Xi Jinping enters the room.
He speaks and gesticulates. If it looks like yesterday's news, it is. But CCTV wants us to see it again, only this time the words will be illustrated with pictures.
The pictures are easy to understand, even when the words are not.
First, some key testimonials. Every proud member of the PLA interviewed by CCTV singles out the Chairman for unique, exclusive, and effusive praise.
The army wants nothing more than to be led by HIM.
CCTV uses pictures to show how strong the nation has become under Xi, how secure its borders have become, how combat units are quick and ready to fight.
The visuals are cinematic, with a focus on willpower, fluttering red flags and deadly firepower.
China's Air Force soars to new heights, ruling the blue skies of the motherland...including Tibet and the Himalayan border region.
The Navy diligently patrols the South China Sea to keep out intruders.
The submarine even has even unfurled a red flag.
(hope it's waterproof)
Landing craft for an amphibious assault are included as part of the preening display
More words of praise for Xi at the core are followed by more scenes of combat readiness.
Rockets at the ready
Loyalty oath
(Xi equals party, party equals Xi)
Tank training
In other news, number three Zhao Leji convenes a meeting, but the super-hyper VIP big guest Xi gets a front row seat and more attention from the cameras than the titular head of the meeting.
Zhao Leji gets more airtime when he presides at a Xi-free meeting later on
Wang Huning convenes a meeting
A meta-meeting in which people gather in-person to watch another meeting meeting remotely.
The rubber-stamp Taiwan delegation agrees with everything that Beijing says. And more.
They take copious notes of Wang's pithy talk.
Zipping through the long domestic section to get to world news.
The testimonials chime in:
-US professor, Chapel Hill
-Italian official, Club of Rome
-Russian professor (invokes "Chairman Xi")
-Lao "friendship" official:
"China builds human destiny and global development"
From little, landlocked, indebted Laos it sure must seem that way
In a strange juxtaposition, the camera takes us from Tahrir Square to Tiananmen Square to picture of tanks in action. Sherif Ismail, Former PM of Egypt, is talking when the scene suddenly jump cuts to Russian tanks in action.
CCTV's abbreviated report on Russia's "special military operation" mentions Bakhmut, but not the massive nationwide cruise-missile bombing rained upon Ukraine ten hours before broadcast.
US social activist:
"US doesn't care about Ukraine, they just care about themselves and their own profit and political gain."
(CCTV couldn't have said it better, but they've said it before)
It's......Nord Stream time!
Seymour Hersh rises to the moment.
He's on TV screens all over the non-US world now, chatting comfortably from his Stratolounger Recliner in his DC home.
From Russian officials to bearded men on the street in Belgium, everyone's talking about Hersh's revelations.
And before we close, a reminder that China is a Peach-Blossom Land infused with a single unifying fragrance.
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