Part of the Chinese Communist Party’s disinformation campaign against the United States involves paying foreigners to shill for them on social media or inviting them on sponsored trips to China. These visitors have their travel expenses covered and are only shown the best of everything, creating the illusion of a thriving, unrestricted society.
Afterward, many of these foreigners become convinced that the Western media’s negative reporting on China was false and feel compelled to make videos praising China to “set the record straight.”
However, these videos never mention the restrictions on freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and political affiliation, all of which are easily verifiable by referencing the PRC’s constitution and laws, which are available online in English.
Jimmy O. Yang, the Chinese-American comedian, is in Beijing shilling for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), raving about high-speed rail, luxury hotels, and how everything is supposedly better than in America. However, his comparison is misleading and one-sided, focusing only on high-end experiences while ignoring the broader realities of life in China.
Ironically, he had to use a VPN to post his video because Instagram and other foreign social media platforms are banned in China, along with most foreign news media. Even more absurd, TikTok—the Chinese-owned platform that is destroying a generation of American youth—is also banned in China.
An example of how Americans and other Westerners shill for China is the YouTube video “China Isn’t What They Told Us” by Two Mad Explorers. Like Jimmy O. Yang’s video, it starts by claiming that one of the biggest misconceptions about Beijing is its air pollution, insisting that the air is much cleaner than people think.
In reality, Beijing has the most terrible air quality in the world. This is not a matter of opinion—numerous websites track global air quality in real time, and Beijing frequently experiences toxic air levels. While both Jimmy O. Yang and Two Mad Explorers happened to film on a clear day, this does not reflect the city’s overall air quality. Although Beijing has made progress in reducing heavily polluted days, the city still experiences multiple days each year when air quality reaches “very unhealthy” levels (AQI > 200).
Most foreigners enjoy their trip to China because they can afford luxuries that ordinary Chinese citizens cannot. They rave about their great hotels while 300 million migrant workers from the countryside live in dormitories, often sharing an outdoor toilet, even in cities like Shanghai and Beijing.
Similarly, Jimmy O. Yang’s video fails to acknowledge that his business-class high-speed rail ticket from Shanghai to Beijing is out of reach for all but the wealthiest Chinese citizens. The $300 USD ticket price exceeds a full month’s salary for half of China’s population. While he marvels at the experience, the reality is that most Chinese workers cannot afford it.
In contrast, Americans—who, on average, earn six times more than their Chinese counterparts—travel much farther, faster, and more cheaply by plane.
To put this in perspective, a plane ticket from New York to Washington, D.C., costs under $91, roughly equivalent to 12 hours of work at the U.S. federal minimum wage. The distance from Shanghai to Beijing is comparable to New York to Chicago, where flights also cost under $90. While China boasts high-speed rail, its affordability remains a privilege for the few, not the many.
The comments on Jimmy Yang’s Instagram post were largely from Chinese accounts, all thanking him for “showing the real China” and “setting the record straight.” This is a common feature of Chinese propaganda—it does not exist in isolation.
Chinese state-backed influence campaigns often involve coordinated engagement on social media. A post will be liked and commented on by a string of Chinese accounts, many with fake names, profile photos, and few or no followers, all echoing the same pro-China sentiment. This pattern is also seen on YouTube trailers for Chinese films. For example, The Wandering Earth—a movie that failed at the U.S. box office—had a YouTube trailer where nearly 100% of visible commenters praised the film and agreed with the narrative that the movie was better than Avatar.
One commenter on Yang’s post even praised his “courage for speaking the truth,” a common talking point among Wumao (paid Chinese propaganda accounts). These accounts either genuinely believe—or are instructed to claim—that criticizing the official narrative in America carries severe consequences. This is ironic, given that the U.S. protects freedom of speech, while China does not.
I couldn’t resist the urge to set the record straight about China’s economy, so I posted about how most of the Chinese population is poor and cannot afford a business-class high-speed rail ticket. Almost immediately, “wumao” accounts swarmed in, calling me names and insisting I was stupid and wrong.
One wumao tried to argue that China’s low-income statistics were misleading because they included pensioners and retirees, claiming these groups would also struggle to buy a ticket in the U.S. This is typical of wumao tactics—they will argue against any criticism of China, no matter how factual it is.
The reality is that China’s elderly are far poorer than their American counterparts. The average retiree in China earns about 3,000 RMB per month (~$415 USD), while rural pensioners receive less than $50 USD per month. In contrast, the mean annual income for individuals aged 65 and older in the U.S. is approximately $75,254, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Decades of social engineering and the One-Child Policy have also left China with an aging population and a shrinking youth demographic, with those under 18 now accounting for less than 18% of the population. So, the 50% of China’s population earning less than $300 a month are not children. Given that those under 18 make up less than 18% of the population, the vast majority of these low-income individuals are working-age adults and retirees.
To sum up, both American workers and retirees are far wealthier than their Chinese counterparts. While Yang boasts about his train ride, the average American could afford to fly the same distance with less than half a day’s salary, and even a minimum-wage worker would only need about a day and a half of wages to cover the cost. For most Chinese citizens, luxury train travel remains a rare extravagance, not an everyday convenience.
Yes, the U.S. does not have high-speed rail, but it is both freer and richer than China. It has more than ten times as many airports, and Americans fly more frequently and travel farther in a year than many Chinese do in a lifetime. In the end, anyone claiming to “set the record straight” about China is usually just shilling for the Chinese Communist Party.
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