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MARTIN SMITH, correspondent:
In July 2021, China celebrated the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
PRESIDENT XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Since its inception, the party’s primary mission has been happiness for the Chinese people and the revival of the Chinese nation.
MARTIN SMITH:
In his speech, President Xi Jinping celebrated China’s emergence as one of the richest countries on the planet.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is wonderful and excellent for the Chinese nation, for the Chinese people.
MARTIN SMITH:
By all indications, Xi is the toughest Chinese leader since the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong. And like Mao, he has immense ambitions for his country.
China promotional video
MARTIN SMITH:
During his first decade in power, Xi introduced the largest infrastructure allocation in history, building ports, highways and a vast virtual network linking China with around 150 countries. It has turned China into the world’s leading vehicle manufacturer.
EX-ROBOT VOICE:
[Speaking Mandarin] Nice to meet you.
FORMER ROBOT EMPLOYEE:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is our company’s next generation robot.
MARTIN SMITH:
It has invested heavily in a race with the United States to dominate the advancement of synthetic intelligence. He plans to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And Xi has presided over an antagonistic relationship with the United States.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Other Chinese will never allow a foreign force to intimidate, oppress or enslave us. Anyone who tries will be hit on the head with blood in front of a marvelous metal wall forged by 1. 4 billion Chinese.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Company:
Xi Jinping is different. It doesn’t need to be part of the global as it is. What it needs is to be much more dominant in the way the global is managed. You don’t need. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Orville Schell is widely recognized as the dean of China experts in the U.S. and has served as a consultant on this project. He has made many trips to China and has closely observed the rise of Xi Jinping.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
You can read his speeches and it’s all there. He says what he is going to do and he does it.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Taiwan’s independence goes against history. It’s a dead end. We rule out the use of force.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
And we can’t really say that this is anything other than propaganda, which may not make any sense, but it’s not. He laid it all out there.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] [We must] achieve the goal of realistic combat education and, in fact, master the skill to fight and win wars.
Video surveillance
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi Jinping speaks all the time about hostile foreign forces, didui shili. That is the core of his sense of the U.S. and China relationship. It’s hostile.
MARTIN SMITH:
We try to perceive the roots of this hostility, to perceive Xi himself and the China he leads. But China severely limited foreign media and we were allowed to report from inside the country. No existing official wanted to talk to us officially.
China does permit us to input China. What for?
VICTOR GAO, Professor, Soochow University:
China faces all kinds of demanding situations in the world. You may or may not be on their radar screen.
MARTIN SMITH:
Victor Gao is a well-known figure who travels around the world to protect Xi’s China. We interviewed him in New York.
What aspect of Xi Jinping’s presidency has fostered this hostility between the United States and China?
VICTOR GAO:
I disagree with the way you characterize the situation.
MARTIN SMITH:
But after 2012, when he came to power. . .
VICTOR GAO:
I would say that fundamentally, China and the United States treat each other as equals, but China and the United States have mutual relations. relationships are treated as equals. Relationships are moving in a direction that is proving complicated and dangerous.
the prince
MARTIN SMITH:
To begin with, I wanted to know where Xi Jinping came from and how his afterlife transformed him into the man he is today. He grew up in a turbulent time in China’s history, but he is a privileged child with red roots. Xi’s father had fought alongside Mao Zedong and, after the Revolution, became a senior official in the Communist Party. The young Xi lived in a comfortable house and could attend the most productive schools.
JOSEPH TORIGIAN, author, Party Interests Come First:
He was one of the so-called princes and enjoyed many privileges. Then Xi Jinping would have grown up. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Joseph Torigian is a professor at American University.
JOSÉ TORIGIEN:
He went to a school that was primarily attended by the offspring of high-ranking cadres, and they were told that they were going to be the ones who were going to bring China to modernity, who were going to draw upon the legacies of the Chinese Communist Party to transform society.
MARTIN SMITH:
Prior to the 1949 revolution, China was ruled by a U.S.-backed dictator, Chiang Kai-shek.
NEWS FROM THE USA:
All Americans know Chiang Kai-shek well, a narrow and enthusiastic leader, undisputed leader and idol of millions of Chinese.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao called Chiang a “running dog of imperialism.” He fought to depose Chiang for 22 years.
MALE READER:
Despite aid from America, Chiang’s forces were beaten back. The Revolution was now within Mao’s grasp, and it was the start of the biggest political and economic experiment the world has ever seen.
MARTIN SMITH:
Before Mao’s victory, China was among the world’s poorest nations. Inspired by communist theory, Mao blamed China’s wealthy elites for the nation’s ills.
CCP PROPAGANDA FILM:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party calls for radical change. Heaven and earth upside down.
The Red Detachment of Women, 1961
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao followed communist propaganda like this film to unite the other people who opposed the landlords.
PCC PROPAGANDA FILM:
[Speaking Mandarin] Isn’t he a landlord? Evil elite? Bloodsucking monster?
MARTIN SMITH:
In Mao’s China, donkey caps were used to publicly humiliate disloyal landowners, intellectuals and politicians.
In 1962, when Xi Jinping was just 9 years old, his father became an unlikely victim of these purges. Mao accused him of being disloyal. Xi’s father was subjected to so-called struggle sessions where he was beaten and denounced.
ALFRED CHAN, author, Xi Jinping:
His father accuses him of supporting a novel that could have cast doubt on Mao’s leadership. It’s as undeniable as that.
MARTIN SMITH:
Professor Alfred Chan is the author of a complete biography of Xi Jinping that chronicles his life.
ALFREDO CHAN:
His father was dragged out and paraded in the street. In those days, they put a dunce cap on him, and he was subjected to mock trials. Those were essentially kangaroo courts.
MARTIN SMITH:
Here, a sign hanging from Xi’s father’s neck reads “Anti-Party Element Xi Zhongxun. “
JOSEPH TORIGIAN:
We know that for him it is an emotionally traumatic experience. When you’re a member of the Chinese Communist Party, everything disappears. Your whole life is a party. So when the party tells you that you oppose Mao, it’s hard to overestimate how infuriating it is for a member of this kind of organization to hear that.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s father was sent to work in a factory and then imprisoned for 8 years.
Meanwhile, some of the party elite were having doubts about Mao’s leadership. A famine, the result of Mao’s failed farm policies, had devastated the country.
US NEWS:
These other people came with reports of deaths in the fields and of hungry farmers eating some of the seeds intended for next year’s planting.
MARTIN SMITH:
Undeterred, Mao introduced his so-called Cultural Revolution in 1966, expanding the categories of those who would be purged.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Thus, in the Cultural Revolution there existed what were called hei wu lei, the “black categories. ” And those were other people who had no qualities as human beings. They had no rights. They were considered unacceptable, otherwise bad things would have to be said. They had to be overthrown and, in many cases, even exterminated. And we saw millions of deaths. They were not entirely human.
CHINESE RED GUARDS SONG:
[Singing in Mandarin] Red Guards, Red Guards, burning with zeal.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mao encouraged bands of marauding youths, known as Red Guards, to assist the so-called black elements with a view to punishing them.
SONG OF THE CHINESE RED GUARDS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Standing firm, the leadership clear, our revolutionary spirits strong. We hold to it with total devotion. We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards.
CAI XIA, Chinese Communist Party, 1982-2020:
[Speaking Mandarin] Our education taught us that Mao Zedong is our wonderful savior.
MARTIN SMITH:
Cai Xia, a long-time member, came of age in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.
You say he’s the savior. What did it save you from?
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] At the time, we believed that Mao Zedong had led the Chinese people to overthrow what we called imperialism – the capitalists and landlords who oppressed the Chinese people. the country.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
One of the most pernicious and harmful aspects of the whole Maoist revolution was that it distorted and made it impossible for people to be human and to have family loyalties, friendship loyalties—to keep any moral compass on whatsoever.
MARTIN SMITH:
When he was 13, Xi himself subjected him to wrestling sessions, forced him to wear a donkey cap, and publicly denounced him through his own mother.
ALFRED CHAN:
According to Xi Jinping, he went through several such wrestling sessions. And his half-sister couldn’t stand it and committed suicide. The physical and mental violence is enormous.
MARTIN SMITH:
At the age of 15, Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside to do hard manual labor, known as degraded youth.
ALFREDO CHAN:
At that time, 17 million young people were sent to the countryside to be re-educated by poor peasants. Mao thought this was the truth of China: a poor and underdeveloped countryside. Xi Jinping visited one of the most deprived regions in China, where I stayed for seven years and basically painted as a farmer. The painting was difficult. Thus, Xi Jinping, being a city boy, a prince, has never been accustomed to the ordinary taste of farmers, like beasts of burden.
JOSÉ TORIGIEN:
At first it was something he couldn’t handle. He talked about the hard labor. He talked about living in a cave. He talked about how difficult it was to get along with the peasants.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi Jinping did at one point just leave and try to go home. And his family refused to accept him. So it’s difficult to know what the consequences of something like that are, but we do know fundamentally that all human beings have close connections to parents. And when those close connections go awry, they have consequences.
EDWARD WONG, Author, At the Edge of Empire:
I managed to visit this area where Xi had served out the Cultural Revolution, a village in Shaanxi province, so I think I got a somewhat unvarnished look at what life was like there.
MARTIN SMITH:
Until 2016, Edward Wong the New York Times’ Beijing bureau chief.
EDWARD WONG:
This region of China is one of the poorest regions in China. Back then, other people lived in those cave spaces, and Xi lived in a cave space at the back of the space of this old man I met, Mr. Lu. Mr. Lu told me that Xi had books with him and that his gentle came late at night to read.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s time in exile is now part of his creation myth. The cave where he lived his seven years is now a tourist attraction. It is filled with books on Marxist philosophy and political theory, which Xi says he read at night while suffering to survive. making him the leader he will become.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Being sent to the field was an incredibly educational experience. Afterwards I felt like I had experienced a kind of purification. In fact, it was a feeling of reinvention, of transformation.
MARTIN SMITH:
Jianying Zha and his circle of relatives also slightly outlived Mao. She now lives in New York, is the author of eight books about China and contributes to the New Yorker.
JIANYING ZHA, author, Tide Players:
I was born in the so-called New China and I grew up with this diet: “We live in a strong and satisfied country, and we are going to grow and not only build a bigger China, but at some point we are going to liberate humanity, adding to the Americans.
This was my mother, with myself.
I was 6 years old and doing great that night when our space was ransacked by those Red Guards. They came here at night and our space was turned upside down. My parents were humiliated. You go from the flowers of the country, from the children of Mao, to suddenly being black elements.
MARTIN SMITH:
How many other people died because of the Cultural Revolution?
JIANYINGZHA:
There’s different estimates of that. Officially, one of the party elders said several millions of people died. But the figures are far from being accurate, because the government, whoever was the dominant regime, had always a tendency to cover up.
MARTIN SMITH:
Between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, China experienced between 25 and forty-five million deaths, due to famine and the eradication of black elements.
JIANYINGZHA:
This is our Holocaust. And to this day, the world has not really come to realize that’s really what happened. And the same party responsible for it are still in power, and Mao is still an icon.
MARTIN SMITH:
Today, President Xi Jinping lives and works next to this portrait of Mao overlooking Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Xi hugged Mao.
LI YUAN, The New York Times:
It’s a mystery why these people don’t hate Mao. Why don’t they reflect why the Cultural Revolution happened, why they went through so much suffering?
MARTIN SMITH:
Li Yuan, who grew up in China, now writes a column for The New York Times.
LI YUAN:
Xi Jinping himself speaks a lot about his suffering when he was young.
MARTIN SMITH:
He said it was smart for him.
LI YUAN:
Yes. And now he’s telling the Chinese young people, “You should learn to eat bitterness. It will be good for you.”
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi Jinping learned as a teenager that if you need to survive, you have to master the equipment of the Maoist toolbox. You’ll have to be redder than anyone else. His upbringing consisted of surviving in a highly politicized environment of the Cultural Revolution, when his father was one of the antichrists and Xi had to find his way. And to do that, he had to become the most politically correct guy ever. more. Basically, Xi Jinping drank the Kool-Aid of the Cultural Revolution.
Return from exile
MARTIN SMITH:
At 22 years old, Xi Jinping returns from the countryside. He had lost years of studies, but he would manage to enter one of the most prestigious universities in China.
ALFREDO CHAN:
Yeah, he was lucky to be accepted into the Tsinghua University. It’s China’s MIT.
MARTIN SMITH:
This is a boy who did not have a higher school education and was able to gain admission to the most prestigious university in China.
ALFRED CHAN:
Yes. Very unusual. Mao destroyed the school formula. But in the early 1970s, Mao stated that the school formula needed to be reformed. He does not favor the elite, but is equally welcoming to peasants, staff and soldiers. And so Xi Jinping was admitted.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi graduated in chemical engineering. But what interested him was partisan politics. In 1979, after graduating, he appointed a senior Communist Party official as junior assistant. But after three years in Beijing, Xi moved to the provinces to pursue his own political career. career and rise through the ranks of local government.
It was a time of great reform. Mao had died in 1976, and China was now under a new leader, Deng Xiaoping. Twice purged himself, Deng had seen the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
DENG XIAOPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades!
SOLDIERS OF THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, leader!
MARTIN SMITH:
He set out to reverse many of Mao’s policies.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The 80s were a normal and ordinary decade. Deng Xiaoping radically replaced the party’s relationship with society. It divided the people’s communes and gave the peasants homes that they could exploit individually. And suddenly you go into the countryside and you see the most impressive open markets, where other people were selling what they had harvested. It was a huge change.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG, Founder, J Capital Research:
It seemed that China was other and open, and was converting very quickly.
MARTIN SMITH:
Anne Stevenson-Yang worked for decades in China as a monetary analyst and businesswoman.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:
Since Deng Xiaoping told the Politburo that they deserved to upgrade their Mao jackets with sports jackets, all the major cities have built huge airports and had avenues leading directly to those five-star hotels. And those hotels were bigger than any other. If you stayed in a hotel in Europe you would think, “What about China? It’s fantastic. “
MALE JOURNALIST:
Today, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the attitude towards capitalism is changing. Not fast enough for some members of the new generation, who see nothing in mixing Marxism and market economics.
MALE JOURNALIST:
As one China expert put it, Deng has had such amazing things happen that no one competing in China’s field is willing to make predictions anymore.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 1979, Deng traveled to Washington. Deng’s opening was seen as a welcome development in the West and a policy of economic compromise maintained for the next four decades.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:
We now share the perspective of a new way of commerce, concepts and people, which will reap benefits for our countries.
MARTIN SMITH:
In China, flexible industry and foreign investment have helped lift millions of people out of poverty.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Freedom of assembly. Freedom of the press.
MARTIN SMITH:
But many Chinese, especially students, are not entirely convinced. They were involved in corruption and sought democratic reforms.
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Democracy will be delayed!
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Democracy will be delayed!
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] We have freedom of speech!
PROTESTERS:
[Chanting in Mandarin] We want free speech!
MARTIN SMITH:
In the spring of 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations around the country were gathering momentum. While still a provincial official, Xi Jinping watched carefully.
ALFRED CHAN:
Xi Jinping tried to assess the political climate. Does the central government do this?
MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!
ALFREDO CHAN:
And being a very careful bureaucrat, at home he tried to prevent out-of-town academics from coming and joining the local protests.
PROTESTERS:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Long live freedom!
MARTIN SMITH:
In early June, the protest spilled over.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Right now, there are thousands of people here in Tiananmen Square.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Some observers consider the current wave of unrest to be the biggest challenge the Communist Party has ever faced.
ZHOU FENGSUO, pro-democracy activist:
The momentum in Tiananmen Square is strong. For me, the most amazing experience is hearing other people’s voices everywhere.
MARTIN SMITH:
Zhou Fengsuo was a student leader in the Tiananmen protests. He was one of the first to enter the square.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
We need to have a discussion with the communist government, and I think at that time there was a real possibility, because the party had placed itself after the Cultural Revolution on the path of openness and reform.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] Dialogue! Dialogue!
ZHOU FENGSUO:
So we get the idea that there is freedom in the air in Tiananmen Square.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Mandarin] With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall. There are millions of us with a center opposed to the enemy’s fire.
JIANYINGZHA:
I was in Tiananmen Square on the afternoon of June 4. We were all in groups, talking to each other. And all of a sudden there was a guy there, and he fell backwards. And we haven’t heard anything, so we were all stunned. And they all thought, “Those will have to be rubber bullets. “”Until we saw that he didn’t wake up and there was a pool of blood or something on his neck.
MALE REPORTER:
The tanks arrive on the road in the direction of Tiananmen Square.
JIANYING ZHA:
As we retreated, I think at least a dozen people around me were shot.
MALE JOURNALIST:
There are sporadic shootings. Automatic weapons were opened. People went into hiding.
JIANYINGZHA:
That night was the worst in China. The monster raised its head.
MALE JOURNALIST:
At one of the big intersections, an APC just ran over a young girl on a bicycle. It was charging down anything and everything—barricades, people. And the protesters had put up the steel barricades, and this APC got stuck. And the crowd started gathering around it, hurling insults and rocks and sticks and everything.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Tiananmen incident gave me a wonderful surprise. The biggest surprise was the way the People’s Army was able to fire on the population. I began to ask myself: what is happening with this country?
MALE VOICE 1:
Do you see this boy?
MALE VOICE 2:
No.
MALE VOICE 1:
There’s a guy running in front of the tank.
MARTIN SMITH:
That day, a guy got up defiantly and blocked a column of tanks.
MALE JOURNALIST:
It wasn’t a single tank that stopped. There were 18 tanks and armored vehicles in this convoy.
MALE VOICE 1:
He’s climbing it.
MARTIN SMITH:
The image of the Tank Man, as he was called, was carried around the world.
PETER JENNINGS, ABC News anchor:
At one point, protesters set fire to an ambulance and directed it toward troops, but the vehicle crashed into a traffic island, prompting infantrymen to open fire on the students again.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH, author, China’s Leaders: From Mao to Today:
Overnight, Chinese optimism about their country, about this newly awakened, newly modernized and reformed China, came to an abrupt halt.
MARTIN SMITH:
David Shambaugh is a professor of U. S. -China relations at George Washington University. He worked at the State Department and the National Security Council during the Carter administration.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
I lived in China right after Tiananmen, in Beijing. It was something serious. It was martial law. The city was occupied by military forces. There were roadblocks everywhere. The foreigners were constantly monitored. The Chinese were constantly monitored and interrogated. So it was a repressive period.
MALE NEWSREADER:
In this morning’s news, the crackdown continues in China, where the government says it has arrested student leaders on its “most wanted” list.
MALE REPORTER:
One of those captured, Zhou Fengsuo, a 22-year-old physics student. He reportedly was turned in by his sister and brother-in-law.
MARTIN SMITH:
He reported that your sister had reported you.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
It’s government propaganda. YO-
MARTIN SMITH:
It’s not true?
ZHOU FENGSUO:
This is true.
MARTIN SMITH:
Zhou says it is a party tactic to sow distrust within his family. Zhou Fengsuo is ranked fifth on the party’s “most wanted” list and was declared a criminal for one year.
ZHOU FENGSUO:
When I was in prison, and then for about five years, the defense of the scholars, even after the massacre, was very strong. Even the police, the criminal guards identified that the scholars were right in their demands.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Today, the Beijing Intermediate Court publicly sentenced the violent criminals who looted and vandalized during the anti-revolutionary riots in Beijing.
MARTIN SMITH:
After the massacre, these photos were smuggled out of China––evidence of what happened to scores of protesters.
“Arsonist, executed by gunfire.”
MARTIN SMITH:
To date, there is no definitive figure on the number of people executed.
Footnote: After the Tiananmen crackdown, those who opened fire on protesters were serenaded by a popular Chinese folk singer, Peng Liyuan. Two years earlier, Peng had married a young Communist Party official, Xi Jinping.
Xi has spoken publicly about the Tiananmen events.
Did he remain silent?
ALFRED CHAN, Prof. Emeritus, Huron University, Canada:
As far as I know, there is nothing in the public domain. This actually shows his cautious attitude as a provincial official. And he looks towards the center for guidance, seeking to gauge the intentions of the central government.
MALE SHOPPER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Once I have money, I’ll have this car.
CAR SALESMAN:
[Speaking Mandarin] I can reduce the back seat.
MARTIN SMITH:
After Tiananmen, China moved on.
MALE BUYER:
[Speaking Mandarin] You can adjust the rear seat.
MARTIN SMITH:
Under Deng Xiaoping, China’s casual, unwritten social contract stipulated that if you retire from politics, we, the party, will make you rich.
FEMALE SHOPPER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Do you see how wide this is?
MARTIN SMITH:
It is an agreement that many Chinese agreed to protest.
the presumptive heir
IAN JOHNSON, Author, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians:
We deserve not to underestimate the scope of China’s domestic politics. But at the same time, it is also vital to recognize that over the past 40 years, the government has done a smart job in raising living standards.
MARTIN SMITH:
Ian Johnson is a journalist with a long career in journalism on China.
IAN JOHNSON:
And if you think that tomorrow will be a better day, that you just bought a house, that your child will be able to go to university, that you will be able to go abroad to travel, all those things that have never before been imaginable for the vast majority of the Chinese, so you’ll hold your nose or say, “Well, the party is rarely doing such a bad job overall,” and go with the flow.
MARTIN SMITH:
By the mid-1990s, China’s economy was developing at a historic pace.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:
Supporting China’s entry into the WTO represents the most significant opportunity that we have had—
LINGLING WEI, The Wall Street Journal:
You know, after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the Chinese economy has gained abundant new momentum and more opportunities for individuals. And at that moment. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Lingling Wei, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, grew up as the daughter of staunch Maoist parents. His maternal grandfather was part of Mao’s inner circle. Remember how, under Deng, China has become more open to Western culture.
LINGLING WEI:
We knew that China’s relationship with the United States was getting better.
MALE READER:
Col. Sanders’s Kentucky Fried Chicken has just arrived in Beijing.
LINGLING WEI:
We were exposed to American pop culture. When I was a kid, one of my favorite shows was this American TV series called “Growing Pains. ” I just enjoyed seeing how children can communicate with their parents.
“GROWING PAINS” CLIP:
I was just being friendly. What is it with you people?
LINGLING WEI:
I grew up with a lot of admiration for the United States. I wanted to go there. I was very curious about the United States Unidos. No only me, many of my classmates, many of my friends, the whole reformist generation had that kind of mentality toward America.
MARTIN SMITH:
China was most open to Western influence in the coastal provinces, where Deng Xiaoping lured foreign companies to invest, offering them tax incentives, flexible labor contracts and cheap real estate.
One of the fastest-developing provinces is Fujian, where in 2000 Xi Jinping was provincial governor. He had earned a reputation for fighting corruption within the party.
MALE JOURNALIST:
[Speaking Mandarin] Did those who were punished hate you?
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] They didn’t blame me. I think they understood that I hadn’t done it for myself, because I had nothing against them. I defended justice.
MARTIN SMITH:
Beijing took note and in 2007 Xi got his big chance. A corruption scandal in Shanghai has led the Communist Party’s old guard to search for a new party leader in Shanghai. Shanghai, the largest and richest city in China. Xi had to face the consequences. of the theft of the pension budget through a party secretary.
ALFRED CHAN:
The move to Shanghai marks a massive promotion because the Shanghai party leader is still included among the 25 members of China’s summit of forces. He chose because of his long experience in the coastal provinces, the most open, the most developed.
MARTIN SMITH:
In Shanghai, Xi distinguished himself by eschewing lavish party perks such as a personal leader, special doctors, luxury cars and lavish housing, and after just seven months, he arrived in Beijing, where he was catapulted to the Politburo Standing Committee. Jinping has become one of China’s nine most sensible leaders. He continues on his way.
At just 54 years old, party leaders saw Xi as flexible and cooperative. They did not expect a strong man.
In one of his first assignments as a committee member, Xi appointed director of the Central Party School in Beijing, a position he once held under Chairman Mao. This is where the party’s most sensible officials are trained, and for Xi, it is an early indicator of the leader he aspired to be.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] In July 2008, Xi Jinping issued a directive for teachers.
MARTIN SMITH:
Cai Xia training at the Central Party School at that time.
CAI XIA:
[Speaks Mandarin] Teachers will have to align their speech with the spirit of the central leadership of the party. He threatened the teachers that if they wanted to express themselves freely they would have to leave the school and look for another job. Xi Jinping spoke like a mafia boss. For me, it was a harbinger of things to come.
MARTIN SMITH:
But few people in the West were paying much attention, and inside China, the country was preparing to celebrate its newfound riches. That year, China was hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics. The person heading up the preparation committee for the Games was Xi Jinping.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Vice President Xi Jinping inspected the Olympic facilities in Beijing this morning, ensuring that the Olympic transportation network and the Olympic Village meet foreign standards.
ALFRED CHAN, Author, Xi Jinping:
Xi Jinping actually was named the coordinator for the Olympics. Now, he had very little central government experience, and that was fairly tough, because he had to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Defense.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] During the Beijing Olympic Games, the People’s Liberation Army will mobilize parts of the army, army and air force to participate in Olympic security operations.
ALFRED CHAN:
The Olympics were a way to stop his testing period.
MARTIN SMITH:
To see if he qualified for the top spot.
ALFREDO CHAN:
Exactly. The Beijing Olympics are China’s coming-out party and everything has to be perfect.
CHINESE ANNOUNCER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Many years of anticipation and seven years of preparation. The 29th Summer Olympics finally opened at the Beijing National Stadium.
MARTIN SMITH:
No expense would be spared. With more than 40 billion dollars, the Games were among the highest in history.
CHENJIAN LI, Prof. , Peking University:
The year 2008 was an impressive Summer Olympics. It’s great.
MARTIN SMITH:
Professor Chenjian Li is a neurologist at Peking University. We interviewed him while he was a visiting scholar at Stanford.
You were in the stadium?
CHENJIAN LI:
Yes. I would say that it is the highlight. There is a genuine feeling of joy. But it is not a nationalistic joy. He went beyond that. I think it’s more like what only Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony can describe. It’s so good.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping got tested. Better yet, he inherited a country in its heyday.
MATTHEW POTTINGER, Dep. National Security Advisor, 2019-21:
The Olympics were a major propaganda coup for the Chinese Communist Party to say, “Look, we’ve arrived. We’re a world power right now.” I remember—
MARTIN SMITH:
Between 1998 and 2005, Matthew Pottinger worked as a journalist in China for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. He also served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.
Pottinger considers the 2008 Games a key moment in which relations between the United States and China changed.
MATTHIEU POTTINGER:
They coincided with the global monetary crisis, the first spark of which was lit in the United States.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Incredible on Wall Street tonight.
MALE READER:
At some point, the market collapsed like a well.
MALE READER:
The debt crisis and economic chaos may just have a harmful ripple effect.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
So those two things juxtaposed in combination created a sense of elation about this idea that China was ahead of the United States.
LINGLING WEI:
Chinese leaders realized, “Wow, your system used to be one we were trying to emulate, at least economically, but now you’re no longer our teachers.” There’s this feeling that we’re equal to the United States now.
CHENJIAN LI:
By that time, China had surpassed Germany, the United Kingdom, and then Japan. And, of course, every year it continues to grow to become the second largest economy.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
These are normal times for the American economy. We have seen triple-digit fluctuations in the stock market. The main monetary establishments are on the verge of collapse and some have gone bankrupt.
MALE REPORTER:
The collapse of Lehman Brothers caused turbulence in markets around the world.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Co-editor, The China Reader: The Reform Era:
The economic crisis gave others like Xi Jinping the impression that history was moving forward, that the United States was in decline and China was rising. They may simply do what the wonder powers had done: “It’s our way or the highway. ” And it was a very vital moment that replaced the dating between China and the rest of the world, especially the United States.
Dad Xi
MALE JOURNALIST:
Despite everything, the day had arrived. The time had come to elect a president, the leader of the most populous nation in the world. But there was no perceptible tension or suspense. The election of the Chinese president had been made months in advance.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 2012, Xi Jinping managed to make the party elite perceive that he was the man who would lead China into the future. He was elected general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a few months later became president.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] We will have to continually realize, maintain and expand the basic interests of the greatest number.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has attempted to outwardly domesticate a symbol as a man of the people. His nickname: Papa Xi.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Who is it?
FEMALE SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Call him grandpa!
YOUNG BOY:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, grandpa.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello.
LI YUAN:
When he came into office, he portrayed himself as a normal person. He launched a charm offense. He went to a steamed bun restaurant. And he said he’s not going to have traffic control for his car, for his motorcade.
MARTIN SMITH:
At first, this charm offensive worked. Many think Xi would be moderate.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
I think the illusions that existed were whatever Westerners had about all Chinese leaders. “Is this the next Gorbachev?
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Continue to lose and insist on reform and opening up.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH:
Xi Jinping is a reformer. But no one has realized the repressive, dictatorial, control-freatic and insecure leader he has become. None of us saw that.
MARTIN SMITH:
A few months after he came to power, a secret memorandum, Document No. 9, appeared.
EDWARD WONG:
Document number nine is an internal party document in which Xi talks about the other subversive bureaucracy that could take a position in China. He points the finger at civil society groups or NGOs and says they are harmful and subversive elements in China.
JIANYING ZHA, contributor to The New Yorker:
It stipulates a comprehensive list of ideological constraints, so-called universal values, which are a key word for the Western constitutional state and the rule of law.
MARTIN SMITH:
The document is explicit, instructing party members to forswear Western ideals like constitutional democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and civil society. Party members should stay true to the Revolution.
Shortly after, a 71-year-old journalist, Gao Yu, was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly leaking the document.
Xi was just getting started.
MALE READER:
[In Mandarin] State television announced the news that four senior officials have been fired for accepting bribes.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi had famously fought corruption in Shanghai, and now, as top leader, he launched a nationwide anti-corruption campaign.
MALE READER:
. . . from top bureaucrats to subordinate employees. China its nickname of Tigers and Flies.
MARTIN SMITH:
Corruption is a genuine problem, but the scope and scale of Xi’s crusade surprised many.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
Xi Jinping has begun to carry out purges. And other people at the time, including Chinese officials, were saying, “Well, look, this is going to last six months. He will have to consolidate his power. “
MALE REPORTER:
More than 80,000 Communist Party members have been investigated so far.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
That was 12 years ago. The purges are not only continuing, but they’ve deepened in many respects. They’re now encompassing not only Xi’s enemies, but he’s actually also purging many of his loyalists.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Xi Jinping has just fired his Foreign Minister and his Defense Minister. He fired many other top people in the military establishment.
FEMALE JOURNALIST:
The former security czar has been known in public for more than a year. The investigation. . .
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
Those were handpicked people by him—people that he had appointed. The historian Stephen Kotkin said, “Hitler used to kill his enemies, and Stalin killed his friends.” Xi is purging both his friends and his enemies. And that is the mode by which he governs.
MARTIN SMITH:
As Xi tightened his grip, he noted other threats. Today, in China, there are some six hundred million surveillance cameras, one for every two citizens, capable of following people’s movements up to the minute.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
On each and every corner there is facial recognition. There is virtual recognition. There is the system of social credits.
MARTIN SMITH:
The social credit system is what?
ORVILLE SCHELL:
So the social credit system is the sort of highest aspiration of the Chinese Communist Party, to have everything every human being does go into a computer system. And with AI and all sorts of other sophisticated programming, you can know exactly where a person is because he’ll have bought something with a credit card or a digital payment system. His car will have gone down a highway. Every kilometer, there’s a camera taking pictures of your license plate. They will know everything about everybody, real time.
Software Demo
ORVILLE SCHELL:
So this creates a kind of technoautocratic formula that is unprecedented and that we have no experience with. It makes George Orwell look like something from the Stone Age.
MARTIN SMITH:
There is also a Ministry of Public Security designated to track the Internet.
LI YUAN:
Xi Jinping came to power and created this agency to control the internet. We were all like, “Ha ha ha, how can you control the internet? Internet is so massive, so vast.”
MARTIN SMITH:
Good luck.
LI YUAN:
Yes. And then he did. He controlled the internet.
MARTIN SMITH:
It’s part of the Great Firewall, a combination of legislation and technology used to regulate and block huge swaths of the internet. In China, there is no Google, or YouTube, or Facebook. When a meme comparing Xi to Winnie the Pooh went viral on Chinese social media, Xi Jinping was not amused. Censors banned any such comparisons.
“Unable to download image”
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] My articles and even my own have been banned from the Internet.
MARTIN SMITH:
When Cai Xia published an editorial calling for coverage of individual rights, she was expelled from the party. He says he is already under 24-hour surveillance.
CAI XIA:
[Speaking Mandarin] They can see everything, as if I am living in a fish tank with a lid, where I am only a small goldfish or insect, obviously visible. But all my sounds, everything I say outside, can’t come out. They knew everything I did. That’s how I lived.
JIANYING ZHA:
There could be millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions who have negative thoughts about Xi or the system, but it’s very hard for them to mobilize to act together. Any direct, more confrontational, organized political movement will be zapped. The fear is almost a subliminal air that you breathe in.
Repression
MARTIN SMITH:
There has been significant resistance to Xi’s rule among large groups of ethnic minorities. The resistance today is concentrated in Xinjiang, home to 15 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities, many of whom feel like they’re not even part of China, which is primarily Han.
EDWARD WONG, The New York Times:
Xinjiang becomes one of the first situations of great demand for Xi’s strength. Before Xi came to power in 2012, Xinjiang was a region where ethnic tensions had flared. The party has tried other controlling bureaucracy and, on rare occasions, very repressive measures, but has encountered resistance from other ethnic groups, namely Uyghur Muslims, who live in a belt of oasis cities basically across southern Xinjiang.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xinjiang was first taken over by China in the 18th century, but twice it broke away. Beijing has for decades tried to suppress Uyghur resistance to Chinese rule.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Headline News takes us to yesterday’s incident in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region are to blame. Official statistics imply at least dead and 38 injured.
MARTIN SMITH:
In the months since Xi was president, China has been rocked by a series of attacks that the government says were carried out through Uyghurs.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The news at 9:20 p.m. on March 1, 11 uniformly dressed, masked rioters slaughtered innocent people at Kunming’s train station plaza, ticket office and other areas.
MARTIN SMITH:
The violence escalated in the spring of 2014, when dozens of people were killed at a railway station in southwestern China with machetes and long knives. The Chinese government blamed the attack on an organization of Uighur separatists.
CHINESE READER:
[Speaking Mandarin] By 6 a. m. on March 2, another 29 people had been killed and 130 wounded.
MARTIN SMITH:
Several weeks after the incident, President Xi visited Xinjiang. At the conclusion of his visit, a suicide attack and another stabbing occurred at an exercise station in the capital of Xinjiang.
CHINESE NEWSREADER:
[Speaks Mandarin] Due to the bombing, about a hundred Uyghurs were arrested.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:
This was a trigger. Xi decided, “That’s it. We’re not going to coddle these people. We’re not going to try to work it out. We’re going to control.” And I think this bespoke of his toolbox, which he had carried with him ever since he was a teenager, which is, “How do you fix things? Control.” That’s his main tool.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi would return to Beijing and enact what the party called called a “People’s War.” The idea was to curb separatism and extremism.
A chilling directive was sent to the local Xinjiang government, telling them how to separate families and initiate mass arrests of Uyghurs. The directive is clear: use the “organs of the dictatorship” and not show “mercy. ”
These drone photographs appear to show the arrest of Uyghurs. It is estimated that more than one million have been arrested since 2017.
EDUARDO WONG:
Xi says that we must assimilate the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups into the mainstream Han culture. And what that means in his mind is elements of Islam have to be eradicated or severely weakened. Not even more radical ideas that are taking root, but basic practices such as not eating pork, fasting during Ramadan, trying to make a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. So, very mainstream Muslim practices must be pulled back, is what he’s saying.
The central government is beginning to establish these internment camps to eliminate the wisdom that Uyghur culture is based on.
CHINESE CCTV ADVERTISER:
[Speaking Mandarin] Witness the transformation.
UIGUR SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] I can’t imagine the consequences had I not studied here.
CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:
[Speaking Mandarin] One after another.
UIGUR SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] My skills have improved, my mind has improved.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Chinese government presents the fields as a position for development. . .
CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:
[Speaks Mandarin] Beautiful Xinjiang.
MARTIN SMITH:
—promoting peace and stability in Xinjiang.
MALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The company is stable. Ethnic teams are harmonious.
Uyghur SPEAKER:
[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party hit me just in time and gave me a change. I am very grateful.
STUDENTS OF THE EDUCATIONAL CENTER [in unison]:
[Speaks Mandarin] I am a law-abiding citizen.
CHINESE ANNOUNCER:
[Speaks Mandarin] At school, the main focus is the national language.
EDUARDO WONG:
They want them to not speak Uyghur. They want them to speak Mandarin Chinese. And families are separated. So it’s really changing the entire foundation of the Uyghur culture.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul Tursun arrested at the airport on her way back to Xinjiang from her followed country of Egypt. She would come back to introduce her newborn triplets to her parents. Mihrigul says they accused her of being a spy and separated her from her children.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
I asked them, “Where are my babies?” They are hungry. They have to replace diapers. The Chinese police never answered me. But they asked me for the details of my family’s touch. Where is my family? Who was who?I was writing and suddenly a guy on my butt taped my mouth and I can’t speak. Then they put their hands on me, handcuffed me, and then put a black hood on my head. THEN-
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul remained without her children for several months. When he met, there were only two of them.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Then they gave me his body. Like ice. Like, you know you take ice from outside? His body, made of ice.
MARTIN SMITH:
It’s cold?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Yeah, cold. Total ice. He said, “Sorry. He’s dead. You can take him now, his body.” So and then I said, “Wake up! Wake up!” And then I screamed. So that time, the doctor take the call, please, two police coming say, “Get out from here. Shut your mouth. Don’t scream. Don’t say anything. Just go out from this place.” Then they kicked me out from hospital.
MARTIN SMITH:
Later she was detained again. Mihrigul remembers spending time in three different camps.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
They don’t let me sleep. Then they shaved my head and gave me electrical devices. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Electric shocks?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
yes, an electric shock. I saw nine other people die with me, together, in the same prison.
MARTIN SMITH:
Mihrigul’s story was reported by several Western media outlets and in 2018 she was invited to testify before the United States Congress.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
[Speaking Uyghur] The police beat and some died as a result.
MARTIN SMITH:
In 2019, a Chinese government television channel accused her of lying.
CGTN JOURNALIST:
Mihrigul Tursun claims one of her triplets died. A claim that a hospital adamantly denies.
MARTIN SMITH:
They say everything is false. This is not true. Have you noticed those reports?
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Yes, because they probably wouldn’t say it. They still lie. That’s one hundred percent true.
CGTN JOURNALIST:
Mihrigul’s brother and mother say:
MARTIN SMITH:
In the state television report, Mihrigul’s brother denounced her.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN’S BROTHER:
[Speaking Mandarin] My sister has never been to the education and training center. She made that up. It was a lie.
MARTIN SMITH:
In fact, many other Uyghur men and women who have reported abuse have had family members testify against them. A Uyghur Human Rights Project investigation says the government is simply media-washing. Meanwhile, the so-called reeducation camps are still in operation. Chinese officials have maintained that there has been no terrorism in Xinjiang since 2016.
JIA QINGGUO, professor, Peking University:
Xinjiang is an issue that needs to be studied very carefully.
MARTIN SMITH:
Dr. Jia Qingguo is a prominent Chinese academic and government policy advisor who speaks on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. I interviewed him at a China convention in San Diego.
We had an attack on 9/11, but all Muslims in America were sent to re-education camps. In your opinion, would this have made sense in the United States?
JIA QINGGUO:
But you have fought two wars, against Iraq and against Afghanistan. How many more people died? In Xinjiang, China is launching a full-scale crusade against terrorists. The Chinese government said this was all it had to do.
MARTIN SMITH:
They were taken from their homes.
JIA QINGGUO:
Taken from their homes, yeah.
MARTIN SMITH:
Placed in those fields. But not all of those other people were terrorists.
JIA QINGGUO:
And they were physically injured.
MARTIN SMITH:
But families were ripped apart.
JIA QINGGUO:
Uh—
MARTIN SMITH:
We talked to one woman whose child was taken from her when he was only a few months old and never was returned.
JIA QINGGUO:
I don’t know, maybe there are better ways of dealing with this issue. But then in the process, I think some of the human rights are violated. That cannot be avoided.
CHINESE VIDEO NARRATOR:
[Speaking Mandarin] At the Vocational Skills Training Center, there are courses for various skills, such as garment manufacturing, construction, food production—
MARTIN SMITH:
An estimated 80,000 detainees were forced to paint in factories across China, some of which supplied U. S. brands. These corporations have denied hard work to the Uyghurs, but forced hard work continues for other manufacturers.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Xi decided, as he did after the economic crisis, that China did not want to give in to Western demands. What he does in Xinjiang is none of our business. He once turned to it as a solution to a problem.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
Everyone knows what Xi Jinping is doing. It is a very strong and tough country in this world.
MARTIN SMITH:
China is now a country.
MIHRIGUL TURSUN:
China is a rich country. But it is very weak. He just believes. . . He thinks he’s rich, his money, but no. Money can’t do everything.
The war of industry
MARTIN SMITH:
Over the last 40 years China’s economic growth has been eclipsing that of the United States, growing at an average rate four times faster. China dominates global supply chains, and it holds nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt.
VICTOR GAO:
China today is a country comparable to the United States. If we use purchasing force parity, their economy is larger than the US economy. And if you think they can prevent China’s stable economic rise, it’s probably by indulging in fantasies.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
What I have to do is confront China economically. Because China has been letting us down for many years. Someone had to do it. I am the selected one. Someone had to do it. So I’m attacking China.
MARTIN SMITH:
In fact, Donald Trump’s predecessors applied measures to China’s industrial practices.
DONALD TRUMP:
They take our things. They are taking our jobs. They manufacture our product.
MARTIN SMITH:
But in 2016, Trump made China a major factor in his campaign.
DONALD TRUMP:
Because we continue to allow China to rape our country. And that’s what they do. This is the biggest robbery in world history.
MARTIN SMITH:
Days before Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Xi wanted to make sure the incoming president knew where he stood on trade. He sent a warning from his podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Following a protectionist economic policy is like locking yourself in a dark room. Although wind and rain can go outside, they also block light and air. No one will win in an industrial war.
MARTIN SMITH:
Less than three months later, Xi would fly to Mar-a-Lago to visit the waters.
MALE READER:
President Trump’s most vital rally to date, saluting the leader of the country he once called an enemy.
MARTIN SMITH:
Behind the scenes, Trump’s advisers advocated for new measures.
H. R. McMASTER, National Security Advisor, 2017-2018:
President Trump understood that we had failed to compete with China, and I think because of his business background—
MARTIN SMITH:
General H. R. McMaster served as President Trump’s national security advisor.
HR McMASTER:
One of the words he used periodically with Xi Jinping was: “I don’t blame you, I blame us. “So I think that summit made it clear to the surprised Xi Jinping that the Trump administration was determined to compete and that we are no longer pursuing this kind of misguided strategy of cooperation and engagement.
Donald Trump:
I don’t blame China, I blame our leaders. They have never let this happen.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
I wrote a long draft strategy, maybe 12 pages, in a sense, but I started by saying how many of our assumptions were wrong.
MARTIN SMITH:
Matthew Pottinger was one of the architects of Trump’s China strategy.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
One of the things I have learned over the years, first as a journalist and then working in national security in China, is that the more comfortable China becomes, the more comfortable the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party become, the more competitive and competitive are. . greater his ambitions. And I really think that a more confrontational approach, anything that is more reminiscent of the key periods of the Cold War, is what we deserve to see as an example today. It is necessary for the enemy to worry about what one might do.
MARTIN SMITH:
The first point on the calendar to crack down on China’s efforts to borrow intellectual assets from Western companies.
H.R. McMASTER:
The CEOs of our largest and most successful corporations would come to me and say, “Let me tell you, our company is a victim of the Chinese Communist Party’s economic aggression. And they would tell the story of the forced transfer of intellectual properties.
MARTIN SMITH:
In other words, you can’t do business here unless you give us your secrets.
HR McMASTER:
Exactly, and then also the false promises of access to the Chinese market. As soon as they adapt their intellectual assets and a champion state to produce those goods at an artificially low value due to subsidies, they exclude it from their domestic market. And then guess what? They launch these curtains and appliances into the overseas market and take you out of business overseas.
CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaking Mandarin] This claim of technology transfer has no basis in fact.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Chinese government has denied stealing intellectual property. And Xi Jinping ordered his diplomats to take advantage of, quote, “their fighting spirit,” adopting Trump’s more competitive communication style.
MALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaks Mandarin] [The U. S. ] deserves to be more confident in itself and compete with other countries.
JOHN BOLTON, National Security Advisor, 2018-19:
They were unleashing what they themselves called “wolf warrior” diplomacy. And, frankly, it was reprehensible.
MARTIN SMITH:
John Bolton was another National Security Advisor under President Trump.
JOHN BOLTON:
But, in a way, I think it was favorable that they did it. They took off their masks. It is no longer imaginable to hide your ambitions.
DONALD TRUMP:
Sixty thousand factories in our country, closed, shuttered, gone. Six million jobs at least, gone.
MARTIN SMITH:
Trump exaggerates, but less than a year after welcoming Xi to the United States, Trump is in a position to remove his own mask.
ASSET DONALD:
We have spoken with China and we are in the middle of a negotiation. We’ll see where this takes us. But in the meantime, we will file a Section 301 action. I’m going to point it out right here and right now.
MARTIN SMITH:
He was firing the first shot in a war that had been building and would last for years to come.
DONALD TRUMP:
This is number one, but this is the first of many.
FEMALE READER:
Trade war worries igniting after the president signed this order to slap tough tariffs on China.
MARTIN SMITH:
He started with a 10% tariff on Chinese aluminum, 30% on solar panels and electric vehicles, 25% on steel and nearly everything else made in China.
FEMALE READER:
Not surprisingly, China’s not happy, already threatening retaliation.
CHINESE OFFICIAL:
[Speaking Mandarin] This behavior by the United States is typical trade bullying. China will definitely take necessary countermeasures to resolutely protect its legitimate rights and interests.
ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:
What China has done is move its exports to other countries and also move its imports from other countries. Thus, the acquisition of soybeans, for example, from the United States has moved to Brazil. Therefore, it is not a useful policy.
MALE READER:
President Trump just imposed price lists on another $200 billion in Chinese exports. . .
MALE READER:
– triggering the largest industrial war in economic history.
MARTIN SMITH:
Trump’s trade war would consume the remainder of his presidency.
FEMALE READER:
China is now retaliating by imposing price lists of a certain amount on U. S. exports.
MARTIN SMITH:
After several tariff increases, the industrial war, which continued under the Biden administration, has widened the industrial deficit.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The industry deficit soared to a record $891 billion.
MARTIN SMITH:
The costs have also led to a decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—destroyed the industry in the United States—
MARTIN SMITH:
The theft of intellectual assets continued, and prices imposed through price lists were simply passed on to consumers of imported goods.
And now Trump has promised to impose even higher price lists once he returns to power.
The price lists were set because China’s economic policies were hurting American factories and workers.
JIA QINGGUO:
This is a trust held through other people in the United States, specifically members of the Trump administration.
MARTIN SMITH:
The Biden administration has even extended those.
JIA QINGGUO:
But if you talk in private, many don’t agree with such kind of policy. Why? Because it hurts the U.S. economy.
MARTIN SMITH:
There’s the argument. . .
JIA QINGGUO:
You have the top inflation. Where do you get it? In component because of those tariffs.
Xi’s Chinese Dream
CHINESE READER:
For the first time since taking office, the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee appeared together at a cultural event led by Xi Jinping.
MARTIN SMITH:
Beyond his repressive measures and industrial wars with the United States, Xi has greater ambitions for China’s standing in the world, all of which he revealed even before assuming the presidency, just after being named party general secretary in 2012.
CHINESE NEWSREADER:
The seven leaders visited the main exhibition “Road to Revival. “
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Remember, when Xi Jinping came to power, the first thing he did was lead the Politburo across Tiananmen Square to the National Museum, where there is an exhibition about the humiliations of China’s past.
CHINESE READER:
During the presentation, the party leaders reviewed other ancient stages that the country has gone through.
MARTIN SMITH:
Six leaders have succeeded one another since Mao Zedong. But at the exhibition, Xi made clear his loyalty to Mao.
SUSAN-CHIRK:
There were shots of Deng Xiaoping and other things, which I normally ignored, and. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Susan Shirk served as an assistant deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration.
SUSAN-CHIRK:
It’s as if he needs Deng’s legacy, which of course was to institutionalize a governing formula in China that would be more responsive as society modernized.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] The other Chinese never gave up and continued to fight. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
In the Great Hallway, he delivered a speech and laid out his vision––now known as the China Dream.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] – and yet we take control of our own destiny. We are closer now than at any other time in history. The dream of the wonderful rejuvenation of the Chinese country will come true.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Author, Heaven’s Mandate:
And what he told everyone was that his highest calling was to return China to a position of foreign greatness. This didn’t just mean the greatness of advertising. This meant a position of political greatness, of military greatness, to give substance to the old imperial empire that had occupied many peripheral territories, adding Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, Mongolia and Taiwan. Xi needs to fix China into his greatest state. So this is, in fact, the roadmap to the Chinese dream.
MARTIN SMITH:
A key strategy to expand China’s strength is to expand it over the South China Sea. During his presidency, Xi has intensified those efforts.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The South China Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Japan and Korea are totally dependent on it. So it’s no small matter who controls this waterway. And China claims that everything from the Strait of Malacca to the Chinese coast to Taiwan is ours.
HR McMASTER:
These are waters through which a third of the world’s maritime industry passes. What China has done to make its claims a reality is to devote a lot of ecological destruction and build these synthetic islands.
MARTIN SMITH:
The same year that Xi became president, China began building artificial islands on top of seven coral reefs in the South China Sea. The man-made islands covered almost five square miles.
HR McMASTER:
And then they dredge coral reefs to build islands and then they claim that those islands were for research, environmental research. And then, of course, the landing strips appeared, then the fortifications appeared, and then the missile batteries appeared.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Islands in the South China Sea have been Chinese territory since ancient times.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has repeatedly pledged he would not militarize the islands he had built.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] China’s construction activities in the Spratly Islands are not intended to be militarized.
MARTIN SMITH:
But after many assurances, surveillance shows that there are only runways for fighter jets, but also deep-water ports capable of docking warships.
HR McMASTER:
The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of lying to your face and you cannot take what they say at face value. What they did was very promising and not only did they not deliver anything, but they intensified their competitive actions.
MARTIN SMITH:
In addition to the Chinese coast guard and navy, giant fleets of civilian ships have been sent through Beijing to patrol the waters of the South China Sea. They frequently surround and harass ships from countries such as the Philippines, ramming them and blowing them away with high-speed water cannons.
FEMALE READER:
The water cannon attack lasted about an hour as the force of the water broke the railing and deck of the Philippine ship. The latest incident of Chinese aggression is expected to further escalate tensions.
EDWARD WONG, author of On the Borders of Empire:
It is descending very far from China, in waters near the Philippines. There are warnings from Washington that say: “We are the best friend of the Philippines. We have a mutual defense clause in our treaty. You’ll have to stay away from this. » But China absolutely ignores it at the moment.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Achieving complete reunification of the motherland is the common aspiration of all Chinese sons and daughters. [We have] enhanced the national awareness and patriotic spirit of Hong Kong—
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping is also Hong Kong.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] — [so that Hong Kong] can share in the glory, prosperity and strength of the motherland.
MARTIN SMITH:
Hong Kong, a major port on the South China Sea, one of the busiest in the world, has Asia’s monetary capital.
ANNA KWOK:
Hong Kong was the gateway of a lot of businesses entering the Chinese market, and we were that international financial hub essentially connecting the Chinese market with the Western market. And a lot of that legacy still stays today.
MARTIN SMITH:
Anna Kwok grew up in Hong Kong. She was born in 1997, the year Britain returned Hong Kong to China.
What is the promise he made to you?
ANNA KWOK:
The promise of wonderful autonomy for Hong Kong. That we would have what is necessarily called “one country, two systems,” meaning that even though we are meant to be part of China, Hong Kong would have its own system, its own governance, its own autonomy, and its own population. it would have its own system, its own governance, its own autonomy. their own way of living.
CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES:
Britain is proud of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong.
MARTIN SMITH:
In fact, China has promised that “one country, two systems” will be in place for part of a century.
JOEY SIU:
In Xi Jinping’s eyes you can’t be an obedient citizen, you can’t be an obedient people when you’re living under a different system, a different governance structure.
MARTIN SMITH:
Joey Siu also grew up in Hong Kong. He came of age in the so-called Umbrella Revolution of 2014.
MALE NEWSREADER:
On the streets, a sea of umbrellas, an image of a massive demonstration underway in Hong Kong.
FEMALE READER:
The demonstrators, basically students, do not find democracy in general easy. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Calling for free and fair elections, protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from pepper spray and surveillance cameras.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—fight for your freedom.
MARTIN SMITH:
For Joey Siu, protest is a component of being Hong Kong.
JOEY SIU:
Maybe you just see protests, other people fighting for other rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. Growing up, what the promise made to other Hong Kongers meant to me was this freedom of speech, this freedom to come together, to say whatever you want. Being lazy to criticize the government or the government.
MARTIN SMITH:
But in 2019 things will change. Local governments in Hong Kong began restricting civil liberties. Senior party officials approved the decision.
PROTESTERS:
[Singing in Cantonese] Fight for freedom. Support Hong Kong. Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution now.
MARTIN SMITH:
It began with a law that allowed the Beijing government to extradite Hong Kongers to China. Around a million people took to the streets, defying President Xi. It is a surprising display of public anger toward his presidency.
PROTESTERS:
[Speaking Cantonese] Run, run, run!
ANNA KWOK:
I think that 2019 really was a nail in the coffin. I think Xi Jinping—
MARTIN SMITH:
Anna Kwok became a prominent underground activist that year and ran operations out of Hong Kong.
ANNA KWOK:
Even though everyone in Hong Kong took to the streets, millions of them, even though the entire foreign network seemed to support him, Xi was not afraid to say, “No, we are not giving them the freedoms and rights they deserve. “And he is not afraid to use police violence against us. The government simply doesn’t care about optics.
PROTESTERS:
[Speaking Cantonese] A water cannon truck is approaching! Move, move!
ANNA KWOK:
They don’t care.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
Now, Xi Jinping was very astute. Some thought that he might march soldiers over the border and take Hong Kong when it had all those demonstrations. He didn’t do that. He waited. And then he passed a national security law, and they locked everybody up slowly and quietly.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi Jinping’s national security law gave China a broad legal framework to deal with protesters. The law criminalized collusion and subversion—and secession.
Joey Siu on the front lines, facing daily tear gas and risking arrest.
JOEY SIU:
There is almost a consensus among Hong Kongers that eventually the Chinese communist regime will try to take over Hong Kong and reshape Hong Kong into just another mainland city. But I think what surprised other Hong Kongers and foreign society was the speed with which it was done.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] One county, two systems is an innovation never seen before.
MARTIN SMITH:
Throughout his presidency, Xi has repeatedly made assurances that he is committed to Hong Kong’s autonomy.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] This is in Hong Kong’s interest. This will not change. Unwavering.
MATTHEW POTTINGER:
In 2020, Beijing revoked the 50-year guarantee it had given to honor Hong Kong’s “high degree of autonomy. ” This destroyed this agreement.
JOHN BOLTON:
Hong Kong is, I think, an excellent case study in how China lies. They abandoned the one country, two system policy. They began to suppress economic and political freedom. And they’re now obliterating the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China. It’s one of the great tragedies of our time, really, to see Hong Kong snuffed out like this.
JOEY SIU:
Since the implementation of the national security law, a 17-year-old student now faces between 10 years and prison.
MARTIN SMITH:
Since the 2019 protests, Joey Siu is now a dissident operating from America, as is Anna Kwok. In 2023, Hong Kong police held press conferences presenting bounties for the women’s arrests.
You have circle of relatives who are still in Hong Kong.
ANNA KWOK:
Yes.
MARTIN SMITH:
What will be your destiny?
ANNA KWOK:
One month after the bounty was released on me, in last August, they were taken into questioning by the police.
MARTIN SMITH:
What did they ask?
ANNA KWOK:
I have no idea, because I’m not in touch with them, and—
MARTIN SMITH:
Aren’t you with your family?
ANNA KWOK:
No, and it suits them. Oh my God, I’m going to cry. Yes.
MARTIN SMITH:
Can’t your mother?
ANNA KWOK:
No.
MARTIN SMITH:
Or your brothers and sisters?
ANNA KWOK:
No. I think this is the harshest strategy that the regime applies to the population. It is about breaking acceptance as true and the human connections that one has with each other so that they cannot have that strength and connection that they desire. Keep fighting. Because at the end of the day, it’s about fighting for the other people you love, right? And once that connection disappears, you lose that motivation. So I think that’s what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing. for decades, to diverse communities that are seeking to fight for freedom.
Pending matters
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] From Beijing, I send you all my wishes for the New Year.
MARTIN SMITH:
On New Year’s Eve 2023, President Xi addressed the nation.
XI JINPING:
[Speaking Mandarin] We will consider this year as a year of hard work and perseverance.
MARTIN SMITH:
While celebrating China’s many achievements that year, he made a notable reference to Taiwan.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] The reunification of the homeland is inevitable. Compatriots from both sides of the Taiwan Strait deserve to come together and share in the wondrous glory of national rejuvenation.
MARTIN SMITH:
His comments on Taiwan were more direct than in previous years. They intervened in Taiwan’s presidential election season, continually reminding Xi that Taiwan is out of sync with China. Today, Taiwan is a colorful democracy, and its capital, Taipei, is one of the wealthiest cities in Asia. But Xi has made clear that one of the central goals of his Chinese dream is to reunify Taiwan with mainland China. It is a position that the party has maintained since it gained strength in 1949.
MALE JOURNALIST:
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, now on the last stronghold of nationalist China—
MARTIN SMITH:
That same year, America’s best friend, Chiang Kai-shek, fled to the island and established an independent government. For Beijing, this is unacceptable and the challenge has worsened since then.
VICTOR GAO, Professor, Soochow University:
The Taiwan issue is a direct result of an unfinished civil war. Very simple. There is only one China, Taiwan being part of China.
MARTIN SMITH:
The problem is that the Taiwanese people made it clear in their elections that they do not want reunification with mainland China.
VICTOR GAO:
The future of Taiwan is not to be decided by the local residents in Taiwan themselves.
MARTIN SMITH:
Why do these other people have the right to self-determination?
VICTOR GAO:
The status of Taiwan eventually will be decided only by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, including the 23 million people in Taiwan, as well as the 1.4 billion people on China’s mainland.
MARTIN SMITH:
Taiwan was on the calendar when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made their revolutionary trip to China in 1972.
MALE JOURNALIST:
History in the making. The first American president to set foot on Chinese soil.
MARTIN SMITH:
But they were there primarily to explore how China can simply be a better friend in the face of America’s archenemy, the Soviet Union.
Winston Lord, US ambassador to China, 1985-89:
Kissinger asked me to accompany him to the meeting. I had taken notes and this freed him from having to take notes.
MARTIN SMITH:
A young assistant of Kissinger’s, Winston Lord, on the trip. He found that Mao was willing to interact in Taiwan, but that he was also wary of Soviet force and seemed more interested in exploring an American alliance. Taiwan was relegated to the bottom of the list.
LORD OF WINSTON:
During the summit, Mao would outline the basic Chinese position. He said that the Taiwan issue could take 100 years. That’s another way of saying Taiwan’s important to us, we’ll maintain our principle, but we don’t have to solve it for a while.
MARTIN SMITH:
After a week of negotiations, Taiwan’s prestige was still up in the air. Nixon called Taiwan “irritating. ” His personal handwritten notes reveal that Nixon was willing to compromise. “Our policy is one China,” he wrote. Taiwan is part of China. I don’t want Taiwan independence.
This is called the one-China policy. Nixon identified that Taiwan is officially part of China. At the same time, Nixon and Kissinger defended Taiwan’s right to autonomy. It’s a commitment.
MR. WINSTON:
As for the Taiwan express factor, of course, we had to make a move, and we ended up with a one-China formula that is elastic and elusive and has served to this day. Both parties, over seven, eight, or nine presidents, have used this formula to keep our relations with China ambiguous on a sensitive issue and, at the same time, to help protect Taiwan’s autonomy.
MARTIN SMITH:
The agreement has remained relatively stable. In 1979, President Carter attempted to secure American commitment to Taiwan by enacting the Taiwan Relations Act, which stipulated that the United States was committed to maintaining the ability to lend a helping hand to Taiwan.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:
The citizens of Taiwan will still be secure.
MARTIN SMITH:
But what does this mean exactly? The policy is intentionally and strategically ambiguous. because there have been incidents between the United States and China. Two planes collided over the South China Sea in 2001 and both countries blamed the other.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
This twist of fate threatens to undermine our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries.
MARTIN SMITH:
But the extent of today’s saber-rattling over Taiwan is new.
Sky News translation
MALE VOICE [translating Xi]:
We will continue to make all our efforts for non-violent reunification, but we never promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option to take all mandatory measures. Full reunification will need to be achieved, and it certainly can be achieved.
ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Company:
I think Taiwan is the next great danger in the world. Even in this era where the United Nations proclaims self-determination is a high principle, if Scotland wants to leave the U.K. or Quebec wants to leave Canada. But China has a more old-fashioned view of sovereignty. “We claim it. It’s ours. Get off our ranch. Don’t get in the way.”
MARTIN SMITH:
The Chinese military’s exercises over Taiwan airspace are a normal reminder of a genuine war. In early 2023, a memo from US Air Force General Mike Minihan to his subordinates circulated online, categorically giving a date for Xi’s invasion. “I hope I’m wrong,” it reads. “My gut tells me that we will fight in 2025. “
“My gut tells me we will reach China in 2025. ” You reacted negatively to this. Do you think. . .
COLIN KAHL, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 2021-23:
Yes. Well, first of all, anyone who says they know when Xi Jinping will invade Taiwan doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Because Xi Jinping doesn’t know the date.
MARTIN SMITH:
Colin Kahl is Vice President Biden’s former national security advisor and former Pentagon undersecretary for policy. Although he questions the 2025 date, Kahl and other analysts in the US military, as well as the CIA, agree with Xi’s near-term intentions.
Xi made some statements about the urgency and. . .
COLIN KAHL:
It did, and the date that top analysts are commenting on is 2027. This is the date that Xi Jinping gave his army to have the ability to do so. Now, this ability does not mean that they will manifest it. Just because he provides them with the task does not mean that they will complete it.
MARTIN SMITH:
But the Taiwanese military needs to tempt fate.
ROC ARMY SPOKESMAN:
We have several scenarios that we have imagined that the enemy will take, and we have plans to weaken those invading forces or even take them down.
MARTIN SMITH:
In July 2023, I traveled here to watch Taiwan’s military rehearsing how to repel a possible Chinese invasion.
So this is one of the beaches where we wait for the EPL. . .
ROC ARMY RAPPORTEUR:
Yes, that is correct. We hope this position will be the first on the EPL list. As you can see, we are here, and this is where Taipei is to the east, and that would be bad for us.
MARTIN SMITH:
So, Xi Jinping, see what you’re doing.
ROC ARMY SPOKESMAN:
Yes.
ROC ARMY SPEAKER 2:
[Speaks Cantonese] For our media friends, on the coast are the landing tanks of our navy.
MARTIN SMITH:
This beach is one of 14 landing sites that the Taiwanese military has potentially called for Chinese amphibious and air strikes.
AME. SAMUEL PAPARO, Commander of US Forces in the Indo-Pacific:
The Taiwan Strait is a tricky crossing: 20-foot tide, 3-mile mudflat, suitable for crossing only 3 or 4 months a year.
MARTIN SMITH:
I spoke with Admiral Sam Paparo, commander of all US forces in the Indo-Pacific, about the feasibility of a successful Chinese takeover.
SAMUEL PAPARO:
It is difficult to reach population centers.
MARTIN SMITH:
It is mountainous.
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
Mountainous terrain and channeling, as we call it, which means very few steps, which can simply be closed without problems.
ROC ARMY SOLDIER:
[Speaking Cantonese] Each exercise is based on assessments and the most probable actions of the enemy. We’re showing that we will do everything we can to defend our country.
MARTIN SMITH:
Is it most likely that we will go to war with Taiwan?
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
The probability is low, but the consequences are so serious that I owe them all the urgency I can muster. The effect of exiting a war would eclipse World War II, which is why we seek to maintain the prestige quo. We seek to save you conflicts.
Xi Jinping believes that the unification of Taiwan contributes to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule over China.
MARTIN SMITH:
They were handed over for more than 70 years without reunification. So what makes this existential?
SAMUEL PÁPARO:
Don’t know. I hope he gives you an interview and tells you that.
MARTIN SMITH:
Admiral Paparo says that, in his view, Xi Jinping and China see Taiwan as an existential issue. That it will have to be unified.
JIA QINGGUO:
You have no right to separate the land from your homeland. As in the United States, you do not automatically have this right. You have to stick to the procedures, right? As in Texas, if they need to become independent, you can’t just hold a plebiscite in Texas. You’ll have to download approval from other states. It’s provided for in the constitution, okay? Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan has never been separated.
MARTIN SMITH:
More than ever, a successful Chinese takeover of Taiwan threatens global stability.
COLIN KAHL:
If China takes Taiwan, we are talking about an island that produces 70% of all the semiconductors in the world and 90% of the high-end chips that power the most complex technologies that we all have in our pockets. our iPhones and our laptops.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The world wants this technology. Europe wants it, Japan, we all want it. And no one else does it like Taiwan.
MARTIN SMITH:
China also depends on Taiwanese chips. A war that destroys Taiwan’s chip industry may give Xi pause.
So does the war in Ukraine. In 2022, when Putin invaded, President Xi took notice.
FEMALE JOURNALIST:
Ukraine marks an anniversary of infamy: two years after Vladimir Putin launched his war. . .
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think Xi is watching Ukraine very closely, because the parallels with Taiwan, while not complete, are disturbing. And Ukraine will be the most productive deterrent to opposing Xi doing anything for Taiwan.
MALE JOURNALIST:
People thought that this invasion was going to last for several weeks and that Russia would get away with it. But the Ukrainians fought valiantly. They continue to fight.
COLIN KAHL:
I don’t think Xi Jinping is happy about the war in Ukraine. Without question, he took notice of how good U.S. intelligence was on Russia. And he has to wonder, “Well, gosh, if they know this about Russia, what do they know about me?” So if he’s counting on surprise, vis-à-vis Taiwan or the South China Sea, I think he’s got to calculate the odds of him pulling off a strategic surprise are less than they were before because of the quality of U.S. intelligence.
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi has denied that he is preparing to invade Taiwan any time soon. But every few years, he orders the military to Tiananmen Square for a display of China’s readiness and might.
CCTV
EDUARDO WONG:
One of the things that has been very consistent with Xi is the alignment of his identity with the Chinese military. I am among his crowd, and. . .
MARTIN SMITH:
Ed Wong witnessed several of these spectacles.
EDWARD WONG:
It is very typical of this imperial occasion where the leader of this wonderful nation, of this wonderful power, surrounds himself with other people who come to pay homage to him and to pay homage to China as a military power. And he leaves in a car. , been outside the sunroof, which goes up and down those rows of troops.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades.
PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:
[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, Chairman!
EDWARD WONG:
We see things like ICBMs on platforms. And all this is a sign of the strength of the Chinese military.
Xijinping:
[Speaking Mandarin] Job done.
PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:
[Speaking Mandarin] Serving the people!
MARTIN SMITH:
Xi’s increase in the capacity of the Chinese military has led the United States to send more weapons to Taiwan. Given the stakes, President Biden has been consistent and direct.
SCOTT PELLEY, “60 Minutes”:
To be clear, sir, U.S. Forces, U.S. men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:
Yes.
DAVID SHAMBAUGH, author, Where the Great Powers Meet:
President Biden has stated unambiguously four times: “The United States will protect Taiwan. ” No American president has ever said that, and no American president has this responsibility. The Taiwan Relations Act says nothing about the United States’ defense of Taiwan. He says that if coercive measures were used across mainland China in opposition to Taiwan, it would be, quote, “serious concern” to the United States.
MARTIN SMITH:
Now is what the new Trump administration will do?
You worked for Donald Trump. If China further invades Taiwan, will Donald Trump, who advocates “America First,” go to war against Taiwan?
H. R. McMASTER, author of At War With Ourselves:
You know, I’m not sure, and the fact that I’m not sure would possibly be a bad thing, because as long as it’s ambiguous, as long as it doesn’t say, “Hey, no, I’m not sure. ” “I’m going to do something to Taiwan. ” And I think it’s also vital that we not make promises that we may not be able to stay if Congress does not authorize military action.
JIA QINGGUO:
We do not deserve to fight until Taiwan becomes independent. But Taiwan is not separate from China. Why do we deserve China to use force? If it is a national problem, we can solve it peacefully.
MARTIN SMITH:
Taking stock of Xi––his ambitions, his deceptions, his human rights abuses and his threats against Taiwan––I come to wonder what U.S. policy should be. To date, little has been done to effectively stop China’s moves in the South China Sea, or in Hong Kong, or to de-escalate the situation in Taiwan.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think engagement was right to try, and it was a great tribute to American diplomacy under nine presidential administrations, with the perhaps somewhat naive hope that China might not turn into a Jeffersonian democracy, but might become less hostile. That was a good diplomatic effort. Did it succeed? Not yet. And engagement has now ended. Now, can we start it up again? I believe that under Xi Jinping it’s probably impossible.
The future
FEMALE READER:
For decades, the expansion of the Chinese economy has been described as a miracle, fueling the emergence of a large new middle class. But those are less safe days for most of China.
MARTIN SMITH:
Despite Xi Jinping’s grip on power, his China is not invincible.
FEMALE READER:
And much of that middle class—
MARTIN SMITH:
In years, the economy has weakened. Growth has slowed.
FEMALE READER:
. . . due to a real estate crisis.
MARTIN SMITH:
The housing boom has turned into a housing glut, with tens of millions of empty homes scattered across the country. It’s also aging, but when young Chinese attend job fairs, they face a staggering unemployment rate, estimated at 25%. Foreign investments are fleeing the country.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The Chinese economy is headed down, for much more of a slowdown than we have today.
LINGLING WEI, author of Superpower Showdown:
It’s heartbreaking. Whenever I talk to my friends back in China, the sense of hopelessness is something I never felt before. People are just very worried about the direction the country is going.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
The Chinese are having a gloomy month. . .
IAN JOHNSON:
I think Xi Jinping has taken the economy for granted for up to ten years. He had the idea that it didn’t matter as much as ideology, but it controlled the way people thought and suppressed dissent.
MARTIN SMITH:
When COVID hit China, Xi’s lockdown policy drew huge protests, becoming the largest anti-government demonstrations since Tiananmen Square.
PROTESTER:
[Speaking Mandarin] We need freedom, COVID testing!
MALE READER:
Citizens, millions of them, yearning to escape almost three years of intermittent lockdowns.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
The lockdown became a kind of lockjaw. And it’s no secret if you talk to people in Chinese cities who were locked down what a nightmare that was.
MALE READER:
In the central city of Wuhan they are breaking the fence that kept them in quarantine.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
But it also was a kind of a perfect metaphor for the way a Leninist system does things: control.
MARTIN SMITH:
Because the government forbade overt messaging, protesters began holding up blank pieces of paper as symbols of China’s strict censorship.
MALE READER:
The White Paper movement is spreading. At first, he opposed China’s strict zero-Covid policy, but in recent days the message has transformed and touched the sharpest political nerves.
PROTESTER:
Freedom!
CROWD:
[Sings in Mandarin] Freedom of expression!
ZHOU FENGSUO, Co-founder, Humanitarian China:
This White Paper motion has been a very exciting time. I heard those young people shout: “End the CCP. “
CROWD:
[Sings in Mandarin] Down! Communist Party, resign!
ZHOU FENGSUO:
And this is the first time that public protests have forced the CCP to follow its policies.
PROTESTER:
Xi Jinping!
CROWD:
[Sings in Mandarin] Down!
PROTESTER:
Xi Jinping!
CREW:
[Singing in Mandarin] Crouch!
LI YUAN:
But many protesters paid a heavy price. And they were harassed and locked up. Because for many Chinese, Xi Jinping is still a call that must be pronounced. You can’t talk.
CROWD:
[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down! Step down! Step down!
LI YUAN:
The 0 COVID policy has many Chinese.
DEMONSTRATOR:
Xi Jinping!
CREW:
[Singing in Mandarin] End of lockdown in Xinjiang!
ORVILLE SCHELL:
I think the White Paper protests suggested exactly the degree to which these forces, dissenting forces, are latent beneath the surface of things.
DEMONSTRATOR:
[Speaking Mandarin] Chinese people have human rights, too.
CREW:
[Singing in Mandarin] The Chinese have human rights.
ORVILLE SCHELL:
After watching China for so many decades, those forces are there and continue to emerge again and again, and are developing and multiplying under repression. But right now, China faces a kind of techno-autocracy that makes it easier than ever to do so. those types of protests, because the position is very high.
MARTIN SMITH:
Today, Xi is trying to find a way forward that balances control with the need to get China’s economy moving again.
IAN JOHNSON:
Xi Jinping thinks he can have it either way: take strong action while maintaining economic expansion. But the recipe for success, according to which society had to be liberated for things to move forward, has now been abandoned. If China continues its policies, and it will, expansion will be slower in the long term, leading to more internal tensions. So I think we are in a more complicated moment.
EDUARDO WONG:
Even though Xi feels that engagement with the outside world might be necessary to jumpstart the economy again, I think at the current moment he has made the other choice. He has chosen to go down the route of consolidating power, the route of nationalism.
MARTIN SMITH:
Then take the darkest path.
EDWARD WONG:
For now, he’s taking the darkest path.
Mihrigul Tursun emigrated to the United States with her two children in 2018.
Her husband joined them in 2023.
Zhou Fengsuo now lives in the U.S.
He made several secret trips to China to visit fellow activists.
Cai Xia is now living in exile in the U.S.
She was expelled from the Communist Party after comparing Xi to a mafia boss.
In November 2024, a Hong Kong court convicted forty-five pro-democracy activists of subverting state authority.
He was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
In 2018, Xi abolished term limits, allowing him to remain president for life.