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Speaker 1: Peter Lewis joins US out of Hong Kong.

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Speaker 2: Hello Peter, Hello Andrew. Right.

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Speaker 1: We've got the EU and China talking about trade right now,

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Speaker 1: and we've got a very interesting mediator.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Maloney. She's been in Beijing

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Speaker 3: for four days. She met with President Hu Jinping. And

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Speaker 3: as you know, relations between China and the EU are

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Speaker 3: not great other moments. The EU is very concerned about

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Speaker 3: the rather large trade deficits it runs with China, and

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Speaker 3: it's concerned about particularly electric vehicles that it says are

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Speaker 3: being dumped on the European market at below cost, partly

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Speaker 3: because of all the subsidies these companies get from the

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Speaker 3: Chinese governments.

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Speaker 2: So tensions are a bit frayed.

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Speaker 3: There's been investigations by the EU into China, retaliatory investigations

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Speaker 3: by China and for things like wine and cheese and

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Speaker 3: so on. But this Maloney says that she could be

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Speaker 3: a mediator in all of this and she can help

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Speaker 3: mend relationships between the EU and China. Well, I don't

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Speaker 3: know how much China is going to see. Miss Maloney

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Speaker 3: is as a neutral interlocerateur in this because she doesn't

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Speaker 3: have a great track record in terms of being friendly

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Speaker 3: to China. She pulled Italy out of the Belton Rote initiative.

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Speaker 3: You remember, Italy was the only G seven country to

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Speaker 3: join the big infrastructure projects that president she set up

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Speaker 3: the Belton Vote initiative. She said that was a big mistake,

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Speaker 3: it was a waste of time, it brought no benefits

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Speaker 3: to Italy. When she became Prime Minister, she pulled Italy

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Speaker 3: out of that. She had also has been one of

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Speaker 3: these supporters putting tariffs on Chinese companies, particularly ev makers.

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Speaker 3: And then if you go back even further back in

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Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, she was actually a junior minister

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Speaker 3: in Sylvia Bernasconi's government and at the time of the

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Speaker 3: Beijing Olympics, she urged the boycott of the Olympics. So

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Speaker 3: a China's human rights record. So I don't know how

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Speaker 3: much China is going to see her as being someone

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Speaker 3: that that's that reliable when it comes to mediation.

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Speaker 1: Please tell me if you can speak Mandarin.

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Speaker 2: She can't, of course.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you would have thought that you would have had

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Speaker 1: an independent mediator, perhaps from the Americas or whatever, because

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Speaker 1: she's got a dog in the game. But there we

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Speaker 1: go interesting. We'll watch that very very carefully. Now, TikTok

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Speaker 1: and in China, and of course America doesn't like it.

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Speaker 1: What's their problems?

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Speaker 3: Well, it says that first of all, it spies on

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Speaker 3: American teenagers, collects loads of data about them, and then

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Speaker 3: sends it back to China, which Beijing can then use

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Speaker 3: to target the American audience through social media and in

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Speaker 3: particular young people in China, influence their their approach and

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Speaker 3: beliefs on China and even influence things like the elections. Now,

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Speaker 3: TikTok denies that. It says it doesn't send anything back

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Speaker 3: to China, and if it was asked by the Chinese government,

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Speaker 3: it would refuse to do so. Now that would be

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Speaker 3: rather difficult, I think for TikTok because the Chinese the

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Speaker 3: government does expect its companies to sort of be another

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Speaker 3: arm of the state, if you like. So the US

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Speaker 3: government has put a ban on TikTok. It's got to

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Speaker 3: either bite beside the divest itself of TikTok by January

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Speaker 3: or face a countrywide ban. TikTok is suing the US

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Speaker 3: government now in the latest briefing that the US government

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Speaker 3: has just filed. It says that by Dance and TikTok

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Speaker 3: have this secret sort of social media platform, internal media

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Speaker 3: platform called Lock, and it uses that to spy on

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Speaker 3: Americans and get their views about controversial subjects like abortion,

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Speaker 3: like gay rights and so on, and then feeds that

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Speaker 3: back to China through this system called Lock, So that

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Speaker 3: the US government says that this really the gates TikTok's arguments,

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Speaker 3: that it's got this this independence if you like service,

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Speaker 3: this data service that's been set up by Oracle, which

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Speaker 3: stores all of TikTok's data and can make sure that

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Speaker 3: none of that goes back to China. Well, the US

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Speaker 3: government says, of course, that's all violated by this this

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Speaker 3: Lark system and other things that TikTok does.

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Speaker 1: I really feel for some poor Chinese person who has

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Speaker 1: to sit there and see the mountain of TikTok produced

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Speaker 1: by American teenagers and try to ascertain some sort of

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Speaker 1: sense to it all.

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Speaker 2: You know, American American teenagers.

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Speaker 3: If you answer, they say, we don't care, and we psactly,

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Speaker 3: They say, I'm not that interesting.

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Speaker 2: Even why does the government want all this information on me?

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Speaker 1: They say whatever? And I don't vote anyway, and by

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Speaker 1: the way, have you seen the lads from Surta And

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Speaker 1: this is how we dance. I know, I get this,

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Speaker 1: So there we go. All right, give me with the

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Speaker 1: smart stuff Apple. Apple has dropped out of the top

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Speaker 1: five smart phone sellers in China, I would presume because

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Speaker 1: the Chinese phones just get bitter and bitter from more

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Speaker 1: the technology they've stolen.

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Speaker 2: That's what the US government will say.

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Speaker 3: In fact, it's noticed the board that now all top

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Speaker 3: five manufacturers in China are domestic manufacturers.

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Speaker 2: So the number one is Railway.

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Speaker 3: Which has faced a lot of sanctions from the US

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Speaker 3: but nevertheless has been able to develop chips to power

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Speaker 3: it's iPhones. And then also you've got ferns like Vivo

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Speaker 3: and Opper up there shall Be, which also has been

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Speaker 3: developing electric cars, is up there. The top five Apples

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Speaker 3: dropped down to number six, although Apple says it's still

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Speaker 3: got a very strong business in China. But if you

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Speaker 3: look at Apple's results which came out yesterday, in fact,

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Speaker 3: it did report that its sales in Greater China area,

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Speaker 3: which includes Mainlanchai, the Taiwan, and Hong Kong, declined six percent,

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Speaker 3: So it is coming under a lot of pressure from

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Speaker 3: these local rivals that introduce competing products. Someone did say

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Speaker 3: to we are they going to go the same way

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Speaker 3: as BlackBerry did? I don't think so, because Apple has

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Speaker 3: got a whole ecosystem around it. It doesn't just depend

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Speaker 3: upon the iPhone. It's got particularly its services like iTunes

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Speaker 3: and its cloud business. So it has got a very

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Speaker 3: big ecosystem that can offset the decline in sales in China.

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Speaker 3: In fact, we saw that in Apple's results yesterday they

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Speaker 3: still managed I think a five percent gain in revenues.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Well interesting as I've always been confused that why

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Speaker 1: BlackBerry did not work, and maybe it was just a

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Speaker 1: product before its time, because the encryption that was available

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Speaker 1: on BlackBerry's will go down. And just to treat these

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Speaker 1: days with all their with all the sort of stuff

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Speaker 1: that's happening right now, Peter, I like to thank you

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Speaker 1: very much, enjoy your weekend, enjoy the Olympics, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk again later.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.