Sinocism Live

On Wednesday June 25th I hosted a discussion with Lisa Hanson and Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners about the China video game market and how Chinese game firms are going global This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Thanks to everyone who joined the live discussion today.This is a recording of a June 9th, 2025 Sinocism Live conversation with Tu Le, Founder and Managing Director of Sino Auto Insights.We had a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the EV market in China, the recent BYD price cuts,Tesla’s China prospects, autonomous driving and the prospects for legacy car makers globally.If you are interested in EVs, China and globally, you should sign up for the free weekly Sino Auto Insights newsletter.Thanks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

I joined Jonathan V. Last on his show at The Bulwark to chat about China and the Trump Administration. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Thanks to everyone who joined the live discussion tonight.This is a recording of a March 20th, 2025 Sinocism Live conversation with Jonathan Czin, now the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and before that was for many years at the CIA as one of the US intelligence community’s top China experts. He was director for China at the National Security Council from 2021 to 2023, where he staffed all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi.I learned a lot from Jonathan Czin in this conversation and I think you will too. His recent work:What Beijing wants from a US-China trade war - BrookingsBurying Deng: Xi Jinping and the Abnormalization of Chinese Politics - China Leadership MonitorThoughts on the political demise of Miao Hua - BrookingsAbetting competition, restraining Beijing: Recommendations for diplomacy toward China - BrookingsAnd his bio:Jonathan A. Czin is joining the Brookings Institution as the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts.Czin led the intelligence community’s analysis of Chinese politics and policymaking, playing a central role in assessing and briefing senior policymakers on President Xi Jinping, his rise to power, and decisionmaking on an array of key issues and crises. From 2021 till 2023, he was director for China at the National Security Council, where he advised on, staffed, and coordinated White House and inter-agency diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, including all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi, and played a leading role in addressing a wide range of global China issues.He also served as advisor for Asia-Pacific security affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and overseas at a CIA field station in Southeast Asia. Czin holds a master’s in international relations from Yale University, graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College, and studied at Oxford University. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

I had a good conversation this afternoon with Chris Cillizza about what may happen in the next few hours with TikTok Us, and how President-elect may try to undo the ban. we also chatted a bit about what US-China relations may look like in the Trump 2.0 Era.Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Thanks to everyone who tuned in live to my Friday discussion with Christopher Johnson on China and the US election. Our talk was part of the ongoing Substack Election Dialogues. Chris is President and CEO of China Strategies Group. He served for nearly two decades in the United States Government’s intelligence and foreign affairs communities. In addition to his work advising multinational corporations on their business and commercial strategies in China and greater East Asia, his insights on the Chinese leadership and on Beijing’s economic, commercial, foreign and security policies are regularly sought by senior Administration, Congressional, military, and foreign government officials. Chris also serves as a Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.The live videos are first available in the Substack app, and that is also where you can find me most days on Notes and in the Sinocism chat:I hope you enjoy this discussion, let me know if you think I should do more.Thanks This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Tu Le, Founder and Managing Director of Sino Auto Insights, discusses the rise of China's EV industry both domestically and globally, Tesla's challenges in the Chinese market, and the opportunities for Chinese EV manufacturers in Europe. The podcast also explores BYD's success and the challenges faced by German car makers. Additionally, it touches on the implications of Chinese battery technology and the potential entry of Chinese car companies into the US market.

It is my pleasure to be able to run an excerpt from Tania Branigan’s excellent new book “Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution”. Tania has also kindly recorded herself reading this chapter, so you can listen to it if you prefer. Tania writes editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent, reporting on politics, the economy, and social changes. we overlapped in Beijing and became friends. We also recorded a podcast about the book which you can listen to here. You can purchase the book on bookshop.org or on Amazon. The audio edition will be available from Tantor starting 7/11/23 wherever audiobooks are sold.Begin excerpt:Chapter 5Chongqing saw some of the era’s fiercest fighting, with the rift between Red Guards descending into warfare. The Kuomintang had made it their capital while battling the Japanese occupation, and it was home to multiple munitions plants; when armed struggles broke out in 1967, the military backed one side and helped its fighters seize what they needed. The factions battled with grenades, machine guns, napalm, tanks and ships upon the river – everything except planes, a resident recalled.They executed in cold blood too: even the injured, even the pregnant. Tens of thousands fled the city and at least twelve hundred people died, though the true toll was probably much higher. Some were caught in the violence by chance, like the eight-year-old killed by a ricocheting bullet as he played on the street. The others were not so much older, and you could blame chance there too, even if they saw themselves as soldiers. They never thought it would be so serious, that people would die, that so many would die. By the time they saw their friends fall they’d been battling for hours. They were numb; none of it seemed possible. Had it really happened at all?Shapingba Park held the proof. More than five hundred of the victims, mostly teenagers, were buried here, at a Red Guard cemetery hidden on one edge of the site, behind a grove of trees. It was the only Cultural Revolution site in the country to be recognised as a national heritage spot. But a mossy wall surrounded the plot and the public were not allowed in any more. I had come before, and stared through the chained gates. Though the cemetery was only half a century old, it reminded me of the Civil War graveyards I had seen in the American South, crumbling and overgrown. Luxuriant greenery crawled over marble monuments, immense and once stark white but now lichened and grey. Stone torches topped great pillars and obelisks, carved with red stars and Maoist slogans and the number 815. It was the rebel faction the dead had belonged to, named for a critical date in its inception in 1966.‘People began to die on 1 July 1967. On the tenth, I was put in charge of the bodies,’ Zheng Zhisheng recalled. He ran a chemicals business in the city, but back then he had been a student, and they had called him the Corpse Master. He was peering through thick tortoiseshell glasses that still bore the maker’s sticker. Two more dusty pairs lay on his desk, jumbled with books, newspapers, a giant magnifying glass and two lidded porcelain cups. He delved for a photograph. ‘This is October 1967. Twenty-seven people – twenty-seven corpses.’ Most of the faces were turned away from the camera. One mouth gaped so wide it could swallow the viewer.‘I had seen dead bodies when I was young. But I’d never had to handle them. I was a model student, and the faction leader thought I was a helpful person and not afraid of hard work. And also,’ he added, after a moment’s thought, ‘I’d opposed him at the beginning. So he thought of me and put me in charge. I was forced to do it. I put make-up, and an armband, and a Mao badge, on each one. At the start I was afraid of the dirty work. I had to wash the dead bodies and I used soap to wash my hands all the time. Afterwards I didn’t mind about that. The second thing was the smell. The dead bodies stank and I wanted to throw up. The third thing was ghosts – I thought ghosts were terrifying. Although I was an atheist, China had these traditional ideas, and so I was afraid.’He foraged for another handful of photographs and showed me a bobbed, full-cheeked young girl. ‘She was the first I dealt with. We used formaldehyde. She went to help the injured on the battlefield and when she stood up she was shot dead. She was sixteen.’ He reached for another. ‘This one is from the university – people were buried there too, but the monument was destroyed later. Now it’s all flower beds.’ He replaced the pictures amid the clutter.‘I felt they were martyrs and it was a waste for them to die so young. After people in our faction died we treated the others as enemies and hated them. So when we captured them, some of them were stoned until they were unconscious. Then they were sent to hospital. Afterwards we moved them to another hospital – but that was just an excuse. On the way we beat them to death; that’s why we ended up in prison. Back then we hated the Fandaodi faction but now I think both factions were cheated. They were all innocent. They were all victims.’The Fandaodi prisoners, already injured, had been battered with rifle stocks. By him?‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘It was two other people.’You ordered them to do it, I’d heard?‘Yes.’ He was concise, not curt. ‘I didn’t feel any sadness: I just wanted to take revenge. The other faction had killed our martyrs. I didn’t know them – it was factional.’Zheng and others had been jailed for years for their role in the armed conflict. After release he wanted to search for the victims’ families and make amends, or try to. But someone warned him that the parents might sue, and he gave the idea up. ‘It’s a lifelong nightmare. It’s very traumatic. I have nightmares that I’m still in prison. Afterwards I tried to work hard and to reconcile myself with what I had done. I tried to do good things, and when I stumbled I stood up and carried on. I cried many times.’But the lessons he had learned were priceless, he insisted, though he struggled to define them. A slight sigh escaped him, as if he was hoping I might abandon the subject. ‘It can’t be described in a few words. For foreigners, looking at the Cultural Revolution is like reading a difficult book. It’s really hard to understand. Even young people don’t have an interest.’He was afraid of what might happen if people did not face up to the past and that later generations might echo the mistakes his had made. It was not a repeat of the Cultural Revolution itself he feared – history had progressed, he said. So what was it?‘Turmoil.’ He stopped there, considering.‘For example, with the Tiananmen Square incident – I actually wrote to my son, because he was at university. Because I had that turbulent past, I didn’t let him join them. The students were patriotic. They wanted to fight against corruption. But they were being used by bad guys.’ It took me a moment to understand. He spelled it out: ‘They were manipulated by people like Fang Lizhi, Wu’er Kaixi and Wang Dan, who were pursuing Western large-scale democracy. We can only be led by the Communist Party. We can’t have big democracy like the Americans. It can only bring turbulence and chaos. We had more than two thousand years of feudalism; America started with two parties and democracy. Foreigners can’t understand China; they can’t understand China’s past. Corruption is caused not by one-party rule but by who has checks on the leadership. We can’t get rid of the Party’s rule – impossible. We don’t need any turbulence and chaos.’It was a common view in China, even among relative liberals. The country was not ready to be free; though how it might ever become so, if not allowed to evolve, was never explained. For Zheng, individual caprice and disobedience, pride and egotism had produced this disaster. Stability and the common good were all.Those at the top, such as Deng and Xi’s father, had been forced into a reckoning too. They had suffered, and watched the torment of loved ones. They had lost their oldest friends and their glorious dream of a better, happier China. When they reclaimed power, they did all they could to prevent another disaster. For their own sake, and that of the masses, they committed themselves to stability. They determined that never again would a strongman ride roughshod over his peers, his country and the people. Though Deng would dominate until his death, they did their best to institutionalise and, especially, collectivise rule. After the protests of 1989, which were fuelled by obvious divides in the leadership, the determination to avoid public splits was absolute. It is not hard to imagine the emotions engendered by millions of young people massing in Tiananmen Square again: the cold instinct for survival, the ruthlessness born of the revolution, for which they had already sacrificed so much – but, too, the visceral fear of where it could all lead.The Party adopted unwritten rules to ensure that no one outstayed their welcome, limiting top leaders to two five-year terms and setting a retirement age. Even misdemeanours were handled in line with an unofficial code: members of the politburo might be purged for corruption, but the most senior figures of all – the Politburo Standing Committee – were untouchable, as were their families. You survived and thrived by cultivating patrons and your wider networks. The Party became safer, stabler, calmer and duller.For years, it worked. China prospered. People who might have eaten meat once a year dropped unctuous pork into their bowls each week. People who might never have left their county journeyed to Shanghai, Bangkok or Paris for shopping and sightseeing. They got their hair permed, wore bright sweaters and Nikes, tried red wine and McDonald’s, took up hobbies. It was attractive enough for foreigners to speak of the ‘Beijing model’. But there was a price. Corruption was endemic. To get your child into a decent school, or pass your driving test, or push through a business deal, or dodge prosecution, took cash: a few thousand yuan to a teacher, tens of millions to a senior leader. In cities such as Chongqing, gangs flourished, sheltered by officials they had bought off. Inequality was soaring. The more the economy grew and mutated, the more static politics seemed.Everyone understood the problems. President Hu Jintao and his premier Wen Jiabao, who led the country when I arrived, had rolled out a skeletal welfare state at remarkable speed. But it was not enough, and people don’t stay grateful for long. The mantra was stability maintenance – an idea that would have horrified Mao, and in truth not much of an idea at all, since it meant More Of The Same. Everyone knew that big reforms were needed, yet they were deferred again and again. China was busy getting richer, getting bigger. A hundred new airports within a dozen years; a hundred new museums. The Beijing subway grew more in a decade than the London Underground had expanded in a century and a half. More bridges and blocks, theme parks and highways, shopping malls and factories, cinemas and stations. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, the government poured in 4 trillion yuan and was hailed as saving the world. It propped up the hyper-speed development without addressing its consequences: the hopelessly imbalanced economy, the poisoning of soil and rivers and people, the bribery and embezzlement, the growing gulf between rich and poor, city and village. But the unhappiness grew as wealth did. The Party stopped publishing the key indicator for inequality, and the number of ‘mass incidents’, or unrest. By 2011 the domestic security budget had soared past military spending; it would later rise still more steeply.It didn’t answer the underlying problem. The party could not rely on the Zhengs, not least because the Cultural Revolution Effect – the promise of the party as the guarantor of stability – was largely generational. It had decreasing potency; many had not lived through the torment and, since the party preferred not to mention it, knew little of it. Prosperity, too, was a diminishing asset. The years of double-­digit growth were what happens when an economy has been held back, and a demographic bump offers cheap labour, and hundreds of millions take their chance to claw their way out of poverty. It was not a secret Beijing had discovered, an immutable law of Chinese development. Something had to change.End excerptYou can purchase the book on bookshop.org or on Amazon. The audio edition will be available from Tantor starting 7/11/23 wherever audiobooks are sold.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Episode Notes: Tania Branigan and I discuss her excellent new book “Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution”. Tania writes editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent, reporting on politics, the economy, and social changes. We overlapped in Beijing and became friends. I have also published an excerpt from the book here. You can purchase the book on bookshop.org or on Amazon. The audio edition will be available from Tantor starting 7/11/23 wherever audiobooks are sold.Links:China's Cultural Revolution remembered by artist Xu Weixin - video | The Guardian2012 - China's Cultural Revolution: portraits of accuser and accused | The GuardianXilin Wang: Music by a Survivor | Hamburg International Music Festival - YouTubeWang Xilin ( 王西麟 ): Yunnan Tone Poem (1963) - YouTubeTranscript:[00:00:00] Bill: Welcome back to the occasional Sinocism podcast. I know I've been absent for a while, and now that I do the Weekly Sharp China podcast, I've realized I like podcasting. So we'll be recording more Sinocism episodes with guests I think are really interesting.[00:00:11] Bill: Today. We are very lucky to have Tania Branigan to talk about her excellent new book Red Memory: The After Lives of China's Cultural Revolution. As Tania writes, it is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution. That is something I agree with wholeheartedly. So much so that I even wrote my grad school thesis on Mao badges.[00:00:30] Bill: I will also be running an excerpt from her book in the coming days, which is released in the UK already and will come out on May 9th in the United States. Tania writes editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent reporting on politics, the economy, and social changes.[00:00:45] Bill: She lives in London. Welcome Tania, and congratulations on this great book. [00:00:50] Tania: Thank you so much for having me on.[00:00:51] Bill: Oh, it's my pleasure. It's great to see you. It's been it's been a few years and I appreciate it. I got an advance read of the book last year and it [00:01:00] really is it really is, I think, an important book and an important contribution.[00:01:03] Bill: So can you, just for the listeners, can you just talk a bit about your background? So when you first started working in China and what you did when you were there. [00:01:12] Tania: So I came out to China in 2008 just ahead of the Olympics, right at the start of what turned out to be an incredibly news packed year, as you may recall, right?[00:01:22] Tania: And I had never particularly wanted to be a foreign correspondent per se, but I just felt that China was the story of our time, really. Which is only proof to be truer perhaps as time has gone on. And because it's a pretty small bureau there were never more than two of us, max. And quite often there was one of me, I was covering absolutely everything.[00:01:44] Tania: So from natural disasters through to politics, through to culture, business even very occasionally when I couldn't help hit sport. But I became particularly fascinated by this topic and by [00:02:00] China's more recent history, [00:02:02] Bill: one question on your time there. When you arrived, was it already past the Wenchuan earthquake?[00:02:07] Tania: No. And in fact that was one of the sort of formative moments, for me reporting on, yeah, [00:02:15] Bill: it's 15 years next in two weeks. It's crazy. [00:02:18] Tania: It's hard to believe it's gone past so fast. I still think about those parents who lost kids. [00:02:24] Bill: And that, no, it's terrible. Terrible [00:02:29] Bill: So what led you to this book?[00:02:33] Tania: You did actually, as I say in, as I say in the book, I probably wouldn't have written it without you. So I was obviously aware of the Cultural Revolution. I knew something about it. I'd read a little around it. But then it was just when I had that lunch with you and then over coffee, you started telling me about your father-in-law and about going to try to find his body, which I feel is probably a story actually [00:03:00] at this point, that you should.[00:03:00] Tania: Tell rather than me. [00:03:02] Bill: And just for listeners the, I actually tried to have my wife be a special guest but she didn't want to do it, but Tania has interviewed her. I'll put a link in, into the story. I think we you did that great story about the artist Xu Weixin 徐唯辛, which maybe we can talk about too.[00:03:20] Bill: But no, sadly, my. Like many Chinese families people had horrible experiences in the Cultural Revolution. My father-in-law killed himself in 1967 1968 when my wife was like a year old, a year and a half old. And it, it just, it was a, he did it in Miyun outside of Beijing and involved a train.[00:03:47] Bill: And so we went. We had a family member a brother of his who was dying, who came back to say goodbye, and the family went out to this train embankment with this idea that maybe they could dig up the [00:04:00] bones and no one could figure out remember where it happened. Someone went to the village and found an old lady who remembered, and the old lady's warning was just be careful because that time that year, a lot of people jumped in front of train.[00:04:15] Bill: So just make sure you get the right bones. It was just like, oh my God. It was just like this collective ..I mean it was just, it was quite chilling, but it was also like, this is what every so many people of a certain age in China bear these kinds of memories. [00:04:34] Tania: And so that I think was really what struck me.[00:04:37] Tania: Obviously the sort of the cruelty and the loss and the fact that so many people are still living with loss now. And then as you said, the fact that the villagers were matter of fact about it. I remember you saying, they were sympathetic in some ways, but just uncomprehending of your mission in another way.[00:04:59] Tania: And [00:05:00] I think in many ways it was the fact that it was so commonplace, really, that stuck with me because there were so many horror stories you hear from the Cultural Revolution, horrific atrocities that have taken place, but here was a loss, which in a way was sort of typical and that people were still living with the consequences of.[00:05:25] Tania: And so I remember Carol saying to me, You know that even though she was now a mother herself, she couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a father, that there was this kind of space in her life and she couldn't imagine it being filled. And I think that really said so much about the way that people are still living with the consequences all these years on.[00:05:50] Bill: And it really, I think, and it's how people process lost and process the anger and the grief and so much. A lot of it is repressed and we've [00:06:00] seen cycles over the years of expressions or people trying to express, we had  right after Xi Jmi came into power, I think one of the, one of the earliest red guards trying to make an apology.[00:06:10] Bill: And, it angered Xi Jinping. It's one of those things where in many ways there were periods where there's been an allowance or it's been allowed to talk about it and then it gets pulled back and you can't really talk about it. And I think we're now one of those periods, but back to where we were talking about it, it was also really around that, around the artist Xu Weixin and what he was doing.[00:06:37] Tania: That's right. . And so you suggested I go off to see him, which was an extraordinary experience because he has this, or had this studio full of around a hundred paintings and they are just immense. It's, I think it's quite hard for people who haven't seen them to imagine them, isn't it?[00:06:53] Tania: Because they're. So daunting when you look at them, they're two and a half meters tall. They're monochrome. [00:07:00] [00:07:00] Bill: And you, I have you did a video for The Guardian. I'll put that in the show notes for people. We've been there. We took our kids cuz my wife's dad and her grandparents were in it.[00:07:10] Bill: So three, three of her family members are in it. And they are, you went there and then were you in Beijing for his show or you missed, you were, you came after? [00:07:17] Tania: No, I came after. And of course that was the only show that he had on the mainland. Of these works we should probably explain. Yes, go ahead.[00:07:25] Tania: It's a series of a hundred portraits of people who were caught up in the Cultural Revolution. And so some of them are obviously very famous figures, Mao himself and others from the era, but many of them are also ordinary people who were just Swept up in it all. And there are people who are clearly recognized as being perpetrators, people who are clearly recognized as being victims, but of course many people were both as well.[00:07:55] Bill: And it was interesting he found some of the more ordinary people because he put out a call on social [00:08:00] media. For people to, if you're interested, and that's actually one of my, one of my wife's cousins sent in a bunch of information and he picked, he said, oh, this is an interesting story, or this is a sad story.[00:08:11] Bill: And he did it. So I actually, we did go to his show. It was at the, today, if people lived in Beijing. Remember the Today Art Museum, museum down in the the Pinguo apartment complex down south of Guomao Qiao. And we went opening day and it was packed. And then it was like, that's it. There was a little bit of coverage and then it was gone.[00:08:34] Bill: And I don't think the show lasted very long. It was it, but it was really moving to be there because it was just packed with all these people who, it wasn't like your typical sort of Beijing art show back in the sort of go-go years. It was just, it was a really remarkably moving and disturbing show.[00:08:56] Tania: And I think that's what's so fascinating, isn't it? Because it shows that [00:09:00] there is that appetite for recalling, for looking back at this time. You see it again with the Cultural Revolution Museum that was set up on the outskirts of Shantou where when it first opened, there was actually quite an influx.[00:09:15] Tania: Of visitors and then there was obviously a bit of a panic and the ruling goes out no more coverage in such Chinese media. Thank you very much. And the signposts are taken down and so it slows down to a trickle. [00:09:28] Bill: And you visited that museum, right? Yes. [00:09:33] Tania: As best I could, because by the time I got up there, it had been hastily locked up.[00:09:38] Tania: But it's a very small museum with a very big sort of memorial. Garden around it with sort of statues and statues of victims and these very big sort of walls with pictures engraved on them and so forth which have now been covered up with propaganda posters and [00:10:00] so forth[00:10:00] Bill:. Ah, and I wonder what it looks like now, because it does seem, it not does seem, it is true.[00:10:06] Bill: Xi Jinping has very clearly. Has made it clear that, while he, everything he's doing is the opposite of a Cultural Revolution, mass movement. It's also very clear that. That part of the, that part of the PRC history, the to up the Mao era, including through cult through Cultural Revolution.[00:10:26] Bill: There is no reopening of the sort of official verdict on the Cultural Revolution and Mao's mistakes. Look forward, move on, don't look back. [00:10:36] Tania: Absolutely. Which obviously has always really been the Party’s belief. So even when the official verdict was drafted in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, in the aftermath of Mao's death Deng says very clearly to the people drafting it the point of this is to get people to unite and look ahead. In other words, it's not that kind of [00:11:00] memorialization where you say, Let's draw up a verdict on this that the nation can keep looking back to and remembering and using to make sure this doesn't happen again. It's about saying, let's draw a line under this and then we can all move on.[00:11:13] Tania: So the Party obviously hasn't changed that judgment, that it was a catastrophe that it was an error and so forth, but, it definitely doesn't want people to dwell on it. And as we've seen over time the subject's been more or less sensitive and I would say history generally has become both more important and more sensitive since 2012.[00:11:35] Bill: Yes. One of the things I hear people talk about culture evolution as It why it doesn't matter. It's in the past, and especially like, why do you foreigners keep bringing up? It doesn't matter. We have to look forward. You've talked to so many people. You did this amazing book. How do you react to that? I. [00:11:59] Tania: I understand where [00:12:00] that comes from and I think there is a sort of justified question in the eyes of some people, which is particularly when you saw this number of books following Wild Swans. It seems as if there were a lot of these books coming out in the west.[00:12:15] Tania: And I think people felt, what is this fascination with Maoist trauma when you are not willing to look at your own past and at the less savory aspects of that, whether that be the opium walls or slavery or whatever. So I understand where that comes from. And I was very conscious when I wrote the book that I didn't want it to be voyeuristic.[00:12:38] Tania: I didn't want it to be about trying to find the worst things that had happened. It was much more for me about exploring what it means to people within China. And I suppose that would be my response, which is that a lot of Chinese people as your account of the exhibition being packed out shows a lot of Chinese people do care about this, [00:13:00] even if they're often reluctant to talk about it and they are interested, they want to know, or they want to be able to reflect upon this.[00:13:09] Bill: Yeah. And it is also, I guess with the passage of time, the next generation, the folks in their sort of thirties, forties it does it. They don't even know in some ways unless there's some passing down in inside families. [00:13:27] Tania: Absolutely. And in fact, as you know people are often so reluctant to speak about it.[00:13:32] Tania: When I started. Looking at this, I thought it was more about political repression and about how people aren't allowed to talk about the past in, except in certain ways. And obviously that is a huge factor, but actually it just became clear to me how much the personal trauma had affected people and how much of it was about people being unwilling or simply feeling unable to speak.[00:13:56] Tania: And so I think for the people who do return to the past, and that's what sort of is striking about the people in red memory. They're all people who chose to look at that history in one way or another, or keep it alive in some way. That's a really unusual thing, and I think it's not necessarily that they want to hark back to the past, but that they feel they have to, or that it's inescapable in some way. And so I suppose part of my sort of response to why do people keep talking about this is that our pasts matter and they define us. And in the same way that it's really important for us, we are seeing people looking back upon slavery. And the fact that, particularly if you grew up in Britain, you grew up being told, it's all about the abolition of the slave trade and you don't really learn anything about how important Britain was in creating this right system of industrialized slavery.[00:14:54] Tania: So in the same way that we need to go back and revisit our past, if we are to understand ourselves and who we are as a nation I think that has to be done. And the silence in China has been so profound that's, that I think many people there feel this urge to address it, even if they sometimes don't quite know why.[00:15:16] Bill: That's the thing is there're just millions and millions of human tragedies, right? And so you can abstract it away into sort of this broader political question in history but as I think you bring out in the book, and as you just said, it's on an individual basis, it's just there's so many human tragedies and so much pain and so much grief and so much anger and so few ways to express it.Tania: Yeah, absolutely. Bill: And over time, I've, I. We see it on a daily basis because my mother-in-law lives with us. And you just, we've, anyway, just, you just see how people have to, you have to survive and you have to deal with stuff, and you have to internalize stuff. And it is a remarkable [00:16:00] I don't know.[00:16:02] Bill: It just it's just that generation had so much trauma. Lots of people are fine and deal with it, but they're just it's just a, I don't know. It's why, like I said earlier, I, when I was there in the early nineties I got into trying to understand the whole Mao Badge phenomenon because for me it was like, it was just a sort of an entry point into trying to understand this just collective insanity. And how does a society go to just become basically insane for several years? [00:16:34] Tania: I think you put your finger on something important there as well beause you talk about it as a collective insanity. And that's one of the issues one of the sort of Sinologists who's looked at this says, it's a collective trauma and therefore you need some kind of collective resolution.[00:16:51] Tania: And so even when people do address it as individuals, It's very hard to try and make any sense of it or come to terms with it without having any sort of broader social reckoning or even recognition really of what happened. [00:17:08] Bill: Yeah, and I don't think, clearly in the current trends, it's not gonna happen.Tania: Absolutely[00:17:14] Bill:And the Xi Jinping, his family had their own traumas individually and as a family in the Cultural Revolution and around the Cultural Revolution. And they've obviously, they've dealt with it and they're moving forward. And so it's in some ways I can't imagine he's that sympathetic.[00:17:33] Tania: look at all the. All the sort of the leadership of China over recent years who had all gone through it, endured it in some way or another. The Party elders who had devoted their lives and sacrificed so much to the cause of the revolution only to be devoured by it. And then somehow coming to terms with that and believing that the answer had to be to [00:18:00] maintain the system in some way or be in a radically transformed kind of way.[00:18:03] Bill: And that's one of the reasons why I, there is a kind of a cult of she underway, but I've been skeptical that, there'll be, people say, oh, it'll be a new culture evolution. It, I think everything, for example, that Xi's doing is the opposite.[00:18:19] Bill: It's all about centralizing power. It's about controlling the masses, not unleashing or harnessing the masses, which is what Mao seems to have done. [00:18:28] Tania: Yes. And in fact, there's a fantastic Economist podcast on this very subject drum tower, if anybody listens to it. Bill: Yes, it's a great podcast. Which has just dropped precisely about the differences.[00:18:38] Tania: But one of the things that's so striking is that so many people within China. Have clearly seen parallels. Yes. And see echoes. And I think what they see is firstly the sort of reinsertion of the Party and towards these spheres from which it had retreated like private life [00:19:00] and even things like sort of culture and arts and so forth.[00:19:04] Tania: And business obviously. But also this sort of arbitrariness in what’s done. And so if you look at the fact that some people during covid were talking about white guards all these people who were enforcing the covid policies, obviously harking back to the idea of red guards.[00:19:26] Tania: So people see these parallels and as you say, they're obviously dramatic differences and Xi is somebody who's so wedded to the idea of order and discipline. But it's really striking how many people have seen those parallels, and I think it's very different. It's partly very different because he's in charge of a very different nation. But there are some striking echoes, aren't there? [00:20:00] [00:20:00] Bill: And it was interesting, I think when we were together at the artist Xu Weixin’s studio you were interviewing him for that piece you did. Where you talked to several family members or people who are the of family members of people in the portraits.[00:20:16] Bill: Xu, who's now in the US, I remember him talking about how he wanted to lead because he thought Xi was gonna bring back the new Cultural Revolution. And it was very striking because it was very, it was a, it was just a very dark at the time, seemed to be a very extreme view, but it was from somebody who obviously was very, was very steeped in history and what had happened.[00:20:40] Bill: And I remember thinking like, wow, that's a pretty scary contemplation, but I think, it hasn't happened as extreme as he suggested, but to your point, I think the, especially under Covid, there were again this just how the system can [00:21:00] mobilize and just effectively the realization that when the system decides you have no rights, you have no rights.[00:21:08] Tania: Yes, absolutely. And the other thing of course is having a single figure with this sort of untrammeled power. And clearly not, again, not the full extent of power that Mao had but none or indeed the full sort of veneration, but nonetheless, somebody who's there indefinitely. Somebody who is definitely using Party institutions and strengthening Party institutions in many ways, but is also making them more and more his own, if you look at the personnel for example. [00:21:41] Bill: Yes. And who's somebody who, you know, when he was the the vice president was on the standing committee in the 17th Party Congress, he oversaw, one of the things he oversaw was Party history. He, his story too his father got in trouble [00:22:00] in the early 1960s because of a book that was written about a political case. There was a biography that Kang Sheng, like a really nasty, especially nasty guy, told Mao, oh, this book is actually, it's a sort of anti it's criticizing you and because it involved someone who would work with Xi Jinping's father. Xi’s father ended up getting in trouble and so you see like personally, he understands how history can be used and weaponized. And how it's, how important it is to control it. And if it's gonna be used as weaponized, you want to be the person who's doing it. [00:22:44] Tania: Yeah, absolutely. That control of the narrative. It's obviously got very long history in, within China, of history being a sort of a moral or political force as much as a, or more than a record. But, and we [00:23:00] see that sort of being amped up under the Party over time, but there's no doubt that under Xi, it's really. Taken on renewed strength [00:23:07] Bill: Yeah and in some ways Xi may only be getting started. Back to your book just what's your favorite part of the book, if you have one?[00:23:15] Bill: I know maybe I'm sure you love the whole book, but is there anything that really stands out or stood out for [00:23:21] Tania: you? I don't think any author loves the whole of this. You go back and think, why did I put that full stop there? I think talking to the psychotherapists for me was really interesting and maybe that's not one that sort of many readers will come away with.[00:23:42] Tania: But I think particularly having witnessed or having spoken to people at such length about the trauma that they had been through and about the impact it had upon them, it was also really important to [00:24:00] remember that there is hope that people did survive this and that they came through and were able, as deeply scarred as they were, people did manage to come through and show love to their children or take pleasure in things. Wang Xilian, who's the composer I interview, is just this kind of extraordinary force of nature. I've never met anyone like him really, in terms of just having this kind of determination to seize life that clearly comes from his experiences. And so as scarring and as grim as many of those experiences were, I felt it was really important to remember that humans are resilient, and they find strength in ways that we wouldn't anticipate, but also that, I guess we're all vulnerable and the importance of trying to understand people [00:25:00] rather than to sit in judgment upon them. [00:25:02] Bill: In, in terms of the  psychiatrists, China has a vast shortage of mental health professionals, doesn't it?Tania: Yeah, absolutely[00:25:14] Bill:. And how there isn't any sort of special training for this sort of historical trauma. Is there h how do these psych, like how do the psycho psychiatrists know what to do or how to deal with it? [00:25:28] Tania: So they've definitely looked to examples elsewhere. For example, the work that's been done on Transgenerational trauma very much came out of the experiences of people, I think primarily in Israel and the US treating the children of Holocaust survivors, for example.[00:25:48] Tania: So they were certainly looking overseas. There are people from Europe who've worked with psychotherapists there because it's such a kind of [00:26:00] nascent discipline anyway within China. And then I think what was interesting to me as well was the fact that in some ways you'd think it was quite safe territory because it's taking this huge social trauma and it's confining it within a treatment room.[00:26:20] Tania: It turns it in a sense, into one person's problems or it treats as one person's problems. So you could think that from the authorities point of view, that might be quite welcome in some ways. But of course it also means speaking about what happened, and that's certainly why a lot of people find it too threatening to contemplate as potential patients, but I think that's also why it's been a very sensitive area as well and why Chinese psychotherapists haven't really spoken about it publicly.[00:26:54] Tania: The people I spoke to didn't want to be identified, and that's quite telling, isn't it? [00:26:59] Bill: I mean it, [00:27:00] yeah, obviously there’s patient confidentiality but again, I think to your point, there's also a political overlay too. So not, this book is not at all depressing.[00:27:15] Bill: It's an incredibly difficult topic, but actually I found it to be in many ways inspiring because there are some awful stories but they're also you, like you said earlier you see how people can survive.[00:27:28] Tania:  Yes. And I didn't, you don't want to attack a, a false happy ending, onto this. So you really have to remember that a lot of people came away scarred and did not recover. And I talk in the psychotherapy chapter, you know the woman who says to me I. For us, the Cultural Revolution only ended last April because that's when my father died. And, his brain had basically stopped in 1966. He had a nervous breakdown after the [00:28:00] red guards persecuted him, and he never recovered. So I didn't want to create two rosy a vision, but I did want to reflect the complexity and the hope that exists. And the fact, I talk about the people who were in sort of red guard factions and turned upon each other and were trying to kill each other, and yet they have this sort of strange relationship now.[00:28:26] Tania: These guys I was talking to where I don't think they necessarily like each other particularly, but they've found a way to live with each other and coexist and even take care of the ultrazealous unrepentant, ultra Maoist guy, who still thinks that that the main problem with the Cultural Revolution is probably really that it didn't it didn't go far enough.[00:28:52] Tania: It didn't go, or yes, it didn't go on far enough or it didn't succeed. But, they've managed to find a way to live with him and they [00:29:00] give him cash and help support him. And I just, I think there is hope to be found there. [00:29:05] Bill: No, it is fascinating. When I, in the early nineties when I had a job in Beijing, I actually I was working as a translator at this at this now defunct publishing house called the Chinese Literature Press. And it, this was 91 to 92. And then I learned that actually, like you said, there were colleagues who were, we're only 15 at that point. It was only, it's crazy. It was only 15 plus years since the end of the Cultural Revolution. And there were colleagues who had been on either side, persecuted or persecutors. And you could tell there was tension there, but it was like they had to deal with each other in their little work unit…That was 15 years outta the Cultural Revolution is very different now.[00:29:50] Bill: We're much further along in history. And I guess, part of it I'm assuming is, the Party will just assume that they just effectively as people age out and die off that the memories will just fade away. And then it's all about moving forward. And so I wonder in some ways, if your book isn't, it's not going be picked up by a publish in the PRC, I assume. I'm curious how they would view your [00:30:15] Tania: book. I don't imagine it could be printed in the PRC, but also some of those I spoke to didn't want it then what? To be published there, which I completely understand. [00:30:24] Bill: So that's, so will you will you try and get it published in Taiwan? In the old days you probably could have published it in Hong Kong, but that obviously I don't think would happen now.[00:30:33] Tania: I felt in the interests of being true to the agreement, the spirit of the agreement I'd made with people that I didn't want to see it published in Chinese. And obviously, I said to them, I can't completely rule out somebody finding bits of it and choosing to translate bits of it on the internet because that can happen.But I won't be Party to it being translated.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.[00:30:57] Bill: That makes  sense. So I guess, we've talked about it, but I have, I have some questions. One. Really the other question is, what do you think, like if the memories fade away inside China, does that really matter? Or is it actually something that the Party, they just. The next generation, they move on and the top guys remember it and so they seem to be trying to prevent some of the worst excesses. I is there a way of approaching it actually going work or is it the right way to deal with all this trauma?[00:31:46] Tania: I think that's such a good question and I can understand not just from a political survival point of view, but also from a concern for sort of Chinese society point of view why the authorities are so reluctant for this to be addressed precisely because the issues are so raw and so painful and because people were turning on upon their workmates and so on, and I think their fear was partly, how the hell do you manage this if people start saying, you killed my father. Where the hell do you go from there? And it was so clear talking to people how rancorous it remains, even among people who I had broadly thought of as being what you might call on the same side in terms of them being people who want to remember the Cultural Revolution because they think it was a time where things went dreadfully wrong or we need to learn from that.[00:32:48] Tania: Even between them, there was so much bitterness and rancor at times about. What you should remember and how you should remember, and who you should hold responsible and how much blame you attached to individuals and so forth. So I think that was one real concern, but I don't think you can just bury it because I think these things just fester and make themselves felt in really dangerous ways. Certainly, I talked a bit earlier about transgenerational trauma. So there's a lot of evidence, as I said originally, coming from the families of Holocaust victims, but it's been well established across a range of countries of the effects of trauma being passed down between generations even, or perhaps especially where people aren't speaking about what happened. And so the psychological effects upon the children and grandchildren I think really are significant. And you do just think about how much pain. A huge number of people in China are [00:34:00] still walking around with, and that pain doesn't disappear when that generation dies, although it may ebb to some degree.[00:34:09] Tania: And I also do think because the Cultural Revolution is. I don't think the Cultural Revolution could happen again in that way, in that form, certainly. But I think that, as I said, we need to look back at our histories to understand who we are as people, and also to see how easily humans can go astray.[00:34:37] Tania: And in that sense, it's not just a story for China although, it could only have happened in that way within that particular sort of time and place, but it is something that has a sort of a wider resonance. So I don't think you can just bury it. And I think the final thing actually, which is sort of odd, is that for a long time the [00:35:00] Party has also relied on this unspoken memory of the Cultural Revolution to essentially send this message of either we keep very tight control of all of you or you are going to have to live with this chaos and devastation. Yes. In which anything could happen. And that has been very effective because a lot of people do remember the Cultural Revolution, but as you said, it's a diminishing asset for them in that sense because they don't want to talk about it directly and go into too much detail, and because the people who actually remember it are dying. So for younger people, it really doesn't have the same impact. [00:35:42] Bill: No. And of course the, this sort of the messaging around otherwise it's chaos leaves out that otherwise it's chaos like it was chaos caused by Mao. And that is the, that’s the, again, in the eighties, especially in, in, [00:36:00] they're maybe some more discussions about Mao and his role in history. And now of course it's, again, Xi made very clear soon after he became down secretary and there were these sort of the Pre-reform and opening sort of the founding of the PRC and the early years of the PRC and then there was reform and opening and, neither one of those basically were, you can't negate either one.[00:36:33] Bill: And then, since then he's added effectively this third era, this new era, right? So we're into the third era of the PRC history, and it's all about looking forward. The previous eras have their historical what's the right word? They they have their historical judgements in place and so those aren't gonna be overturned. And so anything that would open up the Cultural Revolution. In any way now. It [00:37:00] just it's a massive political problem, I think for Xi, and so I just don't think I think we're gonna see your book is really important, but I think ultimately we're not gonna see any sort of reopening of the Cultural Revolution in any and Xi's only, we look at his age, he's he's what's gonna turn 70 this year.[00:37:23] Bill: He could be with us for a long time. And so by the time he fades from the scene, most likely, most of the people who have a direct experience of the Cultural Revolution will also have faded from the scene. And it is, it is interesting too, like how, the formative experiences and how they inform his approach to governing and it just risk taking and decision making. And we may never know, and you can certainly speculate, but one of the other things that were quite damaging were that whole generation who lost their [00:38:00] education. Look at Xi he went he basically, Barely even got a high school education. [00:38:10] Tania: And this is, this is one of the things that's fascinating to me, which is that is the one part of the Cultural Revolution that the authorities are willing to talk about and even to celebrate because they managed to detach it entirely from its political context. So when they talk about these 17 million people who are sent off to the countryside. Thinking that they were going there forever. They’re not portraying that as being part of the Cultural Revolution or, part of Mao’s many sort of terrible failings of his people. It's become this sort of story of comradeship on his toil. This is where Xi Jinping learned to be a man of the people he grew up into [00:39:00] manhood. And, all of those things are very appealing, particularly in an age where we were seeing these sort of constant ca cases of hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions being racked up by high ranking Party officials. To be able to contrast it with, here's Xi Jinping, he went down to the countryside, he struggled, he knows what it is to labor. All of those message are very potentBill:. Yeah. He's a man of the people. No, and it really is like you said they've figured out how to separate out the trauma and actually turn it into this positive, constructive formative experience and I think, but to be honest, I think some people in retrospect do believe it was. [00:39:51] Tania: That's what's fascinating when you talked to them. And in a way, I think that's probably where it came from the Party, that there was already this sort of grassroots nostalgia [00:40:00] movement among the sent down youth which Guobin Yang has written about brilliantly, where people started meeting up, going to exhibitions, and there's this sort of fascination with that time, and it's a very bittersweet thing.[00:40:14] Tania: I sort of draw a comparison with the Waltons and the way that people have this slightly romantic impression of, depression era America. Everybody was terribly poor, but they all loved each other and worked hard, there is a kind of nostalgia for that time, for a sense of meaning and belief and purity. And so that was a very potent thing that was already there to tap into. I think. [00:40:42] Bill: Yeah it's one of those things that I dunno, this is why your book is just, it's a, it's an important contribution to trying to help understand and because it does, again, to the question I asked earlier and that other people have raised why should we [00:41:00] care? It isn't just about trauma, but it's also about it. It has just been so formative for the people running China now and trying to understand how this affected them really does have real implications for how they see the world and how they see ordering China. [00:41:19] Tania: Absolutely. And right across the spectrum as well, if you talk to business people so often they'll say, oh, it was my years as a sent down youth that were this kind of transformative moment that made me realize how hard I would have to struggle to get there and so forth.[00:41:36] Tania: So in so many ways, it shaped the culture, it shaped the politics, it shaped the economy. [00:41:41] And [00:41:41] Bill: I wonder, there, there certainly it was a shorter period, but I wonder if the sort of the covid, especially the last 2022 with dynamics here, COVID and just how hard it was for so many people and so many businesses. I wonder if, I think we're already gonna see this talk about, oh this was a really formative year. [00:42:00] This, we survived and then therefore we're able to do, we understand risk and we understand how to managed through really difficult periods, even though I don't think it was I mean it was obviously different than the Cultural Revolution, but it was also in certain places, clearly very traumatic for people.[00:42:20] Tania: Yes. I feel, I think even looking around the UK, it feels like people are only really starting to realize the impact that the pandemic. Yeah. Had upon them how much it's shaped individuals, how much it's shaped communities, politics, that sense that sort of several people said to me, seeing friends or relatives disappear down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories during the pandemic because they were suddenly locked at home with nothing else to look at. And the thing that's striking to me actually is how little we are talking all about all of that. And it does make me think when terrible things happen, people want to forget them [00:43:00] and move on.[00:43:01] Bill: move on. And it's also early, right? You people. I mean it and we'll thank you for writing the book.Is there anything else you'd like to say to the audience or, anything else I should have asked you? [00:43:16] Tania: No, in many ways, I think you probably know this subject as well, if not better than…Me, because you are, you've obviously lived with it at a family level as well. And I just hope, I think that people, it's clearly about China, as I say, and about how you can't understand China unless you understand this period. But I would also hope that people didn't see it as being a book about this kind of distant place that has nothing to do with them because it, for me, it raised so many questions, the parallels with our own society in terms of the way that we choose to [00:44:00] address our own history.[00:44:02] Tania: And particularly looking at what's happened with politics in the UK and especially in the us, Trump is clearly in some ways, a more, a much more Maoist figure, you might argue, than she is in terms of his sort of reveling in chaos and disorder, and particularly in this incitement of hatred. Adam Serwer talks about the cruelty being the purpose in the use of hatred and division for political purposes.[00:44:36] Bill: So one question if you're willing to to entertain it would be about politics in the West. You hear a lot of this, call it cancel culture, whatever, and people say, oh, it's just like the Cultural Revolution. How do you react when you hear someone compare, like people getting canceled on Twitter or just saying, how do you, when someone says, oh, that's like the Chinese Cultural Revolution how do you what do you think when you hear that? [00:45:09] Tania: I think it just speaks to how fundamentally people misunderstand the Cultural Revolution in the West. They either regard it as a sort of a punchline or something, a bit kitsch or they regard it as young people being very left wing and getting carried away essentially. And that's really not what the Cultural Revolution is, right? The Cultural Revolution is about a very powerful man exploiting and fomenting public sentiment for his own ends.[00:45:42] Bill: and violent and public violence.[00:45:43] Tania:. Indeed. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's about the use of power and I just think that's fundamentally distinct from any of the kind of discussions that are going on now. It just speaks to a [00:46:00] really basic misunderstanding of what we're looking at.[00:46:01] Bill: Good. We agree. I have a, I've tried not to engage, but it drives me nuts because I find it to be incredibly facile and an incredibly shallow that portrays a real lack of understanding and appreciation for the horrors and the trauma of the Cultural Revolution in China.[00:46:22] Tania: Yeah, absolutely. [00:46:23] Bill: So how do we end on a happy note? What's a happy takeaway for the, from your book? [00:46:31] Tania: Oh, dear, that's tricky. I think it, unfortunately it was my day job as well involves writing on foreign policy. I do spend a lot more time looking at the the darker sides of things. As I said, I do think people have in many ways managed to move forward. I think there is a wealth of extraordinary and thoughtful work out there on the era, particularly done [00:47:00] by Chinese scholars officially or unofficially, within China and then especially outside it as it's become more difficult to work there.[00:47:12] Tania: I think there's such sort of richness there in terms of understanding the era better, but also in learning, as I said about human nature more generally and those things we can take away. So there's that. And then there is just the fact that people live through horrors and they manage to go on and lead meaningful and loving lives against all the odds, even if they've been deeply scarred as well sometimes…I was just gonna say incidentally, if anybody has the chance to go and look up Wong, she Lynn's work on YouTube. There's a sort of a bunch of his music out there. So he's the composer who nearly died in the Cultural Revolution. But as I said, is this octogenarian with an incredible appetite for life. Still working assiduously living in Germany now, and he would love people to hear his music. So I think if you want a sort of a blast of life in contrast to all the horror that we've been talking about then lease go and listen to you. [00:48:17] Bill: We'll, and I'll, we'll put some links in the in the show notes.[00:48:20] Bill: No, thank you. That's great. And the thing I would just add is, and why, again, I think your book is so important. Is it, as, especially from the US perspective, US China relations worsen, there's just lots of othering on both sides. And one of the things is, It's, we're all human and so much of the pain and suffering and experiences, the reactions are human and it's a reminder that people, even as they go through different experiences, different cultures, there's still some real, there's, we're all people.[00:48:54]  And so in many ways your book is important in a way that, [00:49:00] again, it’s so easy to abstract a way what's going on in sort of US China or Chinese politics. You help humanize it in a way that I think is important for everyone to understand, that in many ways we're all the same.[00:49:16] Tania: Thank you. I did want this be, I wanted this to be a book that was about us rather than them, so that's really good to hear. [00:49:24] Bill: Thank you, Tania. It's, I really, I can't recommend Tania's book Red Memory enough like I said I will also be running an excerpt on Sinocism from one of her chapters. And thank you all for listening and thank you, Tania, for taking the time. [00:49:41] Tania: Thank you.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Episode Notes:A discussion of the recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally.Links:John Culver: How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan - Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceTranscript:Bill: Welcome back to the very occasional Sinocism podcast. Today we are going to talk about the recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally. So we have a lot of experience here to help us understand what just happened. Chris, welcome back and thanks for taking the time.Chris: My pleasure. Always fun to be with you, Bill.Bill: Great. Well, why don't we jump right in. I'd like to talk about what you see as the most important outcomes from the Congress starting with personnel. What do you make of the leadership team from the central committee to the Politburo to the Standing Committee and what does that say about.Chris: Yeah, well, I, think clearly Xi Jinping had a massive win, you know, with personnel. I think we see this particularly in the Politburo Standing Committee, right, where on the key portfolios that really matter to him in terms of controlling the key levers of power inside the system. So we're talking propaganda, obviously, Uh, we're talking party bureaucracy, military less so, but security services, you know, these, these sort of areas all up and down the ballot he did very well.So that's obviously very important. And I think obviously then the dropping of the so-called Communist Youth League faction oriented people in Li Keqiang and Wang Yang and, and Hu Chunhua being  kind of unceremoniously kicked off the Politburo, that tells us that. He's not in the mood to compromise with any other  interest group.I prefer to call them rather than factions. Um, so that sort of suggests to us that, you know, models that rely on that kind of an analysis are dead. It has been kind of interesting in my mind to see how quickly though that, you know, analysts who tend to follow that framework already talking about the, uh, factional elements within Xi's faction, right?So, you know, it's gonna be the Shanghai people versus the Zhijiang Army versus the Fujian people. On Wang HuningBill: people say there's a Tsinghua factionChris: Right. The, the infamous, non infamous Tsinghua clique and, and and so on. But I think as we look more closely, I mean this is all kidding aside, if we look more closely at the individuals, what we see is obviously these people, you know, loyalty to Xi is, is sort of like necessary, but not necessarily sufficient in explaining who these people are. Also, I just always find it interesting, you know, somehow over. Wang Huning has become a Xi Jinping loyalist. I mean, obviously he plays an interesting role for Xj Jinping, but I don't think we should kid ourselves in noting that he's been kind of shunted aside Right by being pushed into the fourth position on the standing committee, which probably tells us that he will be going to oversee the Chinese People's Consultative Congress, which is, you know, kind of a do nothing body, you know, for the most part. And, um, you know, my sense has long been, One of Xi Jinping’s, I think a couple factors there with Wang Huning.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.One is, you know, yes, he is very talented at sort of taking their very, uh, expansive, um, theoretical ideas and coming up with snappy, um, snappy sort of catchphrases, right? This is clearly his, um, his sort of claim to fame. But, you know, we had that article last year from the magazine, Palladium that kind of painted him as some sort of an éminence grise or a Rasputin like figure, you know, in terms of his role.Uh, you know, my sense has always been, uh, as one contact, put it to me one time. You know, the issue is that such analyses tend to confuse the musician with the conductor. In other words,  Xi Jinping.  is pretty good at ideology, right? And party history and the other things that I think the others had relied on.I think the second thing with Wang Huning is, um, in a way XI can't look at him I don't think, without sort of seeing here's a guy who's changed flags, as they would say, right? He served three very different leaders, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and now Xi , um, and, and continued on and I think at some level, uh, and we look at the rest of the appointments where it appears that, uh, loyalty was much more important than merit.Um, where that's also a question mark. So there's those issues I think on the Politburo. You know, you mentioned the, the Tsinghua clique it was very interesting. You had shared with me, uh, Desmond Shum of Red Roulette fame’s Twitter stream sort of debunking, you know, this, this Tsinghua clique and saying, well, it turns out in fact that the new Shanghai Municipal Party Secretary Chen Jining can't stand Chen Xi, even though, you know, they both went to Tsinghua and were there at the same time and so on.Um, you know, who knows with Desmond Shum, but I think he knows some things, right? And, and, and it just a reminder to us all, I think, how little we understand right, about these relationships, especially now, uh, with Xi's concentration of power. And also a situation where we've had nearly three years of covid isolationBill: Right. And so it's really hard to go talk to people, even the fewer and fewer numbers, people who, who know something and can talk. Back to the standing committee. I, I think certainly just from friends and contacts the biggest surprise you know, I think, uh was Li Keqiang and Wang Yang not sticking around. And as that long explainer said without naming them they were good comrades who steps aside for the good of the party in the country,Chris: Because that happens so often,Bill: whatever that means. Um, but really the, the bigger surprise was that, oh, Cai Qi showing up. Who I think when you look at the standing committee, I think the general sense is, okay, the, these people are all, you know, not, they're loyal, but they're also competent, like Li Qiang, Chris: Right, Bill: The likely new premier number two on the standing committee is pretty competent. The Shanghai lockdown, disaster aside, Cai Qi on the other hand, was just, looks more like, it's just straight up loyalty to Xi. I think he was not really on anybody's short list of who was gonna make it on there. And so, it does feel like something happened, right?Chris: Yeah. Well, um, a couple things there. I think, um, one, let's start with the. The issue you raised about the economic team cuz I think that's actually very important. Um, you know, I, at some level, sometimes I feel like I'm sort of tiring my, of my role as official narrative buster or a windmill tilter.Uh, whether, whether it's pushback from Li Keqiang or the myth of the savior premier as I was calling it, which, uh, we didn't see, or that these norms actually aren't very enduring and it's really about power politics. I, I think I'm kind of onto a new one now, which is, you know, Xi Jin ping's new team of incompetent sycophants.Right? That's kind of the label that's, uh, come out in a lot of the takes, uh, since the Congress. But to your point, I mean, you know, Li Qiang has run the three most important economic powerhouses on China's east coast, either as governor or as party chief. Right. He seems to have had a, a good relationship with both.Private sector businesses and, and foreign, you know, people forget that, you know, he got the Tesla plant built in Shanghai in a year basically. Right. And it's, uh, responsible for a very significant amount of, of Tesla's total input of vehicles. Output of vehicles. Excuse me. Um, likewise, I hear that Ding Xuexiang, even though we don't know a lot about him, uh, was rather instrumental in things.Breaking the log jam with the US uh, over the de-listing of Chinese ADRs, uh, that he had played an important role in convincing Xi Jinping it would not be a good idea, for example, to, uh, you know, we're already seeing, uh, sort of decoupling on the technology side. It would not be a good idea to encourage the Americans to decouple financially as well. So the point is I think we need to just all kind of calm down, right? And, and see how these people perform in office. He Lifeng, I think is perhaps, you know, maybe more of a question mark, but, But here too, I think it's important for us to think about how their system worksThe political report sets the frame, right? It tells us what. Okay, this is the ideological construct we're working off of, or our interpretation, our dialectical interpretation of what's going on. And that, I think the signal there was what I like to call this fortress economy, right? So self-sufficiency and technology and so on.And so then when we look at the Politburo appointments, you can see that they align pretty closely to that agenda, right? These people who've worked in state firms or scientists and you know, so on and forth.Bill: Aerospace, defenseChris: Yeah, Aerospace. Very close alignment with that agenda. I'm not saying this is the right choice for China or that it even will be successful, I'm just saying it makes sense, you know,Bill: And it is not just sycophants it is actually loyal but some expertise or experience in these key sectors Chris: Exactly.  Yeah, and, and, and, and of interest as well. You know, even people who have overlapped with Xi Jinping. How much overlap did they have? How much exposure did they have? You know, there's a lot of discussion, for example, about the new propaganda boss, Li Shulei being very close to Xi and likewise Shi Taifeng.Right? Uh, both of whom were vice presidents at the party school when, when Xi also was there. Um, but remember, you know, he was understudy to Hu Jintao at the time, you know, I mean, the party school thing was a very small part of his portfolio and they were ranked lower, you know, amongst the vice presidents of the party school.So how much actual interaction did he have? So there too, you know, I think, uh, obviously. , yes these people will do what Xi Jinping wants them to do, but that doesn't mean they're not competent. On Cai Qi, I agree with you. I think it's, it's, it's difficult. You know, my speculation would be a couple of things.One, proximity matters, right? He's been sitting in Beijing the last five years, so he is, had the opportunity to, uh, be close to the boss and, and impact that. I've heard some suggestions from contacts, which I think makes some. He was seen as more strictly enforcing the zero Covid policy. Right. In part because he is sitting in Beijing than say a Chen Min’er, right.Who arguably was a other stroke better, you know, candidate for that position on the Politburo standing committee. And there, you know, it will be interesting to see, you know, we're not sure the musical chairs have not yet finished. Right. The post party Congress for people getting new jobs. But you know, for example, if Chen Min’er stays out in Chongqing, that seems like a bit of a loss for him.Bill: Yeah, he needs to go somewhere else if he's got any hope of, um, sort of, But so one thing, sorry. One thing on the Politburo I thought was really interesting, and I know we've talked about offline, um, is that the first time the head of the Ministry State Security was, was. Promoted into the Politburo - Chen Wenqing.  And now he is the Secretary of the Central Political Legal Affairs Commission, the party body that oversees the entire security services system and legal system. and what do you think that says about priorities and, and, and where Xi sees things going?Chris: Well, I think it definitely aligns with this concept of Xi Jiping's of comprehensive national security. Right. We've, we've seen and heard and read a lot about that and it seems that the, uh, number of types of security endlessly proliferate, I think we're up to 13 or 14Bill: Everything is National Security in Xi’s China.Chris: Yeah. Everything is, is national security. Uh, that's one thing I think it's interesting perhaps in the, in the frame of, you know, in an era where they are becoming a bigger power and therefore, uh, have more resources and so on. You know, is that role that's played by the Ministry of State Security, which is, you know, they have this unique role, don't they?They're in a way, they're sort of the US' Central Intelligence Agency and, and FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation combined, and that they do have that internal security role as well, but, They are the foreign civilian anyway, uh, foreign intelligence collection arm. So perhaps, you know, over time there's been some sense that they realized, yes, cyber was great for certain things, but you still need human intelligence.Uh, you know, we don't know how well or not Chen Wenqing has performed, but you know, obviously there, this has been a relentless campaign, you know, the search for spies and so on and so forth. Um, I also think it says something about what we seem to be seeing emerging here, which is an effort to take what previously were these, you know, warring, uh, administrative or ministerial factions, right, of the Ministry of Public Security MPS, the MSS, uh, and even the party's, uh, discipline watchdog, the, uh, Central Commission on Discipline inspection, you know, in an effort to sort of knit those guys into one whole.And you know, it is interesting.Chen wending has experience in all three of those. He started off, I think as a street cop. Um, he did serve on the discipline inspection commission under, uh, Wang Qishan when things were, you know, really going  in that department in the early part of, Xi's tenure and then he's headed, uh, the Ministry of State Security.I think, you know, even more interesting probably is. The, uh, formation of the new secretariat, right? Where we have both Chen Wenqing on there and also Wang Xiaohong as a minister of Public Security, but also as a deputy on the CPLAC, right? And a seat on the secretariat. And if we look at the, um, The gentleman who's number two in the discipline inspection, uh, space, he was a longtime police officer as well.So that's very unusual. You know, uh, his name's escaping me at the moment. But, um, you know, so in effect you have basically three people on the Secretariat with security backgrounds and, you know, that's important. It means other portfolios that might be on the secretariat that have been dumped, right? So it shows something about the prioritization, uh, of security.And I think it's interesting, you know, we've, we've often struggled to understand what is the National Security Commission, how does it function, You know, these sort of things. And it's, it's still, you know, absolutely clear as mud. But what was interesting was that, you know, from whatever that early design was that had some aspect at least of looking a bit like the US style, National Security Commission, they took on a much more sort of internal looking flavor.And it had always been my sort of thought that one of the reasons Xi Jinping created this thing was to break down, you know, those institutional rivalries and barriers and force, you know, coordination on these, on these institutions. So, you know, bottom line, I think what we're seeing is a real effort by Xi Jinping to You know, knit together a comprehensive, unified, and very effective, you know, stifling, really security apparatus. And, uh, I don't expect to see that change anytime soon. And then, you know, as you and I have been discussing recently, we also have, uh, another Xi loyalist Chen Yixin showing up as Chen Wenqing's successor right at the Ministry of State SecurityBill: And he remains Secretary General of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission too.Chris: Exactly. So, you know, from, from a, a sheet home where Xi Jinping five years ago arguably had very loose control, if at all, we now have a situation where he's totally dominant. Bill: I think the, the official on the Secretariat, I think it's Liu Jinguo.Chris: That's the one. Yes. Thank you. I'm getting old…Bill: He also has, has a long history of the Ministry of Public Security system. Um, but yeah, it does, it does seem like it's a, it's a real, I mean it, I I, I don't wanna use the word securitization, but it does like this is the indication of a, of a real, sort of, it just sort of fits with the, the general trend  towards much more focus on national security. I mean, what about on the, the Central Military Commission? Right? Because one of the surprises was, um, again, and this is where the norms were broken, where you have Zhang Youxia, who should have retired based on his age, but he's 72, he’s on the Politburo he stays as a vice chair of the CMCChris: Yep. Yeah, no, at, at, at the rip old age of 72. It's a little hard, uh, to think of him, you know, mounting a tank or something  to go invade Taiwan or whatever the, you know, whatever the case may be. But, you know, I, I think here again, the narratives might be off base a little bit, you know, it's this issue of, you know, well he's just picked, you know, these sycophantic loyalists, He's a guy who has combat experience, right?And that's increasingly rare. Um, I don't think it's any surprise that. That himself. And, uh, the, uh, uh, gentleman on the CMC, uh, Li, who is now heading the, um, Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also has Vietnam combat experience, not from 79, but from the, uh, the border incursions that went on into the80s. Um, so it's not that surprising really.But, but obviously, you know, Zhang Youxia is very close to Xi Jinping, their father's fought together, right? Um, and they have that sort of, uh, blood tie and Xi is signaling, I want, uh, I. Political control and also technologically or, or, um, you know, operationally competent people. I think the other fascinating piece is we see once again no vice chairman from the political commissar iatside of the PLA.I think that's very interesting. You know, a lot of people, including myself, were betting that Miao HuaWould, would, would get the promotion. He didn't, you know, we can't know. But my sense is in a way, Xi Jiping is still punishing that side of the PLA for Xu Caihou’s misdoings. Right. You know, and that's very interesting in and of itself.Also, it may be a signal that I don't need a political commissar vice chairman because I handle the politicsBill: And, and, and he, yeah. And in this, this new era that the, the next phase of the Xi era, it, it is, uh, everybody knows, right? It's, it's all about loyalty to Xi.Chris: we just saw right, uh, today, you know, uh, yet, yet more instructions about the CMC responsibilities, Chairman, responsibility systems. Bill: Unfortunately they didn’t release the full text but it would be fascinating to see what’s in there.Chris: And they never do on these things, which is, uh, which is tough. But, um, you know, I think we have a general sense of what would be in it, . But, but even that itself, right, you know, is a very major thing that people, you know, didn't really pick up. Certain scholars, certainly like James Mulvenon and other people who are really good on this stuff noticed it. But this shift under Hu Jintao was a CMC vice chairman responsibility system. In other words, he was subletting the operational matters certainly to his uniformed officers, Xi Jinping doesn’t do thatBill: Well, this, and here we are, right where he can indeed I mean, I, I had written in the newsletter, um, you know, that she had, I thought, I think he ran the table in terms of personnel.Chris: Oh, completely. Yeah.Bill: And this is why it is interesting he kept around folks like Wang Huning, but we'll move on. The next question I had really was about Xi's report to the party Congress and we had talked, I think you'd also, um, you've talked about on our previous podcasts, I mean there, there seems to be a pretty significant shift in the way Xi is talking about the geopolitical environment and their assessment and how they see the world. Can you talk about a little bit?Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely we saw some shifts there and, uh, you know, you and I have talked a lot about it. You know, there are problems with word counting, right? You know, and when you look at the thing and you just do a machine search, and it's like, okay, well security was mentioned 350 times or whatever, but, but the, you know, in what context?Right. Um, and, uh, our, uh, mutual admiration society, the, uh, the China Media project, uh, I thought they did an excellent piece on that sort of saying, Remember, it's the words that go around the buzzword that matter, you know, just as much. But what we can say unequivocally is that two very important touchstones that kind of explain their thinking on their perception of not only their external environment, but really kind of their internal environment, which had been in the last several political reports, now are gone. And those are this idea of China's enjoying a period of strategic opportunity and this idea that peace and development are the underlying trend of the times. And, you know, on the period of strategic opportunity, I think it's important for a couple reasons. One, just to kind of break that down for our listeners in a way that's not, you know, sort of, uh, CCP speak, , uh, the, the basic idea was that China judged that it's external security environment was sufficiently benign, that they could focus their energies on economic development.Right? So obviously that's very important. I also think it was an important governor, and I don't think I've seen anything out there talking about its absence in this, uh, political report on this topic, It was a, it was an important governor on sort of breakneck Chinese military development, sort of like the Soviet Union, right?In other words, as long as you were, you know, sort of judging that your external environment was largely benign, you. Didn't really have a justification to have a massive defense budget or to be pushy, you know, in the neighborhood, these sort of things. And people might poo poo that and sort of say, Well, you know, this is all just rhetoric and so on. No, they actually tend to Bill: Oh, that's interesting. Well, then that fits a little bit, right, Cuz they added the, the wording around strategic deterrence in the report as well  which is seen as a, you know, modernizing, expanding their nuclear forces, right?Chris: Exactly, right. So, you know, that's, uh, an important absence and the fact that, you know, the word, again, word searching, right. Um, strategic and opportunity are both in there, but they're separated and balanced by this risks and challenges, languages and, and so on. Bill: Right the language is very starkly different. Chris: Yeah. And then likewise on, on peace and development. This one, as you know, is, is even older, right? It goes back to the early eighties, I believe, uh, that it's been in, in these political reports. And, uh, you know, there again, the idea was sort of not only was this notion that peace and economic development were the dominant, you know, sort of trend internationally, globally, they would be an enduring one. You know, this idea of the trend of the times, right? Um, now that's missing. So what has replaced it in both these cases is this spirit of struggle, right? Um, and so that's a pretty stark departure and that in my mind just sort of is a real throwback to what you could call the period of maximum danger for the regime in the sixties, right? When they had just split off with the Soviets and they were still facing unremitting hostility from the west after the Korean War experience and, and so on. So, you know, there's definitely a, a decided effort there. I think also we should view the removal of these concepts as a culmination of a campaign that Xi Jinping has been on for a while.You know, as you and I have discussed many times before, from the minute he arrived, he began, I think, to paint this darker picture of the exterior environment. And he seems to have always wanted to create a sort of sense of urgency, certainly maybe even crisis. And I think a big part of that is to justifying the power grab, right? If the world outside is hostile, you need, you know, a strongman. Bill: Well that was a lot of the propaganda going into the Party of Congress about the need for sort of a navigator helmsman because know, we we're, we're closest we have ever been to the great rejuvenation, but it's gonna be really hard and we need sort of strong leadership right. It was, it was all building to that. This is why Ci needs to stay for as long as he wants to stay.Chris: and I think we saw that reflected again just the other day in this Long People's Daily piece by Ding Xuexing, right, Where he's talking again about the need for unity, the throwback, as you mentioned in your newsletter to Mao’s commentary, there is not to be lost on any of us you know, the fact that the Politburo standing committee's. Uh, first field trip is out to Yan’an, right? I mean, you know, these are messages, right? The aren't coincidental.Bill: No, it, it is. The thing that's also about the report that's interesting is that while there was, speaking of word counts, there was no mention of the United States, but it certainly feels like that was the primary backdrop for this entire discussion around. So the, the shifting geopolitical, uh, assessments and this broader, you know, and I think one of the things that I, and I want to talk to as we get into this, a little bit about US China relations, but is it she has come to the conclusion that the US is implacably effectively hostile, and there is no way that they're gonna get through this without some sort of a broader struggle?Chris: I don't know if they, you know, feel that conflict is inevitable. In fact, I kind of assume they don't think that because that's pretty grim picture for them, you know? Um, but I, I do think there's this notion that. They've now had two years to observe the Biden administration. Right? And to some degree, I think it's fair to say that by certain parties in the US, Xi Jinping, maybe not Xi Jinping, but a Wang Qishan or some of these characters were sold a bit of a bag of goods, right?Oh, don't worry, he's not Trump, he's gonna, things will be calmer. We're gonna get back to dialogue and you know, so on and so forth. And that really hasn't happened. And when we look at. Um, when we look at measures like the recent, chip restrictions, which I'm sure we'll discuss at some point, you know, that would've been, you know, the, the wildest dream, right of certain members of the Trump administration to do something that, uh, that's that firm, right? So, um, I think the conclusion of the Politburo then must be, this is baked into the cake, right? It's bipartisan. Um, the earliest we'll see any kind of a turn here is 2024. I think they probably feel. Um, and therefore suddenly things like a no limits partnership with Russia, right, start to make more sense. Um, but would really makes sense in that if that is your framing, and I think it is, and you therefore see the Europeans as like a swing, right, in this equation. This should be a great visit, right, for Chancellor Scholz, uh, and uh, I can't remember if it was you I was reading or someone else here in the last day or so, but this idea that if the Chinese are smart, they would get rid of these sanctions on Bill: That was me. Well, that was in my newsletterChris: Yeah. Parliamentary leaders and you know, Absolutely. Right. You know, that's a no brainer, but. I don't think they're gonna do it , but, but you know, this idea definitely that, and, and when they talk in the political report, you know, it, it's, it's like, sir, not appearing in this film, right, from Money Python, but we know who the people who are doing the bullying, you know, uh, is and the long armed jurisdiction and , so on and so forth and all, I mean, all kidding aside, I think, you know, they will see something like the chip restrictions effectively as a declaration of economic war. I don't think that's going too far to say that.Bill: It goes to the heart of their sort of technological project around rejuvenation. I mean, it is, it is a significant. sort of set of really kind of a, I would think, from the Chinese perspective aggressive policies against them,Chris: Yeah, and I mean, enforcement will be key and we'll see if, you know, licenses are granted and how it's done. And we saw, you know, already some, some backing off there with regard to this US person, uh, restriction and so on. But, but you know, it's still pretty tough stuff. There's no two ways aboutBill: No, and I, I wonder, and I worry that here in DC. You know, where the mood is very hawkish. If, if people here really fully appreciate sort of the shift that's taking, that seems to be taking place in Beijing and how these actions are viewed.Chris: Well, I, I think that's a really, you put your hand on it really, really interesting way, Bill, because, you know, let's face it really since the Trump trade war started, right? We've all analysts, you know, pundits, uh, even businesses and government people have been sort of saying, you know, when are the Chinese gonna punch back? You know, when are they going to retaliate? Right? And we talk about rare earths and we talk about Apple and TeslaBill: They slapped some sanctions on people but they kind of a jokeChris:  And I guess what I'm saying is I kind of worry we're missing the forest from the trees. Right. You know, the, the, the work report tells us, the political report tells us how they're reacting. Right. And it is hardening the system, moving toward this fortress economy, you know, so on and so forth. And I wanna be real clear here, you know, they're not doing this just because they're reacting to the United States. Xi Jinping presumably wanted to do this all along, but I don't think we can say that the actions they perceive as hostile from the US aren't playing a pretty major role in allowing him to accelerate.Bill: Well, they called me. Great. You justifying great Accelerationist, right? Trump was called that as well, and, and that, that's what worries me too, is we're in. Kind of toxic spiral where, where they see us doing something and then they react. We see them do something and we react and, and it doesn't feel like sort of there's any sort of a governor or a break and I don't see how we figure that out.Chris: Well, I think, you know, and I'm sure we'll come to this later in our discussion, but you know, uh, yes, that's true, but you know, I'm always deeply skeptical of these inevitability memes, whether it's, you know, Thucydides trap or, you know, these other things. Last time I checked, there is something called political agency, right?In other words, leaders can make choices and they can lead if they want to, right? They have an opportunity to do so at in Bali, and you know, we'll have to see some of the, you know, early indications are perhaps they're looking at sort of a longer meeting. So that would suggest maybe there will be some discussion of some of these longstanding issues.Maybe we will see some of the usual, you know, deliverable type stuff. So there's an opportunity. I, I think one question is, can the domestic politics on either side allow for seizing that opportunity? You know, that's an open.Bill: Interesting. There's a couple things in the party constitution, which I think going into the Congress, you know, they told us they were gonna amend the Constitution. There were expectations that it, the amendments were gonna reflect an increase in Xi’s power, uh, things like this, this idea of the two establishments, uh, which for listeners are * "To establish the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Party’s Central Committee and of the whole Party"* "To establish the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era"The thinking, and I, I certainly believe that, I thought that they would write that in. There was some talk that, uh, Xi Jinping Thought the longer version would be truncated to just Xi Jinping thought. that possibly he might get, a, a sort of another title like People's Leader. None of those happened. One thing that did happen, What’s officially translated by the Chinese side in English as the two upholds- “Uphold the 'core' status of General Secretary Xi Jinping within the CC and “Uphold the centralized authority of the Party” those were written in. And so the question is, was there some kind of pushback or are we misreading we what mattered? And actually the two upholds are more important than the two of establishes.Chris: Well, I, and I think it, this may be a multiple choice answer, right? There might be elements of all the above in there. Uh, you know, I think it is important that he didn't get the truncation to Xi Jinping thought. You have to think that that was something he was keen on. In retrospect, it may be that it was something akin. I've always felt, you know, another thing that was on the table that didn't happen was reestablishing the party chairmanship. My view had always been he was using that largely as a bargaining chip. That, you know, in some ways it creates more trouble than it's worth you. If you're gonna have a chairman, you probably have to have vice chairman and what does that say about the succession? I mean, of course he could have, you know, a couple of geezers on there.  as vice chairman too. , But I, my view was always is he was holding that out there to trade away. Right. You know, at, at the last minute. Um, maybe that's what happened with Xi Jinping thought. I don't know.You know, uh, there have been some media articles, one of which, You and I were discussing yesterday from, uh, the Japanese, uh, publication Nikkei, you know, that suggested that, you know, the elders had, this was their last gasp, right? So the Jiang Zemins and the Zeng Qinghongs and Hu Jinataos, so on. Um, I'm a little skeptical of that. It is possible. Uh, but, um, I, I'd be a little skeptical of that. You know, it's, it's not at all clear that they had any kind of a role, you know, even at Beidaihe this year and so on, Jiang Zemin didn't even attend the Party Congress so clearly, you know, he must be pretty frail or he thought it was not with his time. You know, a little hard to say, but, you know, I kind of struggle with the notion that, you know, the 105 year old Song Ping gets up on a chair or something and starts,  starts making trouble. Right. You know, uh, the poor man's probably lucky if he stays awake during the meeting. Bill: One question, and again, because of the, just, you know, how much more opaque Chinese politics are than the really I think they've ever been. Um, but just one question. It mean, is it possible, for example, that you know, it's more important to get the personnel done. It's more, and then once you get your, you stack the central committee, you get the politburo, you get the standing committee, that these things are sort of a next phase.Chris: yeah, it's entirely possible and, and I think it, it, it does dovetail with this idea that, you know, another reflection from both the political report and the lineup in my mind, is Xi Jinping is a man in a hurry. Right? And he's kind of projected that, as you said, the great accelerator since he arrived.But I think he sees this next five years is really fundamental, right in terms of breaking through on these chokepoint technologies as they call them. You know, these sort of things. And so maybe therefore having the right people in place to handle, you know, uh, speedier policy, execution, you know, was more important.Likewise, I mean, he's sort of telegraphing, He's gonna be around for a while, right? No successor, no visible successor anywhere. Bill: A successor would need likely need five years on the standing committee. So we're looking at ten more years.Chris: Yes, exactly. And so there will be time. The other thing is, um, Xi Jinping is a, is a sort of determined fellow, right? You know, so of interest, even before the 19th Party Congress, I'd been hearing very strong rumors that the notion of lingxiu was out there, that he was contemplating it, right? And so then we see the buildup with, uh, Renmin lingxiu and so on and so forth.And, you know, it didn't happen clearly at the 19th. It didn't happen. But it doesn't mean it won't, you know, at some point. And I think it's really important also to think about, you know, We just saw a pretty serious, um, enterprise of the, you know, quote unquote norm busting, right? So what's to say that mid-course in this five years, he doesn't, uh, hold another sort of extraordinary conference of party delegates like them, Deng Xiaoping did in 1985, right, to push through some of these. You never know, right? In other words, these things don't necessarily have to happen. Just at Party Congresses. So my guess is, you know, this isn't over yet. Uh, but you know, at some level, given how the system was ramping up with those articles about Navigator and the people's leader stuff and so on, you know, that's usually a tell, and yet it didn't happen. And, and so something interesting there. Bill: now they're in the mode of, they're out with these sort of publicity, propaganda education teams where they go out throughout the country and talk about the spirit of the party Congress and push all the key messaging. Um, you know, so far none of those People's leader truncation have happened in that, which is I think an area where some people thought, Well, maybe that could sort of come after the Congress.Chris: What is interesting is it's all two establishments all the time in those discussions, so that's been very interesting since it didn't make it into the, uh, into the document. I guess the other thing is, At some level, is it sort of a distinction without a difference? You know, I, I haven't done the work on this to see, but my guess is short of, you know, the many times they've just junked the entire constitution and rewritten it, this is probably the most amendments there have been, you know, in the to at one time. You know, to the 1982 constitution, and most of them are his various buzzwords. Right. Um, and you know, I think you've been talking about this in the newsletter, there may very well be, uh, something to this issue of, you know, which is the superior thought two establishments or to upholds/safeguards?Bill: and even if the two establishes were superior and then it didn't go in, then somehow it will be theoretically flipped to what got in the ConstitutionChris: I mean, I guess the, the, the thing though where we, it's fair to say that maybe this wasn't his ideal outcome. To me, there's been a very clear and you know, structured stepwise approach on the ideology from the word go. Right? And the first was to create right out of the shoot, this notion of, you know, three eras, right?The, Mao period, Deng  and those other guys we don't talk about it anymore, period.  and Xi Jinping's new era, right? And then that was. You know, sort of crystallized right at the 19th Party Congress when you know, Xi Jinping thought for horribly long name went into the Constitution. And so, you know, the next step kind of seemed like that should be it.And as we've discussed before, you know, if he's able to get just Thought, it certainly enhances his ability to stay around for a very long time and it makes his diktats and so on even more unquestionable. But you know, you can say again, matter of prioritization. With a team where there's really no visible or other opposition, does it really matter? You know, in other words, no one's gonna be questioning his policy ideas anyway.Bill: Just an aside, but on  his inspection, the new standing committee will go on group trip right after the Party Congress and the first trip sends key messages. And group went to Yan’an, you know, they went, they went to the caves. Um, and you know, in the long readout or long CCTV report of the meeting, the visit, there was a section where the tour guide or the person introducing some of the exhibits talked about how the, the famous song, the East Is Red was,  by a person, written by the people sort of spontaneously, and it w it definitely caused some tittering about, well, what are they trying to signal for?You know, are we gonna be seeing some  Xi songs? there's some kind of really interesting signaling going on that I don't think we quite have figured out how to parse Chris: My takeaway on all this has been, I, I need to go back and do a little more book work on, you know, what was, what was the content of the seventh party Congress? What were the outcomes? I mean, I have the general sense, right? Like you, I immediately, you know, started brushing up on it. But, you know, Xi delivered a, an abridged work report. Right, A political report, which is exactly what Mao did then. I mean, in other words, they're not kidding around with the parallelism here. The question is what's the message?Bill: Just for background, at the visit last week to Yan’an, and the first spot that was in the propaganda was the, the, site of the seventh party Congress which is where…to be very simplistic, the seventh party was really moment, you know, as at the end of the Yan’am rectification came in, it was the moment where sort of Mao fully asserted his dominance throughout the system. Mao Thought etc. Right? The signaling, you could certainly, could certainly take a view that, you know, he doesn't do these things by coincidence, and this is. This is signaling both of, you know, can through anything because they, livedin caves and ended up beating the Japanese and then won the Civil War. You know this, and we can, and by the way, we have a dominant leader. I mean, there are ways, again, I'm being simplistic, but the symbolism was not, I think one that would, for example, give a lot of confidence to investors, which I think is, you know, one, one of the many reasons we've seen until the rumors earlier this week, a, pretty big selloff in the, in the Hong Kong and manland stock markets rightChris: most definitely. And I think, you know, this is the other thing about, about what I was trying to get at earlier with, uh, forest and trees, right? You know, in other words, . Um, he's been at this for a while too. You know, there's a reason why he declared a new long march right in depths of the trade war with Trump.Bill: And a new historical resolution, only the third in historyChris: Yeah. And they have been stepwise building since then. And this is the next building block.Bill: The last thought, I mean, he is 69. He's. 10 years younger than President Joe Biden. He could go, he could be around for a long timeBill: well just quickly, cause I know, uh, we don't have that much more time, but I, you say anything about your thoughts on Hu Jintao and what happened?My first take having had a father and a stepfather had dementia was, um, you know, maybe too sympathetic to the idea that, okay, he's having some sort of a senior cognitive moment. You know, you can get. easily agitated, and you can start a scene. And so therefore, was humiliating and symbolic at the end of the Communist Youth League faction, but maybe it was, it was benign as opposed to some of the other stuff going around. But I think might be wrong so I’d love your take on that.  Chris: Well, I, I think, you know, I, I kind of shared your view initially when I watched the, uh, I guess it was an AFP had the first, you know, sort of video that was out there and, you know, he appeared to be stumbling around a bit. He definitely looked confused and, you know, like, uh, what we were discussing earlier on another subject, this could be a multiple choice, you know, A and B or whatever type scenario as well.We don't know, I mean, it seems pretty well established that he has Parkinson's, I think the lead pipe pincher for me though, was that second longer one Singapore's channel, Channel News Asia put out. I mean, he is clearly tussling with Li Zhanshu about something, right. You know that that's. Yes, very clear. And you know, if he was having a moment, you know, when they finally get him up out of the chair and he seems to be kind of pulling back and so on, you know, he moves with some alacrity there,  for an 80 year old guy. Uh, I don't know if he was being helped to move quickly or he, you know, realized it was time to exit stage.Right. But I think, you know, as you said in your newsletter, I, we probably will never know. Um, but to me it looked an awful lot like an effort by Xi Jinping to humiliate him. You know, I mean, there was a reason why they brought the cameras back in at that moment, you know? Unless we believe that that just happened spontaneously in terms of Hu Jintao has his freak out just as those cameras were coming back in the stone faces of the other members of the senior leadership there on the rostrum and you know, Wand Hunting, pulling Li Zhanshu back down kind of saying basically, look buddy, this is politics, don't you don't wanna, that's not a good look for you trying to care for Hu Jintao. You know, I mean obviously something was going on, you know? No, no question. Bill: Right. And feeds into  the idea that Hu Chunhua, we all expected that he at least be on the Politburo again, and he's, he's off, so maybe something, something was going Chris: Well, I, I think what we know from observing Xi Jinping, right? We know that this is a guy who likes to keep people off balance, right? Who likes to keep the plate spinning. He, this is definitely the Maoist element of his personality, you know, whether it's strategic disappearances or this kind of stuff. And I think it's entirely plausible that he might have made some last minute switches right, to, uh, the various lists that were under consideration that caused alarm, you know, among those who thought they were on a certain list and  and no longer were.Bill: and then, and others who were smart enough to realize that if he made those switches, they better just go with it.Chris: Yeah, go along with it. Exactly. I mean, you know, in some ways the most, aside from what happened to Hu Jintao, the, the most, um, disturbing or compelling, depending on how you wanna look at it, part of that video is when Hu Jintao, you know, sort of very, um, delicately taps Li Keqiang on the shoulder. He doesn't even look at it, just keeps looking straight ahead. Uh, and that's tough. And as you pointed out in the newsletter and elsewhere, you know, how difficult must have that have been for Hu Jintao's son Hu Haifeng, who's in the audience watching this all go on? You know, it's, uh, it's tough. Bill: And then two two days later attends a meeting where he praises Xi to high heaven.Chris: Yeah, exactly. So, so if the darker narrative is accurate, I guess one thing that concerns me a bit is, as you know, well, I have never been a fan of these, uh, memes about comparing Xi Jinping to either Stalin or Mao in part because I don't see him as a whimsical guy. They were whimsical people. I think because of his tumultuous upbringing, he understands the problems with that kind of an approach to life, but this was a very ruthless act. If that more malign, you know, sort of definition is true and that I think that says something about his mentality that perhaps should concern us if that's the case. Bill: It has real implications, not just for domestic also potentially for its foreign policy.Chris: Absolutely. I mean, what it shows, right to some degree, again, man in a hurry, this is a tenacious individual, right?  if he's willing to do that. And so if you're gonna, you know, kick them in the face on chips and, you know, things like that, um, you should be taking that into consideration.Bill: And I think preparing for a more substantive response  that is more thought out and it's also, it happened, it wasn't very Confucian for all this talk Confucian definitely not. and values. One last question, and it is related is what do you make of this recent upsurge or talk in DC from various officials that PRC has accelerated its timeline to absorb Taiwan, because nothing in the public documents indicates any shift in that timeline.Chris: No. Uh, and well, first of all, do they, do they have a timeline? Right? You know, I mean, the whole idea of a timeline is kind of stupid, right? You don't, if you're gonna invade somewhere, you say, Hey, we're gonna do it on on this date. I mean, 2049. Okay. Bill: The only timeline that I think you can point to is is it the second centenary goal and, and Taiwan getting quote unquote, you know, returning Taiwan to the motherland’s key to the great rejuvenation,Chris: Yeah, you can't have rejuvenation without it. Bill: So then it has to be done by 2049. 27 years, but they've never come out and specifically said 27 years or 2049. But that's what No. that's I think, is where the timeline idea comes from.Chris: Oh yes, definitely. And, and I think some confusion of. What Xi Jinping has clearly set out and reaffirmed in the political report as these important, um, operational benchmarks for the PLA, the People's Liberation Army to achieve by its hundredth anniversary in 2027. But that does not a go plan for Taiwan make, you know, And so it's been confusing to me trying to understand this. And of course, you know, I, I'm joking, but I'm not, you know, if we, if we listen now to the chief of naval operations of the US Navy, you know, like they're invading tomorrow, basically.My former colleague from the CIA, John Culver's, done some very, you know, useful public work on this for the Carnegie, where he sort his endowment, where he sort of said, you know, look, there's certain things we would have to see, forget about, you know, a D-day style invasion, any type of military action that, that you don't need intelligence methods to find out. Right. You know, uh, canceling, uh, conscription, demobilization cycles, you know, those, those sort of things. Um, we don't see that happening. So I've been trying to come to grips with why the administration seems fairly seized with this and and their public commentary and so on. What I'm confident of is there's no smoking gun you know, unlike, say the Russia piece where it appears, we had some pretty compelling intelligence. There doesn't seem to be anything that says Xi Jinping has ordered invasion plans for 2024, you know, or, or, or even 2027. Um, so I'm pretty confident that's not the case. And so then it becomes more about an analytic framework. And I, from what I can tell, it's seems to be largely based on what, uh, in, you know, the intelligence community we would call calendar-int.. calendar intelligence. In other words, you know, over the next 18 months, a lot of stuff's going to happen. We're gonna have our midterm elections next week. It's pretty likely the Republicans get at least one chamber of Congress, maybe both.That would suggest that things like the Taiwan Policy Act and, you know, really, uh, things that have, uh, Beijing's undies in a bunch, uh, you know, could really come back on, uh, the radar pretty forcibly and pretty quickly. Obviously Taiwan, nobody talks about it, but Taiwan's having municipal elections around the same time, and normally that would be a very inside Taiwan baseball affair, nobody would care. But the way that KMT ooks like they will not perform, I should say,  in those municipal elections. They could be effectively wiped out, you know, as a, as a sort of electable party in Taiwan. That's not a good news story for Beijing.And then of course we have our own presidential in 2024 and Taiwan has a presidential election in 24 in the US case.I mean, look, we could end up with a President Pompeo, right? Or a President DeSantis or others who. Been out there sort of talking openly about Taiwan independence and recognizing Taiwan. And similarly, I think whoever succeeds, uh, President Tsai in Taiwan, if we assume it will likely be a a, a Democratic Progressive party president, will almost by definition be more independence oriented.So I think the administration is saying there's a lot of stuff that's gonna get the Chinese pretty itchy, you know, over this next 18 month period. So therefore we need to be really loud in our signaling to deter. Right. And okay. But I think there's a risk with that as well, which they don't seem to be acknowledging, which is you might create a self-fulfilling prophecy.I mean, frankly, that's what really troubles me about the rhetoric. And so, for example, when Secretary Blinken last week or the before came out and said  Yeah, you know, the, the, the Chinese have given up on the status quo. I, I, I've seen nothing, you know, that would suggest that the political report doesn't suggest. Bill: They have called it a couple of times  so-called status quo.Chris: Well, Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's fine. Um, but I think if we look at the reason why they're calling it the so-called status quo, it's because it's so called now because the US has been moving the goalposts on the status quo.Yeah. In terms of erosion of the commitment to the one China policy. And the administration can say all at once, they're not moving the goal post, but they are, I mean, let's just be honest.Bill: Now, and they have moved it more than the Trump administration did, don't you think?Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, you know, no president has said previously we will defend Taiwan  multiple times. Right. You know, um, and things like, uh, you know, Democracy, someone, I mean, this comes back also to the, the framing, right, of one of the risks I think of framing the relationship as democracy versus autocracy is that it puts a very, uh, heavy incentive then for the Biden administration or any future US administration to, you know, quote unquote play the Taiwan card, right, as part of said competition.Whereas if you don't have that framing, I don't think that's necessarily as automatic. Right? In other words, if that's the framing, well Taiwan's a democracy, so we have to lean in. Right? You know? Whereas if it's a more say, you know, straight realist or national interest driven foreign policy, you might not feel that in every instance you've gotta do that,Bill: No, and and I it, that's an interesting point. And I also think too that, um, I really do wonder how much Americans care, right? And, and whether or not we're running the risk of setting something up or setting something in motion that, you know, again, it's easy to be rhetorical about it, but that we're frankly not ready to deal withChris: Well, and another thing that's interesting, right, is that, um, to that point, Some of the administration's actions, you know, that are clearly designed to show toughness, who are they out toughing? You know, in some cases it feels like they're out toughing themselves, right? I mean, obviously the Republicans are watching them and so on and all of that.Um, but you know, interesting, uh, something that came across my thought wave the other day that I hadn't really considered. We’re seeing pretty clear indications that a Republican dominated Congress after the midterms may be less enthusiastic about support to Ukraine, we're all assuming that they're gonna be all Taiwan support all the time.Is that a wrong assumption? You know, I mean, in other words, Ukraine's a democracy, right? And yet there's this weird strain in the Trumpist Wing of the Republican party that doesn't wanna spend the money. Right. And would that be the case for Taiwan as well? I don't know, but you know, the point is, I wonder if the boogieman of looking soft is, is sort of in their own heads to some degree.And, and even if it isn't, you know, sometimes you have to lead. Bill: it’s not clear the allies are listening. It doesn't sound like the Europeans would be on board withChris: I think very clearly they're not. I mean, you know, we're about to see a very uncomfortable bit of Kabuki theater here, aren't we? In the next couple of days with German Chancellor Sholz going over and, um, you know, if you, uh, read the op-ed he wrote in Politico, you know, it's, it's painful, right? You can see him trying to, uh, Trying to, uh, you know, straddle the fence and, and walk that line.And, and obviously there are deep, deep divisions in his own cabinet, right? You know, over this visit, the foreign minister is publicly criticizing him, you know, and so on. So I think this is another aspect that might be worrisome, which is the approach. You know, my line is always sort of a stool, if it's gonna be stable, needs three legs, right.And on US-China relations, I think that is, you know, making sure our own house is in order. Domestic strengthening, these guys call it, coordinating with allies and partners, certainly. But then there's this sort of talking to the Chinese aspect and through a policy, what I tend to call strategic avoidance, we don't.Talk to them that much. So that leg is missing. So then those other two legs need to be really strong. Right. Um, and on domestic strengthening, Okay. Chips act and so on, that's good stuff. On allies and partners, there seems to be a bit of an approach and I think the chip restrictions highlight this of, look, you're either for us or against us.Right? Whereas I think in, you know, the good old Cold War I, we seem to be able to understand that a West Germany could do certain things for us vis-a-vis the Soviets and certain things they couldn't and we didn't like it and we complained, but we kind of lived with it, right? If we look at these chip restrictions, it appears the administration sort of said, Look, we've been doing this multilateral diplomacy on this thing for a year now, it’s not really delivering the goods. The chips for framework is a mess, so let's just get it over with and drag the allies with us, you know? Um, and we'll see what ramifications that will have.Bill: Well on that uplifting note, I, I think I'm outta questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add?Chris: Well, I think, you know, something just to consider is this idea, you know, and maybe this will help us close on a more optimistic note. Xi Jinping is telling us, you know, he's hardening the system, he's, he's doing this fortress economy thing and so on. But he also is telling us, I have a really difficult set of things I'm trying to accomplish in this five years.Right? And that may mean a desire to signal to the us let's stabilize things a bit, not because he's having a change of heart or wants a fundamental rapprochement, so on and so forth. I don't think that's the case, but might he want a bit of room, right? A breathing room. Bill: Buy some time, buy some spaceChris: Yeah, Might he want that? He might. You know, and so I think then a critical question is how does that get sorted out in the context of the negotiations over the meeting in Bali, if it is a longer meeting, I think, you know, so that's encouraging for that. Right. To some degree. I, I, I would say, you know, if we look at what's just happened with the 20th party Congress and we look at what's about to happen, it seems with our midterms here in the United States, Who's the guy who's gonna be more domestically, politically challenged going into this meeting, and therefore have less room to be able to seize that opportunity if it does exist.Exactly. Because I, I think, you know, the, the issue is, The way I've been framing it lately, you know, supposedly our position is the US position is strategic competition and China says, look, that's inappropriate, and we're not gonna sign onto it and forget it.You know, my own view is we kind of have blown past strategic competition where now in what I would call strategic rivalry, I think the chip restrictions, you know, are, are a giant exclamation point, uh, under that, you know, and so on. And my concern is we're kind of rapidly headed toward what I would call strategic enmity.And you know, that all sounds a bit pedantic, but I think that represents three distinct phases of the difficulty and the relationship. You know, strategic enmity is the cold, the old Cold War, what we had with the Soviets, right? So we are competing against them in a brass tax manner across all dimensions. And if it's a policy that, you know, hurts us, but it hurts them, you know, 2% more we do it, you know, kind of thing. I don't think we're there yet. And the meeting offers an opportunity to, you know, arrest the travel from strategic rivalry to strategic enmity. Let's see if there's something there/Bill: And if, and if we don't, if it doesn't arrest it, then I think the US government at least has to do a much better job of explaining to the American people why we're headed in this direction and needs  to do a much better job with the allies cuz because again, what I worry about is we're sort of heading down this path and it doesn't feel like we've really thought it through.You know, there are lots of reasons  be on this path, but there's also needs to be a much more of a comprehensive understanding of the, of the costs and the ramifications and the solutions and have have an actual sort of theory of the case about how we get out the other side of this in a, in a better way.Chris: Yeah, I think that's important. I want to be real, um, fair to the administration. You know, they're certainly more thoughtful and deliberative than their predecessor. Of course, the bar was low, but, um, you know, they, they seem to approach these things in a pretty. Dedicated and careful manner. And I think they really, you know, take, take things like, uh, looking at outbound investment restrictions, you know, my understanding is they have been, you know, seeking a lot of input about unintended consequences and so on. But then you look at something like the chips piece and it just seems to me that those in the administration who had been pushing for, you know, more there for some time, had a quick moment where they basically said, look, this thing's not working with multilaterally, Let’s just do it, you know? And then, oh, now we're seeing the second and third and other order consequences of it. And the risk is that we wind up, our goal is to telegraph unity to Beijing and shaping their environment around them as the administration calls it. We might be signaling our disunity, I don't know, with the allies, and obviously that would not be a good thingBill: That’s definitely a risk. Well, thanks Chris. It's always great to talk to you and Thank you for listening to the occasional Sinocism podcast. Thank you, Chris.Chris: My pleasure. Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe