Speaker 1: Joining us live as Perry Link. Professor U. C. Riverside,
Speaker 1: Distinguished Professor in China expert. Thank you so much, professor
Speaker 1: for joining us um. This is an extraordinary series of
Speaker 1: events now over the past few days, given She's expanding
Speaker 1: command of the country, isn't it Yes? I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: predicted it. It is extraordinary. So now, what what does
Speaker 1: it mean going further? I mean, does it you know
Speaker 1: she does it? Does it put further clamps clamps down?
Speaker 1: Or does it possibly exponentially show command moving to Taiwan policy?
Speaker 1: What what are the ripples from this? Uh? Chinese society
Speaker 1: is repressed and the kind of frustrations and complaints that
Speaker 1: ordinary people feel are kept under wraps when something like
Speaker 1: this happens. The effect is to let everyone who hears
Speaker 1: about it vicariously express complaints that have been underneath for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's why it's dangerous to Mr She
Speaker 1: and that's why it spreads so quickly across China. And
Speaker 1: what I can't say what Mr She will do, except
Speaker 1: to say for sure that he will crack down. In
Speaker 1: nine when the last time that the central government was
Speaker 1: confronted by something like this, they exercised a deliberately conspicuous
Speaker 1: massacre whose aim was not just to kill some people,
Speaker 1: but to show the whole country that we can That
Speaker 1: is the kind of bottom line measure that people in
Speaker 1: China no is available and is used to intimidate and
Speaker 1: could still there will be secure Professor. How secure is
Speaker 1: he in his power structure? I mean he seems to
Speaker 1: have firm, firm grip. Is he secure there? He's very
Speaker 1: secure on the surface, but inside, no, In that system,
Speaker 1: you always look to your superior to see whether you're
Speaker 1: going to be promoted or rewarded, except at the very top,
Speaker 1: where there is no superior, and therefore the rivals at
Speaker 1: the top who could vie for the superior position are
Speaker 1: eyeing one another. This is not just contemporarily, this is
Speaker 1: for decades. The communist system in China has been this way,
Speaker 1: and it's that way firstgining. So he needs to be
Speaker 1: aware that if he does a mistake quote unquote that's
Speaker 1: the technical term for it in the communist jargon, that
Speaker 1: he could be attacked for it. And if handling COVID
Speaker 1: turns out to be a mistake, then it might be
Speaker 1: that his regime falls not but the regime as a
Speaker 1: whole falls, but that his rule of it falls so
Speaker 1: inside he always feels that kind of insecurity and when
Speaker 1: these street demonstrations pop up, it only exacerbates them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now now they and of course these are large as.
Speaker 1: Does it reflect reflect on how he moves forward on
Speaker 1: on COVID zero. It seemed that he was loosening a bit.
Speaker 1: So this is this is I understand the knee, the
Speaker 1: protesters wanting to protest what happened with the fire, But
Speaker 1: does this risk being counterproductive? Does what risk being counterproductive?
Speaker 1: The the he may he clamp down further, may he
Speaker 1: go you know, COVID zero and and really not not
Speaker 1: relax what he looked like he was going to do.
Speaker 1: So what I meant when I said he's sure to
Speaker 1: clamp down is not that he will make the policy
Speaker 1: any stricter. Because it's already had zero. He can't really
Speaker 1: tighten that. But he can send the plain close police
Speaker 1: out to find who is that these demonstrations. Invite them
Speaker 1: for a chat, they call it inviting to t advise
Speaker 1: them that they shouldn't do this or they might be
Speaker 1: in trouble, Threaten them if they don't listen, And uh,
Speaker 1: do you really want to keep your job. Do you
Speaker 1: really want your children to be able to go to
Speaker 1: the local school. This kind of thing, that kind of
Speaker 1: on the ground granular repression, is sure to happen. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that that's happening right now. Whether or not it
Speaker 1: will change the policy, I'm not sure. The policy is
Speaker 1: already at zero right, got it? Okay, Professor, thank you,
Speaker 1: we are out of time. I really appreciate it your
Speaker 1: time though. Professor Perry Link, Distinguished Professor at University of California,