Lin Min, Yang Mei

linmin67@hotmail.com

BEFORE 2019, Oli Barrett had lived his first 21 years in a rural village in England, a place “with few opportunities around.”

In early 2019, he came to China in a desperate bid to change his life at a time when he was at a low, financially broke and devoid of a purpose of life, he revealed in a video posted on YouTube. At that time, his father Lee had been doing business for about 12 years in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen successively.

In Shenzhen, Oli partnered with his father to launch a YouTube channel, Barrett, on June 5, 2019. Lee said that in the beginning, they didn’t expect to become full-time YouTubers, and the subscriber base grew more quickly than they thought.

According to Lee, their channel saw a surge of viewership when they started uploading videos on coronavirus updates from Shenzhen during the peak of the epidemic in China. “I posted videos about local epidemic control measures and statistics every single day for more than one month. At that time there was a lot of fake news in the West about what was happening in China, so I just wanted to explain what was really going on. We saw fast growth of subscriber numbers because the epidemic situation in China was a very hot topic,” Lee told Shenzhen Daily in an exclusive interview Friday afternoon.

In those videos, Lee presented to audiences around the world Shenzhen’s stringent, meticulously organized epidemic control measures, such as temperature checks, contact tracing, nucleic acid tests and lockdowns.

Based in Shenzhen, they traveled around the country vlogging all the way as the epidemic was brought under control. With a light-hearted and humorous style, their videos focus on various topics such as food and travel, culture, politics, technologies, infrastructure, urban development and poverty alleviation. Lee explained that they are trying to diversify the contents so as to introduce to the outside world a true China in all dimensions. “My interests are geopolitics and engineering, while Oli is good at sharing personal life experiences. When our subscribers are looking for politics, they can also check out food or other videos,” Lee said.

On YouTube and Twitter, their candid views on Western bias towards China have also spawn heated comments and drawn huge numbers of views. The video titled “Western media lies about China” has accumulated more than 1.84 million views since it was posted in February 2020.

Their YouTube channel now has more than 265,000 subscribers, and has raked in a combined 27.48 million views. Their accounts on other platforms such as Twitter, Bilibili, Douyin and Toutiao have also drawn huge followings.

Their videos and tweets have also drawn attention from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons Hua Chunying and Zhao Lijian, who both reposted a Barrett tweet defending China’s religious freedom in January.

Lee admitted that making their voices about China heard by the West is like an “uphill struggle” but they are slowly “making a difference.” “Many comments are inspirational. But of course there are keyboard warriors leaving negative messages about China. I would like to pay them to come and visit China, and experience for themselves,” Lee said.

Poverty alleviation fruitful

The father and son have traveled to major Chinese cities including Chongqing, Changsha, Taiyuan, Chengdu and Xi’an. In June Lee will head north to Ordos City, Inner Mongolia and Xiongan New Area, a State-level new area located about 100 km southwest of Beijing.

However, it is rural China that interests Lee the most. Seeing rural areas with his own eyes, he keenly feels the friendliness, better lives, and happiness of the people there. “People have been very welcoming and friendly to us. For example, once we met an 84-year-old beekeeper [in a village in Shouyang County, Shanxi Province in early May], and he invited us to his home and have tea. Even though we were the first foreigners he had ever seen, he said to us, ‘Come on in, jiaren (family),’ which was very emotional,” he recalled. “The old man lives a very comfortable and content life by selling honey.”

When visiting another village near Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, he was amazed to see the achievements in poverty alleviation. “Ten years ago, the villagers mainly grew and sold corn, from which they could only earn 1,500 yuan (US$233) per year; but now they have started growing pear trees with government grants, which produce 3.5 million kilograms of pears every year, and their income is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a year,” he said.

Lee cited another example of how a disabled and unemployed man realized his dreams to send his daughter to university by selling dragon fruit. “The man now earns 3,000 to 4,000 yuan per month, and the first thing he did with the money was to send his daughter to a university in a big city, which he is very proud of,” Lee recalled.

Lee told Shenzhen Daily that he and his son Oli are doing their best to talk with local Chinese people and hear their stories, which is one of the reasons why Oli is learning Chinese.

Defending Xinjiang

The Barretts have been vigorously debunking the Western fallacies about Xinjiang. Lee pointed out in one of his videos that Adrian Zenz, a German scholar who fabricated Xinjiang “forced labor” rumors, only visited China years ago for a holiday. “Nothing he has produced has been peer reviewed,” Lee said.

“There are over 800,000 people registered as refugees in the West Bank, how many people are registered as refugees in Xinjiang? It’s obvious where the real problem is,” the Barrett Twitter account said earlier this month.

Lee added during the interview that the false allegations of the so-called “forced labor” and “genocide” in Xinjiang are totally groundless. “I don’t believe in one minute that a genocide is going on. In my opinion, the U.S. and their allies just wanted to destabilize Xinjiang and radicalize the people. The truth is that China has invested a lot in Xinjiang as a part of poverty alleviation efforts. The government gives people jobs and futures so that they won’t turn to radicalism,” he said.

Lee revealed to Shenzhen Daily that he and Oli were planning to visit Xinjiang in the coming days. For their first stops, he said they would go to Urumqi and Kashgar and stay there for 10 days to record food and sceneries along the way. They will make 10 to 15 videos to show audiences what Xinjiang people are doing on a daily basis.

‘China is great’

In one of their videos on politics, Lee said the Chinese political system “has benefited China and allowed it to grow its economy so quickly,” and “democratic elections in Western countries slow down or even paralyze decision making.”

“For example, 30 to 40 years ago, China was a poor country. But now China is a very competitive leader in the world economy. India adopts the Western-style system, but lags behind China. China’s system works for its people,” Lee said during the interview.

“We have been talking about having a high-speed rail link between London and Manchester for more than 10 years,” Lee said in a video. However, in that same 10 years, China built over 25,000 kilometers of high-speed rails, two-thirds of the global total mileage in operation.

“Most Chinese people, the majority of people I’ve spoken to, are quite happy with the status quo,” Lee said in a video, because they see their lives greatly improved, and “the Chinese Government acts in the best interest of the people.”

“Freedom to many people means a lot of different things,” Lee said. Chinese people cherish “the freedom to walk around the cities feeling safe.” The junior Barrett added that while Americans insist on the freedom to own a gun, “Chinese people think if I have the freedom to own a gun, I will have less safety.” “They are OK to sacrifice that bit of freedom, because that gives them a different freedom. That’s safety,” Oli said in a video.

Lee commented: “Western countries have got to stop thinking that the democratic system that they have has to be something that everyone else around the world adopts. Just leave China alone.”

Refuting Times’ report

On Jan. 9, 2021, The Times of London published a story claiming the Chinese Government “is funding British YouTube stars to produce pro-China propaganda videos,” and focusing its claims on the channel owned by the father and son. In a video posted on their YouTube channel later, the Barretts refuted the claim, saying although they joined some video-shooting trips organized by China Radio International (CRI), which paid for food, accommodation and some other expenses for their trips, their content was independently produced and CRI had no say in what and how their videos should be made.

“We choose what content we will produce, we decide what we are going to say in that content, we decide what we are going to publish on our channel. And that is completely different from a sponsored video,” Lee said.

The Times article used a photo of Oli with a big smile standing at the Bund in Shanghai with stunning night views behind him. By doing so, The Times was trying to portray that they are living a glamorous life funded by the Chinese Government, Lee told Shenzhen Daily. “They assume we have connections with the Chinese Government, which is crazy. That day was actually Oli’s birthday and the picture was taken by one of Oli’s friends. It’s interesting to see how they manipulate words.”

“The report won’t be the last one, probably more in the future, because we are pushing against the narratives of the West. They have to discredit us. But I don’t care about what they say, because I know the truth,” Lee continued.

The Times report was a blessing in disguise for the YouTubers. “It turned out to be positive for us. We saw a big jump in viewership with 25,000 to 30,000 new subscribers in a week or two,” Lee said.

Based in Shenzhen

Technology is one of the Barretts’ main interests. For them, Shenzhen, home to a large number of tech giants such as Huawei and Tencent, is at the forefront of world science and technology. “Shenzhen is a very interesting place to live in because it’s arguably the most futuristic city in the world,” the father and son told Newsgd.com in January this year.

They both are very passionate about technology, sharing with audiences around the globe how they feel in their daily life about some of the cutting-edge technologies including 5G and AI.

Lee observed during the interview that Chinese people adopt technology better than their counterparts in the West. The father himself is embracing and enjoying the great conveniences technology brings. “When I visited Wenchuan in Sichuan Province not long ago, I bought cherries through WeChat payment in a mountainous village. Once I crashed my drones while shooting videos, I ordered one online and it was delivered the next day,” Lee recalled.

Lee attributed such convenience to China’s investments in communication and rail infrastructure, which help remote areas get wealthy.

Lee is a big fan of Chinese brands including Huawei, Xiaomi and Li-Ning. He told Shenzhen Daily that he has 10 to 15 Xiaomi devices in his home, including water and air purifiers, smart lightings, cameras, vacuum cleaners and a mobile phone.

“Five years ago in the U.K., when I said to people that Chinese smartphones would be dominant worldwide, they laughed at me. Now Chinese brands are leading innovators in phone technology,” Lee said.

Besides showcasing high technologies in Shenzhen, the Barretts also visit companies and factories in other parts of the country. In one video, they separately fly in a small aircraft built by Sunward. In another, they try mini electric vehicles made by Wuling. Other videos capture the duo taking high-speed trains from Shenzhen to Guangzhou and from Futian to Hong Kong.