Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show. He spent hours upon hours
Speaker 1: speaking with Chinese President chi Jing. Pain doesn't have a
Speaker 1: democratic with a small d bone in his body, but
Speaker 1: he's a smart, smart guy. He's one of the guys
Speaker 1: like Prutent who thinks that autocracy is the wave of
Speaker 1: the future. Democracy can't function in an ever and ever
Speaker 1: complex world. Biden refused to answer specific questions on China policy,
Speaker 1: whether the US will maintain tariffs on China or banned
Speaker 1: more imports of products made with forced labor. The President
Speaker 1: says China wants to become the wealthiest, most powerful country
Speaker 1: in the world, promised that won't happen on his watch,
Speaker 1: and framed relations with China as a global competition between
Speaker 1: autocracy and democracy. That's what his state tune, we don't
Speaker 1: approved democracy works. I appreciated him saying it that fourth rightly. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I'm also excited that we're gonna have Josh Rogan
Speaker 1: on with us on the Armstrong and get A show.
Speaker 1: Josh as a columnist for the Global Opinion section of
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, a political analyst with CNN, and also
Speaker 1: has this book that came out Chaos under Heaven. Trump.
Speaker 1: She and The Battle for the twenty one Century on
Speaker 1: sale now wherever books are sold. Josh, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Armstrong and gett a show. Great to be back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I am a nut for this China stuff, like it's
Speaker 1: been my hobby for the last couple of years. Try.
Speaker 1: I was unaware of your book, and I guarantee I
Speaker 1: will read it um because I just I just well,
Speaker 1: is it overstating it to say this is the story
Speaker 1: of the world for the next century or more? I
Speaker 1: don't think that. I think the China challenges up there
Speaker 1: with like climate change, is the two things that will
Speaker 1: shape the world as we know it, and the two
Speaker 1: things that we have to get right, because if we
Speaker 1: don't get those things right, nothing else really matters. And
Speaker 1: you know that wasn't the wide help position for a
Speaker 1: long time. But to the COVID pandemic. During the COVID pandemic,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take much convincing because everyone in the world
Speaker 1: is affected by it, and everyone knows that. The reason
Speaker 1: that they're sitting in their basement and they haven't seen
Speaker 1: their grandma for a year. And in part due to
Speaker 1: the fact that the Chinese Communist Party UH actions now
Speaker 1: affect our lives and affect our public health and our
Speaker 1: security and our prosperity and our freedom. And that's just
Speaker 1: the latest example. But that's not going to be the
Speaker 1: last example. So you know, what happens in Beijing doesn't
Speaker 1: stay in Beijing. So we all have an interest in
Speaker 1: figuring this thing out and then coming together and mounting
Speaker 1: a response. Well, I'm glad that everybody, you know, Republican
Speaker 1: and Democrats, seems to be on board with understanding that
Speaker 1: our bet was wrong for for forty years that you know,
Speaker 1: we let them, We let them grow enough and get
Speaker 1: rich enough in the you know, well, they'll come around
Speaker 1: to capitalism and freedom in our way world. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't think they had any intention of ever doing that.
Speaker 1: We now know that, and and everybody realizes, and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's stating out loud, China is dead set on becoming
Speaker 1: the most powerful country in the world. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: let them. I'm happy to hear that, right. I think
Speaker 1: you put it perfectly. You know, we didn't know whether
Speaker 1: or not China was gonna liberalize, and maybe they didn't know,
Speaker 1: but at least since when shij Pink came to power,
Speaker 1: it became increasingly obvious that they were going to go
Speaker 1: another way. And what what Jing Ping and the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party want is they want to have all the
Speaker 1: benefits of our system without any of the responsibilities. In
Speaker 1: other words, they want the parts of capitalism that allow
Speaker 1: their companies to succeed, but they don't want to live
Speaker 1: up to the basic norms of you know, fair trade
Speaker 1: and human rights and all those other things that make
Speaker 1: that system possible. And we didn't have any idea what
Speaker 1: to do about that. And you know, the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: crazy and chaotic as it was, they took a step
Speaker 1: at it at least and they changed the conversation in
Speaker 1: a way that they can't that can't be undone. But
Speaker 1: because the Trump administration was so dysfunctional and messy, uh,
Speaker 1: they didn't do it all that, all all that at
Speaker 1: many points. And now that's what the find administration has
Speaker 1: a chance to fix that. We don't know how they're
Speaker 1: gonna fix because they don't know how they're gonna fix it,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna they're trying to come up with that. Now,
Speaker 1: this battle between the United States and China has so
Speaker 1: many the similarities of the Cold War between US and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, but so many things that are completely different.
Speaker 1: For instance, Hollywood's biggest market was never the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: You know, if you wanted to sell cigarettes or toys
Speaker 1: or whatever, or Nike shoes, you know that the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union wasn't where you're gonna try to do it. I
Speaker 1: was looking at one of your tweets from I think
Speaker 1: not that long ago, where you tweeted out if you
Speaker 1: refuse to be complicit and mass slave labor, the CCP
Speaker 1: will kill your business in China, and it reminded me
Speaker 1: of the story I came across yesterday that I was
Speaker 1: going to talk about today. H and M and Nike
Speaker 1: joined brands facing boycotts over statements on Xingjiang cotton. Is
Speaker 1: that the way you pronounced that that region probably not,
Speaker 1: probably not, but anyway, that's uh, you know, the particular
Speaker 1: kind of cotton there, and that's the region of China
Speaker 1: where they got slave lay and everything else. And so
Speaker 1: now there's a boycott against Nike and others in um
Speaker 1: in China, and I just feel like that a time
Speaker 1: is coming swiftly where Hollywood is not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to do business, Nike's not gonna be able to do
Speaker 1: maybe Apple, It's just the time is going to be
Speaker 1: up soon, isn't it. It seems to be heading in
Speaker 1: that direction. And the way you said it is exactly right.
Speaker 1: This is not the Cold War. It's there are some similarities,
Speaker 1: but that analogy gets overused and it's also used as
Speaker 1: a weapon to attack anyone who wants to rise to
Speaker 1: confront the Chinese government's bad behavior. They'll say, oh, what
Speaker 1: do you want another Cold war? What are you crazy?
Speaker 1: But you know, we forget about the term cold war.
Speaker 1: That's just a bumper stick. Or what we're facing is
Speaker 1: a systems battle, a competition, uh, that we have to
Speaker 1: engage in and hopefully win. And that's you know that
Speaker 1: not uh leading towards a conflict. That's trying to avoid
Speaker 1: a conflict by addressing the problem before it becomes a conflict. Now,
Speaker 1: when the NBA got you punished for four hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars for one tweet from one guy about Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: a lot of people around the country were like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, we got a problem here. It seems that
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party at this point is putting its
Speaker 1: political interests and the party's interests above not only you know,
Speaker 1: free commerce, but even China's interests right, because you know
Speaker 1: that when they lash out of American companies, they hurt
Speaker 1: their ability to attract investment, and they hurt the American companies.
Speaker 1: They put everybody in a bad situation. And the only
Speaker 1: reason that they're doing it is because they're defending the
Speaker 1: party's practice of genocide. Okay, And you know, for a
Speaker 1: long time Wall Street firms, H and M, and Nike,
Speaker 1: they looked the other way. Hollywood Disney made a film
Speaker 1: in Jinjang, and I just pronounced it incorrectly too, by
Speaker 1: the way, and the public I don't know how I pronounced.
Speaker 1: It's not the point. The point is they thanked the
Speaker 1: public security of Bureau in the credits. They thanked the
Speaker 1: people who were manning the concentration camp walls. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Americans are coming out this realization that,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I don't want to watch a movie that
Speaker 1: was made with the help of genocide perpetrators. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I don't want to take the cotton that slaves picked
Speaker 1: and put it on my body, because that's not cool.
Speaker 1: It's not good. So you know that Awakening has taken
Speaker 1: a long time to come to fruition, but just shows
Speaker 1: you how bad the atrocities have gotten and how, like
Speaker 1: you know, determine the Chinese Communist Party is to make
Speaker 1: sure that they punish anyone who dares to speak up
Speaker 1: about it. We're talking with Josh Rogan. He is a
Speaker 1: columnist for the Global Opinion section of the Washington Post
Speaker 1: Political Landlist with CNN. I'll mention the name of his
Speaker 1: book again towards the end, because I'm absolutely gonna read it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've become a kind of a nut
Speaker 1: on this whole China thing. I'm really rooting for Nomad
Speaker 1: Land to win either Best Picture or Best Director at
Speaker 1: the Oscars because that woman, and I don't have her
Speaker 1: name at the tip of my tongue, who directed that,
Speaker 1: Chloe Jao. I believe, yeah, she's got some statements that
Speaker 1: angered China. And if she goes up there and receives
Speaker 1: that award and doubles down on criticizing China, I think
Speaker 1: China will cut ties with Hollywood or say some really
Speaker 1: mass nasty things in that and Hollywood will have no
Speaker 1: option but to cut their ties with China. And I
Speaker 1: think that could be a really big moment, not just
Speaker 1: for you, know, Hollywood and movies. But for the world,
Speaker 1: I think that's really gonna draw a lot of attention. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I listen. I think that the problem in Hollywood is
Speaker 1: that for fifteen twenty years they've been cow towing to
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist party line, most of the big studios
Speaker 1: for a very understandable and obvious reason is that's where
Speaker 1: their money is, that's where their market is. That they
Speaker 1: but you know, again, at some point they have to
Speaker 1: balance that against the cost to their US business and
Speaker 1: their reputational costs and the human costs that they're contributing to.
Speaker 1: And that balance is still on the Chinese side. And
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we can every every time we
Speaker 1: stand against that is a good thing. But make no mistake,
Speaker 1: you know, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, they're still
Speaker 1: making the calculation that their their best bet is to
Speaker 1: go along, to get along with the these Communist party
Speaker 1: That hasn't changed and that will only change when regular
Speaker 1: Americans vote with their feet and vote with their pocket
Speaker 1: books and they say that these companies, hey, listen, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna make a movie with the
Speaker 1: people who are manning the concentration camps, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: watch that movie. Or hey, Nike, if you're gonna have uh,
Speaker 1: you know, slave weaker, slave labors picked the cotton that
Speaker 1: goes into shoes, We're not gonna buy those shoes. And
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen with the Olympics or where you're just
Speaker 1: gonna go to the Olympics seems not And it's like going, yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems crazy. It seems insane to me that there
Speaker 1: would be an Olympics and you'll have uh, US athletes
Speaker 1: walking around that track and there's Vice President Harris in
Speaker 1: the stands cheering on that that that just that can't happen. Kenneth,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what's about to happen now. You know,
Speaker 1: we got some time between now and then. But but
Speaker 1: as as much as there is more discussion about China
Speaker 1: and more discussion about the CCP, and it's miss a
Speaker 1: bad actions than there ever was before, and again that's
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic, because every human in every country
Speaker 1: saw what it was like when you have the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party lead order, when they had the most science
Speaker 1: and the most data and the most mass, and what
Speaker 1: did they do with that power? They blackmailed the world
Speaker 1: to shut up about their hands me of the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: and they hit the data which made our responses. Where
Speaker 1: so then they lied to the President United States in
Speaker 1: the book they had this is the story about Shijing
Speaker 1: thing lying to President Trump about the coronavirus thing. It
Speaker 1: would go away in warm weather, and it would go
Speaker 1: away when the and if you used herbal medicine, and
Speaker 1: they had it under control in all of these lives
Speaker 1: fed into the President's head and they came out in
Speaker 1: our policy and exacerbating the suffering of Americans, millions of people.
Speaker 1: And so that's again a big step. But right now,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, if you if you just look
Speaker 1: at what's going on in the business ward and you
Speaker 1: look at what's going on in Congress, if they're not
Speaker 1: there yet, okay, and and and and that's what you're
Speaker 1: gonna see. You're gonna see a lot of Americans and
Speaker 1: a lot of American companies, you know, making that calculation
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, should I go to the epics
Speaker 1: or should I stand with the leakers. And they're going
Speaker 1: to choose the form or not the ladder. You've seen
Speaker 1: how far the poll numbers of tank though in a
Speaker 1: pretty short period of time in terms of Americans opinions
Speaker 1: of China, whether they're a friend or an enemy, or
Speaker 1: where they rank. I mean, it's it's pretty dramatic, yes,
Speaker 1: and that is I think driving a lot of what
Speaker 1: the Bindant administration is doing, because they can read the
Speaker 1: polls too. Now you know the that that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that in Congress they're actually getting anything done, because the
Speaker 1: dysfunction in our system, and it's function in our Congress
Speaker 1: and in our government has it's not actually fixed. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's it's common for people to
Speaker 1: look at those poll numbers and to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you China hawks and the Trump administration guys,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're ramping up the Cold War through
Speaker 1: syditese trap blah blah blah, and now everyone's against China.
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is that people are
Speaker 1: reacting to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party's actions,
Speaker 1: and it's not really about the US versus China. It's
Speaker 1: about how China is acting around the world. And if
Speaker 1: you think about it that way, you really us well, okay, actually,
Speaker 1: the thing that we really have to do is to
Speaker 1: de politicize the China issue, and we have to get
Speaker 1: away from anything that gets anywhere near racist or hateful language.
Speaker 1: We have to make sure not to target Asians, indigion, Americans,
Speaker 1: because they are actually are allies of this fight, not
Speaker 1: our enemy. And then if we can do that, and
Speaker 1: then we can fix our own government, then we could
Speaker 1: probably win this competition based because our system, which is
Speaker 1: based on the values of human rights and rule of
Speaker 1: law and freedom and freedom of religion, those are actually
Speaker 1: the way, if you know, people want to live, That's
Speaker 1: the way people ought to treat each other. That's what
Speaker 1: our basic society is built on the rights of individuals. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's a better model, but it's only a better model
Speaker 1: if it works. The book and I absolutely I'm not
Speaker 1: just saying this, will read this because I'm I'm grabbing
Speaker 1: everything i can on China for the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Chaos under heaving Trump, she and the Battle for the
Speaker 1: twenty one century. It's on sale as we speak. Josh Rogan.
Speaker 1: One final question, do you foresee in the next year,
Speaker 1: five years, it won't be a year, but five years,
Speaker 1: ten years where we have such a bipolar world, where
Speaker 1: these big companies. You you either do business in China
Speaker 1: or the United States. You're you're a foreign country. You're
Speaker 1: either in part of China's orbit or the United States orbit.
Speaker 1: You really can't do both. Do you think that's where
Speaker 1: we're heading? Right? There's an essential interconnectedness between the United
Speaker 1: States and China that will never go away, nor should it,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's another big difference between this and
Speaker 1: the Cold War with the Soviet Union, is that they're
Speaker 1: gonna be the autonomy in the world. That's not going
Speaker 1: to be something that we can stop. It's not something
Speaker 1: that we should try to stop. What we have to
Speaker 1: try to do is create a shape China's rise in
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't result in our us getting stick
Speaker 1: in us having sax choices in our security, and that
Speaker 1: we can still tweet about whatever we want. So the
Speaker 1: answer to your question is that's partially mainly up to
Speaker 1: the Chinese government. But what we have to do is
Speaker 1: we have to clarify this choice for them, and that
Speaker 1: means raising the pressure on them, to put them to
Speaker 1: a decision to say that hey, listen, if you want
Speaker 1: to participate in the benefits of our half of the world,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to stop committing genocide and stop
Speaker 1: stealing your intellectual property and all and stop you know,
Speaker 1: punishing companies for things that people tweet, or if you
Speaker 1: go the other way, we're going to impose a cost
Speaker 1: on you. So I think that's a call for addressing
Speaker 1: the problem before that happens, before we have some sort
Speaker 1: of conflict or some sort of bifurcated world, because that's
Speaker 1: not a good outcome. But it's gonna take the Chinese
Speaker 1: government and the Chinese kind of party changing its behavior
Speaker 1: also to avoid that outcome. Well, I took a lot
Speaker 1: of your time, I realized, but I appreciate it. It's
Speaker 1: a topic I'm super hot for and I will read
Speaker 1: your book and people will talk again. Josh Rogan, thanks
Speaker 1: for your time today. Thank you. We gotta take a break.
Speaker 1: Text line four kftcre