Latest / Trumponomics / 68: Taking the Long (240-Year) View of U.S.-China Relations

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68: Taking the Long (240-Year) View of U.S.-China Relations · Trumponomics

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America. Meryll Lynch Seeing
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Global Research that helps you harness disruption voted top global
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: research from five years running. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Smith incorporated Trump's campaign platform basically talking about the Chinese
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  Speaker 1: raping the United States, and you know, and and this
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  Speaker 1: whole idea that China simply you know, ripping American is
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  Speaker 1: off by by making cheap goods. It ties into this
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  Speaker 1: American idea that we've had about China since the nineteenth century, when,
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  Speaker 1: for example, the Workingman's Party in California was hugely influential,
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  Speaker 1: and their argument was that Chinese migrants in America were
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  Speaker 1: ripping off the white working man because they weren't willing
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to be union members, and they worked harder, and they
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  Speaker 1: out competed the white man. Well. For the Bloombug Benchmark,
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  Speaker 1: a podcast about the global economy, I'm Daniel Bloomberg's executive
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  Speaker 1: editor for Global Economics in New York, and I'm Scott Landman,
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  Speaker 1: Economics editor with Bloomberg in Washington. Taiwan Tariff's currency manipulation.
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  Speaker 1: President elect Trump has had plenty to say about America's
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  Speaker 1: largest trading pot, little of it flattering. A cursory glance
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  Speaker 1: at recent headlines, Sorry Mike that tweets might lead a
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  Speaker 1: reasonable person to think we are headed into perilously unshotted territories.
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  Speaker 1: But as our guest today has written, it's all part
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  Speaker 1: of the ebb and flow, the surge and retreat in
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  Speaker 1: relations between China and the U S that go back
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  Speaker 1: more than two hundred years. John Pomfret is the author
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  Speaker 1: of a new book called The Beautiful Country and the
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  Speaker 1: Middle Kingdom. Those are the names of America and China
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  Speaker 1: has translated from Chinese, and the book charts American ties
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  Speaker 1: with China going all the way back to the time
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  Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. John, thank you for joining us.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so mux for having me and John, you're more
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  Speaker 1: than just an author for our listeners. You were a
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  Speaker 1: long time Washington Post correspondent in Beijing and one of
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  Speaker 1: the first American students into China once relations were normalized.
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  Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yes, I first went to China and
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  Speaker 1: when I was twenty one in nineteen eighty That dates
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  Speaker 1: me a little. I lived in a ten by fifteen
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  Speaker 1: foot room with seven Chinese classmates in bunk beds. I'm
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  Speaker 1: six three and my bed actually was five tens, so
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  Speaker 1: I had to do a little yoga move each night
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  Speaker 1: as I went to sleep. And I spent two years
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  Speaker 1: then and then I am all together from the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighties until now, I've lived in China for about twenty years. Well,
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  Speaker 1: for many Americans and many Westerners, the relationship with China
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  Speaker 1: is really perceived to have begun with Nixon's visit in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Your book takes a much broader historical perspective.
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  Speaker 1: If we just focus on nineteen seventy two, what are
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  Speaker 1: we missing, Well, we're missing about almost two hundred years
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  Speaker 1: of American engagement with China. Americans first went to China
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  Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty four. That's when the first American ship
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  Speaker 1: landed in China to trade with the Chinese. And the
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  Speaker 1: basis of the relationship from the beginning, basically, there were
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  Speaker 1: two pillars. One was the missionary experience of trying to
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  Speaker 1: Christianize the Chinese, but the more important one by far
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  Speaker 1: was the commercial relationship. Because the United States in seventeen three,
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  Speaker 1: after they beat the British, found itself isolated Basically, the
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  Speaker 1: British had closed their ports to American ships, and going
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  Speaker 1: to China was kind of a hail Mary passed by
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  Speaker 1: American merchants in the Northeast to find new markets for
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  Speaker 1: American products and and to buy Chinese tea. So the
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  Speaker 1: search for new exports was on even then, on even
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  Speaker 1: then exactly. And and because at the time the United
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  Speaker 1: States was not yet a continental power, we were very
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  Speaker 1: much sort of hard up against the the Atlantic seaboard
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  Speaker 1: thirteen colonies, and trading was very important to them. And
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  Speaker 1: so going to China was a way to break out
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  Speaker 1: of the British uh sort of embark ago, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: and and to find new markets. And the first for
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  Speaker 1: the first product they sent to China, of course was
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  Speaker 1: American jen sing because because the type of Jensen grows
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  Speaker 1: United States. Ultimately the Americans sent a lot of Mexican
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  Speaker 1: silver to China, which the Chinese loved. And of course
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  Speaker 1: we also engaged in the opium trade, just like the
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  Speaker 1: British did. Now that's a good way of condensing several
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  Speaker 1: hundred years just into a few sentences. Dan was talking
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  Speaker 1: about how for many people the frame of references Nixon
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  Speaker 1: and Mao in ninety two. But for many Americans today,
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  Speaker 1: their frame of reference really starts and ends with Donald Trump. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: He's and it's not even about exports. It's about imports.
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  Speaker 1: It's about how factories are moving to China. You hear
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  Speaker 1: Trump saying things during the campaign like China is raping
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  Speaker 1: our citizens, He's threatening to impose tariffs, talk of a
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  Speaker 1: trade war. How does this fit into the two hundred
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  Speaker 1: year historical context of relations with China. Well, there's always
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  Speaker 1: been ebb and flow in American views on China, and
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  Speaker 1: from the Chinese side at ebb and flowing their views
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  Speaker 1: of the United States. There's this rapturous enchantment that we've
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  Speaker 1: had with China, and there's also crushing disappointment that we've
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  Speaker 1: had in China. And I think Trump clearly comes from
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  Speaker 1: the crushing disappointment side of the ledger, in which he
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  Speaker 1: has argued that the Chinese have been playing the United States,
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  Speaker 1: They've been getting a better deal for Americans have gone
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  Speaker 1: out of the way to welcome China into the international community.
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  Speaker 1: We brought it into w t O, we got it
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  Speaker 1: onto UH, we got it to sign a lot of
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  Speaker 1: international treaties. We helped it as it got to get
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  Speaker 1: back it's un Security Council seat. But then the question is,
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  Speaker 1: all right, well, what have we gotten from China? That's
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  Speaker 1: Trump's question, and his argument was, we haven't gotten much,
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  Speaker 1: and so it's time from his perspective, to get tough
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  Speaker 1: on China, to punish China, if you will, for not
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  Speaker 1: living up to our our beliefs about where where it
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  Speaker 1: was going to go. Now you have him coming in
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  Speaker 1: and saying these things. But isn't it true that a
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  Speaker 1: lot of presidents have been coming into office and in
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  Speaker 1: the last few decades all hot and bothered about China,
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  Speaker 1: and they say these things, and then economic and political
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  Speaker 1: ties actually get stronger during their term insteative weakening. That's
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  Speaker 1: a good point. Bill Clinton talked about the butchers of Beijing.
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  Speaker 1: Tim Dightner said China was manipulating its currency. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: what gives here? Right? So basically every president since Nixon
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  Speaker 1: has come into the office when when China was discussed
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  Speaker 1: in the electoral campaigns, he's they've they've come into office
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  Speaker 1: basically criticizing the policies of their predecessors, except for one.
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  Speaker 1: Barack Obama did not really criticize George W. Bush's China policies,
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  Speaker 1: but he was He's an outlier from that perspective. So
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  Speaker 1: Clinton came into office basically saying he was going to
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  Speaker 1: make human rights a major platform of our engagement with
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese, and he ultimately shelved that. George W. Bush
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  Speaker 1: came into office declaring China strategic competitor uh and with
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  Speaker 1: all for all tents and purposes, the idea of improving
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  Speaker 1: relations of Taiwan, but that was shelved as nine eleven
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  Speaker 1: erupted and the Americans focused their attention on the Middle East.
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  Speaker 1: Would you say the biggest blunder in history or maybe
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  Speaker 1: the president who did the most to make China relations
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  Speaker 1: toteriory was Woodrow Wilson In part, yeah, Wilson was Wilson's
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  Speaker 1: you know, the First World War, there was the Versailles Conference,
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  Speaker 1: the peace conference after the war, and which Wilson basically
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  Speaker 1: promised the Chinese that the Americans would help China during
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  Speaker 1: that peace conference regain one of its provinces called Shandong,
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  Speaker 1: which is sort of the cradle of Chinese civilization, that's
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  Speaker 1: where Confucius was born, and regained it from the Japanese,
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  Speaker 1: and the Japanese had taken Shandong from the Germans over
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  Speaker 1: the course of World War One. The Japanese at the time,
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  Speaker 1: we're fighting on the Allied side, on the side of
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  Speaker 1: the Americans and the British. But during the conference, the
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  Speaker 1: British and the French revealed that they had made secret
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  Speaker 1: deals with the Japanese allowing them to keep Shandong, and
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  Speaker 1: in effect Wilson was forced to raaks promised to the Chinese,
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  Speaker 1: and that touched off a huge wave of demonstrations in
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  Speaker 1: China against the United States, and it really triggered. It
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  Speaker 1: was sort of the tipping point in which young Chinese
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  Speaker 1: began to look not to America as a model for
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  Speaker 1: their system, but to the young Soviet Union as a
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  Speaker 1: model to their system. So that was a critical tip
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  Speaker 1: and the Chinese really felt completely sold out by the
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  Speaker 1: United States during that period. So did government canteens offer
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  Speaker 1: Freedom fries instead of French fries. We'll get back to
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  Speaker 1: the currency manipulation question in a minute, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: through these ebbs and flows, John, the term you used,
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  Speaker 1: one thing seems to have remained constant over the past
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  Speaker 1: four decades, and that is the economic relationship has deepened
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  Speaker 1: as China's economy has become bigger. It's now the world's
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  Speaker 1: second largest. Now, how easy is it to hit reverse
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  Speaker 1: on a two way economic relationship that's that important. Can
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  Speaker 1: any one man, even if it's a hit of state
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  Speaker 1: undo that has it come too far? I think it's
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  Speaker 1: come too far. I think the relationship on the economic
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  Speaker 1: side is clearly too big to fail. The Chinese are
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  Speaker 1: deeply the Chinese factories are deeply incorporated into production chains
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. If you're gonna basically force Apple
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  Speaker 1: to leave China, it's gonna crash apples business. If you're
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  Speaker 1: going to slap tariffs on Chinese goods, the Chinese will
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  Speaker 1: stop buying Boeing jets. So the reality is that there
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  Speaker 1: is so much interplay between the two sides, and so
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  Speaker 1: much mutual reliance between the two sides, that if you
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  Speaker 1: begin to punish the Chinese with tariffs on their goods,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to cause significant problems in your own economy.
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  Speaker 1: That said, the Chinese are more reliant on exports to
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  Speaker 1: America than America is reliant on exports the China. So uh,
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  Speaker 1: if you're going to punish them, they're probably gonna suffer
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  Speaker 1: more than you. But the total effect on global economy
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  Speaker 1: of that type of trade war is going to be basically,
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese are gonna you know, you're gonna get a
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  Speaker 1: serious wound. The Chinese are going to be are They're
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  Speaker 1: gonna get a deeper wound. But at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the day, both of you are going to be so wounded,
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  Speaker 1: and the effect on the global economy is going to
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  Speaker 1: be so major that that it's almost incomprehensible to think
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  Speaker 1: that such a trade war could happen. In the twenties
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  Speaker 1: and the thirties, there were there was a similar trade
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  Speaker 1: war and net led in many ways to the depression.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what one warries about. Basically, if you go
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  Speaker 1: down this road of tit for tat economic sanctions, you're
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  Speaker 1: going to have it specifically in two economies like the
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  Speaker 1: United States in China, which are so tied into the
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  Speaker 1: whole global economy, you risk basically making forcing the whole
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  Speaker 1: thing to ground grind to a halt. So we're still
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  Speaker 1: a ways away from Starbucks having to shelvet's expansion plans
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  Speaker 1: into every corner of China, yes, I think for and
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  Speaker 1: in fact, Starbucks looks like they're going to be opening
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  Speaker 1: up one of their high end rostaries in Shanghai. They're
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  Speaker 1: just looking for a place to do it. So their
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  Speaker 1: plans for expansion are very, very bullish on China. Starbucks
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  Speaker 1: has a fascinating, fascinating case study in China because what
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  Speaker 1: it really in addition to the coffee culture, which is
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  Speaker 1: Western culture, it also supplies public space to the Chinese
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  Speaker 1: because there's this so little public space and the fact
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  Speaker 1: that you can go to a Starbucks place and hang
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  Speaker 1: out is something that's considered extremely valuable to the Chinese,
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  Speaker 1: and they're willing to pay, you know, five bucks for
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  Speaker 1: an espresso to do it. And it's a very visible
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  Speaker 1: part of the surge in services and consumption, which is
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  Speaker 1: the other thing that seems to be missed in the
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  Speaker 1: course of the dialogue through this year in the United States,
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  Speaker 1: it's as much a services economy now as it is
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  Speaker 1: this caricature of a sweatshop churning out T shirts. Right
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  Speaker 1: that that transition is happening. It's not happening as fast
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  Speaker 1: as some economists would like it. But the transition of
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  Speaker 1: China from an economy basically relying on investment, and as
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  Speaker 1: you said, these you know, the being the factory of
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  Speaker 1: the world to an economy that's focus to consumers is
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  Speaker 1: happening in Shanghai right now. It's what the economy, and
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: most of the big cities on the East Coast, it's
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  Speaker 1: it's more than of the economy, the service economy, and
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  Speaker 1: that trend is just going to continue as long as
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  Speaker 1: Chinese salaries keeps on keep on going up. And they
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  Speaker 1: seem to be still growing even though the economy is
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  Speaker 1: not growing quite very well. But salaries are growing well,
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  Speaker 1: and that that allows to consumer to have more power.
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  Speaker 1: Why isn't that message getting through? We do seem to
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  Speaker 1: be stuck in this debate that's framed around some low
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  Speaker 1: cost you know, manufacturer, right, and many of those manufacturers
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  Speaker 1: are now moving on from China. Why is the debate frozen?
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  Speaker 1: That's a great question, But I think in part it's
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  Speaker 1: because we have, as Americans, were stuck in the categories
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  Speaker 1: that we have to to think about China. So Trump's
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  Speaker 1: campaign platform basically talking about the Chinese raping the United States,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, and and this whole idea that China
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  Speaker 1: simply you know, ripping American is off by by making
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  Speaker 1: cheap goods subsidized by the government. It ties into this
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  Speaker 1: American idea that we've had about China since the nineteenth century, when,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: for example, the Working Land's Party in California was hugely
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: influential on the West Coast in terms of a political power,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and their argument was that Chinese migrants in America were
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: ripping off the white working man because they weren't willing
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to be union members, and they worked harder, and they
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: out competed the white man, and they were build a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: wall between the US and Mexico to keep up people,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: believe it or not. So in eighty three, the US
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: passed the Anti Chinese Exclusion Act, with basically what's banned
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  Speaker 1: Chinese laborers from coming to America because the white whites
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  Speaker 1: were unhappy with that Chinese competition. And then Chinese began
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  Speaker 1: to sneak in in great numbers across the Mexican border,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and there was this call at the time so to
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  Speaker 1: build a wall, which you know again echoes today for
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  Speaker 1: different reasons, but it just shows you lot of this
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  Speaker 1: ebb and flow. And so back to the issue. So
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  Speaker 1: we have a difficult time looking at China as a
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  Speaker 1: country that could one could innovate, two could be much
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  Speaker 1: more reliant on its consumer sector, because we think of
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese as laborers and we always have and so
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: part of the positive part of our relationship was we
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  Speaker 1: have lots of very warm feelings for the Chinese traditionally,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: but also we also have these categories that we stick
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese as just worker bees, where we cannot think
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  Speaker 1: of them as as something else, and and that those
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  Speaker 1: categories tend to be in terms of looking at what
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  Speaker 1: a future China is going to develop into, can can
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  Speaker 1: be very constricting. I also think in some ways the
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  Speaker 1: media has had a difficulty telling that new Chinese story
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: because the media itself has a tendency to kind of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: get extra hard on China. One because you look at
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the coverage of China versus the coverage of India in
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the Western press, and we expect more from China, so
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: we cover it much more, much more harshly in many
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: ways than we expect from India. India often gets a
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: kind of a free ride, and it's coverage in the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Western press, whereas the China or it's ignored, whereas the Chinese.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: We focus on generally relatively negative things on China because
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: we expect to do better. We're going to take a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: quick break and we'll be right back hauled that thought, John,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: brought to you by Bank of America, Meryll Lynch. Seeing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what others have seen, but I'm covering what others may not.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Global Research that helps you harness disruption voted top global
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: research from five years running. Mary Lynch, Pierce, Venner and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Smith Incorporated. And we're back John. We're talking about media
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: stereotypes of China and what drives that right so now,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and it's not just media stereotypes, it's also like US
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: government stereotypes. An example would be um an extraordinarily influential
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: thing that the United States government, in fact, probably one
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of the most influential things the United States government has
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: done in China in the last twenty years, which was
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to install an e p A air monitor system on
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the roof of the U. S. Embassy in Beijing and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: then to begin to tweet out the air quality index
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: data on an hourly basis to folks that wanted to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: follow the Twitter feed, and that went viral, so millions
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: of Chinese people signed up for this Twitter feed, even
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: though Twitter is blocked in China, but there's ways to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: get around it. That was repurposed by other Chinese websites
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  Speaker 1: that used it as a way to sell sell products
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: like air filters, And this small act, which was not
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: done by any sort of National security council or state department,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: actually done just by a small bureau in the embassy,
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  Speaker 1: basically was singularly critical in raising people's consciousness about the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: air pollution problem in China, which really has led to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: forcing the government to embrace this issue as as an
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  Speaker 1: important issue, not just because it's nice and groovy, but
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: because it's an issue of social stability. But the question
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  Speaker 1: to ask is, well, why did the Americans put h
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: e P A sensor on the embassy in Beijing? Why
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: not in New Delhi where the air is equally as horrid. Again,
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  Speaker 1: I think it gets back to this idea that the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Americans expect the Chinese to do better. We've always had
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: incredibly high standards for what they have to achieve, which
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: which I guess feeds back into Trump's sort of bashing
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  Speaker 1: of the Chinese, because he really thinks they should be
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: able to do better. They should be able to do
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: more to deal with our North Korea problem. They should
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: be able to do more to help us with counter terrorism.
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  Speaker 1: They should be able to do to do more UH
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  Speaker 1: in dealing with their currency. But you don't see similar
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  Speaker 1: pressure being put on other nations like this who are
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  Speaker 1: also like China and instill in the developing nation mode.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit more about Trump. You had
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a recent piece in the Washington Post talking about five
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: myths about the US policy towards Taiwan. If I can
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: sum it up that way, Trump has been obviously showing
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: some friendliness towards Taiwan. He took a phone call from
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the President of Taiwan and uh, you know, he's kind
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of openly talking about uh changing a policy that's been
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in place for some forty years or so. What's going
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: through the minds of Chinese leadership as they as they
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: as Trump keeps making pronouncements on this issue, and could
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it really become a serious cudgel in the U S
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: China economic relationship. So Trump seems to be calling into
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: question the basis of something that is that that, for
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: better or worse, has kept the peace between China mainland China,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and Taiwan for the last forty smit years. By saying
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: that the US One China policy, which is a policy
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that basically says that there's one China, but it doesn't
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: say that actually Taiwan is part of that China. It
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: basically lets the status of Taiwan be undetermined. And because
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: of this policy, which is extremely ambiguous, it allows the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: United States to conduct effective state to state relations with Chinwan, Taiwan,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: sell Taiwan weapons, support Taiwan in the international system without
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: having formal relations with the government of Taiwan. And this
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: kind of ambiguous fiction that the Americans and the Chinese
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: have kind of agreed to disagree on has kept the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: peace gener Really Now there's lots of people in the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: United States who support Taiwan, who want to see more
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: direct support and direct recognition of Taiwan, because Taiwan indeed
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: has changed significantly since the since the time that Nixon
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: went to China. It's become a democracy, it's has the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: freest press in Asia. It's an LGBT friendly society, it's
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: a it has a very vibrant religious and civil society
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in in in and in comparison to China, it is
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a free it is a free entity or a free country.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And so there's this push from people who like Taiwan
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and who who are unhappy with the direction that China
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: is going to to basically recalibrate our relations with Taiwan.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: The problem is, if you do that, you potentially incur
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the wrath of the People's Republic of China. And they
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: have hundreds of missiles facing Taiwan and they can do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and and of Taiwan's economy is reliant on that of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the PRC through investment in a lot of trade. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: so if you begin to unravel this fiction, if you will,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that's kept the peace in in in Asia, you embolden
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: those in China who want to punish Taiwan, potentially even
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: embolden those in China who want to come into conflict
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: with the United States. But the first potential casualty of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: all this will beat Taiwan on the island of the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: three million people. And Trump, in doing this, seems to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: be interested in using Taiwan as a bargaining chip to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: get Chinese cooperation on other issues that the Americans are
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: interested in, for example trade or North Korea. And if
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: you do that, what happens If the Chinese say, okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: we'll play ball, we'll be we'll squeeze the North Koreans more.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: But then you've got a force Taiwan to negotiate its
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: political its effective political defeat and and unification with China.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Or you know, so if Taiwan becomes a chip, if
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the Chinese then say, yeah, let's talk, will do X
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: you have to do? Why? Will Will Trump actually be
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: willing to further sell Taiwan down the river? So he
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: puts his let's make a deal philosophy on. This is
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: dangerous if the Chinese want to play ball. And it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: also dangerous is the Chinese say, Okay, we're just gonna
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: get really aggressive with Taiwan. Then what happens? So I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: worry that that this is an initial gambit, it's sort
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of a feel good gambit to try to show the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: pro Taiwan people in the United States and people in
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Taiwan and hey, we've got your back. But my next
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: question is what happens next? And that that that that
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that's what what what worry? What worries me? At the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Asia Society last month, I heard you talk about some
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of the economic dislocation in the Chinese heartland. Two things
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: struck me. One, you talked about unemployed men who can't
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: find wives and the growth of evangelical Christianity that would shock.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Many people, particularly the Evangelical Christianity, took a bit more
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: about that. So the missionary experience, I mean Americans of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: course have been have been going to China's missionaries since
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, and in ninety nine, when the Communist
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Revolution happened in a country of more than four million people,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: there were probably two million or some odd Christians Protestants,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and maybe two millions some odd Catholics. These days, the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Evangelical Protestant population in China is anywhere between sixty eight million,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and in the last fifteen to twenty years it has boomed, uh,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: starting in some of the richer areas, but also in
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the countryside. Jijiang Province, which is just south of Shanghai
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: is a boom area for that, so it's Fujian Uh.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: There are hundreds and hundreds of American missionaries in China
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: masquerading as English teachers, but actually they really are bringing
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the good word to the Chinese and it's been enormously,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: enormously successful. And one of the reasons is that, like
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of post communist societies, the Chinese have confronted
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: with the collapse of their ideal ideology and their belief system.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They've confronted this moral vacuum, and lots of religions, Christianity
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: being one, following Going being another, Buddhism, Taoism being others,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: have have moved in to fill this void in in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in the souls of many Chinese and it's been extraordinarily successful.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And and and the evangelical message of a direct relationship
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: with God has also been very attractive to Chinese entrepreneurs
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: who you know, if you think of your you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Protestant theology. Uh, you know, the Protestantism grew up as
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the bourgeoisie grew up in Europe. It's a very similar idea.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And a lot of business owners in China, specifically out
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of the Wenjoe region, which is a very successful sort
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of beehive of entrepreneurial activity, have embraced Christianity specifically because
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: it talks about agency in your life, you know, your
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: direct relationship with God. You don't need a church. And
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: this disappeals a lot to entrepreneurs and to capitalists. Unlike here,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it has not taken on a political vine yet right,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not yet um, and it might not. I mean, the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Communist Party is extremely worried about any organization outside of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: its control, and so the party continues to suppress religious
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: specifically Christian religious growth, and the Party learned a very
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: hard lesson in the in the nineties when they attempted
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to encourage the growth of nativist local Chinese religions as
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a way as a counter to pro Western ideas in China,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and they effectively created the following gold religious movement, which
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: they then turned around and cracked down on and in
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the early two thousand's John, thank you for joining us.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It's been a fascinating discussion, and as the new administration
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: finds its fate, we'd love to have you back. Daniel Scott,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: thanks a lot for having me. Benchmark will be back
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: next week and until then, you can find us on
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• 26:14
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• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Our guest is it at J. E. Pomfort and Scott U.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Scott Landman Benchmark is produced by Sarah Patterson. Bloomberg's head.
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