What This Chinese Girl Told Me in Tiananmen Square Will Shock You!

what is China really like in 2024 but most importantly what is China going to be like in the next 5 10 15 and 20 years well I am live on location in one of the most iconic places in all of China this is tenanan square and we are visiting on one of the most important days in China's history today is October 1st 2024 and it is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China now I've come to Beijing because I want to see what China's story is really like I want to

see and talk to the local people here and really understand what is going on in China now for many of you that know my story I've been coming to China for over 17 years I've been running a YouTube channel about China for four of those years and what we really do on this YouTube channel is we dig deep into the actual stories and see what is China's role going to be like in the future of our world China is a rising superpower and the energy that is felt In This Crowd today is a great example

of that and to help tell our story today I'm bringing in a local Beijing girl this is Le Jing Jing Jing Jing how are you yeah I'm great so nice to meet you so nice and finally meet you in person it is so good so let's go for a little walk and talk team because I really want to understand a lot more about China you know I think you know my story I first came to China in 2007 and you know we saw China at a very different time then you know in 2007 for example

uh China's GDP grew by 14.2% we saw in 200 8 Beijing the very City that we're in right now hosting the most spectacular Summer Olympics that were just truly incredible you know Shanghai host the World Expo in 2010 yeah but I think China's maturing now right China is at a different place than it was that 157 years ago what do you make of this being seeing so many people around you on October 1st the national holiday here in China I mean isn't that wonderful I think maybe only in China you would see so many people

are so in enthusiastic about watching the flag racing ceremony on the birthday of this country that shows the spirit the love of the the of the people of this country for this for this country and most of them are young people so I in my 30s I'm not a local Beijing girl I was born in Hong Jang northern China but I've been living Beijing for like 12 13 years so you can consider I'm from Beijing now yeah but even within my lifetime I saw dramatic changes of China it's incredible I feel like every 10 years

China enters into a new era new face I studied abroad and traveled to different countries Western countries and I think for many young people in my generation who have lived or studyed abroad have a short period of you know a period of of idolizing the Western culture Western system so sometimes young people forget to look at their own culture their own country so but for me there's a huge transition different transition period I always love my country but I fall in love with my country my roots my culture deeply again after be I became a

journalist after working as journalist in China so I've been working as a journalist in China for 11 years now and due to this experience I got the chance to travel to every Province every corner every village in China so because of that experience I got to see the different size of China many young people who stay in big cities like Beijing Shanghai guango they always see the Fantastic side of of the metropolitans and uh people in the cities always complain about oh how we don't have this or we don't have that but I but when

I got the chance to see different provinces you know I would say the biggest changes the most dramatic changes development happen in China in those areas so Jing when you and I were speaking earlier you said something very interesting you said that just because you're born in China doesn't mean that you understand the country right you really need to go around and and travel around right if you go to Beijing and Shanghai you're going to see the big mult metropolitan cities you're going to see the the worldclass cities but I mean how many provinces how

many places have you been in China over the last 11 years I think over 20 provinces but you know some provinces are so huge like tiad and sh right those prises itself is so big and there are multiple places you have to go so like I've been to shinjang like 20 to 30 times and I've been to many provinces in China especially deep in the Villages so I totally think being a Chinese born and raised in China doesn't mean you understand China it's only when I became a journalist and got to travel to different places

and talk to all walks of life talk to people from different ethnic groups I start to realize how little I knew about China before this Village deep in the mountain that used to have no roads at all now after 10 years they have rows leads to each household in The Villages right I saw like Railways being built on high PL over 4,000 m above sea level it's even difficult to breathe how the people successfully made Railways connecting all the villages bring all the important resources like food meat to the local people there uh you saw

the dramatic Improvement of people in the rural regions they got out of the mountains they no longer acked deep in the mountains so I think in the past 10 20 30 40 years those people saw the most dramatic Improvement in their life because of this job working a journalist I it gave me a so much deeper understanding about my own country about my own culture and when you see how impact on people's lives in rural people's and grassroot people's lives you start to understand the policies because maybe before for most people poverty alleviation is just

a concept it's a term on textbooks on on news maybe uh they only see the numbers of people being lifted out poverty is just a numbers but what those numbers mean it only you can really understand it when you go to the me go to The Villages see how people used to live in chabby mud build houses uh couldn't didn't didn't know where their next meal is now they are able to live in comfortable stable uh houses uh their children got higher education their children uh got to universities in cities like Beijing and they can

change their family's life and change their Village Life that's how you know that's how you understand the policy that's how I grew so much deeper appreciation for the [Music] government so Jing there's two facts that I really love about China that I always tell people that I think is so important to understand this new modern China uh number one is what you hit on the poverty alleviation right the fact that over the last 40 years we've had this economic Miracle 700 million people really lifted out and like you said you know if you're from a

Shanghai or Beijing you know you've seen some progress but going to those rural Villages you know those third fourth fifth tier cities where there was no roads you know there was no schools I I think that's a lot people don't understand is how difficult it is to manage a country of 1.4 billion people I mean this is four times the population of the United States that's four times the amount of responsibility and it's incredibly diverse too because I think what a lot of people don't understand is in China there's 300 different dialects right so when

you're going to these rural areas I mean you might even find people that don't even speak Mandarin yeah right I mean like we're here in Beijing obviously we can speak Mandarin here and and no problem here but it's fascinating to see you know I remember meetings going to the countryside and you know I'm studying banderin for so long and then I meet people that don't even speak the language you know and it's just so incredibly diverse yeah and I think that's incredible the second fact is the poverty alleviation you know if you look at the

world poverty alleviation uh China's for the last 30 years China's responsible for 80% of the world's poverty alleviation yes exactly right so if you actually take away China's efforts in poverty alleviation you know you actually would see the world would have regressed the world would have gotten more poor yeah right and I think we're actually seeing that in Western countries today I think we're seeing the last 5 years especially with the pandemic you know we're seeing that Western countries are being very strapped you know more people are closer to the poverty side than they are

getting wealthy and you know there's a lot of effects on the economy but that being said I want to talk to you about the Chinese economy I'm not a economist probably but I can give you some like my uh personal stories and stories I saw or traveling to different places talking to different people right so like I'm in my 30s yeah when I was a kid I live in my family Liv in K Province hel down Province so when I was a kid there was no running water in our houses there was no flushing toilets

in our houses right imagine like that's something not that common back in China 30 years ago 20 years ago but now like you see like Shanghai Beijing huge metropolitans we have everything we have The Cutting Edge Technologies right and all of the EBS share backs Al pay we CH pay didn't exist right 10 years ago I remember 10 years ago when I started working uh in in Beijing electric cars were was a joke everybody was like oh electric car is going nowhere no one want to invest in electric cars no one want to apply for

uh a plate for electric cars but now you see I went to visit some factories of EV makers the cars are amazing the technology is amazing not only the batteries uh the driving everything and also the equipment with camera and all this FY stuff so the technology of eeve is revolutionized now China is the leading Eevee maker that happened just within 10 years so that's how much changes it happens every year right we didn't have has rails long like when I was a kid when when I was in my third teenager time I had to

go to another Province to see my parents right I need to take a long Railway a day and a night to go to a neighboring Province but now it only take 3 hours right and and uh shinjang this last uh region now has over 27 airports so that's basic infrastructure that populates across China in every Pro provinces is a crucial drive to uh drive the economy products of those Villages can get get out business people can go to The Villages and the villagers can get out to get education to for more job opportunities there some

like concrete examples of how it changes but in terms of the economy I know a lot of Western media now saying China is going to collap China's economy is not doing great they want to see China collapse very soon right but you know the economy growth is slowing right but so is entire world's economy but the most important thing is China's economy is transitioning to a new period right in the past 40 years China's economy GDP grow rapidly but you cannot have like rapid growth all the time yeah for sure now you're China is transitioning

to pay attention to Quality right what have high quality and second we need to have The Cutting Edge Innovation and technology so this is a thing that China is paying attention to we cannot just have numbers we need to have quality so there's a lot of investment in Technology Innovation and also China is now saying well the biggest contradiction we are facing is the inequality between regions but also between the rich and poor so now China is focusing on how to make it more equal for people make the less developed region with the Northwest China

catching up with the uh East and also the rich people cannot get too rich uh you need to contribute to the society to make sure everybody can catch up so this is the focus of China's in this phase during China's development China experienced many challenges economically in the 80s in the '90s in 2000 but China overcome it successfully and China look at China now China still leading in GDP in technology so I have all the confidence in China's economy because the polic is always paying attention to how to solve the challenges in different period and

you know what I think something very inspiring is China is the only developing country in the global South that escaped the Western's NE colonialism trap which is to lock this development country at the bottom of global value chain if you talk to people from Africa from Latin America they will tell you the same thing why this region is many of the region are facing challenges like Poverty of inequality of uh because of colal colonialism lock them at the bottom Global valy make sure they only provide cheap materials for the industrial World make sure the they

consume the obsolete technology of the industrial world everything they produce is low value added and consume the high value added products from the global North but China escaped that China is able to be Rel self-reliant on technology on food on fuel on manufacturing that's a miracle and that's inspiring to many Global South fellows they're saying how did China make it how did China escape this trap so that's why a lot of global South countries are looking uh looking like what China did they want to learn from China and they want to join the Bor Road

initiative together to escape this trap the concrete results we are living in every day I'm very confident about the country's future so Jing I think you brought up some really interesting stuff there and you know we're right next to the Great Hall of the people and I believe that you were just a few weeks ago there was China hosted the U it was like the China Africa Forum yes right and so we had this was quite an amazing event because you had 53 leaders from all 53 countries from Africa yeah coming here and I think

you really hit on that is this belt and Road initiative you know you see countries in the global South and for everybody that doesn't know the global South it's Latin America you know we're talking Africa southeast Asia the Middle East you know there's that's about 85% of the population of the world is in the global South and we're seeing a huge shift we're seeing the global South is really partnering with China you know you touched on the EVS well the EV is now have a dominant presence all throughout Latin America right you talk about Chinese

technology and the shift toward towards Innovation and quality right we look at like the Huawei phone you know I think it has a 60 70% market share in Africa for example in the United States my home country you know our politicians are wanting to ban Chinese products saying you know we don't want Chinese EVS we're going to put 100% tax on them we don't want Chinese phones like Huawei because potentially they could be used as you know spying or things like that but other countries around the world you know I think even the grid like

the 4G grid throughout Africa that's all built by Huawei right like like China's built all of this so what's really interesting to see for me as an American Jing is that you know America we we tend to really just focus on you know a few countries we look at Canada we look at the EU Japan and Australia and New Zealand and that's kind of the world for most Americans they forget about the global South China knows what it's like to be a very poor underdeveloped country right I mean we're on the 75th anniversary of China's

founding but if we go back 50 years ago right China is one of the poorest countries in the world in addition to that it was the most populated country in the world so you're talking about real pressure there from the government saying you know we have to figure this out right we've got to how are we going to take care of this many people and of course that was through economic reform guys like d Xing coming in opening up the country obviously a very fruitful relationship with the United States one where I think helped Chinese

people because you know you had companies like apple would come here manufacture their products uh but also it helped Americans out you know America we got incredibly rich off of China yeah yeah right and I think this is what right it's a win-win and that's that's why this my channel is dedicated always to seeking a win-win partnership knowing that you know America we have a booming economy because of China and China had a booming economy because of America and you know it's if we can have more of these win-win situations I think is the best

but Jing I want to say you know for you know your English is so fantastic you know you have you you have such a great command of the English language but I know that you spent time abroad right you have a master's degree from the UK yeah so I want to kind of shift the focus here I want to talk a little bit about you know your experiences abroad and I want to I want to understand like you know you you speak great English you know you have I'm sure opportunities as a journalist to go

abroad why are you choosing to be in Beijing thank you for your compliment but you know I'm not rare among my peers there are so many old understanding talented young Chinese are good at speaking Chinese good at speaking English Arabic Spanish French Swahili Hindu uh pushon you'll be amazed how it's tell ented this young generations of Chinese are I feel a little bit shy while I was among this young talented young Chinese like oh my God like my English cannot compare to to you so I mean this I'm just one of the many many very

talented young Chinese many top universities in China uh in Beijing Shanghai in guango to give lectures to journalist students who want to pursue a journalist job in the future so I interact with this college students who are in their who are in their 20s or 19 I always surprised at their level of intellect they are so smart multi talented uh speak fluent English already studied or lived or traveled to multiple continents South Pole many European countries North America they are so well traveled uh have insites of the world so they already beat me they are

much smarter than me while I was there age I achieved this probably in my late 20s but they already achieved it in 19 I'm sure this generation younger than me a much going to be much more smarter maybe in my generation or the old older generation like like uh before me when they talk about abroad they only look at the United States uh Europe you know this uh traditional developed Western countries but now this Young Generation have a world view I remember one of my friends who is uh from Iraq when he give lectures to

uh University in Beijing some of the students Arabic level shot him like this Chinese student so good at Arabic and one of the students uh came up to him and tell him well not only am I learning Arabic I'm also learning Swahili because I want to go to Africa wow so many young people studying Global South studying Africa studying uh West Africa they have a dream of contributing to the world this Young Generation because they grew up in a much more developed China so they look at all this well welldeveloped Western countries as equals maybe

all in people in the 60s or 70s they look up to the West they look up to the United States whatever the US do is is is right but now it's completely shifted in China wow okay uh young Generations have much more confidence in their own culture you know the most enthusiastic people who are trying to revive Asian Chinese cultures like the clothes from different dynasties how to do certain things in the Asian tongue Dynasty s Dynasty M the group of revitalizing this culture are the young Chinese Jing Jing I've seen that like on doin

which is the Chinese version of Tik Tok right it's a lot of the young ladies wearing like the Han Fu right right and that's it's the old Dynasty like this would this be 100 200 years old you know even potentially older and and these are the ones that are recording on social media right like wearing the traditional think you're see theth of China kind of coming and embracing their roots and do you think that the Youth of today are more patriotic than other Generations I feel so as a journalist I interacted with a lot of

people I went to many universities from on my observation I think the young Generations younger than me in the who were born in the '90s in the 2000 are much more confident about Chinese culture have the goal of revitalize Chinese culture I mean they the one the most enthusiastic they are the one in every front take at the Olympic game as example and Paris Olympic Games you see the different attitude among this generation of young Chinese people they are uning they speak good languages English uh and Chinese they dare to confront unfair treatment they will

call out the bull that the some racist westers give them and they always aim for they enjoy the game they aim for the gold medal I remember Jan the queen one who won the first uh gold for uh female gold for tennis at Olympics after she won she said you know what kept me going is the spirit of getting a gold medal for China she always in any Ed interview she says you know keep being good keep being excellent I want to make China proud I want to make a Chinese young people proud so this

is the spirit of young Chinese people they are so proud of our culture we saw that at the Paris Olympics or many of you know I think the Superstar of the games panan right I mean this kid is a I think he's 19 20 years he turned into 20 he uh when he was at the Olympic yeah so I mean 20-year-old kid I mean he set numerous world records and it was incredible because he broke the 42nd barrier and unfortunately a lot of westerners immediately came out and accused him of being a cheater and that

he doped and then actually if you go back and look at that he's broken that 40c barrier you know almost six or seven times before so it was not something new and but you know I mean it's it just shows you and I I love what you said is that this new generation of Chinese you know traditional Chinese culture is one of non-confrontation right you would not you would not confront somebody you would you would be very quiet you don't want to lose face but I mean he really came out in the press conference and

he said you know you know these American and these Australians they were not kind to me you know and I and I'm not going to take that and then he came out and won the gold medal and I mean that must have just been an incredible moment for China and actually he he also did it in a very polite way he tell the journalist oh can I say this that's right I saw that can I say this but like the Australian swimmers and like American swimmers kind of like look down upon us but you know

the swimmers were his idols that's right were his they were his Heroes and then when they see the heroes hero just totally ignoring them so like it's a heartbreaking but you know what he did is just okay hey I'm just going to beat you all in the swimming pool so Jing another thing that's really interesting is we're seeing this technology race between the United States and China uh here on the ground this week in Beijing I saw a new article released that Huawei has released this new microchip that is going to be on par with

nvidia's a100 so the Nvidia a100 is the most advanced microchip in the world and China is now sending out samples of its version which they claim can actually compete with Nvidia and if this is true which they're going to be doing this testing these next couple of months to verify and that means that that China has now caught up with the United States as far as microchip technology and to fill everybody in on the backstory I mean this has been a war that's been going on for you know 2 or 3 years now the United

States actively trying to block China's access to technology but Jing when you you know when America forces China in the corner and you have this country full of people I mean it's it's really a bad strategy because I think is it not the mo biggest motivation for Chinese to like we say in Chinese is to right like you're going to think of a solution yeah right I think it happened to China many times in terms of um many things maybe you can slow China's progress for a few years but China going to be develop this

technology by themselves it may be more challenging it probably will be uh take a few more years but they can make it take a look at the China space station right well NASA blocked China's access to their knowledge but now with need your knowledge anymore right so and and to fill everybody in I think the International Space Station will be decommissioned by 2030 which means that in just a few short years China will have the only working space station in the entire planet yeah or in the entire universe and already the United States has asked

if they can participate in that so it's kind of a double standard we see right Chinese astronauts aren't welcome to compete but once in six years China will have the only space station yeah so I think this just keeps telling us that what it's so important to be self-reliant yeah in the past few decades we experienced many kind of those sanctions blockade but eventually we the country successfully made it so well right now it's too too late to stop China's [Music] growth and Jing I want to ask you one final question as we finish up

today's interview I know that you've been to the United States and that it is a superpower but you're also a local Chinese that has been able to experience this firsthand China's rise how do you look at the United States and what is your view towards the US China relationship I I'm sure for most Chinese people like me we appreciate the best culture and knowledge from both countries we love Chinese culture we also appreciate the best American culture and technology and education from my English accent you know I also learned this like English from Hollywood movies

and TV dramas so most of us know a lot about America's culture and the history I wonder how many American young people know the same about China so that's the thing I been to the United States several times when I talked to the young people in America most people either know nothing about China or only know the very very negative but misinformation about China so I feel the young Chinese know much more about America than Americans know about China so now of course we are in this competition but seriously people don't want this tensions people

don't want this competition we and especially Chinese people we really like on the win-win cooperation because I'm sure the most country if they work together the benefits will benefit people in both countries but the sad thing is right now the relationship this country I think depends on the leadership of America how they make their policy if they continue to add tariffs on China's products uh start twe Wars on China and try to block block China from certain areas so how can you develop how can you cooperate I think the future of this country really depends

on the leadership in America how would they see China China is not a country they should contain you can contain no country uh China will develop and rise and China is no interested in being a Hedon like some strategic think China rise peacefully without conquering without colonizing other countries so I really hope that both countries can work but maybe next what I'm think about the US is US Internal Affairs but it's my two cents because in the past two 10 years I traveled to United States I saw how the economy declin how it it impact

on the working class and the people for example I saw so many drug users and homeless people on the streets in in San Francisco so much crimes and G Ms that those things don't exist in China at all right it was so scary for us as the Chinese tourists like this is so scary so but you go to the rich neighborhood the rich rich people have a super rich and nice life so how can one country be so divided the rich people living luxurious life the poor people are being marginalized died on the street became

homeless on the street no one cares about them so this inequality uh this instability will be a time bomb in the society if if a country if a government doesn't solve this issues eventually it will cause some internal conflict that's my two sense because I mean like everything is because of econom economy thing like if I've been to some least developed countries I don't see that level of homeless people I don't see that level of of uh crimes that I like that I saw in America as I sit back and reflect on my recent visit

to Beijing I'm incredibly grateful I had the opportunity to visit Tian Square on China's national holiday we started early in the morning joining tens of thousands of Chinese on the walk to one of China's most famous sites and the energy displayed by the locals was truly amazing people of all ages from young children to senior citizens visited the square with many of them holding Chinese flags and displaying an immense sense of Pride for how fast and how far their nation has come in the past few decades I want to thank Lee Jing Jing for making

a special appearance in today's episode I hope you enjoyed her insights as a local Chinese journalist who has dedicated her career to helping more people around the world understand the real china if you've never been to China and made it to this point in the video I know you have a deep interest in China and I encourage you to visit because China is unlike anything have seen in Western media and there's no better place to start than a visit to the beautiful capital of Beijing