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MARTIN SMITH, correspondent:
In July 2021, China celebrated the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
PRESIDENT XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Since its establishment, the party’s number one project has been the happiness of the Chinese people and the rebirth of the Chinese nation.
MARTIN SMITH:
In his speech, President Xi Jinping celebrated China’s emergence as one of the richest countries on the planet.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is wonderful and excellent for the Chinese nation, for the Chinese people.
MARTIN SMITH:
By all indications, Xi is the toughest Chinese leader since the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong. And like Mao, he has immense ambitions for his country.
Promotional video in China
MARTIN SMITH:
In his first decade in power, Xi introduced the largest infrastructure allocation in history, building ports, highways and a vast virtual network connecting China to some 150 countries. It has turned China into the world’s leading vehicle manufacturer.
EX-ROBOT VOICE:
[Speaking Mandarin] Nice to meet you.
FEMALE EX-ROBOT EMPLOYEE:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is our company’s next generation robot.
MARTIN SMITH:
It has invested heavily in a race with the United States to dominate the advancement of synthetic intelligence. He plans to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And Xi has presided over an antagonistic relationship with the United States.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] The other Chinese will never allow a foreign force to intimidate, oppress, or enslave us. Anyone who tries will be hit in the head with blood in front of a wonderful metal wall forged by 1. 4 billion Chinese.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:
Xi Jinping is different. It doesn’t need to be part of the global as it is. What it needs is to be much more dominant in the way the world is managed. He doesn’t need. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Orville Schell is widely identified as the dean of China experts in the United States and served as a representative on this project. He traveled to China and closely watched the rise of Xi Jinping.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
You can read his speeches and it’s all there. He says what he is going to do and he does it.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Taiwan’s independence goes against history. It is a dead end. We rule out the use of force.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
And we can’t really say that it’s anything other than propaganda, which probably wouldn’t make any sense, but it’s not. There he exposed everything.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] [We must] achieve the goal of realistic combat education and actually master the skill of fighting and winning wars.
CCTV
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi Jinping speaks all the time about hostile foreign forces, didui shili. That is the core of his sense of the U.S. and China relationship. It’s hostile.
MARTIN SMITH:
We set out to understand the roots of this hostility, to understand Xi himself and the China he is leading. But China has heavily restricted international media, and we were not allowed to report from inside the country. No current official would speak to us on the record.
China allows us to enter China. So that?
VICTOR GAO, Prof., Soochow University:
China is handling all kinds of demanding situations in the world. You may or may not be on their radar screen.
MARTIN SMITH:
Victor Gao is a well-known figure who travels around the world to protect Xi’s China. We interviewed him in New York.
What is it about Xi Jinping’s presidency that has fostered this hostility between the United States and China?
VICTOR GAO:
I don’t agree with the way you characterize the situation.
MARTIN SMITH:
But after 2012, when he comes into power—
VICTOR GAO:
I would argue that, fundamentally, China and the United States treat each other as equals, but China-U. S. relations should be treated as equals. Relationships are moving in a direction that is complicated and dangerous.
The Princeling
MARTIN SMITH:
To begin with, I wanted to know where Xi Jinping came from and how his afterlife transformed him into the man he is today. He grew up in a turbulent time in China’s history, but he is a privileged child with red roots. Xi’s father had fought alongside Mao Zedong and, after the Revolution, became a senior official in the Communist Party. The young Xi lived in a comfortable house and could attend the most productive schools.
JOSEPH TORIGIAN, Author, The Party’s Interests Come First:
He was part of what we call princes and enjoyed many privileges. Then Xi Jinping would have grown up. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Joseph Torigian is a professor at American University.
JOSÉ TORIGIEN:
He went to a school that was primarily attended by the offspring of high-ranking cadres, and they were told that they were going to be the ones who were going to bring China to modernity, who were going to draw upon the legacies of the Chinese Communist Party to transform society.
MARTIN SMITH:
Before the 1949 revolution, China ruled through a U. S. -backed dictator, Chiang Kai-shek.
NEWS FROM THE USA:
All Americans know well Chiang Kai-shek, a close and enthusiastic leader, undisputed leader and idol of millions of Chinese.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao Chiang, the “dog of imperialism”. He fought for 22 years to overthrow Chiang.
MALE READER:
Despite American assistance, Chiang’s forces were repulsed. The Revolution is now within Mao’s government and is the beginning of the greatest political and economic experiment the world has ever known.
MARTIN SMITH:
Before Mao’s victory, China was among the world’s poorest nations. Inspired by communist theory, Mao blamed China’s wealthy elites for the nation’s ills.
CCP PROPAGANDA FILM:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party calls for a complete turnaround. Heaven and earth turned over.
The Red Detachment of Women, 1961
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao followed communist propaganda like this film to unite the other people who opposed the landlords.
CCP PROPAGANDA FILM:
[Speaking Mandarin] Isn’t he the owner? An evil elite?Does a monster suck blood?
MARTIN SMITH:
Dunce caps, a regular feature of Mao’s China, were used to publicly humiliate landowners, intellectuals and disloyal politicians.
In 1962, when Xi Jinping was only nine years old, his father became an unlikely victim of these purges. Mao accused him of being disloyal. Xi’s father subjected him to so-called wrestling sessions in which he beat him and denounced him.
ALFRED CHAN, author, Xi Jinping:
His father falsely accused him of supporting a novel that might have cast doubt on Mao’s leadership. It’s that simple.
MARTIN SMITH:
Professor Alfred Chan is author of an exhaustive biography of Xi Jinping that chronicles his life.
ALFRED CHAN:
His father was dragged and paraded down the street. At that point, he put on a donkey cap and was subjected to mock trials. They were necessarily puppet courts.
MARTIN SMITH:
Here a sign hangs around the neck of Xi’s father that reads “Anti-party element Xi Zhongxun.”
JOSEPH TORIGIAN:
We know that this was an emotionally traumatizing experience for him. When you’re a member of the Chinese Communist Party, everything is the party. Your entire life is the party. So for the party to tell you that you oppose Mao, it’s hard to overestimate just how galling it is for a member of this kind of organization to hear that.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s father was sent to work in a factory and then imprisoned for 8 years.
Meanwhile, some members of the elite had doubts about Mao’s leadership. A famine, the result of the failure of Mao’s agricultural policy, had devastated the country.
U.S. NEWSREEL:
These other people came with reports of deaths in the fields and of starving farmers eating some of the seeds destined for next year’s planting.
MARTIN SMITH:
Undeterred, Mao introduced his so-called Cultural Revolution in 1966, expanding the categories of those who would be purged.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Thus, in the Cultural Revolution there were what we called hei wu lei, the “black categories. ” And those were other people who had no qualities as human beings. They had no rights. They were considered unacceptable, otherwise bad things would have to be said. They had to be overthrown and, in many cases, even exterminated. And we saw millions of deaths. They were not entirely human.
CHINESE RED GUARDS SONG:
[Singing in Mandarin] Red Guards, Red Guards, burning with zeal.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao encouraged bands of marauding youths, known as Red Guards, to aid so-called black elements as punishment.
CHINESE RED GUARDS SONG:
[Singing in Mandarin] Rise, the direction is clear, our revolutionary spirit is strong. We stick to it with general dedication. We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards.
CAI XIA, Chinese Communist Party, 1982-2020:
[Speaking Mandarin] Our upbringing taught us that Mao Zedong was our wonderful savior.
MARTIN SMITH:
Cai Xia, a long-time member, came of age in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.
You say he is the savior. What did he save you from?
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] At that time, our understanding was that Mao Zedong led the Chinese people to overthrow what we called imperialism—the capitalists and landlords who oppressed the Chinese people. He made the Chinese people stand up and become masters of the country.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
One of the most pernicious and harmful aspects of the whole Maoist revolution was that it distorted and made it impossible for people to be human and to have family loyalties, friendship loyalties—to keep any moral compass on whatsoever.
MARTIN SMITH:
When he was 13, Xi himself underwent wrestling sessions. She forced him to wear a donkey cap and denounced him publicly through her own mother.
ALFREDO CHAN:
According to Xi Jinping, he suffered quite a few of those struggle sessions. And his half-sister, she couldn’t take it, and she committed suicide. The psychological and physical abuse was tremendous.
MARTIN SMITH:
At the age of 15, Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside to do hard manual labor, known as degraded youth.
Alfredo Chan:
At that time, 17 million young people were sent to the countryside to be re-educated by poor peasants. Mao thought this was the truth of China: a poor and underdeveloped countryside. Xi Jinping visited one of the poorest regions in China, where I stayed for seven years and basically painted as a farmer. The painting was difficult. Thus, Xi Jinping, being a city boy, a prince, has never been accustomed to the ordinary taste of farmers, like beasts of burden.
JOSÉ TORIGIEN:
At first, it was anything I couldn’t handle. He spoke of hard work. He talked about living in a cave. He spoke of the difficulty of getting along with the peasants.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
At one point, Xi Jinping simply left and tried to return home. And his family refused to accept it. Therefore, it is difficult to know what the consequences of such a thing are, but essentially we know that all human beings have close ties with their parents. And when those close ties deteriorate, it has consequences.
EDWARD WONG, author of On the Borders of Empire:
I controlled this domain where Xi had served in the Cultural Revolution, a village in Shaanxi Province, so I think I was given an unvarnished view of life there.
MARTIN SMITH:
Until 2016, Edward Wong was the New York Times Beijing bureau chief.
EDUARDO WONG:
This region of China is one of the poorest in China. At that time, other people lived in those caves, and Xi lived in a cave at the back of the room of an old man I knew, Mr. Lu. M. . Lu told me that Xi had books with him and that his gentle night was late to read.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s time in exile has a component of his creation myth. The cave where he lived for his seven years is now a tourist attraction. It is filled with books on Marxist philosophy and political theory, which Xi said he read at night while he suffered to survive, which made him the leader he would be.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Being sent to the countryside was an incredibly formative experience. Afterward, I felt I had gone through a type of purification. It was really a sense of reinvention, transformation.
MARTIN SMITH:
Jianying Zha and his circle of relatives also slightly outlived Mao. She now lives in New York, is the author of eight books on China and contributes to the New Yorker.
JIANYING ZHA, author, Tide Players:
I was born in this so-called New China and grew up with this regime: “We live in a strong and satisfied country, and we will grow and not only build a bigger China, but at some point we will liberate humanity, adding Americans. “
It’s my mother, with myself.
I was 6 years old and doing great that night when our space was ransacked by those Red Guards. They arrived here in the afternoon and our space was disrupted. My parents were humiliated. We go from the flowers of the country, from the children of Mao, to suddenly we are black elements.
MARTIN SMITH:
How many people died as a result of the Cultural Revolution?
JIANYINGZHA:
There are other estimates in this regard. Officially, one of the party elders said that several million more people had died. But the figures are far from accurate, because the government, whatever the dominant regime, has tended to hide.
MARTIN SMITH:
Between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, China experienced between 25 and 45 million deaths, due to famine and the eradication of black elements.
JIANYING ZHA:
This is our Holocaust. And to this day, the world has not really come to realize that’s really what happened. And the same party responsible for it are still in power, and Mao is still an icon.
MARTIN SMITH:
Today, President Xi Jinping lives and works next to this portrait of Mao that dominates Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Xi hugged Mao.
LI YUAN, The New York Times:
It’s a mystery why these people don’t hate Mao. Why don’t they reflect why the Cultural Revolution happened, why they went through so much suffering?
MARTIN SMITH:
Li Yuan, who grew up in China, now writes a column for the New York Times.
LI YUAN:
Xi Jinping himself talk a lot about his suffering when he was a young kid.
MARTIN SMITH:
He says it was good for him.
LI YUAN:
Oui. Et now, he tells young Chinese: “You are informed to eat bitterness. It will be wise for you. “
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi Jinping learned as a teenager that if you need to survive, you have to master the equipment of the Maoist toolbox. You’ll have to be redder than anyone else. His upbringing consisted of surviving in a highly politicized environment of the Cultural Revolution, when his father was one of the antichrists and Xi had to find his way. And to do that, he had to become the most politically correct guy ever. more. Basically, Xi Jinping drank the Kool-Aid of the Cultural Revolution.
Return from exile
MARTIN SMITH:
At 22 years old, Xi Jinping has just returned from the campaign. He had lost years of study, but he would manage to enter one of the most prestigious universities in China.
Alfredo Chan:
Yeah, he was lucky to be accepted into the Tsinghua University. It’s China’s MIT.
MARTIN SMITH:
This is a boy who did not attend high school and was able to gain admission to the most prestigious university in China.
ALFRED CHAN:
Yes. Very unusual. Mao destroyed the educational system. But then in the early 1970s, Mao decided the educational system had to be reformed. Not favoring the elite, but welcome peasants and workers and soldiers as well. And that’s how Xi Jinping got admitted.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi graduated in chemical engineering. But what interested him was partisan politics. In 1979, after graduating, he appointed a junior assistant to a senior Communist Party official. But after three years in Beijing, Xi moved to the provinces to pursue his own political career. career and rise through the ranks of local government.
It is a time of wonderful reforms. Mao died in 1976 and China is now led by a new leader, Deng Xiaoping. Twice purged, Deng had witnessed the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
DENG XIAOPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades!
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY SOLDIERS:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, leader!
MARTIN SMITH:
He set out to reverse many of Mao’s policies.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The 80s were a normal decade. Deng Xiaoping radically replaced relations between party and society. He divided the communes of others and gave the peasants homes that they could domesticate individually. And suddenly you go out into the countryside and see the most amazing open markets, where other people were promoting the things they had harvested. It was a huge change.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG, founder of J Capital Research:
It seemed that China was different and open, and that it was evolving very quickly.
MARTIN SMITH:
Anne Stevenson-Yang worked for decades in China as a financial analyst and entrepreneur.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:
Ever since Deng Xiaoping told the Politburo that they deserved to upgrade their Mao jackets with sports jackets, all the big cities built huge airports and had avenues leading directly to those five-star hotels. And those hotels were bigger than any hotel you would stay in in Europe, and you thought, “What about China?” It’s fantastic. »
MALE JOURNALIST:
Today, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the attitude towards capitalism is changing. Not fast enough for some members of the new generation, who see nothing in mixing Marxism and market economics.
MALE REPORTER:
As one China scholar Deng said, such surprising things have happened that no one running in the Chinese field is willing to make predictions anymore.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 1979, Deng visited Washington. Deng’s opening was perceived as a welcome development in the West and a policy of sustained economic engagement for the next four decades.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:
Now we share the prospect of a fresh flow of commerce, ideas and people, which will benefit both our countries.
MARTIN SMITH:
In China, flexible industry and foreign investment have helped lift millions of people out of poverty.
PROTESTERS:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Freedom of assembly. Freedom of the press.
MARTIN SMITH:
But many Chinese, especially students, are not entirely convinced. They were involved in corruption and sought democratic reforms.
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Democracy will be delayed!
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Delay democracy!
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] We want free speech!
PROTESTERS:
[Chanting in Mandarin] We want free speech!
MARTIN SMITH:
By the spring of 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were gaining momentum across the country. While a provincial official, Xi Jinping watched closely.
ALFRED CHAN:
Xi Jinping tried to assess the political climate. Does the central government do this?
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!
ALFRED CHAN:
And being a very cautious bureaucrat, back home he tried to prevent students from outside to come in and to link up with the local demonstrations.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Long freedom!
MARTIN SMITH:
In early June, the protest broke out.
MALE REPORTER:
Right now, there are thousands of people here in Tiananmen Square.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Some observers consider the current wave of unrest to be the biggest challenge the Communist Party has faced.
ZHOU FENGSUO, pro-democracy activist:
The momentum in Tiananmen Square is strong. For me, the most amazing experience is hearing other people’s voices everywhere.
MARTIN SMITH:
Zhou Fengsuo was a student leader in the Tiananmen protests. He was one of the first to enter the square.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
We need to have a discussion with the communist government, and I think that at that time there was a real possibility, because the party had positioned itself after the Cultural Revolution on the path of opening up and reform.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Dialogue! Dialogue!
ZHOU FENGSUO:
So we get the idea that there is freedom in the air in Tiananmen Square.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall. We are millions with a center opposed to the enemy’s fire.
JIANYINGZHA:
I was on Tiananmen Square at the night of June 4. We were all standing like clusters, talking to each other. And suddenly, there was a guy standing there, and he fell backwards. And we didn’t hear anything, so we’re all stunned. And everybody thought, “It must be rubber bullets.” Until we saw that he’s not waking up and there was a pool of blood or something from his neck.
MALE JOURNALIST:
The tanks arrive along the artery towards Tiananmen Square.
JIANYINGZHA:
As we were retreating there were I think at least a dozen people right around me being shot down.
MALE JOURNALIST:
There are sporadic shootings. Automatic weapons opened. People ran in search of shelter.
JIANYING ZHA:
That night it was the worst of China. The monster reared its head.
MALE JOURNALIST:
At one of the main intersections, an armored vehicle has just run over a young woman who was riding a bicycle. He pounced on everything and anything: the barricades, the people. And the protesters had erected metal barricades, and this armored vehicle got stuck. crowd gathered around, hurling insults, stones, sticks and all.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Tiananmen incident gave me a wonderful surprise. The biggest surprise was the way in which the Popular Army was able to fire on the population. I started to wonder: what is wrong with this country? With this match?
MALE VOICE 1:
Do you see this boy?
MALE VOICE 2:
No.
MALE VOICE 1:
There’s a guy running towards the tank.
MARTIN SMITH:
The next day, a man stood in defiance, blocking a column of tanks.
MALE REPORTER:
It wasn’t a single tank that stopped. There were 18 tanks and armored aircraft carriers in this convoy.
MALE VOICE 1:
He is everything.
MARTIN SMITH:
The image of the Tank Man, as he was called, was carried around the world.
PETER JENNINGS, ABC News anchor:
At one point, protesters set fire to an ambulance and drove it toward the troops. But the vehicle crashed into a traffic island, prompting the infantrymen to open fire on the students again.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH, author, China’s Leaders: From Mao to Today:
Overnight, Chinese optimism about their country, about this newly awakened, newly modernized and reformed China, came to a screeching halt.
MARTIN SMITH:
David Shambaugh is a professor of US-China relations at George Washington University. He served in the State Department and the National Security Council during the Carter administration.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
I lived in China right after Tiananmen, in Beijing. That was severe. This was martial law. The city was occupied by military forces. There were roadblocks everywhere. Foreigners were monitored constantly. Chinese were monitored constantly, interrogated. So that was a really repressive period.
MALE READER:
In this morning’s news, the crackdown continues in China, where the government says it has arrested student leaders on its “most wanted” list.
MALE JOURNALIST:
One of them captured Zhou Fengsuo, a 22-year-old physics student. She reportedly reported him through her sister and brother-in-law.
MARTIN SMITH:
He reported that your sister reported you.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
It is government propaganda. I-
MARTIN SMITH:
It’s not true?
ZHOU FENGSUO:
This is true.
MARTIN SMITH:
Zhou says it was a party tactic to sow distrust among his family. Zhou Fengsuo was fifth on the party’s “most wanted” list and was thrown in prison for a year.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
When I was in prison, and then for about five years, the defense of the scholars, even after the massacre, was very strong. Even the police, the criminal guards identified that the scholars were right in their demands.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Today, the Beijing Intermediate Court publicly condemned the violent criminals who looted and vandalized the anti-revolutionary riots in Beijing.
MARTIN SMITH:
After the massacre, those photographs were smuggled out of China, proof of what happened to many protesters.
“Arsonist, executed by bullet. “
MARTIN SMITH:
To date, there is no definitive assessment of the number of people executed.
Footnote: After the Tiananmen crackdown, protesters opened fire on protesters and heard a serenade from a popular Chinese folk singer, Peng Liyuan. Two years earlier, Peng had married a young Communist Party official, Xi Jinping.
Xi has spoken publicly about the Tiananmen events.
He went silent?
ALFRED CHAN, Professor Emeritus, Huron University, Canada:
Yes. Nothing in the public record that I know of. In reality, this shows his cautious attitude as a provincial official. And he seeks advice from the center, seeking to gauge the intentions of the central government.
MALE SHOPPER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Once I have money, I’ll have this car.
CAR SELLER:
[Speaking Mandarin] I can reduce the back seat.
MARTIN SMITH:
After Tiananmen, China moved on.
MALE BUYER:
[Speaking Mandarin] You will be able to adjust the back seat.
MARTIN SMITH:
Under Deng Xiaoping, China’s unwritten, informal social contract stipulated that if you stay away from politics, we, the party, will make you rich.
FEMALE SHOPPER:
[Speaking Mandarin] See what this looks like?
MARTIN SMITH:
It is an agreement that many Chinese have accepted with protest.
The heir apparent
IAN JOHNSON, author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians:
We shouldn’t underestimate the amount of political control inside China. But at the same time, it’s also important to recognize that over the past 40 years, the government has done a good job in raising living standards.
MARTIN SMITH:
Ian Johnson is a journalist with a long history of reporting on China.
IAN JOHNSON:
And if you think that tomorrow is going to be a better day, that you’ve just bought a house, that your kid’s going to be able to go to college, that you’re going to be able to go abroad to travel, all of these things that have never been possible before for the vast majority of Chinese people, then you’ll hold your nose or say, “Well, the party isn’t doing such a bad job on balance,” and you’ll go with the flow.
MARTIN SMITH:
In the mid-1990s, the Chinese economy experienced historic growth.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:
Supporting China’s accession to the WTO represents the greatest opportunity we have ever had. . .
LINGLING WEI, The Wall Street Journal:
You know, after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the Chinese economy has gained abundant new momentum and more opportunities for individuals. And at that moment. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Lingling Wei, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, grew up the daughter of loyal Maoist parents. Her maternal grandfather was part of Mao’s inner circle. She remembers how under Deng, China became more open to Western culture.
LINGLING WEI:
We knew that China’s relationship with the United States was getting better.
MALE READER:
Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken has arrived in Beijing.
LINGLING WEI:
We were exposed to American pop culture. When I was a kid, one of my favorite shows was this American television series called “Growing Pains. ” I just enjoyed seeing how children can simply communicate with their parents.
“GROWING PAINS” CLIP:
I’m just friendly. What’s the matter?
LINGLING WEI:
I grew up with a lot of admiration for the United States. I wanted to go there. I was very curious about the United States Unidos. No only me, many of my classmates, many of my friends, the whole reformist generation had that kind of mentality toward America.
MARTIN SMITH:
China was most open to Western influence in the coastal provinces, where Deng Xiaoping lured foreign companies to invest, offering them tax incentives, flexible labor contracts and cheap real estate.
One of the fastest growing provinces was Fujian, where by 2000, Xi Jinping had become a provincial governor. He had earned a reputation for rooting out party corruption.
MALE JOURNALIST:
[Speaking Mandarin] Did those who were punished hate you?
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] They didn’t hold it against me. I think they understood I didn’t do this for myself, as I had nothing against them. I upheld justice.
MARTIN SMITH:
Beijing took notice, and in 2007 Xi got his big break. A corruption scandal in Shanghai led the old guard of the Communist Party to search for a new Shanghai party chief. Shanghai was the biggest and wealthiest city in China. Xi was brought in to address the fallout from a party secretary’s theft of pension funds.
Alfredo Chan:
The move to Shanghai marks a massive rise because the Shanghai party leader is still included among the 25-member summit of China’s forces. He chose because of his long experience in the coastal provinces, the most open, the most developed.
MARTIN SMITH:
In Shanghai, Xi excelled at eschewing lavish party perks, such as a personal leader, special doctors, luxury cars, and lavish housing, and after only seven months, he arrived in Beijing, where he catapulted himself to the Politburo Standing Committee. Jinping has become one of China’s nine most sensible leaders. He goes on his way.
At just 54 years old, party leaders saw Xi as flexible and cooperative. They did not expect a strong man.
In one of his first assignments as a committee member, Xi appointed director of the Central Party School in Beijing, a position he once held under Chairman Mao. This is where senior party officials are trained, and for Xi it is an early indicator of the leader he aspired to be.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] In July 2008, Xi Jinping issued a directive to the school’s teachers.
MARTIN SMITH:
Cai Xia training at the Central Party School at that time.
CAI XIA:
[Speaks Mandarin] Teachers will have to align their discourse with the spirit of the central leadership of the party. He threatened teachers that if they wanted to express themselves freely they would have to leave school and look for another job. Xi Jinping spoke like a mafia boss. For me, it was a harbinger of things to come.
MARTIN SMITH:
But few people in the West paid much attention, and in China, the country is preparing to celebrate its new riches. That year, China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics. The user who headed the Games preparation committee, Xi Jinping.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, Vice Chairman Xi Jinping inspected the Olympics facilities in Beijing this morning, making sure the Olympic transportation network and the Olympic Village are up to international standards.
ALFRED CHAN, author, Xi Jinping:
Xi Jinping actually was named the coordinator for the Olympics. Now, he had very little central government experience, and that was fairly tough, because he had to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Defense.
CHINESE NEWSREADER:
[Speaks Mandarin] During the Beijing Olympic Games, the People’s Liberation Army will mobilize parts of the army, army and air force to participate in Olympic security operations.
Alfredo Chan:
The Olympics were a way to slow down his probationary period.
MARTIN SMITH:
To see if he qualified for the top position.
ALFRED CHAN:
Exact. The Beijing Olympics are China’s coming-out party and everything has to be perfect.
CHINESE ADVERTISER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Many years of anticipation and seven years of preparation. Despite everything, the 29th Summer Olympic Games opened at the National Stadium in Beijing.
MARTIN SMITH:
No expense would be spared. At more than $40 billion, the Games were among the highs in history.
CHENJIAN LI, Professor, Peking University:
2008 was a spectacular Olympic Summer Game. It was great.
MARTIN SMITH:
Professor Chenjian Li is a neurologist at Peking University. We interviewed him while he was a visiting scholar at Stanford.
Were you in the stadium?
CHENJIAN LI:
Yes. I would say that is the highlight. There is a genuine feeling of joy. But it is not a nationalist joy. It went beyond that. Honestly. I think it’s more like what only Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony can describe. It’s so good.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping took the test. Better yet, he inherited a country in its heyday.
MATTHEW POTTINGER, Department of Homeland Security Advisor, 2019-21:
The Olympics were a major propaganda stunt for the Chinese Communist Party saying, “Look, we’re here. We’re a global power lately. ” Memory-
MARTIN SMITH:
Between 1998 and 2005, Matthew Pottinger worked as a journalist in China for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. He also served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.
Pottinger sees the 2008 Games as a key moment when the U.S.-China relationship shifted.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
They coincided with the global financial crisis, the first spark of which was lit in the United States.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Surprising on Wall Street tonight.
MALE READER:
At one point, the market collapsed like a well.
MALE READER:
The debt crisis and economic chaos could have a dangerous ripple effect.
MATEO POTTINGER:
So those two things juxtaposed in combination created a sense of elation about this idea that China was ahead of the United States.
LINGLING WEI:
Chinese leaders realized: “Wow, their formula that we once sought to emulate, at least economically, are now no longer our masters. ” There is a feeling that we are now equivalent to the United States.
CHENJIAN LI:
By that time, China had surpassed Germany, surpassed the United Kingdom, and then Japan. And, of course, every year it continues to grow until it becomes the largest economy of the moment.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy. We’ve seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed.
MALE JOURNALIST:
The collapse of Lehman Brothers caused turbulence in markets around the world.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Co-editor, The China Reader: The Reform Era:
The economic crisis made it look to people like Xi Jinping that history was moving on, the U.S. was in decline, China was on the rise. They could do just like the Great Powers had always done: “It’s our way or the highway.” And that was a very important moment that changed the relationship between China and the rest of the world, particularly the United States.
Papa Xi
MALE JOURNALIST:
The day had finally arrived. It was time to elect a president, the leader of the world’s most populous nation. But there was no discernible tension, no suspense. The election of the Chinese president had been decided months in advance.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 2012, Xi Jinping managed to make the party elite perceive that he was the man who would lead China into the future. He was elected general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a few months later became president.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] We must continuously achieve, maintain, develop the fundamental interests of the greatest number of people.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has tried to outwardly tame a symbol of the man from the rest of the world. His nickname: Papa Xi.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Who is this?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Call him grandpa!
YOUNG CHILD:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, Grandpa.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello.
LI YUAN:
When he took office, he presented himself as a generalized person. He introduced an attack of charm. He went to a restaurant that sells steamed rolls. And he said that he would not have traffic for his car, for his caravan.
MARTIN SMITH:
At first, this charm offensive worked. Many think Xi would be moderate.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
I think the illusions that existed were all that Westerners had about all Chinese leaders. “Is this the next Gorbachev?
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Continue to liberate your mind and insist on reform and opening up.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
Xi Jinping is no reformer. But nobody saw the repressive, dictatorial, control-freak, insecure leader that he has become. None of us saw that.
MARTIN SMITH:
A few months after he came to power, a secret memorandum, Document No. 9, appeared.
EDWARD WONG:
Document number nine is an internal party document in which Xi talks about the other subversive bureaucracy that could take a stand in China. He points the finger at civil society groups or NGOs and says they are harmful and subversive elements in China.
JIANYING ZHA, contributor to The New Yorker:
It’s stipulating a whole list of ideological restrictions, including the so-called universal values, which is a code word for Western constitutional rule and rule of law.
MARTIN SMITH:
The document is particular and calls on party members to renounce Western ideals such as constitutional democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and civil society. Party members will have to remain loyal to the Revolution.
Shortly after, a 71-year-old journalist, Gao Yu, was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison after allegedly leaking the document.
Xi has just started.
MALE NEWSREADER:
[Speaking in Mandarin] State television announced the news that 4 senior officials were fired for accepting bribes.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi had famously fought corruption in Shanghai, and now, as top leader, he launched a nationwide anti-corruption campaign.
MALE NEWSREADER:
. . . from high-level bureaucrats to junior employees. China nicknames them Tigers and Flies.
MARTIN SMITH:
Corruption was a real problem, but the scope and scale of Xi’s campaign took many by surprise.
MATEO POTTINGER:
Xi Jinping began to purge. And people at the time, including Chinese officials, said, “Well, look, this is going to be a six-month thing. He’s got to consolidate power.”
MALE JOURNALIST:
More than 80,000 Communist Party members have been investigated so far.
MATTHIEU POTTINGER:
It was 12 years ago. The purges not only continue, but have deepened in many ways. They now surround not only Xi’s enemies, but also purge many of his supporters.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Xi Jinping has just fired his Foreign Minister and his Defense Minister. He fired many other people at the most sensible levels of the military establishment.
FEMALE JOURNALIST:
The former security czar has not been seen in public for more than a year. The investigation—
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
Those were handpicked people by him—people that he had appointed. The historian Stephen Kotkin said, “Hitler used to kill his enemies, and Stalin killed his friends.” Xi is purging both his friends and his enemies. And that is the mode by which he governs.
MARTIN SMITH:
As Xi pressed harder, he watched for other threats. Today in China there are some six hundred million surveillance cameras, one for every two citizens, capable of following people’s movements up to the minute.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
There is facial recognition on each and every corner. There is virtual recognition. There is a social credit system.
MARTIN SMITH:
What is the social system?
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The social credit formula is, therefore, the highest aspiration of the Chinese Communist Party, which is that everything that each human being does is incorporated into a computer formula. And thanks to AI and all kinds of other complicated programs, you can find out exactly where a user is because they will have purchased anything with a credit car or a virtual payment formula. Your car will have driven on a highway. Every kilometer, a camera takes photographs of your license plate. They will know everything about each of them, in real time.
software demo
ORVILLE SCHELL:
So this creates a kind of a techno-autocratic system that’s unprecedented, and with which we’ve had no experience. It makes George Orwell look like something from the Stone Age.
MARTIN SMITH:
There is also a designated Ministry of Public Security tasked with monitoring the internet.
LI YUAN:
Xi Jinping came by force and created this Internet company. We were all thinking, “Ha ha ha, how can you access the Internet? The Internet is so massive, so vast. »
MARTIN SMITH:
Good luck.
LI YUAN:
Yes. And then he did it. He Internet.
MARTIN SMITH:
It’s part of the Great Firewall, a combination of legislation and technology used to regulate and block huge swaths of the internet. In China, there is no Google, or YouTube, or Facebook. When a meme comparing Xi to Winnie the Pooh went viral on Chinese social media, Xi Jinping was not amused. Censors banned any such comparisons.
“Cannot get image”
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] My articles and even my own have been banned from the Internet.
MARTIN SMITH:
When Cai Xia published an editorial calling for the coverage of individual rights, she was expelled from the party. He says he is already under surveillance 24 hours a day.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] They can see everything, as if I live in a fish tank with a lid, where I am just a small goldfish or an insect, obviously visible. But all my sounds, everything I say outside, can’t come out. He knew everything he did. That’s how I lived.
JIANYINGZHA:
There could be millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions who have negative thoughts about Xi or the system, but it’s very hard for them to mobilize to act together. Any direct, more confrontational, organized political movement will be zapped. The fear is almost a subliminal air that you breathe in.
Repression
MARTIN SMITH:
There has been significant resistance to Xi’s rule among huge ethnic minority groups. The resistance is concentrated in Xinjiang, home to 15 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities, many of whom feel they are not even part of predominantly Han China.
EDWARD WONG, The New York Times:
Xinjiang becomes one of the first situations of great demand for Xi’s force. Before Xi came into force in 2012, Xinjiang was a region where ethnic tensions had flared up. The party has tried another bureaucracy of control and, on rare occasions, very repressive measures, but has encountered resistance from other ethnic groups, namely Uyghur Muslims, who live in a belt of oasis cities basically along southern Xinjiang.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xinjiang was first taken over by China in the 18th century, but twice it broke away. Beijing has for decades tried to suppress Uyghur resistance to Chinese rule.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Headline News takes us to yesterday’s incident in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Blame it on the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Official statistics imply at least deaths and 38 injuries.
MARTIN SMITH:
In the months since Xi was president, China has been rocked by a series of attacks that the government says were carried out through Uyghurs.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The 9:20 p. m. news On March 1, 11 masked and uniformed rioters massacred innocent people in Kunming Station Square, Price Ticket and other areas.
MARTIN SMITH:
This violence escalated in the spring of 2014, when dozens of people were killed at an exercise station in southwestern China by Americans wielding machetes and long knives. The Chinese government blamed the attack on an organization of Uighur separatists.
CHINESE NEWS READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] By 6 a. m. on 2 March, 29 other folks had been killed and 130 injured.
MARTIN SMITH:
Several weeks after the incident, President Xi traveled to Xinjiang. As he wrapped up his visit, there was a suicide bombing and another knife attack at a train station in Xinjiang’s capital.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaks Mandarin] As a result of the bombing, around one hundred Uyghurs were arrested.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:
That is a trigger. Xi decided: “That’s it. We are not going to coddle those people. We are not going to try to find a solution. We will check it out. “And I think he’s referring to his toolbox, which he’s carried around since he was a teenager, which is, “How do you fix things?Control. ” This is their main tool.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi would return to Beijing and put into effect what the party called a “people’s war. “The concept of fighting separatism and extremism.
A terrifying directive has been sent to the local Xinjiang government, telling them how to separate families and start arresting Uyghurs en masse. The directive is clear: use the “organs of the dictatorship” and show “no mercy. “
These drone photographs appear to show the arrest of Uyghurs. It is estimated that more than one million have been arrested since 2017.
EDUARDO WONG:
Xi says we will have to assimilate Uyghurs and other ethnic teams into the dominant Han culture. And that means in his brain that elements of Islam will have to be eliminated or seriously weakened. Even more radical concepts are not taking root, but fundamental practices such as not eating pork, fasting during Ramadan, or attempting to make a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj are. So the very dominant Muslim practices want to be eliminated, that’s what he’s saying.
The central government is starting to set up those internment camps in parts of .
CHINESE CCTV ADVERTISER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Witness the transformation.
Uyghur SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] I can’t believe the consequences if I hadn’t studied here.
CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:
[Speaking Mandarin] One after another.
UIGUR SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] My skills have improved, my mind has improved.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Chinese government portrays the camps as a place for self-improvement—
CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Beautiful Xinjiang.
MARTIN SMITH:
—promote peace and in Xinjiang.
UIGUR MALE SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The company is stable. Ethnic teams are harmonious.
FEMALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party hit me just in time and gave me a position to replace me. I am very grateful.
STUDENTS OF THE EDUCATIONAL CENTER [in unison]:
[Speaking Mandarin] I am a law-abiding citizen.
CHINESE CCTV ADVERTISER:
[Speaking Mandarin] In the education center, the main focus is learning the national language.
EDWARD WONG:
They don’t need them to speak Uyghur. They need them to speak Mandarin Chinese. And families are separated. Therefore, it changes the foundations of Uyghur culture.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul Tursun was arrested at the airport when she returned to Xinjiang from her home country, Egypt. She returns to give her newborn triplets to her parents. Mihrigul says she was accused of being a spy and separated from her children.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
I asked them, “Where are my babies?” They are hungry. They have to replace diapers. The Chinese police never responded to me. But they asked me for the details of my family’s touch. Where is my family? Who was who? I was writing and suddenly some guy on my ass taped my mouth shut and I can’t talk. Then they put their hands on me, handcuffed me, and then put a black hood over my head. SO-
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul was held for several months without her children. When she was reunited, there were only two.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Then they gave me his body. Like ice cream. Do you know that you get ice cream outside? His body, made of ice.
MARTIN SMITH:
Is it cold?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Yeah, cold. Total ice. He said, “Sorry. He’s dead. You can take him now, his body.” So and then I said, “Wake up! Wake up!” And then I screamed. So that time, the doctor take the call, please, two police coming say, “Get out from here. Shut your mouth. Don’t scream. Don’t say anything. Just go out from this place.” Then they kicked me out from hospital.
MARTIN SMITH:
Later, she was arrested again. Mihrigul remembers spending time in three other camps.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
They don’t let me sleep. Then they shaved my head and gave me electrical appliances. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Electric shocks?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Yes, an electric shock. I saw nine other people die with me, together, in the same prison.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul’s account has been carried by multiple Western news outlets, and in 2018 she was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
[Speaking Uyghur] The police beat and some died as a result.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 2019, a Chinese government TV channel accused her of lying.
CGTN JOURNALIST:
Mihrigul Tursun claims that one of her triplets died, something the hospital categorically denies.
MARTIN SMITH:
They’re saying it’s all false. This is not true. You’ve seen these reports?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Yes, because they probably wouldn’t say it. They lie. This is one hundred percent true.
CGTN REPORTER:
Mihrigul’s brother and mother say:
MARTIN SMITH:
In the state television report, Mihrigul’s brother denounced her.
BROTHER OF MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
[Speaks Mandarin] My sister has never been to school or to the school. She made that up. It’s a lie.
MARTIN SMITH:
In fact, many other Uyghur men and women who have reported abuse have had family members testify against them. An investigation by the Uyghur Human Rights Project shows that the government is simply whitewashing the media. Meanwhile, the so-called re-educational camps continue to operate. The Chinese government says there has been no terrorism in Xinjiang since 2016.
JIA QINGGUO, Prof., Peking University:
Xinjiang is a factor that should be studied very carefully.
MARTIN SMITH:
Dr. Jia Qingguo is a prominent Chinese academic and government policy advisor who speaks on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. I interviewed him at a China convention in San Diego.
We had an attack on 9/11, but all Muslims in the United States were not forced into reeducation camps. Would that have made sense in the United States, in your view?
JIA QINGGUO:
But you fought two wars, against Iraq and against Afghanistan. How many other people were killed? In Xinjiang, China launches a large-scale crusade against terrorists. The Chinese government said this was all they had to do.
MARTIN SMITH:
They were taken from their homes.
JIA QINGGUO:
Taken from their homes, yeah.
MARTIN SMITH:
Placed in these camps. But all of those people were not terrorists.
JIA QINGGUO:
And they were not harmed in a physical way.
MARTIN SMITH:
But families were ripped apart.
JIA QINGGUO:
Uh—
MARTIN SMITH:
We spoke to a woman whose child was taken from her when he was just a few months old and never returned.
JIA QINGGUO:
I don’t know, maybe there are better ways of dealing with this issue. But then in the process, I think some of the human rights are violated. That cannot be avoided.
CHINESE VIDEO NARRATOR:
[Speaks Mandarin] At the Vocational Training Center there are skills courses, such as clothing, construction, food production. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
An estimated 80,000 detainees have been forced to paint in factories across China, with some supplying American brands. These companies have denied hard labor to Uyghurs, but forced hard labor continues for other manufacturers.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi decided, as he did after the economic crisis, that China did not want to give in to Western demands. What he is doing in Xinjiang is none of our business. Once he turned to it as a solution to a problem.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Everyone knows what Xi Jinping is doing. It is a very strong and tough country in this world.
MARTIN SMITH:
China is now a country.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
China is a rich country. But he is very weak. He just believes—He thinks he’s rich, his money, but no. Money cannot be everything.
The Trade War
MARTIN SMITH:
Over the last 40 years China’s economic growth has been eclipsing that of the United States, growing at an average rate four times faster. China dominates global supply chains, and it holds nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt.
VICTOR GAO:
China is a peer country with the United States today. If we use purchasing power parity, its economy is larger than the U.S. economy. And if anyone believes that they can stop China’s steady rise as an economy, it’s probably indulging in fantasy.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
What I have to do is confront China economically. Because China has been letting us down for many years. Someone had to do it. I am the selected one. Someone had to do it. So I deal with China.
MARTIN SMITH:
Indeed, Donald Trump’s predecessors applied measures to China’s industrial practices.
ACTIVE DONALD:
They take our things. They are taking our jobs. They manufacture our product.
MARTIN SMITH:
But in 2016, Trump made China a major factor in his campaign.
Donald Trump:
Because we continue to allow China to rape our country. And that’s what they do. This is the biggest robbery in world history.
MARTIN SMITH:
Days before Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Xi sought to make sure the new president knew where he stood on trade. He issued a warning from his podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Following a protectionist economic policy is like locking yourself in a dark room. Although wind and rain can escape outside, they also block light and air. No one will win in an industrial war.
MARTIN SMITH:
Less than three months later, Xi would fly to Mar-a-Lago to visit the waters.
MALE READER:
The most important foreign meeting ever hosted by President Trump, greeting the leader of the country he once called an enemy.
MARTIN SMITH:
Behind the scenes, Trump’s advisers argued for new measures.
H. R. McMASTER, National Security Advisor, 2017-2018:
President Trump understood that we had not been able to compete with China, and I because of his business experience. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Gen. H.R. McMaster served as President Trump’s National Security Advisor.
HR McMASTER:
One of the words he used periodically with Xi Jinping was to say: “I don’t blame you, I blame us. ” So I think this summit made it clear to the surprised Xi Jinping that the Trump administration is determined to compete. and stop following this kind of wrong strategy of cooperation and compromise.
ACTIVE DONALD:
I don’t blame China, I blame our leadership. They should have never let that happen.
MATTHIEU POTTINGER:
I wrote a long draft strategy, maybe 12 pages, in a sense, but I started by saying how many of our assumptions were wrong.
MARTIN SMITH:
Matthew Pottinger, one of the architects of Trump’s China strategy.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
One of the things I’ve learned over the years, first as a journalist and then working in national security in China, is that the more comfortable China feels, the more comfortable the Chinese Communist Party leaders are, the more competitive and competitive they are. . greater their ambitions. And I really think that a more confrontational approach, anything that is more reminiscent of key periods of the Cold War, is what we deserve to consider now as an example. It is necessary for the enemy to be concerned about what one might do.
MARTIN SMITH:
The first item on the calendar is to crack down on China’s efforts to borrow intellectual assets from Western companies.
H.R. McMASTER:
The CEOs of our largest and most successful corporations would come to me and say, “Let me tell you, our company is a victim of the Chinese Communist Party’s economic aggression. And they would tell the story of the forced transfer of intellectual properties.
MARTIN SMITH:
In other words, you can’t do business here without telling us your secrets.
HR McMASTER:
Exactly. And then also the false promises of access to the Chinese market. As soon as they rip off your intellectual property and pick a state champion to produce those goods at an artificially low price because of the subsidies, they close you out of their domestic market. And then guess what? They dump that hardware and equipment on the international market and drive you out of business internationally.
MALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaking Mandarin] This generation claim has no basis in fact.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Chinese government has denied stealing intellectual property. And Xi Jinping has ordered his diplomats to exploit, quote, “their fighting spirit” by adopting Trump’s more competitive communication style.
MALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaks Mandarin] [The United States] deserves to have more confidence in itself and compete with other countries.
JOHN BOLTON, National Security Advisor, 2018-19:
They were unleashing what they themselves called “wolf warrior” diplomacy. And, frankly, it was reprehensible.
MARTIN SMITH:
John Bolton, another national security adviser to President Trump.
JOHN BOLTON:
But, in a way, I think it was beneficial that they did that. They took the mask off. There’s no more concealing what their ambitions were.
Donald Trump:
Sixty thousand factories in our country, closed, closed, gone. At least six million jobs have disappeared.
MARTIN SMITH:
Trump exaggerates, but less than a year after welcoming Xi to the United States, Trump is in a position to take off his own mask.
ASSET DONALD:
So we have spoken to China and we are in the middle of a very negotiation. We’ll see where this takes us. But in the meantime, we are filing a Section 301 action. I’m going to signal it here, right now.
MARTIN SMITH:
He fired the first shot in a war that was coming and would last for years.
Donald Trump:
This is number one, but this is the first of many.
FEMALE READER:
Trade war worries igniting after the president signed this order to slap tough tariffs on China.
MARTIN SMITH:
It has 10% prices on Chinese aluminum, 30% on solar panels and electric vehicles, 25% on metal, and almost everything else made in China.
FEMALE READER:
Not surprisingly, China’s not happy, already threatening retaliation.
FEMALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaking Mandarin] This habit in the United States is typical industrial harassment. China will definitely take mandatory countermeasures to resolutely defend its valid rights and interests.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:
What China has done is move its exports to other countries and also move its imports from other countries. Thus, the acquisition of soybeans, for example, from the United States has moved to Brazil. Therefore, it is not a useful policy.
MALE NEWSREADER:
President Trump just imposed price lists on another $200 billion in Chinese exports. . .
MALE READER:
– triggering the largest industrial war in economic history.
MARTIN SMITH:
Trump’s trade war would consume the remainder of his presidency.
FEMALE READER:
China is now retaliating by imposing price lists on American exports.
MARTIN SMITH:
After several tariff increases, the industrial war, which continued under the Biden administration, widened the industrial deficit.
MALE READER:
The industry’s deficit soared to a record $891 billion.
MARTIN SMITH:
The costs have also led to a decline in U. S. manufacturing jobs.
MALE NEWSREADER:
. . . destroyed the in the United States. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Intellectual property theft continued, and the costs imposed by tariffs were simply passed along to consumers of imported products.
And now Trump has promised to impose even higher tariffs once he is back in office.
The price lists were established because China’s economic policies were hurting American factories and workers.
JIA QINGGUO:
It is a trust by other people in the United States, especially members of the Trump administration.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Biden administration has even extended those.
JIA QINGGUO:
But speaking privately, many do agree with this type of policy. So that? Because it hurts the American economy.
MARTIN SMITH:
There’s the argument. . .
JIA QINGGUO:
You have maximum inflation. Where do you get it? Partly because of those prices.
Xi’s China Dream
CHINESE READER:
Headline: For the first time since taking office, all seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee appeared together at a cultural event led by Xi Jinping.
MARTIN SMITH:
Beyond his repressive measures and industrial wars with the United States, Xi has greater ambitions for China’s standing in the world, all of which he revealed even before assuming the presidency, just after being named party general secretary in 2012.
CHINESE NEWSREADER:
The seven leaders visited the great “Road to Revival” exhibition.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Remember, when Xi Jinping came to power, the first thing he did was lead the Politburo across Tiananmen Square to the National Museum, where there is an exhibition about the humiliations of China’s past.
CHINESE READER:
During the presentation, the party leaders reviewed the other ancient stages that the country has gone through.
MARTIN SMITH:
Six leaders have succeeded one another since Mao Zedong. But at the exhibition, Xi made clear his loyalty to Mao.
SUSAN-CHIRK:
There were shots of Deng Xiaoping and all that, which I normally ignored, and. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Susan Shirk served as an assistant deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration.
SUSAN-CHIRK:
It’s as if he needs Deng’s legacy, which of course was to institutionalize a governing formula in China that would be more responsive as society modernized.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] The other Chinese never gave up and continued to fight. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
In the Great Hallway, he delivered a speech and laid out his vision––now known as the China Dream.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] – and we, despite everything, take control of our own destiny. We are closer now than at any other time in history. The dream of the wonderful rejuvenation of the Chinese country will come true.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Author, Mandate of Heaven:
And what he told everyone was that his greatest calling was to return China to a position of foreign greatness. This did not only mean the greatness of advertising. This meant a position of political greatness, of military grandeur, to give substance to the old imperial empire that had occupied many peripheral territories, adding Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, Mongolia and Taiwan. Xi needs to repair China into his largest state. So this is, in fact, the roadmap to the Chinese dream.
MARTIN SMITH:
A key strategy to expand China’s strength is to expand it over the South China Sea. During his presidency, Xi has intensified those efforts.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The South China Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Japan and Korea are totally dependent on it. Therefore, it is not a minor matter who controls this waterway. And China claims that everything from the Strait of Malacca to the Chinese coast to Taiwan is ours.
HR McMASTER:
These are the waters through which a third of the global maritime industry passes. What China has done to make its claims true is commit a lot of ecological destruction and build those synthetic islands.
MARTIN SMITH:
The same year that Xi became president, China began building artificial islands on top of seven coral reefs in the South China Sea. The man-made islands covered almost five square miles.
HR McMASTER:
And then they dredge coral reefs to build islands, and then they claim that those islands were just for research, environmental research. And then, of course, the landing strips appeared, then the fortifications appeared, then the missile batteries appeared.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] The South China Sea islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has repeatedly pledged he would not militarize the islands he had built.
XIJINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] China’s structural activities in the Spratly Islands are destined to be militarized.
MARTIN SMITH:
But after assurances, monitoring shows that there are not only runways for fighter jets, but also deep-water ports capable of docking warships.
HR McMASTER:
The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of lies in its face and you can’t take what they say at face value. What they did was very promising and not only did they not fulfill anything, but they intensified their competitive actions.
MARTIN SMITH:
In addition to the Chinese coast guard and navy, giant fleets of civilian ships have been sent through Beijing to patrol the waters of the South China Sea. They surround and harass ships from other countries such as the Philippines, ramming and firing at them with high-speed water cannons.
FEMALE READER:
The water cannon attack lasted for almost an hour, with the force of the water causing damage to the railing and canopy of the Philippine vessel. The latest incident of Chinese aggression is expected to further escalate tensions—
EDWARD WONG, author of On the Borders of Empire:
This happens very far from China, in waters near the Philippines. There are warnings from Washington that say: “We are the best friend of the Philippines. We have a mutual defense clause in our treaty. We have to get out of this. ” But China is not aware of this at the moment.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Achieving complete reunification of the motherland is the common aspiration of all Chinese sons and daughters. [We have] enhanced the national awareness and patriotic spirit of Hong Kong—
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping is also Hong Kong.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] — [so that Hong Kong] can share in the glory, prosperity and strength of the motherland.
MARTIN SMITH:
A major port on the South China Sea—one of the busiest in the world—Hong Kong has become the financial capital of Asia.
ANNA KWOK:
Hong Kong was the gateway of a lot of businesses entering the Chinese market, and we were that international financial hub essentially connecting the Chinese market with the Western market. And a lot of that legacy still stays today.
MARTIN SMITH:
Anna Kwok grew up in Hong Kong and was born in 1997, the year Britain returned Hong Kong to China.
What is the promise they made to you?
ANNA KWOK:
The promise was high autonomy in Hong Kong. That we would have what is essentially called “one country, two systems,” meaning that even though we are supposedly part of China, Hong Kong would have its own system, its own governance, its own autonomy, and the people of Hong Kong have their own way of living.
CARLOS, PRINCE OF WALES:
Britain is proud of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong people.
MARTIN SMITH:
In fact, China has promised that “one country, two systems” will be in place for part of a century.
JOEY SIU:
In the eyes of Xi Jinping, you cannot be an obedient citizen, you cannot be an obedient people when you live under another system, another government structure.
MARTIN SMITH:
Joey Siu also grew up in Hong Kong. He came of age in the so-called Umbrella Revolution of 2014.
MALE READER:
In the streets, a sea of umbrellas, of an ongoing mass demonstration in Hong Kong.
FEMALE READER:
The demonstrators, mostly students, do not find democracy in general easy. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Calling for free and fair elections, protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from pepper spray and surveillance cameras.
FEMALE READER:
—fighting to maintain its freedom.
MARTIN SMITH:
For Joey Siu, protest is a component of being Hong Kong.
JOEY SIU:
Maybe you just see protests, other people fighting for other rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. Growing up, what the promise made to the other Hong Kongers meant to me was this freedom of speech, this freedom to come together, to say whatever you want. Being lazy to criticize the government or the government.
MARTIN SMITH:
But in 2019 things will change. Local governments in Hong Kong began restricting civil liberties. Senior party officials approved the decision.
PROTESTERS:
[Chanting in Cantonese] Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong. Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution now.
MARTIN SMITH:
It began with a law that allowed the Beijing government to extradite Hong Kongers to China. Around a million people took to the streets, defying President Xi. It is a surprising display of public anger toward his presidency.
PROTESTERS:
[Speaking Cantonese] Run, run, run!
ANNA KWOK:
I think that 2019 really was a nail in the coffin. I think Xi Jinping—
MARTIN SMITH:
Anna Kwok became a prominent underground activist that year, leading operations out of Hong Kong.
ANNA KWOK:
Even though Hong Kongers were all out on the streets, millions of them, even though the entire international community showed support, Xi was not afraid to say, “No, we’re not giving you the freedoms and rights you deserve.” And he was not afraid to employ police violence against us. The government is just not worried about optics at all.
PROTESTERS:
[Speaking Cantonese] Water cannon truck is coming! Move, move!
ANNA KWOK:
They don’t care.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
However, Xi Jinping is very astute. Some idea that he could just march foot soldiers across the border and take Hong Kong in the middle of all the protests. He didn’t do that. Wait. And then he passed a national security law and they locked everyone up slowly and quietly.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping’s national security gave China a broad legal framework to deal with protesters. Collusion, subversion, and secession are criminalized.
Joey Siu on the front lines, facing tear gas daily and risking arrest.
JOEY SIU:
I believe it is almost a consensus among Hong Kongers that eventually the Chinese communist regime would try to take over Hong Kong and turn Hong Kong into just another mainland city. But I think what surprised Hong Kongers and the international society was how fast that was being done.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] One county, two systems is a great innovation never seen before.
MARTIN SMITH:
Throughout his presidency, Xi has been confident of being committed to Hong Kong’s autonomy.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is in Hong Kong’s interest. This will not change. Unwavering.
MATEO POTTINGER:
In 2020, Beijing subverted the 50-year guarantee it had made to honor Hong Kong’s “high degree of autonomy. “He brought that agreement to its knees.
JOHN BOLTON:
I think Hong Kong is an excellent example of where China is. They abandoned the policy of one country, two systems. They began to suppress economic and political freedom. And now they are blurring the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China. Indeed, seeing Hong Kong destroyed in this way is one of the greatest tragedies of our time.
JOEY SIU:
Since the implementation of the national security law, a 17-year-old student now faces between 10 years and prison.
MARTIN SMITH:
Since the 2019 protests, Joey Siu is now a dissident operating from the United States, like Anna Kwok. In 2023, Hong Kong police held press meetings offering rewards for the arrest of women.
You have a circle of relatives who are still in Hong Kong.
ANNA KWOK:
Yes.
MARTIN SMITH:
What will be your destiny?
ANNA KWOK:
A month after the reward was released against me, last August, they were questioned by the police.
MARTIN SMITH:
What did they ask for?
ANNA KWOK:
I have no idea, because I’m in contact with them, and. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Are you in contact with your family?
ANNA KWOK:
No, and it suits them. Oh my God, I’m going to cry. Yes.
MARTIN SMITH:
Can’t your mother?
ANNA KWOK:
No.
MARTIN SMITH:
Or your siblings?
ANNA KWOK:
No. And I think that’s the toughest strategy the regime has on people. It’s about breaking up the trust and breaking up the human connections you have with each other so that you cannot have that power and that connection you need to keep fighting the fight. Because at the end of the day, it’s about fighting for people you love, right? And once that connection is gone, you lose that motivation. So I think that’s what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing, for decades, actually, to various communities that have been trying to fight for freedom.
Pending matters
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] From Beijing, I make my New Year’s wishes bigger to everyone.
MARTIN SMITH:
On New Year’s Eve 2023, President Xi addressed the nation.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] We are going to be this year like a year of hard paintings and perseverance.
MARTIN SMITH:
While celebrating China’s many achievements that year, he made a notable reference to Taiwan.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] The reunification of the homeland is inevitable. Compatriots from both sides of the Taiwan Strait deserve to unite and participate in the wondrous glory of national rejuvenation.
MARTIN SMITH:
His comments on Taiwan were more direct than in previous years. They intervened in Taiwan’s presidential election season and continually reminded Xi that Taiwan is out of step with China. Today, Taiwan is a colorful democracy and its capital, Taipei, is one of the richest. Asian cities. But Xi has made clear that one of the central goals of his China Dream is to reunify Taiwan with mainland China. This is a position the party has maintained since it came to power in 1949.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, now a bastion of nationalist China. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
That same year, America’s best friend, Chiang Kai-shek, fled to the island and established an independent government. For Beijing, this is unacceptable and the challenge has worsened since then.
VICTOR GAO, Prof., Soochow University:
Taiwan is the direct result of an unfinished civil war. Very simple. There is only one China, with Taiwan being part of China.
MARTIN SMITH:
The problem is that the Taiwanese people made it clear in their elections that they do not want reunification with mainland China.
VICTOR GAO:
The future of Taiwan is not to be decided by the local residents in Taiwan themselves.
MARTIN SMITH:
Why shouldn’t these people have the right to self-determination?
VICTOR GAO:
In the end, Taiwan’s prestige will depend solely on the other peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, adding up Taiwan’s 23 million people, as well as mainland China’s 1. 4 billion people.
MARTIN SMITH:
Taiwan was on the agenda when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made their groundbreaking trip to China in 1972.
MALE JOURNALIST:
History in the making. The first American president to set foot on Chinese soil.
MARTIN SMITH:
But mainly they were there to explore how China can simply be a better friend in the face of America’s archenemy, the Soviet Union.
WINSTON LORD, U. S. Ambassador to China, 1985-89:
Kissinger asked me to accompany him to the meeting. I had taken notes and he was relieved to have to take notes.
MARTIN SMITH:
A young aide to Kissinger, Winston Lord, was on the trip. He found that Mao was willing to engage on Taiwan, but Mao was also wary of Soviet power and seemed more interested in exploring a U.S. alliance. Taiwan got pushed down the list.
MR. WINSTON:
At the summit, Mao would outline China’s basic position. He said the Taiwan factor could only take a hundred years. This is another way of saying that Taiwan is vital to us: we will maintain our principle, but we will not have it for a while.
MARTIN SMITH:
After a week of negotiations, Taiwan’s prestige was still up in the air. Nixon called Taiwan “irritating. ” His handwritten personal notes reveal that Nixon was willing to compromise. “Our policy is one China,” he wrote. Taiwan is part of China. I don’t want Taiwan independence.
This is called the one-China policy. Nixon identified Taiwan as officially part of China. At the same time, Nixon and Kissinger defended Taiwan’s right to autonomy. It is a commitment.
LORD OF WINSTON:
As for the Taiwan express factor, of course, we had to make a move, and we ended up with a one-China formula that is elastic and elusive and has served to this day. Both parties, over seven, eight or nine presidents, have used this formula to keep our relations with China ambiguous on a sensitive issue and, at the same time, to help protect Taiwan’s autonomy.
MARTIN SMITH:
The arrangement has remained relatively stable. In 1979, President Carter attempted to strengthen America’s commitment to Taiwan, signing into law the Taiwan Relations Act, which stipulated that the U.S. promised to maintain the capacity to aid Taiwan.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:
The citizens of Taiwan will be safe.
MARTIN SMITH:
But what does this mean exactly? Politics is intentionally and strategically ambiguous. because there have been incidents between the United States and China. The planes crashed over the South China Sea in 2001, and both countries blamed the other.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
This twist of fate threatens to undermine our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries.
MARTIN SMITH:
But the extent of tensions over Taiwan is new.
Translation of news from heaven
MALE VOICE [translating Xi]:
We will continue to make every effort for non-violent reunification, but we never promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option to take all mandatory measures. Full reunification will need to be achieved, and it certainly can be achieved.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Company:
I think Taiwan is the next great danger in the world. Even in this era where the United Nations proclaims self-determination is a high principle, if Scotland wants to leave the U.K. or Quebec wants to leave Canada. But China has a more old-fashioned view of sovereignty. “We claim it. It’s ours. Get off our ranch. Don’t get in the way.”
MARTIN SMITH:
China’s military drills over Taiwan airspace are a regular reminder of the possibility of a real war. In early 2023, a memo from U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan to his subordinates circulated online that flatly gave a date for when Xi would invade. “I hope I am wrong,” it read. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
“My gut tells me we will reach China in 2025. ” You reacted negatively to this. Do you think. . .
COLIN KAHL, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 2021-23:
Yes. Well, first of all, anyone who says they know when Xi Jinping will invade Taiwan doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Because Xi Jinping doesn’t know the date.
MARTIN SMITH:
Colin Kahl is a former National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden and former under secretary for policy at the Pentagon. While he disputes the 2025 date, Kahl and other U.S. military analysts, as well as the CIA, are wary of Xi’s near-term intentions.
Xi has made some statements about the urgency and—
COLIN KAHL:
He did it, and the date that top analysts comment on is 2027. This is the date that Xi Jinping gave his army to have the ability to do it. Now, this ability does not mean that they will manifest it. Just because he gives them the assignment doesn’t mean they will complete it.
MARTIN SMITH:
But Taiwan’s military doesn’t want to tempt fate.
ROC ARMY SPEAKER:
We have imagined various scenarios that the enemy would adopt and we have plans to weaken or even weaken those invading forces.
MARTIN SMITH:
In July 2023, I traveled here to watch the Taiwanese military rehearse how to repel an imaginable Chinese invasion.
So this is one of the beaches where you expect the PLA to—
ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON:
Yes, that is correct. We hope that this position is the most sensible on the list for the EPL. As you can see, we’re here, and that’s where Taipei is to the east, and. . . That would be bad for us.
MARTIN SMITH:
So you want Xi Jinping to see what you’re doing.
ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON:
Yeah.
ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON 2:
[Speaking Cantonese] For our media friends, on the shoreline is our navy’s Landing Tank Group.
MARTIN SMITH:
This beach is one of 14 landing sites that the Taiwanese military has potentially called for Chinese amphibious and air strikes.
LOVE. SAMUEL PAPARO, Commander, U. S. Forces, Indo-Pacific:
The Taiwan Strait is a complicated crossing: 20-foot tide, 3-mile mudflat, suitable for crossing only 3 or 4 months a year.
MARTIN SMITH:
I spoke with Admiral Sam Paparo, commander of all US forces in the Indo-Pacific, about the feasibility of a successful Chinese takeover.
SAMUEL PAPARO:
It is difficult to reach population centers.
MARTIN SMITH:
It is mountainous.
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
Mountainous and canalizing terrain, as we call it, which means very few passes, which can simply be closed without problems.
ROC ARMY SOLDIER:
[Cantonese speaking] Each training is based on tests and the enemy’s maximum probable movements. We are showing that we will do everything we can to protect our country.
MARTIN SMITH:
Are we more likely to go to war with Taiwan?
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
The probability is low, but the consequences are so serious that I owe them all the urgency I can muster. The effect of a spiraling war would eclipse World War II, which is why we seek to maintain the prestige quo. We seek to save you conflicts.
Xi Jinping believes that the unification of Taiwan is existential for the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
MARTIN SMITH:
They have been doing well for reunification for more than 70 years. So what makes this existential?
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
I don’t know. I hope he grants you an interview and tells you.
MARTIN SMITH:
Admiral Paparo says that in his opinion, Xi Jinping and China see Taiwan as an existential issue. That it will have to be unified. So that?
JIA QINGGUO:
You have no right to separate the land from your homeland. Just like in the United States, you don’t automatically have this right. You have to stick to the procedures, right? Like in Texas, if they need to become independent, you can’t just hold a plebiscite in Texas. You will need to download approval from other states. Alright? It’s provided for in the constitution, okay? Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan has never been separated.
MARTIN SMITH:
More than ever, a successful Chinese takeover of Taiwan threatens global stability.
COLIN KAHL:
If China takes Taiwan, talking about an island that produces 70% of all the world’s semiconductors and 90% of the high-end chips that force the most complex technologies we all have in our pockets, our iPhones and laptops.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The world needs this technology. Europe needs it, Japan, we all need it. And nobody else does it the way Taiwan does.
MARTIN SMITH:
China also relies on Taiwanese chips. A war destroying Taiwan’s chip industry could give Xi pause.
It is also in Ukraine. In 2022, when Putin invaded the country, President Xi took note.
FEMALE JOURNALIST:
Ukraine celebrates an anniversary of infamy: two years after Vladimir Putin introduced his war. . .
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think Xi is watching Ukraine very closely, because the parallels with Taiwan, while not complete, are disturbing. And Ukraine is the most productive deterrent against Xi doing anything related to Taiwan.
MALE REPORTER:
People thought that this invasion would last for several weeks and that Russia would succeed. But the Ukrainians fought valiantly. They continue to fight.
COLIN KAHL:
I don’t think Xi Jinping is satisfied with the war in Ukraine. He certainly detected the quality of American intelligence on Russia. And you’re going to have to ask yourself, “Well, my God, if they know this about Russia, what do they know about me?” So if you’re counting on wonders, off Taiwan or the South China Sea, I think you’ll have to calculate that the chances of achieving a strategic wonder are lower than before because of the quality of American intelligence.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has denied that he will invade Taiwan in the near future, but regularly orders the military to move into Tiananmen Square to demonstrate China’s readiness and power.
Video surveillance
EDUARDO WONG:
One of the things that has been very consistent about Xi is his alignment of his identity with the Chinese military. I’m in the crowd across from him, and—
MARTIN SMITH:
Ed Wong witnessed several of these spectacles.
EDWARD WONG:
It is very typical of this imperial occasion where the leader of this wonderful nation, of this wonderful power, surrounds himself with other people who come to pay homage to him and to pay homage to China as a military power. And he goes out in a car, state off the sunroof, up and down those rows of troops.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades.
PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, President!
EDWARD WONG:
We see things like ICBMs on platforms. And all this shows the strength of the Chinese army.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Job done.
PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:
[Speaking Mandarin] At the service of the people!
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s rapid buildup of China’s military capacity has prompted the U.S. to send more weapons to Taiwan. Given the stakes, President Biden has been consistent and straightforward.
SCOTT PELLEY, “60 Minutes”:
To be clear, sir, U. S. forces, whether male or female, would attack Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:
Yes.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH, author of Where the Great Powers Meet:
President Biden has unambiguously declared four times, “The United States will protect Taiwan. “No American president has ever said that, and no American president has this responsibility. The Taiwan Relations Act says nothing about the U. S. defense of Taiwan. He says that if coercive measures were used through mainland China in opposition to Taiwan, it would be, quote, “serious concern” for the United States.
MARTIN SMITH:
Now is what the new Trump administration will do?
You have worked for Donald Trump. If China invades more Taiwan, will Donald Trump, who preaches “America First”, go to war against Taiwan?
H. R. McMASTER, author of At War With Ourselves:
You know, I’m not sure, and the fact that I’m not sure would possibly be a bad thing, because as long as it’s ambiguous, as long as it doesn’t say, “Hey, no, I’m not sure. “”I’m going to do something to Taiwan. ” And I think it’s also vital that we don’t make promises that we may not be able to stay if Congress doesn’t authorize the military’s action.
JIA QINGGUO:
I don’t think we deserve to fight until Taiwan becomes independent. But Taiwan is not separate from China. Why does it deserve China to use force?If it is a national problem, we will solve it peacefully.
MARTIN SMITH:
As I take stock of Xi – his ambitions, his deceptions, his human rights abuses and his threats against Taiwan – I wonder what US policy will be. So far, little has been done to prevent China’s moves in the South China Sea or Hong Kong, or to reduce tension in Taiwan.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think the compromise was a smart thing to do, and it was a wonderful triyete for American international relations over nine presidential administrations, with the perhaps naïve hope that China would not transform into a Jeffersonian democracy, but that it would become less hostile. It was a clever diplomatic effort. Not yet. And the commitment is over. Can we now start over?I think that with Xi Jinping this is probably impossible.
the future
FEMALE READER:
For decades, the growth of China’s economy was described as a miracle, fueling the rise of a new and massive middle class. But these are less confident days for most of China.
MARTIN SMITH:
Despite Xi Jinping’s grip on power, his China is invincible.
FEMALE READER:
And much of that middle class—
MARTIN SMITH:
In years, the economy has weakened. Growth has slowed.
FEMALE READER:
. . . through a real real estate crisis.
MARTIN SMITH:
The housing boom has turned into a housing glut, with tens of millions of empty homes scattered across the country. It is also aging, but as more young Chinese attend job fairs, they face a staggering unemployment rate, estimated at 25%. Foreign investments are fleeing the country.
MALE READER:
The Chinese economy is heading for a steeper slowdown than the current one.
LINGLING WEI, author, Superpower Showdown:
It’s heartbreaking. Every time I talk to my friends in China, I have never felt this feeling of hopelessness before. People are just very concerned about the direction the country is going.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
The Chinese are having a gloomy month. . .
IAN JOHNSON:
I think Xi Jinping has taken the economy for granted for most of the last ten years. He had the idea that it didn’t matter as much as ideology, but it controlled the way people thought and suppressed dissent.
MARTIN SMITH:
When COVID hit China, Xi’s lockdown policy sparked mass protests, the largest anti-government demonstrations since Tiananmen Square.
PROTESTER:
[Speaking Mandarin] We need freedom, COVID testing!
MALE READER:
Millions of citizens aspire to escape from just about 3 years of intermittent confinement.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Containment has a type of lock. And it’s no secret, if you tell others in Chinese cities that have been locked down, what a nightmare it has been.
MALE READER:
In the central town of Wuhan they break the fence that kept them in quarantine.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
But it’s also kind of an excellent metaphor for the way a Leninist formula gets things done: control.
MARTIN SMITH:
Because the government forbade overt messaging, protesters began holding up blank pieces of paper as symbols of China’s strict censorship.
MALE READER:
The White Paper Movement is spreading. First it was all about opposition to China’s strict zero-COVID policy, but in recent days the message has morphed, touching the rawest of political nerves.
PROTESTER:
Freedom!
CROWD:
[Singing in Mandarin] Freedom of expression!
ZHOU FENGSUO, co-founder of Humanitarian China:
This motion in the White Paper has been a very exciting moment. I heard those young people shouting, “Put an end to the CCP. “
CROWD:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down! Communist Party, step down!
ZHOU FENGSUO:
And this is the first time that public protests have forced the CCP to follow its policies.
PROTESTER:
Xi Jinping!
CROWD:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down!
PROTESTER:
Xi Jinping!
CROWD:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down!
LI YUAN:
But many of the protesters paid huge prices. And they were harassed and they were locked up. Because still for many Chinese, Xi Jinping is a name you cannot say. You cannot speak out.
CROWD:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down! Step down! Step down!
LI YUAN:
The 0 COVID policy has many Chinese.
PROTESTER:
Xi Jinping!
CROWD:
[Singing in Mandarin] End of lockdown in Xinjiang!
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think the protests over the White Paper have shown precisely how latent those forces, those dissident forces, are beneath the surface of things.
PROTESTER:
[Speaks Mandarin] The Chinese have human rights.
CREW:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Chinese people have human rights, too.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Having watched China for so many decades, these forces are there and they keep coming up again and again and again, and they actually grow and multiply under repression. But right now, China has affected a kind of a techno-autocracy that makes it more difficult than ever to have these kinds of manifestations, because the cost is so high.
MARTIN SMITH:
Today, Xi seeks to find a path forward that balances the desire to revive China’s economy.
IAN JOHNSON:
Xi Jinping thought that he could have it both ways—clamp down and still have economic growth. But the recipe for success, that you had to unshackle society in order for things to move forward, has now been abandoned. If China continues their policies, which I think they will, you’re going to have longer-term slower growth, and that’ll lead to more tensions at home. So I think we’re in for a rockier time.
EDWARD WONG:
Even though Xi feels that engagement with the outside world might be necessary to jumpstart the economy again, I think at the current moment he has made the other choice. He has chosen to go down the route of consolidating power, the route of nationalism.
MARTIN SMITH:
Then take the darker path.
EDUARDO WONG:
For now, he’s taking the darkest path.
Mihrigul Tursun immigrated to the United States with his two children in 2018.
Her husband joined them in 2023.
Zhou Fengsuo now lives in the United States.
He has made several secret trips to China, in support of fellow activists.
Cai Xia now lives in exile in the United States.
She was expelled from the Communist Party after she compared Xi to a mafia boss.
In November 2024, a Hong Kong court convicted forty-five pro-democracy activists of subversion of state authority.
He was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
In 2018, Xi abolished term limits, allowing him to be president for life.