David Zhang built a 1.4 million subscriber YouTube channel exposing the Chinese Communist Party — from his base in the US, where he can actually say what he thinks. Born in China, raised in Canada, now in New York, David breaks down how Beijing operates: surveillance, threats to family members back home, and a propaganda machine that's gotten scarily good at targeting Western audiences.
We get into TikTok as a weapon, China's economy cratering under Xi Jinping, the comedian who got an entire stand-up competition banned for one joke about the PLA, and the doctrine of "unrestricted warfare" — Beijing's playbook for taking down the US without a single bullet. Plus: the four olds Mao tried to destroy, Chinese tourists at the Louvre, and the Asian gene that means David didn't need deodorant until he was 27.
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David Zhang
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChinaInsiderWithDavidZhang/videos
Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ
Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081
Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU
Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697
Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r
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0:00 – Intro: David Zhang & China Insider
1:52 – Born in China, moved to Canada at 11, then the US
4:33 – Free speech in China: three different threat levels
7:25 – How the CCP threatens creators outside China
9:31 – Stand-up comedy in China — and the joke that got it banned
13:37 – Is being gay legal in China?
15:10 – 1.4M subscribers and the bot armies in his comments
17:04 – Why David's family left China
18:35 – China's billionaires and the capitalism secret
23:21 – Shanghai's LED light shows vs. actual economic collapse
26:54 – FreedomFest Vegas and dying American small towns
30:03 – Outsourcing, COVID, and what we can't let China control
33:30 – Taiwan, TSMC, and the chip supply nightmare
34:36 – "America Against America": Wang Huning's playbook
38:37 – TikTok data harvesting and information warfare
43:06 – Has David ever been back to China?
44:11 – Chinese tourists, the Louvre, and materialism without morality
46:30 – Mao's "Four Olds" and destroying Chinese culture
50:28 – The Asian gene: David didn't need deodorant until 27
51:59 – Wrap-up
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