Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: The Shanghai Spirit - China Will Take No Bullying

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Pepe Escobar: The Shanghai Spirit - China Will Take No BullyingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025. Pepe Escobar will be here with us for just in just a moment from Hong Kong on Whether or not the United States can bully China But first this while the markets are giving us whiplash. Have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring in the past 12 months gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold that's not too late for you to buy yours. The same experts that predicted gold at $3,200 an ounce now predict gold at $4,500 or more in the next year. What's driving the price higher? Paper currencies. All around the world they are falling in value.

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It's time to see if gold is right for you. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Pepe, my dear friend, welcome here. Thank you very much for accommodating my schedule, although I guess we're also accommodating yours. It's the middle of night where you are. What good purpose... Chinese tea for all of you. All right. Thank you. What good purpose, if any, can be served by Trump's tariffs imposed on China? Well, no purpose at all, except for make China great again. Make China greater than 5,000 years again. That's it.

Well, as you know in our audience, I was in Shanghai last week and I am in Hong Kong this week and when you compare the former gateway to China here Hong Kong with Shanghai which is the cultural trade commerce business capital of China and what's been happening for the past two weeks or so, it's absolutely mind-boggling. And between them, my neighbors to the north, if you take the high-speed rail train here, Judge, you arrive in Guangzhou, the great metropolis of Guangdong province, in a little over half an hour, literally. The Canton Fair is going on in Guangzhou at the moment. 60,000 manufacturers, producers from all over China in a gigantic sci-fi sort of hangar selling to customers from literally all over the world.

This is the art of the trade deal in action in front of you when the whole planet comes to China to buy Everything that China produces can I can I? Be so bold as to modify the sentence you used of course the 60,000 manufacturers Chinese manufacturers selling to people all over the world except in the United States. No, there are a lot of Americans who came here and they are absolutely gobsmacked by what they're seeing at the fair. The thing is how they're going to bring this produce back to the

US escaping tariffs. So this is what's going to be the real deal. But they are buyers from literally all over the planet, especially the global south, much more than the global north, of course, Africans, Latin Americans, Central Asians, Caucasus, East Asia, Southeast Asia, of course, Africans, Latin Americans, Central Asians, Caucasus, East Asia, Southeast Asia, of course, our neighbors here to the south. And this proves that whatever happens, the global center of trade is China. And this is not going to change whatever they come up with. is not going to change. Whatever they come up with, a team at Trump 2.0 comes up with, is not going to change the fact. And on top of it, complementing everything, the diplomatic offensive. President Xi was in Southeast Asia last week.

Their Chinese delegations go into Central Asia soon. Preparations for the BRICS summit in early July in Rio are now on overdrive because the BRICS summit in Rio in only three months from now have an extraordinary chance diplomatically to counteract this war, this tariff war which is against BRICS, against the global South, against the global majority, in fact. Of course, the main target is China. And from Shanghai to Hong Kong, the perspectives are very different. Here, it's still, to a certain extent, very much Atlanticist and extremely Americanized. Don't forget that the Americans were promoting a color revolution here in Hong Kong in 2019.

And eventually it was squashed, but very, very complicated. And everything was being organized out of the gigantic American embassy here in Hong Kong. But the Chinese government is convincing the Hong Kong oligarchy, the ruling elites here, that their future is not with the US or with the West is as part of the greater Bay area development. Do you mean a Trump tariff supply to Hong Kong as well? Some of them, yes. Hong Kong is a very, very specific, it's an extremely complex problem and very specific.

It's a Trump shipment port. The port, as you know, as we all know, is absolutely gigantic. But cargo volumes now in Shanghai are even bigger than in Hong Kong. Until the handover in 1997, this was the place to do business in China. You have to come through Hong Kong, not anymore, especially for the past 10 to 15 years, and especially since Xi Jinping came to power. So the Beijing plan for Hong Kong, including Hong Kong, is to streamline Hong Kong, Macau, Zhuhai, and all the cities of the Pearl River Delta into what they call

the Greater Bay Area, which is an enormous cluster of everything of manufacturing services in the case of Hong Kong financial services marketing they have unrivaled experience in soft power and some of the best firms in the world they are they have their headquarters in Hong Kong So Hong Kong integrated with Guangdong province, our neighbors to the north and this Greater Bay Area. It's one of the major, three major clusters of China along with Shanghai, Yangtze Delta and Beijing, Tianjin in the north. This is what's driving the growth of China, that famous 5% a year, which they accomplished, by the way, in the first quarter, already 5%. And of course, they are transferring little by little

their know-how and some of their production change to the rest of China, to central provinces, and to Xinjiang in the far west as well. So none of that is going to change. And once again, if I can in 30 seconds judge, this war, the tariff war was more than expected. In fact, the Chinese were prepared for this war since Trump 1.0.

So they were not caught flat footed at all. And that's why the mix of trade overdrive with all the partners in the global South, plus the Canton fair, which is going on now, proves that everybody wants to come to China to buy everything that China is producing. And especially now, high-tech electronics and AI for the large consumer market.

Everybody's buying. Do the Chinese manufacturers and exporters attempt to get their product into the US via other countries with no tariffs or very low tariffs, like say Vietnam? You have to be like that from now on, absolutely. But don't forget that some of these Southeast Asian partners are also heavily taxed, especially Vietnam, Cambodia. For instance, this trip by sea last week was very important because he went to Malaysia. Malaysia is one of the key BRICS members now as partners. Vietnam also a BRICS member as a partner. And Cambodia because there's a lot of foreign direct investment, Chinese foreign direct

investment in Cambodia. And she went to all these trees and said, look, we have to have a concerted strategy to fight the tariffs. All of you, the ASEAN 10, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 10. By the way, Trump doesn't know what ASEAN means and this is on the record, right? And of course China together. And they all know that the fact that Russia is starting to invest and also cultivate Southeast Asia diplomatically and Putin says in every important forum every every two or three months he says the two great areas of development in the near future are Southeast Asia and Africa so Russia is involved in both so this is a bricks

coordinated strategy that now is picking up pace, very fast. What is the common understanding, either among average folks or elites in China, as to why Donald Trump did this? There are many aspects. First of all, fear and insecurity of a dwindling empire. Number one. Number two, the people who are around Trump, which are all synophobes, by the way. Miran, the guy of the Mar-a-Lago agreement, the chief of economic advisors, who came up with this plan, by the way, most of it. Peter Navarro,

which is a xenophobe, doesn't know anything about China. And even the secretary of the Treasury, Besanto, also doesn't know anything about China. These are the three top people around Trump on the tariff front. And Trump, as you know very well, Judge, he has a fetish with tariffs. And Trump, as you know very well, Judge, he has a fetish with tariffs. He actually believes that tariffs work. Try to convince him otherwise. Very simple. China and the Global South will convince him otherwise from now on. What will they do? Just ignore him?

I mean, I can't imagine President Xi calling him up saying, hey, Donald, let's make a deal. No, judge, it's not only President Xi won't call, but on the record, and this was a little over a week ago, maybe 10 days ago, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, they said explicitly on the record in one of their briefings, a tariff wielding barbarian cannot expect China to place a phone call. Wow. As far as I know, I never heard of this.

You referred to him as the emperor of tariffs. They are calling him a tariff wielding barbarian? They did, Judge. And what I was going to tell you is that I never heard the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, which is extremely polite in all circumstances, using such terminology. Never, never. And now it's all over the place. In Shanghai, I was listening

Barbarian once again from everybody from diplomats business men Top media people like the the people who do the Guancha Website, which is the best news analysis in China visited them. I talked to the new editor- chief, wonderful guy, he was with the Global Times, now he's with Guancha. Do you know how many readers they have with all their platforms put together, Judge? 200 million. Oh my God. The numbers in China are absolutely staggering, you know, everyone.

And this is a, it's a very small operation. They have three rooms, very, very simple, you know, old computers, a lot of young geeks. Some of them just returned from California. One of the guys who interviewed me, he was probably 20 years old, just came back from the US, you know, absolutely awesome. And they reach everyone all over the place

Funny you should talk about a 20 year old geek because there is I don't know how old he is He appears to be about a 20 year old Chinese geek fluent in American made a 92nd clip which is going viral over here. It's in English. I'm very anxious to hear your comments on it. It was posted on TikTok so we call him the TikTok guy. Chris? They rob you blind and you thank them for it. That's a tragedy. That's a scam. That's why I'm saying this right now. Americans, you don't need a turf. You need a revolution. For decades, your government and oligarchs wanted to ship your job to China.

Not for diplomacy, not for peace, but to explore cheap labor. And in the process, they hollowed out your middle class, crashed your working class, and told you to be proud while they sold your future for profit. And yes, China made money, but we used it to build roads, lift millions out of profit. From healthcare, raised living standards, we reinvested in our people. My family also benefited from it. What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, mansions with golf course driveways. They manipulated the market, dodged attacks, and poured billions into endless wars.

And you, you got stagnant wages, crippling healthcare costs, cheap dopamine, debt, and flagged wave properly made in China while they pick your pocket. For 40 years, both China and the United States benefited from the trade, the manufacturing, but only one of us used that wealth to build. This isn't China's fault. This is yours. You let this happen. You let the oligarchs feed you lice. Well, they made you fat, poor and addicted. Now they blame China for mess they made. I don't think so. I don't think you need another tariff.

You need to wake up. You need to take your country back. I think you need a revolution. Wow. This is one of the videos that has hundreds of millions of people watching in TikTok and many other platforms. TikTok is only one among dozens of similar platforms in China. Yes, this one is one of the top ten in popular. And what he says in what, two minutes, is better than the whole of US think tank land together. All of them.

Yes. It's certainly gotten more play than President Trump's articulated defenses of the tariffs. The thing that moved me the most, and I would correct him on this, where he said pouring billions into endless wars. We have poured trillions into endless wars, and we still are in Gaza, in Ukraine, and to support about 850 military bases around the world. China has about 10, we have 850. Exactly. Judge, you remember that famous audit that Ramso announced on the eve of 9-11? That never happened. Say again? announced on the eve of 9 11. That never happened. Say again

the famous audit of the Pentagon that Donald Rumsfeld announced on the eve of 9 11. What were they exactly and that audit never happened. money the Pentagon that went down the drain all over the planet literally. Tell me about the Russia-China strategic partnership. How do you think it would play out if Prime Minister Netanyahu changes President Trump's mind and persuades him to join the Israelis in attacking Iran,

I can't imagine China doing nothing with all the oil they get from Iran. Absolutely, because for China, Iran is a matter of national security, as well as top energy providers. Second, they have a strategic partnership. It's not a military alliance. And the partnership between Russia and Iran is also not a military alliance, but it's a treaty. Between China and Iran, they have negotiations at the highest level, absolutely, all practically at the same level that Russia has with China.

They know that if that attack would ever happen, it's an attack on the three of them. It's an attack on top three BRICS, Iran, Russia, and China, and an attack on BRICS who have strategic partnerships and very close ties among themselves. So obviously, we don't know what China would do. And China never, and the Minister of Foreign Relations, the Minister of Defense, there was never any hint of what they would do. But there will be a lot of underground support. Very similar to the response that I got in Yemen a few weeks ago from one of the members of the high political council when I asked him directly, do you have privileged channels

of communication with both Russia and China? And his response was essentially yes. So, can you imagine Iran with Russia and China? Well, that's a 10,000 yeses. Absolutely. in China? Well, that's at 10,000 yeses, absolutely. Especially, yes, please go ahead. Is the scandal involving the secretary, the American Secretary of Defense, revealing attack plans to friends, relatives, and in one case a reporter, is that playing at all in China or is it just considered an American domestic political matter? An American domestic, for instance, Guancha. Guancha, they follow American politics very closely and they have some of the best Chinese academics from Tsinghua University, Renmin,

Fudan, writing practically every day about domestic American politics. So this was seen essentially as another clownish performance by Hegson. And now he's reaching three Stooges territory very fast. Yes, yes. He's starting to be criticized by Republicans. Chris, you have the full screen. This member of Congress from Nebraska is a retired general. Russia and China put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top. And the number one target beside the president would be the Secretary of Defense. Russia and China are all over his phone and for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He's acting like he's above the law and that shows an amateur person. I find it unacceptable and I wouldn't tolerate it if I was in charge. The congressman's name is Don Bacon from Nebraska, a retired Air Force Brigadier General and member of the House Armed Services Committee. What he doesn't say is that...

I worked with Pete at Fox for 10 years, we have a lot of mutual friends, but I don't think this looks good for him. I think it's going to get... It does. Well, what our retired general doesn't say is that this goes on on Signal. And we all know that signal has back doors. Signal is a CIA operation, essentially. So obviously the Russians and the Chinese have access to CIA back doors. No question. Yeah. Well, if American military personnel are harmed

because of the revelation of attack plans. We have a very very very serious potentially criminal problem on our hands. Exactly and especially on revelations about an absolutely illegal war against Yemen. Yes. This war was not sanctioned by anybody, Judge. You know better than anyone. By the way, in one of his defenses of himself, Secretary Hegsef says, we've gone long, we've gone deep,

and we've been successful. You have, who have been there, he hasn't been there, you've been there, said that's absolutely not true. They have not been successful. You have who have been there, he hasn't been there, you've been there said that's absolutely not true. They have not been successful. It's absolutely not true because they don't have on the ground intel, this is something we already discussed, they don't know where the under the mountains storage for missiles are and these mountains are in okay I cannot say exactly where but they are not in Sana'a and they are not in the city of Sada in the northwest so they don't have intel on anything and they are bombing civilian targets they bombed a port the port of Issa. They killed over 100 people. It's a port, it's a civilian port.

And they had, I think, three million barrels of oil in storage at that port. And Yemen badly needs oil because their oil installations were attacked by the Saudis in the war that started in 2015, 10 years ago. So this is absolutely criminal in every respect. They are killing civilians and they are bombing civilian installations. And obviously not a word on American mainstream media about that.

And they're boasting about it and claiming that somehow by some abstruse, absurd line of reasoning, this enhances American national security. This is yet again the Trump administration doing a favor for Netanyahu. This is yet again a bizarre relationship with Israel costing the United States. Absolutely. Costing a national security. It's a matter of national security. And if something happens with the USS Truman, wow. Which is quite possible.

We had, this was very tricky because Yahya Sari, which we met him in Yemen. He's the military spokesman of Ansarallah. He did not confirm that. But the president of Yemen said that the USS Truman was hit. Obviously, no word from the Pentagon. So we really don't know what happens with American vessels in the Red Sea is a black hole. Nobody knows anything really. So anything might

happen and something very very serious and the Yemenis have what it takes to do something really really nasty. Wow. Pepe Escobar, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for staying up at all hours for us. Of course, you're accustomed to that. I am. But it's very funny, Judge, because in Hong Kong, everybody goes to, like it's midnight in Hong Kong, everybody literally goes to bed, except the guys who are in Hong Kong and Shanghai back across the street because they are following the

American financial market. Got it, got it, got it. Thank you Pepe. God bless you. Safe travels. We'll see you again next week. Thank you Judge. All the best. All the best to you. What a pip as we say in America. What a wonderful human being. Coming up at two o'clock this afternoon, Aaron Mate and at three o'clock, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC