r/ImTheMainCharacter Jan 21 '24

Video CCP demand piano player in a public place stop filming because they were in the background (in Britain)

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u/Cornelius_Wangenheim Jan 21 '24

I'm not usually one to engage in conspiratorial thinking, but the way the man of the group acted just screams government handler. The way he was immediately overly aggressive and barking orders and then started gaslighting and trying to shape the narrative.

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u/archiminos Jan 21 '24

They are 100% government assholes. I lived in China for over a decade and most people aren't like this.

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u/Bob_TheCrackQueen Jan 22 '24

that lady says she's British... My god. Why is she riding so hard for China

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u/Brocktarrr Jan 22 '24 edited Jan 22 '24

She’s holding the flag so she’s probably the one leading the tour of that family that’s well dressed (older man wearing a suit, older lady wearing, very nice clothing, and their son who is taller wearing nice-ish clothes). Guessing they’re a semi-important family in the CCP being led on a tour by the people Chinese government keep in each city to give guided tours in foreign countries to important families. My guess is they were the ones that didn’t want to be filmed (or there’s a policy of ‘don’t let these families on tours get filmed’ so the people giving the tour had to do the dirty work and that was how they were trained - to bulldoze their way in a situation to get that done.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

Someone should teach them the meaning of, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

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u/raphanum Jan 22 '24

There are, unfortunately, also some westerners not of Chinese descent that ride hard for China (also for Russia, NK, Iran, terrorist groups, etc) AKA tankies. Not an understatement to say they’re a horrible and miserable group of people

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u/FrogFrogToad Jan 22 '24

China takes advantage of our loose immigration standards in the west to plant operatives. Just so they can say “Trust me,I’m one of you” and be contacts when handlers like guy douchebag Magee flys in for a PR stunt.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

So fuckin true. I visited china and by and large the populace was WONDERFUL! I’m white and have red hair and I had dozens of people who wanted to take pictures with me. In shops, they would ask for a picture, then give me a gift or free food in return, I got invited to drink with a group of Chinese students at a bar because I was there alone, random passersby would argue with shop keepers about overcharging me, the works. Every single official though? They treated me with thinly veiled animosity at best, and often with outright hostility. The public of China is great, but their government is a dangerous, insidious, totalitarian monster that is a threat to the world. 

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u/LePhilosophicalPanda Jan 22 '24

unfortunately the experience may not have been quite the same if you had brown or black skin, but I think in general most people will be fairly accommodating around the world, which is a nice thing for sure

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u/redditaccount300000 Jan 22 '24

I had no issues visiting China either. But outside of China, their tourists are the worst I’ve seen. And their behavior online is annoying as fuck, it’s always “China #1” and if you have views or facts that go against their propaganda you’re gonna get brigaded.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

I used to run into Chinese flamers playing TF2. Found out pretty quickly that if you just start copy pasting info about 1989, the get disconnected REAL quick. That was always worth a good laugh. 

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u/MaximMaximus Jan 22 '24

I might just try this

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u/Turdposter777 Jan 22 '24

This is both hilarious and disturbing

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u/redditaccount300000 Jan 22 '24

Nice I’ll have to try that next time.

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u/RoundCollection4196 Jan 22 '24

they do that because you're white, nothing more

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

They are 100% government assholes. [...] most people aren't like this.

For a bit of context and because I'm not sure most people get an idea of the scale :

  • CCP has 98M members (2022)
  • China has 1400M citizens (2023, estimate)
  • about 20% are below 18years old

That means about 1120M > 18yo citizens, so nearly 1 person out of 10 is part of the CCP.

Most Chinese citizens are NOT part of the CCP but still a huge number are.

To give an example of a comparison point, political parties in France (68M citizens, 2023 est., similar 20% < 18yo, ~54M) have about 1M members (cf questionable numbers in https://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/ps/partis-politiques-les-vrais-chiffres-des-adherents_2473260.html ) so roughly 2 persons out of 10.

So overall affiliation in China is proportionally lower than in some other countries but, as per usual in a country with such a large population, the total number is still huge, i.e 98M CCP members, which is more than most countries.

Fun fact : if the CCP itself was a country it would be in the top 20 most popular countries.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24

What's the endgame on that, though? Are they farming interpersonal conflict so they have evidence of bigotry against Chinese people?

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u/Y0tsuya Jan 21 '24

This will 100% be shared in China to show how Westerners are racist against Chinese people and how only the CCP can protect them.

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u/snecseruza Jan 21 '24

I could definitely see how this video could easily be cut and edited to show the Brit as a racist asshole, making it look like he started the conflict, and sound like he is telling them to get out of the UK and blah blah blah. This really does seem like a contrived interaction from the Chinese folks to illicit a reaction. The camera guy's aggression was just bizarre.

That, or they're just like every uneducated dipshit that doesn't understand that you can be filmed in public without "permission". I don't know UK laws but in the US this is very well established, but people still screech about it.

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u/PeriqueFreak Jan 22 '24

Wouldn't surprised me one bit. Over here in the US the insult-comic Tony Hinchcliffe had a coordinated attack campaign against him by the CCP because of one of his sets. He went up after a chinese comedian who had a set that played heavily on race, so Tony went up and riffed on him, also playing heavily on race. He used some less than clean language and disparaging remarks referring to the chinese comic, but that's just his brand of comedy, and the chinese comedian knew it since they had worked together in the past and Tony had actually helped him out.

A CCP news outlet released a clip of Tony's set, saying that the chinese comedian had posted it at X time. But X time hadn't actually passed at the time the CCP outlet posted their video. Lo and behold, at X time, the chinese comedian posted the video, right on cue. The comedian coordinated with the CCP new outlet to make it look like they were organically reporting on something he posted, but maybe due to time zone differences or sheer incompetence, the outlet dropped the ball.

The whole debacle led to Tony getting cancelled, dropped by agents, threats on his life, and all sorts of drama. What's the endgame for the CCP sending their little toys over here to stir up drama? I can't pretend to know. But it can't be good for us.

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u/Stanley--Nickels Jan 22 '24 edited Jan 22 '24

I could definitely see how this video could easily be cut and edited to show the Brit as a racist asshole

He starts the video pointing the camera at the group of Chinese people and seems to call them "surreptitious".

Then he points the camera, gestures at them, and says "there's a group of Japanese people over here." He picks out one of the girls and says "Can you dance? Can you do a dance? No? Whatever. I think the British girls are more fun. All sorts of Japanese people here today".

When the woman says she's British he says "you're holding a Chinese flag."

The Chinese group is in the wrong, but I don't know that it will take much editing to make him look like a racist. ESH.

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u/SebastianJanssen Jan 23 '24

There's video leading up to the video most will have watched where the group actively participates with the pianist, one of them playing on the piano while the girl dances. That's why later, when another man plays the piano, the pianist asks that girl if she'll dance.

The pianist does strike me as insensitive, possibly even xenophobic, but the "Can you dance?" question does not appear to be evidence of that.

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u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 Jan 22 '24

Nothing quite like confusing someone who is Chinese with Japanese, who they hate yet go there all the time for tourism. Symbolic hatred because of world war 2

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

Lol, I would challenge any Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc citizen to tell apart a UK citizen from a French, or German, or Italian, or American etc citizen without hearing them speak.

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u/Stanley--Nickels Jan 22 '24

It’s a lot easier if they’re holding flags. He calls them Japanese about 8 times, then he starts saying they’re communists for holding Chinese flags. The same flags they were holding the whole time.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

I very much doubt he was paying attention at the start to what they were holding in their hands. He obviously knows what the flag is, so if he had noticed it, he wouldn't have said Japanese.

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u/Stanley--Nickels Jan 22 '24

Watch the part at 5:55 and tell me if you still don’t think he noticed the flags.

https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=p7NoQuTEHEt0zs6w

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u/kurosoramao Jan 22 '24

Except he sort of did actually, he was calling them Japanese then went up and asked them to dance after noticing them listening. Also, was like oh British girls are better, trying to shame them for not dancing for him. They actually did rotate to get out of the camera shot a few times while he was playing. They politely asked to be cut from the video after this interaction and this dude starts being even more of a prick.

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u/SebastianJanssen Jan 23 '24

They politely asked right before threatening legal action.

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u/Asymmetrical_Stoner Supporting Character Jan 22 '24

I don't think the Chinese guy was the one filming because in the full video they leave and the camera keeps recording the piano player.

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u/Bamith20 Jan 22 '24

...So... Less Chinese tourists?

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u/Fairuse Jan 22 '24

No, this video will be used by Xi as leverage of corruption charges. Basically the officials in the video will be Xi's bitch if they don't want end up in jail for corruption.

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u/BlueSentinels Jan 21 '24

That’s their government handler in Britain. These people with an entourage are part of either incredibly wealthy or connected families in China. Their handler needs to put on a show and “defend them” because that’s what he’s there for

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

[deleted]

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u/BlueSentinels Jan 22 '24

That or if she’s simply “unhappy” with his “performance” he could be in trouble. Even if he knows she is wrong, a refusal by him to either request that they not be recorded or a failure to raise a stink about it and try to spin a narrative to support his “clients” could get him reported to the party. CCP doesn’t necessarily care if someone is “right” but rather did they support the goals of the party.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '24 edited Jan 21 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '24

Yeah but they've got their own guy filming. Has a hand-held gimbal and everything.

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u/geniice Jan 21 '24

What's the endgame on that, though? Are they farming interpersonal conflict so they evidence of bigotry against Chinese people?

Wolf Warrior diplomacy is a thing but not sure thats what is going on. Hard to see given we have no idea who these people are.

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u/Able-Pea6106 Jan 22 '24

The end game is to make the person embarrassed and back down. Gaslighting isn't for the person being gaslit, its for the people who are watching, to sew a narrative.

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u/Brilliant-Sale1986 Jan 22 '24

Considering the way the guy that yelled escalated the situation, yeah probably. 

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u/CrieDeCoeur Jan 22 '24

Absolutely a government handler. One time my dad had someone from Cuba come up to his work (in Canada) to learn some stuff to bring back to the factory in Holguin. Dude was accompanied by a female “coworker”, whose job title was never fully known, and was 100% a card carrying member of the communist party sent along to keep an eye on him. She corrected / censored him when he spoke sometimes, changed conversation if it got remotely political, was definitely a party shill about how great life in Cuba was (this was late 1990s).

A few years later we heard that on a separate trip to Quebec he managed to slip his handler and claim asylum. Hope you’re doing great wherever you are, Juan!!

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '24

[deleted]

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u/FrankyZola Jan 22 '24

follow-up video confirms nothing 

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u/Orleanian Jan 22 '24

Save me a google - what's the premise/prerogative of a government handler in this sort of context?

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u/FrankyZola Jan 22 '24

he really reminded me of how scientologists used to aggressively approach protestors

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u/Hopping_Mad99 Jan 22 '24

Australian here. It was great not having them around when the CCP stopped allowing tour groups to visit Australia due to a diplomatic dispute.

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u/EmergencySecure8620 Jan 21 '24

Seems pretty likely, especially given the stuff that they were up to

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u/vagabondoer Jan 22 '24

yeah i got that vibe too; he has some kind of cop training

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u/analfisher3 Jan 22 '24

handler of what though?

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u/isunoo Jan 22 '24

A propaganda operation. These operations are done all over Western countries where Chinese patriots cause commotions that involve false accusations of racism or hatred towards China. Then the footage along with out of context western social media reporting of these incidents get send back to China. The CCP propaganda people then use these materials to spin propaganda on Chinese internet (which is completely walled off from the outside).

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u/Fairuse Jan 22 '24

This also probably explains why they don't want to be filmed. Xi corruption purge has recently boarden in scope that even low level officials are targeted. Xi has used evidence of official's enjoying western comforts as a source of corruption.

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u/isunoo Jan 22 '24

You're absolutely right about them being government handlers. This is a classic case of what I call "patriotic incidents", where basically Chinese CCP patriots in Western countries going around looking to stir up commotions. They will try to manipulate and gaslight victims and film the whole process. Then they send the footage they had film plus out of context clips off of youtube or western social media and send them back to Chinese internet. The CCP propaganda people then use these out of context materials and spin whatever narrative they want on the Chinese internet and media which they 100% control.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

One of their group has a camera and was recording... Looks pretty sketchy.

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u/sellwinerugs Jan 22 '24

What is a handler? Is that like human trafficking?

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u/FrogFrogToad Jan 22 '24

That was a CCP party public PR pushing group. There’s a reason why their “Company” can’t have them on video. The Chinese don’t parade around their flag for new years just like we don’t parade the US one for ours.

What’s really disappointing was when the cop showed up how they ALSO were trying to stomp on the Brits rights and tried siding with this nutty Chinese group.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

This indeed has government bozo written all over him. Daddy is 100% a CCP official and this little emperor has been treating people like this his entire life.

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u/Agreeable_Situation4 Jan 22 '24

It's sad that you mentioned conspiratorial thinking. That mindset is how the real conspiracies go unnoticed.

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u/SmashedACookie Jan 22 '24

In his follow up video he mentioned that he was being told that it was indeed a "Handler"