Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : Triumph In Shanghai.

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Pepe Escobar : Triumph In Shanghai.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 Thursday, September 4th, 2025. Pepe Escobar joins us. Now, Pepe, before we start, where on the planet are you? Well, you should know, Judge, in all our audience.

I am time zone crazy, seven hours ahead of Moscow. I'm in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, which is right beside me. All right. So it's 9 o'clock in the morning here in New York, and where you are is 11 o'clock. At night, it's almost Friday. Yes, it's almost Friday. Wow. Well, thank you, Pepe.

Thank you for these long days, and thank you for accommodating the show's schedule. What has been your perception of the mood in Beijing? in Vladivostok, in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as they gather. Well, Judge, this is one of the most important weeks, not only in recent memory, we can say. Because the host, it was, we can call it the Russia-China week and the Eurasia week. It all started on Sunday in Tianjin, the Port City, which is an absolutely

an economic miracle 14 million people, a powerhouse 100 kilometers away from Beijing for the annual summit of the SEO, the Shanghai Corporation organization. Everybody was there. The top BRICS leaders were there. She, Putin,

Modi, Pesachan from Iran. So this was enormous. And it was as important as the BRICS summit in Kazan last year. So, There is a direct parallel because the BRICS last year in Kazan, they stepped up. And this year, the SCO also stepped up. So these are the top two multilateral organizations on the planet.

They are starting to coordinate and organize in minute detail our collective drive towards a multipolar, multinodal, as Ambassador. So Chas Freeman describes it correctly, a different world. And that's why this summit on Sunday and Monday in Beijing, Tianjin, was so important. And on the next day, Vladimir Putin was received as a mega guest of honor at the Jong Hanai in Beijing by Xi Jinping. That's the official residency of the presidency of China. It's an old imperial palace. When you are invited to the Zhonghanai and you have state meetings, this the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top level, you know.

Right. And all that translated to the parade in Beijing, which was extraordinary on the third on Wednesday, which was the day that the forum here in Vladivostok, where I am, started. So it's all, it's all interconnected. It's a geo-economic, trade, business, geopolitical, tsunami of information, of contacts, of organizing. of bilateral, trilaterals. We had, for instance, a trilateral between Putin C and Modi at the corridors of the SEO Summit in Tianjin.

So it's going to take quite a while for all of us to the whole thing to subsidize, and we start to look at the configuration of the global chessboard now is completely different. So as I understand it, the original idea of bricks was economic, whereas the original idea of Shanghai cooperation was security. Exactly. Are they melding together?

I mean, you're talking about the same countries, the same human beings, verbal threats hurled at them by the President of the United States, absurd tariffs hurled at them by the President of the United States, which is resulting, correct me from wrong, in unifying Bricks and Shanghai. Take it from there. Unifying it even faster than they were already doing it, Judge. They were already unifying it at a very progressive level last year prior to the summit in Kazan. And then after that, and then the Brazilians picked up the presences this year.

It was a bit slow for a while. But then, typical Brazilian style at the last minute, they made it. The summit was a real success in the end. And that was picked up by the SEO as well. The SEO gained momentum this past few weeks, especially, prior to the summit in China. And when China organizes a multilateral summit, it has to be impeccable. And it has to pack a bunch. And this one was particularly important because President Xi Jinping,

he announced a global governance idea, which is, I would say, the headline for the global governance is how to bury the rules-based international order. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Say that again, how to bury the rules-based Internet? What does that mean? Well, you should ask Jake Sullivan, Judge, or you should ask Tony Blinken. This is what they used to say for four years. Every day, we are defending the rules-based international order, which doesn't mean anything.

Never did. Because it's still the Empire of Chaos making the rules, and there's no order. And now, with Trump 2.0, it's even worse, because there are no rules anymore, as we all know, and as all the leaders of the global South, no. There's no order. There are no rules, and it's the law of the jungle. So it's two days ago, the president. Two days ago, the President of the United States ordered the United States Navy to obliterate a speedboat in the ocean in international waters because he believed it was carrying drugs ultimately destined for the United States.

There's no legal basis whatsoever for that. It arguably was an act of murder. I guess that's an example of what you mean. There is no rule-based international order any longer. Exactly, Judge. And this is seen by all the major players in BRICS, in the SCO, not to mention the major players, but the partners as well. The SCO has 10 full members that includes, for instance, Iran, India, and Pakistan, and Belarus.

It has two observers, Afghanistan, which is being brought inside the SCO family little by little. There's a Taliban delegation here in Vladivost. I met them this morning. They came here to do business. And Mongolia, immensely important because of the... Finally, China, Russian, Mongolia clinched the power of Siberia to mega gas project. It's the largest energy project on the planet. And now they finally clinched the deal.

This is the Siberian two pipeline. Siberia 2, that's the official. Which will be the longest pipeline on the planet. Do you think this came as a shock to the Trump people? Well, probably they didn't know much about power of Siberia 2, a judge. But the energy system and the energy multinationals in the U.S., they very much know what that means. And people in Europe who deal with energy also understand. the gas that originally would supply Europe via the Nord Streams,

now it's going all the way to China via the power of Siberia, which comes from the Yamau Peninsula, crosses Russia, crosses Mongolia. There is what they call an interconnector between the Russia side and China side, arrives in China and goes to all the regions of China. So the gas that should power Europe is going to power China. Well, so former German Chancellor Scholes shot himself in the foot. Yes. When he looked the other way as the American CIA and Navy destroyed Nord Stream 2,

and Europe will permanently suffer cold or not so warm winters as a result of this. Not to mention paying absurd prices, Judge. And the latest meeting between that toxic Medusa in Brussels, Wanderthi, and President Trump, it was, I would say, a serious suicide, in fact, because basically the Europeans committed to buy energy that the Americans don't have, by the way, $750 billion in three years.

They don't have that. At extortionate prices, instead of buying cheap, Russian energy via the Nord Streams. And coming back to your previous question, Judge, it's very important because this distinction between BRICS and SCO, now the term, it's true. The BRICS started as a geopolitical and also geo-economic mechanism. And the SCO started as a security mechanism, but basically against terrorism. I think for you and for our audience, it's very important a few dates.

The SCO was founded in June 2001. There was three months before 9-11, which solidified the concept of the war on terror. And yes, three months later, in a small pavilion in a park in Shanghai, there was very low key. It was only Russia, China, and three of the Central Asian stands, right? They said, look, we need to organize our anti-terror policy all across Eurasia, because they are terrorists everywhere.

And, of course, I remember very well. I used to travel in those areas, including Afghanistan at the time. And it was al-Qaeda land everywhere, absolutely. So the original mandate of the SEO is we're going to fight against terrorism, separatism, and extremism. But over these past 15, 18 years, it started to evolve as an economic integration mechanism. So today, the SEO is more about economic integration and economic projects than even fighting terrorism because more or less they control what's going on in Afghanistan, in the border areas of Pakistan,

in mountains of Tajikistan, where, for instance, the Russians pay very close attention to everything. So it's much more integrated. So what they really want is let's integrate geo-economically. And that's the parallel with Bricks, because Bricks is doing this inside with Russia, China, India, Iran, etc., but also in Africa, with South Africa, with the new African members, with Brazil. So this integration of the multipolar, multi-node world now, it's obvious for anyone to see, even people who don't follow politics anymore. And this is what people saw in Tianjin.

And this camaraderie between the leaders was very, very important. The fact that you can have Moni, Xi and Putin, holding hands and laughing in the corridors of the summit. In terms of the optics for all around the global south, enormous power. Wow. What is the, if there is such a thing, collective opinion out there of Donald Trump? Well, today, for instance, I spent the day to day at the forum here in Vladivostov, Church. We had just to give an idea of a normal day in Vladivostom. In the morning, you have an enormous roundtable about alternative payment systems. And you have Russians, you have Chinese, you have South Koreans.

And then a few hours later, you have another gigantic roundtable discussing the future of the Arctic, investments in the Arctic. Unfortunately, there were no Americans in the room because then they would understand how this is the Russian effort, but also a collective Eurasia effort. There were Mongolians, South Koreans. There are no American observers at these meetings? No, but I was expecting. In fact, before I came here, I was expecting, okay, this year, because at least there is a dialogue between Putin and Trump, there's going to be a sizable American delegation.

Without any Americans there, is it possible to put your finger on the post? Is there such a thing as a collective view of Trump? I can imagine what Modi thinks. We know what Modi thinks about what Trump just did. He went from best friend to worst enemy, almost. Trump issued a weird statement. Chris, can you put that full screen up, the one that contains the comment about the conspiracy.

This is the President of the United States. The big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and blood that the United States of America gave to China in order to help secure its freedom from a very unfriendly foreign invader. He's talking about Japan and World War II. The overwhelming majority of that fighting was done by the Chinese, not by the Americans, But whatever, many Americans died in China's quest for victory and glory. I hope that they are rightfully honored and remembered for their bravery and sacrifice.

May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Now comes the kicker, Pepe. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and King John Un as you conspire against the United States of America. You must mean collectively, Xi, Putin. and Kim. When the Russians were asked what they thought of it, they regarded it as a joke. Here's what Ushikov said with a very good English translation. Chris, cut number 16.

On social media, President Donald Trump, I sincerely hope not without a touch of irony, indeed not without a significant degree of irony, expressed that he extends his warmest regards to Chairman Xi Jinping and respectfully requests him to also convey his very best and most friendly wishes to President Vladimir Putin and to the esteemed chairman of state affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, respectively, in a truly diplomatic gesture. And once again, I think not entirely without a certain degree of irony, he explicitly stated that supposedly these three individuals were actively plotting a significant conspiracy

against the sovereign United States of America. Now, I want to say that no one was organizing any conspiracies, no one was scheming anything, there were no conspiracies. Moreover, no one even had such thoughts. None of these three leaders had such thoughts. Besides that, I can say that everyone understands the role played by the United States, the current administration of President Trump, and President Trump himself in the current international situation.

Was the consensus of Trump's bizarre statement that it was a joke, as Mr. Ushikov was indicating he uses the word irony, or was the consensus that Trump is off the rails again? Well, Ushakov, Judge, he's an old fox, very sophisticated, and this was a very polite and very elegant, non-response response, in fact. Yes, yes, it was very elegant, right? But they are master, and the old school in Moscow, they are masters at that. And they're being very patient. Everybody, Ushakov, Belosov, Peskov as a spokesman, everybody's being very patient. They know that Trump is under a lot of domestic pressure from neocons of all sides. They know that Trump doesn't see everything that's going to.

know, strategically. He doesn't understand really the strategic states. But the Russian way, okay, let's give him another try. And when you look at the battlefield, which is the key issue here, today, for instance, I was talking to the governor of Donetsk, Mr. Chertkov. I usually meet him during these summons. And I ask him directly the situation about, and he gave me Aushakov's style of response, basically saying, yes, we are advancing our own way. And we're going to come to a point in the next few months where negotiations will be inevitable. And we all know what that means. The Ukrainian front will collapse, absolutely. And it's a matter of the funds.

And these are people who know the terrain judge. And this collapse will occur on Trump's watch. You can blame Biden all he wants. I don't think anybody would believe that it's Biden's fault now that Ukraine collapses. He's been in the White House nearly eight and a half months. We don't even know how many billions of dollars in equipment, military equipment is still going there, but we know the pipeline is still going.

And we know Pepe, I don't want to get too far afield here, but and we know Pepe that he has authorized 3,500 medium range, offensive that can reach Moscow and St. Petersburg. Now, according to Ritter, They're not going to arrive for a while. They haven't been built. But what is the message sent to Putin when Trump publicly authorizes these things? Absolutely.

And the Russians, because they are very cautious and they're still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, they're going to see how these missiles are going to be used by the increasingly absolutely desperate, I would say terror entity in Kiev, SPU, GOR, everybody. the people who really control the show, not the puppet, Zelensky. But if we have a serious attack, for instance, in Moscow or in St. Petersburg, with some of these missiles, then the game changes instantly. And they're ready for that as well. But the Russians, Putin is saying this judge practically every day.

He was saying that in China every day. He repeated today here in Vladivostov. Tomorrow, Friday, it's the plenary session here in Vladivostov with Vladimir Putin, and there's going to be a Q&A after that. Everybody's very, very curious. What he's going to talk about? Yes. Here's what Putin said yesterday about Ukraine.

This is profound, Chris, cut number two. And after we, at the insistent urging of our Western European colleagues, withdrew our troops from Kiev, the situation immediately changed, and we were told, almost verbatim. Now we will fight until either you tear our heads off, or we tear yours off. I don't remember whether I've ever said this publicly or not, but that's roughly how it sounded. Only in cruder terms, but quite openly, and oddly enough, in a sort of comradly way. So now it's either us or you. Well, and this all continues. Wow.

Yeah, and he never speaks in these terms so bluntly. Yeah. Recounting what the Ukrainians said to our friend Sergei Lavrov, when Putin at the request of Biden and company withdrew his troops. If you remember this, very early on in the war from Kiev, rather than expressing gratitude, they threatened in very, very crude ways. And he revealed that yesterday. It's profound that he revealed it, don't you think?

Yes, and this was part of the conversation with Xi Jinping as well. This one-on-one in Beijing, one day after the SCO, and one day before, the absolutely outstanding military parade in Beijing was very significant. It lasted for a few hours, and of course they discussed the war in Ukraine in detail as well, because Putin is always briefing Xi about the war in Ukraine. In the beginning, listening to our Chinese academic circles, they were saying, yes, there's some diffidence in China about what do the Russians really want to accomplish in Ukraine. But now they understand it, finally. Because she now finally gets the big picture as well.

Yes, Judge, please. So forgive me for asking you this, and you don't have to answer if you don't. don't want to, but I keep seeing beautiful women walking behind you. Where are you at 1130 at night in Vladivostok? Well, Judge, this is the Far East in action. This is a beautiful hotel that was built by the Japanese and then was bought, because of sanctions, was built by a Russian billionaire. And this is one of their restaurants, which happens to be absolutely outstanding, with a view to the bridge and the car goes passing by.

And the girls are fantastic. The girls are fantastic. I explained to that, look, I need to be a good test. You manage to combine business and pleasure better than anyone I know. God bless you, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Judge.

All the best from the Far East. We'll see you next week. Where will you be next week? China. All right. We'll see you from China next week. Thank you, Pepe. Safe travels.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Wow. What a great man. A full day still ahead of us at 1 this afternoon on the killings outside of Venezuela, Anya Parenthold, at 2 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer, at 3.30, new time from what we originally posted, at 3.30 this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.