The Duran Podcast - China's tariff war diplomacy w/ Professor Kerry Brown (Live)

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

China's tariff war diplomacy w/ Professor Kerry Brown (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander Mercuris in London. And joining us on the Durand for the first time, we are very honored to have with us. Professor Kerry Brown, he is a professor of Chinese studies and a director of the Lao China Institute at King's College, London. Professor Kerry Brown, thank you for joining us on the Durand. It is a pleasure to have you with us. Thank you. And we go ahead, Alexander. No, it is an absolute and very great pleasure,

and I should say that Kerry and I know each other, and that's why I will be referring to him by his first name. And I have a link to Professor Kerry Brown's books and all of the work that he has been doing in the description box down below. So definitely follow Professor Kerry Brown, and I will also add the information as a pinned comment when the live stream is over. Quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, on Rumble, on YouTube, and on the Duran.orgals.com.

And a big shout out to our chat moderators as well. Peter, I see you in the chat. Thank you for helping us to moderate. Alexander, Professor Kerry Brown, let's talk about China and the trade tariff wars, Alexander. Absolutely, because we have had an extraordinary couple of weeks. We had a situation where we had a liberation day, as Donald Trump called it. He imposed tariffs, 10% tariffs on most countries around the world. He then went ahead and started to impose what he called reciprocal tariffs on many of the United States as trading partners. It then became increasingly clear that the country that he was

really targeting, or rather that the United States was actually targeting, because exactly what the dynamics within the administration were, we don't really know, and we're not really going to spend time on that today. But anyway, it became clear that the ultimate target was China. We started with 54% tariffs. They then went up and up. They're now apparently 145% tariffs. There's talked that some goods are at 245% tariffs. Other goods have been exempt. exempted from these tariffs, but not the 20% tariffs that had been proposed earlier. China imposed its own reciprocal tariffs, its own retaliatory tariffs. Trade between these two countries has essentially come to a stop.

And yesterday we got the first signs from Trump, from President Trump, that the United States is preparing to start to scale tariffs down. Now, the best person to discuss all of this with, I think, is Professor Brown. He knows China extremely well, as I know. He's worked there. He's been there many times. He is familiar with many things about China. And I should say that once again, I wonder whether the decisions that were made in the lead up to all of these tariff decisions in the United States were made with a proper understanding of China.

China, of the way the government works there, of the kind of decision-making that takes place there, and most important of all, of the nature of the Chinese economy. Because there seems to have been an assumption that the United States was in a position of strength and advantage over China, which I think it is becoming increasingly clear, was not really true. So let's go straight straight in. Kerry, we've only got you, I know, for a certain amount of time. So where are we? I mean, are the Chinese going to say to themselves after what Trump said yesterday that, you know, they're on the brink of victory in this tariff wall? Because that's what I think a lot of people are saying. And have they in effect called Trump's bluff? Is that how they're going to see it?

and why would they feel that they were in a position of strength? There are three big questions, but shall we start with the politics and then go over to the economics, perhaps a little later? Great, well, thank you, Alex, and it's good to be here. As you say, we've known each other for a long time. I mean, China, I think, was relatively well prepared for Trump too. it had been the subject of quite a lot of moves by Trump in the first administration up to 2020

and that resulted in a deal at the beginning of 2020 which was scuppered by the pandemic the first trade deal between China and America and so I think that they had gamed what might happen and were well prepared for what might happen I mean they're in America's sites because they're number two in terms of economic size and I think they're about 70 percent to 70, 75% of the size of the American economy. If you think that's always a difficult moment, the USSR only ever got to about 60, 62%, I think, of the American economy before, you know, kind of retreating.

And Japan, I think, at its peak in the late 80s, early 90s, was about sort of late 60s in terms of percentage. So America gets very nervous when, you know, power starts creeping up and becoming almost a parity with it. it, though I think the excited talk about America and economy being overtaken by the size of the Chinese economy. I mean, I don't think that's likely any time soon. Well, has China won? I don't think that they're really looking at it that way. It's a difficult moment for their economy, and these tariffs are not great news for anyone. I mean, I think that's their attitude, that this is

really a kind of strange approach. And I think that they are quite surprised, like a lot of people, by how the American administration have done this and really why they're doing it. I think that they will not declare victory because they're aware of the psychology of the moment. You know, it's better that they talk constantly of being a kind of bidable member of the international community and all the rest of it because they're already aware that there are pretty hawkish voices in the United States that, you know, have figured them out as the big enemy. So I don't think that they want to bind that narrative. they don't want a kind of Cold War 2.0.

They're not going to turn up for it, I don't think. I mean, they do know, though, that America is extremely powerful and forceful, and so they don't want to kind of pick fights that they don't really want to win or can win. So I think it's a difficult moment. Xi Jinping has been traveling to countries in the region, Cambodia, I think, and other neighboring countries. China's largest trading partnerships now are in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,

not the United States. The United States trade figures two-way were about $550 billion, US dollars, I think, in the last year, from a peak of over $650 billion in about 2021-22. But structurally, there's always been the issue that Americans buy more Chinese goods than they export to China. I suppose the final thing I'll say about this is that, you know, kind of China has thought of, you know, its dream really is a world where it has managed

relations with America, but it's not dependent. So in a sense, they mirror each other. And it's not like China and America are sort of asymmetrical in how much they want to deal with each other. I think they both have at some levels of antipathy. And so I think that what they're really looking for is a sort of almost like a dual structure or spheres of influence as you like, where, you know, China has its world, and America has its world. their interface is not huge. For China, that would be the Belt and Road Initiative world, which America is not a part of. It would be the world of the global south. We used to call it, I don't know what we call it now, where it has pretty good trading relations in Africa,

Latin America, in the Asian region. And I suppose the problem for everyone else is that we all kind of fit into that structure, but we're not really buying into the dominant American and Chinese views. We kind of still like our multi-polarity, even though the two biggest players don't. And so, for instance, for Europeans, I mean, we are in this sort of kind of weird crossfire at the moment where America is giving us problems, China is giving us problems, and we kind of have to duck and dive a bit. So for all of us, it's pretty kind of precarious. It's interesting. You mentioned spheres of influence, because what you probably don't know is that we did a program, Alex and myself, on the Duran.

some months ago, shortly after Trump became president, in which we said that it seemed to us that Trump himself and the administration there was also thinking increasingly about spheres of influence. In other words, that they are not really seeking any longer to try and pursue this project of being everywhere all the time, in every place, you know, the unipolar moment and all of that. and that they are also thinking of spheres of influence in North America,

perhaps in South America, the whole Greenland story and all of that. And that is true. If the Chinese are also thinking about spheres of influence, and the Americans are thinking of spheres of influence, then one would have thought that there is a possible basis for some kind of agreement or consensus between them. I mean, it becomes a question of marking out what the relative spheres of influence are, or is that going to see, is that being too simple?

No, I mean, I think in trading terms, economic terms, you might be able to get that. I mean, it's clear that that moment of WTO-led, sort of multilateral globalized sort of economic exuberance, if you want to call it that, in goods and services, and, you know, the economy generally is kind of dwindling and it's fading by the day. And I mean, I think China bought into that in a way more maybe than we ever realized and was successful at it. I mean, it kind of did the game well. It didn't bind to the underlying values, but it certainly played the game well and was an effective sort of multilateralist, at least in terms of trading investment. I mean, I think the problem now is, of course, that we kind of have this

multidimensional situation where we do have to have some kind of global structures for dealing with the environment, for instance, no matter what America's view is at the moment, dealing with nuclear proliferation, dealing with AI. I mean, those sort of big themes, you know, existential themes for humanity's future, we're going to have to kind of find a common framework to deal with those because we're all for one and one for all. We either kind of deal with them collectively or we don't deal with them, you know, so we're all together there. But we do. as you say, have this sort of weird kind of spheres of influence where China has great traction in the global south. I mean, it had a huge summit last year for African countries,

I think 53 of the 54 nations in Africa, attended head of state or head of government level. It's active in Latin America now. I mean, it's kind of Huawei, the telecoms provider, is very active in Latin American ways. It's not active in Europe or America. you know, China is enormously important throughout the Asian region. I mean, you just said the biggest trillion dollars of trade with ASEAN. So, you know, that world is not going to kind of go away. China is a significant economy. And it's going to continue to be a significant economy for Europe.

I mean, whether we like it or not, for one reason. And that is because while we're all kind of hammering on about, you know, goods and trade and bartering and stuff that's been the case since the Roman Empire, actually there's a whole new world with Chinese technology predominant China puts something like 450 billion US dollars a year into research and development I think Britain's figure is you know about 20 billion China is producing AI like deep seek I mean it is significant I mean the old world that we hear politicians of some shades of opinion in Britain bang on about of you know China being an IPR thief

and you know kind of coming and taking our stuff is over I mean it is over It is now China producing significant technology that matters to us. And I think that changes everything. I suspect when history is written, the tariffs will not be a big deal, but DeepSeek emerging from a clear blue sky in late January will be a big deal. That will be the moment. And that took a trillion dollars off the US kind of companies listed on the stock exchange. That was a big, big moment.

And that's the fight that China is probably in a good place to win that. produces more STEM subject students than any other country. It's got an incredible generation of highly educated young people now coming into the workforce, into politics. The party secretary of Shanghai, Chenjin, is a graduate of Imperial College and environmental science. I mean, you know, he's now on the Politburo. I mean, it's incredible how deeply penetrated this understanding of the importance of technology innovation is. And China is changing the paradigm because it is one-party system, you know, very autocratic, very problematic to us politically, but it's innovating, and that wasn't expected to happen.

What is the condition, the overall condition of the Chinese economy? Because you hear incredibly contradictory things. You hear people say that the Chinese economy is a house of cards, that it's built on insecure financial foundations, that it's likely to collapse fairly quickly. Every year I read people say that Chinese economy is about to collapse. Alternatively, you get the other view that China is all-conquering economy that's out to dominate everything and everywhere, and that its growth rate is, you know, incredibly fast. What is the truth here? Because it's very difficult sometimes to tell. Yeah, I remember going around the Palace Museum in Taiwan, in Taipei years ago.

And, you know, that's after the Civil War, that was the place where a lot of China's greatest treasures went. And the curator said to me, with Chinese art, it's always the detail that matters. So with Chinese economy, it's always the detail that matters. So it's a tough time for China. I mean, no doubt about it. I mean, I was there, you know, last August and September. I mean, I think you can see that the housing market is not great. Someone in Shanghai told me it had lost, you know, something like a quarter of its value.

And that's a big, big hit because that's where a lot of household wealth is. you can see that, you know, there's obviously stress in the labour market, 20 million, apparently young graduates who can't find work, I heard. I mean, these are sort of an anecdotal. It's hard to get hard data. The 5% growth rate figure, which was heralded last year, people are very skeptical about that, and local government debt. I mean, an academic in Chen Jun told me, you know, it's like unimaginable amounts of local government debt.

Sure. But as another economist told me years ago, you know, if you stopped the show today, if you said, right, everyone stop, the whole economy would collapse. But then that will probably be true of every economy. It's a dynamic and organic kind of situation. And there's so many moving parts that you can't really kind of take a cool, you know, hard assessment. So I think the Chinese economy today has two, well, one great potential source of growth, which matters to China and the rest of the world. and that's consumption. Consumption has been 40% of GDP for as long as I've ever dealt with China.

Chinese people tend not to spend. They don't have good social welfare. I mean, the health service is often very precarious. They're always saving for the perennial rainy day. And so, or the sort of proverbial rainy day. And I think, you know, that's what the government needs to sort of, you know, if it could raise that by five percentage points, yeah, a time of feast would be upon us. And actually the rest of the world would also really want to get into that market because of the use of services and other goods.

So Chinese consumption is the great sort of magic box, sitting at the centre of the world. And no one quite has the key. The Chinese government doesn't have the key. We don't have the key. But maybe together we could kind of crack it open. And I mean, that I think is always going to be sitting there as the sort of final carve. The Chinese government can do things about that. Just finally, I mean, the Chinese government is not some monolithic kind of beam off that's sitting.

it's the top of everything and pulls its levers and everything magically happens. It's a very dynamic kind of complex situation. Earlier this year, non-state companies, you know, people like Alibaba, Huawei, Deep Seek, in fact, were summoned to a meeting, I think in February with Xi Jinping, in which he started talking about the importance of, what, he calls it, the private sector. And I think there is an acknowledgement, you know, that they produce most of the jobs, they produce most of the research and innovation, they produced most of the growth now. And they're going to be important.

And they have had a tough time in the last few years for political and other reasons. But I think they're going to be very significant going forward. They've already got more legal protections. You know, these are going to be the people that I think matter to us. And they're going to be the people really leading this story going forward. So the Chinese economy, you know, like you said, everyone's been predicting its demise for a long time like Mark Twain's death. But, you know, like he said when he read, he's a bit true. Well, I mean, that news was a bit precipitate.

I don't think the Chinese economy is in a good position, but I don't think it's in a terrible position. And let's face it, if it did go through a huge collapse or great problems, we'd all be influenced by that. We'll all be impacted by that. It's not a great thing. So I think it's good that they're trying to do something to energize growth. And I think that they've stabilized things. We'll probably see more developments as a year go on to improve the situation a bit. What about the political system?

I mean, because again, this is the other thing, especially in, you know, the kind of people that you write articles in British and American newspapers. They don't like the Chinese political system. Is it under stress in China? Is it able to evolve and manage this period of difficulty that you spoke about? How strong is it in terms of Chinese society? because many, many people, I suspect, Walt wants to see it go. Is it going to go anytime soon? Well, wow.

Oh, God, here we go. It doesn't look like it. I mean, it looks like Xi Jinping is well entrenched. I mean, at some point he'll disappear, probably shuffle off his mortal coil. But, I mean, he's, what, 71, 72. So he's a decade younger than the leader of the free world, Mr. Trump, even though I believe Mr. Trump thinks that Mr. Xi is an elderly Chinese sage. Actually, one of the great ironies is that Xi Jinping is one of the very few global leaders

that Mr. Trump has said uniformly nice things about. Thinking on Fox News about 18 months ago, he said that Mr. Xi is a handsome man. And recently he said, you know, in one of his messages that Mr. Xi is a smart guy, he has never said, I would bet that he's never said a nasty thing about Mr. Xi Jinping. So that is the sort of geosy psychology that we're living with now, you know, this sort of strange narcissists versus a sociopath, I suppose. I mean, the political system, I mean, it's sort of, you know, it's relatively new. If you think in dynastic history, what it's been in there for 76 years, this current system.

But it's shown resilience up to a point. Yes, it's possible that tomorrow some great conflagration could happen and the whole thing could disappear. But, I mean, I guess that's true anywhere. I mean, up to a point, I think that the issue really is that, Institutionally, the only thing in China that really exists is the party, if you think of national institutes. Nothing else has the kind of coherence to the army, civil society, even financial institutions. They don't have the kind of resilience of the party. It's very dominant.

And that institutional monopoly, I think, is very important to kind of, you know, sort of point out. You mentioned, you know, the sort of aims of some audiences in the West. And we've had that a lot in the last five years. And I'm sure you've covered it a lot in others, other parts of your podcast. I mean, you know, we just love our fairy stories, don't we? We love good, bad, you know, these lovely binaries. You know, we do sort of want a world where, you know, kind of we can put, you know, these very, very clear labels, whether we like or dislike something as Westerners,

as good enlightenment Westerners. But I think that China sort of evades that in a way. I mean, it's a bit sort of more difficult to deal with because of cultural unfamiliarity, basically. And I suspect, if we kind of, you know, take the view of history at this moment, it's not the Chinese economy that was ever a problem. It's not the Chinese politics was ever a problem. It's a cultural issue. It's a cultural issue. And at the heart of it, America's issues with China are cultural. I mean, I don't think they're political.

I mean, that's a sort of like a facade. what you have is, you know, kind of fundamental differences and how the world is viewed. You have a sort of Judaic Christian, you know, kind of mindset of the Enlightenment West, quite uniform. And, you know, there's massive differences between different parts of that, as you well know, it's a kind of world that accepts some fundamental tenets of, you know, kind of how the world is viewed. In China, you have the victory of hybridity and a sort of syncretic view, you know, Taoism, Confucianism, Marxism, Lenism in recent years, Buddhism. I mean, they've always existed since the time of the Han Dynasty

2000 years ago in a sort of accommodation, a great kind of accommodation. And that is a fundamental thing that Europeans, when they first engage with China in the sort of 16th and 17th century, mostly Jesuit priests like Mathieu Ricci, were always sort of struggling with this, you know, what do Chinese believe? Well, they got three or four different answers. It was never very easy. Today I think we have the same thing. We have this idea that, oh, the Communist Party of China, well, what does it really believe?

What is Xi Jinping thought for the new era of these ideologies? It's often difficult to kind of really kind of make sense of them as outsiders. And I think that that will not go, that fundamental deep-seated structure of, you know, the Chinese world view, which is underpinned, as you know, by centuries of, you know, kind of tradition, philosophy, You know, it's a written culture going back 3,000 years. This is not something we can just dismiss. It's, you know, extremely powerful kind of cultural identity. I think that that is the thing that is sort of looming over this.

Just finally, the great idologue of modern China, one of the most important and influential figures in the world today, who very few people heard of is Wang Huning, who is the great idologue of contemporary Chinese identity politics. And I think really behind that is it's not about what you think, not necessarily about anything but what you feel. And for China in this period, to be Chinese is a cool thing. So America, you know, beating you over the head with its tariffs and picking you out and going nuts at you is cool because it's better to be feared than to be, you know, laughed at.

And I think Chinese, at some level, they do buy into that. Xi Jinping has been quite effective messaging this idea of, you know, the strong man facing down this kind of onslaught from America, which is culturally, you know, kind of rattled. Interesting. Now that, of course, brings us to the clash, or as it's referred to the clash in the Pacific. This is being talked about an awful lot in the United States. I mean, lots of talk about, you know, the need that the United States has to come to some understanding with the Russians is so that they can relocate their forces to confront China in the Pacific.

There's Elbridge Colby, who is now, you know, of the theorist behind all of this. And he's now been confirmed and is now in the Pentagon, and he's going to be increasingly influential. What are the Chinese make of all of this? We hear lots about Chinese military buildups. The Chinese have aircraft carriers. They've got apparently fifth-generation fighter jets.

They're now working on sixth-generation fighter jets. There's worries in the United States that they're out-producing the US in terms of shipbuilding and ship construction. Is there something to be worried about? I mean, is this, do the Chinese fear that there might be a military confrontation with the United States?

And, well, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean, that's again, another complicated question. I mean, I certainly feel there are, you know, plenty of people in Washington and probably in London and elsewhere who believe Chinese hard, is a real, real problem and a real threat. And I'm not dismissive of some of their views. But I guess here's the facts, right.

I mean, China has this massive military, but it hasn't deployed it since 1979. I mean, that's a very weird thing. The world's second best-funded military. And as you just said, you know, very, very, you know, kind of good new technology with these stealth fighters and what have you, hasn't been used in any combat, you know, sort of experience at all.

I mean, it's not been deployed in Vietnam in 1979. That wasn't successful. You could argue that the last time China had a major operation outside its borders was the Korean War from 50 to 53. So this is an untested military. That's issue number one. Issue number two is that, I mean, China's sort of emergence as a sea power from the 1980s is also very new. Before that, for centuries, it was a land power. It didn't have naval assets. So we're working. in a new paradigm. China has more vessels than the United States, though of course its technology is still a long way behind

and nuclear submarines is way, way behind the United States. But still this is a very, very new feature. And so it is not strange that its kind of appearance suddenly in the blue waters around the country with meaningful, you know, projection

of power is unsettling and is causing all sorts of issues. It is not strange that China would regard the South China Sea area, at least part of it, as an area of key strategic importance to it. We would not be happy if vessels of unfriendly nations were coming close to our borders. The United States certainly wouldn't like it if they were hovering around Hawaii or the coast of California, and yet China feels that its coasts are not properly protected, particularly around Taiwan.

And that brings us, of course, to the great tinderbox, because Taiwan is the big issue, right? That's what it's all about. And the emotional and symbolic importance of reunification with Taiwan is the thing that is likeliest to kind of set off everything else. What is the status of Taiwan? Well, as you know, it's kind of ambiguous. It's de facto independent. We, Britain, America do not recognize Taiwan's independence.

We recognize, you know, this one China policy which leaves everything slightly kind of hazy. Keep on saying we don't sort of take a view on which one is the real China, but we say that they have to resolve their issues peacefully until either side agree on the common thing, then, you know, nothing should happen. I guess at the moment that is under vast stress because the Trump White House is

very, very flaky on this. I don't know what Tom Colby's views are on it. I think he has written almost as though Chaiwan is a negotiable commodity, you know, that America would say, right, we can do a deal with the United States and Taiwan, you know, basically you'd be part of that. That is very, very speculative at the moment. But the way that Trump and Vance speak, I mean, their kind of geopolitics is very transactional. And I suspect that that suits China absolutely fine because it could probably think of this as part of a deal.

Why I would think that would be a real catastrophe is that, of course, the 23 million people on Taiwan would not think of them as being parts of a transactional deal. They have been a democracy since the 1990s. A very successful democracy, actually. Probably a more vibrant democracy than anywhere else, really, at the moment. I was at the presidential elections in early 2024. They're incredible dynamism. They are in a really, really precarious situation.

It is possible that China might make moves and blockade, might even do a military attack on Taiwan. I think that's still unlikely if that happens. in a completely new geopolitics, because we would have crossed the line between China being speculated as an offensive power to actually being one. That is a different world. We can accuse China, but it's not guilty really. It's guilty of skirmishes and doing things that look like they're offensive, but they're not actually offensive. It's not attacked anyone. But once it attacked Taiwan, that will go in a second. How strongly do the Chinese feel about Taiwan? I mean,

Is it just a governmental thing? Is it something that has wide attraction within Chinese society? I was told by a Chinese person that she does not know a single person in China who feels that Taiwan is not part of China. I'm talking about mainland China now. But that obviously is what she said. I mean, I don't know how representative she is. But how strongly does China feel about Taiwan?

Would they fight for Taiwan? Yeah, I mean, from social media and from as much as you can see in media or voices from outside of China by people representative of mainland views, you know, the views on Taiwan are strong, the sort of sense that it is part of China and should not be broken apart from it. I mean, the historic veracity of that is profoundly questionable, but this isn't about history. This is about the here and now and about, you know, the kind of sense that China's moment of renaissance and, you know, resurrection is here and this is an issue unresolved in the Cold War that needs to be sorted out because it will mean that China is once again complete and the mythic great China entity exists again. I mean, I think that Chinese would regard it as a red line if the president of Taiwan currently William Lightingda was to declare independence. I mean, I don't think he

will, but I mean if he did, then they would do something. And if an American president was to decide to put an embassy in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan Island, they would do something then. They have used the strategy in recent years of incremental pressure. I think my suspicion is that they believe the West is in decline, rightly or wrongly. You know, that might be a great misapprehension, or misunderstanding, but I think they see everything in Washington at the moment as signs of decline. And that has bolstered their idea that they just wait because we're all going basically get weaker and weaker and China will be able to then, you know, win this battle without needing to do anything because it will say we're, you know, a powerful, strong country now

everyone else is falling apart and the Taiwanese will vote with their hearts and rejoin. I mean, that's fanciful, very unlikely, but I mean unlikely things happen all the time these days. So I think, I suspect that was the pathway. At the moment, though, we have to stick with the status quo. I'm sort of very insistent, you know, this is what we've got. We have to kind of basically have a framework where the outside world just leaves this issue alone. I think it's unlikely that Xi Jinping, despite all the talk by these retired generals, is going to launch a big attack on Taiwan in 2027, I think that's unlikely. But I mean, if America continues to be extremely capricious and unpredictable,

China might think it's got an opportunity and do something. That's extremely, you know, worrying. Do you think in America they understand this? Because it isn't just the Trump administration. I mean, the Biden administration was almost, well, I would say even more aggressive in some ways about Taiwan. Biden spoke about the United States having some kind of obligation to defend Taiwan, having some kind of security agreement with Taiwan. And Trump, as you rightly say, has never spoken badly about Xi Jinping. Biden did repeat. I mean, he called him a dictator. He said rude things about him in Congress. So there seems to be a kind of continuity here, specifically on Taiwan within the United States. And I gather that what's his name? Joseph Wong was recently in Washington and he was, you know, met U.S. officials.

For those who don't know, is Taiwan's foreign minister, except, of course, China doesn't recognize him as a foreign minister, nor in theory does the United States, but they nonetheless meet with him. So do people in the United States in European understand how important this issue is and how important it is that it be handled carefully? Because I have to say I read articles every day, including in our British media,

which basically say that we should stand by Taiwan, and if Taiwan, you know, basically implying, if Taiwan wants to secede from China, that's its business. And we have some sort of obligation in that case to support it. Well, I mean, I think once upon a time we could say we were ideological allies with Taiwan because being fellow democracies, though you have to say that those ideological affinities these days are more and more, you know, sort of confusing and hard to really know what they're about. I think these days with Trump, it's, as I said, more transactional kind of situation, and he has mostly focused on trying to get, you know, Taiwanese semiconductor prowess,

which is very significant, you know, the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company, TSMC, trying to get them to shift some of their production to America. And, I mean, sort of what he's most spoken about, tariffs on Taiwan were about 32% when they were at that level. on China were 34% before things escalated for China and then de-escalated for Taiwan. But, you know, it's kind of very, very confusing. Do Americans understand Taiwan? Well, I mean, I think that they, there are a group of Americans who see Taiwan as the final bastion, you know, where they're fighting against the Red Communists,

and this is the island that has to be defended no matter what, you know, the world's largest aircraft carrier. It's called Unsinkable. there's that group. I don't think they're that influential in Washington now. I mean, I think they kind of faded. And then you've got the group who are probably more about why are we committing resources to defending this remote place that's not really central to our interests. I mean, there's a Taiwan Relations Act from 1979. I mean, America recognized Taiwan diplomatically from 49 to 1979, and then very quickly it changed to recognizing Beijing, and it still felt it had obligations

towards Taiwan, so it had this, TRA as it's called, that means it has to sort of, you know, consult with Congress, the administration about how to look after Taiwan security, but it's a, it's not a treaty, it's a soft kind of legal tool. And, you know, Reagan, for instance, in the 80s, basically, you know, walked away or didn't really abide by it much. These days, as you say, the Biden administration did give more equipment to Taiwan, the Trump administration. It's not really very clear. So, you know, kind of there is ambiguity in the American position. What would happen if Taiwan were to be attacked tomorrow, you know, God forbid? Well, we don't know. I mean, you know, we really don't know. What I do know, though, is that if America doesn't turn up,

no one else will. And that's the issue. You talk about Britain. Britain does have two aircraft carriers. As we talk about we would be active in the region, we would not be able to do anything if America didn't turn up. So America is the key partner here. I'm going to ask you one very last question, Kerry, before we go. Because, of course, it's one that you often hear in the United States. It's particularly important in many of the places in the so-called Rust Belt, an expression I dislike, by the way, intensely. But anyway, there it is. That it is, in fact, China's exports that somehow undermined the vibe.

of these communities in the United States. I get the impression that to the extent that that was true before, it's becoming less true now, because the Chinese economy is evolving to the point where that's no longer the main weight of its exports. And I've heard it suggested, this brings us back to the tariffs, that in some ways this tariff shock is actually going to be, beneficial to China in that it is going to cause China to pivot even further towards those high technology outcomes that you were talking about earlier in the program. I mean, what do you think

about this? Is this likely true? Is this actually going to be a sort of galvanizing moment for China, making China move forward more dynamically towards a more high technology future? So this this whole story of Chinese steel exports or whatever it is that destroyed American industry is really anyway that is the past tariffs or otherwise it is no longer the future. Yeah, Alex, I mean, I think that question is a sort of, you can segue into one of the characteristics. You know, I've been dealing with China since 1991. As you say, I lived there for over six years. I visited 100 times.

I've been to every single province and, you know, kind of autonomous region. I mean, it's my second home in some ways. I mean, and, you know, the characteristic of policymaking, you know, I was a diplomat for a while in the early 2000s. We are always five to ten years too late. I guess these tariffs would probably have made sense 20 years ago when China was a smaller economy and more beholden. It would have really had to make fundamental changes.

Now, it's just like a waste of time. It's a real waste of time. If you talk about technology, yeah, we could have been more protective of our technology 15, 20 years ago. That's true. I mean, maybe we were a little bit naive. Maybe not, I don't know. But there's no point now. It's over.

I mean, China is now a technology innovator. I can't think, you know, of any areas where, I mean, you know, in terms of AI, in terms of life sciences, you know, in all sorts of areas, is really striding ahead. And, you know, we are stuck in a kind of mindset, many political, you know, figures and others in Britain, we still don't get it. China is no longer the power that we are trying to protect ourselves against. I mean, you know, the idea, I mean, you know, and it gets farcical, you know, the idea that it was a good idea for the Chinese intelligence services to cultivate Prince Andrew,

one of the most toxic figures in Europe, right? I mean, if they were trying to do that, good. It shows they do not have a clue how our systems and, you know, we are protected because they clearly were looking at the wrong thing. I don't think really that they are operating like that. I think that they are going to be significant in the future for totally different reasons. Our battle is going to be how do we get access to their technology legitimately, hopefully, I mean, or other ways, because their technology is going to fundamentally matter.

This is a different ballgame. It's not the old security services, you know, kind of bolstering their fortress and telling us about how to protect ourselves. We have to protect ourselves by having a forward policy on China and going deep into China in order to relate and engage in ways we never have before. And also, in terms of cultural security, we have to move beyond this constant, an idea that China is the big other. We have to believe more in ourselves and our values, because I think what has been clear is that China's rise has fundamentally shaken our belief

in who we are that I didn't expect. And that's what we have to address. Our problems in China, I mean there exist. They certainly do exist. But our problems with ourselves are pretty significant too. And until we deal with those, I don't think we'll be in a robust position to do with this incredible new age that we're moving into. Professor Kerry Brown, thank you very much for answering my questions so comprehensively. So if you just wait there a little, I'll pass you over to Alex. You'll have some questions from our viewers. And thank you again.

Thank you very much, Alex. Thank you. All right. We have a few questions for you, Professor Brown from Nikos, who says, I don't think it's the case, but sometimes I feel that communist China wants to fight Taiwan in order to prove they are as good as the Russian military. this might be true with the communist hardliners, your thoughts? You'll be disrespectful of me to say too much about Russia or not with Alex here. I think the Chinese think they're far better than the Russian military.

I think that they think that the Russian military has been a bit of a shower. To qualify that, yeah, the Russian military has had combat experience, right? And the Chinese military has not had combat experience. So, you know, there are different kind of things. But I think when Russia, you know, the Russia-Ukraine crisis started, I think China probably assumed it wouldn't last very long. And I think that they were surprised at how the Russian military struggled. And I think that they then really started to think more about, okay, that's a land war.

But, I mean, we're dealing with, you know, in Taiwan with potentially an amphibious war. that is really, really difficult. I think they became maybe more circumspect. There was quite a big purge of the PLA. It was ostensibly about corruption issues. If you remember, I think it was Li Shang Fu, the foreign, the defense minister, disappeared very quickly.

He was appointed, and then he disappeared after a month or two. And there's been continuous sort of changes in high-level military figures in China. I think because of this sense that they really, really, really need to rethink how they engage in military issues as a potential conflict, maybe becomes more likely, though I still hope not particularly likely. They have become much more circumspect, yeah. From DF, what's better, an autocracy or a plutocracy like the West?

Arguably China spends on its people while plutocrats spend it on yachts. Yeah, it's interesting. China does not like, you know, kind of there was a period about 15 years ago when China sort of wealthy figure started to appear. Jack Ma, for instance, one of them. There was a sort of list of very, very wealthy people and they started to kind of have a little bit of a political influence, but that that's long over. The Communist Party has a complete monopoly on all of these powers. therefore you kind of get other forces in society that are corralled into that. You don't get any real space for them to start sort of chipping in on the politics or carving out what's called. I think Marsdenon called it mountainism. You know, the idea that you have your little mountain hold and you can kind of have your networks and build a power base there.

The Communist Party under Xi Jinping has smashed all of that. It's smashed factions. It's definitely dealt with, you know, the idea of plutocrats. Yeah, they don't exist. It's about the party having preeminence, and if you want wealth, just, you know, make sure that you conduct yourself in a politically correct way. And that means not being too ostentatious and also being very obedient and loyal to the party today. And that's what we've seen happen with this new thing on private enterprise being rehabilitated. They have to be loyal.

Studio Raynor says, should we dismiss Mao's cultural revolution? is the China we see a result of a state culture or has China recovered from the cultural revolution? Well, it's certainly true that figures like Xi Jinping, who's 70, 71 this year, have a very real memory of the culture revolution. So the political elite, who are all about that age, they would remember the culture revolution.

It would be a meaningful part of their lives, and they would think of it as a period when they were politically awakened, you know, even though it was a very tough and traumatic period, I think the cultural revolution is really a sort of taboo subject in China today. Actually, this year will be, no, next year will be the 60th anniversary of its beginning. I doubt whether there will be a great deal of, you know, sort of events marking this. I think it's regarded as being a little bit embarrassing.

But this year is also, or next year is also the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong's death. and he is not, you know, dead and gone in some ways. I mean, he's influenced and the kind of power that he had as an articulator of Chinese modern nationalism is definitely not dead. I mean, he is still a very, very significant figure in China, in ways that Stalin probably might not be in Russia and, you know, kind of that, I think is important. We have to remember the, you know, the heritage and the tradition of the Communist Party, inclusive of the culture revolution, but also other things that it did in the past are not

issues. They're not historic issues. They're still live in memory today and still in many ways have an influence. From Studea Rainer, as an American, what I want is less government. The amount of control the national government has is totalitarianism.

The same applies to China. Would a great depression eliminate the mass government? Well, if you want less government, go to China. China has a far smaller civil service and a far smaller government system than we do in Britain or presumably in America.

I know it's surprising, but if you look at the number of government officials, it's about very roughly about 10 million. The country of 1.4 billion, that is very, very low. State employees, if you include state-owned enterprises, it's about 60 to 70 million. That is still, what's that? That's less than 5% of the population. I believe in France government employees are something like 25%. I think in Britain, it's also about the same.

I don't know what it is in America, but, you know, actually government is far more extensive in our society's Western democracies than it probably is in China. The problem is not too much government in China. It's too little, and it's too concentrated in particular kind of hands and areas. It is at the moment quite a centralized system because of fiscal powers. But I mean, Chinese taxation rates, most of taxation in China comes from consumption tax, AT. Our state and enterprises, private taxation, which is the bulk of what we pay in our government revenue here, is very low in China. Private taxation is really a small proportion of overall government revenue. So, yeah, if you want a small government, go to China.

All right. One more question from Nikos. I am sorry, but we have been in a Cold War 2.0 since 2018 with the American-led West versus communist China. We have three superpowers, though, with Russia playing the role of the military muscle in bricks. Do you agree? I don't think, and again, I know this is a little bit heretical, I don't think that China thinks of Russia being a power that's equal to it. I think it believes in a bipolar, you know, a dual system with America and China is what Xi Jinping in 2014 called in sunny lands, the United States, when he went to see Obama,

major power relations. So China and America, they are the two big ones. And then it thinks of powers underneath where Russia resides. It knows that Russia is a significant power. It's an important power to China. It's a power that China has largely had pragmatic, decent relations with, at least in the last sort of few decades. but I mean the Russian economy is what? I think only a seventh of size of the Chinese economy.

I don't think that China thinks of Russia being on parity with it. It regards the world as being a dual, you know, kind of dual system. And I think it accepts America's role. It's not disputing America has a role. One of the problems at the moment is that America's withdrawal is not something China really expected. and I think it's slightly, in many ways, slightly kind of flustered China because it didn't expect it to happen so quickly. And China does not, I think, particularly want to have a front-footed policy where it's on the offensive all the time. It likes to kind of exist in groups, not kind of go it alone.

So I think that's going to be its big challenge going forward, not so much trying to be dominant, but actually not wanting to be dominant over areas where it doesn't think there its core interest. that's going to be the challenge. All right, Professor Kerry Brown, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for answering the questions from our viewers as well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to see you. Thank you very much, thank you.

Thank you so much. Great. See you soon then. You take care. Take care. Bye-bye. All right. Alexander, you with us?

Absolutely. Just just one quick point to say. that this thing about Russia parity with China, nobody in Moscow in the political or economic system thinks that. And I think that or Russia parity with the United States. Russia is a major nuclear power and it does have a powerful economy. But obviously, it is not on the same scale as China. And as I said, people in Moscow understand that very well as all the same scale as the United States. United States either.

Marika says thank you for inviting Professor Brown, a very knowledgeable guest and a very interesting live stream. Thank you, Marika. Alexander, just we talked about this in a video before we answer the questions, the remaining questions. We talked about this in a video. We recorded a couple of days ago. Explain the meeting that Putin had with Biden, where Putin explained Russia's role in

2011, I believe, with the date. This indeed, absolutely. March 2011, in fact. There was, there was a, Biden came to Moscow in order to persuade Putin not to stand for the presidency in 2012. Now, Putin had withdrawn from the presidency in 2008 because he was restricted to two terms. Medvedev took his place. Then rumors and speculation began to circulate in 2011 that Medvedev was going to stand down.

and that Putin would run. Now, Obama didn't like Putin at all and wanted to make sure that Medvedev remained president and Putin didn't come back. So he said Biden to tell Putin, under no circumstances, stand as president of Russia again. Anyway, there was a huge route because Putin said, it's none of your business who becomes president of Russia. This is entirely a Russian issue and at some point in the argument and we've had many accounts of this argument the most important from a Russian deputy Prime Minister Igor Shivalov at some point in this discussion Biden said look Vladimir you must understand Russia cannot dominate the world it doesn't have the power to do that and Putin responded we absolutely know that

that we cannot dominate the world but we can decide who else will we have that power not to dominate the world ourselves but to tilt the balance in favor of one side or another and that was a I mean he didn't say it in those terms I mean it was obviously an argument it was a furious row but that was what Putin said that Russia is strong enough to tilt the balance in favor of one or the other. And that was the meeting which destroyed any possible relationship between Putin and Biden. But it also gives an insight into Russian thinking about the relationship, its relationship, Russia's relationship with the other two powers, the United States and China. All right. Nikos says the US has $36 trillion in debt

is it possible that the U.S. economy collapses and they declare bankruptcy because of this trade war? Can the U.S. recover and what would the consequences be for us? I don't think the United States economy is on the brink of collapse. I mean, it has many major problems. I mean, we just heard about some of the problems that China has. It seems to me that the U.S. has similar problems, perhaps even on a greater scale. It's got to roll over $9 trillion of US government debt this year. This year, I've never heard in history of any government having to roll over in one year so much debt.

It also has the problem that savings rates in the United States are very low. By contrast in China, they are very high. I think the United States will find a way to roll over that debt. I think the economy is big enough. I think it is strong enough to do it. But obviously, this is becoming more and more of a problem. And here I think we have to give credit where it's due. I think Trump and the people around him understand that the fiscal and debt path

on which the United States has been going for the last 20 years, 30 years, is unsustainable. Fractured 01, thank you for that super chat. And Fractured 01 asks, Alexander, was the UK estimate of 25% government employment accurate? Yes, that's a short answer, it is. All right, Pica, Pica, thank you for that super chat. And my, one second, my info says, Alexander, great question. Regarding, is it true the Chinese economy being on the brink?

I appreciate you asking these questions. Thank you for that. Well, I mean, you heard what Professor Brown had to say. I mean, he knows China far better than I do. I mean, clearly there are problems, problems in the housing market, all kinds of things. But China has enormous fiscal reserves. It has a very, very high savings ratio. It has a very, very big manufacturing base, an enormous manufacturing base.

It has an enormous high technology sector, all of those things. So it's got strengths. It's got problems too. I certainly don't think it's on any kind of brink of collapse or of anything like that. Eric Halverson, thank you for that super sticker. Nico says, unlike you, I believe that Trump won't continue to support the war in Ukraine. However, I can see him going to war with China. is Jady Vance or Vivek Ramaswamy, who will succeed him, willing to continue a war with China?

Well, these are very good questions. I should make this very clear. I think that Trump wants to extricate the United States from the war in Ukraine. I think he has wasted three months of his administration, trying to agree a deal that would ultimately in some ways be beneficial to Ukraine, the deal that Kellogg drew up for him last year,

a deal which was always unrealistic. And I would hope that after the events of Tuesday and Wednesday, Zelensky's speech, the collapse of the conference in London, and all of that, he would finally see that this is not going to be achievable. I mean, if this isn't going to persuade him, then I don't know what is.

is actually. His post yesterday leaves me doubting that. Well, I know, I mean, it was incredible. I have to say, I thought the same. It was extraordinarily weak. I mean, it was just, I mean, for Trump, maybe not for someone else, but given how Trump outspoken Trump can be, to me, it looked like more a slap on the wrist for Zelensky, rather than telling Zelensky, yeah, this is, this is it. I've had enough. You're obviously not interested in an agreement. If you're not even prepared to negotiate, I mean, because what the Americans were doing was that they were proposing an agreement to address the issues. What Zelensky says is he wants a ceasefire, an indefinite ceasefire, which he can then string out indefinitely. The Russians won't accept that.

They said that clearly. The Americans understand that. So, I mean, if Trump doesn't see it now that Zelensky is not interested in. peace if he doesn't understand that the Europeans are not interested in peace. I've been reading with absolute horror all of this morning what the British and European media have been saying about the Kellogg Plan. They hate it even more than I thought they would. A European official has told the Financial Times that as far as their concern, recognition by the United States of Crimea as part of Russia and agreement

by the United States that Ukraine should not join NATO. These are unacceptable red lines. Now, if you're up against this, what kind of possible deal do you imagine can be done? I mean, I was speechless when I read that truth social post. It seems that he still thinks he can somehow persuade people to come around. He won't ever succeed. He needs to realize that Kellogg is.

working with the Europeans. How come he can't see this? Absolutely. I mean, I just don't understand this. And with Ukraine. Yeah. And with Ukraine. And even then, what he's proposing is too much for them, even though it doesn't go anywhere near being enough for the Russians who are, of course, winning the war. So this is the point where really he should walk away. Now, maybe over the next couple of days, that realization will finally begin to hit home. Whit Goff is going to meet Putin on Friday. We'll see where he goes.

But realistically, this ought to be the final end of this matter. It was this true social post, which I have to say absolutely flawed me. I just couldn't believe it when I read it, given that only a couple of days ago, he was saying that he wanted to see everybody agree this week. And if there wasn't a deal done this week, then he would indeed walk away. He said that he should stick with it. That's what he should do. Bring this whole idiocy of American involvement in this war to an end and let Zelensky

take care of himself. And if the Europeans want to support him, well, they can do so. That is what he should do. Zelensky is making Trump look really bad. He really is, Matt. That truth social post from yesterday was, I think that's the perfect word. weak, incredibly weak. Zelensky's going to pick up on it. And he's going to double and triple down on his statements. It's making Trump look incredibly weak. And it's not going to be lost on the Europeans,

and it's not going to be lost on Zelensky. No, no doubt about it. I still can't figure out why he why Trump doesn't see this. He continues to listen to this Kellogg faction. Yes. Or at least it appears that he's listening to this Kellogg faction. Far too much. I mean, by the way, David Sachs,

he did far better. He did a really good post yesterday. He said if Zelensky won't accept that Crimea is lost, which it clearly is. I mean, they weren't able to battle through to it in the 2023 offensive. The people of Crimea are Russian and want to be part of Russia as even Western opinion bullshit. If Zelensky won't even accept that, then he's never going to accept anything. And the sooner you acknowledge this and move on, the better.

But, I mean, he does. He listens too much to Kellogg. Kellogg is probably coming around telling him, even as, you know, he wrote that post, Well, you know, just give it a little longer. We'll see whether we can get the Europeans to sort of talk in Brown. Stama will do it. Macron will do it. They won't do it because they agree with Zelensky.

They don't agree with Trump. They're all working together. Yeah, exactly. He doesn't know this. He doesn't see this. You know the funny part to all of this, just the final thought on what happened yesterday? The funny part is that the Trump administration, they offer stuff to Russia.

The concessions they make to Russia are things that Russia hasn't even asked for. Russia never asked for sanctions relief. They never asked for the United States to recognize Crimea. They've never asked for these things. And the U.S. makes it seem as if they're offering Russia concessions. Then the media is making it seem as Russia is getting so many things from Trump when Russia never asked for any of these things. Exactly.

This is so completely true. The whole thing is absurd. I mean, a Russian put it actually very well on my live stream on locals yesterday. We don't care whether America recognizes Crimea is Russian or not. Crimea is Russian. As far as we are concerned, it's a closed issue. It's not for the Americans to decide. So, you know, what is this business?

What is Kellogg thinking that he's doing, you know, granting the Russian someone? kind of favor by recognizing Crimea as Russia. And yet even that Zelensky went except. Opening up Nord Stream or removing the sanctions from Nord Stream. When did Russia ever talk about removing sanctions from North Stream? Exactly. It's not sense. All right.

We'll see how long this lasts. If by the 30th of April, Trump does not walk away from this, then man, he's going to look terrible on the world's stage. Absolutely. He's going to look ridiculous on the world stage. Absolutely. Yeah. Daniel Walker says, what are your top 10 U.S. presidents and why? Well, I have three top U.S. presidents. Lincoln first, Franklin Roosevelt, second, George Washington, third. Those are my three top U.S. presidents. I mean, there have been others who I have quite a lot of respect for Eisenhower in the 50s, who it turns out was a much more stable and level-headed person in a rather dangerous time than we have known.

Other American leaders of the past have been important, like Theodore Roosevelt and whatever. But for me, those three, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Washington, are the most important. As an individual, a president with tremendous promise, which was never, improperly fulfilled for the reasons we all know, JFK. JFK, I would have to put that at number one, Biden. He would definitely be my top pick. I forgot all about it.

And everyone else, I don't think anybody else. Everybody else, actually. You have to absolutely quite. Yeah. Nico says, seriously, though, Duran, I urge you to read the lore of the Fallout games. It's amazing how they predicted the U.S.-China conflict over resources. It's happening sooner in our. timeline and hopefully it won't lead to nuclear war.

Right. Okay. Thanks for that. Elsa says, I've heard a Russian IT expert saying that Russia also has AI programs like Deepseek, but they fail as so often to promote their ideas. Well, who knows? I mean, I don't. I mean, I'm not in up that. More interesting for me is that apparently they've been moving forward and building more lithography machines, which is interesting. They're not up to the level of the Dutch ones, you know, the ultra-advanced ones. But the point is that until the few years ago, they weren't building any lithography machines, and now they are. So everything is moving.

The pieces are all moving, and they're moving very fast. Fyodor von der Leyen says, as the EU becomes more and more authoritarian and continues to strip EU nations of their autonomy and keeps taking steps to make another Brexit nearly impossible, how can Europeans salvage their futures? Well, by breaking up the EU and leaving it, as simple as that. I've come to the conclusion that the system is unreformable and has to be ended. And I think eventually it will be. And the longer it takes before it happens, the more damage is going to do.

Nico says, I like China as a country and their progress. My only problem is their communist government. communism is the second worst ideology in history. It's a cult, hive mind mentality. Even Russia rejected it. Well, I mean, I'm not going to go out to what Professor Brown said. I mean, he knows China. Their system, for the moment at least, seems to be working for them.

And there doesn't seem to be much opposition to it. Studia Rainer says, more consumers isn't a good thing. This propaganda was embedded by the British Empire and became truth. reducing trade would reduce hedonism, and that is universal. Well, interesting, it says an interesting perspective. I mean, I think, again, Professor Brown was talking about this from a Chinese economic perspective in the sense that China has this concern about overproduction. I mean, it produces huge quantities of goods, some of which, a very high proportion of which it exports,

there are diminishing proportion of which it exports. One of the ways you could absorb those goods is by increasing consumption inside China, balancing the economy there. Elena, welcome to the Duran community. Daniel says, will Iran agree to lower enrichments and to transfer uranium out of the country? They make nuclear medicines and use 20% uranium for cancer treatment. I think what they would probably do is that they would agree to transfer uranium out of the country. transfer that nuclear material, which has been enriched to 60% levels. But if we're talking about under 3% and whatever, I think they would still want to retain

that ability precisely for the reason that you said. This was discussed at enormous length during the time of the negotiations for the JCPOA, which took, by the way, I believe, 15 years, just to say. So, you know, they will want to retain that capability. But as a deal, a final deal, they would, I think, give up the ability to enrich up to 60%. And they would transfer their stockpile to Russia, which is what happened in 2015, by the one. Nico says Russia and China complement each other as superpowers. Russia has given China technology on missiles and subs, while China has given Russia components.

Russia has the experience. China has the production. I agree. And the resources. Russia has enormous natural resources, which China doesn't happen. It's got grain, oil, gas, all of those things. Chris M says Mexicans for Putin love you guys. You are both part of my day. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Studio Rayner says, having a larger economy, does it really matter? Military isn't subjective while the value of goods is completely. objective. What we buy is mostly junk. There's a lot of a huge topic of discussion here.

I'm going to say something. I mean, China was already perceived as a great power in the 1970s, when of course its economy was a fraction of what it is today. So a size of economy is not the only measure of a great power. If you're talking about Russia, and remember, Professor Brown is a specialist on China not on Russia. I've already said that if the Chinese think that Russia is not their equal, the Russians themselves agree.

This is, you know, in this understand. But I think the Russian economy is a lot bigger than maybe people even in China understand. The World Bank and the IMF recently revised upwards

their figures for the Russian economy. They basically, I think, something like doubled it in size. So they now put its GDP at just under six trillion dollars on a purchasing power parity basis. But they also said that they accept that around 40% of the Russian economy doesn't actually come within their statistics. So that's true, then we could be looking at a $10 trillion economy. Now that makes it, much bigger. It's not seventh, a seventh the size of the Chinese economy. It's around 25 to 30% of the size of the Chinese economy. So you see, we're looking at differences in scale.

Zen X, thank you for that super sticker. Commando Crossfire says two cities have been formed by two loves, the earthly by the love of self, the heavenly by the love of God. Thank you. Daniel M. says, Alexander, are you using a camera or potato? I don't know. Your picture is clear today. Absolutely. I'm showing you. Dan Walba says, thank you for helping us navigate through the issues. Yes.

Thank you, Dan. Chris M says, Alex, Alex and Alex, I just want to thank you both. I just want to thank the both of you. Please have Jackson Hinkle on your stream. We have. We have done it before. We have had, do you know. I think it was on last, I think about a year it's been since we've had him on.

But yeah. We had him more recently. We had him once and then we had him again, but a bit more recently. No, we did a show on his channel. We did a show on his channel about a month ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll definitely get him on. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. Uh, commander crossfire says, what's your top five Russian leaders of all time? Well, if you ask Russians, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, they come up continuously. Joseph Stalin is not somebody that people maybe feel tremendous liking or for, but the fact is that he was a very, very powerful leader of Russia as well.

And, you know, you might disagree with him profoundly. You might think he did terrible things. But there's no doubt at all that he did. under his leadership. He won the Second World War and Russia did become a superpower. Putin as well. Putin is, yeah.

Well, Putin still has some time left, so we'll see exactly what more he accomplishes. Well, I mean, given where he started and where he Russia is, I mean, the change is just extraordinary.

Dr. Marifaz. says, great show and avid listener. What do you make of Zelensky's visit to South Africa as he attempts to reach out to the African group of countries? Yeah, I got a message yesterday about, what do you make, Alexander? I know you've read the reports. I don't know if they're true or not about his investments as well in South Africa.

South Africa trying to balance between bricks and Russia and Zelensky and allegedly, because I can't confirm allegedly his investments. Yeah, I think if that was the policy of South Africa, then I think it's changed because South Africa's, perhaps people, some people know here, South Africa now has a terrible relationship with the United States. There's been, Ramaphosa and Trump clearly loathe each other. So over the last couple of months, South Africa has been tilting much more strongly towards Russia and the Greek states, of which, of course, it is one. So I think that is the, if we're talking about South African policies, I think that's it. Now, what investments

Zelensky has in which places in the world, I'm sure he's got lots of investments in many places, quite plausibly in South Africa, but I'm not able to say the details. Knowing a little bit about that part of the world. I would guess that if he's hiding away money in Southern Africa, Botswana is a more likely place. And I know that there are, you know, huge branches there. I mean, these are enormous places. And if you want to hide somewhere, Botswana is a great place to do it. Because all of these places are interconnected with each other to some extent. So anyway, so that's what I would say about this, but why

is Zelensky in Africa? He's keeping away. He's keeping as far as way as he can from Kiev at this particular time and as far away from having contacts with the Americans as he possibly can. He doesn't

want Rubia or Kellogg coming after him and trying to badger him into making concessions. That is why he's gone off to Africa. Studio Rainer says, do you think the U.S. would recognize a Persia with more accurate borders? I think Iran is an awaiting superpower. Historically, it always has been. It creates a power vacuum. Well, I've never heard that Iran has any aspirations to extend its territory, just to say so. I mean, I don't know what you mean by accurate borders, if you mean that they have irredentity.

claims on other territory. I'm not sure where that is because I've never heard that. I think what the Iranians want is to be left alone, actually. I think that's their priority. They've got major economic and social problems. I mean, enormous economic and social problems. And I think they want to start doing something to address them. Ultimately, doing that from a regime perspective would consolidate and stabilize the regime itself. They don't want to. They don't want to. to be under the continuous pressure that they have been under basically ever since the Shah fell way back in 1979. Deuce Abscondis says, I think China has learned a huge amount from the war in Ukraine, both in terms

of aerial drones and marine drones. Oh, I have absolutely no doubt about this. None at all. And as you absolutely rightly said, as many have said, there is constant interest. There's Nikos who said it, constant interchange between the Russian and the Chinese military. They are obviously informing the Chinese every day about what they're discovering, about the capabilities of the patriot missile systems, about the capabilities of the attackings and the storm shadows and all of those things. I mean, there is constant learning curve which both countries are experiencing.

Fjur van der Leyen says, why can't people in Slovakia and Hungary see that the EU won't stop until they have installed puppet governments loyal to Brussels? Well, I suspect quite a lot of people in these countries are seeing it. But don't underestimate the fact

that there is still a significant number of people in both of these countries that do remain loyal to the EU center for all kinds of reasons, social, cultural, ideological, and material as well. So the EU Centre is not without support in all of these countries as well. Amanda Crossfire says, I think the Red Scare is too deeply embedded in Western publics, blind and often unreasoned hate towards communism.

How does China's governments offend you? Well, it's a good question. I mean, I'd say that China is very remote from all of this. I mean, when the Soviet Union was a communist country with a communist government, it was there right on the borders. Well, it was, you know, arguably it would say it was part of Europe. And of course, Eastern Europe was under communist control throughout the Cold War. And that is the way which we related to communism at that time. China is a whole, well, the other side of the world. I don't think it impacts on us in the same kind of way.

And besides, because China isn't absolutely there in direct confrontation with the West in the way that the Soviet Union was, I think its system has evolved and developed in very different ways from the one that the Soviet Union had. Nigel Green says, keep up the good word, lads. The good work, lads. Stommer is out. Stommer. All kinds of trouble for Stommer.

It seems all kinds of scandals. Chili Pepper says Iran already ruled out transferring its stockpile this time around, and that would be a green light for Israel and the U.S. to attack. Iran knows it. Well, it may be. But I mean, the proposal that I understand is being floated now. is that the stoppile is transferred to Russia, but on condition that it is returned to Iran

in the event that there are any breaches of the agreement. And apparently there have been very detailed discussions. Pezishkan and Putin have spoken many times on the phone. Arapchi was in Moscow and met Putin. And the Emir of Amman, apparently, has been in Moscow and has met Putin as well. And he is the mediator in all of this. So something is clearly happening

we don't yet know what it will be and how it will all play out. Orange proximity says, sorry Jensen, unrelated topic. Given that the Germans are talking about rearmament again, shouldn't Russia hit them now rather than wait for them to rearm? Well, I do think the Russians really believe they are going to rearm, and nor do I. Just to say, I think the Russians have seen what all the German equipment was, worth in Ukraine. And I don't think they were very impressed. They've published reports about this.

And I think they've looked at the situation in Germany and they've concluded that Germany really isn't going to achieve the kind of gigantic rearmament that some people are talking about. It doesn't have the resources, technological, industrial, manufacturing or raw material resources to achieve it. Where I think things would become very, very, dangerous is if Germany started to move towards acquiring nuclear weapons. Now, that was, by the way, actually floated quite actively in the 50s. The German Chancellor at that time, Conrad Adenau, was keen for Germany to acquire nuclear weapons. JFK finally decided it would never happen and made that very clear to the Germans at that time. So if the Russians saw Germany developing nuclear weapons,

then I think they would react and they would react very strongly. And that would be a very, very dangerous moment in European politics. But I think that what Mets is saying, what he's doing doesn't impress them or scare them at all. Harry C. Smith says Iran has not deployed, one soldier or fired, one bullet, one bullet outside its territory without invitations since 1707, unlike some countries. Well, I mean, I understand that. I understand that point. I mean, Iran is very active in diplomacy and in military support for many places in the Middle East. You can't say that Iran isn't a player, but whether it is the kind of aggressive player that is out to dominate and, you know,

control the Middle East that some people in the West say, I would say those claims are massively overstated. I don't think Iran has that capability. I don't think it remotely has that capability. And I don't think the Iranian leadership is under any illusions about this. Chris M says, Alexander, what are your feelings about communism? Do you think it's evil? Do you still follow the Cold War ideology? which cult war ideology i'm going to say this i can't i can't straightforward i mean i i should say something here about my my own family i mean my father who i loved very very very much was um certainly at certain periods of his life i would say a communist i mean he never apparently joined the party uh the greek

Communist Party, which was illegal in Greece, but certainly those were his political affiliations. And I would say that what attracted him to communism were certain things about it that he saw as humanist and which responded to his own idealism. And it was an idealism of universal values, social justice, that kind of thing. Now, given, as I said, my first. feelings about my father and what I remember about him, I can't simply say, oh, communism is evil. The effects of communism, the things that were done in the Soviet Union, many of the things that were done in Eastern Europe, unequivocally they were evil. That is what I would say. Why do the Europeans, though, going back to our live stream yesterday, why do they forgive the evils of the Nazis or Germany, but they cannot overcome the evils of Russia, as they say, of the Soviet Union, not Russia of the Soviet Union.

I was thinking about that yesterday. Well, that's a very good question. I mean, it's an excellent question. I mean, again, if you're talking about what happened during the Second World War, I would say unequivocally that the Soviet Union was on the side of good. The regime that it fought was, and I think I would say this, again, having had knowledge of both regimes, the one in Germany was far, far worse. I think there is a fundamental hostility deep within West European society to Russia. And I think it transcends questions of communism and, you know, what the Soviet Union was.

It was already there, after all, before the Soviet Revolution, before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In fact, that hostility existed whilst Russia was a Christian country. And I'm going to say this as an Orthodox Christian, I think that some of this does relate to antagonism towards the Orthodox Church and to orthodoxy as well. You know, that is a conclusion I've come to long, long ago. So I think that because of that hatred, that misos, Greek word, I think it's a better word to describe this. MISOS is stronger than just hatred, that they have towards Russia. I think that they look the other way when they are all of these manifestations of Nazism, to say it frankly, in the Baltic states, in Ukraine, in other places too.

It doesn't seem to bother them in that kind, in the same sort of way. And today, we see that there is basically, well, an attempt to explain to the Russians from all commemorations of the defeat of Germany in the Second World War, which again, I find incredible. I just find that incredible that Germany, for example, can say, well, we don't like Russians. But you never hear the Russians saying, well, you know, we don't like, you know, at least the Russian politicians saying, we don't like Germans. But, I mean, the Russian politicians have every right to say after what Germany did. You are absolutely correct. They never do.

They never say that. If you compare the rhetoric in Russia, public and private about the West with the rhetoric the West has against them, then it is completely different. The Russians are far more calm about the West, despite everything we have done to them than they are about us. But then I come back to what I've said many times, which is a quote from someone. I used to think it was Dostoevsky, but I've told it wasn't Dostoevsky, that we always hate those we've wronged. And I think given the way we treated the Russians, perhaps it's not surprising that we've come to hate them as well.

Commander Crossbyer says, Stone Cold, but isn't it too late for the United States to beat China militarily? Russia would surely back it, combined with China's own industrial might, only mushroom clouds could overcome. There's no chance for a win, win for the United States. I agree. I think this is true, actually. I mean, first of all, I find it impossible to imagine an outright clash between the United States and China taking place without this escalating eventually by one side or the other into use of nuclear weapons. I mean, I think it is impossible. We would indeed be in World War III situation. And I think in that kind of situation, we would, in that kind of situation, it's difficult to imagine how the Russians would not become involved.

And, well, these are apocalyptic scenarios which we should strive to prevent. This is why I have to say, I find this whole treatment of the Taiwan question, given how emotional it is, reckless and at some level, extraordinary. just leave it alone. You heard what Professor Brown said. The Chinese are not looking to take over Taiwan because they believe, perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly, that sooner or later it will fall into their hands anyway. Well, if that's what they think, they just leave the whole situation alone. Just let Taiwan be Taiwan, just let China be China and all of the rest. And eventually, as I said, you can move on, develop economic relations.

Maybe China and Taiwan will come closer together, but one way or the other, you do not have to be involved. By the way, I get the sense, I may be wrong, but I get the sense that J.D. Vance thinks this way. Others, of course, don't. A Fuhrer von der Leyen says, wouldn't it be a massive win for Russia if all the EU countries sent their minuscule militaries

to fight in Ukraine, because Russia can essentially demilitarize the entire European continent. Well, absolutely. You know, there was an extraordinary letter by Ukraine's new ambassador to the UN, Andrei Melnik, Sir Friedrich Merz, in which he basically said, give me every piece of equipment that you have, all your fighter jets, all your remaining tanks, or your remaining tourist missiles. I mean, what he seems to want is to disarm Germany.

Now, why anybody in Germany gives a person like Melnik or his master Zelensky at the time of day, when they get those kind of demands, I have absolutely no idea. To be clear, I don't think the Russians want to fight the Europeans in Ukraine. At least when I say that, I don't think the Kremlin does. I don't think wider Russian society does. Some members of the Russian armed forces perhaps do. Maybe they are actually saying, bring it on. You know, we can take them on, we can defeat them, we can break them in Ukraine, and that would be a good thing.

But then what? I don't think Russia has any plan to occupy Europe. I mean, the idea is preposterous. Why would the Russians want to occupy Europe? Why would they want to occupy Sheffield? So why would they want to disarm the Europeans in that kind of way? But the people who are demanding that the Europeans should be disarmed are the Ukrainians, not the Russians. It's the Ukrainians who say, give us everything.

And then, you know, and then more, even beyond what you already have. Give us all your reduction. Do it indefinitely. Give us money. Give us weapons. Give us your troops. And as I said, I cannot comprehend why we take these people as seriously as we do when they come up with those kind of demands.

Commander Crossfire says the evils committed under communism pale under what was and still is committed under capitalism. I'm not sure either ideology should be solely blamed. Well, this is, as you can gather, a colossal subject. I mean, it's not one that we can discuss in a single program, it seems to me. I mean, we would need to discuss it over many, many, many programs indeed. Let me say again, I'm an Orthodox Christian. Already that makes me, I mean, for me, that makes it incompatible with communism, which is a secular materialist ideology, which by definition I reject. But, you know, if we want to discuss communism and its evils, if we want to discuss capitalism and its evils, then as I said, this is an

enormous subject, which I think we would need to discuss in a dedicated, not just program, but probably series of programs, because there is so much to say. Yeah. Musa Sal, thank you for that super chat. Willem, thank you for that super sticker. Chili Pepper says, anyone who tells you by giving up its nuclear capabilities, Iran would be left alone and is allowed to join the international communities, either naive or deceptive.

That's against Israel's agenda. Well, the world isn't Israel. Not all the world is united with Israel on this. Iran is now a member of the Bricks, which by the way it wasn't in 2015. Iran now has a security agreement with Russia, which it didn't have in 2015. There are, it seems to me, opportunities for some kind of agreement to be made, given that the Iranians themselves have said that they don't. want to acquire nuclear weapons. They do require, if they're going to give up the capability to acquire nuclear weapons, security guarantees, solid security guarantees. I would have thought that was something that could be agreed and negotiated. Hmm. Uh, do abscondes says, why not over consumption, Alexander?

People are voting with their wallets. Personally, personally, I thank China for making stuff that I would find hard to pay for otherwise. I got a reasonable pair of Bluetooth earphones for $17 on Temu. If they were U.K., if they were U.S. branded, they would be at least eight times the price. So thanks. Well, you know, there's an article today in the Financial Times going back to your last point, which says that China's production of cheap consumer goods was what cured the inflation problems that had been affecting the West in the 1970s and 1980s. The central bankers to credit, to credit for it in the West. And in fact, they didn't cause it. And on the contrary, they

completely messed up. That's an article in today's Financial Times. So just say, so I mean, you know, there is that, there is that for you. Now about overconsumption, of course there is. No question. Again, to repeat, this is something that I also have strong issues with. The question is, you balance, in terms of economics, you need to balance a, you need to balance consumption with growth, both over consumption and overproduction, create economic problems and social problems as well. Helemann says the program about communism and capitalism would be mesmerizing to watch and study.

Yeah, absolutely. And Kevin, K. says, is there a permanent civilizational split manifesting between Russia and Europe, the West? Well, I think there is now. I don't know that they needed to be. I mean, you know, in so many ways, if you go there, there is so much about Russia that isn't so different from Europe, actually, always the same as in Europe. And, you know, they're both Christian. Europe is Christian. Russia is Christian. Or at least Europe used to be Christian. Maybe that's a more accurate way of saying it. And Russia is re-Christianizing. There ought to be so much that brings these two regions together.

But it looks as if they're destined to go apart. I don't think that the Russians have any desire to re-engage with Europe anymore. I think with the United States, probably yes. And this is independently of what Donald Trump is doing. But I think one of the things they realized over the course of the Ukraine crisis, is that the predominant class and influences in Europe hate them. And that was a shock to them. By the way, it was a shock to me,

and they don't want to have anything to do with these people anymore. And of course, there's been a current of thinking in Russia, going all the way back to Dostoevsky, who have been warning Russians about this. Dostoevsky was one of the first to say, why are we wasting our time, trying to integrate ourselves in Europe when the reality is that Europeans don't like us.

Chris M says, Alexander, I would argue that as a Christian, communism is more compatible with Christianity. People own their own production, but I know it's way more complicated than that. Well, it is much, much more complicated because there might be compatibilities, but there is not identity.

That's a different thing. But, you know, again, let's talk about this maybe in a day. I think as Orthodox, though, I think you made an excellent point, Alexander. I just want to qualify it as Orthodox. It's not compatible with communism. No, Orthodox Christian. Yeah. Christian, exactly.

Yeah, the two are impossible. Impossier Orthodox Christian. Yeah. Kevin T.K. says, I sense Russians are also rejecting Europe. I think they feel themselves done with Europe. Yeah. I think they do. Absolutely. I think this idea that some people have, that the pendulum has swung one way or the other between

within Russia and eventually they'll swing back towards being more pro-European again. I think that he's profoundly wrong. I think this conflict has been the moment of extreme divergence. I think the Russians have finally set to themselves. We've tried for decades to work with the Europeans and now we've had enough. And from fuzzy balls, if Russia can defeat Europe on Ukrainian soil, they can then use that as leverage

for the peace deal they want. Possibly. I mean, again, if I have to be honest, I think the Russians are looking at the Europeans and they're saying to themselves any deal we do with the Europeans isn't going to be worth the paper it's written on because

eventually they will go back on it. All right, Alexander. That is everything. Let me just do a quick check and your final thoughts. Well, I think we've had an amazing program and an extraordinary question and answer, by the way, which has gone into extraordinary topics, you know, immense topics, if I can say, where else do you get them except here of the Duran? Just to say. But I think that this period of tariff war is coming to an end. Alex and I said that it would

that the sanctions against China have gone too high the counter sanctions by China have gone too high and we see that the Americans are now starting to look for a way to bring them down and I think that's what's good to happen. To repeat again

10% tariffs plus tariffs to protect individual industries that is fully consistent with tariff policy in the 19th and early 20th century. Is that is what Trump thinks is going to work to revive U.S. industry? Well, that's absolutely his right to do, and he may be, he may turn out to be fully right. But reciprocal tariffs were

considered a heresy in the 19th and early 20th century. And we see that with China, they ended up in a tariff war. And even Trump is now basically conceding, this is unsustainable. available. Jeffrey Summers, thank you for that super chat. And from yesterday, Elsa's super chat came in when we ended the stream, so I'll read it. I wish more people wouldn't judge leaders of other people's churches or countries. Love you, gentlemen. Thank you.

All right. That is everything. So, from orange proximity, do we believe that any deal with the West holds any water, not just the EU, but the U.S. too? I don't think many people in Russia do, to be honest. I think that they will do it. If they can get what they want to achieve in Ukraine through a deal now, they will do it. But then they will make sure that the deal that he's done is one that cannot be walked back because the Russians will be there and in possession and will have control.

All right. We will end the live stream there. Thank you once again to Professor Brown. Thank you to our moderators, Peter and Harry, and who else was moderating today? I believe those were our moderators for the day. So thank you to our moderators in the chat. And thank you to everyone that watched us on Odyssey and Rumble locals, the durand.com, and you too.

and we will see everybody soon. Take care. Absolutely.