Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Allaway.
Speaker 2: Tracy, we're recording this June fifth. President she Shinping and
Speaker 2: President Trump just held a phone call.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall
Speaker 3: for that conversation?
Speaker 4: I would. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: Markets moved on it. I'm always surprised how hard it
Speaker 2: is to set up phone, just pick up the phone,
Speaker 2: But I'm always at surprised that these are like bigger news.
Speaker 2: It should be noted that this was reported first by
Speaker 2: the Shinwan News agency out of China, and there was
Speaker 2: a headline that the news agency specified that the phone
Speaker 2: call was at Trump's request. They made a point of saying.
Speaker 3: That I still have this image of Trump sitting in
Speaker 3: the Oval office by the phone, just like twittally his
Speaker 3: thumbs waiting for shehian Ping to call, like hoping is
Speaker 3: he gonna call me? Should I wait two days? Should
Speaker 3: I wait three days before responding that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: There was an Ultra Journal article from a few weeks
Speaker 2: ago which made the observation which I had not realized
Speaker 2: outside of the September eleventh terrorist attacks, there's never been
Speaker 2: a contact between the US and China that was initiated
Speaker 2: by China, which I hadn't realized before. I assume it's true.
Speaker 3: So Sheishan Ping is sitting in his office twiddling waiting
Speaker 3: for the Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and then he decided, but he decides to
Speaker 2: either take the call anyway. All of this sort of
Speaker 2: speaks that to the fact, you know, we sort of
Speaker 2: confused by all this, and there's still just so much
Speaker 2: that I think Americans in particular, but I'm sure it
Speaker 2: goes to both directions, like genuinely don't understand about the
Speaker 2: other country. And given a time of increased tension obviously
Speaker 2: the trade war heightened geopolitical concerns, it's not great. I
Speaker 2: think it would be better even if we sort of
Speaker 2: accept the premise of there is the very intense competition
Speaker 2: that the two countries and the populations and the governments
Speaker 2: and the people going to governments just know more about
Speaker 2: how they work.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Have you ever read an English translation of the way
Speaker 3: China academics write and talk about American society and American politics?
Speaker 2: I should read this.
Speaker 3: It's really really interesting.
Speaker 2: Should send me some links?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I will, but I know a person who
Speaker 3: has done this and translated it and done the work,
Speaker 3: and he will definitely send you some links.
Speaker 2: So I am very excited to say that we have
Speaker 2: a I think it should be a special episode. We've
Speaker 2: talked to him on the podcast before. We're going to
Speaker 2: be speaking with Zishen Wog. He is the author of
Speaker 2: the creator of the Pechnology Substack, which essentially looks at
Speaker 2: public comments from officials, academics, leaders in China and then
Speaker 2: writes about them and translates them for an American audience
Speaker 2: and actually sort of helps an American audience understand what
Speaker 2: this sort of like public discourse is. And anyway, over
Speaker 2: the last year, he's been getting his master's degree in
Speaker 2: public policy at the Princeton School of Public International Affairs.
Speaker 2: So he's been in Princeton over the last year. But
Speaker 2: he's going back to China and he's going to return
Speaker 2: for where he was working at the think tank, the
Speaker 2: Center for China and Globalization.
Speaker 3: Right, So this is his exit interview from America.
Speaker 2: Basically, when I heard that he was leaving town, I
Speaker 2: was like, let's do an exit interview. And of course
Speaker 2: the other added context, which I think is very relevant here,
Speaker 2: is that this comes a time of extreme scrutiny on
Speaker 2: the mere existence of Chinese students at American universities, particularly
Speaker 2: out of the Trump administration. It's an American export US universities,
Speaker 2: and there's this major crackdown. We've seen all these concerns
Speaker 2: about visas, et cetera. So there's a perfect time to
Speaker 2: do this exit interview. So Zishan, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for having me here back again.
Speaker 2: You run a great newsletter and we had a great
Speaker 2: episode with you. And as a student in the US,
Speaker 2: you're sort of situated at a very interesting time. But
Speaker 2: let's like back up, Like what prompted you to come
Speaker 2: to the US to study in the first place. I mean,
Speaker 2: you did this program at Princeton.
Speaker 5: How come before coming to the mid career Master in
Speaker 5: Public Policy program at the Princeton School of Public International
Speaker 5: Affairs formerly known as the Rural Wilson School, I'd already
Speaker 5: been working for thirteen years, so I was like at
Speaker 5: the middle of my professional trajectory and I were thinking
Speaker 5: about getting another advanced education, and of course the United
Speaker 5: States is the top destination.
Speaker 4: One other thing.
Speaker 5: Is that, to the credit of Princeton, the Policy School
Speaker 5: offers fully funded education, so that means they examined all
Speaker 5: the tuition and the healthcare coverany.
Speaker 4: No export revenue for US, yes.
Speaker 5: Exactly in this case, yes, and also a living stipend.
Speaker 5: And so I turned down some other offers from the UK,
Speaker 5: from Singapore and came here. And also, as you correctly
Speaker 5: mentioned at the very beginning, you know, China US relations
Speaker 5: is perhaps the most consequential bilacual relations for someone whose
Speaker 5: past career was in journalism and nonas in tank. I
Speaker 5: couldn't think of a better place to be here in
Speaker 5: the US. But you know, here we are, and I
Speaker 5: feel like being overwhelmed by all these news.
Speaker 3: So on that note, was the plan always to go
Speaker 3: back to China after you completed your degree or is
Speaker 3: this something new.
Speaker 5: That was like eighty or nineteen percent of my plan?
Speaker 5: Mainly for personal reasons, but also I think the political
Speaker 5: atom sphere is a bit overwhelming. I did have some
Speaker 5: kind offers from potential employers here, but I decided against them.
Speaker 5: The State Department announced, actually, you know, they are going
Speaker 5: to aggressively revoke Chinese students visas as well as imposed
Speaker 5: you know, further scrutiny on future Chinese students visa applications.
Speaker 4: Let's say I stay on for one more year.
Speaker 5: I would be on opt or CPT, which is a
Speaker 5: post training upon graduation from a US college, but that
Speaker 5: status would be linked to your student visa, your FM visa.
Speaker 5: So the potential consequences for Chinese students is not just
Speaker 5: currently enrolled students, but also other you know, people who
Speaker 5: are on o BTCBT students.
Speaker 3: Here out of curiosity, is Princeton providing guidance on visas
Speaker 3: because I can only imagine being a college student and
Speaker 3: having to deal with immigration issues on top of everything else.
Speaker 5: In light of what happened at Harvard, let me think
Speaker 5: of a way of not putting Princeton in jeopardy again.
Speaker 5: I did get I think, not just me, but everywhere else.
Speaker 5: Did get some emails from you know, sort of guidance
Speaker 5: from the university which says it took notice of recent
Speaker 5: news and it is offering resources basically, I guess, you know,
Speaker 5: counseling as well as potential legal resources for people to
Speaker 5: not to be against the administration, but to comply with
Speaker 5: all the laws and regulations in this country.
Speaker 2: This was a one year program obviously, say versus ten
Speaker 2: years ago, the sort of level of suspicion and anxiety
Speaker 2: about the press and a lot of Chinese students at
Speaker 2: American universities has grown quite a bit. What about even
Speaker 2: in the last year, how do things feel shifted? And
Speaker 2: when you talk to other Chinese students, you know, is
Speaker 2: it just like noise coming out of DC or does
Speaker 2: it change the campus environment?
Speaker 5: Well, I think it definitely has already had a chilly
Speaker 5: in fact, And I mean for me personally, I feel
Speaker 5: very welcomed and I feel all the hospitality and warmth
Speaker 5: from my American professors, you know, school administrators, and the
Speaker 5: prison community of neighbors and my local friends. But for
Speaker 5: you know, most of the Chinese students who are currently
Speaker 5: in this situation perhaps too scare to speak up, and
Speaker 5: especially after the news last week, I think they are
Speaker 5: under a bit of stress because the announcement out of
Speaker 5: the state partament is very broad, it doesn't use very
Speaker 5: exact language to ascertain who will exactly be in trouble.
Speaker 5: There are currently I think two hundred and seventy thousands
Speaker 5: Chinese students here in the United States. China is the
Speaker 5: second largest origin of international students here in the US,
Speaker 5: and so was the first India. So for many years
Speaker 5: China was the largest source of international students here in America,
Speaker 5: but that number has come down since bilateral relations.
Speaker 4: Worthen.
Speaker 5: The United States has a proud history of welcoming Chinese
Speaker 5: students who come to the United States. In the beginning
Speaker 5: of the twentieth century, when China was still governed by
Speaker 5: the Qing dynasty, there was this Boxer indemnities, basically the
Speaker 5: compensations paid by dan Qing dynasty to various Western powers.
Speaker 5: And at that time, the US was kind enough and
Speaker 5: smart enough to turn those compensations into a scholarship program.
Speaker 3: Which was part of their money diplomacy of the early
Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds, right.
Speaker 5: Well before Joseph Knight created the concept of soft power,
Speaker 5: and the US has been practicing that. So they ceded
Speaker 5: the top university in Beijing and sponsored to one thousand
Speaker 5: and three hundred Chinese students to come to the United States.
Speaker 5: And after the bilactual ties were established, you know, since
Speaker 5: the two countries normalized the diplomatic relations, Republican and the
Speaker 5: Democratic presidents both welcomed the Chinese students. There was this
Speaker 5: very famous episode where Chinese top leader Don't Selping at
Speaker 5: the time asked, you know, if he could send something
Speaker 5: like five thousand Chinese students to the US, and President Cutter,
Speaker 5: according to his own recollections, he responded that, well, tell him,
Speaker 5: tell them to send one hundred thousand students to America.
Speaker 5: I also read President Ronald Reagan actually received the Chinese
Speaker 5: students and made remarks in some sort of reception welcoming them.
Speaker 5: And let's remember that was a time when China was
Speaker 5: much less open and dynamic than it is today. So
Speaker 5: what is happening is really unfortunate. I think because of
Speaker 5: this long history, many Chinese for granted the opportunities to
Speaker 5: come here and study in America if they are good
Speaker 5: enough to be offered the admission letters. But the larger
Speaker 5: background is, of course, I guess globalization, because for many,
Speaker 5: many years, people just believe, you know, everyone is going
Speaker 5: to be more connected and we will benefit from more
Speaker 5: people to people exchanges, from commerce, from you know, research collaborations.
Speaker 4: But unfortunately that.
Speaker 5: Era seems to be ending right now. Well, it may
Speaker 5: have begun to be ending quite a few years Ago Joe.
Speaker 3: Just as an aside, there's a really good book called
Speaker 3: Fortunate Sons about some Chinese students who were sent to
Speaker 3: a Connecticut school in I think the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: I'd love to read that.
Speaker 3: It's really good. I read it when I bought that
Speaker 3: house in Connecticut to try to bridge the gap I
Speaker 3: guess between Hong Kong and where I was living. I
Speaker 3: wanted to ask, what's the difference or differences from your
Speaker 3: perspective in terms of what you would learn in a
Speaker 3: public policy degree in China versus a public policy degree
Speaker 3: at some place like Princeton.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a very good question.
Speaker 5: I think there is. This key difference is, for example,
Speaker 5: policy schools are mostly for early career and mid career
Speaker 5: professionals in public service sector, and here I think for example,
Speaker 5: at Harvard Kendidate's school, at the Jackson School of Global Affairs,
Speaker 5: at the year at PRINCETON'SBIA, they are offered full time.
Speaker 5: And that's because not just the US, but also many
Speaker 5: governments across the world they have the flexibility to allow
Speaker 5: their people to basically take a year or two year
Speaker 5: off their professional career and come here. But back in China,
Speaker 5: I think many of those programs are taught as a
Speaker 5: part time process, although like they are labeled a full
Speaker 5: time process because the I think sometimes the rigidity of
Speaker 5: personnel management system means that it's very difficult for people
Speaker 5: to basically leave work for a year or two and
Speaker 5: get a full time education at you know, maybe Chinhuaan
Speaker 5: and Peking University.
Speaker 4: And also here in the US, I.
Speaker 5: Think the policy schools benefits greatly from first of all,
Speaker 5: former policymakers like retired former sistants, Secretary of State and
Speaker 5: so here we have like many very good practitioners who
Speaker 5: are becoming you know, teachers. We have, for example, Princeton Speer,
Speaker 5: some former Biden administration officials who just exited the administration. Well,
Speaker 5: I think in Chinese universities, to be fair, I haven't
Speaker 5: gone to those policy schools, but that would be rare.
Speaker 5: And secondly, this place benefits from a much broader well,
Speaker 5: I guess this is a toxic world now diversity here. Now,
Speaker 5: for example, my class is highlighted like over half of
Speaker 5: the classmates I international students, and also the faculty members,
Speaker 5: some of them even come from foreign governments. I really
Speaker 5: benefited from the global perspectives. I get from Princeton here.
Speaker 2: What did you do for undergrade?
Speaker 5: Well, I went to a Chinese college and major lea
Speaker 5: in finance.
Speaker 2: Actually, I don't know much about Chinese universities. The only
Speaker 2: thing I ever hear these days about Chinese universities is
Speaker 2: usually in the context of tech competition in the number
Speaker 2: of STEM graduates, and you hear a lot about the
Speaker 2: number of hundreds of thousands of STEM graduates and the
Speaker 2: advantages that sheer scale confers. You know, when I think
Speaker 2: of American universities, there's STEM, but I also think a
Speaker 2: lot about the heavy importance on liberal arts degrees and
Speaker 2: literature and history, and people can go on to you know,
Speaker 2: careers in tech and finance even from a history degree.
Speaker 2: Can you compare contrast that sort of like intellectual environment
Speaker 2: at the Chinese colleges in terms of the non technical fields.
Speaker 5: Well, this is something I think that has been observed
Speaker 5: and they talked about in the past few years when
Speaker 5: people compare you know, Chinese and American universities, but also
Speaker 5: between Chinese and I guess Indian universities, because based on
Speaker 5: what I read, which may not be like very accurate,
Speaker 5: it's like India also trains a lot of like lawyers
Speaker 5: and you know, social sciences majors. But the general perception
Speaker 5: is that the Chinese colleges and universities are training many
Speaker 5: more STEM grads and you know in semiconductor related in
Speaker 5: you know, mechanical and yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just what everyone's talking about these
Speaker 2: days because of this anxiety about tech competition.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's correct. And almost all.
Speaker 5: Universities in China are state run. All the IVY leagues
Speaker 5: are privately around universities here in the US, maybe because
Speaker 5: I think China is still to some extent a transition economy.
Speaker 5: So China initiated as a reform and opening up in
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy eight, but before that it was a totally
Speaker 5: planned economy where the government basically tells every one what
Speaker 5: to do, uh, you know, in their schools and in
Speaker 5: their professional journeys, and based on those you know paradigms,
Speaker 5: a lot of Chinese universities are set up like to
Speaker 5: train people in a specific field. For example, there is
Speaker 5: this Beijing Aeronautics University which basically trains people you know
Speaker 5: in space related technology and maybe rocket science. And then
Speaker 5: there is also you know, comprehensive universities. But for for
Speaker 5: many years there was this maybe legacy China learned from
Speaker 5: the Soviet Union to have specialized colleges and universities in
Speaker 5: training STEM grads. And also, you know, China has one
Speaker 5: point four billion people. It is now the second most
Speaker 5: populous country on Earth, so naturally you would see, you know,
Speaker 5: there are just many, many more Chinese students there, and
Speaker 5: the Chinese they put heavy emphasis on science and technology.
Speaker 4: Can I share with one detail with you?
Speaker 5: Because I graduated from finance and I went down to
Speaker 5: join a new studency in China, Yes, the same news agency.
Speaker 5: And my mother used to tell me, why don't you
Speaker 5: learn something real like finance and journalism? They are not
Speaker 5: like real professional Well, I guess I didn't test very
Speaker 5: well in Chinese college and trance examination. For many years
Speaker 5: there was this quote in China, and I think it
Speaker 5: still rings true, and it maybe it rings even truer today. Well,
Speaker 5: in Chinese it's called hortually, like if you learn mathematics
Speaker 5: and the physics and chemistry, you can go everywhere and
Speaker 5: do and do well. And that is still on many
Speaker 5: Chinese minds. And so for example in Ai, I think
Speaker 5: Jason Juan of Nvidia, he.
Speaker 4: Said, like a few weeks ago.
Speaker 5: I think he was citing Marco Polo I think tank
Speaker 5: here formally affiliated with the Postle Institute, is that fifty
Speaker 5: percent of the global AI talent is Chinese or maybe
Speaker 5: having some sort of Chinese heritage. So that does speak
Speaker 5: to the enormous training capacity of the Chinese education and
Speaker 5: which also makes many people wander here. You know, AI
Speaker 5: is going to shape everything in the future, and the
Speaker 5: two countries seem to be lucked in a competition that
Speaker 5: the US really want to shut out such a large
Speaker 5: talent poll in Ai. And these students, Chinese students, you know,
Speaker 5: after completing their undergrad degrees, they come to the United States,
Speaker 5: they contribute to meaningfully, to groundbreaking research. And I think
Speaker 5: this is one thing that many people have a maybe
Speaker 5: an inaccurate understanding of how graduate level education, especially in
Speaker 5: stem Field's work, this is not an extractive process. It's
Speaker 5: not that you know, Chinese, Indian. You know, students from
Speaker 5: global thouts come to the US universities, they learned, they
Speaker 5: sat in classrooms, they learned from their American professors and peers,
Speaker 5: and then they leave and brought the knowledge back with them.
Speaker 4: That's not the case.
Speaker 5: Yes, they benefit enormously from the education system here, which
Speaker 5: is just spectacular, but they make meaningful contributions in conducting
Speaker 5: research and collaborating with the American peers and professors. They
Speaker 5: stay in labs for days and months and which would
Speaker 5: result in papers in top American journals. They actually contribute
Speaker 5: to the creation of knowledge and the sharing of knowledge here.
Speaker 5: They contribute in the process. It's a symbiotic process, not
Speaker 5: an extractive process. So by having them here, and some
Speaker 5: of them, you know, would remain here legally, I should say,
Speaker 5: you know, to work in the US, become entrepreneurs and
Speaker 5: researchers and American taxpayers to pursue their American dreams, and
Speaker 5: some of them would leave the US and go back
Speaker 5: to China, India, and you know, everywhere on Earth, and
Speaker 5: they would become, you know, informal ambassadors of American openings,
Speaker 5: of American inclusiveness, of American.
Speaker 4: Hospitality, and they would serve as.
Speaker 5: One of the defense lines in terms of China US
Speaker 5: relations as decreasing mutual strategic misunderstanding and the miscalculations.
Speaker 4: So this truly.
Speaker 5: Something very important in my mind, and I'm really saddened
Speaker 5: to see you know, the crackdown on Chinese students to
Speaker 5: come to the United States.
Speaker 3: When you go back to China, what nice things are
Speaker 3: you going to say about America.
Speaker 5: Well, the first thing I'll tell them is that I
Speaker 5: have the enormous privilege of coming to outlaws on Princeton
Speaker 5: I Bloomberg, I'm sorry, And that's really.
Speaker 2: That's the first thing.
Speaker 4: Okay, what's number two?
Speaker 5: Well, number two is I think I benefit a lot
Speaker 5: from all the critical discussions on colleges. It's not just
Speaker 5: you know, pro Trump against Trump. We have very different
Speaker 5: views on all sorts of subjects. Some professors are rightfully
Speaker 5: worried about, for example, rule of law here, but we
Speaker 5: have also some classmates who have faculties who are very
Speaker 5: sympathetic to what the broader Republican agenda is doing here
Speaker 5: in the United States. So I think this clash of
Speaker 5: different ideas, the market of free ideas is something simulating
Speaker 5: for me personally. And the other reason is that, for example,
Speaker 5: I'm fully founded by Princeton spar here, and so I
Speaker 5: benefit truly from the hospitality and the generosity of the
Speaker 5: American people here. Is the private university is the money
Speaker 5: coming in from private donations I'm truly grateful for that,
Speaker 5: and I don't think like any other country on the
Speaker 5: Earth has simply has the financial capacity to do something
Speaker 5: like that, So this is something.
Speaker 4: Really should be cherished. Here.
Speaker 5: I will certainly carry, you know, all these lessons and
Speaker 5: appreciations back to China.
Speaker 3: We started this conversation talking about deteriorating US China relations,
Speaker 3: and I don't think anyone would disagree with that premise.
Speaker 3: But the question I wanted to ask you is, as
Speaker 3: someone who's worked in both Chinese and Western institutions, or
Speaker 3: at least studied at a Western institution, what do you
Speaker 3: think is the biggest understanding between the US and China.
Speaker 3: What's the biggest sticking point?
Speaker 5: You mentioned the subsect I did technology and all those
Speaker 5: for example. I also have the privilege of being invited
Speaker 5: to some of the major thing thanks here to share
Speaker 5: my views with you know, fellow think tank analysts and
Speaker 5: for officials. I think, if I really want to summarize,
Speaker 5: like what I've been doing is to normalize China, because
Speaker 5: China has a vastly different political system from the United States,
Speaker 5: from all the major westerns and industrial the economiess I
Speaker 5: think people fundamentally see China as a different beast, but
Speaker 5: China also has politics. The Chinese government has many government departments, ministries.
Speaker 5: They compete with one another. There is politics between different departments,
Speaker 5: politics between different people inside one government department. The Chinese
Speaker 5: make five year plans and they seem to be implementing
Speaker 5: that quite well. For example, the China twenty twenty five
Speaker 5: come into mind. But sometimes they are also very short sighted.
Speaker 5: The Chinese have good accomplishments, they also make stupid mistakes.
Speaker 5: That's just human nature.
Speaker 2: What are some examples of short sighted? Because Americans love
Speaker 2: to go to China and then they come back and
Speaker 2: they say they think in the centuries, I'm like us
Speaker 2: who just think. You know, it's these very cliches, these
Speaker 2: very cliched commentary that you just hear over and over against,
Speaker 2: like we just think about the next quarterly estimate or
Speaker 2: hitting the next GDP. You say, obviously, any society is
Speaker 2: going to be richer than these sort of cliche tropes
Speaker 2: that you know when you look back at decisions, Because
Speaker 2: you mentioned seems like the mad and twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: stuff worked out really well, but where do you see
Speaker 2: it breaking down? At times?
Speaker 5: For example, let's talk about Eve's right, you know, the
Speaker 5: electric vehicles.
Speaker 4: So everyone now knows.
Speaker 5: That China is leading on EV's and people talk about
Speaker 5: bid about you know, cell me, the former smartphonemaker turned
Speaker 5: automobile maker, and it seems like, you know, Ford and
Speaker 5: other US auto giants are falling behind. So many people
Speaker 5: attribute to some sort of Chinese state subsidies and industrial strategy.
Speaker 5: But there also in mind that before this evy boom,
Speaker 5: there were like a dozen Chinese automobile makers. Almost all
Speaker 5: of them were state around automobile companies, because China implemented this.
Speaker 5: When foreign comakers come to China, you have to form
Speaker 5: joint ventures with Chinese planners, and in many cases the
Speaker 5: Chinese partners have to be in control of fifty one
Speaker 5: percent of the joint venture.
Speaker 4: But all these Chinese.
Speaker 5: Stay around automobile giants are actually falling behind. Now what
Speaker 5: you are seeing in the EV boom in China, the
Speaker 5: names coming to mind are all very new private around
Speaker 5: Chinese automobile makers. They didn't exist, They didn't benefit from
Speaker 5: the sort of state monopoly or preferential loans and maybe
Speaker 5: land and all the in kind subsidies for those they
Speaker 5: basically partnered with. BMW with all these American and the
Speaker 5: European commakers, but look they are falling behind now.
Speaker 2: It's on the other hand sorry, But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: I could listen to that story and say, because of
Speaker 2: this requirement for jvs, the only possibility of actual private
Speaker 2: automobile development in China was for domestic companies, and international
Speaker 2: companies never had that chance to actually sort of be
Speaker 2: truly autonomous within the Chinese domestic market. Seems like that
Speaker 2: worked out very well in the grand scheme of things
Speaker 2: for ensuring that the only companies with complete agility, et
Speaker 2: cetera in the Chinese market ended up being Chinese.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, that could be some sort of
Speaker 5: a good policy advice for the Cormon administration, I guess,
Speaker 5: and also maybe European governments. And secondly, I'm very down.
Speaker 2: With please bring bid in a JV or something like that.
Speaker 2: I wanted uid gigafactor in Georgia or something like that.
Speaker 2: I've said that before anyway, going.
Speaker 5: What I was trying to say is there is this discrepancy.
Speaker 4: With you know, all the power of our.
Speaker 5: Industrial strategies, but at the same time it's the private
Speaker 5: ingenuity of the innovation of the hard work of the
Speaker 5: private Chinese companies which have somehow come out on the
Speaker 5: top all the states around companies, they are are falling behind,
Speaker 5: at least in the automobile sector. And that shows that
Speaker 5: I think people tend to see China as a country
Speaker 5: with the Communist Party of China sitting atop the state
Speaker 5: tells everyone what to do and marshaling all the resources.
Speaker 5: But it is also at the same time just spectacularly
Speaker 5: competitive and the innovative place where private ingenuity and hard
Speaker 5: work really plays a very big rule. There is this
Speaker 5: say in China you know five six, seven, eight nine
Speaker 5: basically says you know, over half of the GDP, of
Speaker 5: the taxation, of the new employ ooyment are all created
Speaker 5: by private companies. And so that's something when Americans perceive China,
Speaker 5: they think of just one very coherent, I don't know, Bechman,
Speaker 5: where you know, there is this larger central brain telling
Speaker 5: everyone to do everything else. And yes, the the like
Speaker 5: the Chinese government, the Commanist Party of China enjoys enormous
Speaker 5: power in telling in shaping the Chinese society compared with
Speaker 5: Western powers. But do not discount and actually I think
Speaker 5: much more emphasis should be put on the non state
Speaker 5: part of the Chinese society.
Speaker 3: You mentioned your mom thinking that doing finance and journalism
Speaker 3: was not very valuable, And one thing you sometimes hear
Speaker 3: is that China places greater importance or value on people
Speaker 3: studying stem going into tech. And I guess I'm curious
Speaker 3: how much has that changed over the years, Like, if
Speaker 3: I was a high school student in China in I
Speaker 3: don't know the nineteen nineties, would be encouraged to be
Speaker 3: a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, or would
Speaker 3: I be encouraged to go into tech? Like basically, how
Speaker 3: has that culture of which subject is most valued changed
Speaker 3: over time?
Speaker 4: You are very sharp eyed.
Speaker 5: I think if it was in the nineteen nineties, people
Speaker 5: wanted to go to I don't want to name names,
Speaker 5: like certain finance schools in China, and after graduation, like
Speaker 5: they would want to work in Goldman Sucks and Morgan Stanley.
Speaker 4: That's like the top jobs.
Speaker 5: Maybe when I graduated from college in twenty eleven, that's
Speaker 5: still the case what the people wanted to do because
Speaker 5: it makes huge money. It makes very big money. But
Speaker 5: especially in the past decade, I think I'm.
Speaker 4: Sure you have reported this.
Speaker 5: There is a large casts to the income to the
Speaker 5: wages of Chinese financial engineering, and even when to the
Speaker 5: Internet sector, Facebook now known as Matter and all those
Speaker 5: booms they contribute to consumer internet that was the thing
Speaker 5: in China as well. Like Ali Baba and Tencent, what
Speaker 5: they do is they popularize some technologies which makes lives
Speaker 5: much easier for everyday consumers and also businesses. But in
Speaker 5: a sense, I think now more value is put into
Speaker 5: the sort of technologies that would really boost the productivity
Speaker 5: in you know, industrial process For example, even doctors and
Speaker 5: hospitals can identify certain diseases. It's not just you know,
Speaker 5: I can go out and get a delivery much easier
Speaker 5: from a from a restaurant. So the term technology I
Speaker 5: think has taken out a new meaning. And if I
Speaker 5: can make a recommendation. There is this Dan Wound who
Speaker 5: who I think.
Speaker 4: Is in.
Speaker 2: To recommend Dan long.
Speaker 4: Audience.
Speaker 2: We've had about several times. I'm sure we'll do a
Speaker 2: big thing when his book comes out. Both Tracy and
Speaker 2: I have copies of it on our desk. You should
Speaker 2: go pre order it on Amazon raw.
Speaker 5: So basically I think China is wishing to make Yeah,
Speaker 5: basically these hot technologies more sexy than you know, just
Speaker 5: joining a tech firm.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. It sort of feels this is becoming an
Speaker 2: international phenomenon that everyone is getting very anxious about their
Speaker 2: country's capacity to do quote hard tech. You are returning
Speaker 2: to China and you're going to go back to the
Speaker 2: think tank, the Center for China and Globalization. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the controversy section in the Wikipedia page
Speaker 2: for it, and Marco Rubio, who's now the Secretary of State,
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, he actually blasted your school. He blasted
Speaker 2: the Woodrow Wilson School for inviting a scholar from the CCG,
Speaker 2: and he said the retire to the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 2: And CCG, according to Wikipedia, is a member of an
Speaker 2: alliance of think tanks coordinated by the International Department of
Speaker 2: the Chinese Communist Party that support the Belton Road initiative,
Speaker 2: which we've talked about.
Speaker 4: On the show.
Speaker 2: Now, granted, your situation strikes me as a little bit
Speaker 2: unique because most students coming to the US from China
Speaker 2: are not going to a public policy school and a
Speaker 2: one year funded thing. Why shouldn't American lawmakers, however, be
Speaker 2: concerned about training many of the next generation of leaders
Speaker 2: in a country that is perceived to be a major rival,
Speaker 2: and doing work with them and training them in Ai
Speaker 2: and all of these things that there is so much
Speaker 2: sort of almost everyone accepts that there is going to
Speaker 2: be some degree of, you know, either geopolitical and business competition.
Speaker 5: First of all, about the Wikipedia page you was Jess mentioned, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I know, it's very very thorough research over here.
Speaker 2: I click out a Lincoln Our School of a controversy section,
Speaker 2: but I wanted to, you know, I saw both your
Speaker 2: think tank and the Wilson School have come under controversy
Speaker 2: for connections.
Speaker 5: The joke I typically make in this sort of conversation
Speaker 5: is that, well, I came from the State Ground News agency.
Speaker 5: I was a proper Chinese government personnel, and now people
Speaker 5: would characterize me as some sort of you know, the
Speaker 5: term United Front. That's like semi government. You're done grading me, like,
Speaker 5: I was a proper Chinese government for eleven years and
Speaker 5: I left, you know, in October tenty twenty two. And
Speaker 5: if we have time, I'd be happy to dive into
Speaker 5: the details of you know, the difference between a government
Speaker 5: rund thing tank and a non governmental thing tank in China.
Speaker 5: But to your larger point, is that there is this
Speaker 5: term which says keep your friends close and keep your
Speaker 5: enemy closer. I'm not sure exactly if China and US
Speaker 5: are enemies at the moment, but just from that inside,
Speaker 5: I think it would be very beneficial for the US,
Speaker 5: especially policy schools, but also other you know, social sciences
Speaker 5: and universities, to try to have Chinese contributions, to have
Speaker 5: Chinese students' presence here, so that's you know, when push
Speaker 5: comes to shop, they have someone to call, They know
Speaker 5: what the Chinese are really thinking about, and that is
Speaker 5: I think one of the tragedies from the crackdown for example. However,
Speaker 5: than have the Chinist school.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that there's a difference between properly state run
Speaker 2: think tanks and non state run think tanks. I think
Speaker 2: in the US there is a perception, and this actually
Speaker 2: goes back to the talk about companies, including car companies,
Speaker 2: et cetera. There's a perception that there's actually no private
Speaker 2: companies that implicitly, even the private companies, the byds, et cetera,
Speaker 2: are at some level, you know, at the back and
Speaker 2: call of the state, and some more literally. The other
Speaker 2: is even those incredible book about Walkway talks, a lot
Speaker 2: about there's a Communist party leadership within the company. It
Speaker 2: engages in making sure itch members who are employers of
Speaker 2: the company and engage in more moral behavior and aren't
Speaker 2: doing things like gambling, et cetera. Why shouldn't we think
Speaker 2: that every country within China, regardless of how it's incorporated,
Speaker 2: answers up to political leadership invasion.
Speaker 5: I think on macro level, I do not see a
Speaker 5: drastic difference between for example, a US president wants.
Speaker 4: To have like Nvadia or Apple to.
Speaker 5: Become the dominant forces in the world, and from the
Speaker 5: Chaps Actor, from the Inflation Reduction Act to offering you know,
Speaker 5: generous subsidies to American companies. In China, there is this
Speaker 5: support for Chinese companies, but in many cases not from.
Speaker 4: The very start.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know how we studied very little, and
Speaker 5: it was competing with UH with European telecom vendors at
Speaker 5: the very beginning, and for many years, you know, China Mobile,
Speaker 5: China Unicom, all the state telecomation firms, they just wanted
Speaker 5: the equipment from the European suppliers and yeah, and probably
Speaker 5: had to go to the European markets to increase its customers.
Speaker 5: Numbers and revenue and after a few years and especially
Speaker 5: when the industry became more strategic and uh, and then
Speaker 5: the Chinese comment, would you know, take a look at
Speaker 5: of the potential players and believe, oh, this is perhaps
Speaker 5: an industry that's going to be of strategical value in
Speaker 5: the future, and would provide some sort of assistance to them.
Speaker 5: But I wouldn't think that there is a CCP committee
Speaker 5: overseeing Huawei on a daily basis telling them, you know,
Speaker 5: this is something you should do in the Southeast Asia
Speaker 5: and this is something you should work on in Africa.
Speaker 5: And if that were the case, Huawei wouldn't be where
Speaker 5: it is today, Which is also why I sincerely believe
Speaker 5: the US persecution of Quawei and other properly private Chinese
Speaker 5: companies is a strategic mistake, because these companies were on
Speaker 5: their way to making China more dynamic, more private, having
Speaker 5: more private elements in the Chinese society, to have more
Speaker 5: international exposure, to allow people to have a career path
Speaker 5: a meaningful one, a financially rewarding one.
Speaker 4: Outside the apparatus.
Speaker 5: These companies are helping China to become more open, more
Speaker 5: aligned with international standards. So these are positive forces from
Speaker 5: a market perspective that to help align China with the
Speaker 5: globalization process, with the so called rule based international order.
Speaker 4: And this is also the reasons.
Speaker 5: For example, the US has imposed many export controls and
Speaker 5: has for example, sanctioned Russia and other states and companies
Speaker 5: that are deemed hostile to US national interests, and many
Speaker 5: of the Chinese private companies are well silently just abide
Speaker 5: by all these sanctions because they want to globalize. They
Speaker 5: want to have markets and the partners and supplies across
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 4: But I guess this.
Speaker 5: Is the year ten twenty five. There is no way
Speaker 5: to turn around this phenomena. I guess.
Speaker 3: Well, on this note, this actually leads into a question
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask, and I think this will be
Speaker 3: the last question for me.
Speaker 4: But one of my.
Speaker 3: Pet theories right now is that the US is starting
Speaker 3: to look a lot more like China, and China is
Speaker 3: starting to look a lot more like the US. So
Speaker 3: just recently, for instance, you've seen Chinese policy makers try
Speaker 3: to boost consumer spending, which is a page out of
Speaker 3: the US playbook. After financial crises, they've been enhancing their
Speaker 3: social safety net, which again kind of looks American, although
Speaker 3: you can debate how strong the American social net is. America, meanwhile,
Speaker 3: has been making more strategic investments in certain industries. Industrial
Speaker 3: policy has become a thing again. China's liberalizing part of
Speaker 3: its market. The US says it's going to keep Chinese
Speaker 3: investors out of its market, like it feels like they're
Speaker 3: taking on each other's characteristics to some degree. I guess
Speaker 3: my question is would you agree with that? And I
Speaker 3: have to say Michael Pettis did not agree with me,
Speaker 3: but a couple others Victor Schwetz over at McCrory agreed
Speaker 3: with me. And then right after I wrote my piece
Speaker 3: about this, there was a big foreign policy article basically
Speaker 3: saying the same thing. So I would love to get
Speaker 3: your opinion.
Speaker 5: Well, I think I've heard the term called beating China
Speaker 5: by becoming China. And I do think that the United
Speaker 5: States has its legitimate interests in strengthening its supply chain,
Speaker 5: in safeguarding the resilience of its industries. Like I totally
Speaker 5: understand that the US doesn't want to rely one hundred
Speaker 5: percent on ppees during COVID. It wants to ensure a
Speaker 5: certain level of self reliance when it comes to manufacturing capacity.
Speaker 5: Maybe i'mshore or maybe friendly shoring like in allies, you know,
Speaker 5: Transatlantic allies. I get that, and I think when it
Speaker 5: comes to China, what you were mentioning, and I guess
Speaker 5: maybe Michael Pattis doesn't fully agree, is that many people
Speaker 5: believe the process in China of you know, showing up
Speaker 5: the consumer spending and strengthening the social safety that that
Speaker 5: should be accelerated, that should go much faster than it
Speaker 5: is happening today, because you know, the Chinese government they
Speaker 5: have officially, according to their policy papers, recognizes that. In
Speaker 5: the Chinese minds, it's not about basically learning from American
Speaker 5: way of establishing a social safety nets, maybe from the Europeans,
Speaker 5: I guess, but because it is fundamentally helpful and beneficial
Speaker 5: for the Chinese society, for the Chinese people to have
Speaker 5: a relatively robust healthcare coverage insurance so that they could
Speaker 5: spend money on more iPhones and other consumer electronics. This
Speaker 5: is fundamentally good something good. It's not about learning from
Speaker 5: the rest of the world, but a phenomena. You just
Speaker 5: mentioned that there is some sort of convergence. I do
Speaker 5: hope they converge. I'm being more open. I'm being more humane.
Speaker 5: I'm being more humanitarian, being more.
Speaker 4: Hospitable to people to persons.
Speaker 5: And if I may have some sort of last word
Speaker 5: on this, I'm really saddened and sometimes I'm angry that
Speaker 5: it's the students. They are at their early twenties or
Speaker 5: maybe like nineteen years ago, they are being made points
Speaker 5: in this game. Come on, they are innocent, these strategical right. Yes,
Speaker 5: take all your measures against the military industrial complex and
Speaker 5: even maybe huaweis, but leave the people alone from this
Speaker 5: and let's you know, people to people experience and student
Speaker 5: experience happen, and they will try to safeguard the long
Speaker 5: term stability of the two countries because I mean, as
Speaker 5: competitive as hawkish as the US Trump administration hopes to
Speaker 5: be in China. Although I haven't read the latest read
Speaker 5: out of the phone call, but nobody wants the two
Speaker 5: countries to go to war, and to just prevent something catastrophic.
Speaker 5: Against that, we need people to people, you know, dialogues,
Speaker 5: and the Chinese leaders have been receiving US guests. For example,
Speaker 5: the Vice President of China recently, just I think yesterday
Speaker 5: or today, received the US nonamental players in China. The
Speaker 5: Chinese leaders met for example, John L. Thornton, the former
Speaker 5: CEO of gold Man SAX. They met Graham Allison, the
Speaker 5: founding dam of the Harvard the Kennedy School. So you
Speaker 5: have many news in China from Chinese leaders receiving non
Speaker 5: governmental guests from the US officially reported in China legitimizing
Speaker 5: the non governmental visits from the US to China, but
Speaker 5: the other way around. I don't see any news, even
Speaker 5: under Biden administration, that the US government openly receives you know,
Speaker 5: non governmental visitors, scholars, entrepreneurs, and the Chinese. You know,
Speaker 5: for example, she didn't be met with you know, dozens
Speaker 5: of US companies and the Western and the European company CEOs.
Speaker 5: So in that thing, the Chinese legitimizing the Western interactions
Speaker 5: coming into China. But unfortunately, I'm not seeing any of
Speaker 5: that here here. What we have is like delegitimizing any
Speaker 5: Chinese government and the non governmental people coming here. And
Speaker 5: I think I've heard that, you know, the US government
Speaker 5: is also meeting with non governmental Chinese actors, scholars well,
Speaker 5: working in state around universities and think tanks, but they're
Speaker 5: not saying anything about that. And uh, and that's not
Speaker 5: something very I think one.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on odd Laws. Thank
Speaker 2: you for doing your aid interview with us. This is
Speaker 2: really fascinating. Really glad we got to chat before you
Speaker 2: left town. And I hope we continue reading your work.
Speaker 2: I hope you're going to keep doing pechronology. Yes, definitely,
Speaker 2: that's fantastic because I think for a lot of us
Speaker 2: here it's a very useful resource, those of us who
Speaker 2: don't speak Chinese or those of us who don't know
Speaker 2: who the names that we should actually be paying attention to,
Speaker 2: so really appreciate it. And safe travels home.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'm truly grateful for the opportunity. Thank you
Speaker 5: to Tracy and John. And I hope maybe not just
Speaker 5: for me, but for Chinese students it's odious not goodbye
Speaker 5: real quickly.
Speaker 2: Has there been a change in perception the desirability of
Speaker 2: coming here.
Speaker 5: If the Chinese students don't face the restrictions, they certainly still.
Speaker 4: Want to come here.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Thank you, my planer.
Speaker 2: First of all, really enjoyed that conversation. It is hard
Speaker 2: for me, you know, this sort of really aggressive attempt
Speaker 2: to no longer have American universities be a sort of
Speaker 2: destination for many of the world's most you know, talented individuals.
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to imagine that not being sort
Speaker 2: of like a pretty big hit to both the US
Speaker 2: economy and it's just sort of like standing.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Zician's point about, well, you know, Chinese students
Speaker 3: who come to America for their education, they largely go
Speaker 3: back to China with fond memories of America. I think
Speaker 3: the idea that America wouldn't value that is really indicative
Speaker 3: of how much less we seem to be valuing soft
Speaker 3: power nowadays. It seems like that kind of diplomacy just
Speaker 3: isn't as popular as it once was, And so you're
Speaker 3: seeing people like the Trump administrations say like, well, why
Speaker 3: should we be doing this, You don't get anything out
Speaker 3: of it. But then people like Zishen will say, well,
Speaker 3: you actually do get something out of it. You get
Speaker 3: better relations, and you get that sort of cultural understanding
Speaker 3: and that soft diplomacy.
Speaker 2: I do wonder the degree to which the American public
Speaker 2: has been sold on the benefits of so called soft power. Right, So,
Speaker 2: like a lot of people are saying American influence abroad,
Speaker 2: American ideals, what America stands for for freedom and almost
Speaker 2: in so many other countries, or maybe did up until recently.
Speaker 2: I know, global perceptions have changed, et cetera. But then
Speaker 2: I think, you know, maybe there's another argument. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's great that all these countries see as a beacon
Speaker 2: of freedom or whatever.
Speaker 4: What do I get out of that?
Speaker 2: How does that benefit me? And I think when you
Speaker 2: look at some of the political turns, perhaps the case
Speaker 2: hasn't been made to the US public in a very
Speaker 2: compelling way from the people who believe in sort of
Speaker 2: liberal internationalism that the average citizen in the US actually
Speaker 2: should care at all about how the rest of the
Speaker 2: world views us.
Speaker 3: Look, everyone needs to travel more if they can.
Speaker 5: That's what I say.
Speaker 3: You need to go to a place that loves America,
Speaker 3: and then you need to go, I don't know, to
Speaker 3: the Middle East or something and talk to someone that
Speaker 3: hates America and see what the difference is. There's a
Speaker 3: big difference.
Speaker 2: This is a really good perspective and take Okay, shall
Speaker 2: we leave it there. Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway and.
Speaker 2: I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our guest Zishan Wong. He's at Zishanwong here and
Speaker 2: check out his Pecknology substack. I do hope he sustains
Speaker 2: it upon return to China. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: Ed Carman Arman, dash Ol Bennett at Dashbot at Kilbrooks
Speaker 2: at Kelbrooks. From Oddlots content, go to Bloomberg dot com
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