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Beyond the Headlines in China with Lingling Wei | China Considered | Hoover Institution · China Considered

• 0:07
  - Welcome to China
• 0:08
  Considered, a podcast that brings informed insight
• 0:11
  and discussion to one of the most consequential issues
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  of our time, how China's changing and changing the world.
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  I'm Liz Economy, Hargrove senior fellow
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  and co-director of the program on the us, China,
• 0:21
  and the world at the Hoover Institution at
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  Stanford University.
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  Today, I'm delighted to welcome Ling Ling way.
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  She's the Chief China correspondent
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  for the Wall Street Journal, the author
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  of the award-winning Wall Street Journal, China newsletter,
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  and co-author with Bob Davis
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  of Superpower Showdown. Welcome Ling Ling.
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  - It's great to be here, Liz. Truly, my honor.
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  - So, Ling Ling, you know, you are known
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  for breaking big China stories
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  and you know, most recently you had a blockbuster story on
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  the Ouster of Jane Yosia, who is
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  or who was second in command only
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  to Xi Jinping on the Chinese,
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  on the Central Military Commission,
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  which is the top party body
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  that oversees the People's Liberation Army.
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  For those who don't know the story, can you walk us through
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  what happened and what you think the implications are,
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  and start with how this first came to your attention?
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  - Sure, Liz, before we dive in, I'd like to say
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  that in Chinese politics, silence is often as loud
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  as words because of the internal workings of the party,
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  usually so guarded.
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  We are often reading tea leaves
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  and, you know, doing the kind of reporting
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  that not commonly known to a lot of our readers.
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  But I, I'm very happy to share my reporting
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  and my perspective with you on the current event evolving.
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  But I do so with the humility
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  that comes from really studying, researching,
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  and reporting on a system that is intentionally built
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  to keep the outside world guessing.
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  So what really happened was in the past couple weeks,
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  there have been a lot of rumors about Jia
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  being put under investigation.
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  Jang is someone that really stands out in the PAC
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  because he's not just some random high
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  ranking official.
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  This guy is a long time friend of Xi Jinping's
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  Ally, you know,
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  and he really, over the past few years,
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  over decade actually,
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  he has been a key architect in Xi Jinping's
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  effort to modernize the People's Liberation Army.
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  So his importance cannot be
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  exaggerated, both in terms of his political ties
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  to Xi Jinping, his importance in Chinese Army
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  and Chinese politics.
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  So the rumor really started
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  among the overseas China watching community
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  and couple of, you know, well-known social media accounts.
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  You know, they were the first one actually to,
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  to break some sort of story on's,
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  disappearance, and likely detention by Xi Jinping.
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  We really started digging right
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  after a study session held in
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  mid-January.
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  That study session was presided over by Xi Jinping
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  and every, that's one, that's the kind of meeting
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  that you do not miss.
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  And for someone like to miss that meeting,
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  that was a huge, you know, sign that we shouldn't ignore.
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  That's an important sign we shouldn't ignore.
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  So we really started digging,
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  and here's a little bit scoop for you, Liz.
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  We actually got the story nailed down as recently
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  as Friday, basically a day before the official announcement.
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  Wow. But just
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  because of the significance of, we decided
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  to be really, you know, more cautious than usual,
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  I told my editors, let's wait for one more signal
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  that in signal would be the upcoming poll bureau
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  meeting meeting.
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  And I told him, if were to miss that meeting again,
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  let's file away the story
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  because we just wanted to exercise, you know, the, the,
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  the maximum caution when comes to story like this list.
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  However, my caution didn't really pay off for us
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  because, you know, we sent our request for comment
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  to the defense ministry
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  and other relevant Chinese authorities
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  for comment Friday night.
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  Little did we know that the next day, Saturday afternoon,
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  Beijing officially announced the investigation
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  of John Yosha, along with the joint joint, the chief
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  of the joint staff de department Li John Lee.
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  And I was, of course, you can imagine my reaction.
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  I said, damn them, them
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  and shit so many times
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  that even my sons thought I was totally disgusting.
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  So, so that's really
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  - How, but why,
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  but why you were the first to break the story. Why?
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  - Oh, no, we, we didn't break the story about investigation.
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  We broke a story about the internal briefing
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  attended by senior military officials.
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  So what happened was
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  the official announcement involving John's
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  investigation came out in the afternoon of Saturday.
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  In the morning of Saturday,
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  the top leadership had internal briefing
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  with senior officials of the PLA
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  during the internal briefing, a a number
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  of very quote,
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  serious allegations were laid out against Jania.
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  That's the story that we wrote, you know,
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  the, the story you, you were referring to.
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  So of those allegations included decades long scheme by
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  to form so-called political cliques
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  to garner influence in the system.
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  And also, you know, the
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  taking bribery from people like the former defense
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  minister, Lee Shung Fu.
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  And of course the most shocking of all was the allegation
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  that he somehow leaked nuclear secrets
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  to the United States.
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  So those are the allegations that were made
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  during the internal briefing, that internal messaging to
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  basically the elite party military
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  and party elite, that those allegations were not
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  so far, haven't been publicly announced by the government
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  or any kind of authorities.
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  So we felt like we should report on
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  that internal messaging.
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  Yeah. We do not know, we do not know whether
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  or not any of those allegations are real for sure.
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  And in the story we also mentioned
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  that oftentimes such internal messaging doesn't really
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  reflect the true or
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  or complete motivations for a political action.
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  So, so that's a grain of thought we, we really try
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  to instill in into our readers.
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  When you read the story, please take it
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  as one data point, right.
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  When you are trying
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  to figure out exactly what's going on involving John.
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  So we haven't had our independent reporting
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  verifying any of those allegations.
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  - Right. I mean, since then
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  of course the official announcement has included language
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  that seems to suggest
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  that somehow Jania was undermining Xi Jinping's authority.
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  Right, right, exactly. And that there were differences also
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  of opinion, it sounds like, potentially around
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  how they viewed the military.
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  Even possibly people have speculated around whether
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  or not the pla LA would be ready
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  to meet Xi Jinping's deadline of 2027, you know, to be ready
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  to be able to take military action against Taiwan.
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  I mean, taking off your reporter hat
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  and putting on your analytical hat, you know, what,
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  what do you think is most likely behind the,
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  the ouster the investigation at this point in
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  - Time?
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  Yeah, and, and, and thank you for, for saying that.
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  Now I'm really wearing analytical hat, not not reporter hat,
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  because for a reporter to say what I am about to say,
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  I would have to have, do way more reporting and verify it.
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  But just based on Liz, you know, what I have read so far,
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  the conversations I have had with context, both in China
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  and here who have talked to Chinese officials, the,
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  the feeling that I got is that the,
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  is the political purge, no question.
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  And the timing is really interesting, right?
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  It happens at, as Xi Jinping is starting
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  to prepare for next year's party,
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  21st party Congress that expects
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  to be held in Beijing later next year,
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  probably late October or November.
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  Again, as you know, well,
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  a hugely important political event in China, you know,
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  and she definitely has the desire to make sure
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  that he calls a shot in, in terms
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  of personnel decisions, in terms of
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  the overall strategic decisions.
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  He is the only thing,
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  he's not just the chairman of everything.
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  He wants to make sure he is the only thing.
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  So based on our understanding,
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  he has been highly respected in the PLA,
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  the guy has combat experience, right.
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  And he played a crucial role helping Xi modernize the army.
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  So, you know, after, especially
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  after Xi Jinping had purged other senior
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  ranking military officers, like,
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  and you know, he basically, up until recently,
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  Jean yo sha have been the last man standing in the military,
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  and arguably the only man
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  who could theoretically say no to she on on matters,
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  both strategic and personnel related,
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  and arguably only person who can sort of pose any sort
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  of perceived or real challenge to, she, you know,
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  as you know, well, strong men leaders like she,
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  they do not like that they want to be able
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  to completely call the shots so ahead
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  of the very important party leadership
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  transition next year.
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  She probably felt like, you know,
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  he should start making the move now
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  to clear all the obstacles in her,
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  you know, in his way to next year.
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  And those obstacles could be real
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  and could be totally perceived by him.
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  Right. So I, I felt like that is a crucial,
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  you know, context.
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  We should bear in mind when we analyze the whole thing, the,
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  the what was China's own political calendar.
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  And I've seen really soft provoking reports from analysts
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  like those from at the Jamestown Foundation Yeah.
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  About the policy disagreement over went to a,
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  a tact Taiwan.
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  I think, you know, the analyst really laid out
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  pretty thoughtfully the, of his analysis
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  of the official records.
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  And I, you know, I I I don't disagree with that.
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  I, I do feel like if there indeed is,
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  is a policy disagreement that, you know, at least
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  that wouldn't have put
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  in Xi Jinkins favor in any way,
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  probably another data point she would consider.
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  Oh gosh, not only, you know, I,
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  I don't want this obstacle in my past, you know,
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  he also disagrees with me over crucial policy matters.
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  And the, I I did talk to the Jamestown analyst,
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  Tristan Town, very smart young analyst, you know,
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  he made a really good point.
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  He said, you know, that kind
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  of policy matters is politics too.
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  I I do agree with that, you know,
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  but it's hard for me to definitely confirm
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  or verify such a disagreement existed.
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  But I, I wouldn't be surprised.
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  Look, the PLA when you decide to invade Taiwan,
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  the PLA would be on the frontline doing the battle.
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  I mean, if there were disagreements between those two,
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  I wouldn't be surprised.
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  - Yeah. Yeah. I I I tended to be persuaded.
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  I thought that was a very good piece as well.
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  You know, I think the idea that he's an alternative,
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  potentially an alternative source
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  of authority is also compelling to me.
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  Actually, when I was reading that, I thought back to Jack Ma
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  and, you know, Alibaba and,
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  and the fact that he,
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  in his own way was also an alternative source
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  of authority being so popular, you know, within the country,
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  among so many of the young people
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  and the sort of the tech world
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  and everything that, that was also probably, you know,
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  put him in the cross hairs of, of Xi Jining.
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  I, you know, the one thing about removing him ahead
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  of the next party congress is he could have
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  just retired him.
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  You know, John is 75 and she kept him in 2022.
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  He kept him on right past the point
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  that he should have been retired past the
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  point of retirement age.
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  And so that
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  to me suggests there's some real point here
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  that made it necessary to do this now, you know,
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  among the many different sort of reasons that you laid out
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  something around a policy decision, you know, the secrets,
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  we'll put that aside, you know, if it's true,
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  it would be certainly, you know, blockbuster.
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  But, but, but really there must have been some
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  actual issue, I believe
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  that signaled this needed to happen now.
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  But in any case, it's a, you know, it's a fascinating,
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  you know, story and moment.
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  And, you know, as, as you know,
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  this leaves the Central Military commission at this point,
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  I think with only two people, right?
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  - Absolutely. - That usual six
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  or seven that they, that they have.
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  And I mean, it is astonishing at, at this point.
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  - Absolutely. And,
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  and Liz, I I wanted
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  to just follow up on the two very good points you made.
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  You saw the parallel between what's happening now
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  to Jack Moss downfall, you know, for the lack
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  of better word, many years ago.
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  Absolutely. And we also saw the disagreement between Xi
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  and the, the former premier.
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  Right. You know, they had fundamental,
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  fundamentally different right visions for
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  how China's economic economy should be wrong.
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  Right. It's, it's not rare at all that she,
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  you know, this is not the first time
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  that she has taken down people who disagreed, dared to
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  disagreed with him.
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  So I definitely agree with that.
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  And another thing, you know, is I,
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  I totally get your point about, you know, he should have,
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  he could have retired him as opposed to just totally,
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  you know, taking him down.
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  I guess, you know, one plausible explanation would be,
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  you know, if he were to allow retire peacefully,
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  he would still remain as sort of like a,
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  a potential troublemaker for she Mm.
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  Right? He would be out there
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  because of the respect he's garnered from the senior ranks
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  of the PLA, he would have been,
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  would still have been a force.
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  Yeah. So, so that, that would be the,
• 17:06
  - That's a, that's a good point.
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  I mean, it's a good point, especially if you think some
• 17:09
  of the finance people
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  that have been retired out continue to weigh in, you know,
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  at certain moments on policy in ways that seem to be at odds
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  with what Xi Jinping is doing.
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  And so having those senior people out there
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  to sometimes offer perspectives No, I'm sure
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  that's not appreciated, right.
• 17:31
  By he, so, right.
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  - So Right. And as you know,
• 17:35
  there have been rumors about a coup by,
• 17:40
  I guess that probably, you know, is the least
• 17:45
  plausible explanation.
• 17:46
  Yes. I mean, at least so far, I haven't
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  found anyone who could give any kind of evidence that a coup
• 17:57
  actually happened.
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  So Yeah.
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  You know, what we understood was, you know, the
• 18:03
  Jania was arrested on his way to the Central Party school
• 18:08
  where Xi Jinping was holding that
• 18:11
  major study session, the meeting.
• 18:14
  So that was, you know, one version we had heard.
• 18:18
  - So I wanna, you know, get your thoughts on, like,
• 18:22
  you've done a lot of writing on the US China relationship
• 18:25
  as well as sort of the Chinese economy,
• 18:26
  and I wanna get your thoughts on all of those things.
• 18:29
  But first I do wanna get a little bit of your own story
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  because you've, you know, been at the Wall Street Journal
• 18:36
  for most of your career
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  before that, at the Down Jones Wire Service.
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  But before that, you were educated at Udan
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  and you decided to become a journalist, right?
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  This was the 1990s.
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  Why, why did you decide to become a journalist, you know,
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  not an easy thing to do,
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  and you started off, I think, at a,
• 18:57
  at a state run newspaper.
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  What, what made you decide to study journalism, pursue that,
• 19:02
  pursue that path?
• 19:04
  - Oh, it all, thanks to my mom always listens,
• 19:07
  - Okay.
• 19:08
  - To your mom. She always, you know,
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  my mom was a doctor in the military,
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  but her dream job had always been a journalist.
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  But her idea of this journalist, you know,
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  she always stating in China her entire time, so
• 19:24
  in, in her thinking that journalists, you know,
• 19:28
  such a glamorous job, you know,
• 19:31
  and she also, she's a very good writer.
• 19:33
  You get to, you know, write.
• 19:36
  So she picked the major and profession for me.
• 19:39
  I didn't have any input, really. No. Wow.
• 19:44
  - No, not lucky, but lucky you.
• 19:46
  Because I think most Chinese parents would not
• 19:49
  pick journalism, right?
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  They would pick engineering or something, some science
• 19:53
  or something, or something business that would make a safe,
• 19:56
  a safe career for their child.
• 19:58
  Journalism is totally different,
• 20:00
  - Liz, because I sucked as mess.
• 20:03
  I'm very, I'm Chinese in that regard. I was so terrible.
• 20:07
  Then my mom really, really like, very, like,
• 20:11
  embarrassed, you know?
• 20:12
  But, but I, I always, I, I did well at, you know,
• 20:15
  in high school English and Chinese and writing.
• 20:20
  - Yeah. - And I love to talk, you know, she's, she's
• 20:24
  do journalism, do journalism.
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  - She was right. She was right for sure.
• 20:29
  - Oh, but thank you so much.
• 20:30
  But I, I just wanted to say that I benefited
• 20:33
  so much from golden era in China.
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  It was a time when China was really opening up, as you know,
• 20:41
  thanks to ing, I, I really, you know, we,
• 20:45
  people in my generation we call ing, you know,
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  it's like very endearing term, respectful.
• 20:54
  And, and he really not, obviously we never interacted
• 20:58
  with him, but, but he really changed China for the better
• 21:03
  and paved, created opportunities for people like me.
• 21:08
  So, so I benefited so much from that golden era of opening
• 21:12
  and reforming, opening,
• 21:14
  and from a very good, at least stable
• 21:17
  and positive relationship between China
• 21:21
  and the United States.
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  Had it not because of, you know, that era.
• 21:26
  I, I wouldn't have come here, you know, have had the kind
• 21:29
  of career I'm having now.
• 21:31
  I probably would be a typist in Beijing
• 21:34
  for newspaper somewhere.
• 21:35
  - Oh, I'm sure you'd do something more, more,
• 21:37
  you know, using your mind more.
• 21:39
  But, but, but in any case,
• 21:42
  so you studied journalism at Udan?
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  - Yes, yes. And that time we had Fulbright scholars,
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  they were either practition journalists
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  or retired journalists, you know, coming over, teach us
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  and remember at Udan that, I think that's the mid nineties,
• 22:02
  had a brand new American studying study center
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  that was funded by the American government.
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  And we all, we would often go there, you know,
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  because they were like newspapers, the American newspapers,
• 22:16
  the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times.
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  It would be like weeks late, but
• 22:20
  however, we're like reading like voraciously.
• 22:23
  Oh, that's beautiful. Writing and storytelling. Oh my gosh.
• 22:27
  That was just like, yeah, it just always got us real.
• 22:30
  Whenever I, you know, me
• 22:32
  and my classmates, we, we,
• 22:34
  we sit down at the American Studying Center.
• 22:37
  That was the mood and the sentiment back then.
• 22:41
  - So were you inspired then to, you know,
• 22:44
  come to the United States?
• 22:45
  I mean, you spent a couple of years, right?
• 22:47
  Still in China as a journalist?
• 22:49
  - Yes. I worked in Shanghai.
• 22:51
  I covered the development of the Pong, the pong new area,
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  and the, you know, the, their version, you know, aspiring
• 23:01
  to be China's version of Wall Street.
• 23:04
  Right. So I covered Pong for
• 23:08
  a subsidiary of the China Daily,
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  but I was based in Shanghai.
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  And it was really in, during that time,
• 23:18
  that made me feel like, you know,
• 23:20
  what I was doing was not journalism.
• 23:23
  It was, it was very, you know, I mean,
• 23:26
  it was still open era, but relatively to today.
• 23:31
  But you are only journalist
• 23:34
  to the extent the government allows you to be.
• 23:36
  Right. And I got stories killed just
• 23:38
  because, you know,
• 23:39
  I wrote stories about laid off textile workers having
• 23:42
  trouble finding jobs And, and,
• 23:45
  but, you know, people, editors didn't like
• 23:48
  that kind of reporting.
• 23:50
  So, and I also interacted
• 23:52
  with some foreign correspondents in Shanghai at the time,
• 23:55
  and I saw their work.
• 23:57
  They were able to do story, not just about, oh,
• 24:01
  every China's rising power, the great greatness.
• 24:05
  And they often went behind the policy
• 24:08
  and found out, you know, they're actually the other side
• 24:12
  that people didn't know,
• 24:13
  but also important for people to know.
• 24:15
  So that's the kind of journalist I really want to be.
• 24:18
  And, and my
• 24:20
  and my editor also felt like I, I am a troublemaker
• 24:22
  of sort at that time
• 24:24
  because my story was always, always like,
• 24:26
  - Always had problems.
• 24:28
  - Yeah. Always had problems.
• 24:29
  And she's like, why don't you apply for, you know, you know,
• 24:34
  graduate programs
• 24:36
  - Outside, outside the
• 24:37
  country. Exactly. And then why don't you stay
• 24:39
  - There?
• 24:40
  Yeah. Say there don't ever come back. Don't come back. Yes.
• 24:44
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 24:46
  So, so it was, it was a period of really,
• 24:49
  you know, struggle.
• 24:50
  A lot of learning for sure.
• 24:52
  A lot of learning, but a lot of also struggling
• 24:56
  and trying to really figure out what is it that really want,
• 24:59
  want, you know, as a journalist,
• 25:01
  or do I want to be a journalist for people's daily,
• 25:05
  or do I want to be a journalist that can really write things
• 25:09
  of real interest to the public?
• 25:13
  Yeah. And, and I felt like it's really great
• 25:16
  that I got opportunities to apply
• 25:18
  for graduate programs in the United States,
• 25:21
  and I was rewarded of scholarship at New York University.
• 25:25
  That how I, how I was able to come here in 99.
• 25:29
  Gosh, I'm showing you my age. This
• 25:32
  - Oh, you, I mean, you're not, you're not that old.
• 25:34
  So older but not old.
• 25:38
  So, so, okay, so you ended up at NYU
• 25:42
  and then obviously you decided
• 25:43
  to stay in the United States. Right.
• 25:46
  - I wanted to learn the craft to really practice journalism
• 25:51
  before I earned my right to go back to work for the journal.
• 25:54
  That's really the very, very goal
• 25:57
  that I had in mind at the time.
• 25:59
  - So you always wanted to go back
• 26:01
  and be a journalist for an American
• 26:05
  or a foreign newspaper, but,
• 26:07
  but in China, that was the objective
• 26:10
  - For China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
• 26:13
  That was my dream job.
• 26:14
  - And and you got it right. And you got it.
• 26:17
  So when you returned to China, you know,
• 26:20
  then you were an American citizen at that point, right?
• 26:24
  - Right. - So what was that like going back, being,
• 26:28
  you know, Chinese native, now an American citizen,
• 26:30
  going back to be a journalist for an American newspaper?
• 26:35
  How did the people in China react to that?
• 26:37
  How did government officials react to that?
• 26:39
  They didn't know their job easier or more
• 26:41
  - Difficult?
• 26:42
  Well, first of all, they didn't know how to react
• 26:45
  because they never dealt with someone.
• 26:48
  Oh, you're Chinese. Oh,
• 26:49
  but you are work working for the Wall Street Journal.
• 26:52
  Are you sure you're not a researcher?
• 26:54
  That's always the first question I got.
• 26:55
  I'm like, damnit, I'm a Chinese.
• 26:57
  I still can write for the Wall Street
• 26:59
  Journal, just believe it.
• 27:00
  All right. But, but I underestimated list.
• 27:04
  I have to say I underestimated the reporting challenge
• 27:08
  when I first got back, you know,
• 27:10
  before I got back, I was full of excitement, full of hope.
• 27:14
  Oh my God. You know, China's opening up, you know,
• 27:18
  my first assignment actually was
• 27:20
  to write about the globalization of the B
• 27:23
  because at the time, our editor, some editors
• 27:27
  of least had this, this, this, this vision that China would
• 27:32
  open up the financial account
• 27:34
  and really be more like the us.
• 27:37
  You know, some of us do, did have that vision. Yes, yes.
• 27:40
  And my job was just write about rein B, just go back
• 27:43
  and write about rein B, you know, it's going
• 27:45
  to be really important, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:47
  And I really believed that.
• 27:49
  And as soon as, and I found I have nothing to write about
• 27:52
  because, And, and,
• 27:57
  and my China bureau chief at the time,
• 28:00
  Andy Brown, you know, just gave, oh, I
• 28:02
  - Have - A really good lesson that, you know,
• 28:05
  helped me understand
• 28:06
  to actually loosen control over cross border capital flows,
• 28:11
  you know, would have meant, you know,
• 28:14
  the whole party turning its hat basically it turned,
• 28:18
  turning its old model to, to its hat.
• 28:20
  Right, right. Completely changing the control
• 28:23
  centered model.
• 28:24
  So, you know, I was so naive, you know, I didn't know,
• 28:27
  but it's, it's really learning by doing.
• 28:29
  And gradually I moved from just covering the currency,
• 28:33
  which I probably produced one
• 28:36
  or two stories a year
• 28:38
  to gradually writing about the financial sector,
• 28:41
  the overall economy,
• 28:43
  and to later on the intersection politics and business,
• 28:48
  and then us China relations.
• 28:50
  - Do you have a story from that time
• 28:51
  that you are particularly proud of?
• 28:54
  One that you look back
• 28:55
  and just think, I'm so glad I was able
• 28:57
  to write this story at this time.
• 28:59
  It really sort of opened up the aperture, the lens
• 29:02
  of understanding.
• 29:04
  - Sure. I do have one actually,
• 29:07
  and I still remember it was, I think that one was right
• 29:11
  after Xi Jinping came to power.
• 29:14
  So at the time, a lot of tension was on
• 29:17
  who was moving up, right?
• 29:19
  Who was getting promoted, blah, blah, blah.
• 29:21
  And, and that story I did jointly
• 29:25
  with my mentor and a good friend Bob Davis.
• 29:28
  We focused on the, a guy who didn't get promoted,
• 29:32
  who got passed over.
• 29:34
  And that guy was the head of the industrial
• 29:37
  and commercial Bank of China ing as you know, Liz,
• 29:42
  it's the biggest bank in China.
• 29:44
  And Jing was well con, well regarded in the industry.
• 29:50
  He ran R-A-C-B-C really?
• 29:52
  Well, ICBC had highest profitability, the lowest,
• 29:57
  you know, just default ratios.
• 30:01
  So, you know, by all Western standards, right.
• 30:04
  He should been moved up.
• 30:05
  - Great candidate. Yeah, - Exactly.
• 30:07
  However, the story, it was both a scoop of insight
• 30:10
  and scoop of news.
• 30:12
  The, the story basically said, no, he was not going
• 30:15
  to get the central banker job,
• 30:17
  the top central bank governor job,
• 30:19
  because even though he ran ICBC, well, commercially,
• 30:24
  he didn't do X and Y and Z politically.
• 30:27
  Ah. So, I mean, reporting on that story list was eye-opening
• 30:31
  for me as a reporter,
• 30:33
  because it gave me a chance to really, really understand
• 30:37
  how the Chinese system works.
• 30:39
  It doesn't matter, you know,
• 30:41
  how well you run the corporation based on
• 30:43
  profits and blah, blah, blah.
• 30:45
  It ultimately, what decide your fate
• 30:48
  and your career trajectory was the political connection
• 30:52
  and whether or not you accomplished what you were told
• 30:57
  by your party boss.
• 30:59
  - Yeah. I mean, it's the, the triumph you know, of,
• 31:01
  of politics, right,
• 31:03
  - Exactly.
• 31:05
  - Over in some ways over competence or expertise.
• 31:08
  Absolutely. I mean, the red versus the expert,
• 31:11
  and I think for many people,
• 31:14
  Xi Jinping represents the reddest of the red.
• 31:17
  - Right. Perfectly said. Yeah.
• 31:19
  Just look at the people he's promoted, right?
• 31:22
  Over the past few years, you know,
• 31:24
  the technocrats are almost gone from the very high level
• 31:29
  decision making level.
• 31:31
  Right. But the midlevel, you,
• 31:34
  you can still argue they're technocrat competent technocrat,
• 31:38
  but those people don't matter.
• 31:40
  Right. They make recommendations ultimately,
• 31:42
  who calls a shot
• 31:43
  or the, the, the, the people who have the political currency
• 31:48
  to she as well as she himself.
• 31:51
  - Right. So in March, 2020,
• 31:55
  Beijing expelled you along with, you know,
• 31:58
  many other American journalists from,
• 32:01
  from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times,
• 32:04
  and the Washington Post.
• 32:06
  What, what precipitated that, you know,
• 32:08
  did you anticipate it
• 32:10
  and, you know, what did it mean for your career and are you
• 32:13
  and the other, you know, previously expelled journalists?
• 32:16
  Can you go back?
• 32:17
  Do you have a hope that some point in the future you'll be
• 32:19
  able to go back to China?
• 32:22
  - Thank you for asking that question, Liz.
• 32:24
  That was, I have to say,
• 32:26
  that was the most difficult time in my, in my life,
• 32:29
  not just in my career, but in my, my life as well.
• 32:33
  I, I didn't see that coming, I have to say,
• 32:36
  even though there were signs that there were
• 32:39
  cracking down on journalists, not just foreign journalists,
• 32:43
  but independent Chinese journalists,
• 32:46
  and the official reason given was
• 32:50
  the Chinese were retaliating against American expulsions
• 32:54
  of Chinese journalists.
• 32:55
  - Right. - The official reason.
• 32:57
  But of course, I was also told later on,
• 33:01
  I was singled out
• 33:02
  because of the critical coverage I had written about China's
• 33:07
  economy, the debt problems,
• 33:09
  and you know,
• 33:11
  in particular also the US China trade negotiations,
• 33:15
  we got a lot of scoops
• 33:16
  and, you know, obviously people were worried about some,
• 33:20
  someone like me who actually could get inside of the system.
• 33:24
  So I, I, I thought about quitting, Liz, I,
• 33:28
  I wouldn't lie I thought about quitting
• 33:30
  because my family, my parents, they were, they're,
• 33:35
  you know, coming, going up in age.
• 33:38
  And I felt like the right thing to do as a daughter was
• 33:42
  to quit and stay.
• 33:44
  But my, my mom
• 33:46
  and my, my dad, both of them said, you know, be disastrous
• 33:50
  for us if we were to stay
• 33:51
  because they knew how seriously, like,
• 33:56
  nobody wants you there.
• 33:57
  I know, I know. Nobody, not even my parents. No.
• 34:02
  Well, yeah. You know what I mean, right? I do.
• 34:04
  I I do, I know where my heart is
• 34:06
  and they, they don't want me to, to think that I had
• 34:09
  to stay for them.
• 34:11
  I should, I should just go pursuing where my heart is.
• 34:16
  So that's, that's always the principle my
• 34:18
  parents have given me.
• 34:19
  - So, just to be clear, Ling Ling,
• 34:20
  you could have resigned your position and stayed in China.
• 34:24
  - I don't know, actually. I didn't know at the time,
• 34:26
  but I thought maybe I, I was thinking, but,
• 34:31
  but at the same time,
• 34:33
  I also got tremendous support from the Wall Street Journal.
• 34:37
  Everyone reached out and not a jour, not only journal,
• 34:42
  but also some, some people at our art competitor
• 34:45
  in the New York Times.
• 34:46
  So everybody was reaching out
• 34:48
  and just like trying to really, like you, you,
• 34:53
  you have to keep going.
• 34:54
  If you were to resign the part, the,
• 34:57
  the regime wouldn't have liked anything better than that.
• 35:01
  So once I got the, the, you
• 35:07
  talk from, from my, my parents as well as
• 35:11
  the editor in chief of the journal at the time,
• 35:13
  and my colleagues and people like Bob
• 35:16
  and Charles Hustler, my former boss
• 35:18
  and some other really good friends
• 35:20
  and editors, I decided to just keep going
• 35:25
  and I decided to come back to New York.
• 35:29
  I, but I had no idea if I could keep doing what I do.
• 35:34
  It's just really feeling this crossing the river
• 35:38
  by failing the stones.
• 35:39
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 35:41
  - So, and, and obviously you've made it work.
• 35:43
  I mean, I think you're really one of, you know, a few
• 35:46
  of the sort of elite China journalists who've had just,
• 35:51
  you know, great exposure inside China
• 35:53
  and can write compellingly about domestic internal issues,
• 35:57
  and at the same time talk about China on the global stage
• 36:00
  and US-China relations.
• 36:02
  So let's talk a little bit about both of those. Thank
• 36:04
  - You.
• 36:06
  - You know, and I wanna get your, your sort of sense, again,
• 36:09
  as an analyst, not, not necessarily as a reporter
• 36:14
  about the state of the US China relationship.
• 36:16
  You've written a lot actually
• 36:18
  about the relationship over the past year.
• 36:21
  You know, when you look back, what, what do you see?
• 36:23
  Or first, you know, what do you, how would,
• 36:26
  how would you define the relationship at this point?
• 36:28
  You know, and, and what do you see
• 36:29
  as the major inflection points over the first year
• 36:33
  that have kind of shaped where it is today?
• 36:36
  - Thank you, Liz. That's a great question.
• 36:39
  And you know, many really smart experts like yourself
• 36:45
  have talked about the state of the US-China relationship.
• 36:48
  You know, I, I think I, I agree
• 36:50
  with a lot of people right now.
• 36:52
  We're, we're in a tactical pause, right?
• 36:55
  Both sides have the desire to keep the status quo, meaning,
• 36:59
  you know, let's, let's not, you know, get into this escalate
• 37:04
  to dis escalate cycle anymore.
• 37:07
  Let's, you know, for both sides have the desire
• 37:10
  to build up their own capabilities for the purpose of
• 37:15
  strategic decoupling.
• 37:17
  I think both sides have accepted strategic decoupling, not,
• 37:22
  not full decoupled.
• 37:23
  That which was, is, is impossible to do
• 37:25
  from China's po from from China's perspective.
• 37:30
  And you, you know this better than I do.
• 37:32
  I mean, look at how much money they're,
• 37:34
  they're spending on semiconductors, on energy,
• 37:37
  on agricultural, basically everything
• 37:40
  to fortress the Chinese economy, right?
• 37:42
  And to, you know, I talked
• 37:44
  to a senior Chinese policy advisor just a few weeks ago.
• 37:49
  He used to term war footing.
• 37:53
  China is trying to build economy, make it on war footing,
• 37:57
  and, you know, war in terms of, in the sense
• 38:00
  of not just trying in China, you know, act
• 38:04
  proactively, you know, seeking a war, but,
• 38:08
  but they're preparing for war, right?
• 38:12
  A potential conflict, you know, especially in, in light
• 38:16
  of the situation over Taiwan.
• 38:18
  So, so that's very, that pretty obvious.
• 38:21
  And, and from the US side, you seeing the initiatives really
• 38:26
  getting beefed up in terms of
• 38:30
  getting alternative sources of rare earth
• 38:33
  and other supplies, critical mineral price,
• 38:36
  and also making sure to ring fence China,
• 38:40
  the US own supply chains, not,
• 38:42
  not make it too dependent on China.
• 38:45
  So effort, I mean, in the past there was a lot
• 38:48
  of talk seemingly, but,
• 38:50
  but it seems like in recent months, a lot
• 38:52
  of extra efforts are,
• 38:54
  are really being increased in, in that front.
• 38:56
  So, you know, we, we, we have seen
• 38:59
  that both sides have the desire to strategically decouple,
• 39:03
  and especially on China's side, they're doing concrete,
• 39:06
  taking concrete actions for that purpose,
• 39:08
  but at the same time, they want less, less, let's,
• 39:12
  let's manage divorce.
• 39:13
  Let's, let's not make it too messy for, for,
• 39:15
  for either of us.
• 39:17
  So that's, that's where this tech,
• 39:19
  the trade truth comes in, right?
• 39:22
  Let's not fight for now, right? Both sides are buying time.
• 39:26
  - Maybe it's like separation as opposed
• 39:27
  to the actual divorce.
• 39:29
  - Oh, yes, absolutely. Right. Yeah, yeah. Separation.
• 39:31
  - So in that context though, how do you understand
• 39:35
  the White House's decision
• 39:37
  to reverse basically this decision on
• 39:41
  the H 20, the H two hundreds,
• 39:43
  and, you know, allow Nvidia
• 39:47
  and also, you know, a MD to sell, you know,
• 39:50
  fairly advanced semiconductors to China?
• 39:54
  - Oh, that's a such a great question.
• 39:56
  You know, a lot of analysts have, you know, analyzed that,
• 40:00
  and we have done stories mainly looking into the, the,
• 40:04
  the huge lobbying efforts by people like hu from Nvidia.
• 40:10
  It does look like the,
• 40:11
  the tech industry overall has had quite a sway
• 40:15
  with President Trump.
• 40:17
  And, you know, he really listened to them.
• 40:22
  And, and it, I, I haven't got a sense
• 40:24
  that President Trump is someone who, who's tech savvy,
• 40:30
  who actually also even interested in knowing the ins
• 40:34
  and outs that, that make, you know, of controls essential
• 40:38
  for Chi for the US national security.
• 40:40
  So, so one can argue he might be easily persuaded on
• 40:45
  something like that at, you know,
• 40:48
  when he's billionaire tech pro, you know, friends, you know,
• 40:52
  are, are, are, are intent are doing so much to try
• 40:55
  to persuade him.
• 40:57
  So that, that's really interesting.
• 40:58
  But, but on the other hand, you see the,
• 41:00
  the action in Congress, right?
• 41:03
  And, and, and also, you know, within,
• 41:05
  even within the administration,
• 41:07
  there's still different voices.
• 41:09
  So the, it's really still so far hasn't been smooth sailing
• 41:13
  for Nvidia in terms of it, its desire
• 41:16
  to sell H 200 to China,
• 41:19
  - Right?
• 41:20
  And it's, it's partly not been smooth sailing for Nvidia
• 41:23
  because of the Chinese reaction.
• 41:25
  - Yes, absolutely. - Reaction, right?
• 41:27
  I mean, I think that probably came as a big surprise
• 41:31
  to, you know, people in the White House and,
• 41:34
  and maybe to Nvidia as well, you know, when Xi Jinping
• 41:38
  and, you know, many people in China were just like, well,
• 41:40
  we don't actually want the age 20. Certainly
• 41:43
  - A absolutely. And,
• 41:44
  - And I think that was a, a wake up call of course
• 41:47
  after Secretary Lunik said, you know, we're trying
• 41:49
  to make China dependent on our tech stack.
• 41:52
  And by the way, like the fourth best chip one would imagine
• 41:55
  the Chinese would be less than interested, right?
• 41:59
  In those chips.
• 42:00
  That's, that's not a huge selling, you know, effort,
• 42:05
  I think on the part of the administration.
• 42:06
  But, but how do you think China is looking at the
• 42:09
  United States these days?
• 42:11
  And, you know, maybe you can define China, either Xi Jinping
• 42:14
  or, or more broadly the people that you speak with who are,
• 42:18
  you know, somehow in the Chinese government
• 42:20
  or are senior, you know, foreign policy
• 42:23
  or domestic policy analysts.
• 42:24
  What, what do you think is,
• 42:26
  is their outlook on the United States these days
• 42:29
  and what's going on with the Trump administration
• 42:31
  and the administration's China policy?
• 42:33
  - Right. So, you know,
• 42:37
  purely based on their statements,
• 42:40
  and it does have a feeling that China, oh,
• 42:44
  thinks the US is in chaos.
• 42:46
  Not as strong as it used to be.
• 42:50
  You know, there's some truth to that.
• 42:53
  However, I also do think
• 42:56
  China still thinks the United States as a very formidable
• 43:01
  competitor, you know, the recent capture
• 43:05
  of the Venezuela president
• 43:08
  Certainly is not lost on Hai, right.
• 43:13
  And how Trump has been doing
• 43:18
  in Middle East, the Western hemisphere overall,
• 43:23
  the hard power, the projection
• 43:25
  of hard power from this administration is not lost on the
• 43:30
  Chinese leadership.
• 43:32
  The sense is that the US you know, can make,
• 43:36
  still can make hard decisions.
• 43:39
  I think that's an important realization for the Chinese.
• 43:42
  It can bring them in from being
• 43:46
  in their view, needlessly aggressive,
• 43:49
  especially when it comes to the Taiwan Street and,
• 43:52
  and other hot hotly debated territorial areas.
• 43:57
  So that's, that's one thing I would say.
• 43:59
  And then, you know, the other thing I would say is
• 44:02
  that compared to the Xi Jinping leadership
• 44:07
  that dealt with the first Trump administration, this
• 44:11
  current government, current Xi leadership is way,
• 44:15
  is feeling way more confident than 10 years ago,
• 44:20
  because the first time around they were very tentative.
• 44:24
  They didn't really know what to do.
• 44:26
  And, and as you know, you know, talk to people like Leo Hu,
• 44:30
  you know, he, he still had a desire to mend the fences,
• 44:35
  get the relationship back on track.
• 44:37
  And this time around you talk,
• 44:39
  you mentioned the inflection point.
• 44:41
  I would say one inflection point would be April last year
• 44:45
  when China decided to hit back at the United States
• 44:49
  with such strong export control measures on rare Earth.
• 44:52
  That's an inflection point,
• 44:54
  and that's a reflection of
• 44:55
  how much more confident Beijing has become when dealing
• 44:59
  with Trump 2.0.
• 45:01
  They felt like they're appear equal
• 45:04
  to the United States now,
• 45:05
  and they're not afraid of using the most lethal weapon,
• 45:09
  trade weapon to hit back.
• 45:11
  - Yeah. I mean, I do think
• 45:12
  that was a miscalculation on the part
• 45:14
  of the Trump administration,
• 45:17
  which I think believed erroneously obviously, that just
• 45:21
  because, you know, we imported
• 45:24
  so much more from China than China imported from us,
• 45:27
  that somehow that gave us greater leverage over China.
• 45:31
  Failing to think through the fact that when it comes to,
• 45:34
  you know, sort of more single source dependency,
• 45:37
  we have much greater single source dependency on China
• 45:40
  for things like rare earth elements
• 45:42
  or active pharmaceutical ingredients than China does
• 45:46
  on us, right?
• 45:47
  Right. And so I think that's, that's really the, you know,
• 45:50
  the lever that China's been able to pull and,
• 45:53
  and something that I think if the Trump administration had
• 45:55
  had probably a more
• 45:58
  robust policy process leading up
• 46:02
  to the decision making around the tariffs,
• 46:05
  they might not have made the choices that they made.
• 46:09
  But, but in any case, we are, we are where we are
• 46:12
  and where we are is, you know, just a couple
• 46:15
  of months presumably away from a she Trump summit
• 46:19
  and everybody wants to know what's going to happen,
• 46:22
  you know, is there going to be some big breakthrough,
• 46:24
  some new Nixon Mao moment,
• 46:27
  or is it going to be just a series of, you know,
• 46:29
  one-off sort of small deals
• 46:32
  or maybe not so small deals.
• 46:35
  What's, what's your sense?
• 46:36
  You know, are you hearing anything from the Chinese side
• 46:38
  or the US side about what they're putting forth
• 46:42
  or what they'd like to get out of this meeting?
• 46:45
  - Sure. That's a very timely question.
• 46:49
  As recently as a couple days ago, you know, my sense is
• 46:54
  that no official planning has, has started
• 46:58
  for the summit in particular, the Chinese side
• 47:03
  are, is, is is quite anxious
• 47:06
  because you know, as you know, the Chinese love
• 47:09
  to plan months ahead of time. And I guess, well,
• 47:12
  - For a summit there should be planning months ahead.
• 47:14
  This is not, I have to say on this side, I'm, I'm kind of
• 47:17
  with the Chinese it, you know, a summit is not something
• 47:20
  that should just be try, you know, try to put together,
• 47:22
  you know, a few weeks ahead of time.
• 47:24
  That does take, if you wanna have real substantive outcomes,
• 47:28
  it does take a lot of engagement upfront, so,
• 47:32
  - Right, right.
• 47:33
  I mean, we know that secretary best met with in Davos,
• 47:38
  but didn't sound like that was a substantial
• 47:42
  discussion about planning for the summit.
• 47:45
  But the Chinese side again has been complaining that,
• 47:49
  you know, they, they had tried to engage
• 47:51
  with their US counterparts,
• 47:53
  but so far haven't got much luck.
• 47:55
  And they thought, you know, probably
• 47:57
  because President Trump has been very distracted
• 48:01
  by Venezuela and the other matters.
• 48:03
  So, but anyway, that's aside on the other hand, in, in terms
• 48:07
  of informal channels, you know, things are happening,
• 48:12
  you know, the business side, you know, they probably are,
• 48:15
  have already given both sides some recommendations in terms
• 48:19
  of deliverables, you know, what's on China's table,
• 48:22
  you know, Boeing planes potentially more energy
• 48:26
  purchases, agriculture.
• 48:28
  And you know, some people also talked about the reopening
• 48:33
  of US consulate in China and vice versa.
• 48:37
  And also, you know, obviously
• 48:42
  Xi, president Xi will use upcoming meetings
• 48:47
  whether or not the, the, the first one in April
• 48:50
  or the ones down down the road this year to try to get,
• 48:55
  you know, some transactional statements from,
• 48:57
  from President Trump that could, you know,
• 49:00
  shake the confidence in Taipei.
• 49:03
  You know, so, so absolutely.
• 49:05
  I mean, it, my sense is that the scope for a real deal,
• 49:10
  it it's quite narrow.
• 49:13
  Yeah. You know, Les,
• 49:14
  you were involved in those negotiations in the past the US
• 49:18
  China talk about market access.
• 49:20
  - Yeah. - Who, who's talking about that anymore, right?
• 49:23
  And getting China to reform, you know, is,
• 49:25
  is is the economic model.
• 49:27
  I mean, it's, it's crazy.
• 49:28
  I mean, these days just just to show how much
• 49:33
  the relationship has changed though, we talked about, oh,
• 49:35
  it's, it's more like managed trade, like how buy more
• 49:39
  with fixed amount within certain timeframe, and,
• 49:43
  and you do this, is it's very managed, very managed, just
• 49:48
  as we discussed earlier,
• 49:50
  to make sure it's not too messy separation.
• 49:53
  - Right, right. The ambition is not there to strike,
• 49:57
  for example, a new investment agreement, right?
• 49:59
  I mean, there is a lot of talk in the US Yes.
• 50:01
  In the China circles about whether
• 50:04
  or not there's an opportunity to sort of structure some kind
• 50:08
  of framework for encouraging Chinese investment
• 50:11
  in the United States.
• 50:12
  I mean, certainly it's tricky given all of the restrictions
• 50:15
  that, you know, administrations won
• 50:18
  after the other, since,
• 50:19
  since the first Trump administration have been putting
• 50:22
  on that kind of investment.
• 50:24
  And I think the overall landscape, political landscape
• 50:28
  among governors, et cetera, they're very wary
• 50:30
  of certain kinds of Chinese investment.
• 50:32
  But nonetheless, that's something
• 50:34
  that if people were interested in having a slightly more
• 50:37
  ambitious, you know, discussion set of negotiations, I think
• 50:42
  that could be, you know, on the table along with dealing
• 50:45
  with China's export of its over capacity.
• 50:48
  But for that discussion, I think it requires, you know,
• 50:51
  much more than just the United States
• 50:52
  and, you know, working with a lot of other countries.
• 50:55
  And I don't think that's probably a place that we're,
• 50:59
  we're in right now to try to lead those kinds of discussions
• 51:03
  among our allies and partners.
• 51:05
  - Right. Absolutely.
• 51:06
  That, that's a great point you just made on investment.
• 51:08
  I'll look into that as well. Okay. You look
• 51:10
  - Into that.
• 51:12
  Okay. So, so let me, let me finish up with, with coming back
• 51:15
  inside China,
• 51:17
  because even though you're not there, you still do a lot
• 51:20
  of very excellent reporting.
• 51:21
  What's going on inside China
• 51:23
  and one of your areas of expertise that you've, you know,
• 51:26
  developed over the past, you know, decades really
• 51:30
  is on the Chinese economy,
• 51:31
  and it is an area where a lot is said,
• 51:35
  but somehow the more that's being said,
• 51:37
  the less clear things seem to be.
• 51:39
  And there does not seem to be a consensus,
• 51:42
  I would say certainly in the United States,
• 51:44
  among all the experts, whether they're business
• 51:47
  or, you know, economists
• 51:49
  or China specialists can't seem to get their arms
• 51:52
  around the real estate of the Chinese economy.
• 51:56
  What, how do you think about it?
• 51:58
  Like, if you were just going to advise our, you know,
• 52:02
  viewers, like
• 52:03
  how they should be thinking about the Chinese economy, what,
• 52:07
  what two or three sort
• 52:08
  of recommendations would you make if you were kind
• 52:11
  of design your own framework
• 52:12
  for understanding what's going on?
• 52:15
  - Right? Yeah, absolutely.
• 52:17
  Those are such excellent questions and,
• 52:20
  and I'll try my best to give coherent answers.
• 52:23
  So first of all, you know, obviously
• 52:27
  we have established that the only one
• 52:31
  that matters when it comes to China
• 52:33
  and how China's economy is being wrong is one
• 52:36
  guy who is Xi Jinping.
• 52:38
  And he, his vision for China's economy is
• 52:42
  that he wants a total reset.
• 52:45
  The old model that's driven
• 52:48
  by real estate is, is done.
• 52:52
  He wants to replace that with the new model driven by ai,
• 52:56
  semiconductors, quantum computing, you name it.
• 53:00
  However, the problem is the new mod,
• 53:02
  the new sectors not enough, nearly enough to replace
• 53:07
  the whole left open by the real realistic collapse.
• 53:11
  So I definitely would, you know, look at not just,
• 53:17
  you know, how much progress China has made in certain
• 53:20
  sectors like AI and semiconductors,
• 53:23
  but also the overall economic picture, the economic malaise,
• 53:28
  as some of us have written about just a few days ago,
• 53:32
  a well-known Chinese economist told me a stunning figure,
• 53:36
  Liz, he told me
• 53:38
  that now every year there are 1 million Chinese
• 53:42
  families who are losing their homes to defaults.
• 53:46
  Wow. Right? So
• 53:48
  that just shows the strain on the Chinese households,
• 53:52
  Chinese middle class, I mean, talk about the people
• 53:56
  who left their hometown to big cities and made living
• 54:01
  and saved enough to buy a house.
• 54:03
  And now they have to give that all away.
• 54:05
  And I've heard stories about banks selling foreclosed homes
• 54:09
  at really low prices
• 54:13
  because they just need the money,
• 54:17
  not not too much loss of loss to record on their books.
• 54:21
  So the, the economy is rotting the,
• 54:26
  the, the, you know, the real estate sector
• 54:29
  because of the real estate sector and the, the collapse
• 54:33
  and local governments, they're running out of money.
• 54:36
  Xi Jinping, one of the ing dogma is that money must,
• 54:41
  must be repaid.
• 54:43
  So that lead to local governments keep buying,
• 54:47
  keep borrowing new debt to repay old debt that has led
• 54:52
  to further acceleration in
• 54:56
  China's debt levels.
• 54:57
  And the same time they're struggling
• 55:00
  to really bolster local economies.
• 55:03
  So all the macro indicators, I mean,
• 55:06
  the real indicators are pointing to really deep
• 55:11
  slow down in, in China's growth.
• 55:15
  But at the same time, we definitely have seen, you know,
• 55:18
  enormous impressive progress being made in ev cars.
• 55:22
  You know, our tech columnist today just wrote a really fun
• 55:26
  column about how she loved driving xmi, you know,
• 55:31
  car versus her, her, you know, Ford car.
• 55:34
  It was, it was hilarious, but, you know,
• 55:36
  but you know, the Chinese have got a lot better with
• 55:38
  that kind of stuff, right.
• 55:40
  However, an economy that's built on that kind of
• 55:44
  stuff and, and, and,
• 55:46
  and, you know, a lot of people making the same products
• 55:50
  but not making really money.
• 55:52
  I I don't know that that's calling into question
• 55:54
  how sustainable this is.
• 55:56
  You know, you cannot expect everybody
• 55:58
  to be high tech, right?
• 56:00
  You cannot expect any, everybody to make trips
• 56:03
  or EVs or batteries.
• 56:05
  People need other stuff to live.
• 56:08
  So, so I I I am very concerned about, you know, the, the,
• 56:12
  the economic, you know,
• 56:16
  malaise getting even worse over time.
• 56:20
  - Yeah. I mean, I will say, since you mentioned Xiaomi ev
• 56:25
  when I was last in China at the end of November.
• 56:28
  Yeah. One of the things on a small delegation, you know,
• 56:31
  we visited Xiaomi ev factory, right side Beijing,
• 56:35
  and Wow, was it impressive, you know, 750,000 square feet,
• 56:40
  only a couple hundred people working on the floor
• 56:43
  because everything is automated.
• 56:45
  They're gonna be producing up to 300,000 EVs a year.
• 56:50
  I mean, the, the colors of the cars are spectacular.
• 56:53
  They're, it's a really smooth ride.
• 56:55
  And I mean, the factory's
• 56:57
  so clean you could literally eat off the floor.
• 57:00
  So I have to say it was very, very impressive.
• 57:04
  But to your point, not everybody can be part of,
• 57:08
  of this 21st century economy,
• 57:10
  just like in the United States,
• 57:12
  - Right?
• 57:13
  - I need the training and the education,
• 57:14
  and my sense is that China,
• 57:17
  a little bit like the United States is not doing a very good
• 57:20
  job of ensuring that the majority
• 57:23
  of its people are actually getting the skills
• 57:26
  and training that they need to participate in
• 57:29
  that 21st century economy.
• 57:31
  And I think, you know, a huge portion of,
• 57:34
  of China at this point in time, you know, as, as much as I,
• 57:38
  you mentioned Leika Chang
• 57:39
  and you know, back his statement about, you know, half
• 57:42
  of the population basically at that point living on $150,
• 57:46
  you know, or less a month.
• 57:48
  I mean, that was shocking. That was a wake up call.
• 57:51
  And I think now it's up to like $300 a month,
• 57:53
  but still that's not enough.
• 57:56
  Right? And so I think it is, it's hard to, to sort
• 58:00
  of square, you know, what you see, you know,
• 58:03
  in these factories and that technological progress,
• 58:06
  and it's just extraordinary.
• 58:08
  And then at, at the same time, you have this, you know,
• 58:11
  vast portion of the populace
• 58:13
  that really can't either enjoy the fruits of that
• 58:17
  because of the way that the resources are
• 58:19
  distributed, right.
• 58:21
  And the absolutely give you lack of a social welfare net,
• 58:25
  nor can they participate in, in advancing it, right?
• 58:29
  Right. So, so I think that's, it's hard.
• 58:31
  It's, it's really, I think, hard to, to figure out
• 58:35
  how those two things move forward Yeah.
• 58:38
  And what that looks like in 10 years.
• 58:40
  - Exactly. Exactly.
• 58:41
  Sometimes I try to think of, you know,
• 58:44
  those well performing tech sectors as sort
• 58:47
  of like states within the state, right?
• 58:49
  Yeah. So of course for a state, it's not all great.
• 58:53
  There are certain areas that really still doing well,
• 58:56
  and those are the tech sectors.
• 58:58
  But the question is, when the rest of the state is rotting,
• 59:02
  how much stronger can you continue
• 59:04
  to be going forward? Yeah.
• 59:07
  - Okay. So now I, I always end with a couple
• 59:09
  of really just quick questions to, for you to share,
• 59:13
  you know, your advice with our viewers.
• 59:16
  So if you had to recommend a book
• 59:18
  or an article that you think people should read
• 59:21
  that you think gives a particularly important insight,
• 59:24
  you know, into China, what, what would you suggest?
• 59:28
  - The first book
• 59:29
  and person that came to mind is our friend m Xpe.
• 59:34
  Okay, great. He's, yes, he's new book,
• 59:36
  the Broken China Dream, basically, you know,
• 59:40
  he's arguing that
• 59:43
  Xi Jinping's rise is inevitable
• 59:46
  and the China's embrace
• 59:50
  of capitalism
• 59:51
  or state capitalism in the pre in the previous decades
• 59:55
  actually had help harden the country
• 59:59
  and give the rise of someone like Xi Jinping.
• 1:00:03
  So very thought provoking book.
• 1:00:05
  - It is, it is. And actually it's good.
• 1:00:07
  I just reviewed it for foreign affairs,
• 1:00:09
  so lemme out in the next issue of foreign affairs.
• 1:00:11
  I agree with you. I think it's a, it's a terrific book.
• 1:00:14
  So, good, good suggestion.
• 1:00:16
  - Thank you. - And what, what issue do you think
• 1:00:19
  that we don't understand or, you know, we don't understand,
• 1:00:22
  but, you know, for the larger American public,
• 1:00:27
  what don't we know
• 1:00:29
  or what should we know more about when it comes to China?
• 1:00:33
  - I think it speaks more
• 1:00:35
  to things I wish I could report on these days just about
• 1:00:40
  what's happening within China.
• 1:00:42
  You know, obviously, you know, the societal change,
• 1:00:46
  you know, the, the struggle of everyday Chinese.
• 1:00:49
  I felt like that's a topic that because various reasons
• 1:00:54
  and hard constraints on reporting power.
• 1:00:58
  Right. You know, I wish we could, you know, have more people
• 1:01:02
  and, and reporters and time to dig into that.
• 1:01:06
  'cause it's also important, you know,
• 1:01:08
  China is not just Xi Jinping, right?
• 1:01:11
  Yes. And so,
• 1:01:12
  and you know, China has gained a bad name of the past decade
• 1:01:17
  or so because various things the government's done,
• 1:01:20
  but as Chinese people like that, no.
• 1:01:23
  And that's, that's also hear their stories,
• 1:01:26
  their struggles under the regime, not just, you know, the,
• 1:01:31
  what the government is doing.
• 1:01:32
  - Yeah. I think that's a really important point.
• 1:01:35
  And you know, there have been a number of books
• 1:01:37
  that have come out that have looked at individuals within,
• 1:01:40
  you know, the Chinese system.
• 1:01:42
  In fact, I just was finishing one called Wall Dancers
• 1:01:47
  that deals with, you know, a set of, of Chinese young people
• 1:01:51
  and how they sort of came of age through the internet
• 1:01:55
  and, you know, their lives were
• 1:01:57
  transformed in different ways.
• 1:01:58
  And it's a great book, I'll say, you know,
• 1:02:00
  about these books, you know, first is that, you know,
• 1:02:04
  they focus on individuals, which is you, you know,
• 1:02:06
  you get these in-depth portraits, which are great.
• 1:02:08
  You don't necessarily get a sense of the whole
• 1:02:10
  of Chinese society like you're talking about.
• 1:02:13
  But also, inevitably the stories end in a
• 1:02:17
  sad, in a sad way.
• 1:02:19
  Yeah. You know, and, and I'm not sure why that is,
• 1:02:22
  but you know, you finish these books
• 1:02:25
  and they're fascinating books, but,
• 1:02:27
  but each one of the people that's been sort
• 1:02:31
  of tracked their lives and,
• 1:02:33
  and it's true whether they stayed in China
• 1:02:35
  or where they've ended up living abroad,
• 1:02:37
  there's just this melancholy somehow about, you know,
• 1:02:43
  where their lives have ultimately taken them to this point.
• 1:02:47
  I think I should recommend that the next people,
• 1:02:49
  they interview you, I think,
• 1:02:51
  I think I think maybe they get a different sense of a,
• 1:02:53
  of a trajectory of, of,
• 1:02:56
  of somebody from China offer a different kind of story
• 1:02:59
  with a, with a happier midpoint, midpoint ending.
• 1:03:03
  - Yeah. Yeah. De yeah.
• 1:03:06
  I also, you know, hope for more happiness, you know?
• 1:03:09
  - Yes. - In our lives in the world. For sure.
• 1:03:12
  - Yeah. So Ling Ling, I want to thank you.
• 1:03:14
  I've, I've taken thank you too much of your time
• 1:03:17
  and we've gone well over my usual podcast time.
• 1:03:21
  Amazing. But just, you know, offered so many fascinating,
• 1:03:24
  you know, insights and, and thoughts
• 1:03:27
  and, you know, really just your expansive knowledge I think
• 1:03:32
  is, you know, very difficult to replicate
• 1:03:35
  and really appreciate your taking the time
• 1:03:37
  to share it with us
• 1:03:39
  - Entirely.
• 1:03:40
  My pleasure, Liz.
• 1:03:41
  You know, I always learn so much just by talking to you
• 1:03:45
  and your work has been tremendous
• 1:03:47
  and really, really thank you for the opportunity. All
• 1:03:50
  - Right, well, we'll have to do it again, you know,
• 1:03:53
  and maybe six months or,
• 1:03:54
  or certainly by the time of the next party Congress,
• 1:03:58
  and get your thoughts about what, what that's going
• 1:04:01
  to to look like.
• 1:04:03
  So if you enjoyed this podcast
• 1:04:05
  and like to hear more recent discourse
• 1:04:07
  and debate on China, I encourage you to subscribe
• 1:04:10
  to China considered via the Hoover Institution YouTube
• 1:04:13
  channel, or the podcast platform of your choice.