CCTV FOLLIES 4.1 SCRIBBLE, SCRIBBLE, SCRIBBLE!

Xi schools Indonesia's president-elect -Xi pens a new one -Special Military Operation proceeds apace -Russia accuses Ukraine of terror -IDF vs Hamas -Panoramic views of fallen beauty, Baltimore bridge

Apr 01, 2024

∙ Paid

Prabowo Subianto, the newly-elected leader of Indonesia, carefully takes notes about a shared future as the unelected master of Asia speaks.

Scribble, scribble, scribble…

“I greatly admire the great achievements made by the Chinese people under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, and I am willing to learn from the experience of the Communist Party of China and deepen exchanges in state governance.” -Prabowo Subianto

“Xi Jinping held talks with President-elect of the Republic of Indonesia and Great Indonesia Movement Party General Chairman Prabowo Subianto who is on a visit to China in Beijing on Monday. Recalling the rapidly developing and fruitful bilateral ties over the past decade under the guidance of the two heads of state, Xi said both sides have made Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway an exemplar of high-quality bilateral cooperation and entered a new stage of building a community with a shared future.” -Xinhua

Qiushi is a highly prestigious publication. Wonder who wrote the leading article?

Yes! Xi strikes again, with his prolific pen on the front line. A pen so hot it smokes! He includes lots of pictures of self co-mingling with the co-opted masses for those who don’t have time to read his effervescent pronouncements and diamond-like gems of wisdom. A true man of the people, he can be seen chatting casually with them.

The foreign minister of France Stephane Sejourne gets to meet Xi associate Li Qiang. The visitor is warmly and gently warned not to go down the US style road of de-risking because China needs to sell more cars to Europe to bail itself out.

Why does the camera always show the people on the Chinese side as being bigger?

Ding Xuexiang presides over a meeting that essentially proclaims victory over last summer’s devastating floods. He visits sites that suffered grievous government neglect (though of course it is presented as the opposite) such as Fangshan and Zhuozhou.

When the CCP brass rolls into town, the message is simple:

Everything’s fine, good, getting better and under control, all under Xi.

The death toll, while still unknown, is reckoned to be high. Zhuozhou was the victim of rushing floodwaters deliberately diverted from Xiong’an and other favored locations, so the CCP brass want to make sure the losers don’t feel neglected now.

Pristine headwaters of the Yellow River…

The world’s muddiest river gets a clean-up. Monitoring the Yellow River.

Under Xi, things are getting better all the time. Even the rivers.

Before facing the inevitably depressing news from outside the wonderland of China, viewers get treated to some fine nature shots in the motherland.

IDF footage from Gaza

Hamas/Palestinian footage of guerilla attacks

New Palestinian government formed under old leader Mahmoud Abbas

Kremlin-curated shots of Russia’s war on Ukraine get prime-time billing. It used to be mostly a video show of pyrotechnic prowess; Russian rockets going off into the sky. But now Russia Defense footage increasingly shows Ukraine being hit hard by Russian bombs and includes close-ups of shelling on the ground.