Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : How Strong Is China?

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Pepe Escobar : How Strong Is China?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 17th, 2025. Coming to us from Western China is none other than the great Pepe Escobar himself. Pepe, thank you very much.

I know you're traveling the world. When I asked you, where do you call home? You said, and that is probably not just apocryphal, it is true. And you have much to share with us. Let me start right off the bat. What is the new and current relationship between Russia and China? It's the most solidified stretch of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership so far.

and this is not hyperbolic at all. It has been reaffirmed by Putin and by C. It was re-reaffirmed only two weeks ago, in fact. First, in Tianjin during the SCO summit, and then the next day when they had their private meeting at the Zhonghanai in Beijing. And then the next day, still, when Putin was the let's say the star cast of the Victory Day parade in Beijing against Japanese aggression and against Nazism in Asia.

So it's immensely important because if we had a headline for what's going on now, and it's very, very difficult, of course, I have been trying some things. would be the paradigm shift from the hegemonic logic. And who's conducted that, Russia and China together? Is much of this paradigm shift to be blamed on the neocons, the American concept of empire, the American belief that it can use its military, to tell others how to live?

Of course it does, because this gets into the heart of Western elites and the American ruling classes, of course, who simply cannot admit that China is projecting Chinese future and what they call community of a shared future for mankind. Basically, the global majority's future, their own input, derived from the lessons that they learned while they were developing China, especially this past 15 to 20 years. And from the point of view of American elites, this is anathema.

The 21st century was supposed to be another American century. exceptionalism was supposed to rule. And now we have not only China but Russia, Chinese strategic partnership. This is McKinder and Brzezinski ultimate mega nightmare, which is now consolidated in front of us. And the whole global south, they see that developing BRICS summits,

SCO summits, interconnection of the global majority, the drive to reform the UN, the way it is is unreformable. Everybody knows that. And China they are building another set of structures. The

New Silk Roads, for instance, which started in 2013, that's where I am right now. I am in one of the very, very important crossroads of the New Silk Roads inside China, the city of Lanzhou in Gansu province,

which is a sort of crossroads between eastern China and western China. I am more or less in the middle today. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS Bank, the new development bank are based in Shanghai. So China creates all these new set of instruments, institutional mechanisms, and at the same time, they are the main driver side by side with Russia of BRICS and SCO. So this is the beginning and now very well-organized, concerted effort to change the system of international relations, as we know it since 1945. So obviously, the Western elites, for them, this is beyond anatomy.

And obviously, in the middle of this mix, there's profound xenophobia, practically hatred of all things, China. And this sense of exceptionalism, which was supposed to be eternal. You mentioned before the spectacular display of Chinese military enormity and high-end in that parade in Beijing, the likes of which the world has never seen anything. Was Donald Trump invited to that? He was not formally invited, Judge, but there were diplomatic contacts. And according to our good Chinese sources, there was no follow-up from the White House. There was not a formal invitation. They were sounding the possibility of Trump coming.

But Trumping would not want to be upstage in Chinese soil by sea and Putin side by side. That was the main reason, in fact. He was not willing to show. How is President Xi perceived by, not the elites, but the average Chinese people whose standards of living he has uplifted significantly. Wow, it's very, very impressive, Judge. This past over a week, I am on the road in the new Silk Road after Beijing.

I went to Sian, former Imperial Capital. That's where the Silk Roads began in ancient times. And then I went to Dunhuang, almost in Western China, to visit Buddhist caves. And now I'm backtracked because of a high-speed rail schedule. And I am here in Langeo, which is a big crossroads, a commercial cross-roads, heavy industry. And when you were on a high-speed rail trip, it's fascinating because you see the modernization of China in front of you in every detail. Electrification everywhere in the middle of the desert.

Forests of solar panels everywhere. Forests of aeolian energy everywhere. Every small city that the train stops is a mini industrial powerhouse. The people who come and go, for instance, I had like 10 stops in my trip today. The people who come and go, they are businessmen, but they're also tourists. You have families of tourists, like in a moderately prospered country, which was how Deng Xiaoping defined in the 90s. And then Xi Jinping picked that up.

Two businessmen doing business on the high-speed train until they reach the next destination. Everybody with the state-of-the-art smartphone. And then they, when they stop somewhere, they pick up. their outstanding electric SUV. When you are in a big city like this, everything is silent because everything is electric. And everybody has a spectator SUV or a moped or an electric bicycle. It's amazing, especially when you compare to the China that we used to know in the 80s,

even in the 90s, I remember China in the 90s very, very well. it was still not even a lower middle-class country. Now it's a completely middle-class country. Totally. Everywhere you go, small cities in the western regions that you go. It's mind-boggling. And it's for us to absorb all that, the great thing is this is what we see in practice,

the title of this book. What is that book? This book, I should. Chinese modernization, Xi Jinping, is a collection of speeches and observations, notes, and drafts by Xi Jinping for the past 12 years. There's stuff from 2013, in fact, in this book as well, when the New Silk Road started. And very, very important. And this connects directly to the SEO summit in Changshin two weeks ago.

five, six, seven, eight years ago, he was already talking about global governance, which is exactly what he proposed in Tianjin two weeks ago. Like every country in the global south should be equal partners, through multilateralism, no double standards, especially, everything that he proposed in detail two weeks ago. So this is a, he's been refining his thought, and obviously it's not only Xi Jinping's thought. This is what is discussed at the Politburo, of course, with input from his sherpers, from ministries, et cetera.

It's an evolving process. And when it's codified in China, which is an extremely codified society, it has to spread out everywhere. And this in terms of organization with organization and meritocracy. These three go together. Very organized, meritocratic, clean, efficient, and pragmatic. If something doesn't work. I want to ask you about India, but before I do, what is Chinese prosperity built on? Is it built on Western-style debt, or is it built on savings and investment?

It's based on savings, absolutely, and productive investment. not speculation in Wall Street. It's a completely different economic model. The political economy of China, to understand the political economy of China, you have to understand everything in this past five-year plans. And going all the way to 2035, they already planned where they're going to be in 10 years from now.

Just like 10 years ago, Judge, very important. That's when they came up with the, made in China 2025 program, which was, in 10 years we're going to be, the leaders are at least next to the leaders in 10 special sectors of high technology. Guess where they are now, 10 years later? They are leaders in eight, and soon they'll be leaders in the other two as well. Everything, solar panels, quantum computing, you name it. That's how you do it. You planify, you spread the world around, you teach the cadres how to manage all that,

you implement the policies, you have to manage how they are being developed, you get the population to participate, and of course the results are inevitable. This is how productive capitalism works in practice. And this is what I'm seeing in this trip right now, going to deep China, it's immensely important to see how this modernization works in practice. And it's one day after another, the mind boggles, really.

How significant was the public internationally seen embrace of President Putin, President Xi, and Prime Minister Modi? Wow, this is the RIC back in action. I've been talking a lot about the IRC in this past few months. RIC, it's the embryo of Greeks, Russia, India, China. The conceptualization came from Yevgeny Primakov, who was the Russian foreign minister in the late 1990s. Brilliant guy. By the way, he started as a journalist, Judge.

Primacov was a task correspondent in the Middle East. That's how he started his career. So he knew everybody at the time, Gaddafi, Saddam, you know, Nasser, everybody. And in the late 90s, he was a foreign minister of Russia. He came up with the idea of RIC that these three Asian powerhouses and cultures would be the Asian powerhouses of the future of the 21st century. And Putin, well, Primakov is idolized by the Russian intellectual. elite. And he was indeed

brilliant. But he's also extremely respected in China as well and in India as well, as a conceptualizer. And bridging the gaps especially between India and China is the main challenge

for the RIC to be back in full force. And guess who's the mediator? Vladimir Putin. It's thanks to Putin that we had those outstanding scenes in Tianjin. of the three together, exchanging smiles, chatting in the corridors, etc. Wow.

How a strong, well, before I get to the military, what are President Xi's plans with respect to Taiwan? There are no plans, Judge. This is an American invention. The short answer to the plan for Taiwan, we have to go back to Deng Xiaoping. Deng Xiaoping, before the return of Hong Kong in 1997 and the return of Macau in 1999, Deng Xiaoping was saying, look, we have until 2049 for Taiwan to be reunited with the motherland. So we are not in a hurry. So if we are applying one country two systems to Hong Kong, which, by the way, works very, very well,

this is something that I've seen by practical experience. I was there covering the handover in 1997, and after that I lived in Hong Kong on and off for many years. So I saw one country, one systems developing in real time, and you see how it works. And now the ruling classes in Hong Kong finally, you know, they got rid of their British complex. And they said, no, our future is connected as a giant developing node in southern China with Guangdong province. linked with Shenzhen, the high-tech powerhouse, Guanzhou, etc. So then Xiaoping was saying, we can have maybe, not in these words, but basically he was saying, we could have one country three systems in the future.

China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. So we're not in a hurry. And the reunification would be peaceful. These are the guidelines. And the Communist Party of China will never deviate from these guidelines. Another thing is foreign interference. Everybody knows what they're talking about. When the very brilliant and gifted American Secretary of Defense

stands in Japan and shakes his fist at China, what do they think? How do they react to this? They must laugh at him. One word for you, Judge, which they use for all these people. people from the West in similar situations. He's just a barbarian. How powerful vis-a-vis the U.S. is the Chinese military, Army, Navy, Air Force.

Well, I had a wonderful meeting in Beijing two weeks ago with Joe Bo, which I strongly suggest that he comes to the show, Judge. I asked them if you would be interested to come on your show. And he said, yes, you will be a fantastic interview for you. Because he's a former PLA colonel. He speaks fluent English. He has a master in international relations in Oxford, if I'm not mistaken. He knows the system inside out, militarily, and he also knows international relations because he also knows the West.

And he said, he told me, Look, everything that we saw in the parade, these weapons, they're already up and running, all of that. But we did not show the new ones. It's just like the Russians. The Russians only show what they have when it's already working. For instance, nobody talked about Orrashnik before. And then one day, Orrishnik is being tested live in the Ukraine battlefield. The Chinese is the same thing.

And for instance, they have, but this is something that the Americans know. already. What in China here is called the underwater great wall which is a system of sonners that tracks everything that is

in every of the waters of the South China Sea and beyond by the Chinese. So it's not a question of who's more powerful who has the most developer. That's not a... The point is

they are prepared. If there is a serious confrontation, they are prepared and they will be even more prepared. And they know that a serious and when I say they, this is Xi Jinping, the Politburo and

most of the best Chinese scholars. It will be a provocation in Taiwan or using a false flag, using one of those vessels like the on and off Philippines in the South China. Does China attack its own allies or impose 50% tariffs on them like the U.S. does?

No, they don't. Just, they do exactly the opposite. When you have scores of African nations that have deaths with China, what does China do? They cancel those debts. They cancel African debt literally year after year. And they are learning the mistakes that they had in some of the projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road. So they rearrange the loans. The projects, not only Chinese companies, they bring in local companies and local workers. So they learn from their mistakes. And they made a lot of mistakes in the beginning.

No question about that. But what they are, let's say, the soft power of what they are selling to the global south is, look, we learn a lot in our own modernization process. We can share our experience with all of you. This doesn't mean that all of you will be copying the Chinese model. Our model, the Chinese model, is only good for China. And when we are traveling in China, we see how the model works literally for everybody. It's fascinating. When you see a moderately prosperous society in a country of 1.3 billion people in front of you day after day, it's a mind-boggling experience compared to the recent past.

It's something that India will take a long time to get to, unfortunately. because of Indian domestic and the configuration of India society, the case system, you name. What are the long-term goals of BRICS and SCO? Where will they be if they get there and they get where they want to be in 10 or 15 or 20 years? let's say that the global governance, as explained by Xi Jinping, and as detailed by the Chinese leadership, would be the, let's see, the philosophical umbrella for all that. And then we have the role of multilateral organizations like BRICS and SEO and other organizations that work in parallel, like the Asia infrastructure, investment. Bank, the BRICS Bank, etc. For instance, one of the things that, I think a lot of people in the U.S.

did not notice that, in fact. Siluanov, the Russian Ministry of Finance, he said that we are actually starting to work inside the SEO to have a clearing system away from Euroclear. our own clearing system in Eurasian. And the SCO development bank will be instrumental in establishing that. It's very, very important, because most of the money stolen from Russia or confiscated, etc., these Russian funds were in Euricleer in Belgium.

So the West controls that. That's why they can freeze or steal Russia's assets or anybody else. else's assets across the global south. So if you have a clearing system inside the Eurasia, none of that will happen. So you see, the building of a new system of international geo-economic relations and financial relations is being driven by Russia and China,

especially the strategic partnership. Of course, to convince India to get on board, it's very complicated because India has very strong. ties with the West and their ruling class is still Anglo, basically controlled by the Anglo-American mentality. It will happen. It will take a long time. But they have on board, for instance, Indonesia, Iran, most of the Southeast Asian nations, the relationship between China. Just to give your numbers on Southeast Asia, Judge, I was planning to call this for you. China-Azian trade.

So, ASEAN, they are the largest market for China in the world. It's 17% of China's trade is with ASEAN, compared with 13% with the EU and gas with the U.S., only 9%. So the U.S. is not important for the Chinese trade balancing fault. The Southeast Asian neighbors here to the south, they are much more important, almost double more important than the U.S. So, you know, this, but these numbers, for instance, very few people in the West know about these numbers. As very few people in the West know the details of this mind-boggling Chinese modernization process. This has been an utterly fascinating. conversation, you're opening up the eyes and ears of so many tens of thousands of people

here in the West who have no idea of the prosperity in China and of the ability of Russia, China, and their allies to basically tell the United States when it does these foolish things, whether they be economic or warlike, to go take a hike. literally i'm dialing back the language that i might use if you and i were together and alone but thank you very much not in the new silk roads exactly right enjoy the silk road and i hope wherever you are a week from now you'll be back with us you're going to love this judge i'm going to be in sing jung next week this is going to be a powerhouse all right safe travels my dear man Thank you very much. All the best.

Thank you so much, Judge. Thank you. Thanks for the audience. What a great, great human being with encyclopedic knowledge of that part of the world about which we in the West seem to know so little. Coming up later today, 2 o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, 3 o'clock this afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi, 4 o'clock this afternoon, the inimitable Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.