Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : How Beijing Sees the World's Hotspots .

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Alastair Crooke : How Beijing Sees the World's Hotspots .See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

History tells us... Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Monday, December 1st, 2025. Our dear friend Alastair, joins us live from Beijing, China. Alastair, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for all the hoops through which you had to jump in order to make this. this connection between Beijing and New York. Before we get to your week in China and your observations of the attitudes of,

are we okay, Alistair? Can you hear that? Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you now. Can you hear us? my unmute it's not on mute says it can Alastair hear us just bear with us folks we're getting there the voice is gone Alistair do you hear me now all right so Alastair will re-log on with the assistance of some

smart people with him in Beijing, and hopefully he'll be able to hear us in just a moment. I do have a lot of questions for him about the attitude of the Chinese people, the Chinese elites and the Chinese government, about the morass that the United States has gotten itself in Gaza and in Ukraine. Alistair, are we back together? Yep, we're back. Sorry for these technical hitches. Thank you, and thank you to the technicians that are. working with you. So I know you're spending the week in China, and before we get to Beijing's attitudes and the attitudes of the Chinese people and Chinese elites about the United States

morass in Gaza and morass in Ukraine, before we get to that, I do want to ask you, to the extent that you could read Prime Minister Netanyahu's mind, was there ever going to be a phase two to the so-called Gaza peace agreement? No, I think it is very clear that it was never intended. And we can see that because, I mean, the first part

of it was quite detailed and was laid out and was properly, it had a structure to it. Phase two was left really without any structure to it at all. And I think that was deliberate because then it gave

the opportunity for Israel to restructure it in a way that it was. In other words, introducing the yellow zone, then it's introducing areas where the Palestinians will not be allowed. They're trying to, if you like, create areas, safe areas that the Palestinians will be corralled into. So no, clearly it's not. And I think that was evident from the beginning. And it's quite clear from what he said and what we've seen in the press, that actually what

is happening is that they are beginning to move on from the ceasefire and move on to the next stages, which is going to be the Palestinians pushed into a smaller area, the Israelis completely surrounding them, and really the war continuing. Because they're breaking the ceasefire all the time, just as is happening in Lebanon, shooting, killing Palestinians. The Palestinians are still trying to observe the ceasefire, but this can't go on for long. Clearly, it will break down very shortly if it isn't technically already broken. So the Israelis have not complied with the ceasefire at all. The president has committed the United States to assuring peace.

Did Donald Trump bite off more than he can chew? How could he assure peace in Gaza without also enduring an overwhelming political backlash here in the U.S.? I think this is a dilemma that the president has found himself in that if he tries to push ahead with the ceasefire, then he runs up against the Israelis. And the Israelis will be adept at sort of bypassing it and maneuvering around the SIFAR to achieve the ends that they want. And of course, he doesn't want this to break down at this stage. And at the same time, if he was entirely successful, he would bring himself up against certain sectors of support for Israel in the United States, which would be unhappy with that. too so either he goes against the Israelis and and has to do that very firmly and

strongly and that will bring repercussions pushback in the United States or he tries to go ahead and do it and the Israelis will find ways to frustrate him and to go back to what they intended which was if you like to sort of maneuver Gaza towards a the status of new occupation. Was the entire Wittkoff-Kir-Kir-Plan aruse just to get the hostages home? Or stated differently, will Tony Blair ever become the Governor General of Gaza?

It's almost sounds ridiculous. It's ridiculous just to utter that phrase. Yes, it is. So that's the answer. But I think that was the primary interest. And I think this was the idea that somehow that getting the hostages home would create the circumstances in which the ceasefire would sort of continue and go on because I think that they perhaps don't really know the history of ceasefires in the Middle East and in Israel and between Israel and the

Palestinians in particular. So I don't think, so I really don't think, I think that the aim was to get the hostages home. That was seen as important to the base in America. As for the next stage, well, that's in Israel's hands in his view, I think. But what is changing it, I think, is that Trump doesn't read very much, perhaps, but he does read and listen to the polls. And I think the polls are showing a strong drift. an accelerating drift away from support for Israel and what they're doing in Gaza and the West Bank. And so now he's had to adjust to try and keep the thing going a little bit longer in the process to try and make it something more permanent. But the Israelis really have the leverage. They have the upper hand. They can say there is an attack or there is an operation planned by the Palestinians. or they can simply bomb them in the understanding that at some point the Hamas will say enough is enough. We're going on the attack.

And what I hear and what I understand is that the Israelis are saying very clearly that Hamas has re-inserted itself in Gaza. It is gaining the consciousness of the Palestinians. It is re-equipping, it's gaining in support, it is re-establishing control over Gaza. And so the Israelis are getting anxious about that, too, because they say they are getting weapons in, that they are, in fact, re-arming that their morale is not broken, rather the reverse, that they are actually reanimating Gaza for resistance. So that's where it is, I think, at the moment. You have been spending time in China.

Have you had a chance to put your finger on the pulse of Chinese thinking, whether it's government, elites, or average folks? And if you have, let's – okay, good. Let's start with Ukraine and the morass that the United States is in in Ukraine. What to the folks, what to the elites, what is the government think about the behavior of the United States? States in Ukraine. Well, I'd prefer to, if I may, come back to that by saying a few things about the huge changes that are taking place in China. Please.

And that what is happening is a sense, we're in really a few dynasties moment, which is by which I mean that until now, the United States and the West has considered that it has had huge leverage over China. And what is happening in this period has been that actually China now has the leverage over the West. And that consists of a number of things that China understood from what they've seen with Russia, that they had to not simply become dependent on the West

for the import of goods. They have to do the opposite. They had to be self-sufficient. They had to build out industrially. They had to change the whole economy to being a manufacturing industrial economy. This is the opposite of what happened to most of Southeast Asia. In other words, the economy, the market, unlike the West, where the market rules the state, there the state rules the market in the national interest.

And so they have built a huge industrial. complex. The second thing that they've done is they're managing AI in a completely different way from that of America. The AI here is not about, if you like, militarized AI as it is in the US with Palantir and so on. It is here something that is simpler and is diffused throughout the economy, the manufacturing economy, in a way which is not really AI, but it is AI, but it's basically bringing automation, being technology, bringing robots into industry. And it's had a huge impact here. Of course, there are some difficulties with it because there are jobs losses in China, too.

And you see there's a certain, you know, slow down on the streets. There's a certain cooling of the economy, although people are being able to move to other economies, but one big manufacturer here in China, domestic manufacturer, to me typically, he says, in his companies, in his business, which used to a year ago employ 2,000 people. It's down to 200 now, and the costs of production are much reduced. In fact, what is happening is that China is in price deflation at the same time that America and Europe is in price inflation. And that poses a huge strategic problem, I believe, for us, because with these changes, industrial changes. There is almost nothing that China needs from the West, apart from aircraft, from chips and a few advanced tools and technical items. But by and large, it doesn't, it's become

self-sufficient, slightly like Russia did earlier. And becoming self-sufficient in this way means that they are not subject to pressures. They have, as I say, AI, this has changed. They are so competitive that effectively, it's impossible now. I would say for the West with its inflation and China's deflation, if you like to sell their products into China in the future. Effectively, China is out of the equation. They don't need to buy and it's not competitive.

We are no longer competitive against China at these levels where it has completely changed. And they've changed it in another way which is just important, which the West can't match either. Everything here is done through, if you like, this financial ecosystem, a huge ecosystem of finance which is worked with WeChat or AliPay. And you have a million billion Chinese conducting business combining and selling on WeChat, a million and on AliPay too. And all of this is now absorbing, if you like, the diffusion of AI through to this element. This is a huge change that has taken place in this period.

This is a remarkable explanation that you've just given us, and it brings to mind a couple of observations on my part, and I would welcome your critique of them. I don't think the President of the United States understands what you just articulated, and I don't think the tariffs he attempted to impose, to control China, had any of the effects that he wished. No. It had none of the effects, if you like, in that way on China. And the rare earths was just an example that China actually had the leverage completely, as they do in many areas, almost all of these areas. And as I say, the key thing is that how would he do this when actually the Chinese price level is deflating? And the cost. competitiveness of industry is going through a really tectonic change here. As I say, there's almost nothing that would be competitive in China at the moment. And I've been talking to people, a person here that has many manufacturing firms throughout the country as well as in Africa. And he can see this change. And the AI has been used completely differently, whereas an America AI is sort of geared to military structures and needs and to control and targeting and identifying targets.

I mean, here it is something that has been diffused throughout industry at a lower level of AI. I mean, it's basically automation and robots and robotics, but it is widespread across the whole industry. So they never did what we did, either have financialized the economy. It is strictly an economy that manufacturers and produces thing, and it doesn't have that financialized world, which has led to this bifurcation of our economies. We have the economy which is soaring in the stock market, which is tied to the finance world, and the other economy of ordinary people. which is going, dropping and dropping and dropping.

I saw the statistics for Black Friday that actually output, actual goods sold was 1% down, prices were 7% up. I mean, this is a crisis, a structural crisis the West have. And here in China, it's viewed that the West has completely gone the wrong direction on a, moving to this AI, which they hope will lead to AGI, the artificial general intelligence, i.e. human intelligence, which may be a long time of. Are you able to put your finger on

the pulse of any collective thinking in China about President Trump? Well, I think the thinking is what I am trying to get to. here is the management of this situation is going to be very delicate. That's why I referred to Thucydides at the beginning. It is the question of how to deal with this. Now, it will be very difficult for the United States to accept the change that has taken place in China in this period. This, if you like, avoidance of the dollar trap, the the establishment of their own financial ecosystem and these open source AI systems which they are bringing into play in industry and also in the financial sphere because as I say the AI is being

deployed in things like we chat or AliPay so you can do anything and buy anything through these technical apps. And this is going to spread elsewhere. We are well behind in these sort of systems. The whole of the consumer body of 1.4 billion here is tied in one billion on one of those apps alone, which does all sorts of things. And the West is sort of focused on something different, building these mega, if you like, data stores. And that is. is the other thing that China has a great advantage and they point this out to me, is that in China, I mean, they have the energy. They don't have the problem of energy for these big, if you like, mega data centers.

They have electricity, and they have that from various sources, and they are actually diminishing their requirements for oil. At the moment, they do take a large amount of oil, but 50% of that oil is used for transport, transporting goods, transport generally transport in the economy. Now, what they suggest is that is going through innovation very fast. Already all of the motorcycles, all of the cars here are electric. They think their needs for oil are going to be much. reduced, they're going to be less dependent on oil as a source of energy.

And they have other things coming on play. They have also new ideas about energy. They are going for fusion. They hope that that will nuclear fusion. They hope that they have a project that is up and running on nuclear fusion. And they have also other systems, a non-nuclear system for generating electricity. It's too complicated for me to grasp, but it's a thorium system. And these things, they believe, are going to change the energy balance too, but in China's favor. Now, and again, I'm saying, I think this is going to be very hard because the consequences

for Europe, for America, I mean, are going to be particularly da because we are putting so much money into our style of AI. And I think the Chinese don't believe, believe that it will be sustained. Huge. I mean, trillions are going into AI in a bid to achieve AI dominance. And the Chinese are doing open source spreading there's almost no cost it is being spread it's being used widely people are turning to the chinese model of AI and they think that you know that the AI in the United States is a big bubble and will never produce the revenues they will produce revenues because theirs is linked into this financial ecosphere and that they can bring the revenues of the financial sphere into AI so that the AI will be self-sufficient, will be sustainable because it is producing

cash flows and is producing revenue for the future. So they're very confident. There are problems, as I say, they're affected by the prices are going down. They tell me the industrialists tell me, you know, the people are getting jobs, it's not perfect, but it is going, working. And the killer really is the fact that there's price deflation here and price inflation in the West.

How are we going to be competitive? How can we have leverage in that condition? I think it seems to me to be a really striking sort of events, striking condition that exists here. And so in this, the reaction, of course, probably in the United States, well, you know, we will have to do more to try and contain China and to stop it and to deal with it so that they don't become dominant. My miss, what I'm saying is they've become dominant. They have the leverage, major leverage over us. This is lucidities in effect.

Let's, before we go, just transfer over to the political world. Is there any such thing as a collective opinion of President Trump or of the morass that the United States is in, in Gaza or Ukraine? I think the first thing I would, and I know you want to go over to that, I think they feel that the United States is in financial difficulties. That's the first thing, and they're probably right about their view of that. I think the second thing is that they believe that in terms of Ukraine, that there will have to be – there will be a deal, and that Trump will accept a deal, which may be a deal that has come about by military successes of Russia rather than anything else. So they do see what's happening in Ukraine.

I don't think that they believe that the approach to Ukraine, if you like, the talking points, is likely to succeed, is likely to bring about an arrangement. And they follow that very carefully. And I would say that the most important thing is they have the sense that the United States still hankers after the idea of separating Russia and China because it sort of, you know, there's a hangover from the Vietnam days that believes that China and Russia are just culturally incompatible. And they just dismiss completely that idea. They just say, you know, clearly that is not to understand China and Russia.

in today's world. So I would say that is one thing. On the Middle East, I think they are very concerned and they're very concerned generally. I've been talking about this, you know, that we are sitting on a number of volcanoes in the Middle East, but Ukraine has been one, what will be the United States reaction.

And it comes back to the same thing. I mean, if the United States, feels that it is losing its primacy. If the United States and Mr. Trump feels that he's not getting successes in the Middle East or in Ukraine and that the story isn't one of winning and winning, he may become unpredictable. And how to manage that?

How to manage, if you like, I won't say instable, but less than stable Europe. I mean, because they're very much aware and we're asking me about, you know, why all this talk in Europe about going to war with Russia? Are they serious about this? And what does this mean? And I think that they are also thinking very carefully

about what Europe might do, what will happen in the Middle East, but for their point of view, you know, that the Russia-China thing, is very secure and i would add um that is clear they have all the technical ability to roll out a new financial system across central asia across the brick states i mean the technology is already working here it's already in place here they're using it all the time in the domestic sense it could be rolled out i think they're being very careful uh not to see it uh roll out

out and not to let it roll out. But an indication is, for example, in the Chinese who used to be a major purchaser of U.S. long-dated treasuries, 30-year treasuries, is now represented only 7% of U.S. treasuries. And so there's been a big decline in the purchase of U.S. treasuries, not only by China. only increases come from other parts but they understand that this is going to cause a real the debt issue the debt market is a really serious concern they don't believe in these measures of using stable coins and other things to try and increase the purchase of either u.s bonds or u.s bills the short-term credit they don't see this

is really working. So they believe there's going to be a real problem on that. And I think this is why they are playing it very quietly, this rollout of the alternative financial system. They don't want to be seen or to be held that they have somehow provoked the problem in the debt markets in the United States. They would prefer if there is such a thing that they are not sort of directly involved with it. Alistair, thank you very much for a remarkable and informative analysis. So much of us in the West have no idea what's going on in China of its tremendous economic advances, and it seems to be far ahead of where we are here.

Thank you, my dear friend. Please thank your hosts, and especially those brilliant young technicians. that connected me through Chris to you. All the best, safe travels. We'll look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you very much, Judge. Thank you. Bye for now.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Coming up with remarkable communication from New York to Beijing and remarkable analysis from our brilliant Monday morning guest. Later today, attend this morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson at 4 this afternoon. Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.