Latest / UK Column Radio / China Is Rising While America Falls Behind | Silk and Steel

Transcript

China Is Rising While America Falls Behind | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: We're joined with Carl Jha. What's going on, man? You
0:03
Speaker 1: doing okay today?
0:05
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you, Jamar. Thank you
0:07
Speaker 2: for inviting me.
0:09
Speaker 1: Always, man. I always appreciate this. And the audience loves you.
0:12
Speaker 1: And I always appreciate you joining me also. Just so
0:15
Speaker 1: the audience will know, just in case they don't know
0:16
Speaker 1: who you are, Carl Jha, he is host of Silk
0:19
Speaker 1: and Steel podcast. focused on China and surrounding regions, their history, culture,
0:24
Speaker 1: and politics. You can follow Carl on Twitter at Carl Xia.
0:28
Speaker 1: You can follow the podcast on Twitter at Steel Silk,
0:31
Speaker 1: the letter N, and you can subscribe to support the
0:33
Speaker 1: podcast on patreon.com slash silk and steel. Carl, yesterday was
0:39
Speaker 1: Chinese Independence Day or not Independence Day. It's Independence Day
0:43
Speaker 1: for us. Chinese National Day is I think is what
0:45
Speaker 1: China calls it. Um, I guess, is there a comment
0:50
Speaker 1: on that? I mean, you covered Chinese history. This was
0:53
Speaker 1: the creation of the modern Chinese state. What are your
0:57
Speaker 1: thoughts on it? Just before, I figured we should at
0:59
Speaker 1: the very least commemorate it, considering the importance of China.
1:03
Speaker 2: Yesterday was the 77th anniversary of the establishment of the
1:09
Speaker 2: People's Republic of China. So by now, China in the
1:16
Speaker 2: modern form has existed longer than than the Soviet Union.
1:21
Speaker 2: And one thing that needs to be pointed out that
1:25
Speaker 2: today in 2026, the average Chinese people have been living
1:31
Speaker 2: lives better than any time in the past Chinese history.
1:36
Speaker 2: You know, I know there's a cult in the United
1:38
Speaker 2: States called Falun Gong who put out a dance show
1:42
Speaker 2: called Sen Yun and their marketing slogan is China before communism. Well,
1:48
Speaker 2: China before communism was actually not a very nice place
1:52
Speaker 2: to live for the average Chinese. There was a recurrent famine,
1:58
Speaker 2: civil war, foreign invasion. People can look up the life
2:03
Speaker 2: expectancy of China before 1949. It was pretty decimal. The
2:09
Speaker 2: Chinese average life expectancy in the 30s and 40s was
2:14
Speaker 2: comparable to Afghanistan during the Afghan war, you know, which
2:18
Speaker 2: is we're talking about, like the male average life expectancy
2:23
Speaker 2: is in like in the thirties. Well, of course that
2:27
Speaker 2: has to do with a large infant mortality because a
2:30
Speaker 2: lot of the babies, they don't, you know, they, they,
2:34
Speaker 2: they don't survive into adulthood. That brings down the average,
2:38
Speaker 2: not saying like the average, the oldest people were like,
2:42
Speaker 2: in their 30s in China at the time, just because
2:44
Speaker 2: a large amount of babies would die. One thing that
2:48
Speaker 2: the communists has done after the establishment of the People's
2:52
Speaker 2: Republic is it brought the raise up the life expectancy
2:58
Speaker 2: by reduced infant mortality. A lot of people talk about
3:03
Speaker 2: Mao's mistakes, talking about his responsibility for the 1958 to
3:11
Speaker 2: 1962 Great Chinese Famine. While that's true, but it's also
3:16
Speaker 2: true during Mao years, the Chinese life expectancy shot up
3:21
Speaker 2: because Mao has sent a lot of doctors to the
3:25
Speaker 2: countryside to establish clinics to provide basic medical service for
3:29
Speaker 2: the villagers. And that led to a sharp decline in
3:35
Speaker 2: the infant mortality, which boosted the Chinese life expectancy. And today,
3:41
Speaker 2: the Chinese average life expectancy is actually higher than the
3:44
Speaker 2: United States, you know, for the first time in history.
3:47
Speaker 2: And so these are the things to celebrate. And also
3:51
Speaker 2: another thing was literacy. Before 1949, the illiteracy in China
3:59
Speaker 2: is about like 80 to 90%. It's only 10% of
4:02
Speaker 2: people know how to read. And today, that ratio, again,
4:07
Speaker 2: is reversed. The Chinese literacy is over 90%. Actually, it's 99%.
4:13
Speaker 1: I looked it up.
4:15
Speaker 2: Thank you.
4:16
Speaker 1: It's 99%.
4:18
Speaker 2: This is why China is able to catch up very
4:21
Speaker 2: quickly in AI, in all fields of technology. And this
4:25
Speaker 2: is why a lot of Washington elites are worried. Because
4:29
Speaker 2: China now is producing millions of STEM engineers every year.
4:35
Speaker 2: They produce like five times the amount of STEM engineers
4:41
Speaker 2: than the United States. So this is how they're able
4:46
Speaker 2: to catch up so quickly in all fields. Not because
4:49
Speaker 2: they're still in technology like everybody is assuming. Because if
4:55
Speaker 2: that were true, the United States will be leading in
4:59
Speaker 2: 5G or something. So there are still areas that China
5:04
Speaker 2: may be temporarily behind in some area of AI, in
5:07
Speaker 2: some area of rocket science. But even there, they're catching
5:13
Speaker 2: up to SpaceX and American AI. So this is giving
5:16
Speaker 2: a lot of people anxieties. Now, back in 30s and 40s,
5:22
Speaker 2: the prevalent attitude of Americans to China wasn't anxiety. It
5:28
Speaker 2: was more like pity and the poor Chinese are getting
5:34
Speaker 2: brutalized by the Japanese. But today it's completely different because
5:40
Speaker 2: China now is a very strong, very prosperous nation. You
5:45
Speaker 2: can't say independence because China today has, you know, before 1949,
5:50
Speaker 2: China was beholden to all sort of foreign powers in China.
5:54
Speaker 2: Different foreign powers carve up their sphere of influence. And U.S.
5:59
Speaker 2: was famously for the open door policy in China, which
6:04
Speaker 2: means what really means is that The United States wants
6:08
Speaker 2: all the foreign power to have an equal share because
6:10
Speaker 2: the United States has come lately when it comes to
6:13
Speaker 2: carve up a sphere of influence to China because it
6:16
Speaker 2: doesn't want Britain and France to have the larger slice
6:22
Speaker 2: of the pie. So the United States is like, hold on,
6:25
Speaker 2: let's have an open door policy so all of us
6:27
Speaker 2: get an equal share of the Chinese market. And that
6:33
Speaker 2: now is promoted as some kind of the American benevolence
6:37
Speaker 2: toward China, which is not exactly the true story. But anyway,
6:43
Speaker 2: China is in a far, far better place after the
6:49
Speaker 2: establishment of the PRC. I mean, this is undisputed fact now.
6:54
Speaker 2: So I think Chinese people have a lot to celebrate.
6:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's been a miracle. I mean, some
7:02
Speaker 1: people will call it a miracle. Raising 800 million people
7:04
Speaker 1: out of poverty is pretty amazing. The U.S. only has
7:08
Speaker 1: 324 million people and we can't get the homeless off
7:13
Speaker 1: the streets. China has been able to do this in
7:16
Speaker 1: a very short period of time. What do you think was,
7:21
Speaker 1: what was the miracle in that? Like, how does that work?
7:25
Speaker 1: Because we can't figure out how to do it in
7:27
Speaker 1: the United States. I mean, we don't even try.
7:29
Speaker 2: How did China do it? Chair Martin, you're working on
7:33
Speaker 2: the assumption that Washington actually cares about lifting people out
7:38
Speaker 2: of poverty.
7:42
Speaker 3: That's not how the American system is designed to do.
7:46
Speaker 3: It's designed to suck up wealth from the vast taxpayer
7:52
Speaker 3: base of the United States to to suck it up
7:56
Speaker 3: to the very.
7:56
Speaker 2: Few oligarchs that's actually running the show. And that is
8:00
Speaker 2: doing very well. It's a feature, not a bug. Yes,
8:03
Speaker 2: it is. But this is where it's different in China.
8:07
Speaker 2: You can say whatever about the Chinese elite, but the
8:12
Speaker 2: people running China actually care about making China a better place.
8:17
Speaker 2: That is, I think that is the biggest difference.
8:21
Speaker 3: That's the miracle.
8:26
Speaker 1: They actually give a shit. That's the miracle.
8:30
Speaker 2: I mean, because I think some of it is because
8:33
Speaker 2: of history, right? Because China has entered a very dark
8:36
Speaker 2: period from the late 19th century to the early 20th
8:40
Speaker 2: century in the so-called century of humiliation. So a lot
8:44
Speaker 2: of the Chinese people found a very common grassroot to
8:48
Speaker 2: the top elite. They all wanted China to do better.
8:52
Speaker 2: They all want China to be a more prosperous, strong nation.
8:56
Speaker 2: That dream has lasted more than a century now. And
9:01
Speaker 2: all of them are striving to working toward a common goal.
9:05
Speaker 2: We're a I don't know what unites Americans nowadays. It's
9:12
Speaker 2: kind of hard to, I don't know. I mean, there
9:15
Speaker 2: must be something, but it's, yeah, yeah. Because what is
9:22
Speaker 2: like a grand national project that unites all Americans from
9:26
Speaker 2: different color, different class? I don't know. Like today.
9:32
Speaker 1: Nothing, just the idea of America. like this idea that
9:36
Speaker 1: you're under one thing i mean again that that is
9:39
Speaker 1: problematic that you're bringing up right.
9:42
Speaker 2: There was one time jamar that america was hold up
9:46
Speaker 2: as a land opportunity right the american dream is the
9:49
Speaker 2: idea that anyone can come from all corner of the
9:52
Speaker 2: earth you know give me your wretched your your your
9:55
Speaker 2: your impoverished immigrants and we'll turn them into americans we
9:59
Speaker 2: will we'll them into proud working people. That's no longer
10:06
Speaker 2: the case, I don't think. I mean, it worked up
10:09
Speaker 2: to a point.
10:11
Speaker 1: It worked when everybody was prosperous. Meaning during, I mean,
10:14
Speaker 1: to be honest, it was after the war where on
10:17
Speaker 1: some level it worked because you can make the argument
10:19
Speaker 1: of hey, we're all being prosperous. We're a capitalist country.
10:22
Speaker 1: Look at the repression in the Soviet Union. Look at us.
10:25
Speaker 1: Everybody's making money. You can take your vacations. You have
10:28
Speaker 1: your two kids and a wife. It was that. But
10:30
Speaker 1: at a certain point, you know, when everybody else catches up,
10:34
Speaker 1: when you can't really make that argument anymore. In fact,
10:37
Speaker 1: I would even go further, that the moment that the U.S.
10:39
Speaker 1: felt that it couldn't compete with the rest of the world,
10:42
Speaker 1: the rules changed. At that point, it became a rules-based order.
10:44
Speaker 1: It became, you know, we have to sanction Russia. We
10:47
Speaker 1: have to go after China in some particular way. We
10:49
Speaker 1: have to go after Iran. It became far more, the
10:53
Speaker 1: moment that that ended, that was the moment where everything
10:56
Speaker 1: else somewhat changed. Where the argument about the capitalistic system
11:00
Speaker 1: and the way of life and the American way, all
11:02
Speaker 1: of that stuff became very tedious.
11:05
Speaker 2: You raise a very good point because back in the
11:08
Speaker 2: Cold War, US, particularly the US elite, they have to
11:12
Speaker 2: compete with the Soviet Union, right? Because Soviet was exporting
11:15
Speaker 2: a very powerful ideology and So in order to compete
11:19
Speaker 2: with the Soviet Union, they have to share, they have to,
11:23
Speaker 2: they have to do little share. They have to share
11:27
Speaker 2: a larger portion of the pie towards the working class
11:30
Speaker 2: to get the working class, American working class buy-in into
11:34
Speaker 2: the grand American project. But after the collapse of the
11:38
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, guess what happened? Like all that, that motivation
11:43
Speaker 2: for sharing part of the pie, disappears. And now we
11:48
Speaker 2: have just have oligarchs that goes all in. They want
11:52
Speaker 2: to get every... They want to suck in every penny
11:56
Speaker 2: to their bank account. So this is why I think
11:59
Speaker 2: that kind of the narrative falls apart because the elite
12:04
Speaker 2: at the top, now they're acting like the robber barons
12:07
Speaker 2: of the 19th century. Before the Great Depression, before the
12:12
Speaker 2: New Deal, they are... they are just as rampant as,
12:18
Speaker 2: you know, the J.P. Morgans of the old. And they're now,
12:22
Speaker 2: because they feel this is the end of history. We won.
12:28
Speaker 2: We won the Cold War. We can do whatever we
12:31
Speaker 2: want now. And they're no longer restrained. And I think
12:35
Speaker 2: that's what led us to this place today.
12:39
Speaker 1: But why do you think they haven't flipped their way
12:41
Speaker 1: to China, though? I mean, there's still the ideological Cold
12:46
Speaker 1: War taking place. It's just Russia at this point is
12:49
Speaker 1: a capitalist country. China is whatever they are. Whatever they
12:54
Speaker 1: call themselves, right? Communism or Chinese characteristics.
12:58
Speaker 2: Whatever that is, though. China is not exporting its I mean,
13:03
Speaker 2: it's the ideology. Right now, it's not an ideological struggle, right?
13:07
Speaker 2: China is not, China hasn't exported ideology since 1978. You know,
13:13
Speaker 2: when Deng Xiaoping said, okay, we're done with exporting revolution,
13:18
Speaker 2: you know, whatever Mao did. You know, we've got to
13:20
Speaker 2: work on to improve the livelihood of the Chinese people
13:25
Speaker 2: first in our country. And that has been the path
13:29
Speaker 2: that China followed. China has been focus on you know
13:34
Speaker 2: builder building socialism in one country and they they they're
13:38
Speaker 2: no longer interested in the world revolution the way that
13:41
Speaker 2: ma was um and and so so so right now
13:44
Speaker 2: the kind of struggle between united states with china and
13:48
Speaker 2: russia it's not an ideological struggle it's it's just pure
13:53
Speaker 2: power play just just like the u.s want to maintain
13:57
Speaker 2: its hegemony u.s want to maintain its It's American supremacy.
14:02
Speaker 2: That's all it's about. But it has a lot, I guess,
14:05
Speaker 2: a less, it works less well as a rallying cry than,
14:12
Speaker 2: you know, like, the Cold War. Because the Cold War,
14:15
Speaker 2: there's a lot of... They have to stir up the
14:18
Speaker 2: Red Scare to say, oh, they're coming here to destroy
14:21
Speaker 2: our American way of life. The communists are coming here
14:24
Speaker 2: to take our... They're going to take our jobs and
14:30
Speaker 2: our women. Literally, that was the anti-communist slogan in China
14:40
Speaker 2: under Chiang Kai-shek. The communists will... They will hold common
14:45
Speaker 2: property and they'll do wife sharing. They will share your wives.
14:50
Speaker 3: That's how they scared the peasants from joining the communists
14:57
Speaker 3: back then.
14:58
Speaker 2: But I mean, to a simpler degree, that was also
15:02
Speaker 2: done in a lot of the Western countries. But it's
15:05
Speaker 2: just not in those explicit terms. But the thing is,
15:09
Speaker 2: so right now, I mean, what does that mean to
15:12
Speaker 2: maintain American supremacy? A lot of the young Americans, they
15:16
Speaker 2: don't have a great economic prospect. You know, they need jobs.
15:23
Speaker 2: They have more serious thing to worry about. The American
15:26
Speaker 2: supremacy didn't benefit them. You know, not anything that's tangible.
15:31
Speaker 2: All they saw is American supremacy brought the gas price
15:37
Speaker 2: at the palm sky high. It's making everything more expensive,
15:42
Speaker 2: more unaffordable to average people. So, yeah, so this is
15:46
Speaker 2: why I think this is a difference between now and then. There's,
15:51
Speaker 2: you know, the Americans, while the American elite are still
15:56
Speaker 2: kind of, Repacious. They're headlong in their pursuit of the
16:02
Speaker 2: rapaciousness while the whole America is kind of falling apart
16:10
Speaker 2: as a national project, as a society. But they don't
16:14
Speaker 2: care about society because they just don't care. And that's
16:20
Speaker 2: where we are.
16:22
Speaker 1: I think China's interesting to me because it has billionaires, right?
16:28
Speaker 1: And in the United States, those billionaires have been able
16:30
Speaker 1: to find a way. I mean, but it's a different country.
16:32
Speaker 1: It's a capitalist country. The model is different. The complete
16:35
Speaker 1: model is just like the underlying.
16:37
Speaker 2: America is still the best place for billionaires. Yes, it is.
16:42
Speaker 2: America is still the best place on earth for billionaires.
16:48
Speaker 2: And this is why you see a lot.
16:52
Speaker 1: No, the way I was going with that was thinking
16:54
Speaker 1: in the terms of like, China has elements of the
16:57
Speaker 1: economy that are capitalists. But those elements of the economy
17:00
Speaker 1: don't eat up the other economy. Somehow, the political space
17:05
Speaker 1: is able to maintain control.
17:07
Speaker 2: Jamar, because they're being kept under check. You know, Jack
17:11
Speaker 2: Ma does not set policy in China. We all knew
17:14
Speaker 2: that now. Jack Ma does not set policy. He doesn't
17:17
Speaker 2: even influence policy. Whereas people like Elon Musk, like Peter Thiel...
17:24
Speaker 2: Guess what? They do. They very much do. You know,
17:28
Speaker 2: everybody knew J.D. Vance, just a proxy for Peter Thiel
17:32
Speaker 2: and his Silicon Valley posse. And that does not happen
17:38
Speaker 2: in China. And this is why I say United States
17:41
Speaker 2: still the best country on Earth for billionaires, because you
17:45
Speaker 2: see a lot of reporting on China in. in Wall
17:48
Speaker 2: Street Journal or New York Times talking about, oh, all
17:50
Speaker 2: these Chinese rich people, they're getting taxed in China and
17:55
Speaker 2: they're fleeing into the United States. There's a capital flight. Well,
17:59
Speaker 2: of course, because America is the best country for billionaires.
18:04
Speaker 2: These poor billionaires.
18:06
Speaker 1: They're being mistreated in China. These poor billionaires.
18:09
Speaker 2: You see this report all the time. Fugitive billionaire, Chinese
18:13
Speaker 2: billionaire seeking refuge in the United States. US, you know,
18:23
Speaker 2: best place to be if you have shit tons of money.
18:27
Speaker 2: Even for the Chinese billionaire, it's still the best place
18:30
Speaker 2: to be. Because in China, there's all kinds of restrictions.
18:33
Speaker 2: In the United States, all the restrictions fly out of
18:36
Speaker 2: the window.
18:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. No, I totally agree. I mean, it's a
18:41
Speaker 1: capitalist country, right? You have to have capital to play.
18:45
Speaker 1: The other issue I wanted to hit that I thought
18:47
Speaker 1: was super interesting was South Korean president being very angry
18:50
Speaker 1: at Zelensky. This story is great. We hit upon it
18:55
Speaker 1: last time we were here, but apparently this story has progressed.
18:57
Speaker 1: And just for the audience, in case they don't know,
19:01
Speaker 1: two North Korean soldiers were apparently captured during the Ukraine
19:04
Speaker 1: war and they were transported to South Korea. Now, this
19:09
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a secret. And in fact, South
19:12
Speaker 1: Korea is saying that it's Ukraine that wanted it to
19:15
Speaker 1: be a secret. And now Zelensky outed the fact that
19:19
Speaker 1: they've been transported to South Korea. And more to the
19:23
Speaker 1: point is even South Korea is claiming that Ukraine is
19:30
Speaker 1: trying to stir the pot between South Korea and North
19:32
Speaker 1: Korea to create some kind of tensions between the two countries.
19:37
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by this. What is the reality of this?
19:40
Speaker 1: I mean, was this supposed to be a secret? Who's
19:43
Speaker 1: lying in all of this?
19:44
Speaker 4: Right.
19:44
Speaker 2: So as we talked about last time, it was standard
19:48
Speaker 2: during the Cold War to try to get these prisoners
19:51
Speaker 2: of war to defect. You know, this happened during the
19:54
Speaker 2: Korean War when the United States imported Chiang Kai-shek's intelligence
20:00
Speaker 2: agent into the Chinese POW camp in South Korea to
20:04
Speaker 2: induce them to defect to Taiwan. It happened when the
20:08
Speaker 2: Taiwanese authority detained the Soviet ships traveling to China and
20:14
Speaker 2: detaining the Soviet sailors, and the CIA traveled to Taiwan
20:17
Speaker 2: to convince them to defect to the United States. So
20:20
Speaker 2: this is a very similar dynamic that played out. By
20:24
Speaker 2: the way, those North Koreans were captured inside Russia, because
20:29
Speaker 2: North Korea and Russia had a mutual defense pact, and
20:32
Speaker 2: those North Korean soldiers were sent to defend Kursk, which
20:37
Speaker 2: is inside Russia from the Ukrainian attack. That's where they've
20:39
Speaker 2: been captured. And these two, so the two North Korean
20:44
Speaker 2: POW obviously, again, became a palm in this kind of
20:49
Speaker 2: new propaganda war. And Ukraine thought they can leverage to
20:56
Speaker 2: their advantage by showing, oh, look, first of all, Russia
21:00
Speaker 2: had to depend on all those Asians to fight. to us,
21:05
Speaker 2: white European countries. And then they tried to stir up
21:11
Speaker 2: tension between South Korea and North Korea because Ukraine actually
21:16
Speaker 2: wants South Korea to supply weapons, to be part of
21:22
Speaker 2: the European effort to supply arms to Ukraine. Whereas the
21:28
Speaker 2: new South Korean president, he came to office pledging a
21:33
Speaker 2: more independent policy that's according to South Korea's own national interest.
21:39
Speaker 2: You know, from his point of view, Ukraine war is
21:43
Speaker 2: not our business. Taiwan conflict is not our business. We are,
21:47
Speaker 2: we're South Korea who don't have to get involved in
21:50
Speaker 2: any of these conflicts. It's not our business. Um, but
21:53
Speaker 2: for Zelensky, obviously it's different, right? He's trying to, trying
21:57
Speaker 2: to work every angle. So what happened was, um, The
22:01
Speaker 2: South Korean government and the Ukrainian government had a deal
22:05
Speaker 2: that when they do the transfer of the POWs, they
22:09
Speaker 2: will keep it under wraps. And this is for many reasons.
22:14
Speaker 2: Because first of all, the current South Korean president, he
22:18
Speaker 2: does not want to inflame the tension with North Korea.
22:23
Speaker 2: He said he wants to have an actual peace deal
22:27
Speaker 2: signed to end to formally end the state of hostility
22:30
Speaker 2: that existed since the Korean War half a century ago.
22:33
Speaker 2: Because the Korean War ended in armistice, which is a ceasefire,
22:37
Speaker 2: not a peace treaty. So the South Korean president don't
22:41
Speaker 2: want to unnecessarily antagonize North Korea at this point. But
22:47
Speaker 2: what happened was his domestic opponent, the right-wing faction of
22:53
Speaker 2: the South Korean politics, the faction that supported the ousted
22:58
Speaker 2: South Korean president who did try to stir up a
23:01
Speaker 2: war with North Korea and by staging a false flag
23:11
Speaker 2: operation and had tried to shut down parliament. So the
23:15
Speaker 2: right wing trying to publicize, they're kind of working in
23:20
Speaker 2: cahoots with Zelensky because their goal is to discredit the
23:26
Speaker 2: current South Korean president's approach of re-approach Maoism North, right?
23:32
Speaker 2: Because they're like, oh, you're trying to appease the communists, blah, blah, blah.
23:37
Speaker 2: You're like Lord Chamberlain. You're prostrating yourself to the dictators, right?
23:44
Speaker 2: So that's why they also, when they got wind of
23:49
Speaker 2: what Zelensky's thing, they turned it into a domestic movement. agenda,
23:54
Speaker 2: political agenda in South Korea is trying to say, oh,
23:58
Speaker 2: the reason our president is trying to suppress, our illegitimate
24:03
Speaker 2: president is trying to suppress the news of this POW
24:07
Speaker 2: being sent to South Korea is because he's trying to
24:10
Speaker 2: appease to Kim Jong-un, you know, because he is appeasing
24:13
Speaker 2: the dictator. So this is why the South Korean president
24:17
Speaker 2: got really pissed because he felt like Zelensky had unnecessarily
24:22
Speaker 2: got involved in the South Korean domestic politics, right? Because
24:26
Speaker 2: this is really between the two factions in the South
24:29
Speaker 2: Korean politics fighting over this issue. But Zelensky, in his
24:34
Speaker 2: eagerness to publicize the whole deal, he is now implicating,
24:40
Speaker 2: he's now standing on the same side as the South
24:43
Speaker 2: Korean opposition, basically. And this is why the South Korean
24:46
Speaker 2: president is really pissed because he felt like this is
24:50
Speaker 2: totally unnecessary. Like we had a deal, you know, like,
24:53
Speaker 2: but you, you, you, you, that's why he publicly tweeted out,
24:57
Speaker 2: basically rebuking Zelensky for, for, for, for breaking, breaking the
25:02
Speaker 2: deal and to causing turmoil in South Korea. And so
25:07
Speaker 2: this is, this is a whole, this is.
25:09
Speaker 1: He's been demanding an apology, which is very South Korean
25:13
Speaker 1: to demand an apology. It just sounds very, like, for
25:16
Speaker 1: an American audience, it just sounds very tenet, right? I
25:18
Speaker 1: demand an apology for this international incident that you've caused
25:22
Speaker 1: by revealing misinformation. He's not going to get that apology.
25:26
Speaker 1: Zelensky is claiming that South Korean president is lying. It's
25:33
Speaker 1: just a mess. That's all. It's a bit of a mess.
25:35
Speaker 1: Is this going to have any major political implications in
25:38
Speaker 1: South Korea, I suppose?
25:39
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, South Korea is, politics is it's also divided,
25:46
Speaker 2: you know, just like, just like America at this point,
25:49
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of like 50, 50, there's the
25:52
Speaker 2: left and the right. And they, they, the past few
25:56
Speaker 2: presidency has been kind of alternating between the, the, the
26:00
Speaker 2: two wings of the South Korean politics. So now the
26:06
Speaker 2: right wing of South Korea is trying to make a
26:10
Speaker 2: big issue out of this. I don't know. I mean,
26:12
Speaker 2: like I, I, I don't know how much you will
26:18
Speaker 2: read because it's like America too, right? Because right now,
26:25
Speaker 2: even the Republicans, except for the hardcore MAGA supporters, a
26:32
Speaker 2: lot of people are kind of tired of Trump's antics.
26:35
Speaker 2: This is probably why Republicans are projected to lose big
26:41
Speaker 2: time in the coming November election. But you still have
26:45
Speaker 2: a very vocal to mock us supporters on social media,
26:51
Speaker 2: making it seems like, you know, the matter. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
27:00
Speaker 1: In fact, I want to show you a clip talking
27:02
Speaker 1: about Trump being on it of your favorite president yesterday.
27:07
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening in this clip. Maybe you
27:09
Speaker 1: can elucidate me. But this is President of the United States.
27:13
Speaker 1: The man who controls the nukes. Leader of the free world.
27:18
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
27:25
Speaker 4: These unbelievable machines led by the most incredible pilots in
27:30
Speaker 4: the world. They unloaded every single bomb, went right down
27:34
Speaker 4: air chutes into this drug factories, really. That's what they
27:38
Speaker 4: were doing. They were Nuclear and drug. They were doing drugs,
27:41
Speaker 4: but they were doing the nuclear. But these drug factories
27:44
Speaker 4: slash nuclear factories were hit so hard. These unbelievable.
27:50
Speaker 1: He he's believe it or not, he's talking about Iran
27:55
Speaker 1: and he's talking about the bombing of Iran. And he
27:58
Speaker 1: can't remember whether it's drugs or nukes, meaning because he
28:02
Speaker 1: has drugs for South America. He has nukes for Iran
28:06
Speaker 1: and he is confused and can't remember which. And so
28:10
Speaker 1: he combines them together. And not only are they dropping
28:13
Speaker 1: their bombs, they're dropping their bombs in drugs and nuke factories.
28:18
Speaker 1: And apparently they're doing both drugs and nukes together.
28:21
Speaker 2: Dropping a bomb through the air chute, like a trash chute,
28:23
Speaker 2: you know, like into those nuclear drug factories. You know,
28:29
Speaker 2: when I hear that, I'm thinking like, you know, fall, fall, fall,
28:34
Speaker 2: you know, nuclear active drugs. Wow, you know, so compelling.
28:40
Speaker 2: But this is a common American excuse for bombing countries.
28:44
Speaker 2: That's exactly what they did during the Clinton administration when
28:48
Speaker 2: they bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, claiming it was
28:53
Speaker 2: making weapons. And so for Americans, it's the same. Trump
28:58
Speaker 2: just got it. put them all together because he's Trump.
29:01
Speaker 2: But this is why I love Trump because he kind
29:04
Speaker 2: of just ripped the emperor has no clothes wide open,
29:08
Speaker 2: you know, showing that.
29:09
Speaker 1: That's humiliating, Carl.
29:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:11
Speaker 1: That's humiliating.
29:13
Speaker 2: American imperialism. Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
29:16
Speaker 1: They're doing drugs and nukes together in the same factory.
29:23
Speaker 1: That is astonishing. Leader of the free world. That man
29:28
Speaker 1: is in possession of nuclear weapons. I could tell them
29:31
Speaker 1: at any moment to press the button in order to
29:34
Speaker 1: fire the nukes. And it's unclear whether the generals will
29:37
Speaker 1: follow that order of the guy you just saw in
29:39
Speaker 1: that clip. It's amazing.
29:44
Speaker 2: We still have a couple more years. We still have
29:46
Speaker 2: two more years.
29:47
Speaker 1: We still have two more years. The APEC summit that's
29:52
Speaker 1: coming up. Is there going to be a meeting between Trump,
29:55
Speaker 1: Xi Jinping and Putin? Or this is still unclear?
29:59
Speaker 2: Um, maybe, I mean, any, anything's possible because both Putin
30:04
Speaker 2: and Xi has always held out, uh, the door is
30:09
Speaker 2: open for negotiation and Putin actually recently floated the idea
30:13
Speaker 2: of a trilateral meeting between three of them. So I think,
30:17
Speaker 2: I think, uh, you know, both China and Russia will
30:21
Speaker 2: not be opposed to that. Um, I was actually just
30:25
Speaker 2: asked by RT before came into the show. where would
30:30
Speaker 2: I think the obstacle would be? Well, obviously, the obstacle
30:33
Speaker 2: would come from domestic Washington politics. That's where it always
30:37
Speaker 2: comes from. And because this is very close to November
30:43
Speaker 2: election now, so it's all about how Trump wants to
30:46
Speaker 2: position this. But on the other hand, Trump might just
30:49
Speaker 2: go for it because that will make him look presidential. Look,
30:53
Speaker 2: all the big boys want to meet with me. This
30:56
Speaker 2: is why he made the Xi visit such a big
30:58
Speaker 2: deal because that made him presidential. Look, I'm meeting with
31:02
Speaker 2: world leaders. I am a president of the United States. So, yeah,
31:07
Speaker 2: he might just go for it because it creates enough
31:11
Speaker 2: spectacle in the media to distract from other issues he's facing,
31:16
Speaker 2: which is Epstein files and the Iran war, which is
31:20
Speaker 2: most disastrous. And so who knows? That might happen.
31:26
Speaker 1: What would that conversation even be about with all three
31:29
Speaker 1: of them? Because it would have to pertain to issues
31:31
Speaker 1: that relate to all three.
31:32
Speaker 2: Right.
31:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, ideally I would think, I mean,
31:36
Speaker 1: otherwise we'll be talking about.
31:38
Speaker 2: If I, if I'm Xi Jinping or Putin, I'll just
31:41
Speaker 2: tell Trump, calm the fuck down, you know, calm your titties,
31:43
Speaker 2: you know, like dude. You need to calm the fuck down, bro.
31:49
Speaker 2: It's like, Just take the taco on Iran, man. Just
31:56
Speaker 2: taco out. It's okay. It's okay. It's cool. You will
31:59
Speaker 2: survive this because people are already used to it. People
32:03
Speaker 2: are already used to your 57 victories versus Iran. Just
32:07
Speaker 2: take one for the team. It's okay. Because that is
32:12
Speaker 2: one biggest economic issue facing the whole world at the point.
32:16
Speaker 2: But who knows? But Russia is is actually, you know,
32:22
Speaker 2: it's actually working pretty well for Russia because now they
32:25
Speaker 2: can sell their oil at higher prices. So I don't know. And,
32:31
Speaker 2: you know, for all those talks about U.S. slapping sanctions
32:36
Speaker 2: on the dark fleet, on the Russian oil and for
32:41
Speaker 2: all the U.S. Navy seizing those oil tankers, it's not
32:48
Speaker 2: working because The dark fleet actually grew during the U.S. sanction.
32:54
Speaker 2: Now it's more than 1,000 tankers are now in the
32:57
Speaker 2: so-called dark fleet carrying sanctioned oil from Iran and Russia.
33:02
Speaker 2: And U.S. can't really do anything about it because U.S.
33:08
Speaker 2: Navy only have like, what, 300-some ships, and that's including
33:12
Speaker 2: all the submarines, all the aircraft carriers. Most of them
33:15
Speaker 2: not really suitable for intercontinental interdiction on the high sea.
33:20
Speaker 2: And on top of that, they don't want to do
33:22
Speaker 2: that because if they do cut off, because India and
33:27
Speaker 2: China consume most of these sanctioned oil and India and
33:31
Speaker 2: China lose access to those, to Russian oil, guess what happened?
33:38
Speaker 2: They will have to compete in the international oil market.
33:42
Speaker 2: with the Western countries for the limited supply of unsanctioned oil,
33:46
Speaker 2: that will make the oil price go skyrocket, right? Like
33:51
Speaker 2: it's going to go beyond $ 150 a barrel easily. And
33:55
Speaker 2: that's not Trump, it's not something that Trump necessarily want
33:59
Speaker 2: going into the election. So for all the noises Americans
34:05
Speaker 2: are making, in fact, they're going to, not do much.
34:10
Speaker 2: They're actually not going to do much to stop those
34:13
Speaker 2: so-called illegal oil flows because it's not in their interest.
34:17
Speaker 1: Well, it's also not illegal. It's just the U.S. 's
34:20
Speaker 1: opinion about it. I mean, they're calling it a shadow fleet,
34:23
Speaker 1: but that's just because they're not buying British insurance. Like,
34:28
Speaker 1: imagine that, right? You're not buying my product, and so
34:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to call your product a dark or shadow product.
34:34
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, dude, I can get insurance from somewhere else.
34:38
Speaker 1: I don't need your insurance. But again, this is the
34:40
Speaker 1: West's given language to things. By the way, I saw
34:44
Speaker 1: that China was stopping diesel exports out of the country.
34:47
Speaker 1: Is that true?
34:50
Speaker 2: Well, what China is doing is they always make sure
34:55
Speaker 2: their domestic producers and consumers will get the first gift, right?
35:00
Speaker 2: Which is not, again, very different from United States. So U.S.,
35:04
Speaker 2: even though... During the beginning of the war, everybody was saying, oh, U.S.
35:10
Speaker 2: is going to do great because U.S. have plenty of
35:12
Speaker 2: oil and gas resources. Well, guess what? Oil and gas
35:19
Speaker 2: is a global commodity, and the U.S. big oils were
35:23
Speaker 2: more than happy to export them, rather than to sell
35:27
Speaker 2: them at low prices to local Americans. Because for them,
35:32
Speaker 2: the number one thing is making a big profit, which
35:35
Speaker 2: they are raking in right now, but everybody else has
35:40
Speaker 2: to pay for it. And this is a This is
35:42
Speaker 2: why even in Texas, where the oil is being pumped
35:46
Speaker 2: out of the ground, diesel prices skyrocketing because a lot
35:51
Speaker 2: of the excess production is being exported, where the oil
35:57
Speaker 2: majors can fetch higher price. But we're trying to pursue, again,
36:03
Speaker 2: this is where China pursue a different policy. They're like, look,
36:06
Speaker 2: we have to make sure the... Because all the Chinese
36:09
Speaker 2: oil majors... They're state-owned. So the Chinese government literally tells
36:14
Speaker 2: them what to do. They're like, no, no, no. You
36:18
Speaker 2: got to make sure you take care of the domestic
36:20
Speaker 2: consumers first. So this is the difference between China and
36:23
Speaker 2: the United States. The government still controls what they call
36:26
Speaker 2: the commanding heights of the economy, which is finance, energy.
36:32
Speaker 2: There's no bankers in China that will tell Xi Jinping
36:35
Speaker 2: what to do because all the banks in China are state-owned.
36:39
Speaker 2: So unlike the United States, here Wall Street elite can
36:45
Speaker 2: tell the government what to do because they are the government.
36:51
Speaker 1: Rational actors. That's what that is. Competence. It's rational. Energy
36:56
Speaker 1: is one of those things that, yeah, should be stayed on. Energy, transport,
37:00
Speaker 1: et cetera. There were a few things I would think
37:01
Speaker 1: should be stayed on. The last thing, and before I
37:04
Speaker 1: let you go, there was a clash. I'm not sure
37:06
Speaker 1: if you even saw it. So if you haven't seen it,
37:07
Speaker 1: it's perfectly fine. The clash between Japan and China at
37:11
Speaker 1: the United Nations General Assembly. I saw this and I
37:14
Speaker 1: was super interested in this. A lot of people may
37:17
Speaker 1: not know this, but the victors of the Second World
37:20
Speaker 1: War can go after, if they deem Germany, or for
37:24
Speaker 1: that matter, Japan, to be, let's say, remilitarizing and a threat,
37:30
Speaker 1: they can take military action against those countries, or at
37:32
Speaker 1: the very least take actions against those countries under UN
37:35
Speaker 1: provisions that were put in after the Second World War.
37:38
Speaker 1: And it sounded like, and maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but
37:42
Speaker 1: the argument was that Japan was trying to say, we're
37:45
Speaker 1: a peaceful, loving nation. We let doves loose every day.
37:49
Speaker 1: We have peace lilies that we hold on to as
37:52
Speaker 1: we walk through the streets of Japan. We are just dovish.
37:56
Speaker 1: So this provision shouldn't be part of the United Nations.
37:59
Speaker 1: And China seemingly was making the opinion of, this is nonsense.
38:03
Speaker 1: These guys are remilitarizing Japan. They're trying to get that
38:07
Speaker 1: much more provocative in regards to their military rearmament. This
38:12
Speaker 1: is not a peace-loving nation, nor were they ever a
38:14
Speaker 1: peace-loving nation. That provision needs to stay in place. Is
38:18
Speaker 1: that what was taking place, or did I misunderstand the
38:20
Speaker 1: fight that was happening?
38:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's part of the UN Charter
38:24
Speaker 2: that the enemy nations of the World War II, if
38:30
Speaker 2: they ever try to re-militarize the victors, have a right.
38:33
Speaker 2: to take military action. So this is something that Russia
38:37
Speaker 2: was Russia and China has been emphasizing the late years. Russia, again,
38:44
Speaker 2: talking about Germany because Germany is talking about they're going
38:46
Speaker 2: to build the Europe's largest land army again. China is
38:59
Speaker 2: using the same clause pointing at Japan. You guys are militarizing.
39:04
Speaker 2: Remember what the UN Charter said, what we can do
39:07
Speaker 2: if you militarize. So this is why first the Japanese
39:11
Speaker 2: argument was like, oh, that clause is outdated, you know,
39:16
Speaker 2: it doesn't apply anymore. China's like, no, it's not. Yeah,
39:19
Speaker 2: China's like, no, it's not. So now the Japanese Prime Minister, Takahichi,
39:23
Speaker 2: went to the UN and said, okay, let's get rid
39:25
Speaker 2: of this clause because we're good now. What are we doing?
39:30
Speaker 2: a peaceful nation. This is why we're militarizing because we're
39:34
Speaker 2: a peaceful nation. But let's get rid of the clause.
39:37
Speaker 2: China's like, what are you talking about? Why are you militarizing?
39:41
Speaker 2: So this is kind of the tug of war. But
39:45
Speaker 2: for Japan, on its part, it's militarizing because The Japanese
39:49
Speaker 2: economy is not doing well. And the Japanese government thinks
39:53
Speaker 2: they will dig themselves into a hole if they just
39:56
Speaker 2: do military kinship. You know, like, let's switch from producing
40:01
Speaker 2: cars to producing tanks. Another part is the Japanese conservative
40:09
Speaker 2: wing of the LDP, which is the Japanese ruling party,
40:13
Speaker 2: has been chafing. ever since World War II under the
40:16
Speaker 2: peace constitution was imposed on them by the United States,
40:20
Speaker 2: which there's Article 9 of the peace constitution says Japan
40:25
Speaker 2: should not have a military force except for a self-defense
40:29
Speaker 2: force solely for the defense of Japanese national territories. This
40:34
Speaker 2: is why the Japanese military today is called the Japanese
40:38
Speaker 2: Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Japanese Self-Defense Force respectively. And
40:45
Speaker 2: But these Japanese elite feel like they are being unfairly
40:51
Speaker 2: targeted because this makes Japan a not normal nation. To
40:55
Speaker 2: be a normal nation, they need to have the right
40:59
Speaker 2: to a normal military. They should have a military that
41:02
Speaker 2: commensurate to the Japanese economic power. So they have been
41:06
Speaker 2: working for decades trying to get rid of that peace constitution.
41:10
Speaker 2: But the peace constitution itself is very popular inside Japan
41:14
Speaker 2: because a lot of the Japanese people rightly recognize it's
41:17
Speaker 2: because Japan diverted all the resources away from military into
41:22
Speaker 2: civilian economy. That made the Japanese miracle after the war possible.
41:27
Speaker 2: So they're very much like that Article 9 of peace
41:30
Speaker 2: constitution to stay. So all these Japanese politicians from Shinzo
41:34
Speaker 2: Abe to his prodigy, now the Takahichi, They want, okay,
41:38
Speaker 2: so we can't get rid of the Constitution, all right?
41:41
Speaker 2: We'll just reinterpret it. We'll reinterpret it and say, okay,
41:45
Speaker 2: we need to defend Japan when the Japanese national interest
41:50
Speaker 2: is facing existential threat. What would be that existential threat? Taiwan.
41:56
Speaker 2: If the war break out in Taiwan, that would be
41:58
Speaker 2: existential threat to Japan. That would necessitate Japan deploy its military.
42:04
Speaker 2: China does not like that. Is that really what they're arguing?
42:07
Speaker 2: That is really the argument. Yes.
42:09
Speaker 1: Yes.
42:09
Speaker 2: They literally said Taiwan contingency would necessitate Japanese military involvement.
42:15
Speaker 2: And this is why Japan needs to militarize to contain
42:19
Speaker 2: rising China. So China does not like this at all.
42:22
Speaker 2: First of all, you know, because the history of World
42:24
Speaker 2: War II and because particularly regarding the status of Taiwan,
42:29
Speaker 2: because when China lost the first Sino-Japanese war in 1894
42:32
Speaker 2: and 1895, China had to cede the island of Taiwan
42:37
Speaker 2: to Japan. And Taiwan remained a Japanese colony for 50
42:43
Speaker 2: years until the end of World War II when Taiwan
42:47
Speaker 2: was returned to China. So when Japan raised the issue
42:51
Speaker 2: of Taiwan again, the Chinese government went ballistic. They're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
42:57
Speaker 2: Remember the enemy class, the enemy nation class in the
43:01
Speaker 2: UN charter. Remember what we can do. And so this
43:04
Speaker 2: is why Takeichi went to UN. We're a peaceful nation.
43:09
Speaker 2: We produce anime. Please get rid of that clause.
43:17
Speaker 1: It's like we made bleach in Fullmetal Alchemist. Obviously, we're
43:20
Speaker 1: a peaceful nation. We don't need this clause. Oh, that
43:24
Speaker 1: is wild. Wow, that is wild. I remember the Taiwan issue,
43:28
Speaker 1: and I do remember them saying something about Taiwan. And
43:30
Speaker 1: to your point, it's like, Because my first question would be, okay,
43:33
Speaker 1: who do you need a military for? Now, I know
43:36
Speaker 1: when I ask this question that pretty much every country
43:37
Speaker 1: has a military. I would argue the military is the
43:39
Speaker 1: beating heart of a nation. But it's like, dude, you
43:43
Speaker 1: committed atrocities on a massive scale. There are consequences for that.
43:48
Speaker 1: And maybe they can point to Germany and say, well,
43:50
Speaker 1: Germany is reunified.
43:52
Speaker 2: Which they haven't really fully accepted responsibility for, unlike Germany.
43:58
Speaker 2: Germany was... the case when the German prime minister went
44:03
Speaker 2: to Wausau and he nailed down in front of the
44:10
Speaker 2: commemoration of the Holocaust victims and stuff. That made it more, okay,
44:15
Speaker 2: people accepted that was sincere apology. Today it's a crime
44:19
Speaker 2: to glorify Nazis in Germany, right? It's a crime. You
44:24
Speaker 2: can't display Nazi flags there. But in Japan, They have
44:29
Speaker 2: this whole-ass shrine called Yasukuni Shrine that's dedicated to all
44:36
Speaker 2: the war heroes of World War II, including 14 Class
44:42
Speaker 2: A war criminals who are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine.
44:47
Speaker 2: And guess what? And the Japanese Prime Minister has been
44:50
Speaker 2: paying visits to that shrine every year. Imagine the German
44:57
Speaker 2: prime minister go pay visit to commemorate Hitler.
45:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, or a bunch of his generals, right?
45:05
Speaker 2: That would be insane.
45:07
Speaker 1: And so they, wow. So Japan has never really reconciled
45:12
Speaker 1: what they did in that war and how bad they
45:15
Speaker 1: were in that war.
45:17
Speaker 2: Right now, Japan poses itself as a victim of World
45:21
Speaker 2: War II because of the bomb, because of the atom bomb.
45:25
Speaker 2: The two nuclear bombs. But why was the nuke dropped
45:29
Speaker 2: in the first place? Let's not get into details. But
45:32
Speaker 2: we are also victims because we got nuked. He's like,
45:37
Speaker 2: wait a minute.
45:37
Speaker 1: Why did they drop that nuke? Okay, dude, you're straying
45:40
Speaker 1: from the point. Let's talk about us being victims. Oh,
45:45
Speaker 1: that's amazing.
45:46
Speaker 2: Wow.
45:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that would be an issue for China.
45:48
Speaker 1: And I guess they would feel some kind of way
45:51
Speaker 1: about that, considering. It's like, dude, you haven't reconciled what
45:54
Speaker 1: you've done. And now you're trying to basically go back
45:56
Speaker 1: to where you were before. And Germany is trying to
45:59
Speaker 1: go back to where it was before. Yeah, it's worrying.
46:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it is worrying. Carl, great breakdown as always.
46:06
Speaker 1: I always enjoy these conversations. My audience enjoys the conversations.
46:10
Speaker 1: I hope it's not too much for you. I hope
46:13
Speaker 1: you also enjoy it. But I thank you, man. Like
46:17
Speaker 1: I said, you have my appreciation for joining me and
46:19
Speaker 1: breaking this stuff down for us. Carl Jha hosts Silk
46:24
Speaker 1: and Steel podcast focused on China and surrounding regions, their history, culture,
46:28
Speaker 1: and their politics. You can follow Carl on Twitter at
46:31
Speaker 1: Carl Jha. You can follow his podcast at Steel Silk
46:34
Speaker 1: in the letter N. You can also subscribe and support
46:37
Speaker 1: them on Patreon.com slash Silk and Steel Podcast. Carl, you
46:41
Speaker 1: have my thanks. You have a safe night, man. Thank
46:43
Speaker 1: you for this.
46:45
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jamar.
46:47
Speaker 1: Anytime. Bye-bye. All right. Shout out to Carl. Great breakdown.
46:51
Speaker 1: It's always funny, informative. It's a win-win.