Shane Leary joins Miles Yu to discuss Wang Yi’s “Four Challenges” to the United States during a recent press conference, China’s attempted role as mediator in the ongoing Ukraine war, and the wave of national security laws in China that emerged out of the annual Two Sessions.
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 Hudson Institute's China Center.
Shane Leary:
It's Tuesday, March 12th, and we have three topics this week. The first is Miles' response to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s four challenges posed to the United States at a recent press conference. Second, we discussed China's attempt to play the role of mediator in the ongoing Ukraine war. And third, we discuss a wave of national security laws in China, which emerged out of the recent two sessions. Miles, how are you?
Miles Yu:
Very good, Sharon. Nice to be with you again.
Shane Leary:
Me as well. For our first topic at a recent press conference, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, raised four pointed questions at the United States. I'd like to go through them one by one, but first I just want to ask what your initial reaction was to this statement and what do you think this charged disposition towards the US reveals about the way China's thinking strategically about US-China relations?
Miles Yu:
So this was an occurrence which has been promoted by the Chinese Communist Party as if this is really a checkmate on the United States. It was a staged scene during the press conference when Wang Yi was asked by one of the designated questioners that say, “Hey, listen, do you have an interest about the United States?” So he asked four questions and state media all over the country began to say, how great these questions are us, US has no answer to this. And Wang Yi by virtue of doing this and made himself look like a clown, he's already a clown. But this makes him look like a really, really hypocrite. Obviously, I like to respond to each one of the questions.
Shane Leary:
Yeah, no, that's great. I think let's give you a chance to sort of answer him and maybe rebut him. So question one, he says, “If the US says one thing and does another, where is its credibility as a major country?”
Miles Yu:
United States does not have a credibility problem. China has no credibility. If you look at it, the Chinese behavior, the more country China deals with, the less popular China becomes. Chinese government popularity among all the polling agencies of great reputation in the world conducted has been historically low. I mean, the pure organization in the United States conducted an international polling of 24 countries. The average on favorable impression of China is over two thirds, 67%. So along China's peripheries, all these countries, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and India, Vietnam, China's unpopularity is well over 80%. In Japan, over 90%. In the United States is 83%. So that's because China does not have a credibility at all. I mean, Chinese government is known for agreeing to do and then basically destroyed their own agreements.
Shane Leary:
Second question. If the US gets jittery, whenever it hears the word China, where is its confidence as a major country?
Miles Yu:
I think he tried to say that United States is tend to be paranoid about the “rising China.” That's their narrative. Again, if you change the word United States for China, and China is the country that is known for its extreme paranoia. Chinese government basically thinks everybody is its enemy. Every foreigner in China right now is by default a suspect of being a foreign spy. The Chinese government, Chinese Communist Party is so afraid of its people, It established the most advanced, most comprehensive, most horrific surveillance system in human history over its own people. So the 100 million Chinese Communist Party’s rule over 1.3 billion Chinese people. So that's the expression of the extreme paranoia. If any government is jittery at all time in the world, that would be the PRC government.
Shane Leary:
Third question, if the US only wants its itself to prosper, but denies other countries legitimate development, where is international fairness?
Miles Yu:
It assumes the Chinese development model is legitimate, it is not. The Chinese development model is fundamentally non-market. The biggest problem of the world today is that we embraced a non-market communist economy into the global free market system of free trade. So that's why when China said all this United States led international system did is denied China's a legitimate development. That's just pure nonsense because it is Chinese development model that is fundamentally incompatible with the prevailing system of the world. That's why United States is trying to stop China. By the way, it is not just United States. It's the whole world free market based international system that is jittery about China's non-compliance, non-market economy. Right. I think to blame the victim is not really a good way to go and Wang Yi just make affirm by claiming such a thing.
Shane Leary:
And lastly, if the US persistently monopolizes the high-end value chains and keeps China at the low end, where is fairness in its competition?
Miles Yu:
My gosh, do you listen to Chinese Communist Party leader to talk about the fairness in economic and technological development? The Chinese government, number one, has conducted a massive intellectual property theft in human history against the countries like United States, the UK, and many other countries. So that's why there's nothing more moronic for the Chinese foreign minister to talk about China being treated unfairly. The world has given China enough opportunities and China exploited, and that's why the world's waking up to the danger of the Chinese system of massive appropriation of other people's intellectual property rights. So this is one of the major problems. That's why dealing with China carries a lot of risk. So that's nothing to do with the international system denies China's legitimate development. It's precisely the opposite. China has been destroying the international legitimate development system. That's why we have the rudeawakening nowadays, and we have to deal with this problem of a non-market compliance represented by the Chinese Communist Party’s economic and political system.
Shane Leary:
That's great. And maybe next time you can pose four questions for Wang Yi and we could see how he does.
Miles Yu:
Well, actually, I did post on my Twitter my response to his four, so-called challenges to the United States. I mean, it is not even worth the US government response to his charges because it looks so ridiculous, so foolish, and so far I haven't heard any official response from Chinese government. Of course they don't care what I say, but it does gain a lot of viewers and by Twitter followers responses. I mean, the reason it is so salient is because China is always making these ridiculous claims. China is the perpetrator, inflector, of the harm onto the global system. And at the same time, China claims to be the victim of the trouble it caused by itself. That's a traditional Chinese ploy. I don't think it is working anymore. They try to play on the guilt of the modernized society. They always claim itself as a victim of an unfair system. And China is a ferocious, ambitious empire builder. So that's why this kind of rhetoric is way overplayed and I don't think anybody's buying it.
Shane Leary:
I think that's well put for our next topic. Senior Ukrainian officials met with a Chinese regional envoy this past Thursday discussing a proposed plan for peace with Russia as well as evidence of North Korean weaponry being used by the Russian military. Can you tell us a bit about China's diplomatic activity here? How exactly are they trying to play the role of mediator in this conflict?
Miles Yu:
Again, there is a stark irony here. China has said openly that it has been on the side of Russia over the war in Ukraine. Chinese defense minister said about four weeks ago in the live broadcast conversation, phone conversation, and the video conversation as a matter of fact, to the world, that China decisively took Russia's side on the war in Ukraine. I mean, if this is a country that has been supplying Russia with dual use items to be used in the war against the Ukrainians, and China has been doing enormous amount of trade with Russia by sustaining Russia's war economy. China is not a neutral country that is qualified to be the mediator. So the most bizarre thing is that Ukrainian leadership today still harbor some kind of bizarre hope that China could be a peace and negotiator. I mean, this is basically the legacy, the lingering illusion that Ukrainian leadership has displayed toward the Chinese communist government since 1990s, I’m a big admirer of President Zelensky, but he sent its foreign minister to beg China to play in the role China has no credibility.
Now, let me just say one more thing. The most severe threats to world peace to international system are posed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Russia, Iran, and North Korea are the openly declared enemies of global peace. So China, on one hand, appear to be some kind of a neutral. Appear to be, not to be with the other three, but China absolutely control the other three in such a way that China has played the masters game by creating all kinds of turmoils and strategic distractions for the United States in particular and for NATO as well. So for example, China is behind Russia, as we just talked about it. China definitely is a critical supporter of North Korea regime. China is the only country that matters to the survival of North Korea regime. Iran, China is a strategic partner with Iran. China just signed two years ago a 400 billion, 25 year long plan. So by which China is not transform Iran into basically technically China’s basically puppet.
And not only that, in order to sabotage the Abraham Accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia, China basically has brought Iran closer to Saudi Arabia. Now, Saudi Arabia was brought to the side of Chinese Iranians in order to sabotage the American court to create more instability and chaos in the Middle East. So this is all China’s master game. We should realize the strategic intent of the Chinese Communist Party and their role in a serious global instabilities and crises, in war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East. And China right now is trying to basically use this puppet Maduro regime in Venezuela to create another flashpoint crisis in the Western hemisphere because Maduro has announced that he's going to annex two thirds of Uruguay and other sovereign independent country following exactly the same logic aggression that Russia has against Ukraine and China has against Taiwan. So you can see this system of instability, the mastermind behind all this is China because China is the only country that's capable of supporting those regimes through its economic power, through its global influence. So that's why not only China has this kind of strategic intent, although China has the capability, it's an enabler of all the kind of crisis globally. And its ultimate goal is to destroy the global order led by the United States.
Shane Leary:
And for our last topic, during the recent annual two sessions, a wave of national security laws was announced as part of the 2024 agenda of the National People's Congress. These include an emergency management law and energy law, an atomic energy law, and various other laws towards hazardous chemicals and cybersecurity among others. And meanwhile, Hong Kong unveiled a new proposed law that threatens life in prison for those who endanger national security. Miles, what is the impetus behind this wave of national security laws in China and Hong Kong?
Miles Yu:
Well, dictatorships have their own way of dealing with the governance. In most cases, they don't even need the veneer, the veil of law. But sophisticated dealerships like the Nazi regime for example, like the Chinese Communist Party regime, they understand the usefulness of legality. So therefore basically conduct the egregious repression according to their laws. In Nazis, for example, they have the Nuremberg laws and they use their legal system and to legally, according to their law, persecuted and conducted the Holocaust, for example, right? China has the same thing. If you look at the Chinese laws, Chinese laws are very, very telling. And also it's pretty outrageous if you look at it. During this year's two sessions, the annual conference of National People's Congress and the annual conference of Chinese People's Political Consultants Conference, C-P-P-C-C and China issued, passed the article 23 essentially to article 23 of the national security law with regard to Hong Kong.
If you read those things, it's absolutely fascist because most of the crimes under that new law in Hong Kong is not about action. It's about thought. If you are thinking that you are going to basically to put up the banner protesting Chinese repression human rights in Xinjiang, for example, and you'll be prosecuted by that. So it's a political prisoner crime. It's a thought crime. And this is codified by the law. And in this wave of laws, for example, the Chinese government is very proud of this fact that they have prosecuted so many people. The Chinese prosecution authority, the head of that, gave a speech before all those laws were passed. And he said, listen, in the last year alone, the state has arrested or prosecuted 2.4 million crimes basically against the state, national security and against social stability. That means the political prisoners and this kind of numbers were very numbing and stupefyingly chilling. So that's why China's human rights violation is not just the result of the personal will of one particular person. It's systemic, it's legalized and it's massive. It's a challenge to not just only one particular article or international comment on human rights. It's a challenge to the entire global system of criminal prosecution. And so everybody should have an obligation to actually stop this kind of wave. Otherwise, the other minor dictatorships will follow China’s Way, and we're going to be in big trouble.
Shane Leary:
I want to expand a little bit on the Hong Kong law. Could you talk a little bit about that and its significance?
Miles Yu:
So Hong Kong law, it's like the final stage of a long controversial clause. The discussion of that was originally drafted by the Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lamb, and she wanted to basically know to draft this so-called Article 23 and which basically is about the extradition. In other words, if somebody is charged with a crime in Hong Kong, and then this article would allow the Hong Kong authorities to extradite this criminal, which was under Hong Kong jurisdiction, be extradited to mainland China to be subject to the communist legal system, that is basically a very fearful prospect. So that proposal that bill along was the trigger for the massive protest of 2019. Millions of people went to the street in Hong Kong to protest that because most of people in Hong Kong are political refugees. In essence, they escaped the Chinese criminal system and they went to Hong Kong and they sought refuge there, and they were granted freedom and basically human rights rule of law.
So now this proposal, the Article 23, would basically sort of connect the judicial system in Hong Kong and with the judicial system in China, that's why it's so fearful. The reason why the Hong Kong government would like to do that are mainly, obviously, Chinese pressure. But there's a practical reason too, because Hong Kong is a very unique place for a lot of people inside China because it creates some kind of protection. If you are, say embezzler in mainland China, you can hide your money in Hong Kong. It's protected by a different legal system. So if anybody the Chinese government really wanted, but you cannot really catch this guy under Hong Kong's existing law. And what the Chinese government has been doing before 2019, numerous occasions, will send secret agents to Hong Kong to kidnap this guy and then brought them back to China for trial. That created a headache for the Hong Kong government.
So Carrie Lamb, then chief Executive decided, you know what, I'm going to get rid of the problem once and for all. So I basically allow the Hong Kong law to be passed so that I have a legal way to extradite whatever criminals the Chinese government wants. But what she failed to see is that this is a politically dangerous, explosive issue. So Carrie Lamb essentially is a bureaucrat who has no idea what freedom and democracy means to the people of Hong Kong. That's why she's very notorious and that's why she basically screwed things up. And that's why you have the massive protest in Hong Kong for essentially two years, 2019 and 2020.
Shane Leary:
And just as a last question, we often think about China as having gone through reform. We think of it as sort of very far away from the Mao era. With today's sort of draconian system in China and increasingly in Hong Kong, how does that compare to say the worst times under Mao?
Miles Yu:
Okay, so under Mao is different, and Mao obviously was dictator, but Mao's supreme power was, in his eyes, were challenged by two potent forces, half imagined. One is the international communist leadership headed by the Soviet Union that disagree with the Mao's pretty wacky movement, starting with the Great Leap Forward. Mao believed, you know what? There was a lot of foreign agents surrounding him in the highest echelon of the Chinese Communist Party. That's why he wanted to get rid of the so-called the Chinese revisionist, the China's Kruschev. That's one reason why he launched the cultural revolution to sort a cleanse the impurities of the Chinese Communist Party who have deviated away from true Marxism-Leninism in his mind.
Secondly, Mao believed that the entire Chinese Communist Party apparatus, the functioning bodies of the party machine, have not been totally loyal to him. They're loyal to his deputies who are basically the managers. So that's why the primary targets of the cultural revolution were the Chinese Communist Party cadres that Mao thought they were not loyal to him a hundred percent. So the way to get rid of these bureaucrats was to mobilize the young people and mobilize the army. So that's why those are major tools of Mao. That is the youth, the radical red guards and the fanatic loyalist to Mao, and of course the military. He had total control military through his Deputy Marshall Lin Biao. This is basically what caused the cultural revolution. Now, there's something very interesting about cultural revolution. Cultural revolution was described by the party propaganda, by a lot of people too, influenced by that kind of propaganda, as the worst thing that had happened to the Chinese nation. I don't think that really is entirely correct because if you look at the 17 years before the cultural revolution between 1949 and 1966, much, much worse human rights violations were committed.
You have tens of millions of Chinese citizens perished because the systemic killing, systemic starvation. And that is probably the darkest chapter in human history. So the cruelty and the depth of suffering is just unbelievable. Yet the communist party system, its apparatus, remains more or less untouched. That's why there's very little mention about the 17 years, in my view, the darkest years in Chinese Communist Party history between 1949 and 1966, the reason the cultural revolution was so chaotic is so much more discussed and hated is because those targeted Chinese communist cadres survived Mao when Mao died in 1976. So they began to think, this is probably the worst thing that ever happened to China. I mean, yes, the cultural revolution is horrible, but they know if you look at the totality of the PRC history, I mean, I say that's not the worst.
Shane Leary:
Well, I think that's a great note to end on. Miles, thanks so much for taking the time and I look forward to doing this again next week.
Miles Yu:
Thank you very much, and I'll see you next week.
Shane Leary:
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of China Insider. If you enjoy the show, please share with your friends and colleagues. And for our Chinese language audience, be sure to come back and check out our monthly Chinese language episodes, which are released on the same channel, as well as the Hudson Institute YouTube Channel. For more research and analysis from the China Center, be sure to find miles on X and then head on over to hudson.org where you can read and watch more on these and other pressing issues around the globe. Finally, please review and subscribe wherever you are listening from to help grow the show. From all of us at China Insider will see you next week.