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Speaker 1: We also heard from the Chinese a spokesperson who said

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Speaker 1: that military means cannot fundamentally solve this problem and that

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Speaker 1: the escalation of the conflict is not in the interest

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Speaker 1: of either side.

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Speaker 2: The root cause of.

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Speaker 1: The Strait of Humu's blockage, they said, is the illegal

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Speaker 1: military operation in Iran. So this is the strongest we've

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Speaker 1: heard from the Chinese as well.

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Speaker 3: Whenever we're talking about China, we always want to know

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Speaker 3: what Gordon Chang has to say. Gordon is an author

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Speaker 3: and columnist. He is clear eyed, he is direct and

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Speaker 3: knows what he's talking about. Also, for folks who live

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Speaker 3: in the area of our flagship station in the Capital

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Speaker 3: of cal Unicornia, Gordon Chang's going to be appearing at

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Speaker 3: the Capital Lincoln Club's inaugural Freedom Awards dinner on May

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Speaker 3: the second at the Sutter Club. Get info online at

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Speaker 3: Capitol Lincoln Club dot com. We'll have a link at

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Speaker 3: Armstrong and Giddy dot com. I would love to be

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Speaker 3: their sounds great, Gordon Chang, welcome, how are.

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Speaker 4: You, I'm fine, thank you, and thank you so much.

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's our pleasure. I was just touting your upcoming

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Speaker 3: appearance Sacramento. So we've covered that, and we'll have a

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Speaker 3: link at our website so people can get more information easily.

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Speaker 2: But we played a clip on the way back.

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Speaker 3: That mentioned the Chinese made comments about the war and

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Speaker 3: the Gulf and what was going on there.

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Speaker 2: Why don't we start there? What do you think?

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Speaker 3: What lessons do you think the Chinese leadership are taking

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Speaker 3: from what they're seeing unfold right now?

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Speaker 4: They're seeing that President Trump is determined that he is

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Speaker 4: willing to use force, and they believe that they can

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Speaker 4: back him down. I'm not sure that they're convinced of

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Speaker 4: the last one, but they're certainly trying to do that.

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Speaker 4: We now have that ceasepire. The Iranians violated the ceasefire

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Speaker 4: from the get go, and I guess we're going to

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Speaker 4: see if President Trump imposes cross on Tehran for doing that.

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Speaker 3: Now, every time the wind changes direction, somebody brings up

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Speaker 3: we'll China take advantage of this to move on Taiwan.

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Speaker 3: How concerned are you about that in the near term

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Speaker 3: and how do you see that situation in general?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't see the Chinese taking advantage of the

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Speaker 4: situation there, clearly is one. We've been moving military assets

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Speaker 4: out of East Asia, especially South Korea. But unfortunately for c. Jmping,

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Speaker 4: he has decimated the top of the Chinese military with

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Speaker 4: his purges, which means that they are not capable of

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Speaker 4: starting hostilities by launching an invasion on the main island

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Speaker 4: of Taiwan. Now China can blunder into a war elsewhere.

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Speaker 4: They're engaged in very provocative activities in the South China Sea,

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Speaker 4: for instance. So the risk of war is still high.

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Speaker 4: But the risk that people think about all the time,

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Speaker 4: which is the one you mentioned, is I think off

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Speaker 4: the table because of siegm Thing's purges.

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Speaker 3: Do you think she and his leadership are looking at

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Speaker 3: the straits of Warmus and thinking so extracting a toll

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Speaker 3: or blackmailing the world through closing shipping lanes is on

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Speaker 3: the table now.

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Speaker 4: Oh, certainly, because Iran has been charging tolls. It's been

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Speaker 4: blocking shipping since Tuesday the announcement of the ceasefire, and

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Speaker 4: basically Iran is helping China by dedollarizing the world by

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Speaker 4: requiring the toll be paid in China's currency. The REMMD,

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Speaker 4: so Iran is trying it on. If the United States

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Speaker 4: has had any consistent foreign policy over the course of

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Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty years it's been keeping the global

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Speaker 4: commons open. China and Iran are challenging that. And we're

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Speaker 4: going to see if President Trump opens the straight. President

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Speaker 4: Trump has the power to do it. We can even

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Speaker 4: do it without putting boots on the ground. We can

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Speaker 4: do that, for instance, by closing the straight to all

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Speaker 4: shipping that has paid the toll. That would force the

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Speaker 4: Iranians to stop the toll. But we're going to see

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Speaker 4: if President Trump will do that.

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Speaker 3: Hey, let's get rewind real quickly. It flitted out of

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Speaker 3: my mind. I'd meant to follow up. You talked about

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Speaker 3: the purge of the top generals in the Chinese Communist military.

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Speaker 2: What was that all about? Help us understand that dynamic.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this is one of the most important things that

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Speaker 4: have gone on in the world. And basically Sijinping, through

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Speaker 4: his corruption purgase, has removed a lot of officers. Now

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Speaker 4: some of those officers have been engaged in removing Sigeanping's

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Speaker 4: loyalist from the top of the top of the military.

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Speaker 4: From all we can see, which means that there is

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Speaker 4: all out fighting among the generals and admirals. There's a

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Speaker 4: lot we don't know because of the regime has become

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Speaker 4: even more opaque over the last three or four years,

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Speaker 4: but we are seeing signs that show turmoil at the

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Speaker 4: top of the People's Liberation Army.

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Speaker 3: We're talking to author and commentator Gordon Chang. Gordon, I

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Speaker 3: saw a piece in the journal today that bothered me.

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Speaker 3: Trump quietly scraps his own playbook on China. The White

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Speaker 3: House walks back the aggressive approach of the first administration

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Speaker 3: Trump won, which I praised heartily for helping the American

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Speaker 3: people understand that, no, China's not our buddy, They're our adversary.

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Speaker 3: Have you been watching that and what do you make

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Speaker 3: of it? More conciliatory approach.

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Speaker 4: You know, President Trump wants this meetings that is now

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Speaker 4: scheduled for May fourteenth. The White House announced it, but

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Speaker 4: China hasn't announced it, and that's making President Trump look

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Speaker 4: a little bit needing, which is not a good look

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Speaker 4: for the United States because that means it makes it

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Speaker 4: much harder for him to accomplish what he wants with China. Sometimes,

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Speaker 4: you know, for decades, and this goes back to the

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Speaker 4: Nixon era, we have chased the Chinese for dialogue and

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Speaker 4: that has inflated their already big sense of self importance.

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Speaker 4: So I think the way we get things from China

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Speaker 4: is we stop talking to them and we make them

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Speaker 4: chase us for once. If we do that, then we

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Speaker 4: are able to use our leverage. But if we appear

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Speaker 4: desperate to talk to China, China will certainly use that

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Speaker 4: against us. Well.

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Speaker 3: Right, they're absolutely relentless and remorseless and exploiting any weakness.

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Speaker 4: Correct, correct, And they have seen even strong young American

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Speaker 4: presidents back week towards China. We have done that to

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Speaker 4: be generous, to be indulgent, to try to integrate the

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Speaker 4: Chinese into the international assistant, to try to entice them.

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Speaker 4: But although that sounds like it should work, it hasn't worked.

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Speaker 4: So we've got to pivot and try something that might work.

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Speaker 4: What might work may not work, but at least it

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Speaker 4: has a chance of working. What we're doing right now

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Speaker 4: has no chance of success.

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Speaker 3: Wow, that is so interesting and troubling, and I hope

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Speaker 3: they figure that out quickly. So one of the recurring

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Speaker 3: themes of the show, whether today or in general, Gordon,

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Speaker 3: is that it makes me insane when the media reports,

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Speaker 3: you know, the day to day. You know, the occurrence

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Speaker 3: is the happenings around the world, but they completely missed

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Speaker 3: the big picture. When you think about the big picture

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Speaker 3: with US China relations, what do you think is left

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Speaker 3: out of the discussion?

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Speaker 2: Usually? What do people not understand about China?

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Speaker 4: Well, the most important thing which sometimes gets discussed is

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Speaker 4: that President Trump is going after China's proxies. China doesn't

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Speaker 4: want to take on the world directly, So what President

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Speaker 4: Trump has been doing is going after Venezuela, going after Cuba,

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Speaker 4: now going after Iran, and China is basically losing its pauts.

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Speaker 4: So this is really good for us. The other big

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Speaker 4: story that people don't talk about is that because China

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Speaker 4: has turned its back on consumption as the basis of

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Speaker 4: the Chinese economy, the only way China can grow is

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Speaker 4: to export more. Jon Ping by disrupting the world through

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Speaker 4: various stratagems, is basically deglobalizing the world. He's making trade

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Speaker 4: more difficult. And I think that ultimately Sijan thing is

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Speaker 4: working against his own economy. He works against his own economy,

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Speaker 4: that economy will fail, and if that fails, the political

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Speaker 4: system will be in deep trouble.

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Speaker 3: Interesting, so, and I appreciate you're talking about the actions

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Speaker 3: against China's proxies, and you're absolutely right. So am I

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Speaker 3: just wrong in believing that the approach is more conciliatory

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Speaker 3: or is it, you know, just choosing different avenues to

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Speaker 3: exert pressure.

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Speaker 4: It's choosing different areas to exert pressure. And Trump is

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Speaker 4: messing with the Chinese. On the one hand, when you

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Speaker 4: look at the substance of his policies, they're mostly really good.

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Speaker 4: But when you look at the rhetoric, it isn't good.

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Speaker 4: And so there is the Chinese must be totally confused

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Speaker 4: by Trump because there's only one person in the world

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Speaker 4: who knows what Trump is doing, and that is our

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Speaker 4: president himself.

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Speaker 2: Right right.

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Speaker 3: And this is the sort of commentary Gordon, you just

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Speaker 3: don't get elsewhere, which is why it's a pleasure to

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Speaker 3: talk to you.

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Speaker 2: So final question.

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Speaker 3: Your first book, if I'm correct, was The Coming Collapse

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Speaker 3: of China, which he wrote in two thousand and one.

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Speaker 3: Maybe you could explain very briefly the premise of the book,

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Speaker 3: But how is aging? What has changed? What are your

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Speaker 3: thoughts on the longer term trajectory of China right now?

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Speaker 4: In that book, I said the Commentist Party would fail

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Speaker 4: within ten years.

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Speaker 2: I was wrong.

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Speaker 4: What happened is the two thousand and eight downturn, which

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Speaker 4: gave a lot of confidence and strength of the regime,

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Speaker 4: but they overstimulated their economy. They now basically having their

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Speaker 4: two thousand and eight dead crisis while their economy is

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Speaker 4: really deteriorating fast. So China's right now at a very

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Speaker 4: fragile point, and President Trump can exploit that if he

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Speaker 4: chooses to do so.

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Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, Interesting.

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Speaker 3: Gordon chang Is upcoming appearance in Sacramento again is at

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Speaker 3: the Sutter Club on May the second, and we'll have

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Speaker 3: all the info readily available at armstrong in getty dot com.

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Speaker 3: Gordon is always stimulating. Thanks for the time, Let's do

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Speaker 3: it again soon.

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Speaker 4: No, well, thank you, I really appreciate it. And stay safe.

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Speaker 2: Thanks thanks indeed,