Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: [LIVE from Shanghai]: Thanks to Tariffs, China Ditching US Tech.

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Pepe Escobar: [LIVE from Shanghai]: Thanks to Tariffs, China Ditching US Tech.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. Pepe Escobar is here joining us from Shanghai. Pepe, always a pleasure. I know you're in the middle of your travels. I want to talk to you at some length on China ditching United States technology. But before we get there, some preliminary questions. Has President Xi preliminary questions. Has President Xi called President Trump as Trump has claimed he did over the tariffs? The short answer is no, unfortunately. And the Chinese Foreign Ministry, for all practical purposes, already said on the record that the President of the United States is propagating fake news. This is a very, very serious accusation. This was a few days ago. No, no talks whatsoever.

I would imagine that given the Chinese culture, this is an insult for the American President to claim that the Chinese president did something which in historical fact he did not do. He did not, exactly. And culturally, this is extremely serious because he's accusing the Chinese of lying when in fact he would be the liar in the whole story. And in one of my latest columns, because it's crazy, you lose track of what you're writing, considering how demented the situation is.

The column that I published earlier this week about the tech war, the next one, I found an extraordinary essay at the website Guancha in China, written by a Chinese analyst, and his examination of Alice in Wonderland. And basically the essay is qualifying Trump as all the characters in Alice in Wonderland. He can be Humpty Dumpty, he can be the Queen of Hearts, he can be the White Rabbit, he can be the Mad Hatter. And of course, because he controls the narrative, whatever that is that I say, it's what it is,

which comes straight from Lewis Carroll. So this is what the Chinese are doing. They're trying to find metaphors and analogies to cope with Trump and to cope with the fact that he builds narratives out of nowhere. And then five minutes later is another one. All right. Let me take you back to some bigger pictures and then we'll get back to the relationship between President Xi and President Trump. How solid and stable is BRICS today? Excellent question, Judge. We had the meeting of foreign ministers in Rio earlier this week. There were many positives, of course. There is a serious problem that lack of time to prepare for the BRICS Summit in Rio in early July.

So after this Foreign Minister meeting, they're going to have only two big meetings, one in May and one in June, before the summit in early July. It's not enough. Last year the Russians, they had over 200 meetings preparing for the summit in Kazan, which was in October last year in Russia. So, and now we have an expanded BRICS because we have, depending on the real status of Saudi Arabia, nine or ten full BRICS members. Is Iran a full BRICS member? Of course, Iran is a full BRICS member, Judge, just like Indonesia, for instance. Is Turkey a full BRICS member? No, Turkey is a partner. That's very, very important, but an important partner and Erdogan is doing all he can

to become a full BRICS member. But obviously, some of the very powerful BRICS, they look at Turkey, can we trust Erdogan? And the answer is obviously no. But Turkey is already a partner. That's very, very important. So this week in Rio, earlier this week in Rio, they discussed preparations for the summit, of course. They talked about alternative payment systems. Very, very important. And in two interviews that Lavrov gave, one to CBS in the US and another one to a Brazilian newspaper, these interviews were excellent because it was explaining what bricks are actually doing in terms of, no it's not that we're gonna have a bricks currency tomorrow, no. And Lavrov said

explicitly, once again explaining to a Western audience, when we have all our models that we are testing in terms of alternative payment systems, etc., then, which means in the next few years, we're going to start talking about a possible RICS currency. But the progress is visible. The Brazilians have an extraordinary opportunity in less than three months to be like the agglutinators of the global South and the global majority and organize a common BRICS answer to the tariff war for that matter and for other,

let's say deliriums coming from the Trump presidency. Is there any defense or military component whatsoever to BRICS? No, not at all. Just like there is not in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These are sister multilateral organizations. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization started as basically an anti-terrorism organization, and now it's about economic cooperation. It's not Asia's NATO, as many in the US tend to interpret. And BRICS is basically, I qualified it last year as an immense laboratory. BRICS is a lab and they are trying

and testing different geoeconomic models leading towards a new multipolar system of international relations. There are no NATO style of offense or defense mechanisms in built either in BRICS or SCO. What is the Chinese view, I should say maybe the view of the Chinese elites of President Trump. Judge, the days that I spent in Shanghai, they were immensely enlightening because of conversations with business leaders, with diplomats, with media leaders, and academia.

And even the conversations that you can have visiting one of those Mao era model quarters in Shanghai, you know. And the feeling of self-confidence of emerging China, the feeling that they are on the right side of history, the feeling that they are as they build themselves a sort of vanguard of the global South and the global majority, and the feeling that they have been mistreated treated by Trump 2.0. And underneath and in many aspects exploding in terms of social media, diffidence and even pity when they regard the President of the United States, which has been relentlessly mocked on those zillions of platforms of social media all across China, the emperor of tariffs, etc. A baby throwing tantrums, you name it.

And, but when you analyze the serious economists and academics breaking down everything that is behind the tariff war and Trump's financial and geoeconomic approach towards China and towards the rest of the world. They say, no, we know what you're doing. And on the other side, they have no idea. And it's a mix of fear, desperation and misinformation, especially how. Yes, go ahead please. From the Chinese perspective,

how grave an error was Trump's imposition of 200 plus percent tariffs? China, wow, it was a gift falling into the lap of the Middle Kingdom, isn't it? So in terms of a PR offensive from Latin America to Africa to Central Asia to Southeast Asia for China, this is absolutely priceless. For instance, when you go, for instance, the Chinese made a lot of reportage these past few days on the largest warehouse on the planet in Yiwu in Zhejiang province where buyers from all over the world come to China to buy everything that you can imagine. And the volume of trading you is even bigger now than before, including American buyers, which are obviously going to make triangulations to have the products that they are buying in you to arrive different parts of the United States. So this has not affected China's configuration as the top

trade powerhouse on the planet, on the contrary. And when you add President Xi's recent mini tour of Southeast Asia, big trade partners of China, the Chinese mission that they sent to Brazil to try to start negotiations to build what the Brazilians call the bi-oceanic railway which is linking Brazil from the Atlantic to the Pacific and then to the port of Shanghai in Peru which is already linked to the port of Shanghai in Peru, which is already linked to the port of Shanghai. That's the southern Pacific Maritime Silk Road. Plus the negotiations in Central Asia to build

more highways and railways, etc. So this trade geoeconomic avalanche of China continues like before the tariffs, like the tariffs never existed. And they are now worried about the tariffs. When you talk about the best Chinese economists, when you see how they are explaining this to the Chinese population, and even in Hong Kong, which is a very contentious part of China, economists who are, we can define them as Atlanticists. They say right away, even Hong Kong, which is caught in the middle, we don't care because our trade volume in the US now it's between 3.5 to 5% of our trade volume, and is

less than our trade volume with China, which is over 50% of our trade volume. So whatever the US does, even a mega international port like Hong Kong will not be much affected. Can you analogize Trump's tariffs imposed on China to Biden's sanctions imposed on Russia, to Biden's sanctions imposed on Russia, an effort to isolate the country which actually ended up enriching the country and making it more self-sufficient. Yes, Judge, you already answered your own question. We can't draw a direct parallel. No question about that. Even though tariffs were imposed only a few weeks ago.

But we can see already if you look at the trade dialogue and the geoeconomic dialogue of China with partners, for instance, what they were discussing in Rio early this week inside BRICS with their partners in Southeast Asia, with the Africans, with investments that they went in Latin America and Africa as well. Yes. So it's make China great again, not make China great again, because China was great during at least 18 of the past 20 centuries. So it's back to where it was until, let's say, 1840.

How sophisticated and independent is the Chinese high-tech industry? Stated differently, can they flourish without the United States? Yes, they can, Judge. And that was the theme of the column that I published earlier this week. Yes. Which I sourced this column in Shanghai for quite a while. I reconfirmed with people in Shanghai before I published. And it's fascinating because the column came out the same day that President Xi Jinping visited Shanghai

and went to see one of their high tech clusters outside of Shanghai, of the city center, and talked to some of their top young artificial intelligence talents. Well, this was a lucky coincidence, but proving once again that Shanghai is one of these very important AI clusters. And this, all of that mixed with the announcement by Huawei that late next month they're gonna start testing their latest chip which is a monster it's a powerhouse and the previous one is starting to be shipped

unmasked to Chinese customers now beginning of May in the next two or three days so all that is, very important because it ties with a superstar in the US, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. And Jensen Huang is absolutely terrified with these news. And even before he knew about the new Huawei chip, he went to visit Beijing a little over two weeks ago to talk to the Chinese leadership and say, look, I'm not going to abandon the Chinese market. It's very important for us. It is in terms of Jensen Huang and Nvidia making a fortune selling chips

to Chinese customers. And now who's going to take over this market? Huawei. And Jensen Wang knows that Huawei is going to take over NVIDIA's market in China and in the production chains all across Asia as well. Because they are, just to give an idea which is immensely important, a little over two weeks ago in Shanghai they were telling me, look, it's going to take us between two and three years to catch up with the Americans making nano chips. The past two or three days, they are already talking about maybe before the end of the year, we're going to catch up with them.

Wow. It's absolutely, it's so, of course, this has to do with the Huawei offensive at the moment. Right, right. I mean, I know you've been traveling around the world, and I don't think you've been in the US, but do you have any idea if the US government or the US high-tech industry understands what you've just said? Not at the moment, Judge. I'm gonna try to find some time in the next few days to take a look at the tech press in the US and see if they are absorbing these news coming from Huawei. And the fact that Huawei basically is telling the Chinese market, markets all across Eurasia and global markets as well as they look what NVIDIA and or AMD from the US has said what they do,

we are capable of doing and soon we're going to be doing it even better than them. So when this starts to be absorbed by global markets, then this is going to be a mega bombshell. Let me ask you about Iran, where you're going very soon. Do you believe that if the Israelis attack Iran, the Chinese and the Russians will respond militarily? Not necessarily upfront. The Chinese know because the Chinese don't have a military alliance with Iran. They have a strategic partnership. And they need oil from Iran.

Absolutely. Oil and gas, Judge. Absolutely. In terms of selling oil and gas, Iran for China is a matter of national security. Extremely important. Russia and Iran is different. They signed this comprehensive strategic partnership late January in Moscow. It's not a military alliance as well, but there are provisions which President Putin famously called technical aspects that if Iran is attacked, Russia will help in, let's say, diplomatically several ways, over ground and underground and lateral at the same

time. I'm not sure the Trump administration is aware of that. This is something that, for instance, Putin can tell with cough directly. Very, very important. And, of course, make Trump understand that if there was an attack on Iran, let's say a US-Israel coalition, Israel cannot pull it off by themselves. This will be an attack against three bricks at the same time and three top bricks, what I call the new Primakov triangle, Russia, China, Iran. So the only person on the planet who can explain that to Trump via with cough is President Putin.

Which gives us a certain hope that an adventure like that, which will be suicidal for the US as well, will not be entertained by the Trump administration. and I guess I mean among the elites or the academics with whom you've associated about the special military operation in Ukraine and whether or not Donald Trump can bring about a peaceful resolution of it. Judge, your question would require a very, very long answer because there are doubts at the Politburo level. I'm not talking specifically about President Xi Jinping, but at the Politburo level and many academics as well about the motivation and the methodology of the Russian war in Ukraine, proxy war, etc.

But are they doing it, would we do it differently? And at the same time, there are a lot of people at people's liberation army level, or even retired colonels or generals etc. who are saying, no, we are learning a lot because we are next. We are learning from the Russians on an everyday basis how to conduct a war, which is a war that is demilitarizing the West. And in this particular in this particular aspect, it has been very, very successful. So there are serious divergences at the highest level in China about the war itself, about how the Russians are conducting the war,

if the Chinese will do it in a different way. And at the same time, they recognize that they are learning all the time. So in terms of if there's going to have a ceasefire, they understand that the notion of a ceasefire as it's being proposed by Trump is completely absurd because it doesn't address the root causes of the war, which the Chinese understand very, very well. The Chinese leadership understands everything that happened even before Maidani in 2014. And that explains why there was an SMO in 2022. People in the know, in China, they know this back and forth.

They may not agree with the methodology. It's different. Yes, please. You have taken a complex question with a very, very long answer and given us a very, very clear, distinct, relatively brief response. And I'm grateful for that. Will you be coming to us next week from Iran?

Yes. Well, I'll be there like, you know those scholars, young scholars that get scrolls from the big masters in China, they read the scrolls and they're learning. This is my attitude going to Iran. I'm going there to learn. I have a list of questions, some of them will be very hard for them to answer, including what really happened at the port of Bandar Abbas. Nobody is convinced that this was just negligence. Was it Mossad? Could have been. Could have been. You're talking about the explosion that killed about 75 and injured hundreds and destroyed a huge amount of fuel.

Yes, exactly. All right, well, we'll look forward to chatting with you from Iran. If you get an answer on that, you let us know immediately. I'm going to try to ask the IRGC, Judge. Let's see if they answer that. Good for you. I want to be a fly on the wall. Thank you, Pepe. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Judge. All the best. Wow. I don't even know what time it is in Shanghai, but there he is, the sharpest attack. Coming up at one o'clock this afternoon, Professor Glenn Deason. At two o'clock this afternoon, he's hot as usual, Max Blumenthal, and at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Music