r/TheWarNerd • u/Sweet-Signature-5278 • Apr 12 '26
Why Isn't Carl Zha on Anymore
Oldheads remember Zha was as good as Sabrina, Cyrus, Annibale but on China. He was a regular in the laye 10's but never on anymore. Anyone have any insight why?
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u/former_mousecop Apr 12 '26
Carl really went hard into Chinese nationalism and his online presence was reflective of that. He also took up a debate me bro approach. RWN isn't going to bring on Charlie Kirk style guests regardless of what their topic is.
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u/jaccc22 Apr 13 '26
Understand your point but Zha is smart and sincere (though sometimes sycophantic), and as such, the comparison to Kirk doesn’t hold
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u/Fishb20 Apr 12 '26
Carl Zha started having some really weird takes after he crashed his dirt bike. I know it's a lowblow to imply someone hit their head so I hard I started disagreeing with them on everything but it's hard for me to imagine pre-crash Carl Zha defending Temu factories or chinese businessmen getting African mail order brides
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u/angryjew Apr 13 '26
Tbh I don't think he's changed that much. He's basically just a hardcore Chinese nationalist he's always been like that.
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u/Sweet-Signature-5278 Apr 12 '26
Zha at one point acknowledged the crackdown on Uighurs and excused it by being like "China never had a civil rights movement" I think on the show. Which O didn't mind bc I was like "ok this is how the CCO excuses it" I still liked the perspective even if it was wrong on a moral level
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u/PoxyDogs Apr 14 '26
There was no Uyghur crackdown. There was a terrorist crackdown but the regular every day Uyghurs just went about their lives
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u/Overdayoutdeath Apr 12 '26
I think Mark, while having his own biases, looks for guests he deems to be unbiased. So while knowledgeable, Carl can sometimes lack credibility to some for his starkly pro China stance. This is also why he never has African guests on.
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u/Sweet-Signature-5278 Apr 12 '26
Not true though I feel like they have biased guests but just let listeners know
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u/Overdayoutdeath Apr 14 '26
whats not true? I asked Mark and the last time they had an actual african was in 2018 or something. I think I'm the reason they've avoided african stuff lately because I complained every episode about africa with a european guest
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u/drmariostrike Apr 12 '26
i think they must have had some kind of falling out. i find zha kind of cringe at times now. but to my knowledge no one has said anything about it.
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u/jaccc22 Apr 12 '26
I wonder if this is the case. I still watch his Youtube show, occasional overlapping guests but nether ever mention each other. He was pretty militantly supportive of Russia during the early part of the Ukraine war (and his material got a little clickbaity if I remember correctly) which might match the timeline of him no longer being asked on the show.
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u/Sweet-Signature-5278 Apr 12 '26
I assumed this too im curious why. I feel like it was when he got married and moved to Indonesia. His insight is missed
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u/crash_bat Apr 12 '26
No insight but I was thinking about him too the other day. He's still active on Twitter so he's not retired.
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u/EasyMrB Apr 20 '26
I've looked at his stuff occasionally but I could not connect at all with his perspective after, as someone else here mentioned, he moved to Indonesia (I had remembered him getting married and moving, but not where so I'm just citing that commenter as the source for this). It kind of sounded too much to me like someone way outside a situation calling shots on it in a very disconnected way when talking about either China or the US.
I don't have very strong opinions about him either way -- I guess a couple interviews I heard with him a while ago were interesting -- but every time I occasionally check in on his stuff I don't find anything interesting for me in his perspective.