Chinese YouTube personality Professor Jiang Xueqin, host of the channel “Predictive History,” delivered a stark assessment of Los Angeles during an appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” saying the city left him worried about what he described as a “zombie apocalypse” after encountering widespread homelessness.
Jiang said he has spent two decades sharply criticizing China, calling his home country “the most corrupt, the most unequal, the most materialistic society on the planet.” But after spending time in Los Angeles, he said the experience had made him reconsider — and even feel compelled to return to China to apologize.
“I’ve been in LA for the past three days, and I need to go back to China and make an apology to the Chinese people,” Jiang said. “Being in LA for the past three days, it really is like setting foot on a Hollywood thriller that is a sci-fi dystopia.”
Jiang, a Chinese-born Canadian educator, is also known as a geopolitical analyst and online commentator. He has drawn attention for high-profile predictions, including Donald Trump’s return to power and changes in US-Iran relations.
During his visit, Jiang said he attended a dinner party in Pacific Palisades, where the scale of the homes — and the visible presence of private security — made a strong impression on him.
“The houses there are like fortresses,” Jiang said. “These huge mansions that are guarded by private security, and which are just beautiful. I was in a $20 million mansion, and then I looked up the hill, there was a $20 million mansion.”
He said the area included celebrity neighbors such as Steven Spielberg and Adam Sandler, but he portrayed the community as one where residents remained largely cut off from one another despite their proximity.
“None of these people know each other,” he said. “They’re all in their own, like, self-contained universes.”
At the dinner party, Jiang said he was sitting next to journalist Max Blumenthal, who suggested that they visit Skid Row.
“So we get in the car, we go to Skid Row in the evening, and it is really the zombie apocalypse,” Jiang said.
Jiang described seeing “blocks and blocks of homeless people,” including people he said appeared to be on drugs.
“It just seems to me absurd that in the wealthiest country in the history of humanity, you could have this desperate form of poverty,” Jiang said.
He argued that rather than focusing on domestic problems such as inequality and corruption, the United States is too focused on conflicts abroad.
“I’m much more worried about internal tension, internal decay than I am about nuclear warfare or biological warfare,” Jiang said.
Jiang said he noticed a similar contrast while staying at a luxury hotel in Santa Monica.
“I’m literally living with real-life Ken and Barbie dolls, just beautiful people,” he said. “In the evening, I go out and it’s all just homeless people.”
He said a homeless man who appeared to be mentally ill was outside his hotel room shouting and cursing throughout the night, while the hotel provided guests with earbuds.
“This is a world we’re living in, where society is suffering from internal decay,” Jiang said. “And rather than confront the issue, we just, you know, put on our earbuds and put our head in the sand and live in our fortresses.”
Jiang blamed what he saw in part on what he called the “extreme individualism of the Western world,” contrasting it with China’s focus on family and community.
“Here in the United States, everyone is left to fend for himself,” Jiang said. “So, if you make one mistake, you know, maybe you’re doing well, but you get sick and the health care bill overwhelms you. You go bankrupt. Then you’re on the streets.”
“It is atrocious to think that in the wealthiest society in the world, people, millions of people, are just being left behind,” he added.
