Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: She is definitive out of Michigan with their view of China.
Speaker 2: We look back to the giants of Jonathan Spence Oravile Shell,
Speaker 2: and so wonderfully all of that has been taken by
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Economy holding court at the Hoover Institution, Hargrove, Senior Fellow,
Speaker 2: this of course at Stanford University. I'm really taken back,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth by the cursory review of President Ji and his
Speaker 2: moment in China. You wrote of a third revolution, Ji
Speaker 2: Jimping and the new Chinese state. How's he doing?
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're starting off with the big, big question. Look,
Speaker 1: I think she Jinping is doing very well given to
Speaker 1: Jenping's ambitions. I think if you look at what he
Speaker 1: started off to do you know when he came into
Speaker 1: power back at the end of twenty twelve, well, and
Speaker 1: you fast forward to today, you know he has consolidated
Speaker 1: power in his own hands. He's increased the role of
Speaker 1: the party. He certainly has set out major Chinese ambitions
Speaker 1: on the global stage and has made progress on achieving them.
Speaker 1: He wanted China to be a leading technology and economic
Speaker 1: power on the global stage. And he's achieved that as well.
Speaker 1: So I think when he looks back again, according to
Speaker 1: his own metrics, he's done extremely well.
Speaker 2: I've studied the geography of Taiwan. How does a pro
Speaker 2: like you respond to his stridency over Taiwan being the
Speaker 2: major issue? How does that is it ninety miles? I
Speaker 2: don't know. It's like from here, it's like from here
Speaker 2: to downtown Elizabeth economy. How do you respond to the
Speaker 2: Chinese discussion of Taiwan?
Speaker 1: So I'm actually quite relieved by the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: Tgenping has raised this as sort of the central issue
Speaker 1: for Beijing, which we already new. But the response from
Speaker 1: the United States has been very muted, and so all
Speaker 1: we've seen thus far coming out of the summit is
Speaker 1: a statement by the Chinese side. There's been no acknowledgment
Speaker 1: by the US side that we take this on board
Speaker 1: and somehow are going to change our position or our
Speaker 1: approach to Taiwan. And I think that's something that many
Speaker 1: people in the national security space, many in Congress, even
Speaker 1: probably members of the president's own cabinet, we're concerned about.
Speaker 1: So I think it's fine that she did. Pink raises
Speaker 1: this as the number one issue for China. What's critical
Speaker 1: is how we then address it. Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Typically when a US president goes to China in particular,
Speaker 3: the expectations are fairly high that there's going to be
Speaker 3: some material agreements, some material discussions. Do we have any
Speaker 3: of those expectations for this summit.
Speaker 2: We haven't heard much so far.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm actually pretty pleased by what's come out
Speaker 1: thus far. I think we went in with sort of
Speaker 1: three big buckets of issues. You know, First, we wanted
Speaker 1: some mechanisms first, stabilizing the relationship, and I think here
Speaker 1: the two countries were aligned, and there's the talk about
Speaker 1: the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment. I
Speaker 1: think Board of Trade is further along than the Board
Speaker 1: of Investment. But basically this is going to be an
Speaker 1: area where the two sides will come together and try
Speaker 1: to make progress in non sensitive areas of trade. So fine,
Speaker 1: check that box. Second, I think you know, the president
Speaker 1: wanted big, short term purpose purchases. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen there's going to be soybeans, there's going to
Speaker 1: be planes, there's going to be beef, maybe energy. He'll
Speaker 1: get these big purchases. And then finally, and I think
Speaker 1: this is the most important area. The bigger strategic areas
Speaker 1: so Iran, Ai and again on the Taiwan front. No
Speaker 1: acknowledgment on our side that we're prepared to change our position,
Speaker 1: But we did get the Chinese to acknowledge on Iran
Speaker 1: that they want the Straight or wormos open. They don't
Speaker 1: think Iran should profit once the strait is open, and
Speaker 1: they don't think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. Have
Speaker 1: to see whether or not we can make China actually
Speaker 1: translate that agreement into action to pressure pressure Iran. But
Speaker 1: I think it's a very positive, very positive turn of events.
Speaker 2: We welcome all of you across America, around the world.
Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Surveillance on YouTube. Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcast
Speaker 2: air a Marie Horden coming up from Beijing. But we're
Speaker 2: thrilled to bring you Elizabeth Economy of Stanford University and
Speaker 2: their Hoover Institution. Her book years ago, The River Runs Black,
Speaker 2: was a definitive graduate school study that was hugely successful
Speaker 2: on the environmental impact of China. Liz, in your wonderful
Speaker 2: effort of a few years ago, the World according to China,
Speaker 2: you close with a China reset. How does China reset
Speaker 2: after President Trump.
Speaker 1: So I think the thing to bear in mind with
Speaker 1: this summit and the sort of meeting between Presidency and
Speaker 1: Asident Trump is that I think Secretary of State Mubio
Speaker 1: really defined the relationship pretty well when he said, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to look for areas of cooperation, but we
Speaker 1: each have our own areas of interests. They're going to conflict,
Speaker 1: They're going to continue to conflict, and we want to
Speaker 1: manage the relationship. And so I think that the goal
Speaker 1: here is largely the same as it's been, you know,
Speaker 1: for two decades or more, which is sort of a
Speaker 1: managed competition, managed strategic competition. The only question is whether
Speaker 1: or not the conflicts are sort of greater occupies a
Speaker 1: greater amount of space than the areas of cooperation. You know,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to have a lot of frictions,
Speaker 1: and President She is going to continue to do just
Speaker 1: what President She wants to advance Chinese interests how he
Speaker 1: defines Chinese national interests, irrespective of whatever the United States
Speaker 1: says or does during this summit.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth, I think for many of our viewers, many of
Speaker 3: our listeners, President She is the only leader that they've
Speaker 3: ever known in China. Give us just a sense of
Speaker 3: what his position is today. How do you think about
Speaker 3: that position three, five, ten years from now?
Speaker 1: So, I mean, what makes presidency different from a number
Speaker 1: of leaders who have come before him in China is
Speaker 1: just the degree of power that he's managed to consolidate
Speaker 1: into his own hands and the extent to which he's
Speaker 1: managed to translate the vision for China both at home
Speaker 1: and on the global stage that you know, he articulated
Speaker 1: fourteen years ago. I think critically he's coming upon you know,
Speaker 1: what will be probably his fourth five year term as
Speaker 1: General Secretary of the Communist Party, likely president of the country,
Speaker 1: and so you know, this is he's you know, people
Speaker 1: will say he's president for life. I think he will
Speaker 1: step back probably and won't have a fifth five year term,
Speaker 1: but will remain as sort of chairman of the party
Speaker 1: so he can continue to exert control. But really, the
Speaker 1: degree to which he's consolidated power I think was you know,
Speaker 1: unexpected did by people either outside China or frankly inside China.
Speaker 2: I look, Liza, where we are, and I go back
Speaker 2: to our misjudgment of our intelligence of the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: years ago. Do we have intelligence on China, or are
Speaker 2: we as blind looking at Beijing, Shanghai and the rest.
Speaker 2: There's submarine threat, et cetera. Are we as blind as
Speaker 2: we were with Gorbashev?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think are we as blind? I think
Speaker 1: the challenge now is Hijinping has made China more opaque
Speaker 1: rather than less of pique as his tenure has progressed.
Speaker 1: So it takes more effort to sort of get inside
Speaker 1: China to understand what's happening. It's also more difficult because
Speaker 1: we don't have as many journalists on the ground. It's
Speaker 1: much harder for scholars and students to go to China
Speaker 1: to spend time to do research. So our intelligence in
Speaker 1: that respect is more challenging than it was, you know,
Speaker 1: a decade and a half ago. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I think we do see evidence if you look closely enough,
Speaker 1: we do see evidence of fractures within Chinese society. We
Speaker 1: see the evidence of it in the fact that the
Speaker 1: Chinese consumer is not buying. You know that there's a
Speaker 1: sort of the lie flat movement, the youth saying we
Speaker 1: don't want to work, the high rates of youth unemployment,
Speaker 1: concerns over what AI is going to do to labor
Speaker 1: in China, just as there are concerns in the United States.
Speaker 1: So you have to spend more time and more energy
Speaker 1: looking and maybe have a little more expertise to get
Speaker 1: at what's going on inside China outside of the incredible
Speaker 1: skyrocking exports and the technology accomplishments and everything that we're
Speaker 1: kind of sort of fed on a daily basis from
Speaker 1: the Chinese media and frankly from our own media. But
Speaker 1: it's there if you look look for it. You know,
Speaker 1: we can get at the impass, but it's tough.
Speaker 2: Liz, thank you so much. Elizabeth Economy with the Hoover
Speaker 2: Institution