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Rivalry Redefined: US-China Strategy in a Shifting World with Matthew Turpin · China Considered

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[MUSIC]
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Welcome to China Considered, a podcast that brings fresh
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insights and informed discussion to one of the most consequential issues of our time,
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how China's changing and changing the world.
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I'm Liz Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow and co director of the U.S.
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China and the World Program at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
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Today I have with me, Matt Turpin.
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Matt is currently a senior advisor at Palantir and a visiting fellow at Hoover,
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where he produces one of the best substacks on China that you will
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find China articles.
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But he spent most of his career in service of our country, first in the U.S.
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army and then in a number of senior positions at the Pentagon,
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followed by the Commerce Department and National Security Council.
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Matt, it's great to have you with us.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Well, Liz, it's a real pleasure to be here.
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Thank you.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So, Matt, I want to take you back to the beginning,
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you graduated from West Point in the mid-1990s.
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It was a time in the US China relationship that was relatively good until it wasn't.
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Secretary of Defense Bill Perry was all about opening up mill to
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mill relations at the time.
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I think there was a lot of positive energy in the relationship.
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And then, boom, we had the Taiwan Strait Crisis, 95, 96,
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where China was lopping missiles, you know,
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into the Taiwan Strait, trying to deter the Taiwanese and
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meddle in their first ever actually directly elected presidential election.
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So how did all of that influence your thinking?
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So when you came out of West Point, what was your orientation on China?
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>> Matthew Turpin: So, to be honest, it was absolutely zero orientation on China.
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I came out of the academy having been a European history major.
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I had no conception that I'd really spend time thinking about things
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at the sort of strategic level.
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I was focused on being an armor second lieutenant.
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And I went out to Fort Irwin, California,
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where I played laser tag on tanks for almost four years.
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So from like January of 1996 through 19, you know,
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the end of 1999, yeah, I was focused on doing war games for
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the US army at the very tactical level.
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I lived outside on a tank in the desert two weeks out of every month for
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nearly four years.
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I had almost no conception of what was happening in the broader world.
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I felt very, you know, very focused on what I was doing then and there.
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And it just kind of goes to show that you're, you know,
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like folks that are in the army really oftentimes are not really tracking what's
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happening at the geopolitical level.
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You're really focused on the day to day of how do you have Your
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units well trained and focus on sort of learning your job.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: And so even, even at West Point itself,
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there wasn't a kind of education around one of the major emerging great powers
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of our time that sort of shaped.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, it would have been nice.
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I didn't, I am absolutely, we certainly had folks that took Chinese.
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I did not take Chinese.
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You know, I, I originally took, took Arabic because if you'll remember,
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I, I, I, I came to west point in, in 1991.
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And so if you're, like, looking at the world,
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then Arabic seems like a really interesting language to learn.
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I did really poorly at Arabic, and my advisors and
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counselors at West Point advised that I move back to a more simple language.
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And so I took French.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Like English?
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>> [LAUGH] >> Matthew Turpin: Well, and
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English as well.
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And I often joke that, you know,
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I graduated in the top 5% of the bottom half of my class.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: There you go.
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>> Matthew Turpin: And so I was not particularly focused on the academic side
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of this.
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And to be perfectly honest, I was, I was, yeah,
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I felt that I was a European history major.
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I spent a lot of time thinking about sort of the history and
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politics of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries,
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that's what I spent my time sort of working on from an academic perspective.
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I ended up going back to graduate school after my time as
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a lieutenant as a captain.
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I focused on American history at UNC Chapel Hill.
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I went back to West Point and taught in the history department.
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So I sort of did all of that through about 2006 before I went back out to the Army.
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And I didn't actually start really working on China or even Asia issues
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until I chose to take an assignment at Pacific Command in Hawaii in 2010.
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So up until that point, I mean, to be perfectly honest,
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my focus was on other parts of the world and was really focused on my sort
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of career as an army officer and how to lead America's sons and
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daughters at a variety of different places around the world.
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And so China was always in the back of my mind, but
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it was not particularly forefront, at least for me.
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And so when I moved to Indo Paycom, essentially,
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that was the same time that you have Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
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you know, writing a piece in Foreign affairs about a pivot to Asia.
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And so it, it was opportune, but it was not planned by me.
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I only picked Hawaii because it seemed like a much better assignment than
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the other ones that were available.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right, right.
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And it turned out to be prescient.
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But I take.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, not an effort by me.
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But purely by chance.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: It was serendipitous.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Serendipitous, yeah.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, so you land in Hawaii.
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Let's just spend another minute on this because I really am interested in,
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in how if, if all that time, you know, was spent not thinking about China.
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Surely you get to Indopacom and China is present.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yep.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: How are you thinking about it then?
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What is, what is that sort of you know, >> Matthew Turpin: I mean, so, so
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obviously as a, as a sort.
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I was a military officer at Pacific Command.
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My job is primarily be sort of a, I was, my title was as a crisis action planner.
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My job was to plan for those kinds of things that would be considered crises for
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at the time, Pacific Command, which is obviously now called Indo Pacific Command.
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But my job was primarily to provide for
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both the rear admiral that was the operations officer, but
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also the commander, the four star admiral that commands Pacific Command.
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My job was to be essentially the person that plans for how to respond to crises.
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And so a number of those things like the sinking of the Chonan by
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the North Koreans.
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I helped plan the entire sort of US Military response for
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the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan.
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I spent quite a bit of time on North Korean interdiction planning,
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but also about the kinds of things we were seeing,
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whether it was actions against Japan and the Senkakus by China.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah. >> Matthew Turpin: Or
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the other things that we were watching China begin to do during those years.
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I then to get a sort of a broad appreciation of what was happening and
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really got introduced to sort of the national level.
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So as a, as a planner at Pacific Command, I began to interact with my counterparts
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in the State Department, you know, at the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
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you know, the Treasury Department and other places.
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As we started to see sort of like the holistic picture of what
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our relationship was.
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But I was looking at it through the lens of sort of what is
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the US Military's role in that relationship.
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And so I got to see both the sort of the cooperation that we were doing,
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sort of the mill to mill cooperation, but also got to see all the planning and
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other things that we were.
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That we had to do to prepare for sort of worst case scenarios.
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Because obviously for Pacific Command,
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the third Taiwan trade crisis was not that far removed from their memories.
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Right. For many of those, you know,
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many of the folks that served in that command, you know,
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Certainly they remember 1995, 1996, and could see that those are things that could
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pop up again as well as the EP3 crisis that had happened in, in April of 2001.
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Those were all very real things for that command.
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And I got exposed to it really for the first time as someone who had been
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serving in Europe and the Middle east before that.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right, and
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it would seem that sort of always dealing with crises, right?
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You're always trying to think ahead about what could emerge that would be bad.
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That also would give you some sort of a certain kind of lens.
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But as you say, you also had some engagement element and
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sort of the mill to mill relationship and helping that know, develop.
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So you mentioned the pivot and Hillary Clinton and the pivot to Asia,
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I think was an important inflection point in US Policy toward China.
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Really.
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It was a recognition that Asia mattered and we weren't spending enough time in
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the fastest growing, you know, most dynamic part of the world.
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But it was also, I think, you know, there was an element of it that was clearly
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designed to ensure that, you know, we remained present and, you know,
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China didn't somehow become the dominant power in the region,
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which it looked like it was increasingly interested in doing.
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So looking, you are one of the few people I know that actually had quite
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senior positions in both the Obama and Trump administrations.
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If you were to look back to those two administrations and say,
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now what would you take away from either on the positive side or the negative side,
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either operationally or substantively from those administrations that
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you would like to bring forward to the current administration?
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What should they like, take away from history,
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as you are an historian from the recent history, what would be most important,
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do you think, for them to be thinking about?
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, yeah, so I mean, little context.
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So I went from that time out at Pacific Command, which, I'm a relatively junior to
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mid level officer, but I then moved back to the Pentagon right after that and
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essentially take over a position on the Joint Staff that that sort of runs
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China's strategy for the Joint Staff, for the chairman and the Vice Chairman.
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And then working for Deputy Secretary Bob Work and others on defense innovation.
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And defense innovation is obviously also directed at the fact that you have
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a technologically advanced China that is beginning to challenge US in a number of
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different domains.
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And so that, that whole process.
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And so I got to see for sort of the second term of the Obama administration
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from the Pentagon working with the National Security Council and that team.
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I got to see how at a national level, we were beginning to wrestle with that.
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And so I saw that entire sort of second half, the Obama administration, and
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then went into the Trump administration and really helped run those sets of
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policies from the National Security Council around China.
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And I guess my big takeaway is that from a sort of a policy wise,
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we had had a strategy of how we wanted to deal with Beijing.
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You know, we had had that strategy sort of in place, at least in my opinion,
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from sort of like May of 1994, when President Clinton's speech,
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I think it did at, at John Hopkins sort of announces sort of a, an idea that we're
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going to pursue a policy of economic helping the Chinese economy develop.
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And the expectation is we'll see sort of economic and
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political liberalization over time.
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That was sort of our approach.
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And so our economic departments and agencies had, I think, a very clear
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mandate from that point in time through the Clinton administration, the George W.
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Bush administration,
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the Obama administration clear mandate to help the Chinese economy develop,
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become more enmeshed and, and, and bind it to the international system.
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And the Department of Defense and
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the intelligence community had a job to hedge against risk, right.
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That fundamentally there was an understanding that,
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that obviously things might not go right and there could be real tensions and
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dangers inside the relationship.
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And so the Defense Department and the intelligence community and
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the State Department are directed to, to hedge against that risk.
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Right. And so that,
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that sort of balanced approach.
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But by the end of the Obama administration, and
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then as the Trump administration comes in, a realization that we're not seeing.
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I mean, certainly our strategy around helping the Chinese economy develop had
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worked extremely well, right?
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But we were not seeing the kinds of liberalizations.
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In fact, we're seeing the backsliding.
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This is four years into.
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So the last year of the Obama administration is essentially three or
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four years into Xi Jinping's rule.
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And we're beginning to see, I think,
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a very clear outline of the kind of ruler that Xi Jinping would be.
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And it's not the liberalizing reformer that that many of us, I think,
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had hoped, right, that we'd had an expectation to see.
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And what we see is a really a deep backsliding, and
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sort of refusal to carry out the kinds of changes that somebody
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like Robert Zoellick had announced and sort of laid out in his
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responsible stakeholder speech back in 2005, right?
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So you have this.
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This on this, I think, a deep realization inside the Obama administration
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that things are not heading in the right direction.
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We're going to have to start to recalibrate.
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And then when the Trump administration comes in,
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there's an agreement with that and an implementation of a strategy that had its
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roots in the Obama administration and was likely to be the kind of strategy that.
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That.
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That President Clinton would have put in place.
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Right. This is.
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And her people, >> Elizabeth Economy: Parts
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of it, I think.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, people like Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan and and
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Laura Rosenberger.
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All of those folks would have been in those positions.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right.
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>> Matthew Turpin: And it ends up being that.
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That the Trump administration implements a more, you know,
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a competitive strategy, one of viewing Beijing as a rival and a competitor,
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not as a partner, and that's that shift.
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My opinion is that, you know, when it became clear, I think,
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across the U.S. government that, that that was the case, really by the end of 2015,
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the US government moved relatively quickly in changing its strategy.
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Right. Certainly by the end of 2017,
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you have a national security strategy that very clearly lays out that we view
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China as a competitor and therefore we should treat them that way.
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And that, I think, has gone on.
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I mean, so that's within the China sort of watching community that has remained
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up for debate, but I think within the broader sort of policy community,
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that became fairly clear early on.
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And then the problem is, then how do you implement that?
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And I think that's what both the Trump administration and
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then the Biden administration really had, you know, challenges of not dealing,
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you know, not only the.
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So I think the national security side, the defense side,
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understood their job was to continue to hedge against risk.
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But really the economic departments and agencies,
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really tough time adjusting to a shift from helping the Chinese economy
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develop to one that is not helping them, right?
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And that. That's been a difficult transition,
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I think, for, for folks on the economic side and
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then all the constituencies that fall underneath that.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah. I mean,
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I might take a little bit of issue with that.
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Having served in the Commerce Department during the Biden administration for
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a few years, I think it wasn't that the administration was looking to
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help the Chinese economy develop anymore.
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It was, how do we balance our economic and our security interests or
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how do we integrate them most effectively?
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Where do we draw the line around what constitutes national security?
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Or you know, is Starbucks, is it okay for Starbucks to sell lattes and
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Nike to sell sneakers?
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And so I okay for- >> Matthew Turpin: India to sell
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chips, right?
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I mean, all those, those debates, those.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Are, those are the, those are the big debates.
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But I guess what I'm asking you is with all of that history right behind us now,
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is there something in particular that you think the trumpet,
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this Trump 2 administration should be maybe taking away that it isn't?
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, I mean, I felt that the sort of,
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the most important thing, the thing like sort of the starting point is you had
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to be have a declaratory policy that could allow for those sorts of shifts to happen.
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And, and you know, we've now, I think had that, you know,
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we had that from the early portion of the Trump administration.
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It was very clear that the Biden administration came in and
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had a declaratory policy that, that it would,
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that would see Beijing as a competitor, as a rival and they would treat it as such.
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And, and so those, that's extremely necessary because it sets the baseline
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then for departments and agencies to figure out how and
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what they're supposed to do on a day to day basis.
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Right. If you don't have that,
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those discussions that, that you just discussed.
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Yeah, obviously, the Trump administration had those same challenges internally of
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trying to figure out where the right balance is.
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But without that declaratory policy to start with, really hard to get that sort
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of moving because then you sort of re litigate whether or
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not they're a competitor or not, right?
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And so that's where you sort of find yourself,
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I think from a policy side, it's a really tough thing.
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And so for the Trump administration,
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I think they need to be able to continue to press that forward, have a clear
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understanding of what they're trying to do, and then enable departments and
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agencies to come up with those things that fit with the overall policy.
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Rather than a sort of a micromanagement of what it is, but
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allow those departments and agencies to use their authorities to figure out how
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best they accomplish those goals.
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And I think we see some of that going on within the departments and agencies now.
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You know, both the America first trade policy and the America first investment
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policy have laid out some clear guidelines of what departments and
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agencies are supposed to do to come back with things for
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the administration to be able to execute on.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right. So I guess to that end we'll see more
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perhaps of A coherent and cohesive strategy after April 1st,
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I think is the date they're supposed to come back with that.
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But, but one of the things that I really admired in your substack,
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which, as I said, is really, I think one of the best out there,
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is that you are neither a Trump critic or a Trump supporter.
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I think you have become, in my mind, a little bit of the explainer in chief.
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Because I think for those of us on the outside,
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it's often difficult to make sense of where the administration might be going.
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You know, what we've seen, I think,
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of China policy to date has been primarily through the lens of tariffs.
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So the first one set of tariffs in February, another set of tariffs in March.
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But you make the case, and I think quite convincingly in one of your recent pieces,
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that of course, President Trump wants a deal and that is what he's driving toward.
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And then the question I think becomes, well,
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what are the parameters of that deal?
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What do you think that deal actually looks like?
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What are we looking for?
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What do the Chinese want?
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Where could we meet in the middle?
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How does that happen?
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So maybe you could lay out a little bit of, of that,
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because I do think that, I think you have a,
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a really important perspective that brings some coherence to, I think,
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what is for most of us, just a completely incoherent policy now.
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>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don't speak for
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the administration.
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I mean, >> Elizabeth Economy: Of course, and
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that's why I said at the outset, you are not, you, you come across as neither
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a defender, supporter, >> Matthew Turpin: Nor a cheerleader.
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Right. I mean, I'm trying to,
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I'm trying to lay out exactly happening and then we can make judgments about,
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you know, success or failure and those sorts of things.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right.
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>> Matthew Turpin: But I think you, I think it's, it's, it's clear to me that,
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that President Trump and
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his administration don't see this purely as a China only sort of thing.
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Right. There is a global set of players, and
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the US has to, has to deal with a global set.
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You're never going to be able to sort of set aside that this is just
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a US China deal.
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It's always within the context of everything else that is happening in
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the world.
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And therefore, it has to be sort of, it has to be sort of thought about that way.
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And so I think it's, there's a tendency for
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those of us that sort of spend time on one country or one region to try and
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distill things down to just your area, and then hold everything else constant.
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But, you know, I, I've always felt that, you know,
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someone who was sort of an advisor on one area,
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I had to appreciate that the folks that I was working for had global portfolios, and
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those global portfolios pulled in all kinds of different directions.
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And so I think that's incredibly important to keep in mind that this is a multiplayer
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game and that there are simultaneously positive sum games happening,
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zero-sum games happening and non zero sum games happening, right?
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So it isn't as if we get to choose one or the other,
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it's those are all happening simultaneously.
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And so I think, you know, from, from my, my reading of sort of
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the administration's, you know, efforts so far in this first
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sort of 50 days is that they have certainly learned from their first term.
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You know, it isn't as if they're coming in.
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This isn't, this isn't spring of 2017.
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This is, this is with all of the accumulated experience from that
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period of time, and they've come in with a game plan.
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And I think that game plan is we would like to have a situation in
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which the trade balance between the United States and the PRC was balanced.
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But there's a deep skepticism that that's gonna be achievable.
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I think the administration spent enormous amounts of energy trying to do that
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in the first term and found that they had counterparts on the other side of
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the table who either were not negotiating in good faith or were simply unable
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to accomplish the kinds of outcomes that the United States would find acceptable.
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And that sets us up for really a difficult.
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Again, I think President Trump actually is committed and
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would like to have a fair deal between the United States and the PRC.
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But I suspect that he's deeply skeptical that the Chinese could actually do that.
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And therefore he'll probably spend much more time with others,
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much more time negotiating with others in ways to improve the US Position over
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time with the understanding that, that Beijing is likely the biggest
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disruptor to global trade and economic system and that the United States is,
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is probably best off settling things with other countries.
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And I think that's what we see in the style of negotiation.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, so let me, let me push you a little bit on that because,
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I mean, if the argument is that we're better off, you know,
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working with others before we, you know, work on China, it seems that nowhere,
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in fact, do we actually have a positive sum game going, right.
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Not with our closest allies either in, you know, North America,
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certainly not in Europe.
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Asia is a little bit uneven, a little bit, you know, teetering.
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It's not quite clear where we're going with our Asian allies at this point.
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So I'm, I'm wondering, with the exception of Russia.
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Right. And we can talk about this idea of
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a reverse Kissinger, right, in which the United States is ostensibly trying to,
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instead of, you know, pulling China away from Russia,
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we're pulling Russia away from China to our advantage.
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We can talk about whether that's,
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you know, even feasible or if that is what's going on.
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But I'm, I'm curious how you see all of these moves actually leading to
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greater leverage for the United States in its negotiations with China.
24:47
>> Matthew Turpin: So I think, you know, I mean,
24:48
I think we should look very closely at, at the set of meetings that the president
24:52
held with Prime Minister Modi as an example of what this looks like.
24:56
Right.
24:57
So, I mean, in terms of sort of trade barriers and,
25:02
and sort of unfair trade practices,
25:05
certainly India falls in the same category as the prc, Right.
25:11
But very early.
25:12
I mean, within the first four weeks,
25:15
Prime Minister Modi is invited to the Oval Office.
25:18
They appear to have a very friendly and, and, and
25:21
it appears to be a very sort of warm relationship between the two of them that
25:24
they've clearly communicated while President Trump was out of office.
25:28
They had a close relationship during his first term and they came to a set of
25:33
agreements, it would appear, based upon the press conference and everything that
25:38
was announced is that they would work on addressing sort of key trade issues that,
25:44
that are of deep interest to both sides and that, that's what the trade team.
25:49
Right, and that trade team of Treasury, Commerce, USTR, Peter Navarro and
25:54
Kevin Haset that they're gonna work on developing things and
25:58
resolving things between the U.S India relationship in that way.
26:03
Right. I think that's pretty clear.
26:05
I think we saw with Prime Minister Ishiba coming to Washington and
26:10
meeting in the Oval, a similar sort of set of dynamics that are happening.
26:15
I think this idea of resolving things with others doesn't necessarily mean
26:20
that the United States accepts the, the current situation and
26:24
is simply friendly on all those things.
26:27
I mean, obviously what I think we're seeing with both Canada and
26:31
Mexico is really a demand upon those two countries to take actions to prevent
26:35
the Chinese from being able to use their markets as ways to get around the things
26:39
that the United States has in place.
26:41
I mean, this is, this is the, this is the aluminum and
26:43
Steel tariffs that have gone in place.
26:45
Right.
26:46
Both Canada and Mexico.
26:48
I mean Canadian aluminum is the biggest imports coming into the United States.
26:52
It's not because Canada has a gigantic aluminum industry.
26:55
It's because it's all transshipment from the world's greatest overproducer of steel
26:59
and aluminum, which is China.
27:01
Those things are highly tariff coming into the United States and unfortunately
27:06
the Canadian government has allowed those things to bypass and come through their,
27:10
their kind, their market into the United States underneath that.
27:14
Right. And that's something that,
27:15
that they're seeking to resolve.
27:17
It's the exact same set of dynamics for the Europeans.
27:21
I mean this is not new.
27:23
The Biden administration has been raising, the Obama administration raised these
27:27
issues with the Europeans and the Canadians, right?
27:30
The massive overcapacity in China for steel and aluminum,
27:33
the way that was doing harms to the United States.
27:36
We would ask those countries to collaborate with us.
27:39
They have chosen to this point not to collaborate with us because they fear
27:43
retaliation from China.
27:44
Right, that's the dynamic that I think is happening here.
27:48
And they're going to continue to press, I think, to see those things and
27:52
we'll see how that comes out.
27:54
But fundamentally it's about to resolve those
27:57
things which ultimately isolate Beijing in the long run, right?
28:02
That if the United States is able to resolve those issues, then that actually
28:07
strengthens the U.S's position is negotiating with China in the long run.
28:13
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, I mean, I think if we expand it out a little bit and
28:17
we talk about President Trump's discussions of withdrawing from NATO
28:22
though, and pulling ourselves out of various international institutions and
28:27
arrangements, it seems to me know we're leaving the field open for China.
28:33
We're not actually finding our way to constrain it because we're
28:37
basically picking up our marbles and going home.
28:41
And so, you know, what you're describing, I think may fit,
28:45
may fit narrowly in the trade space and I'm not sure it does because I
28:49
think China's also moved and is moving pretty aggressively to, you know,
28:54
develop other markets, you know, in Africa, in Latin America,
28:59
Southeast Asia, you know, so it isn't as dependent on the eu, us.
29:03
So I'm just, >> Matthew Turpin: Are unlikely.
29:06
I mean, I mean we should be very clear.
29:07
There is no America-sized economy replacing.
29:10
>> Elizabeth Economy: True.
29:11
Absolutely.
29:12
>> Matthew Turpin: There's no substitution within foreseeable future.
29:16
Africa will never replace even a fraction of what
29:19
the United States consumes from China.
29:21
There isn't really a Chinese economy that can operate really without
29:25
access to Europe and the United States.
29:27
Right, it just doesn't work.
29:29
There's not enough wealth across Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, to
29:34
be able to consume the products that China produces and exports out into the world.
29:39
So I think we should be very clear that you're right.
29:41
They are absolutely trying to develop those things, but
29:45
those things cannot be replacements to what the economic situation
29:50
is between the US And China right now.
29:53
And I think the President understands that.
29:55
I think he views the US market, that selling into the world's largest
29:59
wealthiest consumer market should be seen as a privilege, and
30:03
that fundamentally that's the position we should be operating on,
30:08
rather than the US As a market of last resort, and
30:11
that it's an obligation that Americans open up their markets to everyone.
30:16
That's just a different entire worldview of how to view trade.
30:21
I suspect that he believes that a number of those international institutions have
30:26
been unable to enforce the rules and norms that folks say that they enforce.
30:31
And that becomes, I think, a deep frustration, is that we talk about
30:36
these rules working, but they're only observed in the breach.
30:41
And this is, I think, the fundamental frustration is that it doesn't,
30:44
it isn't actually working.
30:46
So therefore,
30:47
the U.S is sort of forced to move in directions that take these actions.
30:53
>> Elizabeth Economy: So is that Matt as explainer in chief, or
30:55
is that Matt as defender in chief?
30:57
I'm curious only in thinking about something like
31:00
the World Health Organization, where removing ourselves actually removes us
31:05
from access to a lot of information, a lot of scientific sharing around things
31:10
like pandemics that ultimately undermine our own human security.
31:14
I would argue same true with the Paris Climate Accord,
31:18
where if it's not working the way that we want it to work,
31:22
one could argue that it's better to stay in and push for some form of reform.
31:28
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, I think for the WHO, after SARS,
31:31
we tried to institute a series of really transparency
31:36
initiatives that would allow for the kind of knowledge and
31:42
information trading that we had all hoped for.
31:46
And we watched, I think, an utter collapse of that at the start of COVID largely
31:51
because the Chinese government absolutely refused to follow through on the rules
31:56
that we had all set up and in a set of institutions.
31:58
And so I guess there's sort of the Einstein definition of insanity, right?
32:04
I mean, if you keep trying to do the same thing over and
32:07
over again, accept a different result, there's, I think I have a little bit of.
32:10
And you know, so I don't think that that means that every international institution
32:14
has not been able to accomplish this thing.
32:16
But I think on the who, I think we have to ask very serious questions of whether or
32:21
not this system actually works.
32:24
I'm deeply skeptical of,
32:26
of the agreement that we made in 2015 over the Paris Climate Agreement.
32:30
I am personally deeply skeptical,
32:33
given the fact that we now have the Chinese economy in 2024,
32:37
produced more coal fired power plants, brought more coal fire power plants
32:42
online than essentially the entire existing infrastructure of Europe.
32:48
If that's what the Paris Climate Agreement means, is that China,
32:52
China is in compliance while it continues to exponentially increase its carbon,
32:57
its CO2 output.
33:00
My personal thing is that that probably isn't a very good deal.
33:04
So I'm deeply skeptical of it.
33:08
But obviously I don't think the United States is going to leave from
33:11
being a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
33:14
So if you looked at sort of the institutions that have some power and some
33:18
things to be able to do, I think there are things that the US Is absolutely going to
33:22
stay in, but there are other things that are no longer sort of fit for purpose.
33:26
And so I'm sympathetic to those positions and I think I understand
33:31
why the administration is pushing back on those things.
33:37
And I think that it does require us to do a bit of a introspection about whether or
33:42
not these international institutions can achieve the outcomes that we had
33:47
laid out for them to do.
33:48
Or is it that actually it's a bilateral, like fundamentally, if you want to achieve
33:52
these outcomes, you're actually going to have to negotiate bilateral things.
33:56
And I think for the Biden administration,
33:58
this is where we found ourselves on dual use export controls, right?
34:01
So we have an international institution called the Wassenar arrangement.
34:05
Unfortunately, we allowed the Russians into that.
34:07
It requires unanimity to be able to pass rules.
34:10
So therefore we can't use the Vasanar arrangement in order to do dual use export
34:14
controls against the Russians over their war in Ukraine.
34:17
And so we had to negotiate bilateral, multilateral,
34:21
minilateral arrangements outside of that international institution
34:25
in order to deal with the problems that we had.
34:29
Now, I completely agree with the Biden administration's approach on doing that.
34:32
You had to do that.
34:33
The existing institution simply fails to accomplish the thing, right?
34:38
And I also think that it's probably appropriate for
34:41
the Trump administration to do some of those things as well.
34:45
>> Elizabeth Economy: So I'll be watching and waiting, Matt,
34:47
to see whether in fact the Trump administration makes new and
34:51
bold efforts on the issue of climate change outside the Paris climate accord.
34:56
>> Matthew Turpin: I would be surprised, >> Elizabeth Economy: And
34:58
the same true on the global health front.
35:00
So if that in fact is the case, that we're withdrawing from these institutions
35:05
because they're not effective or
35:07
they're not realizing their objectives as quickly as we would like.
35:11
And I think it's important to note that.
35:13
>> Matthew Turpin: Well,
35:13
I think Trump administration's, >> Elizabeth Economy: Agreement is that by
35:18
2030, right.
35:19
Its emissions peak and then it goes down.
35:21
I'm not, and I agree that that was a poor bargain to strike at the outset, but
35:25
I think the real issue is I don't believe that they're actually withdrawing from
35:30
these institutions because they think they're not fair enough.
35:34
>> Matthew Turpin: Obviously,
35:35
reducing CO2 emissions is not the administration's priority.
35:39
Right. It obviously isn't that, that then.
35:42
And of course, you know, when administrations are elected,
35:44
they get to choose what prior, what they prioritize or what they focus on.
35:47
Right. >> Elizabeth Economy: That's right.
35:48
>> Matthew Turpin: I think it's very clear.
35:50
I mean, it's not like they're saying that's what they're trying to do.
35:54
We can see like they actually are not saying that's what they're prioritizing.
35:57
So I think, >> Elizabeth Economy: Drill, baby, drill,
35:59
if I recall, right?
36:00
>> Matthew Turpin: Right, right.
36:01
Because they think that energy security is an extremely important thing for
36:04
the United States.
36:05
And fundamentally that's what is going to help, you know, maintain, you know,
36:09
a set of allies to be able to provide for that rather than becoming deeply dependent
36:13
upon, you know, various authoritarian regimes that are providing energy.
36:18
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yes. Well, we could have a much bigger and
36:20
broader discussion.
36:21
I was just at, Sarah, the big energy conference down in Houston.
36:24
We get a big discussion about the role of renewables and
36:26
what more we could be doing in that space too.
36:29
But let's, let's, let's pivot.
36:30
I do want to talk a little bit about Taiwan and I want to finish up on,
36:35
on the whole Russia issue and China.
36:37
So the president, President Trump has been non committal on Taiwan, you know, in,
36:43
you know, obviously sort of opposite from, from President Biden who four times said,
36:48
I think to the dismay of many, that he would come to the defense of Taiwan with,
36:53
without any sort of caveats attached to that.
36:56
People thought that was maybe not the most appropriate thing.
36:59
Some people liked it, some people didn't but, but President Trump,
37:02
you know, his statements on Taiwan have been, you know,
37:04
to the effect of they stole our semiconductor technology.
37:07
They should be contributing 10% of their GDP to defense.
37:10
They should be paying us for defense.
37:12
It's very hard to have a good sense for how he's looking at Taiwan.
37:17
And he did get TSMC to do a big investment beyond what a Taiwan semiconductor
37:23
manufacturing company had agreed to do under the Chips and Science Act.
37:29
So what's your sense for
37:30
where the administration's head is at when it comes to Taiwan?
37:34
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, my suspicion is that, I think it's all true that, that
37:38
what you've laid out of what the president has, has talked about in terms of Taiwan.
37:45
I think, I think we should also add in that I think the president's been very
37:49
clear that he does not.
37:50
Does not want or, you know, would certainly deeply object to, you know,
37:55
any use of military force to change the status quo.
37:59
He deeply objects to that and has made it, I think, that pretty,
38:04
pretty clear to Xi Jinping that we certainly do not expect or
38:08
would allow for that kind of military force to be used.
38:13
>> Elizabeth Economy: Has he said that?
38:13
I mean, I know that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that.
38:17
>> Matthew Turpin: I mean, I see that within the broad context of ensuring that
38:19
there is peace and these kinds of attacks wouldn't happen under his rule, and
38:23
he'll continue to push for that.
38:25
Right.
38:25
So I think that, like, if we look sort of look at it from that perspective, right.
38:29
This is not Xi Jinping.
38:31
If you want to launch a war, that's good on me.
38:34
Right.
38:35
No, I don't expect there to be any war.
38:38
You know, he's also continuously pushing not only Taiwan to spend more on defense,
38:43
but Japan to spend more on defense and Australia to spend more on defense and
38:47
the Philippines to spend more on defense.
38:49
Right.
38:50
One could conclude similar to the ways in which President Trump pushed
38:55
European allies to spend more money on their defense, that that is not
39:00
exactly a very friendly and beneficial outcome to the Russians of the Chinese.
39:06
Right.
39:07
So I think we should, we should place it in that context that,
39:11
that he is probably someone who wants to maintain sort of the status quo.
39:16
Right. Which strangely,
39:18
is sort of a little bit sort of pre.
39:21
The four statements that President Biden had made about that sort of getting
39:26
back to.
39:27
We're certainly not going to encourage the Taiwanese to do anything,
39:31
but we also do not want to encourage Beijing to do anything, right?
39:34
That we are okay with the status quo.
39:37
And if you're looking at that through to Taiwan's lens, well,
39:41
the status quo is, I think, a not a bad outcome.
39:44
Right. I mean,
39:45
the status quo right now is that Taiwan has de facto in defendants.
39:51
It's able to operate and run its own blockchain economy.
39:55
And those are the outcomes that I think the United States would welcome.
39:59
I think President Trump understands that, has an understanding of that
40:04
certainly Xi Jinping absolutely wants to affect what he would call reunification.
40:10
Right. And what I would call annexation, and
40:13
that he is not interested in giving Xi Jinping the thing he most wants.
40:19
So I suspect that that's the, that's the dynamic.
40:24
But, you know, as, as he has said, you know, we'll.
40:28
We'll see what happens.
40:30
But I think that's the way it is, I mean, it certainly.
40:33
>> Elizabeth Economy: So return to strategic ambiguity, basically.
40:36
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, I think so, I mean,
40:38
I think that is probably his sort of default position on this,
40:43
is that that's probably the way to approach this, while encouraging, right?
40:49
So, I mean, if the Taiwanese chose to increase their defense
40:53
spending from about 2.5, 2.7% of GDP to 3 or 4% of GDP,
40:58
I suspect that President Trump would absolutely welcome that and
41:03
would open up US Defense sales to provide for those increases,
41:08
would welcome those actions.
41:11
That's probably not what Xi Jinping would like to hear from President Trump.
41:17
>> Elizabeth Economy: So let me just take you back then, one step, you know,
41:20
in terms of that sort of comprehensive deal of some form that you
41:24
think President Trump might want to strike with the Chinese.
41:29
You know, my sense from reading some things about what the Chinese side has
41:33
been thinking about is they would love to structure a deal that would include
41:38
basically, President Trump saying, you know, US Hands off on Taiwan.
41:43
You saw that however you see fit.
41:46
So they are trying, you know,
41:48
to figure out what would it take to get President Trump to that point.
41:52
You're saying you don't think President Trump would ever get to that point?
41:57
>> Matthew Turpin: I think it'd be really difficult.
41:58
I think. I think President Trump understands,
42:00
you know, it's not like he hasn't heard that from the Chinese before.
42:03
Right. I mean, it's not like between 2017 and,
42:07
you know, January 2021, Xi Jinping never brought up Taiwan.
42:12
>> Elizabeth Economy: No, never brought it up, but did they start to try to put
42:15
things on the table that they thought would be so appealing to President Trump
42:19
in some space or another that he would forsake Taiwan in some way?
42:23
>> Matthew Turpin: I suspect that, yeah, his position will be,
42:26
you couldn't even do the phase one trade deal we made.
42:30
You couldn't even follow through on that, right?
42:33
How can I, how can I trust you as a counterparty if you can't
42:39
even follow through on the things that we agreed to in 2020?
42:44
Why would I expect that, you would follow through on a bunch of
42:49
commitments to us if we compromised on this right now, right?
42:54
And so I suspect from his perspective it would be,
42:57
once China can show the United States and
42:59
the rest of the world that it can follow through on its commitments and
43:03
really fulfill the things that it is said it's gonna do well, that at some point in
43:08
time in the future we could have a discussion about other things, right?
43:13
And I suspect that he's deeply skeptical that Beijing could ever
43:17
do that within the time frame that would be meaningful for
43:20
a deal that the two of them could get done.
43:22
Hence the concentration on everybody else, right?
43:27
Hence.
43:28
That's why spend time negotiating with the Indians.
43:31
That's why you spend time negotiating with the Russians.
43:33
That's why you spend time on all those other things,
43:36
because, >> Elizabeth Economy: But
43:37
the Russians are so, so easy and so good.
43:40
So let's move to the Russian.
43:43
>> Matthew Turpin: He feels that he spent a lot of time really getting
43:46
nowhere during his first term with Xi Jinping, right?
43:51
Yeah, I mean, we were on the cusp of what he thought was a fairly good
43:56
deal in May of 2019 where fundamentally had the Chinese sort of pursued that deal.
44:04
That deal was essentially that China conduct the reforms that the Chinese had
44:09
announced in November of 2013 at the Third Plan 18th Party Congress, right?
44:14
The reason why that was those were Leo he's reforms.
44:17
Xi Jinping rejected those, those were American changes, the United States
44:22
wanted China to fulfill its commitments that it made to the world years before.
44:27
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, it was the last gasp effort by Liu.
44:30
He was a kind of a type effort to get the international community to help
44:35
the reformers put pressure on the leaders to do the right thing.
44:40
>> Matthew Turpin: I suspect that on the American side that hasn't been forgotten.
44:44
Right. Like that would be like the absolute
44:46
minimum to start a period for us to be able to feel that there's enough trust for
44:51
us to be able to have any other discussions.
44:53
>> Elizabeth Economy: Well, we know that's not going anywhere.
44:55
>> Matthew Turpin: Exactly.
44:56
>> Elizabeth Economy: So that, that just sounds like one long four year stalemate
44:59
to me, but.
45:00
Okay, let's talk, >> Matthew Turpin: Which is what
45:01
I think is happening.
45:03
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay.
45:03
>> Matthew Turpin: That's my prediction is that fundamentally this is a stalemate.
45:06
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, well, I guess that's good news for
45:09
Taiwan because underneath everything you said, it sounded to me like you're not
45:13
100% certain that we couldn't trade away Taiwan in the future.
45:17
If President Trump believed that China would adhere to its agreements.
45:21
But I'm not gonna push you anymore on that.
45:23
I'm just the subtext of what you're saying.
45:25
So Russia, you know, big play with Russia.
45:29
This whole idea of a reverse case Kissinger,
45:32
do you think that is what the administration is trying to accomplish?
45:35
Do you think it's feasible that he could split Russia from China?
45:41
>> Matthew Turpin: So, I mean, I think it is.
45:44
It's certainly something that, you know, folks like Steve Bannon and
45:48
others coming into the administration back in 2017 had in mind, right.
45:52
That fundamentally, that if you allowed Beijing and
45:56
Moscow to become closer and closer partners and
45:59
the United States had relatively weak and divided European partners,
46:04
and you had other countries that weren't really capable of standing up and
46:09
being a partner with the United States, that if you're talking about a great
46:14
power triangle, it's a really bad position for the United States to be in.
46:19
Is the odd man out that fundamentally you need to sort of work your way out of that.
46:24
And so that leaves you with sort of two options.
46:26
Do you pull the Chinese away from the Russians or
46:29
do you pull the Russians away from the Chinese, right?
46:33
Obviously, the approach that Nixon and
46:36
Kissinger took is that you focus on the weaker of the two because then you can
46:40
offer them things in terms of compromises which then sets them against the other.
46:46
Now, of course, when Nixon and Kissinger did this,
46:49
you already had had a Sino Soviet split, right.
46:52
>> Elizabeth Economy: You had an interested party [LAUGH], yeah.
46:54
>> Matthew Turpin: Right, and so the Adam interested part.
46:56
But, but again, I mean, you know, you know,
46:58
it is not a given that within the sort of communist bloc that
47:02
they would necessarily turn on each other to side with the United States.
47:06
Right. So, I mean, it was a, it was a bit of a,
47:08
there was a bit of a challenge there to figure out how to, how to bring, you know,
47:12
so Kissinger and Nixon deserve some credit there to figure out how to get that done.
47:16
And so I think, I think I've written that.
47:20
I think the likelihood of its success is relatively low, but
47:24
it is sort of the best of the worst options, right?
47:27
So right now, I think for the United States, we don't have many good options,
47:32
geopolitical options, Right.
47:34
So we don't like this situation where the war in Ukraine continues on and
47:40
we continue to have the threats of expansion and both horizontal and
47:45
vertically in terms of geographic expansion.
47:49
Anybody watching what's been happening in the Baltic Sea over the last six months
47:54
should be deeply concerned, right, that fundamentally we could see
47:59
an expansion geographically of that conflict against NATO.
48:02
And also a vertical escalation in terms of, you know, up to higher weapons and
48:06
things like that.
48:07
Right. So that there's a danger as that
48:08
conflict goes on.
48:09
So I suspect that just as I laid out Penn Kissinger's,
48:13
remarks back in May of 2022 that fundamentally, at some point in time,
48:17
we're going to have to try and figure out to bring this conflict to an end.
48:22
We don't want this to continue on.
48:23
And that at that point in time, it is not as if Beijing and
48:28
Moscow are permanent and perfectly aligned allies that have identical interests.
48:36
They have differences.
48:37
There are things you can pull on.
48:39
And so it is certainly not impossible for that to happen.
48:44
It is going to be difficult.
48:45
It will require real effort to be able to make that happen.
48:49
But my sense is that they're really aren't too many other better options.
48:56
Some things that could have happened that maybe would have
49:00
gotten us to a better position is, I mean,
49:02
had our European allies taken February of 2022 much more seriously and
49:07
actually had gotten themselves into a much better defensive position today
49:12
than where they were, than where they are, this might be a little bit easier.
49:17
Like, there might be a.
49:18
There might be some other options to this that, that isn't.
49:23
That didn't happen.
49:24
Right. And it's unclear whether that will.
49:27
Maybe Chancellor soon to be Chancellor Mertz will be able to do that in Germany.
49:33
But I think there's a lot of question marks about whether or not the Germans can
49:37
actually make that happen, and whether or not the Europeans can bring
49:41
themselves together in a united fashion to be able to sort of strengthen themselves.
49:45
So I'm, I'm deeply concerned about that.
49:47
And then on the other side, you know, unfortunately,
49:52
we don't have particularly strong allies in other places.
49:57
Right.
49:58
Yeah, certainly, I think we're deeply aligned with the Japanese, but
50:02
they don't have kind of the scale.
50:05
And we should be very honest.
50:07
We've got real political uncertainty in Tokyo.
50:11
Prime Minister Ishiba is not in a particularly strong position.
50:14
You know, once Prime Minister Abe was assassinated in the summer of,
50:20
what, 2322, it's.
50:22
It's been hard for the Japanese to put together, really,
50:25
a leadership team that can really sort of lead on that side.
50:28
And so the United States, I think, is, is a bit stuck, and
50:31
it has to figure out what are the other options.
50:33
And so again, I, I don't think it's this is not the first, this is not
50:37
the option I would choose, but it's probably an option that is plausible and
50:43
it really has to do then with what can actually get negotiated, right?
50:47
So it remains to be seen.
50:50
The one thing I would say is that, you know, if, if the outcome is,
50:55
is that the United States is going to do a degree of a compromise on Ukraine.
51:00
That's something that the United States can negotiate with Moscow in ways that
51:04
Moscow can't get that from Beijing.
51:06
Right. So if that's what Putin really wants,
51:09
that is something the United States can negotiate on.
51:12
And I mean, it's unfortunate, but that is sort of the,
51:15
that's the reality of how it looks.
51:17
And that could create a situation where the United States is able to do some
51:20
things and that would be really problematic for Beijing.
51:23
And I think that it's fun.
51:24
It's one of their fundamental fears is being sort of isolated in this,
51:28
which may bring us to a position where we can have a, a real negotiation with
51:33
Beijing about, you know, how much do they push on countries around them and
51:38
act in ways that are disruptive to a global system.
51:42
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, I put the odds of that happening.
51:45
I don't know if there's a number less than zero in an odd.
51:48
I'd put it there.
51:50
But let's reconvene in a few months, Matt, because in fact I didn't
51:55
get to ask you most of the questions around economic security and
52:00
technology that you are so fluent and so good in.
52:04
So I want to have you back for that whole second discussion.
52:08
>> Matthew Turpin: I look forward to it.
52:10
>> Elizabeth Economy: And we can then assess, you know, what's,
52:12
what's transpired.
52:14
>> Matthew Turpin: It deserves a close watch.
52:17
I think there is, there is, there is no guarantee, but
52:21
it appears that that is what the administration is trying to do.
52:26
>> Elizabeth Economy: Agreed.
52:27
That is what they are trying to do.
52:29
Okay. I always finish up with a couple of quick
52:32
questions questions just to get your take first.
52:36
What would be your must read book or article on China that you would recommend?
52:41
>> Matthew Turpin: I really like Xi Jinping thought
52:46
Stephen Zhang and, >> Elizabeth Economy: Love that book.
52:51
>> Matthew Turpin: Yes, >> Elizabeth Economy: Olivia Chung.
52:52
>> Matthew Turpin: I think, I think they did a really good job with.
52:57
Yeah, they've sourced it really well and I'm really impressed.
53:03
I have on my desk Kevin Rudd's book on it too.
53:07
I suspect that one is equally good.
53:08
I just have not made it through it yet, unfortunately.
53:11
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, you can read my review of it in the next issue of 4.
53:14
>> Matthew Turpin: Excellent.
53:16
>> Elizabeth Economy: It is a great book.
53:17
But as I say, it's not for the faint of heart.
53:20
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, well,
53:21
I am a bit of geek on these things, so, >> Elizabeth Economy: You can definitely
53:24
make it through.
53:25
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah.
53:26
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, so Steve John's book, 100% agree.
53:31
What China issue.
53:32
Do you think we don't know enough about what's studied in our field?
53:37
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, you know, yeah, my sense is that,
53:43
that, you know, there is a lot that
53:48
said that we don't understand.
53:52
I actually think we do understand China relatively well.
53:57
I think we have an understanding of their, of their system.
54:00
I think we have to look at it through a lens of,
54:03
of sort of a Leninist political system and
54:06
sort of get back to this knowledge of how do Leninist systems operate.
54:11
Right. You know, and
54:12
this goes back to the book the Organizational Weapon, sort of written in
54:16
the 1950s that sort of examines how Leninist political systems operate.
54:20
Like what is the way, how do they use organization,
54:23
how do they use party structures to get things accomplished?
54:27
And I think that would provide us a lot more insight into,
54:30
into how Xi Jinping is setting up the party.
54:33
Now that, that wasn't the case.
54:36
15 years ago.
54:37
Right.
54:38
Because we were living in, under sort of a different China.
54:41
But I think Xi Jinping has definitely moved the party in that direction.
54:45
Right. He's moved it to a much more sort of
54:48
political Leninism than, than what it was before.
54:51
And those are, that's, that's terminology that many of us thought we should have
54:56
flushed out, you know, four decades ago and we didn't have to worry about anymore.
55:02
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, last one.
55:03
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest likelihood,
55:07
what are the odds not of a reverse Kissinger, but
55:10
of a Nixon Mao moment in the US China relationship within the next decade?
55:18
>> Matthew Turpin: I think it's so one being the least likely.
55:23
>> Elizabeth Economy: One being the least likely.
55:25
>> Matthew Turpin: Yeah, it's, it's probably a one or two, and I think it's,
55:29
it's the d, it's just sort of the dynamics of, of sort of the, the,
55:33
the sort of the geopolitical landscape.
55:37
Again, we made that agreement because they were the lesser of the rivals.
55:44
And so, you know,
55:45
you don't make those kinds of agreements with your primary rival.
55:51
So I, I, I think it's, I think it's unlikely because I think from both
55:55
the United States and, and the prc, each thinks that it needs to get itself
56:00
in a position, you know, to, to gain an advantage over the other.
56:04
And so it's unlikely that we're going to come to some sort of grand bargain.
56:08
>> Elizabeth Economy: Maybe we'll have a Massive shift in leadership in the PRC.
56:11
That will surprise us maybe.
56:13
>> Matthew Turpin: I mean, obviously Xi Jinping will not live forever.
56:16
Right.
56:18
>> Elizabeth Economy: That we can count, yes.
56:19
>> Matthew Turpin: That's right.
56:20
And in leadership transitions,
56:22
there are always opportunities to figure out what can be done.
56:26
And I think certainly the PRC understands that about the United States.
56:30
It starts off each, in many ways,
56:32
it starts each new administration off with looking for ways to change things.
56:36
And we should look at it the same way.
56:37
We just haven't had that now for what, a dozen years?
56:41
>> Elizabeth Economy: Right, right.
56:42
And we are probably not going to have it for another seven or so.
56:45
So. >> Matthew Turpin: Right.
56:46
So no, I mean, he's in his early 70s.
56:49
Right.
56:50
Statistically, we're getting into those ranges where, you know, there,
56:55
there is, there is a non zero chance that, that this, you know,
56:59
he passes away naturally in the next few years.
57:02
>> Elizabeth Economy: I don't, I don't know, Matt.
57:03
You know, he'll be, he'll be, you know,
57:06
78 at the end of his, of a fourth five year term.
57:10
And you know, that's like, that's young.
57:12
For, you know, for today's leaders.
57:14
>> Matthew Turpin: That's young.
57:15
>> Elizabeth Economy: Spring chicken.
57:17
>> Matthew Turpin: But again, he's loved in a society where there's
57:21
probably a lot of smoking and, you can imagine.
57:25
I mean, it, it is certainly possible.
57:27
I mean, look, it just happened to his old premiere.
57:31
>> Elizabeth Economy: That was very sad.
57:32
Actually, there were one person I would have liked to have seen lead the country
57:36
instead of Xi Jinping, it would have been Li Keqiang.
57:39
On that note, let me thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
57:46
I think it was a really rich and substantive discussion,
57:49
gave an enormous amount of food for thought.
57:53
So thank you and I hope you'll come back on in another four or
57:57
five months to do an assessment of what we got right, what we got wrong.
58:02
>> Matthew Turpin: Yep. And
58:03
I could certainly be wrong in all of this, so thank you, Liz.
58:06
I really appreciate it.
58:08
>> Elizabeth Economy: If you enjoyed this podcast and want to hear more reasoned
58:10
discourse and debate on China, I encourage you to subscribe to China Considered via
58:14
The Hoover Institution YouTube channel or podcast platform of your choice.