The Duran Podcast - China happy to be rid of Biden White House

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

China happy to be rid of Biden White House

All right, Alexander. Let's discuss what is going on between the United States and China. We had the final meeting, the last meeting, between Biden and Xi Jinping in Peru and the APEC summit. And my sense of things is that Biden is living in La La Land, because he's talking about all the amazing progress that his administration has been. with China. And I actually think he used the word. He's very satisfied with the progress that they have made. Actually, I think he used those words.

And Xi Jinping in China, my sense is that they're very happy to see Biden off. They want to get rid of Biden. And they put down their four red lines, which to me is not only directed at Biden, basically saying, you're two-faced. You speak out of both sides of your mouth. We told you our red lines, and he kept on pushing us. but then it's also the red lines for the incoming Trump administration. So I think it was basically telling Biden, we're happy to see you go.

You knew our red lines. You provoked us and you pushed us. And now to the Trump administration, let us repeat again. These are our red lines. If you don't cross these red lines, then we can cooperate. And we can learn to get a little. along and work together. What are your thoughts on that meeting? I agree, except that I go even further in terms of the Xi Jinping Biden meeting.

I was, I would... What do you think? Oh, my good. Yeah, he's an impressive gentleman. All right. Yeah. The Xi Jinping Biden. Yeah. The Chinese readouts of the meeting is excoriating. One gets to sense that Xi Jinping has been, you know, it's all been building up inside him, you know, all through the four years of the Biden administration. And he absolutely laid into Biden at this meeting. I mean, calling him basically two-faced, a liar, dishonest, deceitful. I mean, the Chinese reeling out is just, I mean, it's frankly, it's almost rude in the tone that it's very unlike.

It is very unlike China, exactly. So I think that the Chinese are absolutely relieved and very happy to see the back of a president, a US president, they don't like and they absolutely don't respect. And you're absolutely right. They are sitting out their red lines and they're very clear and they are essentially the red lines we've all known about. But, you know, the Chinese are big even stronger about them. They're setting out those red lines for the Trump administration. They know they know the fact that many of the people who are going to be appointed to the Trump administration are known anti-China hawks.

sign of harks. Exactly. So they want to make clear to the Trump administration that China does have red lines and will enforce them. But I'm also going to say this. I think that, and I've said this before, I think that from a Chinese point of view, they would much rather be up against someone, Donald Trump, that they know can be confrontational and adversely. adversarial, but who conducts negotiations with a certain degree of good faith.

It's this constant duplicity that they've had from the Biden team that has really angered and frustrated the Chinese. As it has everybody else, by the way, outside the collective West. Pretty much every country around the world that's had to deal with the Americans, the Saudis, the Israelis even, other Arab states, the Iranians, the Brazilians even. We now see Xi Jinping is going to Brazil for the G20 meeting, and he sees to be on very, very good terms with Lula and with the Brazilians.

Pretty much everybody outside the collective West is the Indians as well, Modi. They've headed up to there with the Biden team and with this particular president. So I think the Chinese, tough-minded, are practical people as they are, they're already saying to the Trump team, these are our red lines. They're also communicating another message to the Trump team as well. We've had it in various messages and editorials that have been appearing in places like Global Times, that they're still looking to find some kind of way forward with the Trump team.

So there's both the mails fist and the velvet glove. They've been very careful to say, we're not refusing to talk. We're still willing to work with you if you are prepared to work with us. But they're not prepared any longer to put up with what they've had from Biden and his people, in which the United States, the Biden theme, appears to tell the Chinese, look, we want a good dialogue and friendship with you, and then the United States goes ahead

and does the exact opposite and starts taking all kinds of unfriendly steps, not just unfriendly steps, frankly outright hostile steps, against China, which leaves the Chinese feeling double-crossed. So, an interesting... situation, I think Chinese-U.S. relations are on a knife edge. They could actually improve. I mean, we could have an adversarial relationship. We could have arguments about trade, arguments about policies, on all kinds of things, but at the same time, an actual proper

dialogue as well. Or if, of course, we continue to see what has to be. happened with Biden. Well, the Chinese have made it very clear that they're just fed up and they're not going to put up with it anymore. But I do think that's what they expect. They expect a tough relationship with Trump, but certainly an improvement over the one they've just had with Biden. Let's walk out this way.

Can you get at any specifics as to, I mean, your idea. Yeah. Specifics. Your idea as to what you'd think the relationship is going to be. I mean, my sense is that we're not going to see a war in the four years. Yeah. Maybe we're going to see there's a possibility because we have a lot of China Hawks that we're going to see the buildup towards some sort of conflict or smash with regards to Taiwan and China. So you can definitely see a buildup that could take place in these four years of a Trump administration.

But during the four years that Trump is going to be president, what do you think is going to happen? You think Trump is going to try to contain it to just be? an economic conflict or an economic divorce, I think, is a better way to phrase it. Or do you think that the China Hawks aren't going to take command and we're going to see a real builder, which will take us to a point after Trump finishes out his second term where smashed with Taiwan is all but inevitable? How do you see this unfolding if you had to take a guess? I have absolutely no doubt at all that Donald Trump's preferred.

outcome is an economic divorce. I think that's what his vice president, J.D. Vance, also wants. They do not want a conflict over Taiwan and over the South China Sea. Bear in mind, the Trump doesn't seem to like Taiwan very much either. He said some rather negative things about Taiwan recently. So I don't think he's going to want to support Taiwan. Is that because the monopoly of the chips or the monopoly of the chips and the fact that they've also been free loading of the US. He doesn't like that. He says, you know, if you really do feel you face this enormous threat from China,

why are you a rich country spending so little on defence? Why are you relying on us all the time? So I get the sense that that is what Trump prefers. He doesn't want the United States involved in a conflict with China. And I think he does want an economy divorce. and I think in this policy, he's going to have the support of his vice president, who it's important to remember is likely to be the Republican Party's candidate in the next US election. So, you know, for president, I mean, we could be very well looking forward in four years' time to President Vance.

I mean, it's not a done thing. Lots can happen in four years. but everybody in the Republican Party, everybody in the bureaucracy, must be thinking about that possibility. So I think that's what Trump himself wants. Obviously, there are other people in Washington who probably would want to take a different approach. And there's a group of people in the Pentagon, in the Navy, who want a confrontation, an all-out war with China.

I mean, the Navy is actually training and preparing for it. I mean, a very alarming fact. There are some outspokenly antagonistic people to China in Congress. So it's not going to be an easy thing. And of course, Trump himself can sometimes, as we know, be pulled in bad ways. but I think again he is somebody who's very well connected to his electoral base

and he understands that his electoral base is not keen on a war be it over Taiwan or the Middle East or the South China Sea or indeed on any big subject anywhere at all they want their president to focus on the problems

of the United States States. They probably support tariffs. They want a re-industrialization of the United States. They want a return of jobs to the United States. They want that kind of thing, an end to economic problems, pressures, the inflation crisis, all of those things. They're not seeking a conflict with Taiwan. And whatever... Trump's personal feelings, and it's important to say that he actually got on with Xi Jinping quite well. I think that he understands that. He is someone who understands the feelings of his voters very well and conveys to them the sense that he's on their side. And that's why they voted for him.

He's present. Final question. Not many people talk about Trump and Bricks. Maybe there is no policy that has been formulated with regards to Trump and Bricks. But you never hear it reported on it very much. It's Trump in Russia, Trump in China, Trump Iran. But what do you think Trump and Bricks is going to be? Or is there going to be a Trump in Bricks?

No. Is the administration just going to brush it off? Or do you think they're formulating? some sort of a policy as to how to deal with pricks. What? Positive or negative? I don't know. What's your thought?

They haven't formulated a policy, but they can't ignore it either. It's something that hasn't really gone up in, it hasn't really, you know, be noticed by them because it's not been part of the political conflict in the United States, which over the last four years, winning it, has. obviously been their priority. I mean, because the media doesn't report. The media doesn't report it. It's not a big story in the United States.

And as I said, Trump himself, for him getting elected president a second time, has obviously been the thing that he's been most worried about. But now that he is president, he is going to have to think about it. And he's going to have to think about it's a lot. And I'm going to again make my own, express my own view, which I know, some people won't agree with, but it is mine, which is the Trump's instinct when looking at this is going to be to try and to find some means to cut a deal. That is what he always looks to do. Is that around the dollar? Like, what do you mean by cut a deal?

Car do you talk about access, having access again to Swift, for example. Yeah. Russia, yeah, trying to prevent bricks from creating their own messaging system, Yes, their own payment system, trying to slow them down. Yes. What do you mean by cutting a deal with them? Basically, trying to get the brick states to continue to use the dollar for a certain amount of trade. Trying to sort of set up guard rails

so that it's understood that the brick states will continue to use the dollar for certain things, perhaps for trade. trade in grain, for example, or trade in oil outside certain regions, that kind of thing, in order to continue to provide support to the dollar in that sort of way. And the interesting fact is that at his long four-and-a-half-hour marathon in Valdai, at the SOTCHI at the Valdai Conference, Putin actually seemed to open up that possibility. He went out of his way to say that the bricks weren't turning their backs on the

dollar. They weren't seeking to deprive the dollar of reserve status. What they're doing, in effect, is that they're protecting themselves and ensuring themselves against the continued use by the United States of the dollar as an instrument of economic warfare against themselves. So that's what Putin said. So that leaves open away. So the US can say, look, we're not going to do this anymore. Sanctions have gone as far as they will. We're not going to try and push you further.

In fact, we might row back a little. We could ease some of the energy sanctions against the Russians, for example, which, as I suggested, could have an effect. on reducing the oil price, which would be good for the United States. It would take some of the pressure off inflation, for example. And in return, the BRIC states can say, right, look, we understand that. We understand that Russian oil can be trading freely again,

and we're happy for the Russians from this point on to continue to accept, to a certain extent at least, payment for that oil in dollars, as has been the case before. So something like that. Now, the Russians, of course, and the Ricks countries will continue to work on their financial and trade architecture. Outside the dollar, because they know perfectly well that a future administration can change the policy all over again. But in the meantime, if they do want a stabilisation, of their relationship with the United States and with the Trump administration. One can see how it might work and it could also work for the Chinese too.

All right. Let's end the video there, Alexander, right as we finish crossing the bridge. Okay. All right. Don't remember that look is that. Subscribe to this channel, share this video and check out Alexander's channel. check out my channel take care everybody