CCTV FOLLIES 12.01 Mourning and museums
Gloomy mourning rites for Jiang Zemin (10 minutes)
-Things brighten up at a CCP museum exhibit personally inspired by Xi Jinping
(It's like the Wizard of Oz going from B&W to color.)
-Russian update on Ukraine
-US stealing oil
The camera starts with Xi and his wife and then turns its hierarchy-sensitive gaze to the rest of the masked politburo. What? Xi wearing a mask? Outside in the fresh air?
Symbolism.
He's at one with the mourning elite today.
The Nightly News recounts the drama of Jiang Zemin's body being flown into Beijing.
Xi is showing a degree of ritual respect here that was absent in his real life banishment and belittling of Jiang.
Peng Liyuan, fresh from Thailand, offers her hands in a "wai."
Jiang's bereaved wife responds in kind.
The Peng Liyuan greeting may become a meme in China
The open-view casket is carefully taken down the steps, Jiang Zemin's black glasses visible.
Xi makes an obligatory bow.
The casket is carried by goose-stepping soldiers.
Xi and his (as of late) ever-present partner Li Pengyuan do not appear to be present at the indoor ceremony.
CCTV gets some good shots of the "Jiang-mobile" cruising down the emptied out roads of Beijing
But wait, there's more. Here it is gliding down the traffic-cleared streets of Shanghai
Jiang is from the Shanghai area and was once its mayor, so at least some of the public show of respect is real.
Any questions about China's confusing Covid prevention policy?
CCTV has got you covered.
Sun Chunlan, China's Covid Czarina explains that China's correct policy is new, improved and has gotten even more precise and correct.
(Perhaps corrected by mass protest, but I digress)
And now its communist history time!
A daunting museum exhibit of the CCP's heroic and legendary exploits over the ages. It's just the kind of thing the Lao PM flew to China to see.
-Statues of revolutionary heroes
-Replica of the boat used for an early clandestine CCP meeting
PM Thongloun is suitably impressed, not just at the amazing boat but at the One World One Dream clothing on display.
It's a modern museum with fancy graphic displays.
The visiting PM is even allowed to test-drive a model.
Shenzhou 15 successfully docks with space station. This animation shows the craft above the Indonesian archipelago.
"Nipping scams in the bud, building a better legal firewall"
CCTV shows the work in progress on a new gas pipeline
(In anticipation of cheap Russian supply?)
The US, meanwhile, is facing a public health disaster.
Over one million Covid dead and now long Covid looms.
And it's over to Igor Konashenkov at the Russia Defense Ministry, his excited narration of Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine drowned out in Chinese translation.
Bang, bang, bang!
Russia keeps pounding away.
(don't call it a war)
Invasion? What invasion?
CCTV's shamelessly uninformative borderless map of Ukraine gets an upgrade by deftly combining it with combat footage for an interesting fade effect.
Unfair US sanctions on Russia cause inflation and energy woes across Europe.
It's so unfair!
And finally, in closing, "the US illegal troops in Syria are stealing Syrian oil and transporting it away, again."
Again.
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