TRIGGERnometry - Why is China Building a Massive Army? Dr John Lee

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Dr John Lee is a political scientist, specialising in Chinese political economy, at the Hudson Institute. Dr Lee has authored several books about international security including 'Will China Fail?' and 'The Free and Open Indo-Pacific Beyond 2020' as well as writing for some of the world’s most popular publications including The New York Times, The Australian, and Wall Street Journal. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Statistically, China is engaging in the most rapid remilitarization of any country in absolute and relative terms in peacetime history. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our terrific guest today is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an expert on Southeast Asian Affairs.

Dr. John Lee, very warm welcome all the way from Australia to Trigonometry. Great. Thanks for having me, both of you. It's a real pleasure to have you on. Some of the interviews you've done and the conversations you've had and the work you've done on these issues is absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to talk to you about it. But before we do, tell everybody a little bit about not only what your areas of expertise are, which I've kind of hinted at, but also what is your personal journey through life?

Because I think it informs some of the analysis and the perspectives that you bring. Yeah, I, most of my career, I've been in the think tank world. I spent a couple of years in the Australian government as the national security advisors. So I was right in the middle of politics and policy for a little while. I still am. I still deal with governments quite a fair bit. But I'm back in the think tank world, the academic world. I'm also an adjunct professor at Sydney University.

I, as you can probably tell from my appearance, I was born in Southeast Asia. I was born in Malaysia. My family migrated to Australia when I was very young, about eight years old. I've lived in Australia. I studied in the United Kingdom. But most of my career has been in Australia and the United States. And it probably informs my perspectives in many respects. My parents left Malaysia because they wanted a better life, as migrants do.

and we went to Australia. And that is a typical immigrant attitude has largely informed the way I view world affairs and the sorts of things that I try to advocate in my career. And your analysis of China is absolutely fascinating. We want to talk to you about the geopolitical situation post-Russia invading Ukraine, and we'll have that conversation in the second.

But the one thing Francis and I both were just incredibly fascinated by some of the things you talk about the history of China and the recent history of China, what the Chinese learned from what happened in Russia in 1991, what the Chinese are learning now from what's happening in Ukraine. What do we in the West not know and not understand about China that we really should? We in the West started engaging China really in about the 1990s,

and particularly after 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organization and a lot of Western companies sort of rushed into China to make some money. We thought that China would be like Japan or like Taiwan or like Singapore in a post-World War II period. That is that if we engage with China, if we help China get richer and helped its people get richer, they would see how they would see the superiority of Western systems and they would become more like us in an Asian way like Japan has or South Korea has but that China would essentially follow that path.

I think what we didn't realize was that even though the Chinese wanted a big slice of Western prosperity, they have pretty much rejected everything else. The Chinese Communist Party still remains in power, not only that they have found extremely clever ways are remaining in power while still getting rich as a country. And as a result, we find ourselves now in a situation where China truly is the most comprehensive threat

to the West that we're facing really for two or three generations. And John, you were talking about the ingenious ways the CCP managed to hold on to power. What are they? The CCP, and I have to give them credit, they're very good students of history because they looked at what happened in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They looked at what happened in the own country in 1989 when they were countrywide protests calling for democracy. And what they realized was that as you get richer as a country, as you industrialize, you cannot alienate yourself. that is if you're at a ruling party, you cannot alienate yourselves from the rising middle class elites.

In fact, if you want to remain in power, you have to co-op to rising middle class elites. And the lesson they learned from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and also from what happened in the 1980s in the own country was that if you allow the emergence of an independent middle class, that is a middle class that doesn't need you, doesn't need the party for its prosperity and its security, you'll inevitably lose power. So what the Chinese have done since really from the mid-1990s is that the party has ensured that it has become the primary dispenser of economic and social opportunity in the country. And if you go to China today, if you deal with Chinese elites today,

Chinese elites and a well-to-do are the strongest supporters for the Chinese Communist Party, which is the opposite of what happened in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the 1980s in the People's Republic of China itself. The elites in China are now those who want the party to remain in power because they're the ones that actually do best in China and Chinese society. So from that point of view, the Chinese Communist Party has been quite clever about it. They have engineered a situation where the future of the party is tied to the future of elites in the country. And this is a very dangerous situation for us because that's not what we thought would happen

when we started to engage with China. John, when I was in China, admittedly it was about 2000, I think 2006, 2007, one thing that surprised me was exactly what you were saying, which in many ways, it's a capitalist paradise. You can go and you can go to Louis Vuitton, you can go to all these Western shops, and spend all this money on luxury goods. You can have almost a Western life. As long as you don't criticize the party, you can enjoy a wonderful capitalist life. So that's very much the heart of their success, isn't it? Well, it's more than that. It's true that if it's true that there is a people speak of a social compact that the middle classes can buy Chanel

and in a process that don't question the political structure. But it's more than that because to get rich in China, you have to be well connected to the party. You know, if you look at the Chinese Communist Party, it is actually the largest membership organization in the world. There's over 100 million members, and there's an estimated 50 to 60 million people lining up to join or who are putting applications to join.

Now, why do they do that? Because when you join the CCP, you start getting connections into the business world, into the social world. You know, I've had Chinese students who are obviously part of the elites that when they write up this CV, one of the first things they put is their Chinese Communist Party membership number. And they do that because if you're a CCP member, you are given more privileges, more opportunities, scholarships, clerkships,

internships, internships into the best companies. It is a paradise, if you like, for CCP members, but it is not a paradise for those who are not CCP members. But the irony is that it's called the Chinese Communist Party, but it is the rich in China who are joining the Chinese Communist Party, not the poor, not the peasants. But once again, that is a deliberate, engineered social construction in order to tie the future of these elites to the future of the CCP. And that is an ingenious way of maintaining power, because you're not doing it through force, which is going to, you know, upset people, anger people, and quite rightly so, you're doing it through soft power and encouraging people

by essentially manipulating their behavior? Well, you're essentially aligning the interests and incentives of the rising classes and the upper classes to yourself, or that is the party. Now, this has been done before. You know, it's not a comparison often made, but here I'm talking just about the political economic structure, not necessarily the foreign policy aspects.

But the political economic structure of modern-day China, it's quite similar to Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany in the sense that the elites are very closely aligned to the party, are often members of the party, and it's a very cozy arrangement at the top. Of course, there are the majority of people in China who are not doing as well as those elites, but they don't get a say.

That's not how China works. So that is essentially how the CCP has remained in power as the country has got richer. It sounds like, John, it's basically a country where the ruling class have a very strong grip on the country and are able to dictate very powerfully and very easily what that country is going to do. Now, put that together with the comment

you made only a few minutes ago that China is the biggest threat to the world, Western generations. Talk to us about that because you've got this gigantic country. Most of the equipment we're using to record this is made in that country. We were all told here in the West that it's great. We're just trading and we exchange this and that and that's wonderful. Why do you say China is such a threat to the West? It's a threat to invest into the West both in terms of its capability and its intention. If you look at its capability, yes, we know about it. Yes, we know about the growth that's military to people's liberation army. And it's, it's, in fact,

statistically, China is engaging in the most rapid remilitarization of any country in absolute and relative terms in peacetime history. Right. So, so that in itself should, should cause you to ask, you know, why they're doing that. But China's not just a military power. John, sorry to interrupt. Sorry to interrupt. Let me ask you that question. Why are they doing that? Well, they've told us, and we should believe them. They want to, initially it was just about taking Taiwan, but that was a goal 20, 30 years ago. That goal is still there, still the number one goal. But now it's about dominating East China Sea, which is the maritime areas they share with Japan, a few other countries.

They claim the whole of South China Sea. And they eventually want to force, not necessarily through war, but through other coercive means, they want to force the United States out of East Asia. And once they've done that, China gets East Asia to itself. And the reason why I say that is, if you look at the Chinese military budget, it is larger than a combined budget of East Asia, South Asia, and Oceania. So larger than the combined budgets, all of those countries in those regions. If the United States is not in Asia, there is no balance. And Chinese know. that so they can count. And that's why they're doing it. Now, why are they doing it? That's just the

goal that they've had. They see themselves as the natural, permanent, dominant power in Asia. And they see the Americans who were there after World War II as the imposters. Now, unfortunately, in Asia, there are probably 40 plus countries. Very few of those countries, countries actually want China to dominate, which is why most of those countries are quite happy for the United States to continue to maintain its militaries in a region. But that's what China wants. It wants to be the undisputed number one country, and it wants to impose its institutions and its processes and norms in the region. So that just doesn't, that is irreconcilable with most of what we want, not just what the West wants, but what most Asian countries want. And hence,

that's why I consider China the most comprehensive and serious threat. And before I interrupted you, you were going to talk about things other than their military buildup. What else were you going to mention? What I was going to say was China's military buildup has been terrifyingly impressive, but it's economic and technological rise, and I should mention on the back of Western know-how and capital, but it's been this economic and technological rise, which is really the source of its power, because we can't, we as in the West or other Asian countries who fear China,

nevertheless, we cannot treat China like we treat Russia, because China is just far too important to too many countries. It's the largest trading partner of over 100 countries. And so, you know, we want to find ways of constraining China's options and stopping it from doing certain things, but we can't actually isolate it in the way that we can isolate Russia, as we're doing now. So that's the sort of policy and even sort of moral dilemma

as to what it is we should do about China. And, John, there will be a lot of people going, you see, this is the problem with globalization, is that all these interconnected supply chains, you become over-reliant on countries like China, and when they become hostile, or if they become hostile, it means that you are vulnerable to them economically. You know, I think globalization really arose in 1990s onwards,

you know, in terms of the enormous interdemean, dependence of countries, supply chains, markets, capital, and so on. And if you think about that period of history, the Soviet Union had fallen, there was a complacency in the West and other parts of the world that essentially ideological differences don't matter anymore, right? So when we welcome China into the global trading system, when we help China become such a dominant player in global supply chains, we didn't think at all about geopolitics. We didn't think at all about geopolitics. didn't think at all about a clash of values. We just assumed that all that mattered was that if we could help the Chinese get richer and if we could benefit from that, then everything

would be fine. So, you know, it's not that globalization has benefited the world immensely, but we forgot to think about the who it is that we should become interdependent with. you know, who is it that we can actually trust. Essentially, we forgot about geopolitics and geopolitics will always come back to bite. And John, I know you watched my interview with our mutual friend, John Anderson, and I was making very much the same point, that people in different countries have different values, surprisingly enough, and different agendas and different ways of doing things. And I can speak a little bit about what that's like as someone who comes from Russia.

from the perspective of China, when you talk about ideology and ideological differences, can you explain to people what is it that the CCP want? How are they different from us here in the West? What is this ideology and ideological divides that you're talking about? Maybe the best way I can sort of summarize it, and it's not a crude summary. I think it's an accurate one. The Chinese Communist Party is not communist. They're Leninist.

There is a Leninist party. And what I mean by that is, like all Leninist entities, the highest priority is to remain in power. And the way they remain in power is to utilize all elements of the state society to ensure they remain in power. So if you think of the difference between, say, a Leninist entity compared to a liberal or liberal democratic one, for a Leninist entity such as the Chinese Communist Party,

there is really no distinction between a public and a private. You know, every aspect of your life, a private firm, what would consider private activity, that is fair game. If that helps the party remain in power, then that's allowable. If that doesn't help the party remain in power, then, you know, that should be banned. You know, in recent months, we had sort of quite a weird spectacle of Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, wanting to ban the interests of Chinese. young teenagers in boy bans, right? Now, why do you want to ban boy bans? Because he thought it was

making the Chinese male youth soft and unprepared for war. And the point I'm trying to make is, you know, what I was saying, there is no distinction in a Leninist mindset between the public and a private. Everything you do in what we would consider our private lives, our private businesses, and so on, that's relevant to whether the party remains in power or relevant to whether the party loses power. So essentially, that's what modern-day Chinese Communist Party actually is. And, you know, I know to a lot of people who've been brought up being told that the CCP, ideology doesn't matter, they really just want to get rich. You know, don't take my word for it. I invite anyone, and it's quite accessible now, read party documents that are now mandatory

learning for all school children in China. They've gone in the very Leninous direction. And in the sense, that's kind of what their roots were. They've just returned to those roots. And that in itself makes the CCP incompatible to the way we view the world and the sort of world that we want to live in. Hey, KKK, do you believe in spring cleaning?

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actually the way they run the country, it has certain advantages, doesn't it? The authoritarian approach, and most people, you know, most people sort of attribute Chinese authoritarianism or the advantages of Chinese authoritarianism in the economic space. Now, if you're a poor country and you need to modernize and industrialize quickly, then, yeah, if you want to put human rights aside, we want to put land rights and other rights aside, authoritarianism for, poor countries, it works, right, in the sense that you can force a farmer to give up your land so you can build a road. No need to go to court and compensate that farmer, right? So you can do all those things. But the problem is that when society gets richer and more complex, when the economy gets more complex, that's when authoritarianism suffers. So if you look at China's challenge now, and this is the way they view their own challenge, they've gone from a low-income country to a

middle-income country. They want to become a high-income country. Now, become a high-income country, you can't just get by on cheap labor or cheap land. You know, that largely doesn't exist in relative terms in China anymore. So what do you have to do? You have to innovate. You have to allow people to experiment. You have to allow freedom of association. If I want to start a business with Constantine rather than you, I have a right to because Constantine's a better fit. But if a government tells me I can't do that, then obviously there's actual cost to that. So the point I'm trying to make is authoritarian countries at the early stages, even in economic sense, there are advantages, but as you sort of get more complicated as an economy in society,

that's when they really struggle. And the last thing I'd say about the supposed authoritarian advantage, I mean, look at COVID. You know, when COVID first happened, forget about, you know, the release of COVID, whether it's intentional or not. You know, when COVID first spreads throughout Chinese society, we saw these really extreme lockdowns. And a lot of people, to my concern, in the West, said, oh, wow, look how great the Chinese are doing. Why can't we be like that?

And a lot of Western countries actually tried. You know, to their shame, they actually tried. Now, look at the situation two years later. you know, over time, over the, we've had debates in, in UK, where you are in Australia about, you know, how to best manage this. Over time, we've cobbled together some way of living with COVID. Authoritarian countries like China still haven't done that. You know, they're still basically living as if they're in the first two months of COVID in 2020.

And a point I'm trying to make is that authoritarian societies, they don't tend to, adjust, they don't tend to recognise mistakes because no one tells the government they've made a mistake. People just have to grin and bear it. And sometimes by pure luck, the people get a good deal. But over the course of history, we find that of authoritarian countries, they are the ones that make massive mistakes inflicted on the population because they don't self-correct in the same way. And the point that I thought, I mean, that was a great point, number one. The point that I thought that was very interesting was when you talked about innovation. And to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, John, but to me, free speech and innovation go hand in hand.

Because it's that ability to question, to challenge, to play with accepted norms. That's what really leads to true innovation, isn't it? It does. A China has poured billions of dollars into trying to create a Chinese Silicon Valley, for example. it hasn't worked. And why hasn't it worked? Because they're always trying to pick winners. It's always top-down at Baltimore.

You know, there is, you don't have the, you don't have the same crave destruction in, in an economic sense, in Chinese societies, like you do in Western societies. And part of the reason linked to your free speech comment is that you don't, even in a business context, you know, put aside a human, right through a social context, in a business context in China, you don't really have the same encouragement or sometimes even right to question the business strategy, the corporate strategy, once it's been determined on high by political operatives. Right. So that's just not a particularly

good way of innovation. Even in terms of the flow of capital in China, there's a mass misallocation of capital because governments are constantly trying to pick winners and throwing money at them. And when they get it wrong, those companies are not allowed to fail. They just throw more and more money at those companies. So I'm not denying that the Chinese have achieved quite a fair bit, but when it comes to those higher and higher value added areas of even just economy, China goes nowhere near as well as Western and open societies. And John, coming back to the geopolitics side of this for a moment, you talked earlier about China and the CCP,

particularly learning lessons from the Soviet experience and the protests that they saw in China itself in the 80s. What is the situation with China vis-à-vis what Russia is doing in Ukraine now? A lot of people, myself included, who are not experts, thought that China would jump on that distraction as an opportunity to make a move on Taiwan. They have supported Russia, but not as overtly as some people thought. What has been their response? What are the lessons they're learning from it?

And what do you think they're planning to do as a result? If you remember, you know, Xi Jinping went to Moscow and about two or three weeks before the Russian invasion declared a no-limits pact with Vladimir. Putin. Now, at the time, China and Russia and the American and Western intelligence for that matter, were off the view that if Russia invaded, Ukraine would fall within three, four days. Right. So at that time, China believed that this was a real moment in history. That, you know, if you look at a lot of the Chinese documents and proclamations at the time, They were talking, using phrases like the great unseen changes in history.

What they were talking about was that we're entering a turning point in history where the West, led by a dysfunctional United States, were on the way in and that the authoritarian societies who were far more determined, organized, were on the rise. So China thought the Russians would invade Ukraine, they would achieve victory relatively quickly. and then this would lower the courage and a resolve in not just the United States, but in Asian countries if China tried to do the same with Taiwan. Now, obviously, Ukraine hasn't played out that way, and the Chinese now are quite honestly quite stumped as to what to do about it,

because what they've realized now is that, one, it's not that easy to defeat even a smaller enemy who has the determination to fight because it's their existential existence in question. The second thing they've worked out is that when you start killing people, which the Russians did to Ukrainians, the West sometimes will actually unite. Now, it's true that the West hasn't sent any troops to Ukraine. No Western soldiers or American or NATO soldiers have actually died. but the coordination of sanctions against Russia have shocked the Chinese.

And unlike Russia, China cannot afford to have a basket case economy if it does the regime in China falls. And China is still hugely dependent on not just Western markets and technology, but on access to Western finance and Western payment systems, the American dollar, and so on. So what really freaks the Chinese out, if you had to point to one thing that freaks the Chinese out, it's that if the Americans decide to cut Chinese entities off from transacting in the US dollar, the Chinese financial system would fall tomorrow. And the US have shown that they can do that. They've done that to a limited degree with the Russians,

and they would certainly do that to the Chinese if there was a war, say, over Taiwan. So the silver lining, I mean, you know, putting aside the tragedy, it's occurring in Ukraine and the life lost there, but the silver lining, you know, in terms of the China story, is that it has given China reason to pause. And from a policy point of view, I think we have probably brought ourselves quite a few years in terms of any Chinese invasion or intended invasion of Taiwan. And John, for those of us who are, again, not experts, I think it's not unhelpful to understand. What is the reason that China is so focused on Taiwan? Why is it such a key core part of the plan? Why is it? It almost feels like when I hear people talk about it's like a deeply emotive issue for the Chinese leadership also.

Can you just delve into the history of that a little bit for us? It is a deeply emotive issue. And it really stems from the civil war in China. China, the communist under Mao Ziedong defeated the nationalists who were led by Jankaj Shek. Jankar Shek fled to Taiwan. And, you know, as you as you probably remember, there was a period of time where the world was trying to decide, you know, who was the real China? Was it the People's Republic of China based in Beijing or was it the Republic of China based in Taipei? Now, most people now recognize the People's Republic of China as, you know, the China. But,

nevertheless do not want Taiwan to be subjugated or integrated into mainland China. Now, from the Chinese Communist Party's point of view, this is one of those unfinished business issues, that it's somewhat irrational in the sense that the amount of resources they put into, you know, into preparing to take Taiwan is irrational, even though Taiwan has huge strategic value. But, you know, nevertheless, the fact that it's the number one priority for the Chinese Communist Party, It's one of those somewhat irrational things, but it's just stems from, I guess, the period of

history of civil war and this notion of unfinished business. The last thing I would say is that in the 90s and early 2000s, you know, the Chinese always wanted Taiwan, but what's changed in the last 10 years is that you've now got to lead a Xi Jinping who has state his capacity to be president for life, amongst other things, on taking Taiwan. Right? That's never happened before. You know, when you look at Xi Jinping's predecessors, they sort of just said, we want Taiwan, but let future generations decide, you know, work it out how we actually get Taiwan.

Sheishin-Pings, the first leader to actually say he wants to resolve the Taiwan question in his time and that it cannot be left unresolved. So for a leader to stake his claim to be leader for life on Taiwan, which he has done, that's what makes it quite dangerous. But isn't that a very high-risk strategy, John, because if he doesn't make that happen, isn't that going to weaken his position? Absolutely, which makes him more desperate.

it. Look, I personally think some miscalculation by him, and I think was born out of hubris, right? I mean, he overestimated, I think, both the Chinese power and influence on one hand and the resolve of other countries on the other.

Look, I wouldn't want to be Xi Jinping. I mean, to, I should say, I should step back and say that Xi Jinping is now the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. You know, he has truly centralized power around himself, and that's not what his predecessors did. They used to centralize power around a group of people, but Xi Jinping has become essentially

a classical dictator. Now, to achieve that, he has had to do a lot of terrible things. For example, he's had to put, you know, more than a million Chinese Communist Party officials in jail who were his enemies. You know, he's had to promise the world to the country that he's not only taking Taiwan, but that he would use his Belt and road initiative to allow China to dominate the entire region and so on. Now, when you make those sorts of promises and you've got a lot of people gunning for your fall, you know, you tend to become dangerous and desperate. So I think that's, Xi Jinping had certainly added an extra layer

of risk in terms of what might happen with China in the future. And let's delve into the human rights issues with China, because I don't think when people who live in the West, they grow up in the West, really understands what it means to grow up and live in a place like China. So what is it like for people to live in China? What happens if you criticize the regime? And you've used the word go to jail.

But what does that actually mean again? Well, I mean, you know, obviously there are the human rights abuses going against certain ethnicities and people such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans, right? So that's just your, not to make light of it, that's your garden variety genocide, right, cultural genocide, and in some cases, human genocide. And again, John, I'll interrupt again, apologies, but just because this is an issue, we all talk about, but we probably have no idea about it. Why are the Chinese doing that? The Chinese, when Mao Zedong won power in 1949, within three years, he had invaded both Xinjiang,

which is where the Uyghurs are and Tibet, which are, you know, Lashibbutus. The Chinese have an intolerance for differences. And once again, it's a very Leninist mindset. The Uyghurs want to, the Uyghurs don't. necessarily want to separate from the people's Republic of China, but they want to live life the way they want to live life. You know, they don't want the Chinese Communist Party to be the central part of their lives, same Tibetans. And the Chinese Communist Party cannot tolerate that, right? I mean, it's a strange notion to us because, you know, for most of us living in liberal societies, we can't just say, well, they want to live that way, that's their business, so she cares.

But for Leninist political organizations, they cannot tolerate groups of people who refuse to submit to the rules that are being imposed upon them. So that's, you know, it's really as simple as that. And in the same way that a lot of the cultural chauvinistic attitudes led to the Second World War, I mean, those attitudes exist. in the Chinese Communist Party, right? I mean, that's just a fact. I mean, it's documented, and they're quite open about it, in fact. They just don't tolerate cultural differences,

which they see is a threat to their power. No one else does, but they sees a threat to the power. But on the human rights question, okay, there's that element, but in terms of what it's like for a normal harm Chinese person, not in these regions, but say in Shanghai or whatever, look, you know, normally you, you sort of go about your lives, you sort of know what not to talk about, you've internalized,

you know, where the sort of boundaries are. And in fact, you often become quite critical of those who might want to cross those boundaries because then it disrupts the flow of things. Sounds like living in the West, John. I'm going to be honest with you. Well, I mean, at least we can have podcasts like this, right? Yeah. in the West. But there has been a sort of more of a well-in-turn to things over the last 10 years with the social surveillance.

You know, I'm talking about technology such as facial recognition, AI being used to actually predict or work out crimes that you're about to commit a social credit system where if you don't hang around to write people or you read the wrong books, you lose social credit points and if you lose social credit points, you know, you may not actually get a spot in university or get a scholarship or you may not actually get that job, you know, at that state-owned enterprise or whatever. So there has been a sort of far darker high-tech turn to the suppression that is going on in China. But, you know, for most people, I think, in China, they're not, they just sort of know where the boundaries are and they go about your lives.

It's not necessarily that they are, you know, chanting communist slogans every day, but they just know what not to do. Hey, Francis, what do you think is the best way to advertise a business? That's easy. All you need to do is spend shed loads of cash on an advert that's going to be promoted on a dying medium-light TV. Then simply sit back and watch all your hard-earned, disappeared down the toilet.

What about advertising with Trigonometry? Why would I do that when I can advertise on ITV3 for the measly sum of 20 grand and be watched by six people? Because Trigonometry now has over 350,000 subscribers across the different platforms and gets 2 million views and downloads a month? That's right! You can place an advert with us and we'll promote your brand on one of our episodes. Your advert will be written by two professional comedians. Yeah, that's right. We're hiring two professional comedians. We're hiring two professional comedians.

When we make our ads funny and engaging to the point where some people say the ads are their favorite parts of the show. Yeah, we probably shouldn't admit that, mate. All you need to do is contact us on marketing at triggerpod.com.uk. That's marketing at triggerpod.com.com. Advertise with us and we'll get your business cancelled. Okay, so what are the rules in communist China then, John? If I go over there or if I live there, what are the golden rules of what not to do? You don't criticise the party.

You don't criticise individuals within the party. You don't criticise party policies even. And otherwise, everything else is fine. What about jokes? What about humour? Am I allowed to mock them? No. No, no.

So, no, you're not allowed to make jokes. You're not allowed to denigrate the party or individuals within. But, you know, it's, it's, I don't want to give the impression that it's just about what you should not do. There are still things you ought to do. So, for example, if the party says that you should buy local government bonds to support, you know, indebted local government companies, then you oblige to do it. Now, if you don't do it, you don't go to jail, but then, you know, you may not actually get access to other privileges, even in an economic sense. So there are all sorts of positive and negative rules that you have to abide by. And I guess for a lot of Chinese citizens, they probably don't think about it anymore.

They just sort of do it because they kind of know what it is they're meant to do to stay out of trouble. Now, for a lot of people living there, I'm sure they probably think, you know, that's, I can live with that. I mean, that's just what it's better than what it was of. than the grandparents generation, for example. But for us, it's not something we can tolerate. But finally, from a foreign policy perspective, why that matters is that China is trying to impose some of these rules and standards on neighboring countries. And that's kind of where the clash comes.

Because, you know, no country is really telling the Chinese Communist Party how to run the own country. The problems are occurring now because the China's. Communist Party are now telling other countries how they should run their systems and political economies. So I think that's that's sort of where the, that's where we're at the moment. That's why China's such a problem. Could you give an example of that, please, John, where the Chinese are starting to dictate in their region, how countries should be run? Well, let me give you an example from my country, Australia. Australia is entering its third

year of a cascading series of economic punishments against us. You know, China was our number one trading partner. And in fact, China still is our number one trading partner. Now, if you look at why China is punishing Australia, and the Chinese have been quite helpful because in November last year, they actually released a list of 14 grievances. And the list of 14 grievances was, this is what Australia has to do for China to stop punishing your country.

And if you look down the list of 14 grievances, nine out of 14 grievances concerned our domestic policy. So, you know, there were foreign policy aspects like we shouldn't criticize policies in Tibet and Xinjiang and Hong Kong. We shouldn't talk about Hong Kong anymore. We should not care about the South China Sea. But even if we did all that, most of the demands made against us were things like

the government is funding think tanks that are critical of China and that has to stop. The media in Australia is critical of China and the government has to stop it. The government's own internal processes for foreign investment is too harsh and needs to change. The government has banned various companies from entering certain sectors such as Huawei from entering our 5G sector and that is not acceptable to China. So this is an example where, you know, it's not just China saying to us, shut up about Xinjiang. They're saying, in Australia in your own country, this is what you must do, you know, for relations to be stable and proceeding smoothly. Australia's not the only one they've done that to.

They've done that to, they've tried to Japan. They've tried to do Vietnam. They try to do it to a whole, a handful of countries in Southeast Asia. Asia, you know, no self-respecting country would accept those sorts of terms. So that's what I'm talking about. It's very interesting. And how just very quickly, we've seen the impact of Chinese power and Chinese money beyond actually the region.

So for example, when NBA players speak out in support of China or things of that nature, what do you make of how China is responding or playing part in the Western? and culture wars and all of that side of things. When you've got Chinese kind of saying that America is a deeply racist society while putting Uyghurs in concentration camps. Is China playing a clever part in all of that, do you think? Or what is your view of that? I thought they were initially playing quite a subtle, clever game.

So, you know, examples of the NBA you gave. I mean, other examples are, you know, Hollywood movies. You know, you notice in Hollywood movies, the villains are never Chinese. They're always Russian. Yeah. And a reason... Because Hollywood is racist against my people. But, you know, I mean, I guess what I was saying was, in a recent past,

China played a more subtle game in just delivering economic incentives for governments and countries to do things in a way that they wanted without being too. overt about it. It's in the last two or three years where I think that has become a lot more, the Chinese have become a lot more forfeit. So they're now demanding things that other governments should do. You know, they're now on a daily base, not daily, but on a constant basis threatening other governments. The most recent examples, New Zealand. You know, had the New Zealand leader, Prime Minister Arden, who's currently in Washington, having talks with Joe Biden. She made a fairly standard comment expressing concerned about some of China's economic and social policies.

It was nothing really that other countries don't really say. And how did China respond? The foreign ministry basically threatened to, in their words, treat New Zealand like we're now treating Australia. Right. I mean, that sort of heavy-handed approach, to be frank, it's made it quite easy. for leaders in the West now to sell the proposition that China is a problem and we need to design policies to deal with that. And John, that posturing, is that a sign of China's growing strength and financial power, or is it a sign of them, of their weakness that they feel that

they're under attack and that they need to hit back? This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new Elixir Collection, featuring three performers. intense sense, inspired by a unique orchid accord, paired with vanilla, each with its own distinct attitude, each with its own universe, bold elixir, sensual, woody, addictive, magnetic elixir, sweet and romantic like a lingering touch, solar elixir, a radiant expression of joy, ultra-concentrated for amplified impact and lasting power. Find your euphoria. Discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein. Look, the Chinese certainly, um, my view certainly, the last four or five years, the Chinese, as powerful as they are, they've overestimated their

strengths. So they thought that, you know, I mentioned the phrase the great unseen changes in several centuries. You know, that's a very common phrase used from Xi Jinping down to refer to great changes in the power, in the distribution of global power, are happening now and it's in China's favor. So for the last three or four years, I think there's been a lot of overestimation by the Chinese of their own strengths. And look, to be fair to them, I think they overestimate their strength because until quite recently, much of the world really just bowed down to China every time China demanded something.

You know, it's really only been the last two years or so, where countries have sort of said enough and will just absorb whatever punishments that China's going to deliver to us. So in my view, China has been conditioned to behave like this. And it's not working now, but because they've been doing for so long and it's actually worked for so long, that's the kind of method that they know. So, you know, when a smaller country, which is basically a real country except the United States does something, that's how China responds

because for about 10 years it's worked. It's only the last two years it hasn't. And the last two years, I presume that a lot of that is to do with COVID and the Chinese attitudes to COVID's and the way they've been, to put it mildly, less than clear with what happened? I think that's created a lot of anger. But, you know, I think what happened with COVID in terms of the spread of COVID and the seat that tried to cover up the spread of COVID, which, you know, allowed it to spread

around the world. I think most people understand that that's indicative of the nature of the Chinese system. Right. I mean, it wasn't just one stuff up. Like, what happened with COVID is indicative of how the Chinese system actually works. So I think that has changed views. Another thing that's occurred, and look, I have to, you know, regardless of what your viewers think of him, Donald Trump had a huge impact. You know, no president, and the American president has the loudest platform in a world, as we know, and Donald Trump was the loudest American president. no American president, certainly in my lifetime, had called out China in that way.

And even though, you know, in many ways he was a very difficult, in some ways a poor president, he changed the conversation about China. You know, certainly in allied countries like Australia. But I also think in some parts of the world, and that it won't admit it, even some parts like Europe, for example, I think it changed the conversation like China. Like everyone knew China did the things that the Trump administration accused China doing, but to call it out so publicly and make that the focus of diplomatic conversation

is actually quite a different thing. And so I think that actually had, you know, and I was in government at the time, so I could see it from the inside. That had quite a big impact on how to world start to speak and think about China. certainly the Western world anyway. And speaking of the Western world, to wrap things up before we go to our own final question

and questions from our local supporters, been a great interview, really enjoyed having you on the show, John. I suppose the real question that we're all asking is, based on everything you've said, what should be the West's response and attitude to China going forward? You mentioned that we've bought ourselves a few years or Mr. Putin bought us a few years

in terms of Taiwan and putting that off. how should the West act to have I think most people in the West would like to have a constructive relationship with China if they could but they also don't want to expose ourselves to the same vulnerabilities that perhaps we have done with Russia

where we emboldened somebody to feel that they can do things that we wouldn't want them to do. So what should be our posture? Doing nothing or doing little will actually make things worse because China is set on the direction that it wants to go, right?

I mean, this is not a standard of ideology, it's a statement of observation. And I believe what, when a Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping tells you what they want to do, it's a wise thing to actually believe them. And they've told us what they want to do. So my point is that the only way to get to a relatively happy outcome is to restrain and deter, right? I mean, doing the opposite actually gets to a worse position because it just allows the Chinese to push boundaries that eventually will lead to a much worse situation.

So I think that's the way we should look at it. I mean, we are now dealing with a large power that has fundamentally different, not just objective, but values and outlooks on where things ought to be, then we do. And so we have to understand that. The other thing I would say is, I'm lucky that I'm just old enough to remember the Cold War. You know, I was a child,

but I'm just old enough to actually remember it and understand elements of it. And there are ideological and ethical differences between governments, right? And differences in the sense that it leads to the sorts of conflicts that we read about in the history books. Our objective is to obviously avoid those. And if you want to be a student of history, if you look at the period leading up to the

1940s, a lot of people describe the current period as like the 1930s, if you go back in history. I mean, you know, there were things that we could have done to disincentivise certain governments from doing certain things. We didn't do those things. I do think, even though no historical period exactly the same, I do think we're in quite a similar period. I'm optimistic that there's time to actually do that. And I feel much better about where things are than I was four or five years ago where I think we're sort of sleep walking our way to disaster. So from that point of view, I do think we do have good options to dissuade the Chinese from doing the sorts of things that would be a catastrophe. Dr. John Lee, it has been an absolute pleasure. We're going to do,

like Constantine said, our locals at the end of the interview. But we always finish with our final question, which is what is the one thing we're not talking about that we're really? should be. Don't lose confidence in our own institutions and values. I mean, I say this as a typical immigrant who went from, you know, I was born in Malaysia, but I say it's as a typical immigrant who family deliberately left the country to go to what they thought was a better country. And what makes that better country are the institutions and the sorts of values behind it. It's, you know, it's really frustrating for, I'm talking about my Australian experience and the American one where I spend a lot of time there, it's really frustrating for an immigrant into these societies to watch

people in the West beat themselves up over things that not just don't matter, but actually create divisions when they don't actually exist. You know, the West doesn't have a natural right to succeed. We do have to make sure that the basic principles of liberalism that we that we based our institutions and our processes on, they have to continue to remain. And that's not the nature of fashion right now. But we do have to be careful in the West about, you know, where we're going because in 20, 30, 40 years, we don't necessarily have a right to still be vibrant societies. Well said, is something Francis and I, in our far less articulate way,

have been trying to remind people of as well here in the West. But we really appreciate you joining us. Where can people follow your work and keep up with the things that you're putting out? The best way is just to look up my profiles in the Hudson Institute, and that really has most of my stuff there. So if you look at my name, John Lee, at the Hudson Institute, most of my stuff will be there. Dr John Lee, we're going to ask you some locals questions in the second, but for now, thank you so much for joining us.

We're really appreciate it, and thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one, or Oral Show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys. Identity politics is the worst thing that is happening in the West.

I mean, it is just... tearing ourselves apart, I mean, and for no, you know, reason.