South Korean intelligence services have revealed credible evidence that North Korea has deployed upward of 12,000 troops for training and combat alongside Russia in the war against Ukraine. Miles Yu analyzes the significance of this escalation and what it signals for the anti-Western axis of Russia, China, and North Korea. Second, with the United States presidential election reaching its apex, the economy and tariffs are in the spotlight. Miles retraces what led to the tariffs on Chinese imports during Trump’s first term, and why they have had such strong bipartisan support. Finally, Miles details why China has so few Nobel laureates, and why the four Chinese winners don’t receive the heroes’ treatment you might expect.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute’s China Center, hosted by Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute's China Center. I am Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat and their implications to the US and beyond.
Phil Hegseth:
It is Tuesday, October 22nd, and I'm Phil Hegseth alongside Hudson expert Miles Yu. We start this week with credible evidence that North Korea has deployed upwards of 10 to 12,000 troops for training and ultimately combat alongside Russia in the war against Ukraine. Ukrainian reports are claiming North Korean forces have already been spotted in places like Mariupol, Miles analyzes the significance of this international escalation on the Russian side of the war and what this signals for the anti-Western axis of Russia, China, and North Korea. Second, with the presidential election reaching its apex, the US economy is in the political spotlight and no policy more so than the Trump tariffs. Miles retraces is what led to the tariffs on Chinese imports started during Trump's first term and why they since have had such strong bipartisan support to stay in place. Lastly, every October new Nobel Prize winners are announced, and this year China came out empty handed while the US and other western countries dominated the winner circle. For a contest so tied to international recognition and prestige, Miles reveals why China has so few winners and why the four winners they have had don't receive the hero's treatment you might expect.
Phil Hegseth:
Okay, miles, good to see you again.
Miles Yu:
Good to see you, Phil.
Phil Hegseth:
It's Tuesday you're traveling. What else is new? But excited to have you. So we're going to jump right in. First is a topic that I saw come across my headlines last week and it seems to have been confirmed. We can dive into that a little bit. But the South Korean spy Agency has confirmed with their intel evidence, photos, videos, that North Korean troops are on their way, potentially already on the ground and have been deployed to Russia to fight in Ukraine. So, you predicted this Miles pre my hosting of the show. So why don't you take me and the listeners back, why were you able to predict this and what kind of trends led to this involvement, which is big by the way? North Korea has not militarily been engaged in any real conflict in almost 75 years.
Miles Yu:
We predicted this over a year ago. Last September, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong on made in Russia, Siberia in the satellite launching station, and they reached a kind of comprehensive deal. It's quid pro quo about mutual assistance. So if you look at this, what is Russia needed from North Korea? North Korea had very little to offer except a few things. One of the things that North Korea could really get from Russia is of course, food supply, grain, energy, oil, and most importantly it's satellite launching technologies and also upgrading to the submarine fleet. So those are things that the North Koreans wanted from Russia, which is very obvious. Now, what could North Korea provide? Russia? Very little except one thing that is commando special operation forces. North Korea has the world's largest commando, special operation forces numbering about 140,000. That is staggering for a country like that.
And they're all very well trained and well fed despite the fact that the country was pretty much on the constant on the verge of starvation. So, this is what the Vladimir Putin wanted. Now I predicted this in the aftermath of the Wagner insurrection because Wagner was very Putin's primary instrument to conduct wars overseas. When Wagner stay away from Putin, he needed the forces to fight for him in a similar capacity. And there's only one country that could go to that is North Korea and North Korea is willing, and North Korea is reciprocal to Putin's offering. That was the basis for my prediction, which took place last September. So this is basically is very logical. It's very logical.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. So it seems it's come true. It looks like it's about reports are 10,000 to 12,000. Ukrainian intelligence services are saying that they're already reporting forces on the ground in Mariupol, North Korean troops on the ground in Mariupol.
Miles Yu:
Yeah. President Zelensky just came out to confirm that there are North Korean troops in combat in Ukraine.
Phil Hegseth:
How does that change Ukraine's and the larger Western calculus in the conflict?
Miles Yu:
I think we changed the nature of warfare in many ways. The rule of engagement, the warfare is already being rewritten right now as we speak because Ukrainian war touched on many key elements of modern warfare. Number one, fighting forces. Ukraine have the perennial problem of combat personnel, staffing. A lot of people who just fled Ukraine didn't want to fight. So Ukrainians have the problem and they find a solution that is in drone warfare. The drone warfare can magnify the fighting capability of one person by a dozen of times. Even so, one man who is very operationally capable of operating a whole set of drones can deter say the assault of a battalion, sometimes even the regiment. So if you do it right, so that's why drone warfare has great bright future. Secondly, it's really about internationalization of the war because by including North Korean troops in his fight, he got a lot of very interesting element from way far away. Now of course there are volunteers on both sides from different countries, a lot of Chinese volunteers fighting for Russia in Ukraine. There are a lot of Taiwanese and the Americans, and they all joined the Ukrainian forces. But those were sort of voluntary forces. On the individual basis here, we're talking about a sovereign decision by a sovereign nation to send tens of thousands of troops into a combat zone that could decide the outcome of the war. So that's why it's significant.
Phil Hegseth:
That was going to be my question. What from the North Korean perspective, what drove this move? It's been this long that they've really militarily engaged in any conflict, as I mentioned, and there's been plenty of conflicts between the Korean War and now. What has driven them to jump into the Ukrainian war where they desperate to for Russian resources? What is it?
Miles Yu:
I think mostly in a nutshell, it's ideologically driven. Their ideology is anti-West and North Korea has been on the war against the US led west for decades, and Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine was not just about grabbing territories from Ukraine, it's about making a statement against the West. He really looks up himself as a crusader against the western dominated world order. That's when Xi Jinping (习近平) jumped in and say, oh, we're together. We're going to change the world order. The humankind has not seen in a hundred years. So this is basically the globalization of the war. But I always also say what really is telling about this move that North Koreans joined the fight in Ukraine is really about the redefinition of global security issues. In other words, regional security is global security. In a real sense there's no such a thing anymore as regional security because anything that happened in Taiwan, in Ukraine or in Israel is a global affair.
Phil Hegseth:
It at least sets a global precedent of some kind.
Miles Yu:
That's right. Well, this is for many reasons. One of the, basically this is we're going to say the emergence of a line draw in the sand between totalitarian regime and authoritarian regime and the free world. Number two, the two major participants in this struggle, Russia and the United States are global by nature. Geographically, Russia is a country with a huge territorial span. They have 11 time zones from Europe all the way to Asia, and United States of course is a global leader. It has a strong presence globally. But I also say that in the 21st century, all modern warfare involves globally significant, globally connecting technologies, satellite, internet, they're all global. They're transcending national borders. So that's why this warfare is really broad in its scope and that's why the war in Ukraine is probably the first really global war in a true sense.
Phil Hegseth:
So with that being the case, China is a very large global player and what this podcast is about, what is China seeing with this new partnership and this new ratcheting up of international involvement, especially on the Russian side?
Miles Yu:
Well, China has basically involved very deeply. China is literally bankrolling Russia's war machine. It's a war effort in Ukraine. I think I listened to Secretary State Blinken’s statement. He says something like over 70% of Russia's war operations were financed, assisted directly by Chinese made equipment or Chinese assistance. That was staggering. Basically, the war in Ukraine is basically China’s war as much as the Russia's war. The only thing that probably it is different, China’s involved in the war in Ukraine's, difference from Koreans is directed troops deployment. In the case of North Korea, they send over 10,000 troops to Ukraine. So in my view, this war in Ukraine, launched by Russia is truly a war of coalition among its bodies, China and North Korea. And their role in Ukraine is just, they share the same goal is just to have the different division of labor.
Phil Hegseth:
So, if China's bankrolling in all of this, is it safe to assume that the CCP gave an unofficial green light to allow the North Koreans to be involved on the ground that they were aware of this happening and they're good with their money being used on North Korean commandos in Ukraine fighting for Russia?
Miles Yu:
Geez, you ask is a very tough question because that talks back to the whole issue of China's participation in the Korean War some 75 years ago.
Phil Hegseth:
That's the last time you've seen these same three countries be involved in one joint effort.
Miles Yu:
Yeah. Was Mao Zedong (毛泽东) given the opportunity to okay North Korea’s invasion to South Korea by Stalin or was China not involved as a bystander? So there is a lot of historic documents right now coming out of the archives in the former Soviet Union. That definitely points to the reality that China was deeply involved in the decision to go to war against the South Korea launched by Kim Il-Sung. So there's no question about that. China, of course was acquiescent and there's no way that strategic partners like Russia and China would not talk to each other about North Korea's massive involvement on the ground in Ukraine.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah, yeah. Well, shifting gears a little bit to the upcoming election. There's not a lot of time left, just a couple weeks. A top topic always, but especially this year is the economy and in tied to that is tariffs. Trump pushed a number of tariffs on Chinese imports during his time. Those tariffs have stayed, and so there's an argument that they've had bipartisan backing and success. So just to set the scene here, Miles, why have tariffs been put into the economic spotlight during this campaign and specifically the Chinese tariffs?
Miles Yu:
You know it's very unfortunate that the tariff issue on Chinese imports have even become an issue because this has been purely a bipartisan issue. And I was listening to vice president candidate Tim Waltz say, oh, Trump launched the trade war on tariffs China, the war he couldn't win. This is just very disheartening because it was during the Obama administration that a very large 301 investigation was conducted and Obama administration imposed debilitating tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, which is basically the industry that had been destroyed by Chinese cheap imports. So that's why Trump did not launch trade war on China. China launched a trade war on the rest of the world, particularly the United States. China has been imposed very heavy tariffs on American goods exporting to China. So this is just a very reactive over there. Well, let me put this thing into a larger perspective. Tariffs is antithetical to free trade. Absolutely, free trade is the system that will not allow tariffs because it shows trade barriers. However, that's the ideal world. We're living in the real world. The real world has one very inconvenient contradiction. That is the global free trading system based upon market has embraced and now market communist economy whose policies, trade or economic ones are purely predatory. So what do you do? I think tariffs is probably the only weapon left to stem the Chinese malign inference in economic and trade arena because tariffs basically serve three purposes. One is revenue, the federal government get money from tariffs. Now, traditionally United States, the main source of US governments revenue came from tariffs. Tariffs on import goods. This is over 120 some years has always been the case until 1913 when President Wilson started the whole personal income tax. So instead of taxing foreign imports, American government tax, its own citizens, that's where we have the main revenue of the government has shifted from tariffs on foreigners to its domestic citizens to Americans.
That's why income tax is so high. Secondly, a tariff is important also in our real world, not ideal world, real world to protect Americans industries because Chinese is a state subsidized economy. They use their state sponsored companies to kill American industries, American industrial base. So tariffs can serve to protect American industries, American economy. That's why these restrictions enacted by tariffs I think is necessary. Now this is also reciprocal because it is not like a United States that suddenly wake up say we want tariffs for imports. China is doing the same thing. So that's why it's reciprocal. We are trying to basically to force China to stop this predatory policy so that we can move away from the real world as existed now to the ideal world where everybody will be involved in free trade and free of government intervention. So that's why tariffs is necessary. Now, there's always an argument in this campaign that if we impose tariffs on China, the cost of the goods will be increased and will also be transferred to the customers. I don't really buy that argument because if you have tariffs, you would stop the Chinese import significantly anyway. So those goods will less likely to show up in American market or shops. So that's why it's not going to be transferred on Americans. And secondly, I think the whole purpose of this is to increase America’s competitiveness. So once America's competitiveness is increased and productivity is increased, and it will be able to reduce costs on customers. So overall it's a much larger case and also much better. So I don't buy this argument about mostly from Wall Street, from those guys who have vested interest in China saying, ah, if you import increase tariffs on China, customer will pay more. I don't think so. I think the other way probably is true.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. Well and see, you cited a couple reasons why the tariffs are helpful in what is fueling them, but particularly the predatory practices that China is using in the market and in manufacturing, things like that quickly, what are a few of those that they're employing with the US and globally that the tariffs are protecting us from or we're penalizing them for?
Miles Yu:
Well, one example I said is obviously there's steel and aluminum, right? That basically is very important. That's one reason why you see the Democrats and the Republicans or other companies heavily in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those are steel basis America’s steel and aluminum industries were based there. That's one. Another one obviously is the automobile China subsidized its electric vehicles heavily. That is not allowed and otherwise it's going to destroy America’s electric vehicle industry in this country period. Not just the United States, Europe and many other countries as well. So that's why it's protective. So I would say those are very prominent examples.
Phil Hegseth:
Correct me if I'm wrong, is the idea that the CCP provides subsidies to Chinese EV manufacturers so that they can make these cars super cheap, sell them super cheap and drive out competition internationally and kill domestic companies?
Miles Yu:
Oh yeah, yeah, it's very clear. I mean, for example, the bestselling EVD out of China is BYD and BYD makes good cars, but heavily subsidized by the government. The Chinese gave a subsidy to every electric vehicle produced, not sold, produced. Not only that, the government also subsidized every Chinese made the electric vehicle exported. Again, not sold, exported overseas. That's why it created incentive for Chinese EV makers to make a lot of cars with subsidy in hands, they can produce more and more and more. So there's a surplus of EVs in China. You go to China today, you have what we called EV graveyards. Millions of EV cars were lying there rusting because they're overly produced by this non-market practice of state subsidy. So that's why this is such a pernicious practice. Virtually every modern industrial country is now banning Chinese cheap cars into their market without some kind of, banning is not a right word. I think levy heavy tariffs on them. Otherwise their industry would not survive
Phil Hegseth:
Depending on who wins. Do you see these tariffs carrying forward or ramping up or cooling down, depending on whether there's a Harris or Trump administration.
Miles Yu:
This all depends on China. The most important factor in determining US-China relationship, economic, political, military is solely on Chinese behavior. And if they change their practice, tariffs situation will ease. Otherwise, will continue.
Phil Hegseth:
Alright, shifting to our final topic, miles, October is the month when all of the Nobel Prizes are awarded. This year, China came up empty handed. Not that China has come up empty handed ever. They have won in the past, but they have an interesting history with the Nobel Awards. And so I want to use this time kind of reflect on some of their past winners and would've happened, but also the general idea of international recognition and the poll between China and the US on that global stage.
Miles Yu:
Well, Nobel Prize is very much like college ranking. It doesn't tell a hundred percent about one's procedure, but it it's pretty good indicator. So, it's commonly used as a way of demonstrating one nation's prestige in science, innovation and creativity in writing, economics. So this year is no exception. China has always harbored a dream for Nobel prizes. As a matter of fact, he has had four of them altogether. In 2000, there was a literature prize awarded to a Chinese born writer. His name is Gao Xingjian (高行健). Then 10 years later, this is probably the most famous Chinese Nobel Prize winner, is the peace prize winner, which was awarded to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波). A college professor who was jail, was in jail in China at the time. And so after that he died in jail. So this is the hero of the Chinese people. And then two years later, in 2012, the Nobel prize for literature was awarded to the Chinese writer by the name of Mo Yan (莫言), which is very interesting because he's a terrific novelist. But Mo Yan literally mean Chinese means do not speak. So a lot of his creativity comes out of him being very artistic and creative in expressing his true feelings in a very oblique way. And then of course, in 2015, China got the only science Nobel Prize winner in this old lady by the name of Tu Youyou (屠呦呦) was credited for being responsible for creating this kind of drug anti-malaria drug, which was order Mao in the 1970s to invent some medicine to save the Vietnamese communists fighting in the jungle of Vietnam. So that's why she was famous for. Now, this isn't basically something that China should be proud of. Instead, those are very, very interesting kids because they're not real national heroes in China, literature, the first guy, Gao Xingjian, he was critical of Chinese Tiananmen massacre. So, China had met him in long prison. You couldn't even Google him in China, of course, Google is banned.
Phil Hegseth:
He's a writer and they banned all of his writings.
Miles Yu:
They made him disappear. His name disappeared, I should say. His articles, writings were not there. And Liu Xiaobo, of course, is the enemy, public enemy number one in China. He died in agony in China, if you say openly, say, I like Liu Xiaobo, you go to jail. Literally a hundred percent.
Phil Hegseth:
This was the activist winner, right?
Miles Yu:
That's right. The activist peace prize winner. And then Mo Yan. Basically, he was mostly sympathetic to the party, but he also, he championed truth telling. And that's why Mo Yan literally means his voice unheard in China, for the most part. He come out and say something once in a while, but mostly the government is not promoting him. And of course, Ms. Tu Youyou, the medicine prize winner, she was in her probably like early nineties. Now nobody is now hearing about her because she refused to be recognized as a honor for the country. She said, this is my accomplishment, which is basically a fight between individualism versus collective.
Phil Hegseth:
Very anti-collectivist.
Miles Yu:
Yeah. So the reason I'm saying all this is because China really wants to have the glory of Nobel Prize, but does not have this political atmosphere and the political courage to tolerate people of different accomplishment, particularly in political philosophy, social justice, and individualism. Now, in contrast, United States has 420 Nobel Prize winners altogether. 420 versus four. That is a balance sheet of soft power. That's a balance sheet of innovation and creativity between United States and China. So what I'm saying here is that even though this country is not perfect, but when it comes to social justice, creativity, and scientific advancement, we are the leader of the world. Bar none.
Phil Hegseth:
I like that. A balance sheet of soft power. Is there any way that the CCP do you think can change the tide of that balance sheet and catch up with the United States?
Miles Yu:
Listen, the balance sheet can only be changed with freedom, free speech, free flow of information. China does not have the under communist regime. I don't see any future at all in that regard.
Phil Hegseth:
Well said. Great way to end, Miles. Thanks for your insight as always, and we'll have three more for you next week. Great to see you. Travel safe.
Miles Yu:
Alright, see you later. Thank you for listening to this episode of China Insider. I'd also like to thank our executive producer, Philip Hegseth, who works tirelessly and professionally behind the scenes for every episode. To make sure we deliver the best quality podcast to you, the listeners, if you enjoy the show, please spread the words for Chinese listeners. Please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time.