Special Program: China Now 12-08
The China Now special program informs about this country's news, culture and technological advances. Kris Yang, host of China Currents, one of the program's sections, talks about typhoon Doksuri effects on economy and other important news. The second segment is Thinker's Forum, where Yi Wen, Economy professor, interviews expert Peter Walker. teleSUR
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello, TELESUNI ENGLISH presents China Now, a production of WEI Media that showcases the
00:14 reality of the ancient giant.
00:16 In this segment, China's current Chris Yang talks about the damages that he found in the
00:21 Suricase, with the extreme weather and torrential rains flooding several provinces across the
00:27 country.
00:28 Chris also goes on technological breakthroughs regarding the creation of drones and the emergence
00:35 of Team China, with an impressive haul of four medals at the final world championship.
00:42 In this session, Thinkers Forum, Professor Yiwen largely examinates with Peter Wolker
00:49 the real differences between the US and China in the political sphere.
00:53 After these previews, join us on this new episode of China Now.
01:01 China Current is a weekly news talk show from China to the world.
01:05 We cover viral news about China every week and also give you the newest updates on China's
01:10 cutting edge technologies.
01:12 Let's get started.
01:18 Hi, welcome to China Current, I'm Chris.
01:25 Last week, typhoon Doxori swept across China.
01:28 On July 28, it made landfall in Xinjiang, Fujian province with winds equivalent to a
01:32 category 2 hurricane and rainfall that exceeded 300mm.
01:37 By the time it left Fujian, the typhoon had caused a direct loss of 52 million yuan.
01:43 Floods and landslides caused by the typhoon had affected more than 720,000 people, more
01:47 than 400,000 of them were relocated as their homes were badly damaged.
01:52 Here's a clip of the floods in the city of Fuzhou.
01:55 Streets turning to rivers, we can imagine how desperate the adjacent residents and small
01:59 business owners were.
02:00 Wait, let's go back a little bit.
02:03 Have you noticed the little semi-basement restaurant that was miraculously protected?
02:08 The little restaurant has got quite a haoqing, literally means chopsticks passion.
02:12 Thanks to the video, the restaurant went viral on social media.
02:15 The owner was hailed as a kanghong mofan, a model in resisting floods.
02:20 Fujian was not the only province suffered from typhoon.
02:23 The biggest victims are surprisingly the northern provinces, which should have been in drought
02:28 during summer.
02:30 At 6am July 31, the Central Meteorological Observatory issued a rainstorm red alert as
02:35 the typhoon Doxori moved northwards, resulting in widespread heavy rainfall in several northern
02:40 regions in China.
02:41 Due to the impact of extreme weather and torrential rains, numerous tourist attractions in the
02:46 Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei region, including the Forbidden City, the Tiananmen Square and
02:51 Universal Studios have been closed.
02:53 The Beijing municipal government has urged citizens to stay indoors unless necessary.
02:59 Meteorological experts have stated that this round of heavy rainfall has affected around
03:03 130 million people.
03:06 Here's a clip of the flood in Beijing.
03:20 As of this moment, there are at least 11 people dead and 27 people missing.
03:25 Besides businesses on the streets, bookstores and publishers suffer tremendously as most
03:31 of the warehouses are located around Beijing in the most severely damaged areas.
03:36 Books China, which is the largest online bookstore in the country, suffered from a loss of 80%
03:42 of the inventory, which is about 4 million books.
03:45 It is the darkest moment ever since we entered this industry, Books China stated.
03:49 Here's a clip of what it looks like inside a warehouse, or what used to be a warehouse.
04:03 Next up, let's turn to Chinese sports.
04:05 On July 28th, the FINA World Championships in Fukuoka, Chinese swimmer Qin Haiyang made
04:11 history by breaking the men's 200m breaststroke world record and winning the gold with a remarkable
04:16 time of 2 minutes and 5.48 seconds.
04:19 He becomes the first athlete ever to sweep all gold medals in the men's 50, 100 and 200m
04:26 breaststroke events at a single edition of the World Championships.
04:29 As the 2023 Fukuoka FINA World Championships came to a close, Team China emerged as the
04:35 dominant force with an impressive haul of 20 gold, 8 silver and 12 bronze medals, topping
04:40 the gold medal tally.
04:42 The swimming team's remarkable performance marked a historic milestone for the Chinese
04:46 swimming team at the World Championships, surpassing their previous best result achieved
04:51 back in 1994 in Rome.
04:54 On August 2nd, Qin won the gold medal in men's 100m breaststroke at the 31st Summer Universiade
05:00 in Chengdu.
05:01 Undoubtedly he has become the most anticipated stars in the Chinese swimming team, drawing
05:06 significant attention and support from fans at home.
05:10 The swimming team, our claiming medals and competition's Chinese football, is in the
05:14 middle of another anti-corruption campaign.
05:17 On August 2nd, former head coach of the Chinese men's national football team Li Tie is reportedly
05:22 being prosecuted on five counts of bribery including taking bribes, giving bribes, institutional
05:29 bribery, taking bribes as a non-state employee and bribing non-state employees.
05:34 Li, born in 1977, is a prominent figure in Chinese football.
05:38 By the age of 20 he was representing China in the World Cup qualifiers and by 25 he participated
05:44 in the 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan, later joining English Premier League
05:49 club Everton.
05:50 After retiring he worked as Marcelo Lippi's assistant coach in Guangzhou and took over
05:55 as the head coach of the Chinese men's national football team in January 2020.
05:59 However, Li was sacked in 2021 due to the poor results.
06:04 Throughout his career he took on roles as player, coach, executive, endorser and entrepreneur,
06:11 building a sprawling business empire.
06:12 He owned nine associated companies before the incident.
06:16 His prosecution comes six months after an investigation began for suspected violations.
06:21 It has triggered a new anti-corruption storm in Chinese football, taking down over 10 figures
06:26 including Li's superiors at the time he was coach.
06:30 The wide range of alleged crimes highlights the far reach of Li's case.
06:34 It serves another warning that abuse of power will not be tolerated as China continues reforming
06:39 football governance.
06:41 Speaking of football, Chinese women's football team has just wrapped up the World Cup trip
06:45 with the worst performance in history.
06:48 With a disastrous 1-6 defeat to England, the Chinese women's football team was out of the
06:53 World Cup.
06:54 The Chinese team ended the group stage with one win and two losses, setting the worst
06:58 record in its history in a tournament.
07:00 Previously China has never been eliminated in a group stage.
07:03 Their best performance was in 1999, which they finished the tournament with a silver
07:08 medal.
07:09 The Chinese women's football team is seen as a source of Chinese pride.
07:12 But in general, women's football has not received as much attention as men's football.
07:17 Most people only pay attention to women's football at times of tournaments.
07:21 Next up, a piece of news in an internationalization of RMB.
07:25 In a non-precedented move, the Argentine government has announced its decision to utilize the
07:30 Chinese currency RMB for its debt payment to the International Monetary Fund.
07:35 Argentine economy minister Sergio Massa said in a speech on Monday that Argentina will
07:40 repay a total of $2.7 billion in debt to the IMF, on which $1 billion is loaned by the
07:48 Development Bank of Latin America, and other $1.7 billion will be repaid in yuan under
07:53 the China-Argentina currency swap agreement.
07:56 Massa also noted the agreement would allow Argentina to meet its IMF obligations without
08:02 using a single dollar of its reserves.
08:05 The deal represents another step in Argentina's efforts on reducing its reliance on the US
08:10 dollar.
08:11 In June, the Central Bank of Argentina allowed the Chinese currency for deposit-taking in
08:16 savings and current accounts, as Argentina aims to diversify its payment methods.
08:21 Earlier this year, Argentina announced that it will pay for its Chinese imports in RMB
08:26 yuan rather than US dollars.
08:28 These decisions also underscore the growing economic ties between Argentina and China,
08:34 with China emerging as one of Argentina's primary trading partners.
08:38 Next up, on July 31, four Chinese government and military departments issued a notice to
08:44 exert temporary export controls on certain drones.
08:47 The notice sets a limit on high-performance drones, including the ones with high payload
08:52 and flight time that could be used for military purposes.
08:55 In a press conference, the spokesperson from the Ministry of Commerce said export control
09:00 is consistent with international standards, without targeting any specific country or
09:04 region.
09:05 The notice was issued in the context of the extensive use of drones in armed conflicts
09:10 around the world, especially the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
09:13 Drones, especially high-quality, made-in-China civilian-level drones like DJI, are frequently
09:19 used in military conflicts around the world.
09:22 Despite DJI's efforts in banning the use of drones in conflicting areas like Ukraine and
09:27 Russia, DJI's high reliability still attracts local militaries to smuggle drones into the
09:32 areas.
09:34 Many Chinese netizens connect this to the frequent drone attacks in Moscow in recent
09:37 weeks.
09:38 In online discussions, people joked that new regulations specifically targeted former Soviet
09:43 states.
09:44 The extensive use of Soviet RPG-26 grenade weighed 3 kg, which just exceeds the maximum
09:50 payload of exportable drones.
09:53 Next up, let's take a look at the top trending songs in China.
09:57 Recently Chinese pop singer Daolang had made headlines on Chinese social media with his
10:01 new album "Mountain Song Rally" and more particularly with his new song "Luo Cha Hai
10:07 Shi".
10:08 Daolang was once extremely popular in China back in the early 2000s.
10:11 However, he has become semi-retired since 2013 as he felt the Chinese entertainment
10:16 industry was corrupted.
10:18 The song "Luo Cha Hai Shi" is based on a story from the "Strange Tales from Liao
10:21 Zhai", an ancient Chinese novel.
10:23 The novel is a collection of supernatural stories written by Pu Songlin in the Qing
10:27 dynasty.
10:28 This particular song depicts a story in which the protagonist Ma Ji, a very handsome man,
10:33 came across a city where people had completely different beauty standards.
10:37 In the eyes of the locals, Ma Ji is a monster.
10:40 To conform to the city, Ma Ji made himself appear ugly and soon became very successful.
10:46 Some suggest the song is a retaliation towards rival pop stars who had criticized his work
10:51 for being too down to earth and not cool enough.
10:54 The song "Luo Cha Hai Shi" went so viral it was rumored to have broken the Guinness
10:58 World Record with 8 billion hits, which was later debunked by the organization.
11:03 Lastly, let's take a look at McDonald's.
11:06 Milkshake is standard for McDonald's in the States.
11:09 But in China, shakes are out of the menu since the 2000s.
11:12 On August 2, in response to netizens' petition to bring back the milkshake, McDonald's
11:17 China CEO Zhang Jiayin explained that McDonald's stopped selling milkshakes in mainland China
11:22 because they didn't sell well.
11:24 Many people didn't like the thick texture and preferred smoother drinks like Coke.
11:29 Currently, milkshakes have been discontinued in almost all Asian countries.
11:33 In response to online calls for the return of the milkshake, Zhang Jiayin said it may
11:37 just be a nostalgia of childhood.
11:41 Milkshakes are not the only cultural difference in McDonald's menu.
11:44 Many popular dishes in its Chinese restaurants are proven to be failures in the North American
11:49 market.
11:50 Spicy chicken wings, for instance, are extremely popular in China but were ranked among the
11:54 biggest failures in the States.
11:56 Similarly, Chinese found it hard to accept buffalo wings and turkeys.
12:00 Therefore, to some degree, all multinational food chains are fusions in one way or another.
12:05 Healthy orange chicken, pineapple pizza, and Shanghai schnitzel.
12:09 That's all for today.
12:10 Thank you for watching this episode of China Currents.
12:12 If you have any thoughts and comments about our show, please reach us at the email address
12:15 below.
12:16 I'm Chris.
12:17 Looking forward to hearing from you and see you next time.
12:19 Hi, today we are very happy to have Mr. Peter Wok to join us to have a conversation and dialogue
12:34 about a lot of issues.
12:37 And so now let me give Peter the chance to introduce himself about his work experience
12:45 and his background.
12:46 Let me just start with my interest in China, which has been pretty high for probably 40
12:51 years.
12:52 So I studied biographies of a lot of my favorite people, so composers, authors, etc.
12:58 So I got to develop a better understanding of the East versus the West.
13:02 I think Western philosophies and religions are what I would call dualistic by nature.
13:10 So they're inherently judgmental.
13:12 So you have good, bad, heaven, hell, etc.
13:17 Is that mostly influenced by Christianity?
13:19 Yes, very influenced by Judeo-Jewish and Christian faith.
13:25 And I just didn't find that very appealing.
13:28 I don't like the idea that people are constantly looking for winners and losers.
13:35 So when I started the Eastern religions, so I started with Buddhism and Hinduism, I like
13:40 very much the idea of harmony and balance.
13:45 So I just said, I'm just basically an Easterner in a Western body.
13:50 When I hit 60, I told my assistant I wanted to go to China every six to eight weeks for
13:56 a week.
13:57 What was that?
13:58 Which year?
13:59 That started probably 15 years ago.
14:03 But I made over 80 trips to China because my field at McKinsey was insurance,
14:09 so I was advising large insurance companies around the world.
14:13 So around early 2000, so that was your first trip to China?
14:16 Yes, first trips.
14:17 Well, I did some earlier trips when China was all bicycles, no cars.
14:22 Oh, in the 80s?
14:23 Yes, in the 80s and early 90s.
14:26 But this was the first time I really spent dedicated time in China.
14:30 And I wound up writing a book because I got so tired of reading in the Western press
14:36 about the oppressive, corrupt government and the unhappy, oppressed people.
14:43 And I said to myself, I've made over 80 trips,
14:45 how come I've never met any of these unhappy, oppressed people?
14:49 Okay, but you travel to both the cities and the rural areas?
14:53 Yeah, but I'd say probably 75% would have been big cities.
15:00 Most of the other time I was here for pleasure with my family, with my kids.
15:09 But I developed a pretty good feel for China overall.
15:13 So I wrote a book that largely examines the real differences between the US and China
15:20 because the US is always saying our model is the only right model,
15:25 that ultimately everyone is going to become a democracy.
15:28 By the way, I don't believe that at all.
15:30 So the US is an individualistic model going back to escaping Europe.
15:36 China is very much a collective model.
15:39 The US has a relatively, they don't like to hear these words,
15:45 a relatively weak government by design.
15:49 So when the founding fathers started to develop the constitution of the US,
15:53 they basically said, let's do everything we can to minimise what the government is allowed
15:59 to do because this should be a country of, by and for the people.
16:05 And China, on the other hand, had a very strong central government,
16:09 has going back thousands of years.
16:12 It's always had that, in part, I think, because people need to come together
16:15 to protect against the evasions from the north.
16:19 And then also the number of catastrophes, weather catastrophes,
16:22 that require people to come together to kind of rebuild.
16:26 So the model was very much-
16:27 So the US seems to have a natural, national border,
16:31 so much safer.
16:32 Yes, totally.
16:33 Compared to China, surrounding.
16:34 Yeah, we had no equivalence.
16:36 I mean, when settlers arrived in the US,
16:41 the country was basically owned by Indians who were relatively unsophisticated.
16:46 And the US, in a not very nice way, basically pushed them out.
16:51 The US president, in the time of emergency, for example,
16:54 perhaps also has a lot of power.
16:58 And the Congress can also set up new laws to overrule the old ones,
17:04 in a time of emergency, maybe.
17:06 So that makes the US quite flexible in dealing with crisis,
17:11 and also during peaceful time, maybe, governments try to minimise the size.
17:15 But there is one very significant difference,
17:19 is the best and the brightest young people in the US
17:23 almost always go into business.
17:25 Go to business.
17:26 They do not go into government.
17:27 Also go to law and medical field.
17:32 Because that's where you make a lot of money.
17:35 Make a lot of money, exactly.
17:37 And the best and the brightest,
17:39 going back to the Mandarin tradition in China,
17:42 generally went into public service and government.
17:45 But the net effect is,
17:47 if I think about the people I've met in the Chinese government,
17:50 they are highly educated.
17:52 They tend to be pretty worldly,
17:54 and have had jobs in different sectors.
17:57 But how would you compare this kind of US system
18:01 with European countries?
18:03 Because the whole process we call so-called modern civilisation,
18:09 whether that be scientific revolution or industrial revolution,
18:12 they actually started in Europe.
18:14 But how the European countries' political system
18:16 differ from the US, or they're similar?
18:18 They're similar in the sense that they're both democracies.
18:22 So you rely on votes to select your leaders.
18:25 But their democracy comes much later, right?
18:28 Starting in the 18th century, 19th century,
18:30 none of the European countries was democratic.
18:32 They had a democracy.
18:34 It was under monarchy mostly.
18:37 And you also had...
18:39 Europe was a very deeply ingrained class system.
18:42 Whereas the US from the very beginning was not a class system.
18:46 I mean, the purpose was equal opportunity for everyone,
18:51 because they were escaping Europe, which was a class system.
18:56 But I think the economies evolved in fairly similar ways.
19:01 I think the difference in the US
19:04 is the US relied very much on immigration for creativity.
19:09 So a lot of the great inventions, discoveries,
19:12 when they came out of America,
19:14 really can be traced back to Europeans
19:17 who emigrated to the United States,
19:20 frequently because they wanted to escape oppression.
19:24 From the Chinese point of view,
19:25 when I talk to a lot of Chinese,
19:27 whether they're from different backgrounds,
19:30 when they talk about the US,
19:31 it seems they have a much bigger picture in their mind,
19:35 is they talk about the West.
19:37 And they know that the rise of the West started in Europe.
19:41 So therefore, they like to compare
19:43 what's the major difference between Europe and China.
19:47 Then starting from there,
19:49 they try to move to what's the major difference
19:51 between the US and China.
19:53 So therefore, I would like to know from your point of view,
19:56 if you compare Europe with China,
19:59 and compare Europe with the US,
20:01 what kind of major difference in terms of
20:04 whether that be political system or institutions,
20:08 or some other background you see?
20:11 The contrast between the US and China
20:13 seems much striking larger.
20:15 But if you compare Europe and China,
20:18 especially in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th century,
20:21 when Europe rose up,
20:23 maybe the difference was different,
20:24 or different type of difference.
20:26 How would you say that?
20:27 - Well, I mean, obviously,
20:29 there wasn't that much interaction
20:31 between the Europeans and China
20:33 until the Opium Wars in the 19th century.
20:37 And I think, especially Great Britain,
20:40 which kind of took the lead,
20:42 I think that created a pretty high level of tension
20:46 between China and the Europeans.
20:49 I think the Americans played a role in the Opium Wars,
20:52 but it wasn't a dramatic role.
20:54 And I think the,
20:56 I'd say the Europeans in general were more aggressive.
21:00 - Also, it seems their government
21:03 had a more centralized power.
21:05 - Yeah.
21:06 - To facilitate industrialization.
21:08 - Yeah.
21:09 - That's why the First World War, Second World War,
21:12 took place among the European countries.
21:14 - Well, I think, I mean, to me,
21:16 the main thing that happened in the 19th century
21:19 is that China missed the Industrial Revolution.
21:22 - That's a very interesting point.
21:23 - So you had the Qing Dynasty, run by the Manchus,
21:27 where frankly you have examples like Empress Xixi,
21:31 who spent the treasury on rebuilding the Summer Palace,
21:36 as opposed to the Navy, which is what it was meant for.
21:39 So I think the inward focus of the Manchus
21:43 under the Qing Dynasty,
21:44 led to a lack of interest in what was going on
21:49 in the rest of the world,
21:51 and not any real intellectual curiosity.
21:53 So when you had the Brit show up for the first time,
21:56 with here are all of our discoveries,
21:59 and here's what's enabling us to modernize,
22:01 the response from the Empress or Emperor at the time
22:05 was very much, we have nothing to learn from the West.
22:07 - I think that at that time,
22:09 China really was not aware,
22:11 or knew very little about what's going on in Europe.
22:13 - Exactly.
22:14 - Otherwise, you think they might have behaved differently.
22:17 - Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
22:19 So if you think about Chinese history,
22:22 if you miss the Industrial Revolution,
22:24 which was really affecting
22:25 most of the advanced Western countries,
22:29 and the US and the UK probably played a prominent role.
22:33 - Maybe that's also why historians often talk about,
22:37 Germany used to be a backward area,
22:40 or nation, was not even unified,
22:42 and until maybe late second half of 19th century,
22:46 then Germany start to emerge as a power.
22:50 So how could Germany do that,
22:53 whereas other European nations like Poland,
22:56 I don't know, failed to achieve that.
22:58 And also in Asia, Japan came into place,
23:03 and people also talk about how come Japan succeeded
23:07 in capturing the process of industrialization,
23:10 whereas China keep falling behind.
23:13 - If you take those two examples,
23:14 I mean, what was the common denominator
23:18 is both Germany and Japan were very anxious
23:23 to build up their industrial might for military reasons.
23:28 So China, I mean, Japan was very aggressive militarily,
23:31 vis-a-vis China, vis-a-vis Russia, and other areas.
23:36 So I think once you start down that track,
23:39 then you wanna be able to build ships,
23:41 you wanna be able to build an army,
23:42 you wanna be able to build everything
23:45 that goes with military might.
23:47 And Germany, exactly the same.
23:48 Germany was obviously a very major player
23:53 in European wars in the late 19th century,
23:56 and then very aggressive and active
23:59 in World War I and World War II.
24:01 So I think in those two cases,
24:03 the industrialization followed a military spin.
24:08 - You know, war created capitalism.
24:10 So capitalism arise in Europe, not in Asia,
24:13 because they had a constant state of wars.
24:16 And those war created demand
24:20 for different type of organization,
24:22 different type of financing,
24:24 and obviously created the need to encourage commerce,
24:28 because that give you the money to finance wars.
24:31 And therefore, so-called militaristic state,
24:34 way of industrialization actually came much earlier,
24:38 like starting from Renaissance,
24:40 those Italian city-state, like Venice,
24:43 they were essentially militaristic state.
24:47 On one hand, they need commerce,
24:49 on the other hand, they need a strong army, military.
24:52 So later on, as a later commerce,
24:56 like Germany and Japan, they need to do more.
24:59 Otherwise, they would not be able to squeeze in
25:02 to become a power.
25:03 So all the European powers, like in France,
25:06 you know, Louis XIV and the other, and the Leponian,
25:10 and so all the European powers had this feature
25:13 of militaristic industrialization.
25:16 So maybe that's another explanation for China's failure.
25:20 They never thought of or wanted to go that road.
25:25 I think Qing Dynasty perhaps has another reason,
25:29 because they are, as you mentioned,
25:30 the minority to control the major Han people.
25:35 You know, even like a city-state like Venice,
25:38 if they want to rise up,
25:40 they need essentially everyone to be able to fight,
25:43 and everyone to be able to do business.
25:46 But if the Chinese government do that,
25:48 that means all the financial resources
25:51 and the military power will shift to the Han people.
25:55 That will create a threat.
25:57 So maybe that's an additional reason
25:59 they didn't take that route.
26:00 Whereas for Japan, once they have the emperor,
26:03 who is the god of everyone,
26:06 that seems that problem at least can be solved.
26:09 I don't know.
26:10 So that's one perspective.
26:12 Of course, the US has become very different now,
26:15 because the US did not rely on monarch.
26:17 They did not have any kings, queens.
26:21 But the US later on also, like today,
26:23 you look at the US, this military complex,
26:28 industrial complex,
26:29 is something analogous to that kind of tradition.
26:34 Very strong in that.
26:35 So people, developing countries,
26:37 think that this seems to be one of the essential elements
26:40 for any country to become industrialized.
26:43 You need that to create the huge incentive
26:46 and demand for heavy industries,
26:49 for lots of other things,
26:51 and for technology adoption.
26:52 And otherwise you will be defeated, be killed.
26:58 So that's one view.
26:59 And of course, the US has a lot of different features,
27:01 like they minimize the size of government,
27:03 but that's impossible for European.
27:05 If you do that,
27:06 perhaps you will be the next one to be destroyed.
27:10 How do you think of this kind of perspective?
27:13 This is essentially the view of Braudel and Sombat,
27:19 you know, the thing of war created capitalism.
27:21 So people say, "Why capitalism never arises in the East,
27:25 in Asia?"
27:26 This provides one explanation.
27:27 Of course, according to Max Weber,
27:29 he has a different view.
27:30 His religion is different.
27:32 Christian people, they are more industrious.
27:36 They like to save.
27:38 But that view seems not very consistent with history,
27:41 because the Jewish people are also very industrious,
27:44 very like to save.
27:45 The Chinese, or the Buddhist people,
27:48 perhaps they may be also good at doing,
27:50 I don't know, those kind of things,
27:53 but they were not able to rise,
27:56 maybe because of the lack of centralized,
27:59 militaristic industrialization motive,
28:02 what you call like a national will,
28:05 to use that will to mobilize resources,
28:07 to organize the nation in a different way,
28:10 to compete with the European nations.
28:13 But the US was able to do that,
28:15 maybe not in the very beginning,
28:16 but the US knows that, right?
28:18 They know the Europeans, how they behave.
28:19 So the US later on also built a military,
28:22 also through the Civil War,
28:23 that further enhanced the US military capacity.
28:27 So that's a good play or role.
28:30 So China, when China became sort of kind of,
28:33 have a mindset where we do need a national army
28:36 to be militarized,
28:37 was during the Civil War and the war against Japan.
28:41 So that helped the Chinese finally to be organized,
28:45 militarily to fight.
28:47 And with that military fighting capacity,
28:51 you enter the social planning era.
28:53 But the social planning era,
28:54 although you have a strong military kind of mindset,
28:57 but you did not allow market to flourish.
28:59 So you miss one part.
29:01 And Deng Xiaoping solved that.
29:03 He not only inherited this kind of
29:07 military institutional capacity,
29:09 but also allowed market.
29:11 Whereas the Qing dynasty had maybe just market,
29:14 but no this kind of lack of this.
29:16 I think there's two fundamental differences
29:19 between the US and Europe.
29:22 Europeans have always been a very highly
29:24 fragmented continent.
29:26 So you've got language differences,
29:28 you have cultural differences,
29:30 you have religious differences.
29:32 And you also have the fact that war in the 19th century
29:36 was almost a constant state.
29:38 I mean, right up through World War I
29:41 and then kicking in in World War II.
29:44 So I think that fragmentation,
29:47 and even though they tried to solve it to some extent
29:50 by creating the EU,
29:52 there are still fairly significant differences
29:54 among the major countries.
29:56 It was a huge advantage for the US and China
29:59 to basically have a large,
30:01 single language integrated country.
30:04 And the US had the added advantage of,
30:08 while it was involved in wars,
30:10 it was never on their own land.
30:12 So one of the reasons I think for the economic success
30:15 of the US is they were able to avoid war
30:20 other than selectively joining as they did,
30:23 obviously, World War I and World War II.
30:26 And then China, the same thing.
30:28 I mean, China, the challenge for many years
30:30 was the internal fighting of the warlords
30:32 and the civil war.
30:33 But once under Deng, China became very focused
30:39 on market-driven economy and consumerism,
30:44 Deng just did an extraordinary job
30:47 in a short period of time.
30:48 - So this is interesting.
30:50 So, you know, East European countries
30:52 also conducted market reform,
30:54 and their economic foundation was much more superior.
30:58 You know, they had a social plan,
31:00 everybody built a lot of industries,
31:02 including military industries.
31:03 How come after introducing market reform,
31:06 they could not perform as well as China?
31:09 So you mentioned about Deng Xiaoping,
31:11 what's the major difference between
31:12 Deng Xiaoping's leadership versus, you know,
31:14 the leadership in East European countries?
31:17 Where did they go wrong, in a sense?
31:19 You know, they had a much better foundation
31:22 to the market reform.
31:24 They did not go through cultural revolution.
31:26 So what's your view on this?
31:28 - Yeah.
31:29 I think a huge advantage China has always had
31:33 is just scale.
31:34 - Okay.
31:35 - So when you've got a consumer population today
31:38 of a billion four,
31:39 even when you look at the Asian tigers,
31:43 so when you looked at Hong Kong and Singapore
31:46 and Taiwan and Korea,
31:50 they have not been able to create anywhere near
31:54 the economic footprint that China has created,
31:58 in part because of the scale of the country,
32:01 the population in China.
32:03 - Yes, okay.
32:04 So economic scale is very important.
32:06 That may also explain the US success
32:08 compared to European countries.
32:10 US have much larger scale.
32:11 - Yes.
32:12 - So even though German engineers,
32:14 they may be very good,
32:15 the Japanese may be very good,
32:16 but your scale of the economy is very limited.
32:18 - Yes.
32:19 - Right?
32:20 So on the other hand,
32:21 there's also maybe some advantage for smaller countries.
32:25 For example, you know,
32:26 you need to develop an economy,
32:29 you need mass production,
32:30 and you need a global market.
32:32 But the size of Singapore,
32:34 because perhaps they only need a tiny bit
32:36 of a global market that can support their industrialization.
32:39 - Yes.
32:40 - Whereas China need the entire earth,
32:42 and the earth is very limited.
32:44 So that may also make smaller countries
32:47 somehow easier on their way of industrialization
32:50 in terms of creating global market.
32:52 - Yeah.
32:53 - You know, I heard that during Singapore's
32:55 industrialization process in the 60s, 50s, 70s,
32:58 they had a huge sector of manufacturing wax,
33:03 but that market alone is able to support
33:05 lots of people's employment.
33:06 For China, you cannot just rely on that.
33:10 - Yeah.
33:11 - You need to rely on perhaps other much larger markets,
33:13 such as textile.
33:14 And for the textile market globally is very limited.
33:16 The US give China some quota,
33:18 and say that's it.
33:19 I heard from Taiwanese economists,
33:21 they say, you know,
33:22 US give them a quota,
33:23 and soon the quota was filled.
33:25 Then they have to search for alternative market.
33:28 They say fortunately,
33:29 China opened their door for reform.
33:31 So China become Taiwan's largest possible global market
33:35 to absorb their industrial output.
33:38 So then you look from that point of view,
33:40 it's harder for China.
33:41 Where's the global market?
33:43 Now the US is also trying to shrink China's global market.
33:46 That may well make,
33:48 you think that will make China's industrialization process
33:51 harder to finish?
33:52 - Well, first of all,
33:54 I think the idea of containing China is a ridiculous idea.
33:58 Because if you look at the economic momentum of China,
34:02 if you look at the cultural advantages,
34:04 Chinese people just work harder than Americans.
34:07 There's no denying that.
34:08 - That's also the same view from the Europeans.
34:10 They say Americans work much harder than the Europeans.
34:13 - Oh no, absolutely.
34:14 I mean, look at European,
34:16 I mean the number of strikes,
34:17 and the number of holidays.
34:22 I mean, would we McKinsey hire people in North America
34:26 from France and from Spain?
34:29 I mean, they just are used to a model
34:33 that is far less demanding.
34:36 Whereas China is again, dramatically harder worker.
34:40 So having worked at McKinsey,
34:42 and worked in many of our US offices,
34:44 and then the same in China, it's very different.
34:47 - How different?
34:48 - Well, first of all,
34:49 if you were to go to most Americans and say,
34:52 you're gonna work six days a week, not five.
34:55 You're gonna work from nine to nine,
34:57 they'd say you're crazy.
35:00 I mean, it would not be accepted socially.
35:03 - That's recently US, right?
35:04 But you go back to 19th century,
35:06 perhaps the average Americans work as hard as Chinese.
35:10 They work for six days, even seven days per day, perhaps.
35:13 - Yeah, maybe during times of challenge, like war times.
35:17 I think, I mean, if I think about my father
35:21 who grew up in the 20s, 30s and 40s,
35:25 his hours were not dissimilar
35:27 from people working in the US today.
35:30 - Okay, okay.
35:31 - When I would work with the Beijing
35:33 or Shanghai office at McKinsey,
35:35 you would just, if you watch,
35:40 you would see the lights on very late at night.
35:43 And then you'd see people falling asleep
35:45 at their desk during the day,
35:46 'cause they basically got no sleep.
35:48 - Maybe there's a pattern, later comer,
35:50 you have to work harder than the earlier ones.
35:53 So US people, American people work harder than Europeans.
35:56 And Chinese people have to work harder than the US
35:58 in order to come up, otherwise it's impossible.
36:01 So it's just like Germany and Japan,
36:02 they need to be far more militaristic state.
36:06 Otherwise, there's no chance for them to rise up,
36:09 because the state was already fully occupied.
36:11 Like in academia, in the US,
36:14 it's so normal for all the professors
36:17 stay in their office until eight, nine,
36:20 sometimes even midnight.
36:22 But I travel to Europe, it's impossible.
36:25 If you do that, other people will look down at you.
36:27 Why do you need to work so hard?
36:29 So around five or four,
36:31 everybody just lock all the people's doors,
36:33 saying let's go home.
36:34 But precisely, US is a late comer
36:39 in terms of industrialization.
36:40 Maybe that explains why US behave differently.
36:43 Otherwise, but China compared to US
36:46 is much even later comer.
36:48 That's maybe one way to explain.
36:50 But in the future, once China become rich,
36:53 you will see Indian people work much harder,
36:55 and the Chinese start to relax,
36:57 and they want to get off around four,
36:59 and they only want to work for three or five days a week.
37:03 - I would say the Chinese work much smarter
37:07 than the Indians do.
37:09 So I'll give you an example.
37:11 I was visiting Delhi.
37:14 My family and I were gonna go to Rajasthan in the north.
37:19 We were on this beautiful six-lane highway
37:21 coming out of Delhi.
37:22 - Six-lane highway?
37:23 - Six-lane. - That's very good.
37:24 - Well, three each way.
37:26 But it turned into a dirt road after about 50 miles.
37:31 - Oh, okay, all right.
37:31 - I said, well, what happened?
37:32 Oh, the new mayor doesn't support Rajasthan,
37:37 and doesn't respect what they do.
37:39 So he just stopped the road.
37:41 So the amount of what I would call
37:44 economic irrationality in India is huge.
37:48 So even though the people are very smart,
37:51 and they turn out more high-end students,
37:54 which we saw at McKinsey than almost any other country,
37:58 you do not have anything like the system in China
38:03 where you've got large numbers of highly educated people
38:08 advanced meritocratically in the party,
38:11 and they're all on the same page.
38:13 I mean, getting all Indians,
38:14 I mean, just start with the Muslims and the Hindus,
38:17 they are not a united country.
38:22 I think the US for 150 years
38:24 has been the top economy in the world.
38:27 I think one reason you see very little intellectual curiosity
38:31 in the US about what other countries are doing
38:35 is because they've been so used to the idea
38:38 that we're number one.
38:39 One reason they push back against China's success
38:43 is because it's a dualistic mindset
38:46 with winners and losers.
38:48 So Americans genuinely believe
38:51 that if China is very successful,
38:54 they win and we lose.
38:56 And you'd explain that to Chinese people,
38:58 and they say, why do you look at it that way?
39:01 Why don't you just say, don't we want both sides to win?
39:04 - If you just think about in our government
39:06 and listening to government people talk about China,
39:08 they know nothing about China.
39:10 - Really?
39:11 They know nothing?
39:12 - And I talk, well, I talk--
39:13 - Seems the Biden administration
39:15 and even the Trump administration,
39:17 they have lots of people,
39:17 seems they know China very well,
39:19 so well so that they can design good policy
39:22 to contain China.
39:23 - Let's just say they're very confident.
39:26 I would say grossly overconfident
39:29 in what they know about China.
39:31 I think if you ask them,
39:33 tell me about Confucianism,
39:35 they say, oh, we know all about that.
39:37 The Confucian institutes were put in the US to spy.
39:41 When you say, no, I'm talking about the Confucian values,
39:45 you wouldn't find more than 5% of Americans
39:49 who could explain anything about Confucianism.
39:52 I was at Peking University,
39:54 and they said, Pete,
39:55 we had a delegation of 16 congresspeople,
39:59 all very focused on China in a negative way.
40:02 Of the 16, one had been to China three times,
40:05 one had been to China once,
40:07 14 had never been to China.
40:09 - Who are they?
40:10 - I don't know.
40:11 - Okay, okay, just--
40:12 - But still, it's a very small number.
40:17 And when you listen to congressmen
40:19 who generally are very aggressive about China
40:23 and always explaining China and the way it works,
40:25 so they'll frequently say,
40:27 well, it's inevitable that China will become a democracy
40:30 because the Chinese people are so unhappy.
40:33 And you say, what evidence do you actually,
40:36 they don't have any evidence,
40:38 because they've never been.
40:39 And how do you explain--
40:41 - But maybe, on the other hand, maybe natural,
40:44 because I believe those congressmen,
40:47 most of them have gone to Europe, or even to Japan.
40:50 But China just recently become developed.
40:54 So therefore, they have not had the chance,
40:57 who want to go backward,
40:59 underdeveloped country, right?
41:01 The incentive was not there.
41:02 You go to more developed or equal.
41:05 When China just recently, suddenly emerged,
41:07 maybe they did not have the chance yet.
41:09 - I mean, I just see it as a level of overconfidence
41:14 based on 150 years of being number one.
41:17 - 150 years, okay, yes.
41:19 - And yeah, I mean, it goes back to literally
41:20 the late 1800s when the Industrial Revolution
41:23 really gained steam.
41:25 And the US talks about the theft of intellectual property,
41:30 like this is a unique thing.
41:32 During the 19th century,
41:35 the US had a huge department in Washington
41:38 whose only job was to steal intellectual property
41:41 from the Brits.
41:42 - Yes, yes.
41:43 - So this has been going on for years.
41:46 - And actually, the same, Brits,
41:47 they, during their time, rise up,
41:51 they spend a lot of energy stealing technology from Italy.
41:55 - Yeah.
41:56 - And Italy stole technology from Arabs.
42:00 - Yeah.
42:00 - So this, yeah.
42:01 - This has been going on forever.
42:02 - Forever, that's right.
42:03 - Yeah.
42:04 - But later on, US become an innovator.
42:06 So, and since then, they start to think,
42:08 you know, we have always been innovator
42:10 and we're number one.
42:12 That's true.
42:12 - But it's, I mean, China is innovative,
42:15 but in a different way.
42:16 China is much more application-driven.
42:19 So when the iPhone comes out,
42:21 things like the iPhone and the internet,
42:23 and what I would call the big economic ideas,
42:27 they tend to come from America.
42:29 But if you look at the actual development of applications,
42:35 so if you take the iPhone and look at all the businesses
42:39 in China that have been built around the iPhone,
42:43 it's pretty impressive and huge.
42:45 - But it seems the same, actually,
42:46 for the US, as you mentioned.
42:48 In the 19th century, US was a student of Europe.
42:52 - Yes.
42:53 - So all the technology, they learn, they copied,
42:55 even they stole.
42:57 But, you know, through that process,
42:59 later on, you become on the top.
43:01 - Yeah.
43:02 - Maybe China was still in the stage of like early US,
43:07 mostly rely on learning and mimicking.
43:10 - Yeah.
43:11 - But later on, China will become, you know,
43:14 an innovator on the top,
43:15 because you already start to see science many way, right?
43:18 Maybe that's a natural process for India.
43:20 India someday may be the same.
43:22 You know, India maybe nowadays,
43:25 or perhaps the next decades,
43:27 is still a very good student of learning, copying.
43:30 And, but eventually, they may become on the top,
43:33 become a, you know, innovator in the frontier.
43:37 I remember that in the 19th century US,
43:39 if you search for encyclopedia,
43:43 you search for famous American scientist
43:46 doing pure science, you find none, zero.
43:49 But in the 19th century, by the end of 19th century,
43:50 US was already become a top in terms of industrialization,
43:53 in terms of commerce, in terms of application.
43:58 But zero in pure scientific research.
44:01 But once entered the 20th century entering,
44:04 then US become on the top.
44:05 And in the early stage, US was actually rely on
44:09 immigrants from Europe, because they have the two wars.
44:12 - Yeah.
44:12 - But later on, US start to have its own very famous
44:17 and very innovative scientist.
44:19 More and more Americans,
44:21 and later on you no longer see European names.
44:23 Maybe that's just a natural process.
44:26 So nowadays you still see China as, you know,
44:29 very good at learning, mimicking,
44:32 but you never know, I don't know,
44:33 maybe 20 years down the road,
44:35 China may also start to have very innovative,
44:39 not just the technology,
44:40 but also in terms of basic research.
44:43 - Yeah.
44:44 - The government is now pumping money into universities,
44:46 and universities are reforming their way of educating people.
44:50 So this may be a natural pattern.
44:53 - Yeah.
44:54 - But it may not always be successful,
44:55 because many countries eventually could not move
44:56 to the frontier.
44:57 - Yeah.
44:58 But in many ways, China's already there.
44:59 I mean, if you look at Huawei,
45:02 Huawei was the global leader in technology
45:05 and telecom with 5G.
45:07 And that was pretty impressive.
45:08 And if you look at what China has done in EVs.
45:12 - Right.
45:13 - And what they did in high speed rail.
45:15 - Right.
45:16 - So there are a lot of areas where China has,
45:19 I think, leapfrogged the rest of the world.
45:22 - Do you think the US policy now actually is actually
45:26 pushing or encouraging Chinese to do,
45:29 to become an innovator in chip production?
45:31 - Yeah, absolutely.
45:32 - Otherwise, why would they have the incentive?
45:33 It's much cheaper to buy US chips.
45:36 - Yeah.
45:36 - High quality, low price.
45:38 - Yeah.
45:39 - You do on your own, it's very costly.
45:40 And now you say, you do on your own,
45:42 we won't sell to you.
45:43 - Yeah.
45:44 - That may actually push China to there.
45:45 - The reason you do want to become reasonably independent
45:49 is you can't count on globalization.
45:51 I personally think that the contain China movement,
45:56 history will look back on that as a very foolish idea.
46:01 Because what you're doing is you're really encouraging China
46:04 to double down on its investment.
46:06 - Precisely.
46:07 - In the areas where US has the strength.
46:09 And if you push the ultimate globalization
46:12 or economic development,
46:13 you're gonna find that the Chinese,
46:15 once they get truly independent of the US,
46:18 they have long memories.
46:19 They're not gonna go back to the US and say,
46:21 "Well, okay, now let's be friends."
46:23 They're gonna say, "You weren't there for us.
46:26 And now we've matched you, we're gonna go our own way."
46:29 Which would be a lose.
46:30 - And this was another episode of China Now.
46:36 A show that opens a window to the present
46:38 and future of the Asian giant.
46:40 Hope you enjoy it.
46:41 See you next time.
46:43 (upbeat music)
46:46 (upbeat music)
46:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]