NTK: A Different (Smarter) Perspective on China

sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other undisclosed locations

across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to need to know I'm David Rothko-Ferost and this week like every week we're going to talk to somebody who can help us make sense of the news, I am extremely happy that we have joining us Jessica Chen-Wise who is the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the inaugural

faculty director of the Institute for America, China, and the future of global affairs at Sice, she's worked for the U.S. government, she's written prolifically, she even has another

book coming out next year called What China wants and what it means for the world and we

want to talk about it and I have been hoping for a long time to have Jessica Joinus because in a world of reflects of cold warrior views of China, she provides a different perspective

“one that comes from a deep understanding of the diversity within China which I think is”

the subject of our next book and an irrational framing of U.S. interests with regard to that. So Jessica, thank you very much for joining us. Well, thanks so much for that introduction, it's great to be here. Well we are a sort of a kick off of this discussion yesterday and I told everybody that we did on our podcast the one we've been doing for our over decade, a deep state radio

where we had Ed Lewis and David Sanger and we were talking a little bit about the President's trip to China, including the President yelling at David Sanger on the airplane which was very entertaining and I mentioned you are coming and David Sanger said, "Oh, she's my next or neighbor now." So our audience has learned a little bit about it, anyway we talked about the China trip

and we talked about the China trip in the context then of the Putin trip and I guess the punchline of that and a lot of articles and including some that I've written is that there was a different power dynamic in this trip of President Trump to China and it was clear that the kind of momentum, the leverage, the stature even was more pointing in the direction of Xi Jinping than Donald Trump and that's new, maybe we've been trending in that direction

for a while but it felt quite different and I'm wondering if you came away with that perspective or a different perspective? Well I mean I think that the sense that the two countries leaders were meeting as equals was very much on display, I don't think of the United States as lower than China and I think many Chinese counterparts are quick to reassure us that in many ways the United

States is still way out in front of the United States but this was a mark shift from when the two kind of senior foreign policy officials met at the beginning of the Biden administration where the United States talked about being approaching China from a position of strength which is forced to Chinese hate it because they don't want to be perpetually subordinate

“or behind and so standing tall and proud is important to the Chinese side and I think”

the Trump administration and Trump himself very much understands that but I think the bigger story really was that the Chinese government didn't try to bury the United States didn't try to take advantage of the weakness that the United States has displayed all in most notably in the state of Hormuz, right? I think that the Chinese government has emphasized very much the desire for stability

and the would prefer data on to never approach them on with the United States over kind

of scrambling to bury us or race for hegemony and so I think that's really an important distinction that sometimes I think is lost in the narrative.

“I think it is a very important distinction and by the way it came up almost exactly the terms”

you just framed it in our conversation yesterday because it seems to me that one of the things that's changed is China is seen in this equation as the advocate for stability.

even if it wants more influence within that system and the United States is seen as the

rogue undependable nation and that has played up in recent years to the advantage of China because business people want predictability other governments want predictability and whatever defects may exist within the context of the Chinese government they've been pretty predictable.

“Well I would say that well China's image has improved I think that trust in China is still”

pretty elusive and I think that the bigger concern is not that China is going to take over the world but that nobody will lead and we will as I think China is more fall into the kind of law of the jungle.

This is instead of the Thu City's trap of rising and declining power which of course

the China Xi Jinping talked about how do we avoid and escape the Thu City's trap. Actually the bigger trap is the Kindle Burger trap where the United States is no longer willing to uphold or the order or provide in the public goods and China is still not ready to shoulder its fair share of that burden. So I actually see more a vacuum for global leadership than China jumping at the bit.

We talked a little yesterday in our discussion about some of the issues that Xi Jinping faces at home and that within the economy there's a real estate bubble there may be other bubbles that are hidden by the unusual bookkeeping practices of some Chinese companies and so while you may have a boom in AI and a boom and green energy and a boom and maybe even in quantum there's some other new technologies you've also got these cracks these worries

some signs that there could be economic turbulence ahead for China even as they face some demographic challenges as well. How do you factor that all into this potential leadership void you're talking about?

“Well I think it's a really important constraint on China's willingness to do more to shoulder”

global burdens. I mean they talked very explicitly about how the United States overextended itself and at a time when there's double digit youth unemployment in China and still a lot of challenges in the countryside there's real resistance to providing aid right a lot of Chinese lending is still commercial or it's intentional but it's not outright a foreign aid in China

as the United States is not very popular and so you know when the Belt and Road Initiative you know Xi Jinping signature initiative was rolled out prior to that there were discussions of more of a martial plan and that ran into real resistance internally in China because they say what a time when China is still developing you know why not spend that at home

“rather than abroad and I think that those economic challenges also are a key contributor”

to why the Chinese government prefers a stable economic relationship with the United States over a kind of continued trade in export control or you know something like 10 to 20

million jobs in China still you know rely on that export sector to the United States and

so it's I mean well they're not dependent on us it's still you know on the margins it's not helpful to add to the you know existing economic challenges as you point out. To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know there's no better place than right here on the DSR network and there's no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member members enjoying ad-free listening experience access to our discord community

exclusive content early episode access and more use code DSR 26 for 25% off discount on sign up at the DSR network and dot com that's code in DSR 26 at the DSR network and dot com slash by thank you and enjoy the show. You know they're dependent on us we are dependent on them and that is why old sort of cold war vintage formulations about zero sum US China relationship every step they take forward

every gain they have an influence is at our expense I think our our wrong and I think the challenge has been coming up with a doctrine that starts with an assumption of a degree of interdependence which is brand new how well do you think we're doing it get into

need to embrace a couple of hard truths and one of those is that decoupling is a fantasy you know that China the United States will to a larger extent remain intertwined even if we become more resilient and diversified you know in the last 15 years Japan has only reduced its reliance on rare earth from China from 90% to 60% and so you know this isn't going

“away anytime soon and we need to learn how to live with it and while I think the direction”

of travel is to reduce our you know reliance on China I think you know the problem is that

people are recognized that we actually need to do more with China in order to stay in the game I mean like China is out in front on a lot of advanced industries you know it batteries especially but EVs robotics you know apparently you know you can't my colleague here it's ice you know wanting to you know work with robots you know can't get them from the United States like Boston Dynamics they can only get them from China and so you know it's like we you know as I

said you know on CNN like you know we've got to be training with not just against Chinese companies if the United States wants to stay in the game and even get ahead now I was so publicly

“a critic of what I think was a well intention but destined failed policy during the”

Biden years of this idea of small yard high fence and that we were going to keep them out of AI and we were going to own this technology and that part comes from spending a lot of time in AI knowing a lot of those people didn't believe that it was going to happen but certainly now a couple of years later where we're seeing Chinese leadership and almost I don't know maybe 80%

of the critical areas of AI and starting to make real inroads even in in some of the areas that

they've been written off on like chip production so that the deep-steak introduction of a new version of of it's tool just a couple weeks ago was designed to run on Huawei chips for example ah you know we're we're we're these these ideas that somehow we're the innovators we own this stuff it's seem antiquated to me and and that's clearly the case in EVs and yet I'm you know hearing in Washington from some well intention politicians well we have to keep their EVs out of

our market and the result is particularly combined with our promotion of fossil fuels that we are promoting the automotive technologies of the 1990s and they're promoting the automotive technologies that the rest of the world thinks are the technologies of tomorrow. I can't say a better than that I mean I just say that there are some very small areas where we have a lead and then some folks

“are very intent on protecting that but I think you know a broader perspective is the China's”

figured out ways to get around those controls are you know innovate in other ways in the real economy and that strategically we have over indexed on the efforts to kind of slow China down and we need to do a whole lot more to kind of spur innovation in the United States including by you know learning from where China's in the lead. Yeah and I think you know a lot again goes back to the zero of some thinking there are areas where we benefit if they make breakthroughs there are ways we benefit

if they grow and have more money to buy things there are ways we benefit if they are engaged in the world and trying to help promote development elsewhere and we tend to look at it and say oh my god China's got a lot of influence in Africa now there's a fair critique of our altered foreign age and other kinds of policies but but we do seem I don't know if we're quite at the lucidity strike yet but we do seem to have a hard level hard time dealing with the idea of a near-peer or a peer

absolutely because right after a peer usually comes a word competitor and the problem is

with thinking of this as a strategic competition is that we look at Chinese influence in Africa say they're building a hospital or doing something that is actually improving people's lives there on the ground and we say oh that's must be of the line because it somehow is at the expense and it's because of when it's not in fact unless you think of this as a zero some competition so that's one of the other hard truths I think that the language of strategic competition

is problematic and should be retired or at least diminished in importance within the kind of the overarching kind of pursuit of a more constructive coexistence some kind of stable relationship where we you know tackle issues together and we most of all you know you know find a way forward on the

Yeah I couldn't agree with you more and and to be honest with you I kind of find the language

of competition better than some of the alternatives because because from a lot of people China's just an enemy even though I don't think there's a lot of evidence to support that idea and part of that is to do with the way the economics of Washington works right where we we have a trillion dollar defense sector then wants under Trump to maybe be a 1.5 trillion dollar defense sector and they need an enemy and this has been true for a long time

it let us into misconceiving the way we deal with the destabilizing effect of small extremist groups into a global war on terror because that you know provided the impetus for

“the kind of spending a lot of companies we use for used to during the Cold War and I think”

there is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that exists within this where is if we build our military infrastructure around the idea of an inevitable fight with China and we train our military leaders to say this is the issue don't we make the chances of stumbling into conflict higher? Absolutely I think there's a real risk of these kinds of terms becoming self-fulfilling prophecies the China doesn't have to be and become an enemy but we could make it out into one

and I think this is why even the language of a competitor is problematic because we have to be really clear what our American interests are in sort of example the Western Pacific we're trying to deter a war over Taiwan but if you start treating China as a competitor and it's either they went or we went then you're fighting over Taiwan and Taiwan doesn't have it becomes basically a

bargaining chip right and the problem is that if China starts to see it in that way that the United

States will never you know always try to keep Taiwan away from China for example you actually make hasten the conflict that you're trying to prevent by basically undermining the assurance that you know the United States doesn't take a final position they just we insist that it be done

“without a peacefully and without coercion right and so even that I think is an area where words”

really do matter how we frame the issue matters a lot yeah another area where this comes up that came up with regard to the President's trip to China has come up in the past 24 hours with regard to whether the President of the United States is going to call his counterpart in Taiwan

is Taiwan and one of the ways that this is always discussed is there is going to be a war over

Taiwan are we going to step up and fight that war and for years politicians and Democrats and Republicans alike have said we must send the message that we will be there and Trump is kind of an aberration from all of that because frankly I don't think he cares but we've also seen something else and that is for example in the recent trip of the leader of the KMT party from Taiwan to China they were talking about finding ways to work together now I know she just represented one

particular political view but it does seem a lot more in the interests of China and Taiwan to find a peaceful way to resolve this than a military way to resolve this and it does seem like a priority even if that takes a long time and so given that seems to me more likely than than we give it sort of credence in U.S. strategic discussions so I'm wondering what do you think of the state of the U.S. Taiwan relationship today in the context of the real on the ground China Taiwan relationship

well so I'm in violent agreement that there is no military solution you know to this political impasse over Taiwan and that the United States should be and it continue to be supportive

“of dialogue between the two sides of the street right that's the only way forward and if we ever”

get to a point where the United States has to decide fight or not fight like we will have lost both of those outcomes are our failures and so we need to be you know working much harder to ever avoid

more flexibility on the Chinese side but at least to date you know they're preferred policy is one of

peaceful so-called peaceful reunification and that you know welcoming the you know the travel

“by the KMT chairwoman to the mainland is you know part and parcel of that it's not the only thing”

they're doing they're promoting trying to promote economic integration between the two sides and you know I think the United States should should welcome that you know one of the challenges of course with Taiwan is that there are you know it's a democracy and there are a lot of different viewpoints and the United States works with whoever is in you know in charge and you know I think the Chinese side would be do well to also rather than kind of preferring one party over the other

because that of course then creates problems for that party and there are existing relationship

you know but I think that there is a way forward here and it requires kind of lowering the temperature on all sides recognizing you know that interactions across the street you know remain important sources of Beijing's kind of so-called patients I mean obviously there they have been patient but there is a worry about kind of growing sense of urgency in Beijing to resolve this now I don't you know put any you know I don't put much stock in the idea that there is even

has to be resolved within Xi Jinping's term or you know his kind of tenure for life you know he's reiterated some of the same language that prior Chinese leaders have about this can't

“go on forever right but that's different from setting a deadline and I think that's important”

and it creates a continued window of opportunity you know for us to you know continue to emphasize the importance of peaceful methods to resolve these disputes well so I think you know you've now got this kind of massive effort um belated massive effort on the part of the United States and China not to be as dependent on the one strategic um output of Taiwan that the entire world is dependent on now which is advanced um semiconductor chips and the Chinese are making strides we're

making strides um I you know there are major investment on this and so I think it's fair to assume that Taiwan's leverage in strategic value is going to diminish over time um and that's particularly significant if you have US presidents like Trump who don't really particularly I get you know get that emotional over things like democracy except I think that the timeline there is so extended I mean you know I don't think that even some take decades before we have meaningfully reduced you know

Taiwan's centrality to the production of advanced semiconductors yeah I agree with you I just if I were the type of piece and I saw the amount of effort that the United States was making you know in in order to not be dependent it would make me a little uncomfortable you know um as as as this goes uh in the last few minutes we've got I note that you do have a book you're

“working on as somebody's written a lot of books probably the worst thing you can do to an author”

as a book coming out in the years say hey how's the book going but um if if if I could rather than framing it that way uh talk a little bit about what you're trying to get out in the book simply because it when I heard about it I thought oh this is a really important be as somebody's been to China 25 times been all over China been going to China for 35 years um there is a view of China that is typically very monolithic which is wrong uh and is often covered by colored by

profound ignorance like some I'm not gonna name names here but some of the people who've written

the most prominent books on China in the past few years have either never been to China or they

been to China once eight years ago you know it's it's it's it's just not colored by the reality and everything you do is in my view colored by that reality and I'm wondering how the how the book is specifically going to address it well very much tries to take on that view of China as a monolithic that even under Xi Jinping who is concentrated power you know he's not just sitting behind the desk pushing buttons and pulling levers like that there are real uh you know challenges

of governance domestically and there are real contending interests that even he has to balance and navigate between and so no I argue that there are three things that he and the rest of the Chinese leadership have sought to pursue right it's the defensive Chinese sovereignty the protection of the regime security you know as a you know non-democratic ruling party and it's the pursuit of development but that these are often intention with one another for example Taiwan right you

devastate their pursuit of development and modernization if that goes poorly and so that actually

“speaks to the essence of deterrence and our ability to still shape China's choices so a new”

cold war is not at all faded and we still collectively can shape the future um the book is called

what China wants and what it means for the world exactly exactly so I've never I've memorized

about that um and I strongly encourage people to look for the book and to look for what Jessica is writing elsewhere as I indicated a moment ago and as many of you to listen to these podcasts are no being from what I was the editor for in policy or prior to that no I've been involved in China for a long long term and I am often driven a little bit crazy by the perspectives particularly

“those that I hear establishment perspectives in Washington because I think they lack depth of”

understanding and nuance and if I had to pick you know sort of an intellectual spirit animal out there

in the China community it's Jessica and I we've never met but I just had a regular basis and

I'm reading your stuff and having that one knowing but profound reaction which is yeah I wish I had

“written that so wow well I'm tremendously honored thank you a lot I don't know that it should”

be honored but it's certainly true um and my wife who is a China specialist and teaches this stuff at Harvard and all the people I know are dealing with this every day um know that I say this and bring it up a lot and I will continue to so maybe we'll be able to coach you to come back here at some point in the future but for now I'm glad we're persuaded you to this time um Jessica be careful of that next our neighbor Sanger he's very unreliable and uh and he'll hopefully see

See you again sometime soon. Thank you very much. Thanks so much.