Gordon Chang
speaker
524 appearances
9 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 23 May
Gordon Chang’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
He's certainly right now not going to trust any other figure to make that person more powerful than he is.
Right now, I think that Xi Jinping has configured the Chinese political system in a way which is really belligerent. Got to remember that when he became China's leader in 2012, he inherited a consensual political system, where no Chinese leader got too much credit or too much blame. But by taking power from everybody else, he's created a lot of antagonism among senior figures.
And he has made nationalism to be something that defines his rule, which means that only hostile answers are considered as acceptable, because he has set markers for himself. He set them over Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, elsewhere. So if he goes back on it, which I think he's trying to do now, but when he goes back on that, other people are going to hold him to account for that.
Yeah, I think, well, certainly this month we have seen him moderate his position. And he's doing that, I think, because, as I mentioned, he does not want to take on Trump right now. He doesn't think China's ready. And, you know, we've seen Xi Jinping basically being afraid of Trump. That started in April 2017 when Xi was at Mar-a-Lago.
And remember, at dinner, Trump stood up and said, I've just launched 59 missiles on Syria. Syria, by the way, is China's friend. And Xi Jinping was disrespected big time by Trump. And Xi was quiet. I think he was flummoxed. He did not know what to say. He could not respond. And that fortunately set the tone between the United States and China for the four years of Trump's first term.
Now you're seeing Xi Jinping seeing something that he really didn't want. a return of Trump to the Oval Office. So, I think that what we have seen, at least this month, is Xi Jinping cooling it. This may not last, probably won't last, but at this point, I think that Xi Jinping is trying to walk it back.
And that's going to be hard for him, because as I mentioned, he's created all of these markers for himself, and they are the test of his legitimacy. And so, with a very nationalistic wolf warrior for diplomacy, as they call it, that means he may not be able to control escalation. And as I said, only the hostile answers are considered to be acceptable ones.
In the first term, they love Trump. They love Trump, not because of what he said or what he did. Matter of fact, they didn't like what Trump said or did, but they liked his being unfiltered, being free, being spontaneous, being a human being. That is in comparison to Xi Jinping and especially his predecessor, Hu Jintao, who was just basically lifeless.
The other thing that they loved about Trump was that he took on the elites and won. And that gave them inspiration that they could do the same thing in China with the elites that they really, really hate. So from a style point, style points, Trump was just very popular in China. And by the way, that fed into the Communist Party's deepest fear about the United States.
Communist Party believes it is in an existential struggle with the U.S. And it's not because of anything that our leaders say or do, but it's because of who we are. You have an insecure regime, and Beijing is worried about the inspirational impact of our values and form of governance on the Chinese people. And Trump just makes this so much worse for the Communist Party.
It is filtered. China realized, the regime realizes that they can't keep out all news. So what they do is they spin it. They spend an extraordinary amount of effort putting news into context because they realize that one way or another, it does seep in. But yeah, they're trying to censor things. CNN will go off the air at times. because the regime doesn't like what they're hearing.
They do still have the Great Firewall, which is the world's most sophisticated set of internet controls. They don't try to keep out everything because they know that they can't be North Korea, but they are moving in that direction. And that's why Chinese netizens say that they are West Korea.
China has enormous leverage over Kim Jong-un. It chooses often not to exercise it, but when China really wants something, it gets what it wants. You have a lot of people in New York and Washington who say the Chinese and the Koreans hate each other, and they've hated each other for centuries. Yes, all of that is true. But Kim Jong-un knows that the survival of his regime depends on China.
As they say, Russia is the ambulance, China is the hospital. Also, that's true for Russia. And I think Xi Jinping believes that he not only has enormous leverage over his friend Kim in Pyongyang, but also his friend Putin in Moscow. Because Moscow is only in this war because of Chinese continued assistance. If China cut it off, Ukraine would win fairly short order.
So right now, I think that this whole notion that China is upset about the growing relationship between Russia and North Korea, I think that's wrong. I think that actually the sale of shells, short-range ballistic missiles, provision of troops, all of this, I think, was masterminded by China.
And by the way, we got to remember that North Korean troops have been in Ukraine for a very long time. Because the North Koreans have been selling the shells and the short range ballistic missiles. And they've had North Korean logistics people there. And there are even reports that a long time ago, North Koreans were killed in Ukrainian attacks.
Now, what was new is that you have four combat brigades, so that's about 12,800 troops, and with a promise that more will be coming. People are talking 100,000 or so. We don't know where this will end. But yeah, this has been going on for a long time. China also has had advisors in the front lines, because they've been supplying drones and other stuff.
So, of course, the Chinese know the North Koreans have been there for months.
Sure. You know, Trump always talks about negotiating with foreign leaders. You know, these military to military channels, Mike, I don't think that they're important. And the reason is the Chinese talk when they want to talk They don't talk when they don't want to talk. The presence of a hotline or an established military communication channel is completely irrelevant.
I mean, we don't have what is necessary, which is the cell phone numbers of our counterparts. Because no Chinese general, no Chinese admiral will talk to us until they know the firm direction from the Politburo Standing Committee. So you can have all the established channels you want. They're not going to speak to us. And that's been the history of these hotlines that we have had with China.
Showing 501–520 of 524 · page 26 of 27
← Previous
Next →