BBC caught telling lies...AGAIN

I'm here to tell you that the BBC have done it again!

Lies, misinformation or media manipulation, you can decide when you've seen the video and I'd love your comments on this.

Let me start by saying that one thing China does very well is care for its elders. My mother and father in law, both around 80 years of age, get income from the village, it's not rural anymore, they are completely surrounded by factories but when they were young, it was the rural heartland of Guangdong province. They get pensions from their work, they have, gifts given to them by the village council every festival and they get free trips once a year to a place in another province. A couple of years ago, they went to Shandong with a group of people from the village, last year, they chose not to go because my mother in law had a sore knee.

They get free annual medical checks, they can go to a community hall any day of the week that they want to for a medical consultation have their blood pressure checked and a referral to a hospital specialist if there's something wrong that the nurse there can't help them with. Not one of these things cost them a cent. When they do get to see a specialist in hospital, the fee is the same as mine was when I went in last year - 19 RMB. That's it, that's what a doctors appointment costs in our local hospital.

They also get free transportation on all the city's public transport and, if they go intercity, they have cheaper fares to get there and once there, they get free bus and metro in the other cities - oh, and they pay no income tax after the retire from work. There are also, as I've reported in a previous video I made with my local newspaper, subsidised canteens where they can go in and get a meal of two meats and vegetables as well as rice and soup for as little as 9 RMB, that's about one British pound or about $1.25 USD.

There's no inheritance tax, there's no property tax, there's no capital gains tax and every person has free use of the land they've built their home on or farmed, until they either die, or if they happen to be lucky enough to live there past the 70 years that the land use was registered to them, they can start another 70 years and, as long as they leave the home to their family, it remains theirs until that period has passed too.

If they live in rural regions, they have land use forever as long as the family stays there.

Overall, most people who have worked all their lives in China are better off when they reach retirement than they were when they were working. It's hardly surprising that the country encourages them to travel, visit other places and enjoy their retirement years while they're still active.

So, when I saw Stephen McDonald, the most jaded and ill-mannered reporter I've ever had the misfortune to meet, telling lies about China again, I felt the need to put this right - a good friend of mine here in China, Darren who goes by the name of Darren in China, sent me a link to this video on the BBC.

I'll put the link here and you can watch it if you want, but if I show parts of the video, there's a strong possbility that the BBC will complain and have me sanctioned for copyright infringement, so I won't show the actual video, just some stills from it.

Let me start by saying, in my opinion, McDonell knows he's lying, I hope that he's misinforming his employers, but I fear that perhaps, being the BBC, he's acting under their instructions to find negative reports on China. If that's the case, then the BBC are being disingenuous by producing it as if it were true.

The video* is called "Aboard China’s ‘silver trains’ taking pensioners to tourist spots to offset tariffs" and there's the first lie in the title, these have been going on for years - this as nothing at all to do with tariffs, but I'm gong to be generous here and suggest that might just be clickbait as tariffs are a hot topic right now.

After the introduction, McDonnell is invited to tell us what it's all about and he makes what might be the only true statement of the video - China is hoping that everyone, not just pensioners, will save less and spend more to stimulate the domestic economy except he lies about it and says this is about pensioners.

He says he's in Beijing Station which I'm not going to say is a lie but then, the first image he shows us is of a purple coloured train with the name Star Express - this is not a new train, nor is it a train that runs from Beijing Station, the Star Express doesn't run from Beijing to anywhere, it's a train that started operation in October 2024, before Trump was even elected and runs from Yunnan into Vientiane, the Capital of Laos - why would McDonell Lie about this? Because he's a liar, that's the only reason - why would BBC publish this lie - McDonell is either lying to them, or his lies are accepted as being ok.

He holds an interview with a man on the train who is clearly from Hong Kong, singing Karaoke in Cantonese and speaking English to the camera with a very clear and strong HK accent, although few of the BBC's viewers would realise that, it's locals here who would notice, interesting that McDonell, who apparently speaks Mandarin, would not mention that this person is a Hong Kong pensioner.

He then goes for a tour of the train with staff, she points out the safety feature, look, here's a handrail, the train attendant tells him it's for safety, which is true, but all trains have the same handrail along the corridors and any person who's ever been on a train would know it - perhaps McDonell hasn't been on a train in China but for sure, that's not there specifically for pensioners, the room has a phone, that's normal in a luxury train, there are a few rolling around China and they're nothing to do with pensioners, you can take a luxury train through Tibet or Xinjiang, these have been around for years, you can do trips through Yunnan and into Laos, which this one is. There is an emergency button, I've seen these in every train toilet I've been into, they aren't specially put there for pensioners and there's a defibrillator which is normal, every train carriage has one and every platform on every train station as well as every metro station in Beijing, where McDonnell lives has one - he mentions nothing of this in his video. Not one of these has anything to do with tariffs and every one of these has been in operation since before Trump became President the second time. Some of these features were in place before he even became President the first time.

So, the BBC publishes a nothing story, their man in Beijing lies about it and expects his audience will be stupid enough to believe that, in the two weeks since Trump imposed tariffs, China has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishing trains, rescheduled them onto lines that have hundreds of trains a day, organised crossing of borders with them and all because Trump imposed tariffs and China wants pensioners to suddenly start to catch them into the poorer areas of the country and spend their money.

This is a man who lived here through the entire process of Poverty Alleviation and claims to understand China's Rural Revitalisation and moderate Prosperity strategies. Let's be honest, McDonell doesn't understand China, or the Chinese at all, or if he did, he's the greatest liar and a psychopath too because only a psychopath would be able to sleep at night knowing they make their living from lies.

And here's an interesting thing - the comment section knows he's lying, those that don't have made comments that this is a great thing, which it is, but almost every second comment tells the BBC that this is nothing to do with tariffs - its seems social media knows the BBC can't be trusted too.

If you're watching this and would like to point it out to the BBC that they're liars, please feel free to share the link - I know McDonell won't watch is because he blocked me on social media many years ago after I called out another of his blatant lies.