60 Minutes - 02/25/2024: 142 Days in Gaza & China

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

For nearly five months, Israeli forces have unleashed unrelenting airstrikes and a heavy ground offensive inside Gaza - decimating cities and displacing more than a million - all in response to the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas. It’s been reported that more than 29-thousand Palestinians have died. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports on the ongoing war and what’s been happening inside Gaza's collapsing humanitarian aid and healthcare system. Through CBS-shot footage and first-hand accounts of an American doctor and aid worker inside Gaza, Alfonsi offers a rare window into the dire situation that international journalists have been barred from independently covering inside the 25-mile-long enclave. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports from China as one of the few Western journalists to enter the People's Republic since 2020, when the Chinese government under the direction of President Xi Jinping expelled some journalists and restricted access to others in the foreign media. Stahl interviews U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns on the contentious U.S.-China relationship, American and foreign investment in the wake of expanded espionage laws and intellectual property theft under Xi and the state of China’s floundering economy as its population ages and shrinks. Stahl also reports on the mood of the country after its oppressive zero-COVID policy. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The United Nations says a catastrophic humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza. But Israel has barred journalists from independently accessing the Gaza Strip. We have mass casualties coming in in waves at a hospital. That's happening at least three or four times a night. In one night? Mm-hmm. So, you know, a regular day for me was seeing children with shrapnel injuries I have never in my life seen before.

Death happening in a fully treatable situation because the supplies are not available. Getting into China is all but impossible for most Western journalists. This is the financial and economic capital of China. But when the U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns invited us to come for a visit and an interview, we were granted visas. Is it our most competitive relationship in the world right now? This is the most important, most competitive, and most dangerous relationship that the United States has in the world right now, and will, I think, for the next decade or so. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim.

I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. When the terrorist group Hamas unleashed its barbaric attack inside Israel last October, the response by the Israeli government was swift. Israel launched thousands of troops, tanks, and more than 45,000 bombs into Gaza, decimating entire cities. The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health says more than 29,000 people have been killed and nearly 2 million displaced. Numbers many in the Israeli press and the United Nations are reporting.

Israel has barred journalists from independently accessing the Gaza Strip, defying the longstanding precedent of allowing reporters into war zones. Aid workers say a catastrophic humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza, but reporting on it has been challenging. So we asked aid workers, including two Americans, to share their view from inside Gaza over the last 142 days. A warning, it is difficult to watch. This was the scene at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza in late January. For weeks, the hospital had been surrounded by fighting.

But another battle played out inside its crowded corridors. Doctors and nurses, short on supplies and beds, knelt on the floor as they tried to save bombing victims. Deeper in the hospital, we saw Dr. Nareed Ahmed, a critical care specialist from Pennsylvania. Our CBS producer, based in Gaza, shot this video. He has a small amount of free fluid. As Dr. Ahmed checked on the young victims of an airstrike she treated the night before. This 13-year-old boy did not survive. The nurses noticed his eyes, pupils are fixed and dilated, which is a sign of brain death. The Gaza Ministry of Health estimates 12,000 children have died here since the war began.

There's no room for that. We met Dr. Ahmed days after she left Gaza, exhausted after working a two-week stretch at Nasser. We have mass casualties coming in in waves in a hospital. That's happening at least three or four times a night. In one night? Mm-hmm. So, you know, a regular day for me was seeing children with shrapnel injuries I have never in my life seen before, with traumatic brain injury, death happening in a fully treatable

situation because the supplies are not available. Dr. Ahmed is the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants. She grew up in Philadelphia and works at a hospital there. She's also the medical director of MedGlobal, a U.S.-based NGO that trains local health care workers in disaster and conflict zones. 39 years old, she's worked in a half-dozen war zones, including six trips to Ukraine in the last two years. She told us supply and medicine shortages have deepened the suffering in Gaza. It's basic medications. It's pain medication. There are people getting limbs amputated without any anesthesia.

That's what we're seeing on a day-to-day basis. And I can tell you that things that we have put into the pipeline to get to Gaza can often take weeks to months. Weeks to months? Mm-hmm. And you need them yesterday. Yeah. How does what you're seeing in Gaza compare to what you've seen in these other war zones and conflicts? It is incomparable, I would say.

I don't think I've seen this many children affected in any of the other war zones I've ever been to. I don't think I've seen this many people squeezed in a small area without any ability to leave. I don't think I've been this close to the sound of missile strikes with the house shaking or the hospital shaking while I'm trying to operate in the ICU. So how do you function and operate when you can hear gunfire and explosions at your doorstep? We go into like medical mission mode. So bombs going off or not, we are absolutely focused on what's in front of us. Is it terrifying? Yes, of course. Do we think about it after the fact? Absolutely. You know, there are hospitals that are under siege. This happened with Shifa Hospital. It happened with Nasser Hospital, Al-Amal Hospital, just to name a few. The U.N. reports more than 300 health care workers have been killed since the war began.

In late January, Dr. Ahmed and four of her colleagues evacuated Nasser. Ten days ago, Israeli troops stormed the hospital, claiming Hamas was hiding inside. Patients, staff, and thousands sheltering in the hospital spilled onto the street. You know that the IDF has accused Hamas of hiding and operating in these hospitals. Did you see that at all? I can really just talk about what I know. And what I know is that the health care catastrophe in these hospitals, that's what I saw. Even as explosions surrounded the hospital last week,

teams from the World Health Organization made their way in, negotiating through the dark to evacuate 32 critical patients, some of them children. Aid workers say there are still patients and staff inside the hospital with no running water or electricity. The international humanitarian law is clear. Healthcare workers, humanitarians, ambulances and hospitals should be respected and protected in all situations.

But unfortunately, this is not the case in Gaza. Nabal Farsik is the spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. It's part of the International Red Cross. We met her in this call center in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Here operators dispatch emergency workers in Gaza 50 miles away. This is a recording of one of the calls the Red Crescent responded to the week we were there. On January 29, the Israeli military ordered parts of Gaza City to evacuate. So 15-year-old Leanne Hamada and her family piled into their car to try and get to safety.

They're shooting at us, she tells the operator. The tank is next to me. Are you hiding? Yes, in the car. We're next to the tank. Then, the line goes dead. When the operator called back, a child answers. Six-year-old Hin Rajab, the girl's cousin. The tank is next to me, she says. I'm so scared. Please come. Please call someone to come and take me.

The Red Crescent says this is the ambulance they sent. It was discovered along with the bodies of two medics 12 days after they were dispatched when Israeli defense forces left the area. Hin Rajab was also killed. The six-year-old's body was found inside this car alongside five members of her family. The IDF told us that the incident is still under review, but has accused Hamas in the past of using ambulances to transport its fighters. The story of Hint, it's not the only story. It's absolutely dozens of calls we're getting since the beginning of the war in Gaza

where we feel helpless, because we are completely denied access to many areas in Gaza to only provide our emergency medical services. So what you're describing is these people can't leave, it's not safe for them to leave, and you can't get to them. Exactly. This is what Hinra Job and her family were trying to escape. We obtained this video from a UN worker who was with one of the first teams allowed into northern

Gaza. Across this apocalyptic landscape, images show two-thirds of Gaza has been flattened. Satellite images reveal how densely populated the 25-mile strip was before the war. Today, most of the nearly 2 million residents displaced from their homes have evacuated to the south. Here, 40 or more people pack into a room at a makeshift shelter. Hundreds share one bathroom. Those who can't find space in the shelter settle in the sprawling sand pits of Gaza's tent city in Rafah on the border with Egypt. For Gazans, there is no way out.

We're at the Erez border crossing. If you were traveling between Gaza and Israel, you would have come through this terminal. On October 7, Hamas stormed the terminal. You can see the damage all around us. Obviously, the terminal has been closed since then. So now there is only one border crossing from Israel into Gaza, and that's for humanitarian aid.

That crossing is known as Karim Shalom. The IDF would not allow us to film there. Before the war, more than 500 trucks carrying goods came through the crossing every day. Today, on average, about 85 trucks of aid get through. What are the top three things that you need? Scott Anderson is trying to get any aid that does come in distributed. Anderson is an Army vet from Iowa who did two tours in Afghanistan. Salam alaikum.

60 Minutes first met him in Gaza in 2014, when he served as the Deputy Director of Operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. After the war began in October, Anderson, who'd retired, returned to the job. As you know, as an American journalist, we can't get in there. What is it that you see? What is it like every day? What you mostly see from people every day is they're trying to find food, trying to stay warm, and trying to find somewhere to use a bathroom.

And that's what people's lives consist of. It's very much a pressure cooker environment. You can feel in the air it's tense. There is no commercial food available in Gaza, It's very much a pressure cooker environment. You can feel in the air it's tense. There is no commercial food available in Gaza, and the UN says 70% of people don't have access to clean water. So nearly two million Gazans are dependent on aid for all their food and water. Last week, UNICEF reported that one in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza is severely malnourished.

Everybody's reliant on the international community, the international humanitarian community, to provide their basic necessities. In an ideal world, there'd be 600 trucks a day coming into Gaza. You're nowhere close to that number. We're nowhere close to that number. What's the problem? Is it the holdup of the inspection? You have two governments and the UN and a lot of people involved. There are the security inspections of the goods, which I understand. The Israelis have said the problem's on the UN side. I would say that is entirely not true. It's not just the UN. Every day there's a couple hours where nothing

moves. And that's not us. There's just nothing to get. For 70 years, UNRWA has been the largest aid organization in Gaza, providing food, education, and medical care. But to its critics, including some Israelis, the agency is corrupt. Last month, Israel accused 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 employees of helping to plan and carry out the October 7th attacks. The UN fired those employees. But 16 countries, including the U.S., have stopped funding the organization while investigations are ongoing.

I mean, I was shocked that somebody associated with the UN could do that. But unfortunately, throughout history, many individuals have betrayed organizations that they work for, betrayed the values. We do uphold UN values, humanitarian principles, and we are responding to the best of our ability in Gaza right now. If UNRWA collapses, who would do the work that you're doing? There's nobody that can do the work we do. UNRWA is the backbone of the operation's nobody that can do the work we do. UNRWA is the backbone of the operation, and without us, the operation will collapse. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wants to completely shut down UNRWA.

For the first time, Netanyahu outlined his plan for Gaza after the war, which included allowing the Israeli military to operate in Gaza indefinitely. The IDF has begun an internal review of its shortcomings before and during the October 7 attacks. Amid ongoing negotiations, a member of Israel's war cabinet announced that if the 134 hostages are not home in two weeks, Israel will launch a ground offensive in Rafah, where more than a million and a half people are sheltering. The U.S. urged Israel to refrain, warning it could worsen an already catastrophic situation. Sometimes, historic events suck.

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American CEOs used to swoon over China. Its vast pool of consumers has been a magnetic draw for decades. But doing business there has become so fraught and risky, with intellectual property theft and an expanded espionage law used to intimidate the business community, that U.S. companies have pressed the pause button. On top of that, the U.S.-China relationship has become contentious, due partly to Beijing's belligerent activity toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea, the balloon spy incident of last year, and the list goes on. Making matters worse, the Chinese economy has hit a wall. Export growth is slowing, the country's drowning in debt, and youth unemployment has soared. Getting into China to tell that story is all but impossible

for most Western journalists. But when the U.S. ambassador, Nicholas Burns, invited us to come for a visit and an interview, we were granted visas. We spoke with him at his residence in Beijing. More money is leaving China for the first time in 40 years than is coming in from American, Japanese, European, Korean investors. Now, why is that, and how much of a problem is that for them? That's a real problem for this economy.

They have 1.4 billion people here. They've got to keep it growing, and foreign capital is important. You ask why. I think there's been a contradiction in the messaging from the government here in China to the rest of the world. On the one hand, they say, we're open for business. We want American, Japanese businesses here. But on the other hand, they've raided six or seven American businesses since last March. Raided?

Raided. They've gone into American companies and shut them down and made accusations we believe are very much unwarranted. The American companies include Bain & Company and... The Mintz Group, a company that does due diligence for other companies that might want to invest here, was raided last year. Five of its Chinese employees were taken into custody, and they're still there. Another firm, Cat Vision, was raided.

Lest the message wasn't loud and clear, a report about it was put on state-run television. It accused Western consulting firms of espionage and stealing national security and military secrets. They want the investment to come back, and they're raiding American companies? Yes. They've passed an amendment to their counter-espionage law, and it's written in such a general way that it could be that American business people could be accused of espionage

for engaging in practices that are perfectly legal and acceptable everywhere else in the world, collecting data to do due diligence so that you can decide whether you want to invest in a company or form a joint venture, right? What do you think the Chinese are afraid that these companies are going to find out, these due diligence companies? What are they worrying about? You know, I think they want to control data about the Chinese people, about Chinese companies. And so that, I think, is at the heart of the problem with those American companies operating in that sphere. Ambassador Burns told

us that's just one of the concerns he hears about. There is still intellectual property theft from American companies here. Is every American company afraid of that? Yes. All kinds of U.S. companies began flocking to China in the early 1980s after the country opened to the West under then-leader Deng Xiaoping. And now U.S. banks operate here. Walmart has more than 300 stores across the country. Shoppers here in Shanghai can buy Levi's, browse in an Apple store, and get a caramel frappuccino.

Starbucks has 6,000 stores in China, 1,000 stores in Shanghai, and they want to keep building, because coffee... this was a tea culture. For hundreds of years, it's now becoming, at least for the young Chinese, a coffee culture. And they love Starbucks? They love Starbucks, and I'll buy you a cappuccino.

I'll take one. Thank you. Boeing's here. So is Tesla, Pfizer, Chevron, Intel. But while some businesses are thriving, many of the foreign companies are worried about the business climate under President Xi Jinping. If you track China from the death of Mao to the opening of China to the world, we've seen a closing of sorts. We've seen a centralization of power of the party. We've seen increased repression of the people of China here. That's a very significant trend just over the last decade. With Xi?

Under his leadership. Part of that trend includes President Xi's reversing many of the market reforms that unleashed China's economic miracle. They've been growing over 40 years, the fastest growth rate in recorded economic history. 8, 9, 10, 11% growth rates. They've lifted 800 million people out of poverty. But what's happening is that growth rate is slowing down. Most economists are now projecting there'll be a 2%, 3%, 4% growth, maybe even lower in the next decade.

Can they support their society if it's that low? That's going to be difficult for them. If there was so much explosive growth, if so many people were lifted out of poverty, why is he turning away from what worked? Well, I think they've got maybe competing priorities. The government here in China certainly wants the economy to grow, but they also have a national security mindset. They want to control data. They want to…

But that's more important, the control, right, than economic growth. It seems that way. I think it's open for debate. You're hearing, we are hearing, both messages. It sounds as if you yourself don't know the direction it's going. What I perceive here is that the greater energy is with those on the national security side of the government of China. Good morning. How are you? On a train trip from Beijing to Shanghai, the ambassador pointed out that in the decades before President Xi, China powered its economy by investing in these high-speed trains, roads, factories, and skyscrapers that light up Shanghai, the financial capital of China. worth of long-term foreign investments last year because of the weakening economy

and the harsh government tactics which have left American companies uncertain of the future there. There are a lot of American companies here. Have a lot of them just picked up and left because of this current business environment? You know, that's interesting. Not many.

Not many? Not many. Why not? China is the second largest economy in the world. It's a big market. So a few American companies have left, but most have stayed. Some American companies are moving at least some of their operations to Singapore, Vietnam, Mexico. But they're not leaving China.

They don't want to leave. The market's so irresistible to American business people. It's gigantic. Maybe they're not leaving, but they're not investing. They're not making major investments until they can see exactly where the government is headed. Yet, because of the 1.4 billion potential consumers, some companies, like Disney, are increasing their investment. Welcome to Shanghai Disney Resort.

It recently expanded its Shanghai Disneyland that they told us is thriving. Aptar, a $9 billion company headquartered in Crystal Lake, Illinois, is another American firm bucking the trend of capital flight. President of Aptar Asia, Xiangwei Gong, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, showed us around one of their five manufacturing sites in China. We are manufacturing for some of the largest U.S. brands, actually, the U.S. consumer brands.

This factory makes the packaging and dispensing devices for some of the largest U.S. brands, actually U.S. consumer brands. This factory makes the packaging and dispensing devices for food, pharmaceutical, and beauty products sold in Asia. All of our customers, like P&G, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, they're all here doing business. Aptar, in China for nearly 30 years, recently invested $60 million in a new factory. Shengwei Gong says even in a slowing economy, the company is doing well. American companies here, as the ambassador well knows, are pausing or cutting back on investment.

But not this firm. You're expanding. Well, because we are here for the long term, and we believe in the consumption power of the rising middle class. It's 1.4 billion people here. And imagine, for example, health care. And the same with cosmetics and beauty and beverage, all those sectors, packaged foods. these are really the biggest markets. And so we are very confident about the long term. What does it say about the confidence, really, in the U.S.-China relationship? It seems to say you believe that things will, what? I'm asking, get better?

That's a great question for the ambassador. I believe so. I hope so. You know, we'll see. Actually, Byrne says he's wary of the future, as the fundamental rivalry and mistrust between the U.S. and China is shaking the confidence of the business world and has pushed our relationship to its lowest point in half a century. Is it our most competitive relationship in the world right now?

This is the most important, most competitive, and most dangerous relationship that the United States has in the world right now and will, I think, for the next decade or so. I want to quote you back to you and tell us what you meant. You have said divorce is not an option. Right. Our two countries have to live together. And this, I think, is the greatest tension in the US-China relationship.

China is our most significant competitor. And at the same time, China is our third largest trade partner, 750,000 American jobs at stake. Agriculture. China's the largest market for U.S. agriculture. One-fifth of all of our export products from agriculture are sent to China. That was $40.9 billion last year. So we can't afford, really really to have a real break here. Well, it's complicated. All those jobs would...

It's complicated. Some people are saying, well, we're so competitive with China, we should end the economic relationship. Well, the consequences of that would be 750,000 American families wouldn't be able to put dinner on the table. And so this makes for an extraordinarily difficult balancing act in my job. You're a Wallenda brother. I've never thought of myself that way, but high wire, right? Well, we have competing interests here. And balancing those interests is the reality in

the U.S.-China relationship. We're going to compete. We have to compete responsibly and keep the peace between our countries. but we also have to engage. More about the Balancing Act and the biggest economic problem in China today when we come back. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer groceries that over-deliver. One in every five people in the world is Chinese. China's population is four times that of the U.S., and the country is vast, 3.7 million square miles. It overlooks the Taiwan Strait, where half the world's trade flows every day, and is located about 100 miles away from Taiwan.

President Xi likes to say that the East is rising, the West is declining. But economically, the U.S. is thriving compared to China. In December, Moody's, the credit rating agency, cut its outlook for China to negative. And it's facing a long-term demographic bind, a decline in the birth rate that experts say is irreversible, meaning the country is both aging and shrinking. Ambassador Nicholas Burns took us on a tour, starting in Beijing. The ambassador and his wife Libby like to take early morning walks through a park near their residence. This is a 600-year-old Ming Dynasty park called Ritan Park.

It's a place for a lot of retirees and a lot of young people, and it's tremendously active. It's where the locals come for their early morning routines, like tai chi, yo-yoing, and ping-pong. Oops. Tai hala. Tai hala. Tai Chi, yo-yoing, and ping-pong. You couldn't tell from these scenes that China, where the COVID pandemic began,

is still emerging from the trauma of President Xi Jinping's oppressive zero-COVID policy. Burns, 68, a career diplomat who has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, got to China at the height of the zero-COVID lockdowns and quarantines. When my wife Libby and I arrived here in early March of 2022, we were quarantined in this house for 21 days, for three weeks. Shanghai, a city of 26 million people, was completely locked down for 63 days. What was that like in the city?

We had women who needed to give birth and we had to find a way to get them to the hospital. We had Americans who wanted to get out but had to find a way out get them to the hospital. We had Americans who wanted to get out, but had to find a way out of their locked compounds to the airport. So zero COVID worked for a while. In 20 and 21, they had very low or relatively lower infection rates. But by 2022, it had really divided this society. It set off rare, widespread protests. Then in December of 2022, President Xi ended the policy abruptly. The last thing this government is going to accept here is volatility.

Volatility is something Jörg Wuttke, a German businessman who's lived and worked in China for over 30 years, hadn't seen since the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. He represents BASF, the world's largest chemical producer. You have said this is a PTSD country, post-traumatic stress disorder country. What do you mean? Well, everybody has been traumatized by the lockdowns that took place in many cities across China. And the kind of messaging that came out of the leadership, it's for your own safety. And then the lockdown was lifted.

Actually, it was more a capitulation from the government. The lockdown basically left. And like a tsunami... They said we were wrong, we're going to lift it? They never said they were wrong. That's not the system. Just admit that they did something wrong. And then you basically, like a tsunami, COVID was rolling across the country.

After they lifted it? December, January, I would say a billion people were infected. And certainly lots of people died. Independent analysts say that an estimated 1.4 million people died. This kind of environment really changes your attitude towards life. And in business, we thought we're going to have a comeback story. And we had a good couple of weeks, and then the economy basically has been flat since. You know, after COVID in the West, in the United States particularly,

we did have a huge, quick rebound. Why didn't it happen here? Well, I think that COVID also has covered up a couple of long-term problems that China has been building up, for example, in the real estate sector. We reported on the real estate sector 10 years ago with astonishing sights like this of empty buildings in city after city across the country. This is today.

Similar hollowed-out wastelands of unoccupied and unfinished apartments known as ghost cities. When I was here 10 years ago, I never expected to see these buildings still here. What was a housing bubble back then grew and finally exploded. This real estate crisis lies at the heart of China's economic decline. Has anybody counted up the number of empty units? I mean, across the whole country?

Well, the whole of Germany, we have 82 million people could move in here right away. 80 to 90 million apartments are empty. 80 to 90 million apartments are empty. Right. I'm finished. Over the years, Chinese banks readily loaned money to the developers as the building boom created millions of jobs and propeel China's growth. But in 2020, the government under President Xi clamped down on the rampant borrowing, causing the major developers to default on their loans and run out of money. Look at that. The facade isn't even finished. He says they couldn't even

afford to take down the cranes. In January, Evergrande, once China's largest developer, was ordered to liquidate its remaining assets. Left in the lurch are millions of Chinese citizens who bought these apartments before they were built. The developers owe their customers that paid up to the magnitude of $1 trillion. So if I did a down payment on one of these apartments, will I ever see that money? No, you will not see the money.

It's gone, it's vanished. It's gone, it's finished. So I mean, it's really dramatic. Ten years ago, we were told that this was the way people put money down for their nest egg, for their retirement egg. Right. For their retirement fund. Is that still the case? The 66%, two-thirds of a family household average wealth is in apartments.

That loss of wealth has depressed consumer spending and dragged down the economy. We wondered if the people blame President Xi for that or for the COVID deaths, but it was impossible for us to gauge public opinion or if it even matters. While no one from the government would give us an interview, we were able to learn, as Jörg Wittke, who's lived here for 30 years, told us, it's not a good idea to bet against the Chinese people. What are some of the positive aspects of the economy here? They do have a strong manufacturing base still. Well, the big part is really between the ears of people, the brains of the Chinese entrepreneurs that actually made this success story happen.

China is not really good in basic research, but they're fantastic in development. They're world champion in actually making products better, faster, and cheaper. Are they better? Yes, they are in some areas. Our Chinese competitors are breathing down our neck and basically drive some of us out the market.

For instance, China now makes over 80% of all the solar panels in the world, dominates the wind turbine market, is poised to overtake Japan as the world's biggest exporter of cars, and more. They're the leading trade partner of twice as many countries in the world as the United States. So they have global reach.

They're the leading trade partner... With over 60 countries in the world. And now, with heavy government subsidies, it is fast becoming the leader in electric vehicles. Last quarter, the carmaker BYD surpassed Tesla as the best-selling EV maker in the world. Shanghai-based NIO is trying to break through with high-tech innovations. In December, the company unveiled a new battery with a driving range of 620 miles, more than 200 miles further than Tesla's top-end model. William Lee, the CEO and founder of NIO, says its battery swap technology

allows owners to swap out their depleted battery for a fully charged one in under three minutes. Exactly, it's two and a half minutes. Two and a half minutes? Yes. We already installed 2,200 swap stations all around China. China is also developing a humanoid robot industry. Look at that.

After lots of years, it's coming true. Alex Gu is the founder and CEO of Fourier Intelligence. Hi there. Last year, he launched the GR1, his first generation humanoid. We can do arm, you can swing the arm. Yeah, you see? Oh, look at the fingers. Oh my word. Can he play the piano?

Yeah, future, definitely can. In the future. Also in the future, he says, the robots could provide health care for China's rapidly aging population. Maybe we can, for example, we can remote control such kind of robots to help my grandpa, for example. Yeah, I think. President Xi, who visited this company last year, has called for the mass production of humanoids by 2025. In his annual New Year's speech, he talked about the country's economic woes and for the first time acknowledged the high unemployment rate.

Still, he has laid out a long-term goal of doubling China's economy by 2035 and surpassing the West in technology. Our companies and tech experts are competing on AI and biotech and quantum mathematics. All those technological advances will lead to a new generation of military technology. Our two militaries are vying for military supremacy, who's going to be the most powerful and the most important strategic part of the world, which is the Indo-Pacific. Presidents Biden and Xi met in San Francisco in November in hopes of re-establishing military communications between our two countries, which China had cut off. I think we're back to a more

settled and stable relationship between the two countries, but it's cut off. I think we're back to a more settled and stable relationship between the two countries, but it's been a roller coaster. The low point, he says, was the spy balloon incident last year. But there's also been the buildup of military bases in the South China Sea, the increase of air sorties near Taiwan, and the buzzing of U.S. military planes. Do you see a lowering of the temperature in the South China Sea? No, and that's a problem. You don't.

And then in Taiwan, following Speaker Pelosi's visit, we've seen now for 16 months a much higher rate of Chinese both air activity and naval activity. That's very intimidating, meant to intimidate. And that hasn't, they haven't pulled back on that. They haven't pulled back on that. And I think ultimately they want to become

and overtake the United States as the dominant country globally. And we don't want that to happen. We don't want to live in a world where the Chinese are the dominant country. When the Cold War ended, we all thought our system had won. Yeah. You know, their system failed, our system rose up.

Now he's come back and said, no, no, the communist system's the right way. I guess we didn't bury that after all. You know, it's interesting to compare the old Cold War with this time. What distinguishes this time versus the old Cold War, the Soviet Union had a strong military and nuclear weapons. It had a very weak economy, which in no way competed with ours. China's economy is very strong. We're dealing with an adversary, a competitor in China, stronger than the Soviet Union was in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

So if that was a Cold War, what are you calling this? a battle of ideas. Our idea, America's big idea of a democratic society and human freedom versus China's idea that a communist state is stronger than a democracy, we don't believe that. So there's a battle here as to whose ideas should lead the world, and we believe those are American ideas. Now, an update on our story this month on the southern border called A Hole in the System. About an hour east of San Diego, we found migrants entering the United States illegally. What was remarkable was where many were coming from. Through a gap between the 30-foot steel border fence and rocks. We were surprised to see the number of people coming through from China,

nearly 7,000 miles away. Careful, watch. Our cameras, and at one point, this armed border patrol agent standing 25 feet away, did not deter them. But now, 60 Minutes can report the Mexican government has placed new outposts near that gap, blocking the Chinese and other migrants. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.