Gordon Chang - Author of “The Coming Collapse of China” Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Five fifty two is their time here in Houston's Morning News.
There's this Ai video that has gone viral mocking the
ideas of Americans working in factories. It is I can't
elpen notice that everybody in the video is fat and
very unhappy. Is if somehow factory work is you know,
for fat, unhappy people and not for Americans in general. Also,

(00:23):
it has this weird little twangy Chinese style music behind it,
which of course makes me wonder who produced this video
to begin with. Gordon Chang joins us, the author of
the Coming Collapse of China. I could see China being
behind something like this, Gordon. The last thing they want
is in the United States to ratchet up its manufacturing.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, certainly, and you know, we have seen Chinese propaganda
become really insulting. You know, probably this was the work
of some neticine in China. But nonetheless, the fact that
it went viral means that the Chinese government isn't stopping it.
But we have seen some Chinese action, official Chinese action,
really bold recently. And we've got to understand that the

(01:07):
Chinese view this tariff war, as we call it, They
view it as an existential threat. To their economy.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I've seen a lot of shows here lately, Gordon talking
about obviously talking about China and talking about the tariff
war here is you've watched this situation evolved. I thought
it was very interesting that President Trump said that he
believes that China would like to negotiate. They just don't
know how to negotiate it. You think that's part of

(01:35):
the problem, that they just they're not used to having
to negotiate. Therefore they don't know how to sit down
and talk about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, I think President Trump is right, and he's right
in this respect that c Jmping has configured the Chinese
political system so that only the most hostile answers are
considered acceptable. So he cannot be seen as picking up
the phone and calling President Trump. Now, that would be
the economically rational thing for him to do right now,

(02:02):
but nonetheless, I don't think that it is politically acceptable
in China to do that. So while this trade wark
hurts China so much more than it hurts the United States,
Sijinping just won't do it, and he very well may
be willing to take China off the cliff because he
doesn't want to jeopardize his political position in the Chinese capital.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
All right, well, by taking China off the cliff. What
are we talking about here? We talk about maybe some
aggressive action against Taiwan or some other part of the
world to kind of draw attention away from all this.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well, because there are no good answers for the Chinese economy,
Sijin Ping may decide that his only way out is
to do what you say, which is to start trouble someplace.
And you know, Jimmy, we've seen in the last couple
of weeks hostile Chinese maneuvers in the waters of South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Australia,

(02:56):
and of course Taiwan. So that really means that the
Chinese system is already lashing out and this has just started,
so it could get much worse.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
All right, What would be the tipping point do you
think for the Chinese? What would set this off?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
I think that if they see that the United States
cave in, then they might consider harsher measures. The only
way that China wins this trade war because the objective
factors all point into the US holding the high cards.
But the one thing that Si Jinping hopes is that
he can Marshall American public opinion to get Trump to

(03:31):
back down. That's China's only help. If he sees that
that campaign is not working on President Trump, then they
may decide to go to harsher measures. But we got
to remember that this fight is something we can't back
down either, because China's been maliciously attacking our economy and
our people like fentanyl, like covid. So this is a

(03:52):
point where we have no room for maneuver either.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
All right, Gordon Chang always a pleasure. By the way,
you can follow Gordon on Twitter. A Gordon's z Chang.
What does the C stand for Gordon?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's Gordon g as in Gordon, so it's Gordon g Chang.
But if it were I guess it would be I
don't know, Zebra, Zebra, ice stationed Zebra or whatever that
movie is.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh okay, that works. Gordon G. Chang at Twitter if
you can follow him there. And of course he's written
the book. He's author of The Coming Collapse of China.
Thank you Gordon, five point fifty six. Now you're on
Houston's Morning News.