PDB Situation Report | April 26th, 2025: Inside China’s Struggling Economy & Kashmir Attack Sparks Crisis Between Nuclear Rivals
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Who are the hosts and guests featured in this episode?
My name is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I was just talking to a friend of mine who said he hasn't been able to follow the news lately. It's been too much. It's too crazy. It's driving him crazy. And he's just checked out. If you feel that way sometimes too, I think you'll really like our podcast, Politics by Faith. We take the main story of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible say about this? It's amazing, but it's all there. And then God tells us what to do. We don't even have to figure it out. The answers are right there. He gives us the answers. Politics by faith. Please join us over there. You can listen to it wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. Politics by faith.
welcome to the pdb situation report i'm mike baker your eyes and ears on the world stage all right let's get ourselves briefed we'll start things off with a look at the still simmering it's simmering u.s china tariff war you've heard about that haven't you new threats talk of tariff cuts and a whole lot of posturing some might call it voguing but not much progress We'll speak to a leading expert on the Chinese economy and financial markets, Christopher Balding, about the latest. Later in the show, a deadly terror attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir leaves 26 dead, and now India and Pakistan are trading threats, and that's not a good thing. Two nuclear-armed nations now on a collision course. Intelligence analyst Siddhant Kishore joins us for more on that.
But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. The US-China tariff war remains at an impasse despite both sides expressing openness to dialogue. This week, China issued a stern warning, get this, to countries considering trade agreements with the US that might undermine Chinese interests. threatening reciprocal countermeasures. That's rather bullying of them. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is reportedly contemplating significant tariff reductions on Chinese imports, potentially slashing rates from 145% to between 50% and 65% in an effort to de-escalate tensions. President Trump has indicated a willingness to negotiate but insists that any tariff cuts would depend on reciprocal actions from Beijing.
However, and there's always a however, China has denied that any negotiations are currently underway and is demanding the removal of all U.S. tariffs as a precondition for talks. As both sides dig in, markets remain jittery, as you might imagine, swaying on speculation rather than substance. My next guest has a very interesting history with the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP. He was a professor at Peking University's HSBC School of Business until 2018. That year, he was fired for criticizing the government's censorship. Christopher Balding is currently a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, and he joins us now. Christopher, thanks very much for joining us here on The Situation Report. Thanks for having me, guys. Well, let's start with the situation back in 2018.
Talk to us a little bit about your experience there.
That was actually, you know, it was actually started for me in 2017 and we were staying with friends and I just happened to tweet out that there were some academic journals that were actually censoring some of their material in China at the request of the Chinese government and I tweeted it out. And it went to mini viral and so there were newspapers all over the world picking up that academic journals were censoring academic articles in China at the request of the Chinese government. And needless to say, that did not sit very well with my bosses in Beijing. And so basically, later that fall, I was basically informed that my services were no longer required. And I had a family and children that were actually in school, attending Chinese language schools. And we thought about leaving immediately, but we decided to wait out the year and left China.
Was it left at that? Was there any other pressure or concerns that you had? Or was it simply, look, here's your walking papers? I guess I'm surprised in a way that they didn't show you the door immediately and say, it's time for you to go.
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