February 5, 2024 • 41 mins
On this podcast-exclusive episode of The Middle, we field more listener questions about China and what the US relationship with China should look like. Jeremy is joined by Bill Kirby, a professor of China Studies at Harvard University.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to a special bonus episode of The Middle podcast.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you are a dedicated listener to
our podcast, you heard our recent episode about what the
US relationship with China should look like. There was so
much to talk about, and so many of you called in.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The situation with Taiwan is unsustainable.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Either we have to endorse.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Their independence or we have to facilitate reunification.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I was a bong, grew up in mainland, and Chinese
communists show so many Chinese people United States should not engage.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I was wondering how the United States would be able
to maintain relations with China and back Taiwan while not
escalating the conflict.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
A lot of interesting points, and we're going to get
to even more of your questions and comments this hour
with a special guest. Bill Kirby is Professor of China
Studies at Harvard University and director of the Harvard China
Fund and author of Empires of Ideas. Bill Kirby, Great
to have you on the Middle.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Great to be here, Jeremy, real pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What is the Harvard China Fund? By the way, the.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Harvard China Fund is our what you might call an
academic venture fund for our students and our faculty for
pursuing research, teaching, and other opportunities with counterparts in China,
with Chinese universities, linking ourselves to a system of higher
education that's the fastest growing in quality as well as
(01:38):
quantity in the world, and.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The students have been able to start doing that again
post COVID nineteen yep, yep.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
We send students to do internships with international companies in China,
Chinese companies, with NGOs and other things. We have joint
programs with both the Taiwan and mainland China on both
language training, starting a sommer school in Shanghai next next
summer on the history and culture of Shanghai.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So, before we get to some of the listener comments
that came in, I want to ask you a few
questions at the top to really set the stage for
this discussion. How would you characterize our relationship with China
right now? You know, trade, partner, adversary, competing, superpower, all
of the above. Where do you view the US relationship
with China?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Well, I think we are some part of all of
the above, but we are We have in the last
several years evolved toward a more practical and sober relationship
with the People's Republic of China with Manga. In China,
it is an enormous you know, the second largest economy
in the world. We have enormous economic interests there and
(02:50):
they also with us. We have common interests in areas
of climate control, in security in the East Asian region,
even if we don't always a on what those interests are.
The United States is a global power engaged in every
corner of the world, and some would argue rather engaged
in too many corners of the world. China is a
(03:13):
major regional power with global interests. As the second largest
economy in the world, our trajectories have been different over time,
but the United States remains the pre eminent global power.
China says, or the Chinese government says that it does
not wish to displace American leadership, but.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It also does wish to be at the same level,
does it doesn't Chi Jinping the Chinese president keep making
moves that sort of show that China is an equal
with the United States, or he wants it to show that.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Well, it depends on what in what area you're talking
one it's talking about but the kind of international system
that we have today was created in the post World
War two period by China and the United States and
other countries working together. That was nationalist China at that time,
but the People's Republic has been a huge beneficiary of
the system that was then created. I think China wants
(04:14):
to be treated with respect, wants people to give it
the respect that it believes it deserves, for the growth
of its economy, for the international assistance, not all of
which is pure assistance that it gives overseas, and for
the growing its growing role and interest across the globe.
(04:37):
It does not wish to be ignored on issues of
major international consequence, and nor can it be.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
A lot of our listeners raise concerns about China's policy
goals and the impact they may have here in the US.
Does China's success do you believe come at the expense
of the United States success? Or can the relationship continue
to be mutually beneficial?
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Well. One of the remarkable things which no one would
have imagined when Richard Nixon visited mouths It only in
nineteen seventy two, is that a relationship that did not
exist except then in the strategic realm would exist in
so many other realms, in the economic realm, where we
are mutually intertwined, if not entirely codependent, in the cultural realm.
(05:26):
With hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in the
United States benefiting from American higher education, I've been bringing
many of the values of that back to China in
almost any realm that one can imagine. This has been
a mutually beneficial relationship. But the history of US China
rerogations is also a history of great ups and great downs.
(05:50):
We were allies in World War Two, we were enemies
in Korea, we were adversaries in Vietnam, and then we
had a friendly enton against the Soviet Union from the
nineteen seventies really till it until the end of the
Soviet Union in the nineteen nineties. Now, China is emerging
as a major and great power of its own, with
(06:11):
its own distinct interest, and it's a challenge not just
for the United States but for all of China's neighbors
to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You mentioned the ups and downs. Let's listen. This is
something you would probably call an up, which was President
Nixon's famous visit to China in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
There can be no stable and enduring peace without the
participation of the People's Republic of China and it's seven
hundred and fifty million people. That is why I have
undertaken initiatives in several areas to open the door for
more normal relations between our two countries.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
That was an opening of the relationship between the US
and China, but many observers saw the relationship hit a
low point when Donald Trump was president and he basically
started a trade war.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Listen, the United States has just announced tariffs on another
two hundred billion dollars in Chinese made goods, for total
so far of two hundred and fifty billion dollars. I
have great respect and affection from my friend President Shei,
but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just
(07:21):
not acceptable.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Now many of the tariffs have remained in place under
President Biden. Is this do you think a low point
in the US China relationship?
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Well, it's certainly not the O point in US Chinel relationship.
There being O point was the Korean War, where we're
actually at war one with another in that tragic conflict.
This was a war. The trade war, by contrast of course,
one can understand the American frustration with the trade imbalance.
We had one with Japan of a similar size comparatively
(07:53):
in the nineteen eighties. That was dealt with in part
by welcoming Japanese investment to the United States rather than welcoming, say,
private Chinese companies to invest in the United States. Today,
we younilaterally change the rules of the trade game, put
in place tariffs that hurt American farmers, then subsidize those
(08:16):
American farmers to the cost of forty plus billion dollars
a year that American taxpayers are paying for. It has
been a mutually destructive set of affairs that were set
in place in the Trump administration, which I think, unfortunately
the Biden administration has kept in place.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We've got a lot of questions that came in from
listeners for you. We're going to get to those in
just a moment, but first we'll take a quick break.
We'll be right back with more of the middle. This
is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. I'm talking with Bill Kirby,
professor of China Studies at Harvard University. Let's get to
some listener calls and comments. This one came from a
(08:54):
Wisconsin farmer.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Hi, my name is Roger Mogenius. I'm from Grasburg, Wisconsin.
What does the policies just signed by China for the
GMO GRAND market, What is that going to affect? How
is that going to affect the US's exports? And is
it wise to sell them the technology for the gm
grand now that they're making them sell US owned farms
(09:19):
by China. Was it wise to sell property to China
the farms in our country. I don't think it's very wise.
I th think they should be redecided, and I'm really
sot hard about before the sales of land in our
country to them.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Bill Kirby, there's a lot to unpack there. Basically, what
he's talking about is that China has approved the import
of some genetically modified soybeans and corn. They're the biggest
importer in the world of soybeans and corn. But also
Roger brings up the Chinese ownership of American farms, which
is minimal so far, less than three one hundreds of
one percent of American farmland. But at its core, this
(09:56):
is a farmer worried about China gaining access to American
technology and farm land.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Well I think we have to take the larger picture.
China is a huge export marker for American farms because
China island poor, not in terms of size of land,
but less than ten percent of China's entire territory can
be used for the for the growing of grain and
other farming products. So China, it is good news that
(10:25):
they want to import more from the United States and
including more advanced types of grains and goods and soybeans.
And you know, we're in a moment of what I
would call mutual paranoia by both the United States and China,
particularly at the governmental level, where people fear the worst.
(10:48):
And imagine that I both sides have deep and sustained
conspiracies against one another. But the fact of the matter
is American farmland is not being sold away to foreigners.
Only three percent of all privately held agricultural land in
the United States is owned by foreign entities. Out of
one hundred and eleven countries that own Chinese farmland, China
(11:10):
ranks only number eighteen. As you said, less than one
percent of foreign are held by Chinese. So this is
this is not this is really not something to worry about.
Getting more customers and more Chinese customers for American green
That is something to be happy about.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So why are there governors around the country who are
banning the Chinese ownership of their farmland as if this
is a much bigger problem.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Because it's an easy political win. We're in a moment
where it's easy to demonize the Chinese, as we did
in the greate nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and
again during and after the Korean War, because so many
people know so little about China. I'm always struck in
(11:59):
the United States, it's where people say China is doing this,
China is doing that. The farmland actually that has been purchased,
the largest farmland purchased in the United States. It's by
a private Chinese agribusiness, not by the Chinese government. But
too often our journalists will kind of basically say, China
(12:20):
is doing this, China is doing that. I've been to
China hundreds of times. I've never met China.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I don't know what she looks like. Do you mean
the Chinese government? Do you mean the you know, the
Agricultural Bank of China, Do you mean the CP Group,
a great international Chinese agri business. It's actually not Chinese
but Thai. But with Chinese roots. This all gets rolled
(12:50):
together in a kind of a mindless way when we
are ourselves afraid and insecure.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
But doesn't the Chinese government have a heavy hand in
a lot of the industries there.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Of course, it has a substantial hand in many producer
industries and some of the meeting strategic industries. But the
most dynamic companies that have changed, for example, the face
of Chinese agriculture are not Chinese state owned companies. They
are private companies that have reinvented agriculture on a large
scale in different parts of China. Look at in the
(13:27):
area of business to business cooperation. Ali Baba revolutionize the
way people do business in China by allowing people who
didn't know each other to do business with one another,
facilitating trade and commerce across provincial boundaries in a way
that has never happened in Chinese history. The government had
(13:49):
almost nothing to do with them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Let's listen here to another listener comment that came.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
In Hi Cho from Nasal and Ohio, calling my issue
with America's alignment across the globe for security for economic
advantage is we need to start focusing more on the
Western hemisphere. We have all these problems in our hemisphere
(14:15):
that we do not prioritize, and I feel that China
is important. China's an aggressive nation, an aggressor against the
democracies of the world. But we need to focus on
helping the countries in the Western hemisphere developing strength in
(14:39):
our hemisphere for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Bill Kirby, what about that? Is it even possible at
this point for the US to allow China to be
and stop focusing so much. Our relationship is so intertwined
at this point.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Well, I totally sympathize with the idea that the United
States should pay more attention to what happens in the
Western Hemisphere, to Latin America, to South America more broadly.
At the same time, as a global power with interest
in every corner of the globe, the United States I
think would be very foolish to walk away. We have
(15:15):
partnerships and allies in the Asia Pacific region and have
had them since the Second World War. We have an
important role to play in the protection of international trade.
That also serves our friends south of the border, who
are large traders. By the way, with China as well.
(15:36):
I think we have to push back again unstated assumptions
that China is an aggressor nation. Without question, President Chijin
Ping's foreign policy has been a truculent foreign policy, and
he is presided over the worstening of regations with every
one of his neighbors except for Russia. However, China has
(15:58):
not sent troops broad since in the founding of the
People's Republic. China is not engaged in an expansion of
its physical territory, although of course.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Currently right there's a question about whether they might.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
There's a question of Taiwan, which we should come to.
But I think it's you know, what we have to
when we're when what is dealing with international relations. We
have to try to see the world the way the
other side sees us from a Chinese point of view.
And I don't say that I agree with this entirely,
(16:34):
but from a Chinese point of view. Why is it
that the Americans are still in such number in troops
and interests in East Asia more than seventy years after
the end of the Second World War. They're in Korea,
there were in Japan. We have a strong military, not
presence anymore, but a set of military sales to Taiwan
(16:58):
and so on. This is something that books different from
Beijing than it does from Washington.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Just the fact that the US sort of acts as
the world's policeman basically and has these troops all over
the world and in Beijing's backyard.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
And you know, when Franklin Roosevelt met the Chinese leader
jun Kaishak in nineteen forty three in Cairo as allies
during the Second World War, he believed that China would
be and should be one of the four policemen of
the world of the post war period. That did not
come to be. But China does have legitimate interests in
(17:34):
Asia and elsewhere around the world that one has to
take seriously.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Bill, Let's listen to another call that came in.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
From the Sunflower State of Kansas. I am Brian Dalquist.
So here's my concern with China. They are strategically working
their one hundred year plan by way of their fifty
year plan they have as a nation, they have a
common goal. The goal I see is accumulating all the
(18:04):
minerals in Africa transport them overland to China. They are
strategically worked in their allies around the world and accumulating
the resources that the world is going to need. That's
my concern.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So he brings up a very interesting point there at
Bill Kirby, which is China's massive investment, not just across Africa,
across a lot of places. Some of this part of
the Belton Road initiative. China has been trying to create
a new silk road connecting ports around the world, also
loaning money to countries, investing in countries to gain influence.
(18:39):
How concerns should Americans be about this?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Well, first of all, again we should not be too
paranoid about the capacity of China to plan. I've never
heard of one hundred year plan or a fifty year plan.
China does have five year plans, and in some areas
and year plans there are five year plans. There's never
been a Chinese five year plan that is achieved all
of its objectives. Let us be clear about this. Most
(19:04):
of them do not come close in a large areas.
They're very ambitious plans, their goal setting plans, and if
you were to look back on them, you would not
be quite as fearful, you know, it wouldn't be. It
isn't so tragic to plan, actually for one's future. And
the Americans might do of it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, We've got an election every four years, and sometimes
it completely changes the trajectory of the country when.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
It happens exactly exactly. And I think there's too much
alarmism about Chinese financing in Africa. The Belton Road initiative
is a is one. I would say it's a very
uneven success for China. Some of it is geopolitical, some
of it is simply the export of superfluous infrastructure, equipment
(19:48):
and goods from China, which is overproduced in that area.
But Chinese financing in Africa has decreased rather precipitously since
twenty thirteen this Belton Road was first announced. Between twenty
seventeen and twenty twenty, Chinese bank financing of these projects
(20:09):
bri Belton Road Initiative projects decreased fromong eleven billion US
to three billion US, and new monks to Africa last
year were just one billion US. And Hijin Ping himself
has hinted at the need to tighten the reins over
this Belton Road initiative, telling African leaders that Chinese investment
(20:31):
is limited and should not be spent on what he
calls vanity projects. So within China itself, as you can imagine.
You know, just as foreign aid in the United States
is never the most popular topic with the average citizen
of the development aid to Africa is not a particularly
(20:52):
popular topic among Chinese citizens either, just to ask any
taxi driver in Beijing. And yet you know, China has
given more goods and more support for important infrastructure than
Europe and North America. We should look at it. If
we believe that the Chinese are financing Africa out from
(21:18):
under the United States and our influence, then goodness, why
aren't we investing more in Africa?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So this also brings up the question about China's foreign policy.
You mentioned earlier that the one country that China has
gotten really close to is Russia and Vladimir Putin. That
is obviously at odds with the United States when it
comes to a lot of things, including Ukraine. The Chinese
are also very close to North Korea's regime, which is
(21:46):
definitely not a friend of the United States. There have
been accusations that China has supplied weapons to Hamas. They're
denying that, But why does China seem to want to
be so close to so many of America's adversaries.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Well, the Russia thing is more complicated than this, you know.
The Chinese Communist Party was founded by Russians in nineteen
twenty one by the Communist International based in Moscow, but
the relationship between Chinese Communists and those in Moscow has
been a fractious one over many decades. A close alliance
in the nineteen fifties, a bitterer break in the nineteen
(22:20):
sixties leading nearly to war which the Soviet Union threatened
to attack China's nuclear facilities and ask the United States
would we mind? And I think, you know, from my
personal perspective, I think it's a very significant mistake on
the part of President Shei to buddy up to Vladimir Putin.
(22:41):
The future of China maybe in many areas along this
Belton Road initiative may bee well, in East Asia, maybe
around the world, economically, it is less likely to be
in Russia. And this support of Putin's effort, particularly giving
(23:02):
an endorsement of mister Putin, a rousing endorsement of mister
Putin just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, has done
a great deal to set back China's rerogations with Europe
because China helped to unleash a war on Europe's doorstep.
Gave mister Putin a blank check, and I hope that
(23:24):
that check has not turned out to be as disastrous
as the blank check that Germany gave Austrian in the
summer of nineteen fourteen that led to a much greater conference.
But I think from the point of view of many
in China, this is not a popular view or not
a And if you look at mister She's foreign policy overall,
(23:44):
he has managed, as I said before, to exacerbate tensions
with Japan, with Taiwan, with Vietnam, with India, and there
was a period of time early in his tenure where
he had bad regations with both Koreas. Difficult to do
in fact. So I don't know if this is success,
(24:07):
but I'd like to see what failure looks like. This
is indeed success. It has not been a very successful
foreign policy.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So what do you make of it? Why do you
think she has cozied up to Putin?
Speaker 5 (24:19):
I think there's a sense on the part of some
in the leadership and obviously President She that, particularly at
the end of the Trump era and at the beginning
of the Biden era, that the United States was no
longer going to be a reliable partner on areas in
which they had relied upon, That the United States was
(24:39):
trying to isolate China, and that and Russia was a
place in which they could count on as a military
co balance. Now this is the old tripart that game
that President Nixon tried to play, but it is not.
It is a bit of an indictment of American foreign policy,
(25:00):
particularly the Trump era, where we would end up having
no influence either in Beijing or in Moscow. And this
is why a rectification of our regations with China, it
needs to make them predictable and professional and not automatically adversarial,
is very much in America's interest.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
By the way, it was just reported by CNN that
the Chinese have assured President Biden and the Biden administration
that they will not meddle in the election this year.
Do you have a sense of who President She wants
to win, if it's Trump versus Biden.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Well, I've met President She on several occasions, but I've
never asked him that question at a voter. I think
my guess is that any logical leader in the world
would like a predictable American president and not an unpredictable
American president, and going to me just leave that at that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Bill standby. We've got more questions from listeners coming up
right after this break. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
I'm talking with Bill Kirby, professor of China Studies at
Harvard University. Let's get to another listener comment.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
Here, Mattins Britain, Jacob Colin from Chicago, Illinois, and about
the question on what the relationship should be between the
US and China. It should be one of cooperation to
save the planet from global warming.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Cooperation to save the planet from global warming. So we're
hearing a desire for that. I know that Chinese, I
know that the Chinese environmental record has come under a
lot of scrutiny. I found a couple of details that
I want to just throw in here. Bloomberg just reported
that China installed more solar panels in twenty twenty three
than any other nation has built in total. But also,
(26:48):
according to Foreign Policy, two hundred and nine new coal
power plants are either under construction or permitted in China.
So what kind of actor is China when it comes
to climate change.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
That's a great question because there is a difference between
rhetoric and reality in China as there is in the
United States. The one thing I think one can say
at the start, I have never heard of Chinese politician
or business leader claim that climate change is a hoax
when everyone there believes edywhard there of influence believes that
(27:21):
climate change is real and one has to deal with
it and cannot pretend that it doesn't exist. China, the
Chinese government Chi Jinping has pledged younilaterally in front of
the UN General Assembly to peak carbon dioxide admissions before
twenty thirty and to get carbon neutrality by twenty sixty.
These are incredibly ambitious goals and China. If they're successful
(27:45):
and they're behind schedule, China would be the global leader
on climate change issues and renewable energy, when there's a
lot of doubt as to whether the United States has
the political will to be a partner in these efforts.
These efforts, at the same time have led to power
shortages across China, and those power shortages have led to
(28:07):
the coal fired plants that are you can argue and
hope that they are short term solutions but China has
an enormous capacity in coal, but it has yet to
wean itself from dependency on fossil fuels and coal. So
this is a debate going on in China, and a
(28:27):
very open debate in fact, on how to attain these
very ambitious goals while maintaining a humming economy. The fact
that the economy is no longer humming may reduce the
need for more interim period coal fired power plants.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What do you think that when you see it, you know,
a big climate summit happen, and somebody in the United
States says, well, why should we do anything, because they're
not going to live up to their commitments in China,
and so it's not it's pointless for the United States
to act on climate change.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Somebody has to act on climate change, Jeremy, I mean
they and these are the two largest polluters in the world.
China by far number one, but we are by far
ahead of anyone else who's in the number in the
number two position. If these two countries, the greatest polluters
in the world, don't address the greatest mission emitters of
(29:23):
co two, don't address this issue and try to do
it in a cooperative way, then there really is no
hope for the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We've got time for one more comment from a listener.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8 (29:35):
Yeah, my name is Ian, I am calling from Ohio.
I think really we should stay back and stay out
of it. We have a very long history of intervening
and meddling in the affairs of Asia, and I think
while you know, many Americans, myself included, may not agree
with many of China's policies, when we really try to intervene,
(29:59):
it is usually for our best interest, not for any
of the people there, and it ends up doing more
harm than good. So I really think the best thing
would be to sort of stay out of it. Despite
the commitments that we've made before to Taiwan for all
sorts of strategic Cold War reasons, those by and large
do not exist anymore. It seems entirely reasonable that we
(30:23):
stay out of that affair.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Stay out of that affair. We're talking there about Taiwan.
They just had an election, a presidential election. The winner
is pretty pro independence. China not happy about it. Bill Kirby,
do you think China is on the verge of trying
to take Taiwan with force?
Speaker 5 (30:43):
I do not. I think such an effort would be
so counter productive even if China won, and I'm putting
that in quotation works that it would destroy US China
regations overnight. It would destroy international investment in China overnight.
It might destroy Shanghai or Shaman or other mainland cities
(31:04):
because Taiwan has an army in an air force two
uh and it would just be a catastrophic move. And
what would one win. What would win a population about
the size of the population of Shanghai, UH and a
very unhappy population at that. It is not in our
(31:24):
interest to try to exacerbate tensions between maineland China and Taiwan.
I think the new uh Uh Taiwan President, President La
President of kai will have a cautious policy toward the man.
Like his predecessor. There is no glory in declaring independence
(31:47):
and thereby starting a confrontation that no one wants, and
Taiwan should be very wary. I mean, I totally understand
the listener's question about you know or worry about American
interventionism everywhere. We have this tendency to be busy everywhere
and not terribly effective anywhere in the world, and it's
(32:10):
a very worrisome tendency because we have the capacity, so
much greater capacity than anyone else. But we do have
to think not of our own interests here only, but
of those of our long standing allies Japan, Korea, and Taiwan,
even if it is not a military ally, and for
stability in the Asian Pacific region. I believe that the
(32:33):
best security, however, at the end of the day for
Taiwan is a good relationship between Washington and Beijing, a
good and predictable and open relationship between Washington and Beijing.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
What about the idea that Ian brought up there that
the US should just stand by if something were to
happen to Taiwan. Is that feasible? Could the US just say, well,
it's not our problem.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Well, you know, history is always a very imperfect guide
to what we should do in the future. But if
you take one example, in the spring of nineteen fifty,
the Americans issued a white paper saying that we have
no strategic interests in the East Asian region, in the
Korea Taiwan area. And it was after we made it
clear that we would not. We did not anticipate defending
(33:25):
what had become this new proto state of South Korea
that the North Koreans invaded with Stalin's urging and with
mal Zidung's support. So I think it's to say one
is never going to take action. We turned around almost
immediately and President Truman not only sent American troops to Korea,
(33:49):
he sent the seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, de
facto separating Taiwan from mainland China at that moment, and
we've been engaged in both of those theaters ever since.
It would be what we ought to be looking for
is to solve the single most dangerous problem there, which
(34:09):
is not Taiwan. Taiwan is not a danger to anyone.
Mainland China poses danger to Taiwan. But the greatest danger
and a mutual danger for China and the United States,
is North Korea. And just think about this, Germany. If
North Korea continues to have nuclear weapons, South Korea will
have nuclear weapons. If South Korea has nuclear weapons, Japan
(34:35):
will have nuclear weapons the next week, Taiwan will have
them the next month. Is this a more stable world
toward which we should be looking We should be working
with the Chinese to and need their cooperation to do
it to denuclearize North Korea. Otherwise, from a Chinese point
(34:55):
of view, a multi nuclear power East Asia is a
strategic disaster and it's not necessarily good for the United
States either, not necessarily good for Japan or Taiwan. So
this is this is an area of common concern that
is seemingly fallen off the radar that we need to
pay very very serious attention to.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You mentioned that you have met President she a number
of times. What would you want to tell our listeners
about him that they may not understand from reading news reports.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Well, in the times that I've met him, I mean
they're formal meetings, of course, and they focus largely on
higher education cooperation and educational operation. He has said frequently
and quite honestly, he wants to send more students to
the United States, not fewer. He did send his daughter
right at my university, and when his daughter returned, he
(35:54):
thanked Harvard's president for her education, and he said to
our then president, you know, so when she came back,
her thought had changed. We have no idea what it means,
but it can't be a bad thing that the leaders
of other countries and it's actually a good sign for
the United States that the leaders of other countries, including
(36:14):
some with which we have rather testy regations, send their
children to study with us. He's an articlated man. He's
obviously a very successful man in Chinese politics. He grew
up at a time when a deep education in history
or international relations was not possible because he was educated
(36:38):
during the time of the Cultural Revolution. So his educational
background is quite different from that either of his predecessors
or who whoever will be his successors. But he is
obviously a man of some significance and consequence.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Let me ask you one more thing, when was your
last visit to China?
Speaker 5 (36:58):
December?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay, post pandemic, because there's been so much talk about
how much China went through during the pandemic. Obviously it
started in China. The president she didn't even leave the
country for a very long time during that pandemic. People
were locked down in big, huge cities. The economy has
suffered greatly in China. How is it different now than
(37:22):
it was pre COVID.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I think it's very different. And I would say that
if you look at the economic doldrums in which China
now is and to some degree of political doldrums with
a kind of really diminution of support of some of
the government's signature policies, which are favored state enterprise over
private enterprise, favored state control over healthcare in such dramatic ways.
(37:48):
And these lockdowns during the zero COVID people where people
in Shanghai lockdown for months in their apartments, found out
what it was like to be a weaker in China,
to have no rights whatsoever. And this ningers very much.
And I think China today is suffering what I would
(38:09):
call a case of economic and political long COVID. The
after effects of these three years are significant. They're also
economic after effects. You know, all of this testing of
everybody time and time again was paid for by local governments,
(38:31):
mandated by the central government, but paid for by local
governments who are now basically bankrupt. They had relied in
the past on real estate sales and resales of land
for revenues to keep local governments going. But now the
real estate sector is in a great crisis, an enormous crisis,
(38:51):
and there's a fundamental question of how one finds the
funds to fund the local government. And the two answers
that are occurring every from everyone I talked to in China.
One is you actually cut the salaries of local officials
who are not well paid to begin with. But this
will guarantee a higher level of corruption. And second you
(39:17):
you don't have any new taxes. You have all kinds
of new fees and basically new taxes in other words,
on private enterprise and others in order to try to
balance the books. This is an old story in Chinese history,
not a communist story. When local governments are running out
of money, they go to whomever has it and they
(39:38):
try to take it, whether from your bank account or otherwise.
The best example I know of this this hasn't happened
yet in Mainingmand in China today, was back in the
nineteen thirties in the province of Sechuan, where the local
government was running out of money to support its industrial
projects and its armed forces and so on. The provincial
government and then the biggest source of revenue with the
(39:59):
was land tax. So they decided to collect the land
tax in advance, and in nineteen thirty two they were
collecting the land text for nineteen seventy two. So you
can't say that Chinese are not innovative, yues.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
That's a forty year plan. That's more forty year plan.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
But you've seen many old traditions, not necessarily good ones,
not necessarily communist ones, emerging across the landscape because there
is a real collapse of confidence at the moment in
the Chinese economy.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, I have to say I have not been to
China hundreds of times. I've been there just a couple
of times, to mainland China. But what I did find
was that is an absolutely fascinating place, far more diverse
than I think a lot of Americans think about China.
But I've also been to Hong Kong before COVID, when
you know, obviously China took back a lot of control
over Hong Kong during that period, and it also makes
(40:59):
me skeptical of Beijing because of what happened there. And
I think, you know, there's a lot to be said
on both sides. We obviously heard from a number of listeners,
But thank you so much Bill Kirby at Harvard University
for coming on the show and answering those questions. Really
fascinating discussion.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Jeremy, A great pleasure as always to.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Talk with you, and we'll be back with another episode
of the Middle in just a few days, we're talking
about whether former President Donald Trump should be on the
ballot this fall as the Supreme Court. Here's arguments about that.
You can reach out to us at eight four four
four Middle that's eight four four four six four three
three five three where you can write to us at
listen to the Middle dot com. Don't forget to sign
(41:39):
up for a weekly newsletter. When you are there, I'm
Jeremy Hobson. Thank you so much for listening
Welcome to a special bonus episode of The Middle podcast.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you are a dedicated listener to
our podcast, you heard our recent episode about what the
US relationship with China should look like. There was so
much to talk about, and so many of you called in.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The situation with Taiwan is unsustainable.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Either we have to endorse.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Their independence or we have to facilitate reunification.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I was a bong, grew up in mainland, and Chinese
communists show so many Chinese people United States should not engage.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I was wondering how the United States would be able
to maintain relations with China and back Taiwan while not
escalating the conflict.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
A lot of interesting points, and we're going to get
to even more of your questions and comments this hour
with a special guest. Bill Kirby is Professor of China
Studies at Harvard University and director of the Harvard China
Fund and author of Empires of Ideas. Bill Kirby, Great
to have you on the Middle.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Great to be here, Jeremy, real pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What is the Harvard China Fund? By the way, the.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Harvard China Fund is our what you might call an
academic venture fund for our students and our faculty for
pursuing research, teaching, and other opportunities with counterparts in China,
with Chinese universities, linking ourselves to a system of higher
education that's the fastest growing in quality as well as
(01:38):
quantity in the world, and.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The students have been able to start doing that again
post COVID nineteen yep, yep.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
We send students to do internships with international companies in China,
Chinese companies, with NGOs and other things. We have joint
programs with both the Taiwan and mainland China on both
language training, starting a sommer school in Shanghai next next
summer on the history and culture of Shanghai.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So, before we get to some of the listener comments
that came in, I want to ask you a few
questions at the top to really set the stage for
this discussion. How would you characterize our relationship with China
right now? You know, trade, partner, adversary, competing, superpower, all
of the above. Where do you view the US relationship
with China?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Well, I think we are some part of all of
the above, but we are We have in the last
several years evolved toward a more practical and sober relationship
with the People's Republic of China with Manga. In China,
it is an enormous you know, the second largest economy
in the world. We have enormous economic interests there and
(02:50):
they also with us. We have common interests in areas
of climate control, in security in the East Asian region,
even if we don't always a on what those interests are.
The United States is a global power engaged in every
corner of the world, and some would argue rather engaged
in too many corners of the world. China is a
(03:13):
major regional power with global interests. As the second largest
economy in the world, our trajectories have been different over time,
but the United States remains the pre eminent global power.
China says, or the Chinese government says that it does
not wish to displace American leadership, but.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It also does wish to be at the same level,
does it doesn't Chi Jinping the Chinese president keep making
moves that sort of show that China is an equal
with the United States, or he wants it to show that.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Well, it depends on what in what area you're talking
one it's talking about but the kind of international system
that we have today was created in the post World
War two period by China and the United States and
other countries working together. That was nationalist China at that time,
but the People's Republic has been a huge beneficiary of
the system that was then created. I think China wants
(04:14):
to be treated with respect, wants people to give it
the respect that it believes it deserves, for the growth
of its economy, for the international assistance, not all of
which is pure assistance that it gives overseas, and for
the growing its growing role and interest across the globe.
(04:37):
It does not wish to be ignored on issues of
major international consequence, and nor can it be.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
A lot of our listeners raise concerns about China's policy
goals and the impact they may have here in the US.
Does China's success do you believe come at the expense
of the United States success? Or can the relationship continue
to be mutually beneficial?
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Well. One of the remarkable things which no one would
have imagined when Richard Nixon visited mouths It only in
nineteen seventy two, is that a relationship that did not
exist except then in the strategic realm would exist in
so many other realms, in the economic realm, where we
are mutually intertwined, if not entirely codependent, in the cultural realm.
(05:26):
With hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in the
United States benefiting from American higher education, I've been bringing
many of the values of that back to China in
almost any realm that one can imagine. This has been
a mutually beneficial relationship. But the history of US China
rerogations is also a history of great ups and great downs.
(05:50):
We were allies in World War Two, we were enemies
in Korea, we were adversaries in Vietnam, and then we
had a friendly enton against the Soviet Union from the
nineteen seventies really till it until the end of the
Soviet Union in the nineteen nineties. Now, China is emerging
as a major and great power of its own, with
(06:11):
its own distinct interest, and it's a challenge not just
for the United States but for all of China's neighbors
to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You mentioned the ups and downs. Let's listen. This is
something you would probably call an up, which was President
Nixon's famous visit to China in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
There can be no stable and enduring peace without the
participation of the People's Republic of China and it's seven
hundred and fifty million people. That is why I have
undertaken initiatives in several areas to open the door for
more normal relations between our two countries.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
That was an opening of the relationship between the US
and China, but many observers saw the relationship hit a
low point when Donald Trump was president and he basically
started a trade war.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Listen, the United States has just announced tariffs on another
two hundred billion dollars in Chinese made goods, for total
so far of two hundred and fifty billion dollars. I
have great respect and affection from my friend President Shei,
but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just
(07:21):
not acceptable.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Now many of the tariffs have remained in place under
President Biden. Is this do you think a low point
in the US China relationship?
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Well, it's certainly not the O point in US Chinel relationship.
There being O point was the Korean War, where we're
actually at war one with another in that tragic conflict.
This was a war. The trade war, by contrast of course,
one can understand the American frustration with the trade imbalance.
We had one with Japan of a similar size comparatively
(07:53):
in the nineteen eighties. That was dealt with in part
by welcoming Japanese investment to the United States rather than welcoming, say,
private Chinese companies to invest in the United States. Today,
we younilaterally change the rules of the trade game, put
in place tariffs that hurt American farmers, then subsidize those
(08:16):
American farmers to the cost of forty plus billion dollars
a year that American taxpayers are paying for. It has
been a mutually destructive set of affairs that were set
in place in the Trump administration, which I think, unfortunately
the Biden administration has kept in place.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We've got a lot of questions that came in from
listeners for you. We're going to get to those in
just a moment, but first we'll take a quick break.
We'll be right back with more of the middle. This
is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. I'm talking with Bill Kirby,
professor of China Studies at Harvard University. Let's get to
some listener calls and comments. This one came from a
(08:54):
Wisconsin farmer.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Hi, my name is Roger Mogenius. I'm from Grasburg, Wisconsin.
What does the policies just signed by China for the
GMO GRAND market, What is that going to affect? How
is that going to affect the US's exports? And is
it wise to sell them the technology for the gm
grand now that they're making them sell US owned farms
(09:19):
by China. Was it wise to sell property to China
the farms in our country. I don't think it's very wise.
I th think they should be redecided, and I'm really
sot hard about before the sales of land in our
country to them.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Bill Kirby, there's a lot to unpack there. Basically, what
he's talking about is that China has approved the import
of some genetically modified soybeans and corn. They're the biggest
importer in the world of soybeans and corn. But also
Roger brings up the Chinese ownership of American farms, which
is minimal so far, less than three one hundreds of
one percent of American farmland. But at its core, this
(09:56):
is a farmer worried about China gaining access to American
technology and farm land.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Well I think we have to take the larger picture.
China is a huge export marker for American farms because
China island poor, not in terms of size of land,
but less than ten percent of China's entire territory can
be used for the for the growing of grain and
other farming products. So China, it is good news that
(10:25):
they want to import more from the United States and
including more advanced types of grains and goods and soybeans.
And you know, we're in a moment of what I
would call mutual paranoia by both the United States and China,
particularly at the governmental level, where people fear the worst.
(10:48):
And imagine that I both sides have deep and sustained
conspiracies against one another. But the fact of the matter
is American farmland is not being sold away to foreigners.
Only three percent of all privately held agricultural land in
the United States is owned by foreign entities. Out of
one hundred and eleven countries that own Chinese farmland, China
(11:10):
ranks only number eighteen. As you said, less than one
percent of foreign are held by Chinese. So this is
this is not this is really not something to worry about.
Getting more customers and more Chinese customers for American green
That is something to be happy about.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So why are there governors around the country who are
banning the Chinese ownership of their farmland as if this
is a much bigger problem.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Because it's an easy political win. We're in a moment
where it's easy to demonize the Chinese, as we did
in the greate nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and
again during and after the Korean War, because so many
people know so little about China. I'm always struck in
(11:59):
the United States, it's where people say China is doing this,
China is doing that. The farmland actually that has been purchased,
the largest farmland purchased in the United States. It's by
a private Chinese agribusiness, not by the Chinese government. But
too often our journalists will kind of basically say, China
(12:20):
is doing this, China is doing that. I've been to
China hundreds of times. I've never met China.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I don't know what she looks like. Do you mean
the Chinese government? Do you mean the you know, the
Agricultural Bank of China, Do you mean the CP Group,
a great international Chinese agri business. It's actually not Chinese
but Thai. But with Chinese roots. This all gets rolled
(12:50):
together in a kind of a mindless way when we
are ourselves afraid and insecure.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
But doesn't the Chinese government have a heavy hand in
a lot of the industries there.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Of course, it has a substantial hand in many producer
industries and some of the meeting strategic industries. But the
most dynamic companies that have changed, for example, the face
of Chinese agriculture are not Chinese state owned companies. They
are private companies that have reinvented agriculture on a large
scale in different parts of China. Look at in the
(13:27):
area of business to business cooperation. Ali Baba revolutionize the
way people do business in China by allowing people who
didn't know each other to do business with one another,
facilitating trade and commerce across provincial boundaries in a way
that has never happened in Chinese history. The government had
(13:49):
almost nothing to do with them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Let's listen here to another listener comment that came.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
In Hi Cho from Nasal and Ohio, calling my issue
with America's alignment across the globe for security for economic
advantage is we need to start focusing more on the
Western hemisphere. We have all these problems in our hemisphere
(14:15):
that we do not prioritize, and I feel that China
is important. China's an aggressive nation, an aggressor against the
democracies of the world. But we need to focus on
helping the countries in the Western hemisphere developing strength in
(14:39):
our hemisphere for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Bill Kirby, what about that? Is it even possible at
this point for the US to allow China to be
and stop focusing so much. Our relationship is so intertwined
at this point.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Well, I totally sympathize with the idea that the United
States should pay more attention to what happens in the
Western Hemisphere, to Latin America, to South America more broadly.
At the same time, as a global power with interest
in every corner of the globe, the United States I
think would be very foolish to walk away. We have
(15:15):
partnerships and allies in the Asia Pacific region and have
had them since the Second World War. We have an
important role to play in the protection of international trade.
That also serves our friends south of the border, who
are large traders. By the way, with China as well.
(15:36):
I think we have to push back again unstated assumptions
that China is an aggressor nation. Without question, President Chijin
Ping's foreign policy has been a truculent foreign policy, and
he is presided over the worstening of regations with every
one of his neighbors except for Russia. However, China has
(15:58):
not sent troops broad since in the founding of the
People's Republic. China is not engaged in an expansion of
its physical territory, although of course.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Currently right there's a question about whether they might.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
There's a question of Taiwan, which we should come to.
But I think it's you know, what we have to
when we're when what is dealing with international relations. We
have to try to see the world the way the
other side sees us from a Chinese point of view.
And I don't say that I agree with this entirely,
(16:34):
but from a Chinese point of view. Why is it
that the Americans are still in such number in troops
and interests in East Asia more than seventy years after
the end of the Second World War. They're in Korea,
there were in Japan. We have a strong military, not
presence anymore, but a set of military sales to Taiwan
(16:58):
and so on. This is something that books different from
Beijing than it does from Washington.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Just the fact that the US sort of acts as
the world's policeman basically and has these troops all over
the world and in Beijing's backyard.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
And you know, when Franklin Roosevelt met the Chinese leader
jun Kaishak in nineteen forty three in Cairo as allies
during the Second World War, he believed that China would
be and should be one of the four policemen of
the world of the post war period. That did not
come to be. But China does have legitimate interests in
(17:34):
Asia and elsewhere around the world that one has to
take seriously.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Bill, Let's listen to another call that came in.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
From the Sunflower State of Kansas. I am Brian Dalquist.
So here's my concern with China. They are strategically working
their one hundred year plan by way of their fifty
year plan they have as a nation, they have a
common goal. The goal I see is accumulating all the
(18:04):
minerals in Africa transport them overland to China. They are
strategically worked in their allies around the world and accumulating
the resources that the world is going to need. That's
my concern.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So he brings up a very interesting point there at
Bill Kirby, which is China's massive investment, not just across Africa,
across a lot of places. Some of this part of
the Belton Road initiative. China has been trying to create
a new silk road connecting ports around the world, also
loaning money to countries, investing in countries to gain influence.
(18:39):
How concerns should Americans be about this?
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Well, first of all, again we should not be too
paranoid about the capacity of China to plan. I've never
heard of one hundred year plan or a fifty year plan.
China does have five year plans, and in some areas
and year plans there are five year plans. There's never
been a Chinese five year plan that is achieved all
of its objectives. Let us be clear about this. Most
(19:04):
of them do not come close in a large areas.
They're very ambitious plans, their goal setting plans, and if
you were to look back on them, you would not
be quite as fearful, you know, it wouldn't be. It
isn't so tragic to plan, actually for one's future. And
the Americans might do of it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, We've got an election every four years, and sometimes
it completely changes the trajectory of the country when.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
It happens exactly exactly. And I think there's too much
alarmism about Chinese financing in Africa. The Belton Road initiative
is a is one. I would say it's a very
uneven success for China. Some of it is geopolitical, some
of it is simply the export of superfluous infrastructure, equipment
(19:48):
and goods from China, which is overproduced in that area.
But Chinese financing in Africa has decreased rather precipitously since
twenty thirteen this Belton Road was first announced. Between twenty
seventeen and twenty twenty, Chinese bank financing of these projects
(20:09):
bri Belton Road Initiative projects decreased fromong eleven billion US
to three billion US, and new monks to Africa last
year were just one billion US. And Hijin Ping himself
has hinted at the need to tighten the reins over
this Belton Road initiative, telling African leaders that Chinese investment
(20:31):
is limited and should not be spent on what he
calls vanity projects. So within China itself, as you can imagine.
You know, just as foreign aid in the United States
is never the most popular topic with the average citizen
of the development aid to Africa is not a particularly
(20:52):
popular topic among Chinese citizens either, just to ask any
taxi driver in Beijing. And yet you know, China has
given more goods and more support for important infrastructure than
Europe and North America. We should look at it. If
we believe that the Chinese are financing Africa out from
(21:18):
under the United States and our influence, then goodness, why
aren't we investing more in Africa?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So this also brings up the question about China's foreign policy.
You mentioned earlier that the one country that China has
gotten really close to is Russia and Vladimir Putin. That
is obviously at odds with the United States when it
comes to a lot of things, including Ukraine. The Chinese
are also very close to North Korea's regime, which is
(21:46):
definitely not a friend of the United States. There have
been accusations that China has supplied weapons to Hamas. They're
denying that, But why does China seem to want to
be so close to so many of America's adversaries.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Well, the Russia thing is more complicated than this, you know.
The Chinese Communist Party was founded by Russians in nineteen
twenty one by the Communist International based in Moscow, but
the relationship between Chinese Communists and those in Moscow has
been a fractious one over many decades. A close alliance
in the nineteen fifties, a bitterer break in the nineteen
(22:20):
sixties leading nearly to war which the Soviet Union threatened
to attack China's nuclear facilities and ask the United States
would we mind? And I think, you know, from my
personal perspective, I think it's a very significant mistake on
the part of President Shei to buddy up to Vladimir Putin.
(22:41):
The future of China maybe in many areas along this
Belton Road initiative may bee well, in East Asia, maybe
around the world, economically, it is less likely to be
in Russia. And this support of Putin's effort, particularly giving
(23:02):
an endorsement of mister Putin, a rousing endorsement of mister
Putin just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, has done
a great deal to set back China's rerogations with Europe
because China helped to unleash a war on Europe's doorstep.
Gave mister Putin a blank check, and I hope that
(23:24):
that check has not turned out to be as disastrous
as the blank check that Germany gave Austrian in the
summer of nineteen fourteen that led to a much greater conference.
But I think from the point of view of many
in China, this is not a popular view or not
a And if you look at mister She's foreign policy overall,
(23:44):
he has managed, as I said before, to exacerbate tensions
with Japan, with Taiwan, with Vietnam, with India, and there
was a period of time early in his tenure where
he had bad regations with both Koreas. Difficult to do
in fact. So I don't know if this is success,
(24:07):
but I'd like to see what failure looks like. This
is indeed success. It has not been a very successful
foreign policy.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So what do you make of it? Why do you
think she has cozied up to Putin?
Speaker 5 (24:19):
I think there's a sense on the part of some
in the leadership and obviously President She that, particularly at
the end of the Trump era and at the beginning
of the Biden era, that the United States was no
longer going to be a reliable partner on areas in
which they had relied upon, That the United States was
(24:39):
trying to isolate China, and that and Russia was a
place in which they could count on as a military
co balance. Now this is the old tripart that game
that President Nixon tried to play, but it is not.
It is a bit of an indictment of American foreign policy,
(25:00):
particularly the Trump era, where we would end up having
no influence either in Beijing or in Moscow. And this
is why a rectification of our regations with China, it
needs to make them predictable and professional and not automatically adversarial,
is very much in America's interest.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
By the way, it was just reported by CNN that
the Chinese have assured President Biden and the Biden administration
that they will not meddle in the election this year.
Do you have a sense of who President She wants
to win, if it's Trump versus Biden.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Well, I've met President She on several occasions, but I've
never asked him that question at a voter. I think
my guess is that any logical leader in the world
would like a predictable American president and not an unpredictable
American president, and going to me just leave that at that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Bill standby. We've got more questions from listeners coming up
right after this break. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
I'm talking with Bill Kirby, professor of China Studies at
Harvard University. Let's get to another listener comment.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
Here, Mattins Britain, Jacob Colin from Chicago, Illinois, and about
the question on what the relationship should be between the
US and China. It should be one of cooperation to
save the planet from global warming.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Cooperation to save the planet from global warming. So we're
hearing a desire for that. I know that Chinese, I
know that the Chinese environmental record has come under a
lot of scrutiny. I found a couple of details that
I want to just throw in here. Bloomberg just reported
that China installed more solar panels in twenty twenty three
than any other nation has built in total. But also,
(26:48):
according to Foreign Policy, two hundred and nine new coal
power plants are either under construction or permitted in China.
So what kind of actor is China when it comes
to climate change.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
That's a great question because there is a difference between
rhetoric and reality in China as there is in the
United States. The one thing I think one can say
at the start, I have never heard of Chinese politician
or business leader claim that climate change is a hoax
when everyone there believes edywhard there of influence believes that
(27:21):
climate change is real and one has to deal with
it and cannot pretend that it doesn't exist. China, the
Chinese government Chi Jinping has pledged younilaterally in front of
the UN General Assembly to peak carbon dioxide admissions before
twenty thirty and to get carbon neutrality by twenty sixty.
These are incredibly ambitious goals and China. If they're successful
(27:45):
and they're behind schedule, China would be the global leader
on climate change issues and renewable energy, when there's a
lot of doubt as to whether the United States has
the political will to be a partner in these efforts.
These efforts, at the same time have led to power
shortages across China, and those power shortages have led to
(28:07):
the coal fired plants that are you can argue and
hope that they are short term solutions but China has
an enormous capacity in coal, but it has yet to
wean itself from dependency on fossil fuels and coal. So
this is a debate going on in China, and a
(28:27):
very open debate in fact, on how to attain these
very ambitious goals while maintaining a humming economy. The fact
that the economy is no longer humming may reduce the
need for more interim period coal fired power plants.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
What do you think that when you see it, you know,
a big climate summit happen, and somebody in the United
States says, well, why should we do anything, because they're
not going to live up to their commitments in China,
and so it's not it's pointless for the United States
to act on climate change.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Somebody has to act on climate change, Jeremy, I mean
they and these are the two largest polluters in the world.
China by far number one, but we are by far
ahead of anyone else who's in the number in the
number two position. If these two countries, the greatest polluters
in the world, don't address the greatest mission emitters of
(29:23):
co two, don't address this issue and try to do
it in a cooperative way, then there really is no
hope for the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We've got time for one more comment from a listener.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8 (29:35):
Yeah, my name is Ian, I am calling from Ohio.
I think really we should stay back and stay out
of it. We have a very long history of intervening
and meddling in the affairs of Asia, and I think
while you know, many Americans, myself included, may not agree
with many of China's policies, when we really try to intervene,
(29:59):
it is usually for our best interest, not for any
of the people there, and it ends up doing more
harm than good. So I really think the best thing
would be to sort of stay out of it. Despite
the commitments that we've made before to Taiwan for all
sorts of strategic Cold War reasons, those by and large
do not exist anymore. It seems entirely reasonable that we
(30:23):
stay out of that affair.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Stay out of that affair. We're talking there about Taiwan.
They just had an election, a presidential election. The winner
is pretty pro independence. China not happy about it. Bill Kirby,
do you think China is on the verge of trying
to take Taiwan with force?
Speaker 5 (30:43):
I do not. I think such an effort would be
so counter productive even if China won, and I'm putting
that in quotation works that it would destroy US China
regations overnight. It would destroy international investment in China overnight.
It might destroy Shanghai or Shaman or other mainland cities
(31:04):
because Taiwan has an army in an air force two
uh and it would just be a catastrophic move. And
what would one win. What would win a population about
the size of the population of Shanghai, UH and a
very unhappy population at that. It is not in our
(31:24):
interest to try to exacerbate tensions between maineland China and Taiwan.
I think the new uh Uh Taiwan President, President La
President of kai will have a cautious policy toward the man.
Like his predecessor. There is no glory in declaring independence
(31:47):
and thereby starting a confrontation that no one wants, and
Taiwan should be very wary. I mean, I totally understand
the listener's question about you know or worry about American
interventionism everywhere. We have this tendency to be busy everywhere
and not terribly effective anywhere in the world, and it's
(32:10):
a very worrisome tendency because we have the capacity, so
much greater capacity than anyone else. But we do have
to think not of our own interests here only, but
of those of our long standing allies Japan, Korea, and Taiwan,
even if it is not a military ally, and for
stability in the Asian Pacific region. I believe that the
(32:33):
best security, however, at the end of the day for
Taiwan is a good relationship between Washington and Beijing, a
good and predictable and open relationship between Washington and Beijing.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
What about the idea that Ian brought up there that
the US should just stand by if something were to
happen to Taiwan. Is that feasible? Could the US just say, well,
it's not our problem.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Well, you know, history is always a very imperfect guide
to what we should do in the future. But if
you take one example, in the spring of nineteen fifty,
the Americans issued a white paper saying that we have
no strategic interests in the East Asian region, in the
Korea Taiwan area. And it was after we made it
clear that we would not. We did not anticipate defending
(33:25):
what had become this new proto state of South Korea
that the North Koreans invaded with Stalin's urging and with
mal Zidung's support. So I think it's to say one
is never going to take action. We turned around almost
immediately and President Truman not only sent American troops to Korea,
(33:49):
he sent the seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, de
facto separating Taiwan from mainland China at that moment, and
we've been engaged in both of those theaters ever since.
It would be what we ought to be looking for
is to solve the single most dangerous problem there, which
(34:09):
is not Taiwan. Taiwan is not a danger to anyone.
Mainland China poses danger to Taiwan. But the greatest danger
and a mutual danger for China and the United States,
is North Korea. And just think about this, Germany. If
North Korea continues to have nuclear weapons, South Korea will
have nuclear weapons. If South Korea has nuclear weapons, Japan
(34:35):
will have nuclear weapons the next week, Taiwan will have
them the next month. Is this a more stable world
toward which we should be looking We should be working
with the Chinese to and need their cooperation to do
it to denuclearize North Korea. Otherwise, from a Chinese point
(34:55):
of view, a multi nuclear power East Asia is a
strategic disaster and it's not necessarily good for the United
States either, not necessarily good for Japan or Taiwan. So
this is this is an area of common concern that
is seemingly fallen off the radar that we need to
pay very very serious attention to.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You mentioned that you have met President she a number
of times. What would you want to tell our listeners
about him that they may not understand from reading news reports.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Well, in the times that I've met him, I mean
they're formal meetings, of course, and they focus largely on
higher education cooperation and educational operation. He has said frequently
and quite honestly, he wants to send more students to
the United States, not fewer. He did send his daughter
right at my university, and when his daughter returned, he
(35:54):
thanked Harvard's president for her education, and he said to
our then president, you know, so when she came back,
her thought had changed. We have no idea what it means,
but it can't be a bad thing that the leaders
of other countries and it's actually a good sign for
the United States that the leaders of other countries, including
(36:14):
some with which we have rather testy regations, send their
children to study with us. He's an articlated man. He's
obviously a very successful man in Chinese politics. He grew
up at a time when a deep education in history
or international relations was not possible because he was educated
(36:38):
during the time of the Cultural Revolution. So his educational
background is quite different from that either of his predecessors
or who whoever will be his successors. But he is
obviously a man of some significance and consequence.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Let me ask you one more thing, when was your
last visit to China?
Speaker 5 (36:58):
December?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay, post pandemic, because there's been so much talk about
how much China went through during the pandemic. Obviously it
started in China. The president she didn't even leave the
country for a very long time during that pandemic. People
were locked down in big, huge cities. The economy has
suffered greatly in China. How is it different now than
(37:22):
it was pre COVID.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I think it's very different. And I would say that
if you look at the economic doldrums in which China
now is and to some degree of political doldrums with
a kind of really diminution of support of some of
the government's signature policies, which are favored state enterprise over
private enterprise, favored state control over healthcare in such dramatic ways.
(37:48):
And these lockdowns during the zero COVID people where people
in Shanghai lockdown for months in their apartments, found out
what it was like to be a weaker in China,
to have no rights whatsoever. And this ningers very much.
And I think China today is suffering what I would
(38:09):
call a case of economic and political long COVID. The
after effects of these three years are significant. They're also
economic after effects. You know, all of this testing of
everybody time and time again was paid for by local governments,
(38:31):
mandated by the central government, but paid for by local
governments who are now basically bankrupt. They had relied in
the past on real estate sales and resales of land
for revenues to keep local governments going. But now the
real estate sector is in a great crisis, an enormous crisis,
(38:51):
and there's a fundamental question of how one finds the
funds to fund the local government. And the two answers
that are occurring every from everyone I talked to in China.
One is you actually cut the salaries of local officials
who are not well paid to begin with. But this
will guarantee a higher level of corruption. And second you
(39:17):
you don't have any new taxes. You have all kinds
of new fees and basically new taxes in other words,
on private enterprise and others in order to try to
balance the books. This is an old story in Chinese history,
not a communist story. When local governments are running out
of money, they go to whomever has it and they
(39:38):
try to take it, whether from your bank account or otherwise.
The best example I know of this this hasn't happened
yet in Mainingmand in China today, was back in the
nineteen thirties in the province of Sechuan, where the local
government was running out of money to support its industrial
projects and its armed forces and so on. The provincial
government and then the biggest source of revenue with the
(39:59):
was land tax. So they decided to collect the land
tax in advance, and in nineteen thirty two they were
collecting the land text for nineteen seventy two. So you
can't say that Chinese are not innovative, yues.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
That's a forty year plan. That's more forty year plan.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
But you've seen many old traditions, not necessarily good ones,
not necessarily communist ones, emerging across the landscape because there
is a real collapse of confidence at the moment in
the Chinese economy.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, I have to say I have not been to
China hundreds of times. I've been there just a couple
of times, to mainland China. But what I did find
was that is an absolutely fascinating place, far more diverse
than I think a lot of Americans think about China.
But I've also been to Hong Kong before COVID, when
you know, obviously China took back a lot of control
over Hong Kong during that period, and it also makes
(40:59):
me skeptical of Beijing because of what happened there. And
I think, you know, there's a lot to be said
on both sides. We obviously heard from a number of listeners,
But thank you so much Bill Kirby at Harvard University
for coming on the show and answering those questions. Really
fascinating discussion.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Jeremy, A great pleasure as always to.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Talk with you, and we'll be back with another episode
of the Middle in just a few days, we're talking
about whether former President Donald Trump should be on the
ballot this fall as the Supreme Court. Here's arguments about that.
You can reach out to us at eight four four
four Middle that's eight four four four six four three
three five three where you can write to us at
listen to the Middle dot com. Don't forget to sign
(41:39):
up for a weekly newsletter. When you are there, I'm
Jeremy Hobson. Thank you so much for listening
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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