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Insight- Is China Still a Communist Country? With Carl Zha · UK Column Radio

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello one, Welcome to the UK colum. I am joined
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: today once again by carl Za. Welcome to the program.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Carlos is going to be the second in our discussions
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: about China. And after the last time we spoke, I
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: said to you my first question and the next discussion
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is going to be is China still a communist country?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: So let's start there. Is China still a communist country?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You know, Mike, that's such a rock question because you know,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: even even people in the West have very different different
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: definition of what communist is. And back in the US
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: there are some people people on the Republican side, they
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: think Joe Biden is a communist or Commas is communists.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: So, but China is a country that's ruled by.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: The Communist Party of China. But you know, we got
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: to pay attention to what they say about their country. So,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: according to the Communist Party of China, currently they're building
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the initial stage of socialism. So they're they're not there yet.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: They're not communism, they're not even as socialism. They're building
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the initial stage of socialism. That's that's how they describe
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: their own country and their their their society. What I
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: would say is today it's far easier to start and
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: operate a business in China than in the United States.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I mean this is even true for foreign entrepreneurs who
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: have business in China, and China obviously walcome foreign businesses.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: You know, we have seen ceo American CEOs like Tim Cook,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk visiting China and walk them with open arms.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Now some some people say, well, okay, China is just
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: just as capitalists as the United States, but there's a
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: there's actually a bit difference because in US the money
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: runs politics, you know, big money runs the politics. We
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: have seen that with our latest election. We have people
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: like Ela Musk, either THEO or the other big Silicon
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: valley venture capitalists. They are a big force again getting
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Trump elected, and you know, they.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Wield enormous influence in US.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: You know, we saw people like Jeff Bezio, Mark Zuckerberg
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: attending the presidential inauguration, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas in
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: China you can become a billionaire. There are many Chinese
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: billionaire nowadays, but they don't get to set political agenda.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So for example, back when during Obama's administration, Obama approached
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the Apple, then Apple CEO Steve Job, and he said, Steve,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: can we build more iPhones or apple products in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: United States? And Steve Job told Obama, no, it's not
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: possible because there's not enough skilled worker in US. Here
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you have Obama, you know, the supposedly the most powerful
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: man in the world, the leader of the free world,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: approaching a business leader asking him to source more locally
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: inside the United States. And Steve Job basically give him
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: a big, fat f you and said, no, it's not possible. Now,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Jack Ma, who is a billionaire in China, you would
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: not be able to do that to Xijing Ping. If
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Chijimping ever called up Jack jack Man and say, hey,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: you know, Jack, can we make sure Ali Baba source
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: more of the products from China? Jack Ma will not
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: be able to tell Cijinping now, we're not going to
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: do that. We're going to seek to maximize our profit.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You know, this is a difference between China and the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: United States. In the US, the political system had been
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: totally captured by big money, by the Wall Street, by
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: the Celicon Valley vcs. In China, you can get rich,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: you can be a billionaire, but you don't get to
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: sit policy. You don't get to set agenda. Jack Mott
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: does not get to set agenda of China. They are
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: welcome to operate their business to to become billionaires, but
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: they don't get to change policy.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: They don't.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not like Washington. You can you know,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: where us have the best congressman money can buy. In China,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: it's still the Communist Party of China's running things, not
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: big businessmen like Jack matt or if the founder.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Of Tencent or you know any of that people.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So I think that's a major difference because but China
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: do have a market economy. This was decide deliberately a
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: policy sit down in the Denshall Pina era when Denshall
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Pine said, you know who says only the capitalist country
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: can have market cones? And then King actually said, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: socialism is not about poverty. You know, if we cannot
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: provide our people with prosperous lives, then our socialism would
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: have failed because you know, socialism is not to be poor.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And and and then you know, then there's another school
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of thought within China. So another old statesmans Hengring, who
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: work alongside den Chapin. He said, what we need is
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: we need to put certain restrictions around capital You use
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: the analogy.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Of a bird in a cage.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: They said, well, we need we need market con but
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we can't have the market wrong everything. So
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: this is why, Like the market is like a bird
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that you're putting a cage. We disc to decide how
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: big the cage is. But you know, if there's no cage,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the bird will fly away. You know, we cannot have
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: rampant capitalism where the big money dominate everything. So we've
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: got to put restriction around it. But the cage cannot
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: be to be too small because that will suffocate the bird.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That would choke off the market economy. That's not good.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: We need to give it room.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: We need to give room for the market economy to grow,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: but ultimately we still need to put it for restriction
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: around it. This is called the bird cage economy model
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: in China, and this is pretty much how it has
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: been operated since nineteen eighties. You know, where private business
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: is allowed, where people are allowed to accrue wealth and
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: even become billionaires, but they're not allowed to, you know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: take over the government. Big money a billionaire were not
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: allowed to take over.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Obviously, it's clear in the United States what the motivation
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: is for somebody to go into politics, because as you say,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it's the best politicians that money can buy, and the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: motivation is clear. So in China, then we have a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Communist Party of China with leadership and a hierarchy, but
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: at the same time we have people operating in this
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: birdcage economy with the potential to become billionaires. Of what
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: drives and motivates people to join into the political system
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: rather than the world of commerce.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: That's a great question because in the United States, you
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: know which many people are familiar with, the way to
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: make money is to join the Wall Street right. That's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: because the US economy has been so financialized. That's where
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: you make the big money. That's why a lot of
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: the there's a lot of smart people in US, but
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: many of them are incentivized to join the financial industry
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: because that's where the money is. And whereas in China,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: joint government is still a very sought after a career path.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, China had a thousand years of history and
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: China had a thousand year old centralized bureaucracy, confusionist bureaucracy.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: You can think of the Communist Party of China today
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: as kind of inheritor of that two thousand year old tradition,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: of that two thousand year old you know, Confucianist bureaucracy.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: But instead of calling yourself Confusion, now it's calling yourself
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Communist Party of China. I mean, obviously they have incorporated
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of concept, you know, from Marxism.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: But there's actually a.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Show, a TV show recently in China they had that.
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  Speaker 2: It's called Confucius Meets Marx and I have a guide
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: dressed as Marx and he said, well, I have been
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: living in China for over one hundred years now, and
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: by now I'm basically Chinese.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: So you know, way.
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  Speaker 2: The Chinese they took foreign concept like Marxism, and they indigenized,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: they sentesized it and made it Chinese. Incorporate Confucianism combined
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: with you know, Confucianism, because Confucianism is really about a
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: governing ideology. The one way to think about it is
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the Communist Party of China today is like the old
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Confucianist bureaucracy got a software update. They got they got
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: a software update with an injection of a little bit Marxism, socialism,
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  Speaker 2: uh presept. But for a lot of people, especially young people.
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  Speaker 2: And this is who I grew up in China. As
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I mentioned before, I spent most of a decade of
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties in China. The government, they tend to
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  Speaker 2: they come to the school to recruit, like they go
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to colleges. They will target the top one percent of
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the people of the class and they will try to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: recruit them into the Communist Party, you know. So so
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: their goal is to grab the elite what they called,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, elite human capital and get them to join
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the government. Of course, you know, there are many perks
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: to be a government official, you know, you you know,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: power for many people, it's it's power is a connection.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And you know, I would even say many people join
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: the Communist Party of China for career advancement.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: You know. I'm sure there's.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Some people who are who are doing it for ideology,
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  Speaker 2: but I think for majority of the people who who
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: joined up, they are they're doing it for their their
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: career advancement. They see a good career ahead of them
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: in government.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: If that makes sense.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And I guess it's never possible to find out exactly,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: but I wonder how, for example, the salary of Cheshi
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: in pain compares to the salary of a significant businessman.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not about salary. Maybe there are other benefits
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: to being the premier of the country. Maybe he doesn't
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: have to worry about and I think financial at all.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: How do we get an idea of what it is
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  Speaker 1: like to be a senior CCP member.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: This is a both in and out of the government.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: They they usually have an official income and then they
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: have like income of the books. You know, it's come
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: with the perks of the job. For example, you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: when you are a government official, you get a lot
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: of perks. Obviously in the old days, in the nineteen
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: eighties when at the time when private car was almost
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: unheard of. You know, if your government official, you get
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: provided with a car, you have government provide housing, except
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: of course now everybody can go by by uh and
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: can go for a car. It's with the Chinese euvs
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: uh A more every increasingly more popular. In a government official,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: especially a higher in the ranks, you you have special
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: perks outside of you know what your official salary states.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: You know, they the people for example they have or
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: the top leadership in Beijing, their food is catered to, right,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: they have special people set aside to grow food for them,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: you know, organic food, et cetera. And and so there's
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of perks to to to to
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the to the government job. For example, one thing to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: think about is, you know, one thing China actually study
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: is a Singapore model. You know, one one the one
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: way that Singaporean government try to recruit you know, the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the elite into you know, the elite capital into its
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: own government is to provide high salary. This was down
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: in Singapore and Hong Kong. It's it's also to stamp
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: out corruption. But China, I think it's a combination of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: prestige and the perks of the you know, just just
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: have enjoy the perks of the job. I mean, people
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: like gigmpin they really don't need to worry about material
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: needs and and and and Similarly, people of similar ranking
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: in the leadership they have you know, power with power, power,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: it comes a lot of perks.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Is there any real political opposition in China? Is there
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: any kind of discussion amongst people about what is the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: right way forward? Or is it absolutely one hundred percent
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: controlled by the party hierarchy.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: This is a great question in China.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Investor Eric Lee once famously, uh made a remark, you say,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: in the United States, you can't change the bar party
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: through election, but you don't change the policy. It's a
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: deep state will keep running things. In China, you cannot
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: change the government, you cannot change the ruling party. This
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: is always going to be the Communist Party of China.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: But you can't change the policy because within the umbrella
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: of the Communist Party of China, you know, there's actually
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of fashions, a lot of different opinions on
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: how to run things. So there's a great diversity of
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: opinions within the Communist Party itself on how to accomplish
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: a certain task and how to run the country. So
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: and these different factions, of course they compete with each other.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: This is this is why we see, you know, sometimes
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: we will see China change policy almost like one hundred
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: eighty degrees, like the zero COVID you know, China pursues
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: zero COVID policy for a couple of years and then suddenly,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: like over they just got rid of it because obviously
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: they realize that that no longer works, it's no longer
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: feasible pursue that policy. So so so a lot of
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: people get caught in the whiplash. But this is this
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: is because there's actual a dissension among there's actual difference
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: opinions within the party itself, but it just depends on
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: which faction is more dominant at any moment. But but
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: this is how things are done. But that there's no
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's real opposition outside of the Communist
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Party of China. There are other political parties in China,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of course, but they there.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: There are nowhere near as powerful, of course as a
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Communist Party of China, and.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So a lot of the real discussion among how to
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: implement things, how to implement policy, and how to change
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: policy within the party itself. I think the closest analogy
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: people can think about is Japan. You know, Japan had
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: basically one party system sins up World War Two. They
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: had LDP, but within LDP itself there are many different
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: factions of LDPS competing for power. I think this is
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: probably the closest.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Model to China.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: China have the Communist Party of China, but within the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Communist Party of China, they're different ideas of how to
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: run things, and depending on.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Who we see charge that that can manifested different.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, but you're talking about smaller opposition parties. Do they
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: remain smaller because they don't get the coverage in the media,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: or do they remain smaller because they're actually oppressed by
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the state.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: A lot of these parties they just don't get very popular,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I think by the fact that many people recognize you know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: it's like, what's the point. They don't have nearly as
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: much power as a Communist Party of China. These parties
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: that are invited to join the political process are part
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: of the Political Consultation Council, you know, its members sometimes
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: serve in the Congress of People. But they these party
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: have nowhere near.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: The reach or the influence of the Communist Party of China.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So if you're top college grads, you know, if I mean,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: only reason for you not to choose one of those
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: parties versus the Communist Party of China is maybe you
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: have some deep out ideological conviction that make you choose
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: one of this party over the Communist Party of China,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: because otherwise, uh, you know, like like I said, many
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: people actually join the Communist Party of China for their
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: own career asment rather than ideological reasons.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: If we stay on internal Chinese issues. First of all,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: they real so called human rights issue that the West
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: likes to be China over the head with is Shinjiang
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and the Weiger situation. Now you are deeply into Chinese history,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and I suppose where I'd like to begin with this,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe you could just tell us a little bit about
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the sort of diversity of peoples within China, because people
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: talk about China and they think about China, but just
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: many people asn't know is it breion and a half.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Yet it is a huge population, and of course you're
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: going to have diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, but
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in this case diversity of religion. How has this problem
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: developed over the years and over the decades and maybe
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: over the centuries.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, of course, you know, China is not
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: He never claimed to be a ethno state. You know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: China in its official charter he says it's a multi
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: ethnic country and he has fifty six officially recognized ethnicities
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: its including like for example, or Igori in Shinjiang, Tibetans, Mongols, et.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Cetera, et cetera.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And of course all this the majority over like ninety
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: percent is is what they call the ethnic Han, which
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: consists of the majority of the country and then there's
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: less than ten percent. Is what's the so called national minorities.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: But these national minority actually living areas where like they
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: actually composed of local majority. You know, for example, in Shinjang,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: the Oiger population is about forty five percent more than
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: forty five percent of the population, so they're actually majority
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: in their home region. And China grew out of like
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: ancient empires. You know. This is this is why China
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: has always been a diverse place. And I just want
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: to say something about, you know, the human rights issues,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: because every since I moved to the West, to the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: US in part in nineteen ninety, the only thing I
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: read in mainstream media is how China's human rights issue
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: is deterrorating year after year, and I find it completely bewotering,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: like it's getting worse compared to what I mean, it's
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: getting worse compared to mal years, compared to cultural revolution.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's it does not compute.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Because when I lived in China in nineteen eighty, my
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: experience has been every year is getting better and better,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and things are actually opening up more and more. You know,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: there's more personal freedom in nineteen nineties compared to the eighties,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: and in two thousand compared to the nineties, and now
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: much more so today in twenty twenty five than say
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: in the two thousand. So my experience is that China
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: has been you know, gradually improving, you know, including on
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: the human rights rights.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Rights or issues.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: And one thing did so is by lifting eight over
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: eight hundred million people out of poverty. I mean, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: talking about speaking of human rights, you know, the basic
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: rights to to live a dignified life, and you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: there's not much dignity in poverty. One thing the Chinese
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: government did very successfully in the past decades is lift
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you know, eight hundred million people, that's not a small
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: number out of absolute poverty. They did that by building infrastructure,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: by pouring investment into poor regions. This is where you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you see a lot of Western economists question, why would
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the Chinese government, you know, build invest billions into build
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: like high speed rail uh into outside of the more
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: prosperous coastal regions, you know, like Beijing Shanghai, uh you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: because they say, okay, it makes sense to connect a
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: high speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Because our
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: populous region it's profitable, but why would you build high
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: speed rail to inland area where it's less profitable. Well,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the whole deal is not about making profit by lifting
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: people out of poverty and bring more economics prosperity to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: spread it from the more prosperous coast or regions two
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: more inland areas, and they the Chinese government has done
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: very well in that aspect. And this is where I think,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: you know, in terms of improvement human rights, I mean
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: lifting eight hundred million people out of poverty.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: That's a major improvement humans in my opinion.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, but the weaker situation itself has come with it
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of narratives in the West, in particular about
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: people being sent to so called re education camps and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the oppression of a Muslim minority. And this is a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: West which at the same time is oppressing a Muslim
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: minority in Gaza in the West Bank, and is determined
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to try to oppress another Muslim country in Iran and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: so on. We are quite happy to say Muslim is
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: bad in this scenario, but Muslim is good in this
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: scenario when it suits us politically. So I I am
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: very keen to try to understand the facts about Shinjiang
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and the weaker population there and what is actually going on.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And this is something that I think is extremely hard
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to get, perhaps from either the Western media and Western governments,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: or even perhaps from the Chinese. So I wonder if
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you've got any sort of relatively independent insight into that.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of the talking points in the West,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: they talk like, you know, US really care about Muslims,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: which is ridiculous. You know, US have been bombing Muslim
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: populations for more than twenty years now. And what's happening
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: in Shinjog was that Shinjong is especial region in the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: in the northwestern part of China. It's called the the
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: full name in Shinjo Hinjong Oigur Autonomous Region. So in
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: the autonomous regions, by Chinese constitution, the people living in
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the autonomous regions, they're entitled to be educated in their
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: own language. So, for example, for the longest time, if
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: you are oig were born in Shinjung, you could be
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: educated entirely in Oigur language from kindergarten to college without
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: be able to speak a word of Mandarin Chinese. In
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, this is the aftermath of the Soviet
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: invasion of Afghanistan. US this was one of the largest
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: CIA projects to counter the Soviet in Afghanistan. This was
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Operation Cyclone CIA and also Solidise that build a whole
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: slew of Madrasis religious rules a lot Pakistan Afghanistan border,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: to radicalize a lot of those Afghan refugees and their children,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to indoctrinate them against the Soviets, and you know, just
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to you know, to be able to support the Afghan
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Mujahadeens against the Soviet invasion. And in nineteen seventy nine
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: was also the time when China itself opened up built
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: a road called the Kara Karan Highway connecting Shinjuan and Pakistan.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: So many oig were young Wigers. They traveled to Pakistan
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: to work, to study. Some of them drifted to the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and some of them went
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: to this Madrasis school, got radicalized, you went to Afghanistan
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: to join the Mujahadeens. And then in nineteen ninety as
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: the war in Afghanistan was after the Soviet withdraw and
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan basically fall into its own civil war, some OFAs
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: were Mujaha didn't start to filter back into China, back
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: into Shinjung, and this is where a lot of the
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: terrorism incidents start happening, starting from nineteen nineties two thousand
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: really intensified around two thousand, uh there was a big
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: incident in two thousand and nine. At that time, the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Chinese government they thought the way to eradicate terrorism is.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Through improving the economy.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: If they you know, because this on their Marxist understanding,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: you know, everything is about the economy to eradicate the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: soil for terrorism. They wanted to develop the economy, but
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: there was there wasn't a lot of private investments going
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: to Shinjung at that time. So they organized young Oiger
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: men and women to go work in coastal factories in
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: coastal China, one of those export factories that make closed
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: cars and toys to.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Export to the West.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And whereas the Chinese government will give a tax incentives
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to any private enterprise that would hire these we were workers.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: And then in two thousand and nine, this was in
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the midst of the Great Financial Crisis, a lot of
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: the export to the West suddenly got a lot of
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: orders stopped coming because there was a financial crisis in
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: the United States that was triggered by you know, subcrime, crime, loans,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And a lot of people were thrown out
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: of work and there was but because the the Viigar
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: worker program was sponsored by the government, so a lot
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: of these wig wear worker will still still.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Have their jobs.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And at that time, there was an internet rumor going
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: around by spread by one of those laid off workers
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: in guan So guan Do.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: They claimed that.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: A local Chinese girl Han Chinese girl went to the
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: to the dormitory to look for her boyfriend, but she
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: mistakenly went to the oigeruh Man storm dormitories. So in
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Chinese factories they usually built workers dormitory to hold these
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: migrant workers who live basically onside and work on side.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And so they claimed that she was gang raped and
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: that they claim that the Chinese government is trying to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: keep a hush hush, trying to silence this issue, so people,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: don't you know, end up criticizing their policy. This real
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: internet rou I saw this happen in two thousand and nine,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: the rumor spreading online and that the result was over
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: one thousand plus strong mob stormed the Oiger workers dormitory
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: in Donguan in uh Wang don't and in the ensuing fight,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a couple young Oiger workers were killed. So this resulted
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: in a big protest back home in Jinjong, in the
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: capital hinjongg Rumchi, where people are demanding the government to investigate.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And the government did investigate and they actually arrested the
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the laidoff worker who was spreading the internet rumor online.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: He was arrested. But at the same time, a lot
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: of the us UH you know, National Endowment for Democracies
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: sponsored Oigur diaspora groups were spreading rumors on the internet
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: using like us dominated a social media platform like Twitter,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: like Facebook, and they are telling the people back home
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: in Shinjong that, you know, there was a lot of
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: the Oiger, young Oiger women were being gang raped, they
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: were being brutally killed in those factories, and so this
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: really riled up people back home. So the protests grew
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: more intense in the in the capitals in jong Urumchi
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: this around this and then the protests went out went
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: out of control. It turned into an ethnic riot. So
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Urumchi is the capital of Shinjung, but it's actually has
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: always been like more hon dominated city. It's about the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: divide was about seventy five percent on and then twenty
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: five percent. But the protests they that took place, It
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: took place near the Oigor neighborhood. But the Weiger neighborhood
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: is where a lot of the bus route of of
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: the people workers who you know, took at that time
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, not many people still have a
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: private car, so a lot of people take buses too.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: They even come to work, and the bus route goes
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: through that the neighborhood. And and this was around the
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: rush hour. So the mob went to stop the buses,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: will drag people out of the buses and beat them,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: and many of them beat them to death. So in
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: two thousand, in July fifth, two thousand and nine, this
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: happened in Urumchi. Over two hundred people were killed in
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the ethnic rioting and over two thousand people were injured.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So this sparked the big security crackdown in chin Jung.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And after that there was you know, this was when
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: security was greatly increased in Chinjong.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: You know a lot of people who a lot of
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: people a lot of public places in Jinjong. You go.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure how true it is today, but back
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: then there was security. Security was very tight. You know
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: everywhere you have police checkpoints, security checkpoint. As a result
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: of this Runchi riot. Again, there has always been the
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: element of the extremely the radicals who are fomenting separatism
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: and terrorism in Hinjung even before two thousand nine.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: But after that.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: There was there was more incident of terrorist attack in
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Shinjung and one of the more serious one was one
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: a group of Oigers. They drove a van into cam
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And Square in Beijing and they tried to run you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: run people over in Camon Square and then they let
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the van on fire, trying to explode it in the
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: midst of the camp And Square. And then on March
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, So right, this is also coincide at the
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: time of the of the Syrian War, you know, when
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the ISIS was gaining prominence and a lot of the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: uh you know, a lot of Oigers, which radicalized Oigers.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: They will try to leave Shinjiong and go to Syria.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And because the area the border around Shinjung was under lockdown,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: they couldn't go to Pakistan or the Central Asia anymore.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: They would travel internally within China.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Now they can hop on a high speed train and
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: then a couple hours a few hours later they will
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: be end up in south southwest China where the border
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: with MMR Laos Vietnam are a lot more forests, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: these wiggards will try to leave China through these uh
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: uh through these countries, and this is where US and
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: NATO was again, this is the largest CIA operation after
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan. This is Operation Timber Sycamore. This
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: is a CIA sponsored regime change in Syria. When when
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: CIA had a ratline flying the Jihadis all over the
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: world to Syria to try to overthrow as Asad. And
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: at that time Turkey was working with NATO and the
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: United States and the Turkish consulate in Malaysia in Kuala Landpur.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: They would hand over Turkish passport to any wikers who
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: made it to their consulate and that Turkish passport will
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: allow this wig wars who claim refugee status to fly
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to Turkey. Right after they get off their plane at
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Istanbul Airport, they will be greeted by jihadi's recruiters who
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: will get them on buses to go to Syria. And
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: this is how Syria northwest Syria in the.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I Lip region.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Now they have some estimated of like ten anywhere from
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: ten to twenty thousand wik Wors fighters and their families
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: living there now and they're still there. And this China
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: start cracking down when they realize this problem. They start
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: to block off the border uh WITH with Vietnam, LAOS
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: and uh and MMAR around that time. And you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: for people who do Google search, you know you can
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: find some order incident between with Oiger refugees with uh
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: WITH in Vietnam where some of them grabbed shot up
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: some Vietnamese border guard. They grabbed the guns from Vnamese
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: border guard and shot shot up from Vnmese border guard.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And there was a diplomatic hustle up also between United
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: States and China on status of the some of these
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: detained Oigers leaving China. For example, Cambodia was trying to
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: repatriate some of the Oigers to back to China, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: US really brought its diplomatic pressure onto Cambodia and brought
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: more sanctioned on Cambodia for that and and similarly on Thailand,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: and they in the end, the Thailand type authority, they
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: did a Solomon justice. They decided, you know what, the
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Oiger men they get repatrioted back to China and the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Vigor women they can go to Turkey. And that that
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: decision angers some of these uh Whig radicals. That's why
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: they they carry out the Bangkok bombing. I think this
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: was twenty fifteen Bangkok bombing by bunches. We were radicals
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: and and that's when they got found out for for
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: stashes of quote unquote fake Turkish passports. And these these
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Vigor jihadis will turn around, turn up around.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: All over South East Asia.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: And it's only in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, but also
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: in Indonesia. You know, there's still a couple of Oiger
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: shihadis that was arrested by Indonesian authority. They're still in
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: jail right now in Indonesia because China tried to try
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: to lock down its border to prevent them from leaving
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: to go to Syria. In March first, two thousand and fourteen,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Oigers who not be able to leave China,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: they decided to carry it attack at the Quimin train station.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So they went to the train station and carry out
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the knife attack again. I think over twenty people were killed,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: you know, eight oig were men and one woman. I
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: think they just went into the crowd and slashing people
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: with knives. All the security crackdown that's happened into Shinjung
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: with the response to this, to the series of terrorist incidents,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: and what they did was this is where to the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: more controversial part. You know though, but of people's so
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: called re education centers, what they are are really gi
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: radicalizedzation centers. So China realized there a there's a huge
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: problem with huge terrorism problems with young so they tried
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to construct all these radicalization centers in each jump. But
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: the idea is always to have the people to reintegrate
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: these people back to society, and they do it through
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: education and also to train them for a job once
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: they leave. Once once they are able to reintegrate back
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: to the society is through draw job training. And this
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: is what the Western media calls, you know, concentration camps essentially.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And by the way, most of these centers were closed
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: by July twenty nineteen, but of course none of the
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Western media bought it, so they still report as if
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: there's some mask concentration camp program still going on each junk,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: which is not true. You know, most of the people
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: who have been sent to the Durratic License Relation Center
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, they have been released and
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: reintegrated back into society because all the centers has been
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: closed in twenty nineteen. Then the United States government follow
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: up by saying the people who are getting job training
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and came out receiving jobs, they're basically being co eerth
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: into a government work program. Then they called this like
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: forced Weigor slave labor. And this is where they can
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: justification for US sanctions on many Chinese companies, including Chinese
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: company solar companies, because a lot of the polysilicon this
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: was produced for solar panels was done in chin Jung
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: and so US is claiming that these solar panels are
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: being produced by Weigor slave labor. So they this is
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: why US got a sanctioned Chinese solar products. I did
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: like a drawing out explanation. I hope you know satisfy
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: your inquiry or if you have any questions please ask.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: That is amazing. Thank you very much for that. And
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the reason that I say that is because this is
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: such an interesting topic. This idea that we are being
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: told in the West. And I really struggled with this
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: because my position on this is such an unpopular position
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: amongst our own audience, amongst many people in the United Kingdom.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But there's a complete lack of understanding of the fact
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that radical Islam is a project of the British in
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the United States. And you talked about what's happened in
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan starting this whole situation, right, and how the weaker
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: populations have been radicalized by the CIA in Afghanistan. But
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: even if we go back before that, the British radicalizing
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia producing Wahabbiism, extreme Wahabism, radicalizing in Egypt,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: producing extreme Muslim brotherhood, all being used for various geopolitical
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: purposes around the world. And then when that same radicalization
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: comes back to the United Kingdom, we've got to blame
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the entire Muslim population and not recognize that the reason
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: that the radical eyeation happened was because of operations by
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the British deep state and the United States deep state,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and the impact of that on geopolitics in the world
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: for the last fifty sixty years has been in fact,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: going right back to the end of the Ottoman Empire
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: has been absolutely immense and this is something that people
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: really need to understand. So I hope what you've just
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: said go some way to helping people understand that issue.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: I just want to add to that.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I spoke about the radicalization for
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: why in China, you know what's the radicalization for when
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: in UK? I mean that's basically turning a blind eye
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: and have these jihadists leave UK and go to Syria
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: to join ISIS. I mean, it turns out most of
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: these people who did carry out terrist attacks in Europe,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: they have always later we find out all of them
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: are on watch some kind of watch list, all of
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: them have been monitored all this day is by intelligence services.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Yet these intelligence services somehow willfully turn a blind eye.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Had these people go to go to Iraq and Syria
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: to join ISIS and then sometimes you have them come back,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and sometimes they come back and commit Paris attack, and
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: then they find out, oh they have you know, these
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: guys have been being watched by the authority for years,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: and yet this happened. I mean, like this is a
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: radicalization program in UK. In reality, they just hoping these
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: people go go abroad, go go do terrorism in Iraq
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: and Syria and to harm the people over there.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: We've been talking about this for a long time. British
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: United States foreign ad money going to pay for the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: weapons and the running of these operations in foreign countries.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: So we are about ten minutes from the end here.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: What I'd like to just finish off with is, obviously
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: there is a new president in the United States. The
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: last time we spoke, we were talking about the Taiwan situation,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and you were saying, for example, that the Chinese are
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: putting huge amounts of money into the coastal towns and
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: cities along the Taiwan strit and it didn't seem likely
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that they were going to be doing that if there
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: was an intention to carry out some kind of operation
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: on Taiwan itself. Trump has now become president, and one
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of the first things that he has done is to
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: change the wording on the White House website with respect
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: to Taiwan, with respect to the One China policy, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: so I wanted to get some feedback from you on
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the Chinese are viewing that and how they're viewing Trump
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and the potential for future Chinese US relations.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I mentioned last time, Trump has a lot
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: of priority. I mean, right now, Trump is slapping cares
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: on countries left and right, including like Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: And of all places, Trump is also threatening there against
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Taiwan Semiconductors. You know, the one company that produced ninety
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: percent of the world's advanced chips also happened to be
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the pillar of Taiwan's economy, and Trump is threatening them
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: with tariffs unless they transfer technology to America to produce
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: chips in America. And right now, Intel, for example, is
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: in deep trouble and one of the proposals on the
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Trump administration is to have a joint venture between TSMC,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the Taiwan's my Conductors, and Intel and essentially forcing the
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Taiwan's and my conductor to technological transfer to Intel and
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: to help Intel survive. If Trump was really caring about Taiwan,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: of course this would not happen. And what people in
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: China is doing right now is watching the antics of
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Trump adminstration with great amusement, you know, like they would
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: not have dreamed that. You know, the government of the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: United States will slap sanction against like the flagship Taiwan,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Taiwan semiconductors.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, there are many in the Trump administration are geared
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: tour confrontation to China. You know, one of the stated
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: aim or Trump to make up with Russia, to draw
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: down the Ukraine coNP like, so they can concentrate the
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: resources back to where Asia Pacific for confrontation with China.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: But it just so happens that at this present time
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Trump administration has its plateful you know, the first you
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: need to get Greenland from then Denmark, they need to
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: annex Canada, they need to uh invade Mexico, and and
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and and and reoccupied Anima. Now, so I think Taiwan
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: is right now is on the back burner. And you know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I don't sense any urgency you know among the Chinese public.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: I mean they, in fact, they look at the ongoing
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: joke on Chinese Internet is that Trump is actually secretly
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Chinese spy said to who is said to make China
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: great again, that that's a joke.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: So there's no concern at this point. But in the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: meantime that might be the position amongst Chinese people. But
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: what's the Chinese government doing? I take it they are
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: preparing for any eventuality.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Actually, well, I mean, one thing they have done is
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: they have they have been decoupling from the United States
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: because US have been threatened to decouple from China all
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: the time. China is now decoupling from United US. Now,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: if you look at the export figures, the percentage of
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: GDP in terms of Chinese export to United States has
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: been declining, whereas the Chinese export to the rest of
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the world is growing, especially among to the global South
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: countries where Chinese products face less tariffs and sanctions. So
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: China is preparing for the terriffs. They have so much
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: more prepared for the American tariffs than say European countries
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: are Canada or Mexico.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Who never saw this coming. And so China will be fine.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, you know, China continued to
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: invest in its military modernization. Recently, China just send its
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: worship to in between Australia and New Zealand. And you
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: know this is of course response to Australia sending its
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: own spy plane to South China Sea for the last
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: twenty years. Now you know, the South Australian media is
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: in up war because then never expect, you know, the
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Chinese will come to them. You know it's usually they
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: fly workplanes close to the Chinese coast. But what's good
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: for the goose is good for the gander. And this
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: is a time when Trump looks like it's increasingly likely
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: to abandon the traditional alliance UH that US has with UH,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: with Europe and even with Australia and Canada.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: So interesting times. Lace ahead, Mike.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: And they know you did mention Panama. And of course
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Trump made a very big deal in his early the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: first few days of Panama being effectively in control of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the Chinese, that the United States didn't give the canal
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: back to Panama for them to just give it to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the Chinese. But there does seem to have been some
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: movement and Panama attempting to put some grind between it
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and Chinese influence of the canal. So what are the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Chinese thoughts about that?
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, this so called Chinese takeover Panama? This has
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: been overblown. I mean, basically, back in nineteen ninety eight,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: the Hong Kong billionaire the Kaishin's shipping service Hutchinson one
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: pot lot operating rights among the Panamanimian boards. And ever
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: since a lot of the right wing US circles have
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: been talking about a Chinese takeover of Panama. So Hutchinson
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: one part. They proceeded to expand their operation Panama. I
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: think now they operate three parts. But you know, just
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: because the Kaishin is from Hong Kong, so they say, okay, yeah,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the CCP, the Communist Party of China has.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Control over it, which is completely ridiculous.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: You are right, but Panama actually has been distancing itself
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: on China way before that. You know, after the election
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: of the previous and the Mainian president at that time,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: they he put he can a lot of the Belt
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: and Rot initial project in Panama. For example, he can
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: the whole four billion dollar investment into the high speed
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: rail project in Panama. So right now there's no Chinese,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: big Chinese investment in Panama. There's only one ongoing project
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: where China is building a bridge, and that project will
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: avoid continue because they're already halfway finished. But there's no
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: new building, road initiative project going on in Panama. So
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: for Panama to say we are quitting Belt br I,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: it's just more our PR stunt. It's they're saying that
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: to to give Trump a PR victory. Say, okay, the
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Panama is doing what the US wanted. In in fact,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: nothing has changed in the ground because there's no major
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Chinese project going on at this moment.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: We will leave it there for today. I'm going to
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: say that has been another hugely interesting conversation, Karl, and
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: thank you very much for that. Let's do this again
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: and then not to this in future, because this is
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: such a huge topic and it does need more discussion.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: So thank you for joining me today.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Mike anytime, brilliant, Thank you, uh yeah,