Battlegrounds w/ H.R. McMaster | China: The Party State’s Threat to Human Security

America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home this is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's Battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete overcome challenges capitalize on opportunities and secure a better future I am HR McMaster this is battlegrounds [Music] on today's episode of Battlegrounds our focus is on the Chinese Communist party and the People's Republic of China Our Guest Tong Yi is a Chinese human rights Advocate who worked As an interpreter for weijing Shang The prominent Chinese Democracy Advocate and dissident after translating in weijing Chang's meetings with then Senator John Kerry and assistant secretary John Shattuck you were sent to a labor camp for two and a half years she endured prolonged beatings for protesting the Camp's conditions after Yi and a fellow inmate smuggled a letter detailing the abuses her story garnered International attention and she was released she then immigrated to the United States the Chinese Communist party or CCP was founded in 1921 following a decade of profound change in turbulence in China in 1911 the Shanghai Revolution ended nearly four Millennia of dynastic Rule and catalyzed Anti-Imperialist sentiment served as provisional president of the Republic of China from January to March of 1912 and was known for his three principles of the people in 1914 Japan seized Germany's concession in China's Shandong province when the 1919 Treaty of Versailles did not return the concession to China thousands of Chinese students gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest these protests grew into the Nationwide May 4th movement which called to return China to International prominence through adopting Western science and democracy and abandoning Confucian ideals meanwhile Russia's 1917 Revolution spread leninist ideas Eastward Marxism anarchism Bolshevik ideology and leninist Theory gained traction among Chinese intellectuals and Soviet Communists helped found the CCP the CCP grew quickly in 1924 it aligned with the guamandong Nationalist party to create the first United front and eliminate the Warlords they believed impeded a stable Central government's formation on April 12 1927 shanghai-shek LED nationalist forces to purge the country of Communists in what became known as the Shanghai Massacre Civil War erupted and lasted until the ccp's 1949 Victory establishing the People's Republic of China the Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan CCP founder Mao Zedong LED China by constructing a cult of personality a suppressed perceived enemies engaged in arbitrary arrests and killed an estimated 700 000 perceived political opponents of the CCP in his first three years Mao initiated the Great Leap Forward a campaign spanning 1958-1962 to reconstruct China as a Communist economy and Society the results were catastrophic over 30 million people died in the largest famine in recorded history Mel then launched the decade-long cultural revolution to purge any remnants of capitalist nationalist or traditionalist elements from Chinese Society an estimated 1.6 million people were killed and tens of millions persecuted the U.S and China began secret negotiations in the early 1970s as president Richard Nixon sought to counterbalance Soviet influence in Asia and resolved the Vietnam War National Security adviser Henry Kissinger visited Beijing secretly in July 1971 and Nixon visited China in February 1972 in the first high-level contact between the two countries Mao died in 1976 and on January 1st 1979 the de facto CCP chaired dengzhou ping and President Jimmy Carter established formal diplomatic relations in the 1980s dung attempted to liberalize China's economy from Central planning to Market orientation and open China to foreign investments and ideas yet political reforms lagged students LED demonstrations in response calling for individual rights and freedoms the CCP heavily suppressed the demonstrations and party Elders forced the dejor general secretary huya bang to resign in 1987. xiaoza Ying succeeded him two years later who died and became a martyr for liberalization and democratization following a tradition of using sanctioned public mourning as an opportunity to express dissent students came to Tiananmen Square to commemorate who and call for reforms they remained for weeks on June 4th dung ordered martial law and demanded the Chinese military regained control of the area the people's Liberation Army entered Central Beijing with tanks crushed numerous protesters and opened fire hundreds of individuals were killed similar protests outside of Beijing were also brutally crushed Zhao was removed and succeeded by Zhang zameen who largely continued dung's policies after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the United States pursued engagement with the CCP based on the hope that increased economic and diplomatic interaction with China would liberalize the country in 2001 the U.S cemented China's status as a most favored nation further integrating the country into the global economy in the hopes of promoting democracy and economic reform President Bill Clinton advocated for economic and strategic partnership between the U.S and China and effectively endorsed China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2002 hujin Tao succeeded Zhang and prioritized economic growth and poverty reduction through his harmonious Society policy Xi Jinping succeeded who in 2012 and Consolidated power eliminated his political Rivals and accumulated several top positions in CCP leadership she like Mao has promoted a cult of personality he has cracked down on dissent human rights advocacy and freedom of expression while perfecting a technologically enabled police state and extending repression to Hong Kong he launched the Belton Road initiative which seeks to expand China's Global influence through infrastructure projects China under she has built and weaponized Islands in an effort to control the South China Sea and his soldiers bludgeoned Indian soldiers to death on the Himalayan Frontier the CCP maintains control through manipulation of History brutal repression a sustained campaign of propaganda continuous surveillance and the weaponization of social networks we welcome Tong Yi to discuss the history of the CCP the competition with China and the prospects for human freedom Yi welcome to Battlegrounds it's an honor to host you today and it was a real pleasure to meet you when we testified together before the the select committee on the competition with the Chinese Communist Party your testimony was really brilliant and and uh and heartfelt and important and it's wonderful to be able to follow up with the discussion with you on Battlegrounds welcome thank you so much General McMaster it's such a pleasure to see you again despite online it's a great honor to be invited by you to be on this program thank you well hey the Honor's mind and you know the last time we talked we talked about really how we got here today and and and we discussed really the assumption that dominated America's approach toward the CCP the Chinese Communist Party since the end of the Cold War and that fundamental assumption was that to China have they been welcomed into the international order uh would would play by the rules and then as trying to prosper it would liberalize its its economy and liberalize its form of governance and I'd like to just ask you what's your view of how we got to where we are today what was wrong with that assumption why did leaders in the United States I think we could argue hold on to that assumption for for too long even after it was clear that that assumption was uh was false yeah the problem with the Assumption was that a fundamentally misperceived the nature of the Communist Party of China from its roots in the 1930s until the present day the goal of this group has not been National welfare for China but extension of the wealth and the power of its old people and specifically the families that rule the group in the 1940s as armies of the kmt nationalists and the a-bombs of the U.S defeated the Japanese the CCP took ruthless advantage of an opportunity to grasp power in all of China after which in in the 1950s and the 1960s it launched a series of crew campaigns including the very quick exotic Great Leap Forward that pursued power for the CCP Elite as in the mafia which it resembled struggle with external enemies soon give way to rivalry and betrayal among the red families themselves the big mistake of foreigners was not to see the CCP for what it was they took it to be a more or less Nash normal national government and were deluded by its language that claimed itself to be the People's Republic of China with the people's Liberation Army and so on why in fact the government the Army the land the economy and almost everything else was the private property of the families that run the party after Mao died and the CCP announced a new phase of Reform on opening around 1980 many westerners partly from naivete and partly self-congratulations assumed that aha now they're turning to be more like us they now appear to be pursuing modernization which would mean probably everything that came along with the modern world but that was not the ccp's aim the aim was still as from the 1930s on the wealth and power of the red family Elite and the means as always before were be as ruthless as necessary the question of why U.S leaders held on to this their wrong assumption for so long it's not something I can answer from direct experience but from reading and from indirect experience I do have some opinions Nixons and Kissinger's obsession with the Soviet Union distorted their perception of China seeing China only as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union they did not look into what the CCP actually was they thought they were dealing with a nation not with the top Downs in the mafia of red families the TMM massacre in 1989 followed by the collapse of Eastern European communism and then the Soviet Union itself have a lot of us leaders to change their policy the moral bankruptcy of the CCP had been put on display and the need for a counterbalance to the Soviet Union had disappeared this was a golden opportunity for the U.S to make a difference and the people like me could not understand why President Bush and Clinton did some of the things that they did a few weeks after TMM Massacre Bush sent emissaries to Beijing in secret to assure them Xiaoping of continuing U.S dedication to good relationships with him Clinton defeated bush in an election while promising to deal differently with The Butchers of Beijing but then in 1994 abruptly decided to delink trade policy for from Human Rights ending in one Fell Swoop the U.S practice which had been very effective of conditioning most favored nation trading status on the ccp's behavior in human rights it took some time for people like me viewing these things from afar in China to realize that principles have been sacrificed for greed the Allure of China both as a potential market and as a huge pool of high quality and low wage labor for manufacturing was overwhelming for people with dollar signs in their eyes some must have noticed that the low wage labor was kept in line by an authoritarian government that had no use for things like OSHA rules independent courts free unions or a free press and must have felt guilty and perhaps the guilt was switched by the thought that in the long run economic growth would eventually lead to political change a rising middle class would lead to democracy but that did not happen and if the U.S had understood the CCP properly it might have seen in advance that that wouldn't happen the newly wealthy families in China are precisely the CCP families and if they are not the CCP buys them off and if that does not work the CCP harasses them and they imprison them no differently from the way it represses political dissidents perhaps the biggest mistake of the U.S policy makers to allow the CCP and the label of China into WTO in 2001. anyone who had understood the history of the CCP would not even have expected to follow rules rules like armies or political factions are things that you walk around in order to win the ccp's economy took off after 2001 and came to rival that of the U.S except for a few Clear Eye thinkers such as Rob the lighthizer few in the U.S predicted that China would so quickly become a Pure competitor of the US leifheiser has estimated that the U.S has transferred at least 300 billion dollar annually to China through theft of intellectual property the harm to the U.S has been well documented U.S manufacturing capacity has been hollowed out Millions have lost their jobs oh you've given us so much there that's brilliant by the way and I'm just thinking of the contrast between your description of the party and the and the history uh and and the way that Xi Jinping uh you know portrays it to the Chinese people and the world right the the you've really countered The Narrative of you know of the century of humiliation in which all of the ills uh that visited China were due you know to uh to colonialism rather than uh colonialism certainly but but how about the destructive nature of the party I mean I think it's important for our viewers to understand uh that the Chinese Communist party has killed more people than Stalin and Hitler combined you know in in the in the form of you know starvation and murder during the the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution um and and um and you're bringing to mind for me some some really great books that set the record straight I think pretty well I really like John pomford's book the beautiful country in the Middle Kingdom I think is a a great work uh our colleague Elizabeth economy has two great books on on the third Revolution and then China uh today and looking to the Future Frank decoder's work uh on his volume history uh of the of the Chinese Communist party I'm thinking of Rosh doshi's book The Long game where he lays out this narrative these are all primary source the books books that that go to primary sources I think there is so much misunderstanding out there and and what you've really pointed out is hey the Chinese Communist Party is not just communist in name only right it's not as if it's not like Dr Evil would say that they're not the diet coke of Communism they're the real thing right and so I would like to to ask you maybe to talk a little bit more about what motivates the party because when you look at the party and you say well that doesn't make sense because you know we do still tend to mirror image I think this is one of the reasons why we didn't get it in terms of of challenging this assumption we've talked about uh but we we tend to think that it doesn't make sense that they did zero covid right it doesn't make sense that they crack down on the tech sector it it doesn't make sense that you know that that they act in ways to restrict investment in China when they want it like the Crackdown on Bain and the other Western companies that are there to provide some degree of transparency uh into Chinese companies and and for for investors in China but but why does it make sense to the Chinese Communist party to take these actions what drives them and and why do they make they being Xi Jinping right and and those around him uh why do they make the decisions that they make um glad that you mentioned so many wonderful books I would I add Jim James mans about Facebook uh that that's uh published around 1998 that laid out all the you know U.S policies from Kissinger Nixon until Clinton that was a really brilliant book uh after reading it I I you know I got a lot of it too and another one is the Princeton Professor Aaron um rebirth free works yeah getting China wrong wow really really a great book also this is a piece approach to the world is simple grab monopolize and maintain power Special Care is given to controlling any group that is based on cultural or religious values the values of Han nationalism and money making are largely given free reign but if you belong to an organized religion or a minority culture you will be watched and might suffer harsh and cruel repression as the falun gong and Weavers and xinjiang have been and the Tibetans I would say too right absolutely right every person in the CCP ruling structure serves as pleasure of his or her Superior in this structure so the decision he or she makes are aimed overwhelmingly at pleasing the superior the top leader lacking a superior so must look around him at his peers at the top who are also his potential Rivals Mao was obsessed by fear of Rivals around him Xi Jinping cannot but have similar fears CCP decisions are sometimes made not because of changed perception of the outside world but because of the mechanisms of decision making by the party of one which is Xi Jin King well I mean these are I think these are really important points uh because you know what the party fears I think in part is is being seen to have been wrong right the party has to be right about everything and and uh and that's the nature of a Marxist leninist system you know I'm thinking about I think it was two years ago I can't remember exactly when it was the anniversary of Marx's death and and uh and Xi Jinping gave this big speech in front of a a huge portrait of of Karl Marx and and of course you know he's created this whole body of of Xi Jinping thought on on communism uh with Chinese characteristics and and you know I think when we look at it we think oh communism is passe right didn't we get over that after the collapse of the Soviet Union they think that this this Chinese college party is communist in name only but could you explain a little bit more about the ideology of of the Chinese Communist party is Xi Jinping really a Marxist lenatist and what is your investment in terms of the nature of the of the regime and the ideology that drives and constrains Chinese Communist Party leaders yeah I recently finished a new book by William inboden about Juana Reagan's foreign policy grateful yeah great book where I learned that Reagan label China's government quote so-called communism unquote he saw it as different from Soviet and Eastern European communism Reagan had a point I don't think any of the ccp's top leaders have been great students of Marxism in fact dissidents within the CCP often become dissidents precisely because what they learned from Marx was different from what the top leader was feeding them still we cannot say leninism is a thing of the past in China in the 1950s the CCP borrowed its basic governing model from the Soviet Union and elements of the model survived today Mao also borrowed control techniques from styling such as the ideal that writers are Engineers of the soul and that executions are a good way to handle opponents civilians technology has in a sense helped the CCP to push nanism leninism beyond what the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe were able to achieve it would be absurd to call she our Marxist marxisters in anything but the most superficial sense his formal education lasted only to Junior High School so on the internet today the term quote elementary school graduate unquote has become a sensitive phrase subject to monitoring and deletion there are a lot of popular jokes about she's deficient education she's moved to model himself after Mao zodong seems an obvious search for grieva test or Christmas that he does not naturally possess he published books of his speeches thoughts and directives and mobilizes not only party members but even school children to study Xi Jinping thought poster boards of quotations from Xi Jinping on roadways oblige a person to recall the cultural revolution in fact study sessions that students teachers and civil servants must attend every week having many cases be counterproductive they offend the people who see them as a waste of time many Chinese think that she is afraid of a rich middle class in China because they will not be easy to control they think she's planned maybe to keep the populace relatively poor thinking about their stomachs all the time and spend the state's money on military buildup and bribing foreign countries for their support and resources but communism is still the ideology in China in the sense that CCP controls all of society the West has to recognize this fact and deal with China accordingly yeah there's there's so much to talk about here I remember when the uh you know when the students had an uprising not Uprising but protests because they thought you know the government wasn't Marxist enough and the party was just as brutal cracking down on the left wing uh you know demonstrations as they as they have against against others and I'm thinking about gosh this point that you made I've not heard other people make this that maybe he doesn't want you know a strong middle class I mean I think that there's conventional wisdom that that Xi Jinping is very anxious about growing out of the middle income trap uh and generating enough domestic demand uh such that China's insulated from any kind of economic or financial uh consequences of its aggression abroad uh but I'm thinking now you know youth unemployment is about 25 in the country between I think the ages of 18 and 25 uh years old and and XI Japan recently said what did he say bite the bitters what's the What's the phrase in in Chinese that he's told young people what does that mean what does that mean that means you know leave a very poor hard life just endure that hardship as a true communist youth should go through right like suck it up I guess and I don't know if that plays well you know with the younger generation and and uh yes of course you know he was himself subjected to the cultural revolution and his family was abused terribly uh you know as I think his sister committed suicide over it and he was estranged from his mother who had to denounce uh him uh and and his father during one of the struggle sessions it's really odd it's almost like a strange version of stockbone syndrome that he has here uh with the fight with the party but but you know of course we're talking about the party and and it's it's roots and and malism and the and the cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward and but also you know when I visited uh Beijing with uh with President Trump and and they gave us a tour of the of the Forbidden City and I was struck by you know how much even the architecture there uh is is uh it evokes kind of a sense of hierarchy right it it sort of is meant to to see to to to uh to promote Harmony but that Harmony comes from deference to a central Authority and so could you talk maybe about how the Chinese Communist party's authoritarianism comes from obviously the party's past but even might even go beyond that uh or further back in time to the Imperial culture uh of China yeah certain features in Chinese tradition have helped the CCP to rule China respectful Authority is certainly one as you mentioned sacrificing individual individual interest to the group meaning to the authority authority figure that rules group is another Chinese tradition also allows nepotism to Trump meritocracy hypocrisy and two-phase personality also thrive in the Chinese cultural environment of these lesser than attractive elements in Chinese culture helped the CCP Xi Jinping recently hosted the leaders of five common Soviet countries from the ancient Silk Road for banquet in Xi'an you saw the Fanfare there I did and I thought I thought you know I you know I kind of liked it because it was also a bit of a a bit of an offense to Vladimir Putin in terms of displacing Russian influence in Central Asia so uh you know this was so what was your assessment of it and because he did did he did evoke you know certain sort of images and and imagery from from um you know from Dynasty like a clothing and flags and images he was stressing Confucianism even though blightly overlooking the Confucianism was criticized throughout China's 20th century and mightily attacked by Mao zodun Henry Kissinger recently commented in The Economist that China is more confusion than communist but China is far less confusion than our Taiwan South Korea and Japan it was just a I think image playing to play up um China's claim that it has 5 000 years of History therefore we are super power you know we have the you know credit or history to claim that right and so much of the party's Behavior conduct philosophy you know Cuts against uh Cuts against Confucianism and and but you know I'd love to hear what what you what you would say to Americans right so we're we're talking about the Chinese Communist Party we're talking about the flawed assumptions that that have underpinned our approach to the party uh are we neglected kind of the nature of the party it's ideology what drives a constraints the party why do you think this is important to Americans I mean I think when you look just in in recent years there's been a big shift I think now Americans have come to the conclusion except maybe for a few a few on Wall Street who still haven't gotten the memo yet uh that the Chinese Communist party is is hostile uh to U.S interests in the world if you just look back at at uh at covet right foisting covet on the world you're going after anyone who was trying to Ring the Alarm Bells about covet right persecuting Chinese journalists and doctors who are trying to do so subverting the World Health Organization and then adding insult to injury you know with this wolf Warrior diplomacy and but then it wasn't just informational aggression it was cyber aggression huge uh huge cyber attacks in the midst of the pandemic and then and then physical aggression you know bludgeoning Indian soldiers to death on the Himalayan Frontier laying claim to the ocean in the South China Sea and ramming and sinking Vietnamese vessels the various threats to Taiwan and and uh and also to to Japan and and uh South Korea with these overflights and and uh and threatening military uh Maneuvers and so forth uh you know you have now uh you know these these campaigns of economic coercion that they've conducted also you know against Australia estonius I mean the list goes on and on and I think Americans uh have come to the conclusion that the CCP uh is is hostile I think to uh you know to to the to the international order that has benefited it and the world but what's your what do you say to Americans who who might think well why do we care right why do we care what China does we have our own problems what what what's what should Americans care about the nature of the CCP and its actions to your credit General McMaster I think when you were the National Security advisor you issued a report about the in in a sort of a national security assessment report and the National Security strategy from December 2017 and just you know it makes great Beach reading doesn't it I recommend it to all of our viewers right it was really the foundational document to uh to claim that a ccp's expansion into the world is inimical to U.S interests the CCP has a clear record of breaking rules and promises she promised Obama not to install military equipment or facilities on artificial islands in the South China Sea but then did exactly that the CCP joined WTO promised all sorts of Market opening but then they didn't do it a promised autonomy for Hong Kong until 2047 and drastically broke the promise in 2020 as the CCP grows richer and stronger it bullies other countries when a Chinese fishing boat entered Japanese Waters and the Japanese dared to object the CCP blocked the export of rare earth minerals to to Japan when Australia dared to inquire about the origins of covid-19 the CCP banned Imports of Australian coal and wine Taiwan has been bullied by China for decades she had broadcast his willingness to retake Taiwan by force during his Reign already we have witnessed POA planes and navy vessels flying close to taiwan's Aerospace or Waters almost on a daily basis now they're challenging U.S airplanes and Naval vassals in the international waters around South China Sea and Taiwan Strait even in the U.S in the media in political circles and in universities the CCP has been using what it calls united front efforts to encourage politicians professors students and honorary people to be favorable to the CCP and to accept its ways of thinking if China wins the competition with the U.S the world will not be the same as the one we have been living in everybody's Freedom will be checked by the CCP that kind of dystopia world is something we must resist at all costs you know Tony I'm also reminded of some of the egregious Behavior by the united front work department uh and he's been setting up these police stations internationally you know where they were they focused on policing the Chinese diaspora but also in our case Chinese American citizens intimidating them trying to get them to fall in line and I think I I'd like to just make the make this point at this time I mean I I think I think what's one of the greatest strengths of our country is that we do attract some of the best and brightest people from around the world and one of the great strengths of our nation are our Chinese Americans you know and and and also you know and also Chinese residents who are here from from uh China and and I think what's really important is to distinguish between the Chinese people uh and and the Chinese Communist party and I think it's actually you know it's it's actually unfair to Chinese Americans to and and actually kind of uh you know bigoted uh to assume that they would be in any way support the actions of the Chinese Communist Party obviously it it cuts against their values as Americans and and why they came to this country to begin with so you know I just wanted I just wanted to make that point so that there's no confusion you know about the nature of our of our of our of our conversation you know I think that also on universities you know there has been this this effort by the party to kind of police the thoughts of of Chinese students studying in America and I think every University president and Provost and Deans and schools you have to really work hard to to ensure that that Chinese students who are here enjoy the full experience of of freedom of speech and expression and freedom of thought so so uh you know but really what I what I I'm dying to talk to you about is all this but but what I know the least about and I think probably most of our viewers know at least about what the heck is going on inside of China right it's hard for anyone to understand what's going on because of the this technologically enabled police state right the the fear that people have of of saying the wrong thing you know and and the party's ability to use technology to police even the thoughts almost of of of the people uh we did see the white Revolution a little bit in the protests associated with uh with the zero coveted policies but how would you describe the Dynamics inside of China right what are the strengths and weaknesses of the party um you know are are the Chinese people happy or unhappy with the party what what are their perceptions of of the CCP these days it's very hard to penetrate China these days because the Xi Jinping China is super sensitive to National Security the recent anti-spy law makes a reporting of almost anything inside China to people outside China potentially dangerous the reason for this anti-spy law and the recent Crackdown on due diligence firms such as means you know obeying the consulting firm in my view is that she wants to ban access to economic and social statistics that would reflect poorly on his zero covet policies over the last three years China's economy has not recovered from the zero covet era as well as some expected instead of expanding at six to eight percent a year as was common in the past China might be heading toward gross 203 or even negative growth in particular the real estate market now is in Virtual free fall the manufacturing segment has slipped and the export industry is under great strain due to the reorientation in Supply chains by Western countries enormous debt is crippling households and local governments cities across country have cut benefits for civil servants and delayed salary payments in some cases for teachers families are holding cash instead of consuming things because social safety net is so unreliable 2023 is also the first year in which China's population has declined very worrisome for the Chinese leadership is that the official unemployment rate for those who are 16 to 24 years old is around 40. some say it's to 40 percent close to 40 percent in reality she has said the young should learn to quote either bitterness yeah evoking a phrase that was used during a cultural revolution when young people were sent to the countryside such a policy today would make young people really angry raised in relative Comfort they would not easily accept cultural revolution treatment in March and April this year we also saw white hair protests against cutbacks in medical care in some cities the elderly protesters said their years of Labor had earned the services they were not asking for anything that wasn't rightly theirs it's hard to say that many people in China are happy these days some are trying in every way they can to get out of the country that's why we witnessed recent in recent months in the southern border there's so many Chinese are crossing the border now Tony that that's just a great analysis I mean I I think that what you've described us is the difficulties the party has encountered in large measure because of their their race to surpass the United States right they've they've got mountains and mountains of local debt that were that were built up because of of investment they've made made to keep the the economic growth really artificially High you know the the government is not really good at resource allocation and so they've wasted a lot of these resources you see that playing out of the real estate sector and really the inability to grow out of that middle-income trap uh where you know as wages rise you know manufacturing become and China becomes less competitive and so either you have to increase your productivity well what you can't do when you crack down on the tech sector or you have to create internal Demand right domestic demand which isn't happening because people are holding on to cash because they have this uncertainty about their future so I do think it's a perilous time and it's a perilous time because of the party and you know we see this happening in the big cities of China and I've heard that it's it's even worse in like kind of the third tier cities where they've over built and there are these empty buildings and spare capacity and and so you know I just think that what you've described to us is it's important because you know these authoritarian statist mercantilist models look strong right from the outside but they're actually quite brittle I think and our democracies look kind of ugly you know our free market system looks ugly but actually we're pretty resilient right because we have mechanisms for self-correction and reform you know short short of of revolution uh so you know I thought I just wanted to to also talk to you about we have to talk about this is how the party victimizes its own people right so you know I think that by being against the Chinese Communist party I think that makes you for the Chinese people and and not just kind of this you know the Han majority which is is what the is what the party uses is trying to get every everyone to conform to this you know this sort of uh this Han nationalist uh uh sort of preoccupation or ideology not in the big cities but but in the rural areas and could you tell us about the plight of of the uyghurs in xinjiang and you know what's what's happening Tibet what's happening uh to freedom in Hong Kong yeah okay to answer your question let me bring down uh into categories of the different group of people the first is the rural people these are mostly poor people who live without a safety net previous primarily kuchang revealed last year that there were more than 600 million Chinese who earned less than 1 000 Yuan around 140 US Dollars monthly if I could just interject for once for one second this is around the same time remember that Xi Jinping had said hey poverty is over right we won right exactly it's just barely above the international poverty line which is two dollars per per day their condition will worsen as China's economy turns down Xi Jinping fearing a loss of grain Supply is international conflict should arise these days has made a plan to use more Farm fields for grain and has dispatched armies of Agriculture police to mandate to Farmers what grain should be grown on what land this is a new phenomenal the major reversal policy that have held since the 1980s I predict there will be a lot of music misery for the rural population for xinjiang rivers and to some degree Tibetans the CCP has installed the digital surveillance extensively inside xinjiang forced everyone to install civilians apps on their phones and put millions of viewers into concentration camps where they are forced to relinquish their old religion and languages and to learn CCP ideology and pledge loyalty to XI we in the west have heard numerous reports on these conditions but people in China well the news is strictly blocked no virtually nothing of it this is really really bad I think you know this gets to the point I wish we would do more to poke holes in in the you know in the firewall the information firewall yes and and you know it is it is genocide I mean you could call it slow genocide whatever you want to call it but but also you know these reports of force sterilization for example you know and of course the forced labor the slave labor I mean it's it's terrible and and you know I think sometimes we lose sight of it efforts in the news cycle for a while you know we forget about it kind of like we've we've forgotten about Hong Kong I mean could you talk a little bit about about Hong Kong what's happened there you know some I mean I think of some of the you know the real leaders of the of the advocates for uh for Citizens rights there who are now unfairly imprisoned uh I think it's almost like we've forgotten about Hong Kong too right Hong Kong you know China has imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 uh basically ending the one country to system that promised uh to the Britain in the 1980s and there are now more than 1400 political prisoners there the most famous of course is Jimmy Lai who is a dear friend to me a billionaire who escaped China with one young as a young king and then educated himself on the rose to be a Visionary mid-year Tycoon after he saw what happened in he was determined to oppose the CCP he sold his clothing brand and founded the largest Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily he stayed in jail for more than 860 days now and is still waiting for his trial for so-called National Security offenses the world has witnessed the demise of free Hong Kong and has seen clearly how the CCP broke its promise that it enriched with Britain in the 1980s that betrayal of course is a clear warning to Taiwan the free chinese-speaking democracy that lies across the Taiwan Street where all the international concerns right now is is focused on the Taiwan issue yeah you know Jimmy Lai had just uh visited Hoover right before he was uh imprisoned again you know and for this for this long stretch of time uh and you know I'm thinking just it was that recently the 34th anniversary of the uh the the uh and and I saw that you know that that uh the Hong Kong police were stopping and detaining anybody who were black you know for example or or anybody who appeared in some way to uh to to be commemorating uh commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre and and you know this is just an indication in Hong Kong but it's really expanding across the whole country how they employ this orwellian surveillance system right the technologically enabled really worse than or we'll ever imagine right to create you know this the ability to stifle human freedom to almost police people's thoughts to make sure that there can't be any kind of an organization uh against the party so could you explain the part these mechanisms for control we talked about a little bit when you said it's really hard to figure out what what the Chinese people are thinking but but how does the party maintain its grip on power what does CCP fares most is its own people not the United States and this means that maintaining control inside China is its ultimate mandate Mal imported the Soviet police state from Sterling in the 1950s and the CCP security apparatus has been strong since then now with the technology imported from companies such as Cisco civilians cameras are prevalent in every corner of Chinese cities monitoring apps during the pandemic were installed in everybody's cell phone further enhancing CCP control the CCP also invented a social credit scoring system people who offend the government get low Social Security scores that can impede their abilities to buy an apartment or a train ticket a digital dictatorship even beyond what George Orville imagined in his novel 1984 is being realized in China I I think it really is unwise to it just invest in China broadly at this point but especially in these companies that have been part of establishing the police state you know I'm thinking of anybody who invested in hick Vision or sense time uh actually I mean I'm sure it didn't know it at the time but you know they have actually enabled this sort of uh this sort of extinguishment of Human Rights uh the the campaign of genocide against the uyghurs so so you know I think investment in China should be an ESG issue you know in American boardrooms and and uh and and I think we just have to have more of these conversations and and stop sort of in many ways underwriting our own demise and underwriting the demise of uh of the of the Chinese people and and pay attention I think your comments also tell us hey pay attention to supply chains you know and and and ensure that you know ensure that you're safeguarding you know your own your own privacy but also data and Tech technology that's that's critical you know to your business right or or to anything you know I so so what can we anticipate about the future what what is the what is the party's trajectory I'm gonna ask you to do the impossible right I mean you know but but what do you what do you anticipate the party doing both internally you know we just talked about how they establish and maintain control but externally is uh as well and also as you're thinking about your answer there you brought you maybe think of another book this is this is Sully Khan's book haunted by chaos and it's a really a whole book about about the party really being motivated principally by this fear of losing control but but okay again you know unfair question but but how do you see the future yeah let's just give my a little bit opinion Xi Jinping now the urban public is still angry about his covet policies the economy has been losing Steam and he has been importantly responsible his policy debacles caused him to feel insecure about his hold on power he mobilized the country to study Xi Jinping thought he arranges that his books be bestsellers in China some of his yes men are pushing for a mild style coat of personality Steely practices from the cultural revolution such as weekly study sessions for civil servants are resurfing speaking as an American citizen I am actually happy in a sense to see she wasting the time and energy of his population on useless things like Xi Jinping thought this will make our competition with the CCP easier to win the stupidity will weaken the Chinese economy frustrates its population and stimulate unrest around the country yes sometimes I also think just you know humor is a good thing I remember when when Xi Jinping got really upset when he was portrayed like Winnie the Pooh you know and you know and we know the Chinese college party has no sense of humor no sense exactly so so I I guess a related question that okay what do we do about it you know so so what we being not just government leaders or people in Academia or like we here at Hoover thinking big thoughts you know but but what do you think the the American people's responsibilities are people from like-minded Nations to private sector leaders uh who make big decisions on investments or uh or whether or not to engage in Partnerships or to accept Chinese investment what advice do you have about what to do about the problem set that we've talked about right a regime that's that's hostile to our interests internationally uh and is extinguishing human Freedom uh within China the U.S should stop playing with the CCP on a non-level playing field a principle of reciprocity should be enforced for example the CCP does not allow Facebook Twitter or YouTube inside China and we should definitely not allow Tick Tock a WeChat inside the U.S this is our friend Bob lighthizer this is his favorite word reciprocity absolutely exactly views on Tick Tock and WeChat that a CCP disliked are deleted from those platforms which therefore makes them into a one-way propaganda megaphone for the CCP if they were two-way they would be channeled through which views that differ from the ccps could penetrate China but they're not this is not unfair not only unfair to the US but in principle of fundamental violation of free speech in 2021 the the Minimus exception for trade with China let at least 188 billion dollars of goods into the US without any paperwork or tariffs that made it possible for Chinese apps such as pindodo TAMU and shine which offered extremely low prices for everyday Goods to become so popular in the US and even advertised during the Super Bowl right right this is the stupid rule I I thought the lighthizer uh said it was put up in 2015 that allowed the CCP they to exploit a trade advantage as well as to collect the private information of many American consumers American universities need to be aware of whom they're training in stem fields how many PhD students bring their U.S founded learning back to China for the use of American adversary immigration law should be revised to reflect on how we attract and deploy talented Chinese students I believe we should Allure more Chinese students to learn history political science journalism and law these are the really important Frontier to nurture Chinese people's views on democracy and how democracy in in a real world really work like in the United States and I hope they get that at our University sometimes sometimes I worry uh about about uh the curriculum uh in U.S universities but but uh hey I agree with you and and I do think that you know that I mean companies and the FBI can do due diligence but more Chinese students is better and and I think keep more of them here if we have Chinese Engineers who are trained here H-1B visas as long as they're not pla scientists you know or or MSS agents I want to add more um the CCP threat to the U.S interest has reached a degree where the whole society approach should be used each U.S citizen needs to be aware of the threat and should be ready to do what he or she can and also cannot be overstated how important it would be for the Chinese public to be to have better access to the truth it is vitally important one way or another to dismantle the great firewall as you mentioned previously the more the Chinese people know the truth the easier many things will become that's absolutely Tanya I can't I can't thank you enough we've covered a lot of ground and and you have explained so clearly I think you know that the nature of the challenge and a place I mean in one place in one interview I think with a higher degree of clarity and comprehensiveness that I've heard really any anywhere else but I'd like to just ask you one last question what what did we not cover what should I have asked you uh that you'd like to share with our viewers yeah I would like to highlight WeChat pernicious effect on Chinese diaspora around the world WeChat presence in the west hurt our interests most of Americans don't use WeChat like you probably won't use and not using I'm kind of rusty on my Chinese right so they don't understand why WeChat is harmful for the us but almost every Chinese American uses WeChat to connect with families and the friends inside China inside China WeChat is a must-have super app outside China it collapsed data of overseas Chinese including their social networks both inside and outside China their professions and their personal issues including the CCP can then leverage this information for their purposes overseas Chinese Americans are targets of the ccp's influence or coercion for example many Chinese students in stem fields in the 1980s and early 1990s who received the permanent residence status after TM and Massacre went on to successful careers in universities or companies here later many were lured by ccp's thousand talents program to bring their knowledge home for CCP use Bloomberg News recently revealed for example that Shannon Yao who worked as a top scientist for Coca-Cola tried to sell 120 million dollars in Coca-Cola's Trade Secrets to a China run company which must be controlled by the CCP Shannon Yao is not an outlier alas many others from the 1980s and 1990s got educations in American graduate science programs founded by the U.S federal and local money they received green cards because the tmn students movement or through work visas and were able to launch successful careers here in the US then when China's economy boomed especially after joining the WTO these people found themselves with incentives to sell their company's Trade Secrets or academic research to the CCP companies and offices they set aside the fact that their legally American citizens and have obligations to protect U.S interests as we Face heightened tension with the CCP all of us including Chinese Americans must ask where our loyalty lies this is the touchy topic with old Asian hate noises mixed in but at the end of the day when conflict between China and the US breaks out Chinese Americans have to take a stand are we for freedom or for dictatorship I am one Chinese American For Whom the answer is obvious well Tony I mean you've helped us so much and and uh you're such a courageous person and and a great leader at a critical time to help us understand the nature of of this threat and and I do just want to highlight that you know I think now the situation is has changed from those early days after after Tiananmen and uh and it's clear that the Chinese Commerce party is not going to liberalize it's not going to play by the rules it's not going to to to uh to change this form of governance and and so we have to recognize the nature of the competition and you've really helped us do that I want to thank you on on behalf of the Hoover Institution for helping us learn about a Battleground important to building a future of peace and and prosperity for generations to come it was wonderful to have you on Battlegrounds and and uh and on behalf of all reviewers thank you so much thank you for having me General Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover institution where we advance ideas that Define a free Society for more information about our work to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content please visit hoover.org

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 91,711

Keywords: Tong Yi, Human Security, China, Chinese Communist Party, CCP, Human Rights, Xi Jinping, H.R. McMaster, China tensions, Cold War 2, China Cold War, Chinese democracy, wei jingsheng, China US relations, China president, china economy, china security, US global security, hoover institution, goodfellows, peoples republic of china, communism, people republic of china, chinese history

Id: oqom__h-mSs

Length: 65min 35sec (3935 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023