Phil Cunningham Profile picture
金培力 CCTV FOLLIES at https://t.co/Ytx660bYM5 Fulbright, Knight, Nieman Fellow. @jinpeili.bsky.social @jinpeili@ieji.de

Mar 30, 2023, 21 tweets

CCTV FOLLIES 3.30 Li Qiang at the helm?
Xi Jinping goes AWOL
-Is Xi resting, or just sick of being on TV?
-Special bonus file footage of Xi in 2021
-China has an environment
-Nord Stream is suspicious
-US helicopter crash
-UK is strike-ridden (nothing on unrest in France)

Li Qiang presides over Boao Forum. He looks and acts like a leader (but he's only number two, which is way, way below number one)

Foreign dignitaries listen to Li expound on trade and development.
Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching look comfortable in the super VIP-only First Class seating section.
(front row, wider seats, masks optional)

Now the news isn't really the news without news of Xi, is it?
CCTV makes up for the paramount leader's abject absence with a punishing series of Xi inspirational exhortations rooted in victorious spirit of the 20th party congress (it goes on and on...)

But here's a treat. For anyone suffering the momentary shock of Xi withdrawal syndrome, here are some really cool pics of the main man taken in June 2021, showing him totally in control. Check out those shades.

And it's hard to think about the environment without thinking about Xi because he's always thinking about the environment.
Environment matters!
Birds, more birds, and a dreamy sunset

Man is part of the environment, too!
Some lovely mass labor scenes reminiscent of Mao's Great Leap Forward.
Totalitarian nostalgia time.

It's almost like a page out of China Pictorial from the old days.
China has big trains engine, China has big ships.

Back to the future...
China is a formidable force in rocketry and space exploration and will remain so (provided they continue to use something in addition to Xi Jinping thought to fuel those rockets)

And now, it's time for CCTV's Russian colleagues to provide some footage of their successful, but seemingly endless special military operation in Ukraine.

Russians in action, backed by high tech.

Obligatory Ukraine images (fair and balanced?) paired with obligatory US and NATO "fueling-the-fire image" of weapons being unloaded in support of Ukraine.

Just to stress China's role as honest peace broker, some footage of this well-known diplomat is included along with an expounding of the Russian point of view.

Nord Stream suspicions linger. A mysterious object found near one of the pipelines has been retrieved.

Update! (from Syrian Arab News Agency)

SVB is USA
USA is SVB

Helicopter crash in Kentucky

Blackhawks down!

"Broke and Broken" England: More strikes coming!(courtesy of Sky News)
Cost of UK food skyrockets (courtesy of CCTV)

And that's it! Zai jian!

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