Steve and Pete elucidate on Russia's much-much-faster-than-expected COVID-19 vaccine, Hong Kong's issuing of arrest warrants for 6 pro-democracy activists who live in Western countries, and President Trump's threat to ban the popular social networking app TikTok from the U.S. for its putative connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
This week on The Elucidators, we’re hitting three topics of note across the world of international relations. First off, the Russians claim to have won the race to a coronavirus vaccine... but they may have cut a few important corners on the way to first place. Second, in a predictable but still shockingly fast development, Hong Kong has used its new National Security Law to issue arrest warrants for 6 pro-democracy activists based in Western countries, including a lobbyist who has been a United States citizen for nearly 25 years. And finally, we’ll discuss President Trump’s threat to ban the explosively popular social media app TikTok from the United States for its connections to the Chinese Communist Party, if it doesn’t sell to Microsoft or another major US corporation in the next 45 days.
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Elucidators 8_03_20 (Grab Bag #1)
Steve Palley: [00:00:00] This week on the elucidates, we're hitting three topics of note across the world of international relations. First off the Russians claimed to have won the race to a coronavirus vaccine, but they may have cut a few important corners on the way to first place. Second in a predictable, but still shockingly fast development.
[00:00:18] Hong Kong has used its new national security law arrest warrants for six activists based in Western countries, including a lobbyist who has been a United States citizen for nearly two 25 years. And finally, we'll discuss president Trump's threat to ban the explosively popular social media app, tick tock from the United States for its connections to the Chinese communist party.
[00:00:40] If it doesn't sell the Microsoft or another major us corporation in the next 45 days, Okie doke. Let's get elucidating.
[00:01:08] Hello. And welcome to another episode of the Elucidat as always. I am your host, Steve Holly, and with me as always is my cohost and producer Pete Newsome. How's it hanging, bro?
[00:01:21] Pete Newsom: [00:01:21] It's hanging. Okay. Steve, how's it hanging with you, dude?
[00:01:24] Steve Palley: [00:01:24] I'm chilling. I'm chilling. I got a, we got a missive from yeah, Facebook this week that I wanted to talk about Paul from Bolivia.
[00:01:33] Dropped us a line on Facebook. And, he told us that we did a quote unquote pretty decent job. Honor Bolivia episode, last year, where we had our good friends, professor, Jesse Acevedo lending us his expertise after the, the CEW event and, and Bolivia. yeah, he said, we do pretty decent job at wrapping everything up concisely in 30 minutes and with pretty good accuracy.
[00:01:58] Especially considering coverage from afar of a developing situation. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. Yeah. Wanted to share that out a little fan mail there. he and a friend have started a dual language podcast last year called Bolivia political crossroads to discuss the political situation in Bolivia. So you should give that a lesson.
[00:02:18] If you're interested, we're always happy to, cross promote folks who write in with their podcasts, especially if they're about international relations. Like this one is
[00:02:27] Pete Newsom: [00:02:27] just tell us we did a decent job and we'll do whatever you want.
[00:02:30] Steve Palley: [00:02:30] At least pretty decent. and from there we'll promote you just that much more, right?
[00:02:35] Pete Newsom: [00:02:35] There's a decent proposal.
[00:02:37] Steve Palley: [00:02:37] Yeah. Or pretty good even,
[00:02:39] Pete Newsom: [00:02:39] or indecent in Steve's case. It
[00:02:41] Steve Palley: [00:02:41] sounds like indecent. Anyway, thanks for listening, Paul. And thanks for writing in any and all listeners. We love you guys. Please write us. We're so lonely. The elucidates is all one word@gmail.com. Ask us questions, give us compliments, chew us out, whatever you want.
[00:02:55]or hit us up on Facebook. I monitor that channel as well. so Pete, we have decided to do things a little bit differently this week. We're changing things up after 50 shows, we've done 50 shows. We're going to do things a little bit differently. See how it goes. instead of doing one deep dive into a particular topic, which is what we usually do, we're going to do. A grab bag. We're going to do three shorter stories,
[00:03:23] Pete Newsom: [00:03:23] three shallow dives.
[00:03:24] Steve Palley: [00:03:24] Yeah. But hopefully we'll make a medium dives. So you can scoop up a, a Pearl knowledge here and there to share it.
[00:03:33] You're a socially distance at cocktail parties or what have
[00:03:36] Pete Newsom: [00:03:36] you, right. In this case, three beautiful pearls.
[00:03:39] Steve Palley: [00:03:39] That's right. And we'll just run through those pearls. we have one from Russia. We have one from Hong Kong and we have one from the United States. So. Without any further ado. Our first story involves Russia's COVID-19 vaccine slash vaccine in quotes.
[00:03:58] I'm making air quotes. You can't see it. Dude. Russia has a COVID-19 Maxine. Yeah.
[00:04:04] Pete Newsom: [00:04:04] That's crazy. Like it's very early in the game to have a functional vaccine, right?
[00:04:09] Steve Palley: [00:04:09] Yeah. Here's what they're saying. So Russia's health minister has claimed that the Institute. A state research facility in Moscow has completed clinical trials of the vaccine.
[00:04:21] Pete Newsom: [00:04:21] How do you complete clinical trials when you need three phases? And the last one usually takes
[00:04:27] Steve Palley: [00:04:27] I'll get into it. First. We're going to listen to some bragging from our Russian friends. So Curio Dimitria head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which is apparently involved in funding. This vaccine development has said it's a Sputnik moment.
[00:04:44] Wow, referring to the successful 1957 launch of the world's first satellite by the Soviet union, which famously shook up the United States and the Western world. Because we were still working on our satellite and they beat us to the punch, the Soviets, we thought they were over there appealing potatoes, but they were launching satellites.
[00:05:03] Carol says Americans were surprised when they heard Sputnik's beeping. It's the same with this vaccine. Russia will have got there first. So
[00:05:14] Pete Newsom: [00:05:14] what is that beeping? He's like we heard the beeping of Sputnik.
[00:05:18]Steve Palley: [00:05:18] all it did was broadcast a signal. That was a beat.
[00:05:22] Oh, okay. Yeah. Prove that it was an orbit, I guess, because otherwise there would have been no a way to listen to it on the other side of the earth. Got it. So that was the proof. And I suppose you could look at it through a telescope too. Yeah.
[00:05:35] Pete Newsom: [00:05:35] So we heard that beep in, and we realized things were not as they appeared, we needed to get things moving.
[00:05:40] And perhaps this vaccine is the same story,
[00:05:43] Steve Palley: [00:05:43] perhaps. so the plan is that doctors will be vaccinated first with the Russian vaccine and then mass vaccinations will begin in October. Supposedly
[00:05:53] Pete Newsom: [00:05:53] October we're in August. Yeah. So two months from now, they're saying they're going this, guy's saying they're going to vaccinate their whole, the population
[00:06:02] Steve Palley: [00:06:02] that is a tight timeline, which prompts us to ask is this for real?
[00:06:07] So, P you mentioned that there are three stages of vaccine trials, right? There's the super early stage, where we just see whether or not the vaccine generates. An immune response. There's second stage trials where you expand the tests to make sure that it's safe and it doesn't generate adverse reactions or infection the people.
[00:06:33] And then there's stage three trials. Which is where you sign up, usually tens of thousands of people. And, and then we assign half of them, the vaccine candidate, and half of them. And then you wait for months to see whether or not they get infected. At differential rates. Got it. This usually takes four to six months to do this correctly.
[00:06:58]in addition, this is a way to make sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the vaccine is safe because those tens of thousands of people. Usually around 30,000, we'll be taking all different kinds of pharmaceuticals. they will have all different kinds of preexisting conditions and so on. And so it's just a much
[00:07:15] Pete Newsom: [00:07:15] larger sample size than the phase two.
[00:07:17] Steve Palley: [00:07:17] Yeah. Much larger.
[00:07:19] Pete Newsom: [00:07:19] Yeah. And you can't, you can't bypass or speed up that phase. And still be confident in the results or you shouldn't,
[00:07:27] Steve Palley: [00:07:27] you should, but guess what? Russia has skippedstage three trials altogether. They're like, Nope, we're not doing it. They were planning to
[00:07:36] Pete Newsom: [00:07:36] do a phase three trial on their entire population.
[00:07:38] Steve Palley: [00:07:38] It sounds exactly. Yeah, that's , it's really more phase four. They're going from two. That's not how counting works. So we're going to see how this works out. so the vaccine developers say that they have tested it on military personnel. into the dozens of military personnel, which does not have very much statistical power.
[00:07:59] Let's just put it that way. And to themselves, they, they injected themselves. This guy, Kiril, Dimitri I've injected himself and his family with this vaccine candidate. Well,
[00:08:11] Pete Newsom: [00:08:11] send it, send it my way. It
[00:08:12] Steve Palley: [00:08:12] sounds safe. Hook me up. Yeah. Russia has not released any scientific data on this, but it says it will do so in early August.
[00:08:21] Pete Newsom: [00:08:21] Well, that's cool. That's where we are. So it'll be very interesting to see that data
[00:08:26] Steve Palley: [00:08:26] any day now, and I'm sure that the data will be complete and not falling.
[00:08:32] Pete Newsom: [00:08:32] So dr. Anthony Fowchee, the U S has top infectious disease expert said during a house COVID-19 subcommittee hearing last Friday, that the U S would likely not use vaccines developed in China or Russia.
[00:08:47] Steve Palley: [00:08:47] Interesting.
[00:08:48] Pete Newsom: [00:08:48] Yeah. His direct quote was I do. I hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing the vaccine before they are administering it to anyone. Claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing, I think is problematic
[00:09:03] Steve Palley: [00:09:03] at best. I love dr. Fowchee. He has such a command of the understatement and he has to in his job note that, president Trump has demanded an accelerated timeline for our own vaccine development.
[00:09:16] So-called operational warp speed here in the United States. So he's actually standing right in the middle of a. It's similar process,
[00:09:24] Pete Newsom: [00:09:24] another master of understatement.
[00:09:26] Steve Palley: [00:09:26] Yes, indeed. it's interesting that he lumped the Chinese and with the Russians, I would expect this sort of chicanery from the Russians, perhaps because they're famously good at disinformation.
[00:09:39] And why the Chinese though? Have you? No, not at first, but eventually took the virus pretty seriously. And it seems to me that they would not want to skip phase three trials of their own vaccine candidate. In fact, I believe that they have a vaccine candidate or two, two in phase three trials right now. So it could be reading between the lines that Fowchee is saying that he will not.
[00:10:06] Condone the use of the Chinese vaccine that has been tested on, for instance, a Muslim Weger prisoners held in shin Jong concentration camps.
[00:10:17] Pete Newsom: [00:10:17] so making a human rights statement.
[00:10:19] Steve Palley: [00:10:19] Yeah. Something along those lines.
[00:10:21] Pete Newsom: [00:10:21] One could maybe speculate that he's also just acknowledging that Trump is unlikely to sign onto the first vaccine that's used in the U S coming from China, just based on his stance towards that country.
[00:10:34] Steve Palley: [00:10:34] Yeah. Given that he has said that we're dealing with the Chinese virus.
[00:10:38] Pete Newsom: [00:10:38] Yeah. It wouldn't look great for the storyline, he's trying to spin. If it was like they gave us the virus and then they gave us the vaccine
[00:10:46] Steve Palley: [00:10:46] that would, that would be pretty humiliating. We need a good old American knowhow to produce a vaccine at warp speed that hopefully doesn't infect and kill people in large numbers.
[00:10:57]back to Russia, we've noted on the show before that Russia has had a pretty difficult time with COVID-19, to the tune of 850,000 cases. And about 15,000 deaths reported. But, international watchdogs and journalists suggests this is a radical under account and the totals are actually much higher, but Russia is, has been in the top four or five effected countries, overall in the entire world.
[00:11:24]especially earlier in the, indepen demic. And on top of this, we know that Putin could really use some good news right now, even though he just want a reference to him to stay in power indefinitely.
[00:11:37] Pete Newsom: [00:11:37] Yeah. It still doesn't hurt to be popular when you have to hold onto that power with an iron grip and always be concerned about uprisings.
[00:11:44] It's different. Yes. People are glad you're there.
[00:11:47] Steve Palley: [00:11:47] Exactly. Some people are glad he's there. Not all of them, especially given the fact that he's gotten a low marks. For his handling of the virus from the public, because basically Russia was not perfect. And the economy is sinking fast, especially with low energy prices, which we also did a show on with our friend, Professor Paasha Mahdavi, who is a, energy expert, explaining why, the oil market crashed it's because nobody is driving.
[00:12:14]and. Russia is a Petro state. They depend on, energy exports. So that has been bad for the Russian economy. In addition, at the moment, protests are raging in the far East of the country against the government's arrest of a popular provincial governor on a 15 year old murder charge. That is apparently super dubious.
[00:12:32] And so people have been out on the streets. For weeks now, tens of thousands of people, out in Siberia. And this is kind of like a festering wound and obviously the Russian authorities bonded to protests and Moscow, very decisively and effectively, not so much in Siberia.
[00:12:50] Pete Newsom: [00:12:50] Yeah. You know, it's serious when people are going outside and Siberia.
[00:12:55] Steve Palley: [00:12:55] I mean, I, it is August, but I
[00:12:57] Pete Newsom: [00:12:57] don't know what it's like, some of your, I shouldn't act like I know what's up in Siberia.
[00:13:00] Steve Palley: [00:13:00] Weather-wise but yeah, Pete was the last time you got sent to the Gulag in Siberia. and on top of this, the U S. UK and Canada have alleged that Russia and hackers have attempted to steal vaccine research from private labs in the last few months, which is strange behavior for a country that is supposedly way out in front and the vaccine risks.
[00:13:22] Pete Newsom: [00:13:22] Yeah. That doesn't back their story up very well.
[00:13:24] Steve Palley: [00:13:24] No, I guess they're just trying to make absolutely sure that they arrive first by scrambling everybody else's research. That must be it.
[00:13:31] Pete Newsom: [00:13:31] So yeah, totally. I guess one possibility is that they're going to inject the majority of their population with something, whether it's effective or not.
[00:13:41] Steve Palley: [00:13:41] Yep. Uber, right? I mean, best case scenario, the absolute best case scenario is they actually have hit upon, the right thing. And this works really well. Nobody gets sick and they can distribute it everywhere. That would be awesome. And I would certainly condone that a second best scenario is that they affect this whole thing and inject everybody with, saline solution.
[00:14:05] Right? The worst scenario is that they've botched this and inject people anyway and sick and, and kill, who knows how many
[00:14:14] Pete Newsom: [00:14:14] they inject active COVID
[00:14:16] Steve Palley: [00:14:16] into people, right? Yeah. Not so deactivated COVID-19, coronavirus. I have to think that Putin is probably smarter than that. But who knows, I guess we're going to find out.
[00:14:28] Pete Newsom: [00:14:28] Check back in October. We'll
[00:14:29] Steve Palley: [00:14:29] see. Yeah. A story to Pete. You want to read to the, the headline for this one?
[00:14:34] Pete Newsom: [00:14:34] Absolutely. so story to Hong Kong has, issued arrest warrants for international activists outside of Hong Kong, including a us citizen. Ooh, these, arrest warrants are issued under the new national security law that we've
[00:14:49] Steve Palley: [00:14:49] talked about.
[00:14:50] That's kind of a, a McNasty if you asked me, so who are these people? They are six
[00:14:56] Pete Newsom: [00:14:56] pro-democracy activists around the world. We're looking at someone named Samuel Chu, who is a U S citizen who has lived in the U S for decades.
[00:15:04] Steve Palley: [00:15:04] he
[00:15:05] Pete Newsom: [00:15:05] is the manager of something called the Hong Kong democracy council. In which role he lobbies the U S government to put pressure on China over Hong Kong repression.
[00:15:15] Steve Palley: [00:15:15] Got it. I would imagine that the Chinese are fairly sensitive in that area and to have a Hong Kong or hangout in Washington, DC. You know, basically making noise, would rankle them. I would imagine. They're rankled
[00:15:28] Pete Newsom: [00:15:28] and , he even tweeted, we are all Hong Kong or us now after the warrant was issued for his arrest.
[00:15:33] Steve Palley: [00:15:33] Right? So
[00:15:35] Pete Newsom: [00:15:35] there's some other people as well. there's a person named Nathan law who is a former Hong Kong lawmaker who recently fled to London, in response to the arrest warrant. He has publicly cut himself off from his family who remained in Hong Kong.
[00:15:50] Steve Palley: [00:15:50] Yeah. He said, henceforth, I will have no contact or communication with my family to protect them, which is.
[00:15:57] Sad. I mean, that's terrible
[00:15:58] Pete Newsom: [00:15:58] brutally sad thing to have to do to protect your family.
[00:16:02] Steve Palley: [00:16:02] Right.
[00:16:03]Pete Newsom: [00:16:03] another person who was targeted with a warrant is Simon Chang, Simon Chang. If I recall, he was a pro democracy activist who worked for a bank. That's financial sector in Hong Kong. He said I've done nothing that betrays my conscience.
[00:16:20] It's all for the public wellbeing. And out of my care for fellow Hong Kong, if they say I'm a secessionist was sunyata sin. A secessionist was Moussa dong as a receptionist.
[00:16:32] Steve Palley: [00:16:32] Right. So sunyata Sen being a, the founder of the short-lived Chinese Republic at the start of the 20th century. He was a revolutionary Moza dong, obviously very famous revolutionary who founded the church and he's communist party and let it to victory in the Chinese civil war.
[00:16:49]following world war II. So he is referencing very famous Chinese historical figures from not super recent history, but every Chinese person knows
[00:17:00] Pete Newsom: [00:17:00] from the last century. Yeah,
[00:17:01] Steve Palley: [00:17:01] that's right.
[00:17:02] Pete Newsom: [00:17:02] So as noted in an earlier episode that we did this new law criminalizes succession subversion. Terrorism and foreign interference and it applies to offenses committed quotes outside the region by foreigners who are not residents of Hong Kong or China.
[00:17:18] So we're seeing it.
[00:17:19]Steve Palley: [00:17:19] They're moving fast is what they're doing. Cause it has only been what, four weeks since that law hit the books,
[00:17:27]Pete Newsom: [00:17:27] Samuel Chu is a U S citizen lived in the us for decades.
[00:17:31] What, like, what do you think it means? Like, is there any likelihood that China will pursue like going to arrest these people in person that seems like.
[00:17:42] Steve Palley: [00:17:42] That's pretty dramatic. That would be a
[00:17:44] Pete Newsom: [00:17:44] somewhat dramatic escalation beyond just saying there's a warrant out for your arrest.
[00:17:48] Steve Palley: [00:17:48] I don't think they can do that.
[00:17:49] However, we know that Chinese intelligence is active in the United States and elsewhere.I guess it's possible that they could run sort of, sort of operation where they like snatch and grab these people. And return them to China. It's not unprecedented. the Israelis have done that with, for instance, Nazi war criminals in Argentina, places like that.
[00:18:11] That's right. note that the United States, has actually indicted foreign citizens, not necessarily along these lines, but in, in violation of U S laws. most recently, Robert Mueller. Indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for election meddling in, I believe 2018 as part of his investigation.
[00:18:35] And so the Chinese. Can and probably will point to that and say, well, you, you indict foreign citizens all the time and demand their extradition. Like we're just going to do the same thing you're doing, even though there are some obvious differences between the cases here,
[00:18:52] Pete Newsom: [00:18:52] right. In the case of Mueller, I'm assuming he laid out some very egregious, actual like crimes on paper.
[00:18:59] Whereas,
[00:19:00] Steve Palley: [00:19:00] yeah, I don't know if you've read the real, the Mueller report, but they very much had the goods on these guys.
[00:19:05]Pete Newsom: [00:19:05] as far as the charges from the Chinese government against these people, I guess we don't know exactly what the charges are, but they're vague and they could come down to, we just don't like what you're
[00:19:14] Steve Palley: [00:19:14] saying.
[00:19:15] I think that's exactly what they come down to. you know, just looking at what the law says, foreign interference is one of the, the four nos, right along with secession, subversion terrorism. So this would be foreign interference and subversion, I would imagine. And advocating succession is what they would say.
[00:19:36] It doesn't really matter that they can call it whatever they want to call it. They just want to shut these people up and scare everybody else. Yeah. So that's, you know, kind of troubling in Hong Kong. And in addition, this comes after Carrie lamb, just suspended elections for Hong Kong legislative council, which is their semi democratic local governing body for one year, claiming that COVID-19 makes it too dangerous.
[00:20:01]of course there is a COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong right now. but Hey, yeah, we in the United States have been voting all along. In the middle of one of the world's worst outbreaks for like it or not. there's a lot of voting by mail, but there's a lot of going to the polling places too in state and local elections.
[00:20:20] I don't think this excuse washes. I think it's, it's all the piece. Right. And on top of that, Hong Kong is lead prosecutor of their formerly independent judiciary resigned last week. Saying that he has been sidelined from the new national security law. So the dominoes there,
[00:20:38] Pete Newsom: [00:20:38] things are happening very quickly.
[00:20:40] Steve Palley: [00:20:40] Yeah. This is basically what we anticipated all along. Right.
[00:20:44] Pete Newsom: [00:20:44] Absolutely. Possibly even faster than anyone anticipated, but certainly.
[00:20:50] Steve Palley: [00:20:50] In practice. Yeah. In good time. Yes. So the U S
[00:20:54] Pete Newsom: [00:20:54] the UK and Australia and Germany have all suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong. So these activists should be safe for now, although we know that.
[00:21:05] As you said earlier, Chinese agents have been active in the U S and the UK. So who can exactly predict what, what might happen?
[00:21:13] Steve Palley: [00:21:13] Yeah, I would imagine that, these countries are all increasingly suspicious of the Chinese and their counter-intelligence are working to locate those Chinese agents and figure out what they're doing, in so far as we're basically.
[00:21:28]In a state of cold war with China at this point, if not there, then most of the way there, we're going to start seeing spy games, cloak, and dagger type stuff on both sides. And this is just the beginning. Absolutely cold war type stuff.
[00:21:44]Pete Newsom: [00:21:44] the third news item in our grab bag is related to what we're just talking about.
[00:21:50]Steve Palley: [00:21:50]
[00:21:50] Yeah. So this. Item takes place on the mobile internet on your phone, on your app store. In that us president, Donald Trump said last week that he intended to ban tic talk from the United States, claiming that it is a national security threat. Pete, what is tech talk for? Our listeners.
[00:22:14] Pete Newsom: [00:22:14] Diva was really hoping that I could punt that one to you, man. It's an app.
[00:22:21] Steve Palley: [00:22:21] On which short
[00:22:22] Pete Newsom: [00:22:22] videos are made and displayed.
[00:22:25] Steve Palley: [00:22:25] Correct. There's a lot of sort of stop motion dancing, I guess, is the best way to put it. a lot of pop and walk, a lot of just gen Z are doing funny stuff. Yeah.
[00:22:39] Pete Newsom: [00:22:39] A lot of videos about anything you can imagine tutorials about stuff, even like political statements and like.
[00:22:46] Explainers, but I think that the length of the videos is like, are all under 30 seconds or something.
[00:22:53] Steve Palley: [00:22:53] I'm not sure, but they're pretty quick. all
[00:22:55] Pete Newsom: [00:22:55] right. I know as the Elucidat is your source for tick talk news.
[00:22:59] Steve Palley: [00:22:59] Yeah, that's right. We're rebranding to be a tick tock. Only podcast. You can find us not on tech,
[00:23:05] Pete Newsom: [00:23:05] search us under our new name.
[00:23:07] Two guys who
[00:23:07] Steve Palley: [00:23:07] get to yeah. Yeah. We get to almost as well as Donald Trump. So he's saying that tech talk is a national security threat because it is owned by a Chinese firm, a large Chinese firm called bite dance. And it is spit accused of sharing user data with the Chinese communist party, the data, supposedly, any Chinese company is required to cooperate.
[00:23:30] With the Chinese communist party, when the party asked them for anything, basically they have to do business with the party. so this is not necessarily an unreasonable concern. In addition, it's accused or suspected of conducting influence operations on behalf of the Chinese government and the communist party.
[00:23:51] Because this is such a powerful new social network that so many young Americans, are obsessed with. it actually controls a major cultural center of gravity, not unlike, for instance, the Russians using Facebook and Twitter in the 2016 election. I think the Trump administration is worried about that and not just him, also, various people in Congress, and finally, it's been accused of censoring content to satisfy sensors in Beijing. So anything pro Hong Kong independence, for instance, does not usually show up tick tock, tick tick for its part has said that all of its us operations are controlled solely from the U S all of the data is held in the U S.
[00:24:34]. And they do not, and would not cooperate with the Chinese government. That's what they're saying. all of that said, India just ban Tech-Talk from its app stores and Australia is considering a ban as well.
[00:24:45] So it's actually not just the United States and it's not just Trump. It's both parties and it's several other brands.
[00:24:52] Pete Newsom: [00:24:52] It's an international stance or concern. Of course India is something of a unique case in that they're having this territorial war with China.
[00:25:00] Steve Palley: [00:25:00] Absolutely. Yeah. And in the Himalayas,
[00:25:03] Pete Newsom: [00:25:03] they're trying to hit them from a business perspective as well.
[00:25:06] Steve Palley: [00:25:06] Yeah. Or, or, you know, just safeguard their data. They don't want their data , on party servers in Beijing getting data mined. So.
[00:25:15] Pete Newsom: [00:25:15] What's Tech-Talk doing as a reaction to
[00:25:18] Steve Palley: [00:25:18] this threat. Yeah. Yeah. So it's made a bunch of concessions, basically. the Chinese founder of bite dance. This guy is young. You mean he's a Chinese multibillionaire startup guy has said, okay, I'll sell my stake.
[00:25:33]in, in, in a tech talk, that didn't wash with the administration, tech talk then said, we'll hire another 10,000 Americans over the next three years. They currently employ, I guess, 1500. So that's, yeah, that's a, that's a big, increase in, in American jobs, right. Wasn't enough. they said we'll devote a billion dollars.
[00:25:56] To you like a creative fund for, for tech talk creators. they're pulling a lot of, rabbits out of the hat basically to try to make Trump happy.
[00:26:05] Pete Newsom: [00:26:05] Right. But not addressing the data storage issue.
[00:26:08] Steve Palley: [00:26:08] No. Or the, the other issues like the, the, the main issue being the suspicion of, Chinese control, right.
[00:26:17] And particularly communist party control.
[00:26:19] Pete Newsom: [00:26:19] So it looks like might be a fixed to this situation that is acceptable to the Trump administration.
[00:26:26]Steve Palley: [00:26:26] what is that Microsoft?
[00:26:28] Pete Newsom: [00:26:28] Is looking at acquiring tech talk,
[00:26:30]Steve Palley: [00:26:30] bill Gates, Steve Vollmer, Microsoft word.
[00:26:33] Pete Newsom: [00:26:33] Yeah. That obscure a little tech company, Microsoft that's the one they're interested in acquiring TechTalk and, they believed that maybe this was the Trump administration's goal to try and, you know, get a us company to acquire TechTalk and Trump has sort of vacillated on.
[00:26:51] As he does on whether he, this was something he was in favor of or not. And it looks like when all was said and done, he has given his blessing to Microsoft purchasing talk from byte dance. So what's the, what are the terms of that deal?
[00:27:08] Steve Palley: [00:27:08] Right? We don't know yet. he has said that the clock is ticking and they have until, what is it?
[00:27:15] September 15th to do a deal. And on top of this, he has said that the United States require a cut of any deal from China or Microsoft, or both in order for this to go through. Yeah. What is that? That, that is a, what we in the business might call a shakedown and, has no basis in law or fact in the United States when the United States government.
[00:27:39]is dealing at arms length with two private companies that has no interest in supposedly. but he has said, yeah, no, the United States made this deal possible by requiring it. So we're going to go ahead and take some off.
[00:27:56] Pete Newsom: [00:27:56] That sounds pretty much like mob town, tactics.
[00:28:00] Steve Palley: [00:28:00] Yeah. I don't think it's going to happen.
[00:28:02] It's it's just, at the same time. Hilarious and terrible. And I'll also, I think we've seen this before from the president and stuff like this. Just wanting to get paid all the time. As long as you're in office, you got to get paid, man. So in terms of banning the app, should this deal not go through in time or at all?
[00:28:26] It's not clear whether or not he could actually do this. Although national security provisions for banning companies and forcing divestments, meaning forcing foreign companies to sell assets like Tech-Talk do exist. So, one example is Walway, which is the Chinese telco telco giant, that makes five G equipment that the United States has banned.
[00:28:50] From the United States and the UK is in the process of banning from the UK, because people are worried that that hardware is full of back doors. That will be exploited by the Chinese communist party. in addition, Chinese company bought the, I guess, popular gay dating app Grindr, but that purchase was reversed.
[00:29:13] By the committee on foreign investment in the United States, which has the ability to prevent foreign companies from requiring American assets for nationalsecurity reasons.
[00:29:26] Pete Newsom: [00:29:26] Okay. And I believe that committee has as its head, the U S treasury secretary.
[00:29:31] Steve Palley: [00:29:31] Yes. Minuchin
[00:29:33] Pete Newsom: [00:29:33] Mon Yukon.
[00:29:34] Steve Palley: [00:29:34] Well, no,
[00:29:35]Pete Newsom: [00:29:35] is a Trump loyalist,
[00:29:37] Steve Palley: [00:29:37] indeed.
[00:29:38] Pete Newsom: [00:29:38] And I believe also members of the military sit on that committee. It's an interesting group,
[00:29:44] Steve Palley: [00:29:44] but yeah, it's a, I think senators, treasury department, military intelligence and, and so on.
[00:29:51] Pete Newsom: [00:29:51] And none of them wanted grinder under Chinese control.
[00:29:53] Steve Palley: [00:29:53] None of them. Yeah. Now Grindr should be independent. so that's one route is sort of the national security route, through the committee on foreign investment.
[00:30:02] He could also potentially sanction, Apple and Google for a caring tech talk on their app stores through the same mechanism that we sanctioned. Like German banks for doing business in Iran and violating sanctions. Right. But that would be, I think, a lot harder to do. And more legally tenuous.
[00:30:21] Pete Newsom: [00:30:21] It would be the necessary path.
[00:30:24] Wouldn't it. If they really wanted to enforce a ban because the U S doesn't have centralized control over the internet or mobile tech
[00:30:32] Steve Palley: [00:30:32] that's right.
[00:30:33] Pete Newsom: [00:30:33] Nothing analogous to the great firewall of China.
[00:30:36] Steve Palley: [00:30:36] No, nor what India has India, I guess has a central router. Where they can just like chop off IPS to various.
[00:30:44] Yeah.
[00:30:45] Pete Newsom: [00:30:45] Right. And, you know, I think Australia does as well.
[00:30:48] Steve Palley: [00:30:48] Australia does too. Yeah. Interesting. Yes. So these are democracies and allies, that are, have either done this or looking at it carefully. of course any action would prompt a legal fight and would take time. so again, I think. we're looking for a win, win, win here.
[00:31:06] Pete Newsom: [00:31:06] The outcome that all parties might want the most, other than the Chinese communist party, right. Might be a sale of tic. Talk to Microsoft. Microsoft gets like the fastest growing social network. Which they could really use because some of their acquisitions in the last few years haven't really panned out super well.
[00:31:27] Steve Palley: [00:31:27] Yeah, they've done okay. With Minecraft and LinkedIn. but tech talk would be an entirely different thing. huh.
[00:31:34] Pete Newsom: [00:31:34] It would put them in the game. As far as social networks go in a way you haven't ever been. And of course by dance would get a lot of money and the U S government would feel better about.
[00:31:45] Where that data was going.
[00:31:47] Steve Palley: [00:31:47] Yup. That's good. And Microsoft, we feel good about Microsoft. They weren't even invited to the congressional hearings. Well, last week, so they must be cool. Right. They already went through their antitrust stuff in the nineties. So they're all good. Now
[00:31:59] Pete Newsom: [00:31:59] year, 2000 or whatever it was.
[00:32:01] Steve Palley: [00:32:01] Yeah. Quite a while ago. a couple of facts about tech talk and why this is such a big deal. They already have a hundred million users in the United States. If you're an old like us. You may not know this, but like, if you are age 24 or under, you definitely know about tech talk and are probably using tech talk right now, instead of listening to this show, it is not yet profitable, but it is the fastest growing social network in history.
[00:32:27] Including Facebook and Instagram it's, it's beaten both of them with their house, with its growth trajectory in the units. It has experienced 500% growth in the last, last 18 months. And it is privately valued at somewhere between 20 and $50 billion and climbing. So
[00:32:43] Pete Newsom: [00:32:43] that's what Microsoft would be paying for it.
[00:32:46] Steve Palley: [00:32:46] Yeah. Well, hard to say, like this is obviously this is a sale under duress, so I would imagine that they will not sell for the full amount.
[00:32:56] Pete Newsom: [00:32:56] I think, Facebook bought Instagram for 17 billion. Does that sound right?
[00:33:00] Steve Palley: [00:33:00] It does not. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion
[00:33:05] Pete Newsom: [00:33:05] for $1 billion.
[00:33:06] Steve Palley: [00:33:06] Correct.
[00:33:07] Pete Newsom: [00:33:07] And at that time, That was mind boggling.
[00:33:10] Someone spending that amount of money on an app.
[00:33:13] Steve Palley: [00:33:13] Don't mess with his duck, man, the duck knows his business. His business is monopoly. He's good at it. I think there's
[00:33:20] Pete Newsom: [00:33:20] probably some, a 25 year olds who are coming here for just. Extra news about tech talk beyond what they already know.
[00:33:26] Don't you?
[00:33:27] Steve Palley: [00:33:27] I hope so. Putting Tech-Talk in the, in the show, show, name, and show notes to get that sweet, sweet, search engine. Goodness. Before we sign off, though, what are some of the political implications? Of of this situation, this crazy situation. Well,
[00:33:43] Pete Newsom: [00:33:43] one crazy thing is that learning that tech talk might go away has motivated a bunch of teenagers to possibly vote in this presidential election.
[00:33:54] Steve Palley: [00:33:54] Yeah. They freaked out.
[00:33:56] Pete Newsom: [00:33:56] It's a huge deal to them and it might motivate a lot of teens to vote and young people to vote who weren't going to vote at all.
[00:34:02] Steve Palley: [00:34:02] Before this. Yeah. 18 year olds generally don't vote at all or in low numbers. They don't turn out unless they have an issue. That is firing them up. This could do it because it's a really important story community, during a very difficult time for young people in the middle of the pen Dimmick, or they can't go out and party, or at least they're not supposed to, in any case, they're doing a lot less of it.
[00:34:29] And I feel for them, they need their tech talk, you know? And, there's also a funny story about what happened to, Trump's Tulsa rally in June involving tech talk, right there is. And
[00:34:42] Pete Newsom: [00:34:42] I'm not certain exactly what the details are, but it's basically that you could reserve tickets to this rally.
[00:34:49] Steve Palley: [00:34:49] Also, this Trump rally
[00:34:50] Pete Newsom: [00:34:50] online, and I guess on tic talk, teens were like communicating about.
[00:34:57] This and how you could reserve a ticket and artificially inflate, the number of people who were predicted to come to this rally,
[00:35:04] Steve Palley: [00:35:04] correct. What they
[00:35:05] Pete Newsom: [00:35:05] did. They fooled the Trump campaign into thinking that like, however many thousands of people were going to show up and, many fewer than that actually did show up.
[00:35:15] Steve Palley: [00:35:15] Yeah. They spammed his rally and did this apparently made Trump livid when he showed up and almost nobody was there. The rally was, shall we say, lightly attended. it's not clear to me that the tech talkers, doing this for the walls. Actually killed Trump's rally because it was a terrible idea to begin with in the middle of the pandemic.
[00:35:35] Right. but it may have contributed Trump, makes enemies easily and often. And Tech-Talk, was an enemy from, from that point forward. That's right.
[00:35:45] Pete Newsom: [00:35:45] He may have been. The, the like idea of tectonic having U S user data stored in China. Might've been on his radar.
[00:35:53] Steve Palley: [00:35:53] Yeah.
[00:35:53] Pete Newsom: [00:35:53] But you have to imagine he actually started caring way more after the Tulsa situation.
[00:35:58] Steve Palley: [00:35:58] Yeah. Yeah, no, that made it personal. Look. He is certainly looking to bash China in the lead up to the election, on national security grounds. And, also just, Trade grounds and, well race grounds to all of it, really pandemic grounds, everything you can find, there are there convenient target, especially convenient because they've, we've done a lot of bad stuff legitimately, and there is major bipartisan concern about their behavior.
[00:36:27] I'm not saying that there's no smoke there. Cause there is. but he's, he's really running on it. Biden is too for what it's worth. it's one of the few remaining bi-partisan issues is a suspicion of China. and this is the latest manifestation. It's technical.
[00:36:44] Pete Newsom: [00:36:44] Yeah, it is. And it might be a Microsoft subsidiary soon.
[00:36:48] Steve Palley: [00:36:48] We'll see. All right, Pete, I think we're done. We went through a three stories and we will be back next week with additional elucidations.
[00:37:00] Pete Newsom: [00:37:00] Yes, we will. Steve. Good talking to you, man.
[00:37:02] Steve Palley: [00:37:02] Likewise, take care.
[00:37:04] Pete Newsom: [00:37:04] All right. Talk to you next week.
[00:37:05] Steve Palley: [00:37:05] Bye. Bye.