Full transcript of “Why the Global Economy is a Trap – Prof. Jiang Xueqin”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 the way that you behave, the game that you are playing, it's strange. It's weird. So, I'll point out three things that you do that don't really make any sense. The first thing that you do is you spend a lot of your time learning English. In fact, you probably spend more time learning English than you do learning Chinese. That's weird. And I've asked Chinese students before why they are so focused on learning English. And their answers usually are, I want to learn knowledge. I want to go abroad. I want to communicate. I want to use the internet. That's not really a good explanation. Okay, so that's one thing that's weird. Second thing that's weird is you're obsessed with making money, especially US dollars. Okay, and the third thing that's weird is that your
0:46 goal in life is to immigrate to a western country, uh, specifically United States, right? You all want to go United States for college, get a degree, and hopefully stay there, get a good job. But as we discussed before, that's strange because you are much higher status in China. You're much more likely to get a good job. You're much more likely to marry a beautiful woman than you are United States where the game is rigged against you. Okay? So, this sort of behavior is weird. If you think about it, what you should be really trying to do is master Chinese. Because once you master Chinese and given your family background, given the fact that your family is often wealthy and wellconed in China, you can climb up pretty high in
1:31 China. Okay? So if you want if you learn Chinese, you're far better able to communicate yourself. You're far more uh likely to gain respect and status in China. Okay? But instead you learn English. US dollars doesn't make any sense. What you really want is status, right? What you really want is to be well respected. You want a prestigious job. You want to marry a beautiful woman. You want to have lots and lots of children. That's what you really want. But instead, you're really focused on obtaining US dollars. That's kind of strange. Now, the last thing we said was immigration. You if you go to United States, it's really a rigged game against you, right? The most that you can hope to obtain is maybe become an engineer or professor if you're really
2:16 really smart, but you're not going to achieve political power. You're not going to become a CEO of a major company. All right? So, the situation as it is, it's really weird where the best and brightest in China, they just want to be common people in the United States or Britain or Canada. So, it's a really weird game. And so the question we want I want to look at today is how was this game constructed? Why do we play this game? And the answer I will show you is because of the British the British Empire create this game that ultimately the Americans inherit and which the entire world world's played today because America is the global superpower. The question is how was England able to do this? How's England
3:04 able to create a system in which India and China basically voluntarily gave up its wealth? And the answer is England game that incentivized the local elites to cooperate with England. Okay. So this is the way this is what happened. So this is a map of uh the British Empire. Okay. So let's look at India and China. The local elites had to help the British do this. Okay. the local elites had to help the British steal. The question then is why would the local elites do that? Okay. And the reason why is remember from last class, the local local elites are in conflict with each other anyway. And what they're looking for is more power. And so what England
3:50 said to local elites is if you help us, we will help you steal the gold from this country. Okay? Do you understand? Before, if you were an elite and you lost a war or the people didn't like you, they could kill you. But now, if you help the British, you can transfer your wealth and your children abroad. Okay, does that make sense? So now what's going to happen is that the elite are going to be able to send their children and their wealth to the British Empire. Okay. Okay. And there are certain mechanisms that allow them to accomplish this. The first mechanism is of course um finance. So not only are you allowed to transfer your capital to
4:35 uh the United Kingdom and its colonies, but they will disguise it for you. This is what we call money laundering. Okay? Money laundering. So when you steal from your people, not only will Britain allow you to do this, but they will disguise it for you. Okay? through their offshore financial centers including Hong Kong, Singapore. Their lawyers will pretend that this money came from not from drugs, not from gambling, not from prostitution, but from restaurants, from real estate. Who cares? Okay, but they will clean up for you. Okay? We call this money laundering. And then they will help you send it overseas where it becomes legitimate. Okay? So now you have real estate investments in Australia or Canada. Okay? All right. So this is a global money laundering system
5:21 that encourages the local elites to be corrupt. Okay? It protects them in the corruption and incentivizes them in their corruption. Okay? Does it make sense? The second thing that allows this to happen is schooling. Okay? So what do I mean by that? The British when they conquered India and um China, what they were trying to do is try to brainwash, indoctrinate, elite. So they set up these schools, right? And when you went to these schools, what what what did you learn? You learn learning English. When you learn English, what do you learn? You learn that British culture is superior to your local culture. Right? When you're learning English, you're learning about Shakespeare. You're learning about British philosophy. You're learning British history. And as a result, you slowly come to believe that the British are superior to us. And
6:07 therefore, I should try my best to be British. And also what's really important is that the schooling system allows for mobility. So if you are a really smart person in China, well there's really little mobility for you in China. But if you go for the British system, you might win a scholarship to go study at Oxford or Cambridge. Okay? You even might become a world scholar. So world scholar, it's a bas it's basically a secret society. Okay guys, but the idea is that all over the British Empire, the very best students will be selected to go to Oxford where they become best friends. Okay? And their mission will be to spread the power of the British Empire all around the world. And it works really well.
6:53 Okay? This is an indoctrination system for local elites. And it it it works really well because remember if you're a really smart person, the British offer you more opportunities for mobility than your own country because in your own country the system is very hierarchal. It's static. There's really no mobility, right? But if you're really smart and you obey the British and you believe that the British culture is the very best in the world, you might become a world scholar and then you become part of the British Empire. And that's how the British were able to conquer the world. And the third thing, of course, is the navy. Basically, the navy ensured that Britain was the greatest military power in the world. If they didn't like you, they would come and destroy you. Okay, that's what happened to China during the open wars. There's nothing that could destroy the navy. And so these three things, okay, finance, the
7:40 bank of England, basically schooling or the idea of soft power, British culture, English, okay, and the third thing is the navy created really the world's first great world empire. So as you can see Britain spread all around the world and this and so even though the British Empire is no longer around it's not the American Empire even though the opium trade has stopped what's important for us to understand is the game is still being played today. Okay so let let me give you an example of this. This is a drug trade in the world. Okay as you can see the drug trade. Okay, primary cocaine. We're talking about cocaine. There are other types of drugs as well, but let's focus on cocaine. You can see it's a global network. Just like a lot
8:28 of cocaine is produced in Colombia and South America and then it just travels all around the world. It's a very sophisticated system of trade. Okay. But what you need you you need to understand is none of this would be possible without the British financial and legal system. Okay. Because like why are they why are people taking such a risk and selling drugs? Because it's so liquid. It's so profitable. But you can only have this market if it's being protected by a legal and financial system. Okay? People only participate in this trade. It's dangerous. But they only participate participate in this trade if they can be guaranteed that they can make a lot of money and they can use this money and protect this money. Okay.
9:14 So what protects his money of course is the offshore financial centers. Okay. So the green are areas in the world in which you can place your money. They won't ask where the money came from. They don't care where the money came from and they will clean it up for you. Okay? Money laundering. They will use their sophisticated legal and financial systems to clean up your money and then they will help you invest it elsewhere. Okay? Does it make sense? So this is So guess what? Look at this guys. Where are the major global financial offshore centers? Well, they're in the Caribbean, okay? They're in Panama. They are in Northern Europe. They are in the Middle East. They are in Southeast Asia, Hong
9:59 Kong, Singapore, Japan. Guess what, guys? This used to be the former British Empire. Okay? So, the British Empire is still around today. They they transform from one that is overt and that is that uses military power in order to control the world to one that is covert that is secret and that uses financial and legal means in order to control the world. Okay. And it's still the game that we play today. All right. Now there's a question that someone asked me. Okay. It's a very good question. The question is this. If offshore financial centers like Hong Kong and Dubai are so profitable and it's such easy money, why doesn't everyone do it? And and and the
10:44 it's it's the it's a it's a good question, okay? And the logic is very simple. We know that gambling, prostitution, human trafficking, slavery, all profitable. Why does everyone do it? Because it's immoral. Okay? As a society, you need morality in create energy, openness, and cohesion, right? People want to feel as though they're part of something good, that they're that we're starting for a higher cause. And if you're all about slavery or prostitution or gambling or money laundering, people won't feel good about themselves. In fact, the souls become corrupted. Okay? So, the classic example is like Hong Kong, right? Have you guys been to Hong Kong? One of the wealthiest cities in the world, right? lots and lots of skyscrapers. But guess what? The people there are disgusting. They're
11:30 depraved. They're unethical. They're disgusting. There's actually no culture to the place. There's no morality to the place. It's actually disgusting. Okay? I don't want to live there. And if you live there, guess what? Your soul is going to become corrupted. So this is almost, you would say this is a demonic system. This system is not only evil, but it facilitates evil. It is the work of Satan. Okay. But unfortunately this is a system that we live in today. Um so even though everyone will say this is a misdemonic it's really it's really underpins the world today because if you think about it okay okay all this corp money from China, India uh Malaysia they go to these places but then this money then goes goes where? It goes over to
12:18 Australia to invest in real estate. Do you guys know what the biggest industry in Australia is? It's banking. Which means that Australia also engages in money laundering, but they clean it up. So people aren't aware of this. Do you understand? But the same happens in Canada as well. Canada, United States as well. So this entire world, it's based on stealing from the third world and transferring this money to the first world. That's all it is. Okay? It's that complicated. But this has led to a huge problem. The problem is what we call over financialization. But over financialization, it's a very similar concept where there's too much money. So people become corrupt, lazy, arrogant and insular. And that's what's happening
13:05 in Canada, United States, in Britain, in Australia. Okay? And so really an empire must collapse at some point. So the British, the western world, they are a victim of their own success. Okay? So they stole all this money from the rest of the world. But this money has made the past made their people lazy, corrupt, and arrogant. And that's why we're seeing so much conflict right now in the western world because this um money has created a lot of inequality in the world in the western world, right? Where maybe 1% of all the money 9% have very little to get by on. But you also have a lot of corruption where the political system no longer serves the interest of the people. They only serve
13:50 the interests of the rich. Okay. And then you also have immorality where nowadays people only are concerned about making money. They no longer want to contribute to the community. So yes, we can say that the western world it's evil because they've stolen all this money. But really what what's happened is that they've corrupt corrupted and destroyed themselves because this model has been too successful for them. And that's why we're seeing so much chaos in the world today. So we are really at a game reset or a game's end and a new game is about to emerge because this game right now is not sustainable. All right, any questions? >> So if the success of western world leads to the corruption and you know the fall of western world, can we generalize that you know after success people will fall
14:36 then what's the meaning of success? >> Okay, that's um a great question. Okay. So if you know that if you become successful you will not be happy. Why do people go and succeed and okay this is a really hard question to answer. Okay so let me explain different layers. Okay the first layer is this. Why people know that wealth doesn't lead to happiness. Right? What leads to happiness is family love community meaning purpose, generosity. Okay that's what leads to happiness. The happiest people in the world tend to be religious. They tend to have families and they tend to be very kindhearted people. So why do why do we have rich people? Because the game is structured so that everyone is forced to play. Okay? Meaning that we
15:23 only care about people like Ellen Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg. We we worship the rich. Okay? Um and we hate the poor. So if you're homeless, we think it's because you deserve it because you're lazy. It's because you refuse to work. Okay? So the game is set up so that we're focused on making money. Then the question then is why do we have this stupid game? And the answer unfortunately is that what we figured out is that this game in the short term in the short term not long term. Okay, we're talking like decades not centuries. In the short term it's what makes your people the most energetic, open, cohesive and the most likely to win against other nation states. Okay, does that make sense? So in the long term you get destroyed. Your people are destroyed. You're corrupt. You're corrupted by this game. But in the short term, it allows you to defeat other
16:10 players. Okay, that's how the British were able to create the empire because they defeated the French, then they defeat the Germans, they defeat the Russians. Okay, and that forces the other players to play this game as well because in the short term, this game um this game gives you huge advantages. Okay, so think of it's a zero sum game. Think of a Olympic game where okay, Evan's going and competing in the 100 meter sprint and we know you shouldn't do drugs because drugs will destroy your body, right? And you could have a heart attack when you're 40. But they're like, "No, no, no. I really want to win this game." So they so one guy uses a drug and he wins. And the other players know about this and now they're forced to also use the same tactic. Okay, do do you understand? So it's it's a really
16:55 unfortunate system in that this system can only lead to the unhappiness, corruption, uh and immorality of people. But people are too concerned about short-term rewards. Okay, if you don't play this game, then you get eliminated. Okay, what I'm going to discuss in next class is uh the American Empire and how the American Empire changed this game. All right. So, what the American Empire will do is it will add US dollars to this game and it's important because it makes the game universal now as well as easier to play. Okay. And then we'll look at how the system capitalism conquer the world. So, it's a great question, but the reality is that if you cheat, if you do bad things, in the short term, you will win out. Even though in the long term it will lead to
17:41 severe consequences for you and your
