader geopolitical message does the video convey about China's actions?
-The video conveys that China's actions of renaming places and controlling narratives are part of a broader strategy of territorial expansion and suppression of dissent, affecting regions like Arunachal Pradesh, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, and posing threats to international stability and human rights.
Outlines
🇨🇳 China's Place Name Strategy
The Chinese government is changing the names of places both inside and outside China as part of a strategy to control narratives about specific territories. This includes renaming locations in Indian-controlled Arunachal Pradesh and insisting Taiwan be called 'Chinese Taipei'. The CCP has historically used name changes as a tool for asserting control, as seen with Tibet being referred to as 'Xizang'. These changes are part of a broader approach to territorial acquisition and control, raising concerns about the impact on regional identities and geopolitics.
🏴 Name Changes and Cultural Erasure
The CCP's renaming efforts extend within China's borders, such as renaming Tibet to 'Xizang' to alter international perceptions. This move is part of a broader strategy to control narratives about regions like Tibet and Xinjiang. The renaming of Xinjiang, meaning 'new frontier,' underscores China's view of the region as needing 'civilization.' Recent reports reveal that Chinese authorities have renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages, severing cultural and historical ties, and highlighting the power of place names in shaping narratives and control.
📝 Supporting Hong Kong and Other Messages
Chris Chappell discusses the importance of supporting Hongkongers through the digital Lennon Wall project. He emphasizes the role of viewers in supporting China Uncensored through Patreon, which enables the show's continued critique of the CCP. He also addresses a viewer's question about Chinese video game developers and the potential for these games to spread Chinese soft power or spy on users. Chappell underscores the importance of staying vigilant about the CCP's influence across various industries.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
💡Arunachal Pradesh
💡Hong Kong Lennon Wall
💡Tibet / Xizang
💡Xinjiang / East Turkestan
💡Taiwan / Chinese Taipei
💡Narrative Control
💡Geopolitics of Naming
💡Cultural Erasure
💡Hong Kong Democracy Council
Highlights
The Chinese government is changing the names of places inside and outside China as part of a long-term strategy to control the narrative and fate of specific territories.
China Uncensored is partnering with the Hong Kong Democracy Council to create the first-ever digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall for global support for Hongkongers.
The new website, HKlennonwall.com, is designed to be completely anonymous, not tracking cookies or personal information, and aims to get 10,000 unique posts by the end of June.
Place names matter significantly for national identity and geopolitics, as demonstrated by the protests in Greece over the renaming of Macedonia.
The CCP renamed the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China in 1949 to assert its control and communist identity.
The CCP has renamed locations in Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet, to Chinese names, reflecting its territorial ambitions.
Taiwan is often referred to as 'Chinese Taipei' in international settings, despite its official name being 'the Republic of China.'
The CCP's renaming of places within China, such as changing 'Tibet' to 'Xizang,' is an effort to control the narrative and international perception of these regions.
The Chinese government’s attempts to rename places along its borders reflect its appetite for territorial acquisition.
The renaming of Xinjiang, originally East Turkestan, exemplifies the CCP's strategy to control narratives and erase local cultures and histories.
Chinese authorities have renamed hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns, severing Uyghurs from their history and culture.
Human rights organizations report that the renaming of Uyghur villages is part of a state-imposed policy aimed at erasing Uyghur identity.
Accepting the CCP’s recent name changes is equivalent to accepting its human rights violations and territorial aggression.
China Uncensored relies on support from viewers on Patreon to continue its work and projects like the digital Lennon Wall.
Chinese state-run media has labeled China Uncensored as 'disgraceful anti-China garbage,' highlighting the show's impact.
Transcripts
The Chinese government is changing the names of places inside and outside China.
This is part of a long-term strategy to control the narrative and the fate of
specific territories – sometimes without us even noticing. Welcome to China
Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell. Real quick before I begin,
5 years ago, Matt, Shelley, and I were in Hong Kong watching 2 million people
march through the streets to protest the HK government, and ultimately the CCP.
So to commemorate it, China Uncensored is partnering with the Hong Kong Democracy Council
to create the first ever digital Hong Kong Lennon Wall. A place for people around the world to
show their support for Hongkongers by writing digital post-it notes of support for Hong Kong.
Again that website is Hklennonwall.com I’ll leave a link below. We built this site with
a team of security experts. It’s completely anonymous. It does not track cookies or any
other personal information. It does not store IP addresses.
Our goal is to get 10,000 unique posts by the end of June:
To show Hongkongers that the world hasn’t forgotten them. And again, to piss off the
CCP. If you’ve already signed, please get your friends and family to sign as well.
On with the show. Old places constantly
get new names, but it is not always easy to make a new name stick. Many people still say
‘Turkey’ even though it’s now officially called ‘Türkiye. Many say ‘Macedonia’ instead of the
official ‘North Macedonia’. But with time, new names usually have a way of booting old ones out.
We no longer refer to Istanbul as Konstantinople, for example. Or
Zimbabwe as Rhodesia. And all anyone calls Sean “Diddy” Combs these days is, “...yikes.”
Many of us probably feel like it doesn’t really matter what we call a place as long
as people understand what place we’re referring to. But in many cases, place names matter,
and they matter a lot. In the Greek capital of Athens in 2019, as many as 100,000 people took
to the streets to protest a deal that the Greek government signed with the Macedonian government.
The deal was to settle a naming dispute and required Macedonia to officially change its
name to North Macedonia. The protesters believed the deal didn’t go far enough and therefore posed
a threat to the territorial and cultural integrity of the Greek region that is also called Macedonia.
That sounds a little paranoid. Why would the Greeks be afraid of hidden dangers in something?
Oh. Right. They invented that tactic.
Tensions boiled over with the demonstrations resulting in clashes between protesters and riot
police near the parliament building. So it’s easy to see that place names can
actually hold a lot of meaning, both for national identity and geopolitics.
I doubt Skeletor would have commanded as much fear and respect if instead of “Snake Mountain”
his base was called “Bubblegum Bluffs”. And because names are so vital, there are
few places where names are as important as in modern day China. One of the first things
the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, did when it came to power in 1949 was to scrap the previous
name of ‘the Republic of China’ and instead proclaim the establishment of ‘the People’s
Republic of China’. That way there could be no doubt that the CCP was in charge and that China
had become a Communist country. This was along the same lines as many other people’s republics
and socialist republics that were established in those decades. So while many former socialist
republics changed their names again with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the
fall of communist regimes all over the world, the CCP has remained in power in China where it has
held on to the Communist mantle. It also never stopped with the name changes. In April,
the Chinese government released the names of 30 locations in Indian-controlled Arunachal Pradesh,
which borders Tibet, giving them Chinese names instead of the locally used ones. It
is the fourth time since 2017 that the CCP has released names for places in Arunachal Pradesh,
which it refers to as Zangnan. They’ve gone through more name changes than, “...yikes”.
In a similar situation, the CCP insists that Taiwan be called
‘Chinese Taipei’ in international settings even though Taiwan’s official name is ‘the Republic of
China’. Chinese Taipei has been referred to as “an imperial Chinese construction imposed on the
people of Taiwan without consultation”. The Chinese government claims both Taiwan and
Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory and has been willing to back this up with force.
Chinese and Indian soldiers have repeatedly clashed in recent years along their shared
border, and the Chinese military often surrounds Taiwan with large-scale military exercises. I’ve
never seen someone with so much weaponry feel so insecure. Within this aggressive approach
of shadow warfare, the name changes serve as a weapon in the CCP’s arsenal. Experts have said
that the Chinese government’s attempts to rename places along its borders on all sides reflects its
appetite for territorial acquisition. And the CCP isn’t just weaponizing place names
around China’s borders - it’s also doing it within them. At the end of last year, Chinese
authorities announced that there is no more Tibet in official documents of the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Oh yeah? Then where did Brad Pitt spend seven years? Answer me that, China!
Since then, officials, state documents and state media have referred to Tibet as Xizang in both
Chinese and in English. Chinese media subsequently reported that
the word “Tibet” has been geographically misleading to the international community,
and rectifying it will help enhance China’s international voice on Tibet.
The change to Xizang has been combined with an international symposium on Tibetan Studies
in Beijing that seeks to rebuild the media’s image of Tibet as a region very different from
how Westerners perceive it. Yes, of course, the problem is that for too long Western minds
have been poisoned by the wrong perception of Tibet with things like the fact that the place
was considered an independent state until the CCP ordered an invasion of it in 1950,
annexing much of it by 1951, or the large-scale destruction of Tibetan religious sites in recent
years, or the separation of 1 million Tibetan children from their families and their forced
assimilation at Chinese residential schools. And if you’re upset about these human rights
abuses happening in Tibet… relax! Tibet doesn’t even exist anymore!
Thankfully, Xizang is totally different. It is a microcosm of China’s achievements that
is marching on the path of stability and prosperity. where it keeps making fresh
progress in effectively running its society and achieving high-quality development. If
Brad Pitt spent seven years here instead of a war drama it’d be a light-hearted buddy comedy!
Sure, Tibet might sometimes look like this. But in Xizang, everyone is happy. Even the
separated and assimilated children. The CCP’s attempts to control the narrative of
a region simply by renaming it can seem like a cheap trick.
But, unfortunately, we have actually fallen for it in the past. Back in 1944, a nation arose called
the East Turkestan Republic in what is today China’s Westernmost region. But after the CCP
seized power in 1949, it quickly took control of the republic, incorporating it into what has been
known as Xinjiang ever since. The region has primarily been inhabited by Muslim Turkic-speaking
groups such as the Uyghurs. Today, the vast majority of governments in the world, the UN,
as well as most human rights organizations all use the Chinese “Xinjiang” to refer to the region.
“East Turkestan” as a name is today mostly used by Uyghur activists, some of whom hope
for the creation of an independent state in the region one day. I don’t know why, though. I mean,
according to China, nothing bad has ever happened to the Uyghurs in that region ever!
The problem with the widespread usage of Xinjiang is that Xinjiang in
Chinese literally means ‘new frontier’. And a new frontier is usually not a place
associated with its own people, history, and culture. Or freedom, apparently.
Instead, a new frontier is an unstable and wild
place that must be “civilized” by a more developed nation. You know… “civilized.”
That is the attitude of superiority the Chinese authorities have approached
the region with. They have damaged the natural environment, desecrated
cultural sites, subjected Uyghur children to forced separation from
their families, and detained as many as 1 million Muslims from across the region
in re-education camps and prisons. Whoops. I mean… “civilization camps.”
But, apparently, all that isn’t enough suffocating control for the CCP. Because just last week a new
report by two human rights organizations found that Chinese authorities have renamed hundreds
of Uyghur villages and towns across the region. They’ve removed culturally significant names and
replaced them with much more meaningful names. One village was renamed ‘Unity Village’ while another
was renamed ‘Red Flag Village’. Because in China a big red flag is a good thing.
In another case, a woman who was released from a re-education facility tried to get
a bus ticket home but found her village didn’t exist anymore. This is why one human rights
lawyer commenting on the report said it’s a state-imposed erasure and replacement
policy aimed to sever Uyghurs from their history, culture, and civilization. And that is the
power of place names. Changing them can raise one narrative while simultaneously burying another six
feet in the ground. Accepting the CCP’s recent name changes as “new place names” that we all need
to get used to is equal to accepting the CCP’s tightening control and human rights violations
in Tibet and the Uyghur region as well as its aggression against India and Taiwan. So maybe not.
And hey, if you haven’t yet, visit HKlennonwall.com and
leave a post-it note for Hong Kong. Link is below.
Doing this project—and this whole show,
would not have been possible without the support of viewers like you on
the crowd funding website patreon.com/chinauncensored.
You can contribute however much you want, but it could be even as little as a dollar
an episode. Every bit helps. It’s what makes projects like the digital Lennon Wall possible.
And the CCP is taking notice.
That’s why Chinese state-run media has called China Uncensored “disgraceful anti-China garbage.”
So join what I call the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army on Patreon.
And as a thank you to everyone who gives on Patreon,
I’l respond to one of your questions or comments at the end of these episodes.
Today’s comes Postum “Black Myth: Wukong
has been making waves lately. It's a game being made by China-based developer Game Science. Chris,
do you know if Chinese game developers primarily target foreign audiences? I ask because the CCP
likes to discourage Chinese citizens from playing video games. Thanks for all your great work!”
You know, I’ve been keeping an eye on that game (Corner Box) because I’m a
big fan of the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West (Corner Box) which
is where the character Monkey King, or Sun Wuknog comes from.
I’ll probably do something about that game on my gaming channel,
Gamers Unbeaten, which you should check out link is below.
But I have some concerns.
The CCP keeps a tight grip on the gaming industry in China.
There’s evidence that Chinese made games could be spying on users.
I don’t know for a fact that’s a risk with Black Myth Wukong (Corner Box), but I’m
just letting you know, that’s a concern I have and I will be looking more into it.
I’m also not entirely sure of the message of the game. Somehow I don’t
imagine a game made in modern China will really portray Sun
Wukong’s transformation from a wild monkey demon to faithful servant of the Buddha.
But as for Chinese game developers targeting foreign audiences,
“China is already using games to spread its soft power.”
And the CCP does have its hands in all industries in China.
Thank you for your question and your support Postum.
You can join Postum, on Patreon by clicking this orange button,
and remember to check out the Digital Lennon Wall . Again, the link is below. And thank you
to everyone who supports the show on Patreon for making it possible to really stick it to the CCP.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.
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