China Bad? | GOING DEEP with Jake Werner

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]in the sort of thinking of DC people in DC. Uh China is the opposite of America because it's authoritarianism to America's democracy. It's state intervention in the economy to America's free market economy and because it rejects American hijgemony over the global system. There's this sense that there's a crisis of democracy and free market capitalism and American power and China is the symbolic opposite of all of those things. Right?

[00:00:22]>> So it it was a way of shrugging off accountability too. people who had been in the midst of uncertainty and confusion. They're like, "Okay, now I understand what I have to do. I have to devote myself to strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party.

[00:00:59]Welcome back to another episode of Always at War, the most depressing podcast in the known universe, which attempts to answer the question, why is the United States so deeply addicted to fighting other countries?

[00:01:12]Well, we'll find out a little bit more today. Um, we are a podcast brought to you by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank dedicated to building a world where peace is the norm and war is the exception.

[00:01:25]I'm your host, Courtney Rawlings, here as always with my bestie, my boss, Alex Jordan. Alex Jordan, how you doing?

[00:01:32]>> Courtney, I'm screaming. I'm crying. I'm throwing up. I'm tossing and turning.

[00:01:38]I'm uh I can't eat. I have no appetite because I like every American, like every good patriotic American, am terrified of China. There are 700 million Chinese today, one quarter of the human race, and they are taught to hate. Their growing power is the world's greatest threat to peace and life.

[00:02:02]It is the one country in the world that has the military, economic, diplomatic uh capacity to undermine or challenge the rules-based order that we uh uh we care so much about and are determined uh to defend.

[00:02:18]>> China has a plan. I mean, they clearly view themselves they they believe they will be the world's most powerful country. They'll surpass the United States and they have a plan to do it.

[00:02:26]>> Folks, we have mortgaged our foreign policy.

[00:02:31]Everyone's out there going, "Oh my god, how in God's name, you know, the Chinese came here and they the president didn't get anything." Guess what? They own us.

[00:02:40]>> No, if no oil ever goes to China again and their economy is destroyed, that would be a really wonderful day for me.

[00:02:45]>> But here's the problem. You name the allies of China, they're all dirt bags.

[00:02:52]If you don't help us and you continue to prop up these regimes, I will do business with you on Monday and put tariffs on you on Tuesday.

[00:03:01]>> That's right, folks. Today, we are talking about the USChina relationship.

[00:03:06]Um, this is a long time coming. This is going to be the first of hopefully a couple different episodes with the uh head of Qi's East Asia program, Jake Warernner. Jake is a historian of modern China who spends his time thinking, writing, researching, talking about why it is that the US and China are in this sort of new cold war paradigm, this great power rivalry, and what it is that they can do to actually rebuild a constructive economic relationship. For those who aren't aware, President Trump is in China right now meeting with Chinese leader Xiinping. So, we talk a bit about what could come out of that meeting, what it might look like to build a better relationship, but more generally like trying to unpack the signals and noise coming out of Washington about what China is and what it represents to American life. Why is it that Washington is constantly saying stuff like China is the biggest threat to Americans, China wants to rule the world. Is that true? What what is the USChina relationship now? What would a better version of that relationship look like? And are we do we really need to get into World War II to fix our issues with China?

[00:04:10]Let's go to the interview.

[00:04:19]Thanks so much for joining the show, Jake.

[00:04:22]>> Great to be on.

[00:04:23]>> I think China is one of those things that is um everpresent in how Americans hear about the world and what's happening in the world. like China is a framework that a lot of information and events are are filtered through in the American news and and media. And I think, you know, just stepping back a little bit, like a lot of Americans grew up hearing that the Cold War, you know, was this titanic struggle that the US won, spread democracy through the world, the victory over authoritarianism. And now China is this new threat, like a new type of challenge to the US. And because of all the things that China is and represents, we have no choice but to combat and fight and contain what China is for the sake of American safety and well-being.

[00:05:14]I mean, Democrats and Republicans now claim as like an article of faith that China wants to topple American hgemony and rule the world. Is all of that true?

[00:05:23]Is that the right way to think about the >> is China bad? Well, just like is is that the right way for Americans to be thinking about, you know, the other foremost global power? Are they this threat to our day-to-day life? Do they want to rule the world? And this challenge is so great that America must sacrifice what for it like like how should people understand what they're being told about China?

[00:05:46]>> Yeah. Yes. These are important questions because they decide whether we are embarking upon a world spanning uh conflict with the second greatest power in the world. So, and which is if that's what we're doing, then we probably should have a conversation about it. And we didn't really do that.

[00:06:05]>> What is is our fate implicated in some way by a World War II?

[00:06:11]>> I We'll see. I don't the the the way that DC talks about this, it feels like not or it feels like they're not being serious about what what what they're saying we need to do actually entails and the fact that China will fight back if it feels like it can't uh it can't succeed in the world that the United States is creating. You asked I think three separate questions there. The first question was uh does China want global hegemony and the answer is no. there that just that's I think pretty uncomplicated. China does not want the role that the United States currently plays. Uh it doesn't want a different role where it is even more uh coercive or uh violent. Um the like the US runs or it did run this system that was the foundation of the global economy. It was the foundation of the global diplomatic system and international organizations and like all the different ways that countries are connected to each other.

[00:07:11]um until Trump, the the US saw its role as being the at the head of that table and managing the conflicts that occurred within it and trying to push out those countries that simply were alien to that system. And until fairly recently, those countries were pretty there was a pretty short list of some pretty weak countries like Iraq for a while, Iran, North Korea and then we get some others, Myanmar, Sudan, um Cuba. Uh so those countries by virtue of being isolated from the system they became quite weak. China is a radically different proposition. and it China got strong because it's at the absolute center of that system.

[00:07:57]And that means that that means a lot of there's a lot of different consequences of that. One of which is that if we're going to pick if we're going to treat China the way that we have treated North Korea or even worse the way we have treated Iraq and Iran, then then I don't I don't you know then that actually is World War II.

[00:08:16]Um, but that's kind of the we kind of what happened uh in the first Trump administration is the US foreign policy and I don't think this is true of Trump, but the US foreign policy establishment took China from the one column. You're part of the system and you're kind of frustrating to deal with, but you're part of the system and and we'll try to fit you better into the system. Took took China from that column and put it into this other column which is you're not part of the system. You're an enemy of the system and you have to be stopped.

[00:08:42]>> Why did they move China from column A to column B? What made it so that China's existence as this other, you know, economic superpower went from something that was like tolerable and we could share the spoils of a global system that we were both near the top of to anything that's good for China is bad for the US. Like how do you explain that transition?

[00:09:03]>> There's I think there's a couple different things going on. One one thing is just that China became because because it was at the center of the system and because it really benefited from this it was through integration in the global economy and through its position within the um you know the so-called rules-based international order that we love so much. Um that's that's what allowed China to get stronger economically and um and militarily too. it its military budget has been pretty uh pretty stable as a percentage of GDP.

[00:09:38]So it's not like it has been militarizing faster than the economy is growing. But the economy grew until recently grew so fast that China's military also expanded extraordinarily rapidly. Um so the US uh the relative power between the US and China closed quickly across the first couple decades of the 20th 21st century. So that's one thing just a sense of like there's this this country that doesn't accept our hegemony the way that our allies do. Uh the the US pretty much all of the rich uh and militarily potentially powerful countries uh were US allies except for China and uh and so China's rising very rapidly. So that's at one level that's kind of the background condition. Uh but I think it's it also has to be recognized that that's not an adequate explanation. And if you look up through the Obama administration, uh there was some some growing concern that China was gaining all this power and the United States couldn't necessarily control it in the same way it could its allies. Uh but also the second Obama administration was the height of productive cooperation between the US and China. So whether that's the the agreement that led to the Paris agreement on climate change, uh the US and China together fought uh a dangerous Ebola epidemic in central Africa. Uh and they worked together to build the public health infrastructure in Africa. Um the the China came in at at at US prompting came in to support uh US pressure on Iran and North Korea under Obama. So it wasn't even just the stuff that China would have done on its own. It was also stuff that the that China wasn't really fully on board with, but it was willing to go along and follow the US lead. Um so and and if you look at the way that the Obama or the yeah the Obama administration talked about China, it was this kind this sort of like China should do more. It should reform faster in this this and this way. uh but it's part of the system and our core strategy is to integrate it deeper into the system so that it doesn't have a reason to uh so that we don't end up in conflict. Uh and so then the question is what happened kind of in the years leading up to the first Trump administration and during the first Trump administration that that sort of flipped the switch and the first thing is that the United States had a long run of really bad outcomes from its position leading the global system. Right? And so I I think the way that I would interpret the Iraq war and the various attempts to uh deepen free trade, they're all part of this responsibility. We're trying to lead a system. We're trying to perfect it. We're trying to get rid of the impurities like Saddam Hussein. Uh and uh and like once we push further, that's going to like make our power stronger.

[00:12:30]And once our power is stronger, we can perfect the system further. And and so there's a series of just disastrous failures here. the free trade um negotiations through the WTO and through the free trade area of the Americas collapse uh in the uh under Bush already really but um but uh bottom out under Obama. uh you have the the obviously the complete disaster of the Iraq war and the sort of broader disaster of the war on terror and then you get the 2008 financial crisis which started in US real estate >> and supposedly the thing that everyone could get on board for was we're going to integrate deeper >> uh with each other as part of the global economy we're going to uh we're going to gain access to foreign trade and investment that way everyone will grow together uh it's a positive sum system And it was it was for a long time. But after 2008, that wasn't the case anymore. The the rich countries stopped growing. They were stagnant after that point. Uh China continued to grow, but it it it grew because of a major government stimulus that set off a huge real estate bubble. And the Chinese leaders unlike American leaders uh who had just had their own real estate bubble burst uh and it took them by surprise. China knew full well that what they were doing when they were growing through a real estate bubble was very dangerous. So Chinese leadership was very worried about this but they couldn't figure out any other way to make their economy grow. Uh and China was really the only major economy that was growing robustly after the 2008 crisis. So there's kind of a um in the Obama administration, there's a crisis of confidence in the American political elite. There's this sense that like >> I thought we were at the end of history.

[00:14:19]>> And it turned out that the end of history had us on top >> and that was pretty great. Like that worked out pretty well for us. And then all of a sudden it's like oh no like what what constituted the end of history? The end of history is uh liberal democracy, free markets, and American hijgemony.

[00:14:34]And all of a sudden, after 2008, uh in the in the first years of the 2010s, all three of those things are looking in pretty bad shape. And they get worse as the decade goes along. So, there's a crisis of kind of self-defin, self-confidence on the part of the American elite. And and um and like one thing that the American political elite is not very good at is self-reflection.

[00:14:57]So it couldn't be like a problem with our system. It couldn't be that the system was the problem uh that it brought itself down. It must be that there is some kind of outside power that is uh is bringing us down. And and the solution that much of the establishment arrived at by the time Trump won his first term was the internal problem is these illiberal populists and the external problem is China. I just I I I know you're explaining to us pretty clearly by the way that was very helpful but it sounds like this is just one sentence okay but it sounds like US economy fail China bad like I just don't understand how those things are really related and so like our yeah we have this realist for people who don't know about 2008 bad times thing called the great recession um uh everyone loses house gone Um and >> millions of America millions of American lose house.

[00:16:00]>> For example, very rich people turned out okay.

[00:16:04]>> Well, and the rich and we bailed out banks and it and it was it turned out to be like a horrible decision that is still haunting us to this day. And there was a lot of reasons why this all happened. Obviously, we don't have time to go into it, but it it left a lot of Americans um without jobs, without places to live, um and in a huge credit crisis um that we are still grappling with despite pretending that we're not still in the throws of that. But that's neither here nor there. Um but I just don't understand how that became China's fault. It sounds to me this by this by the way great explanation again but it sounds to me like we're really mad at them for succeeding economically and the problem is that they are succeeding economically that's why we can't be allies like I don't Am I missing something?

[00:16:52]>> Yeah. So it needs to be filled in a little bit. So like there's this there's this background condition that China is increasing its power >> and or at least its potential power and that is very troubling to American foreign policy uh like planners who are thinking like it it used to be the case that the United States could surveil everyone in the world because the United States ran the entire telecom's infrastructure and all of a sudden there's this Chinese company Huawei that is getting very successful and is building telecom's infrastructure in a lot of different countries and uh we know what we do with our telecom's infrastructure. Like what do you think China's going to do with it is is their thinking. So they they have they have never actually provided evidence that Huawei has been used by the Communist Party of China to uh to do spying.

[00:17:39]>> No, they use balloons, right? They >> they also use balloons. Actually, I saw in New York Times, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, there's this giant China is working with some Argentine university and I think the government of Argentina to build and if I'm getting the country wrong, this is humiliating, but this is off the dome um to build a giant telescope and the United States is basically and there already built, right? There's two pieces, the base and then the telescopy part. And they're like, you can put these two like all we have to do is put these two together and we have this amazing scientific thing that will like be like really great for for for knowledge. And the United States is like if you put that thing together, we're going to be really mad. That's our that's actually our country, Argentina.

[00:18:22]That's really far away. Again, >> it's in the Dunroe doctrine. I don't know if you've read that, but it's it's right in there. Of course.

[00:18:30]>> I just it it boggles the mind, but I'm sorry I interrupted you, but basically you're saying telecoms, which is something we don't hear a lot about, but like I could see how that's foreign policy.

[00:18:39]>> That's just a that's an example is like there's a bunch of when once China rises and because China is at the at the very center of the global economy and the way it works. So then that means that China has all these systematic connections with different places. So part of that is is Huawei specifically and telecom's infrastructure. Part of this is that um one one of the outcomes of the uh the giant Chinese real estate bubble is that there were a lot of Chinese companies that could do a lot of construction and uh and it was a real estate bubble and it was also like public financing of infrastructure and the Chinese economy slowed down in the middle of the 2010s >> and so there was this huge surplus production capacity in China that was looking for an outlet and the Chinese leadership strategy for this was the belt and road initiative, >> right?

[00:19:30]>> Uh which is we have surplus capital in the form of our currency reserves that has been building up because of our our export success. We have the surplus productive capacity because of the construction boom. Um why don't we just lend this money to foreign countries and then they and then on condition that they hire our companies >> and to do the projects.

[00:19:50]>> Something America does. No, >> that's >> not real. Well, actually I I have a follow up after this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:56]Okay. Okay.

[00:19:57]>> Well, that's part of the problem is that the that the US development strategy >> uh in the in the free market globalization era was no longer we're going to build infrastructure. It was you have to reform your governing institutions and once you're a perfect democracy then you'll be able to build infrastructure because then businesses will have confidence in you and they will invest like private investment will flow in and it will build that infrastructure. And it turned out that that's actually not how any country has ever built its infrastructure. Like infrastructure is >> including the United States.

[00:20:25]>> Including Oh, very much. Including the United States. Infrastructure is all about like corruption like like public money and corruption. And like those two things like very closely connected. And that's like and like China like mastered that >> Yeah.

[00:20:35]>> that formula. So So China's going around like building a bunch of infrastructure because it wants to >> it wants to employ these companies. It wants to do something um that could have a return with these ex excess funds. And once again, the United States looks at that and is like, "Oh my god, they're trying to take over the world. Oh my god, they're like building these ports and those and ports and like so, you know, like it depends on where you're at in the US foreign policy establishment, but for much of the US foreign policy establishment, if you see a port, you think, how can I put a battleship there?"

[00:21:03]>> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:04]>> And so automatically you think, oh, China's building ports so that it can have like so it can take over the world.

[00:21:09]So some of this is so some of something that's going on here is projection and it's just like we do it this way so they must want to do it that way.

[00:21:17]>> I think Peru is a good example. I saw a lot in 2024 everyone was like losing their minds cuz China was building a port in Peru and you would think that the Wall Street Journal offices were literally on fire. People were freaking out. They're like China is basically planning war against us because they're in they're in Peru. I I again I can't stress this enough, not close. Um but it was close enough for the Wall Street Journal to feel like they actually were dying of some sort of I don't know vir let's say. So it was it was quite strange. One of the things that I'm getting here too is just like posture.

[00:21:55]So, China it with the with the belt and road initiative has a certain kind of posture of how they're going to like kind of ingratiate themselves into the world stage which is like we're going to lend you money and you're going to do business this way. the United States is like reads that as like necessarily militar militant um and necessarily as like a hedge a move towards hedgeimonyy and but really it's just a certain kind of way of kind of building continuing building up their own economy and building up their presence on the world stage yada yada yada um and the United States kind of just refuses to take up that model as well like the United States is by I don't know it's like a character defect we don't want to do um that kind of I don't know uh uh I don't know the word for it um uh bond building with that with with Peru for instance like we're not going to help them build you know whatever infrastructure and call that now we have like a besty friend um relationship and I assume that's mostly because the United States is like >> why would I need Peru to be my friend like I don't really care they just listen to me because I'm strong is that like the difference in posture part of like the issue here.

[00:23:09]>> Yeah. Yes. I mean, part of it is certainly this sort of sense of entitlement that that I'm the world hedgeimon. Everyone owes me obeisance because I'm the one who's making sure the system is running right and you better do what I say. And if you don't, that means that you're an enemy of the system. Um, I think that there's no question that's that's part of the prejudices of much of the foreign policy establishment. But I think I wouldn't I wouldn't just con confine it to a question of character or something like that. It's it's it's fundamentally about political economy too. Like the United States uh basically hollowed out its ability to build infrastructure over the last 40 years. And so there just aren't that many companies in the United States that can do a good job of it. Whereas China, that was the main way it was growing for for a whole decade. uh and um and so and and like we're talking we're also the other issue here is that >> China is offering its services to developing countries and you get low returns from developing countries and and a lot of uncertainty >> and and this is eventually what happened to Belton Road is that a lot of those loans went bad and then China is like well we did we lent all this money we built all this stuff a lot of it went bad we didn't get our money back and um and in the process the the United States said we're trying to take over the world. So, we're kind of sick of this.

[00:24:30]So, so now the the belt and road still exists, but it's it is a real a real shadow of its former self. Um and and but just coming back to that point, >> the US companies make a lot of money in the rich countries. That's where you can get good returns. Uh they don't really want to risk their capital in developing countries that are riskier and also have lower returns and it's harder to put together financing and stuff. China had a real impetus to put together financing for it because it had all these huge surpluses that it wanted to do something with. Uh and it it didn't and it was increasingly getting cut out of the rich countries uh which were worried about Chinese buying up stuff or China like displacing local economic activity. Uh and so it really had no choice but to look at some of some of these developing countries. And that's and that's really the other I think the other answer to your question is you know some some of this is uh just Americans being insecure or Americans engaged in projection. Um but there there are we also I think have to recognize that there are real economic tensions that come out of this history too and it's not it's not just like a psychological misinterpretation.

[00:25:42]uh China was growing very quickly and after 2008 the United States was not and China was not just growing quickly but it was also developing it was Chinese companies were moving into sectors that previously had been the exclusive preserve of the US and other rich countries uh and so some so uh like higher and that means higher profit >> like cars or what's like an example >> so cars so now now very much cars but that's really just been the last five years Um, so something like so something like construction equipment like so Caterpillar is an American company and has supplied construction equipment to China for many years and then in the 2010s uh all of a sudden there are a bunch of Chinese companies that are producing construction equipment at equal quality and lower cost and so suddenly Caterpillar loses that export market. So this this brings me to the question of like it feels like we're telling two parallel stories of like this increased suspicion and tension in Washington towards Beijing and perhaps vice versa and then China and the US continue to become further integrated economically. How is it then that these folks who are calling for like a decoupling like a a a rupture between these two countries that Beijing and Washington turn away from each other because they're natural mortal enemies?

[00:26:59]their systems are fundamentally different. They're oil and water, whatever, whatever. H how do we get from this point where like I don't know, and you can tell me if I'm wrong. My sense is that China touches my life and various ways that there are like all these different ways that our our economies and lives actually do interact and feed back one another. I'm sure some technology I'm using was first researched in China or by a Chinese student in America or, you know, vice versa. So, like how is it these people who like want Beijing and the US to go in separate directions envision the rending apart of these two countries? Like it doesn't even seem physically possible. Like it seems like >> I feel like half the stuff in my house is from China. Maybe not fully half, but clo closer closer and closer. It reminds me of a conversation we had with Noah Cohen from Blowback where he was like, you know, a lot of American priorities in the foreign policy world become harder to imagine when you have to imagine what they would require Americans to sacrifice to get to this >> this outcome. Like, are we going to have to give up burger to win against China or whatever? That doesn't seem like a politically feasible plan. I I don't know. Is that crazy? Is there some easy way to cleave these two countries apart?

[00:28:12]>> Not an easy way. I think I think probably if it were to happen, it would happen because they got into a war and then just like overnight then it would cut.

[00:28:20]>> Uh, >> which by the way would be really bad to anyone. We'll go into that in a second, but it would be really bad.

[00:28:28]>> Yes, World War II would be bad. I I hope >> I hope the audience appreciates that confidently.

[00:28:33]>> I don't know. I don't think people in Congress think that it would be that bad, which like really blows the mind.

[00:28:37]So, I don't know.

[00:28:39]Yeah, I'm not sure what people in Congress are thinking about on a day-to-day level.

[00:28:44]>> True.

[00:28:44]>> Not much.

[00:28:45]>> Um, so I think that the thing to worry about and and this introduces some some perverse dynamics because >> people who are China hawks in Washington are constantly frustrated because they're not able to go as far and as fast as they think is necessary. And they're getting push back from who? From businesses that are invested >> Yeah. um in trade or uh they have investments in China or um or they or even just a lot of businesses just understand China has now developed to the point where there's cutting edge technology in Chinese companies and they need just visibility on what China's doing. Um like the the head of Ford keeps saying Chinese cars are better than our cars and if we don't figure out a way to um you know to learn from them then we're in a heap of trouble here.

[00:29:34]Um, so there there are people in business who are are probably the most effective. They're very quiet. they have become very intimidated over the last decade. Uh because they used to be more vocally in favor of the relationship and then um and then Trump or the House Select Committee on China uh or you know some demagogue attacked them as like selling out America and and made them very nervous and potentially could issue them subpoenas and haul them before Congress. So there's there's a lot of concern uh in saying this publicly but behind the scenes business can obviously business is very powerful in American politics.

[00:30:15]>> Yeah.

[00:30:15]>> Uh and they can and they can exert exert some constraints on this stuff.

[00:30:19]>> Uh and then and then there's also the American people actually are quite afraid of conflict between US and China and uh and public opinion shows that people basically have a negative image of China but it's pretty shallow and it's not very salient. So Americans have very negative views of different things that are very deeply motivating, right?

[00:30:41]Like people despise Trump and their entire identities are built around that or they they think that >> that um undocumented immigrants are destroying the country and we have to we have to get rid of all of them. Like th those are very deeply held convictions that that orient people's politics and there's almost nobody for whom that's true of anti-China politics except for people in DC. So, >> or like the head of Palunteer or whatever.

[00:31:05]>> Yeah, >> it's not it's not clear if they >> Well, didn't Joe launch that's a marketing Yeah. I mean, like for sure that's what they say. Whether they actually think that is another question just be that we're the toughest anti-China company on the block kind of thing.

[00:31:21]>> Uh it's it's inflating the threat to to to make the claim we need more money in the defense sector, >> right? and and you know and and like as an anti- as someone who is a true patriot because I despise China um I should you know I should get a good share of that money.

[00:31:38]>> Um and and maybe and maybe they do think that China is a gigantic threat. Um that's entirely possible. Lots of people in Washington think that.

[00:31:44]>> Yeah.

[00:31:44]>> But what I'm hearing from you is that like >> is it it does not seem like China is like >> beating down the door on my life necessarily.

[00:31:53]>> What does China want? Yeah, I guess is a good question. And is it is it like evil? Like I I I don't know. The way that like Alyssa Slotkin talks about China is like not only are they spying on us, but like if we let us the cars in that are going to spy on regular Americans, then communism is tomorrow and and that's going to kill us all also, which is bad. Um so yeah, like what is that the goal?

[00:32:21]Um, you know, China is definitely spying on us, but it's like everyone's spying on each other, and that's that's actually I think >> a classic move.

[00:32:30]>> Um, but I but you know, the the question of the cars is is another question. We we have it within our power to regulate >> the the way that cars information systems work to to monitor it to make sure that >> that we don't have I mean like like this is something that is sort of dismissed out of hand.

[00:32:49]>> Yeah. um like if it's China then it then it would be poisonous for us to touch it and and that's not true. Um it's it actually wouldn't be that hard to mitigate some of these risks by requiring that Chinese companies and and what what would be even better is if we just required all companies to do this because all companies regardless of nationality tend to be abusive if they're not closely regulated.

[00:33:10]>> Right? So uh and and moreover because American companies are unregulated basically all of our data is available for a price. So China doesn't need to get its cars on the streets. It can just buy this stuff if it wants it because there's no privacy regulation in the United States. I mean that just yeah that reminds me of the Tik Tok thing where it was like the the greatest god that's threat in the world was a Chineseowned company doing the same sort of like information gathering that American tech companies do all the time right like it was a totally the threat was never explained or made clear. I think just just to just to refer back to the earlier points about where all this animosity comes from.

[00:33:53]>> Um, you know there the there was this this history of de-industrialization in the United States that is linked with China and uh and as China got integrated into the global economy a lot of US manufacturing jobs disappeared. Um, a lot of that now is that China's fault?

[00:34:10]Well, China benefited from that at least in some ways. I I don't know if the factory workers in China would say, "Yeah, that was great when I had to work 14 hour days and and got fired and they stole my wages." Um, but like the Chinese economy definitely grew through export-led growth. Uh, but uh but did China engineer that? Well, no, of course not. That was American businesses trying to trying to get access to cheap labor and trying to get rid of the constraints that come with >> uh unions. Yeah. union organized American workforce. Um, so but I I think that does need to be recognized that that's part of why the politics works is that we can scapegoat like American politicians who don't want to hold American companies accountable can scapegoat China for the things that American companies actually are responsible for. And that's and that's true with Tik Tok too. It's kind of like people are like, "Oh, I'm really worried about what these companies are doing with my data. Like it feels like they're manipulating me. It's like what are they doing to the kids?

[00:35:11]And how can we kind of respond to that without actually damaging any of the interests that fund our campaigns? Well, we can go after China because the, you know, the Chinese like Tik Tok does that too.

[00:35:21]>> Uh, and so we can say, see, we're we're making some progress on these these issues of of um like privacy around data and and then we can connect it to this foreign policy issue. So then people who make these arguments can sound, you know, really tough and credible in on the world stage as well as um, you know, as well as claiming that they're doing something about the digital economy and the ways that people are uneasy about it. Is there a moment and this is I guess for friends you know friend of the pod Danny Bessner and uh Matt Chrisman like a hinge point if you will was there ever any moment in that into the Obama era where there were people in Washington looking at America's you know dissolving ability to be the you know global hegeimon to be a global military uh leader forever was there a moment where they were like you know what maybe we should like negotiate a step down like China is is rising and like maybe we should actually talk to them about what it would look like to not go down in immity, not view their rise as a necessary threat, but for us to sort of like join hands and be like, "Okay, this like globalization thing didn't really work out that well for like a whole lot of people, but we're still super rich and still have all these advantages and technology and productivity that is like not well like uh assigned and and designed for the benefit of of people like was there ever a moment or a chance where was was there a faction in Washington am I just inventing this that was like yes let's actually like sort of step down from from unipolarity into a different system and do it with like a managed transition not like >> fighting on our way down >> sorry >> I mean there was like in in principle there that That would have been a possibility.

[00:37:16]>> Sure. Yeah.

[00:37:17]>> Um and and I think you you can see something that was happening uh under George W. Bush and Obama where there was this rhetoric about China should be a responsible stakeholder and that means that they need to assu assume more of the burden of administering the global system. And how could they do that?

[00:37:36]Well, they could do what the US tells them to do. Uh and and so and China did that to a certain extent, to a limited extent. Uh like as I mentioned, China backed up uh US pressure campaigns on Iran and North Korea. Uh and uh it signed off on the Libya intervention.

[00:37:54]>> That's right.

[00:37:54]>> Um like this. So after the Libya intervention went to hell, then the Chinese leadership was like became very cautious about supporting more UN approved US interventions.

[00:38:09]Uh but but it it there was this this sort of like moment in these years from the from the kind of mid as to to the mid2010s where the US and China were kind of like dancing around something like that. But it wasn't it wasn't by any means the US being like okay we're going to move into a more multilateral system.

[00:38:30]This was all premised on the on the US retaining hijgemony over the system because you can't you can't trust China and and this is I think >> Chinese we're American so >> well I it's it's not it's not there there are there are some people who are straight up racist on this and there is like a civilizationist discourse in the Republican party primarily um like like Steve Bannon is really on this sort of like you know like it's a it's a a racial or civilizational or religious um uh exclusion towards China uh But I think more broadly there is a sense of China uh as as the symbolic opposite of the United States. Like if if you if you look at those three things that constituted the end of history uh liberal democracy, free markets and American hijgemony over the global system. uh like China is definitely not a liberal democracy and is one of the only countries that has throughout the whole free market globalization era like proudly proclaimed that or not proudly defensively proclaimed in in in like through the through pretending that it's proud uh that uh that this is this China's rhetoric is not we love authoritarianism everyone should be authoritarian China's rhetoric is that every country has its own specific national circumstances and it needs the political system that is suited to those circumstances and it just so happens that Chinese national conditions require the communist party to rule the country with an iron fist. Um but but that I think that it's important to recognize that system has changed over time and has become in in recent years it has become much more repressive but in earlier years 1015 years ago it was it was more open. It was there was there was freedom to to do critical things in some ways. Uh and and that has that has atrophied now or been uh repudiated by Xiinping in a lot of ways. Uh but but that's true of the entire global system.

[00:40:19]It's worth recognizing that's not just something about China. That's something the entire world has become more illiberal and more authoritarian, more misogynistic, more uh more xenophobic, uh more intolerant of internal like people who are considered internally foreign in some way. Um those are very marked in the Chinese system, but they're also marked uh in the entire world and that has to do with the way that the global system is changing rather than something about China specifically. But that's like again one way to find an alibi for the United States is to rather than looking at the United States and being like, "Wow, it's a real problem that we've got a bunch of uh like xenophobes going around brutalizing people who live in this country like our neighbors." Like that's a real problem. If instead you can be like, "Oh yeah, China." Like the reason we have a crisis of democracy is because China is becoming more powerful. And when China becomes more powerful, then people look at it and they're like, "Wow, maybe democracies aren't so great because look at China is so powerful."

[00:41:12]And it's like, is that why people care about democracy? because they they want to be on like the most power in the most powerful team. Well, in Washington, I think I think that's actually true. But the rest of the country, I don't think that's true at all. And I don't think that's true of most countries around the world.

[00:41:25]>> So, just to wrap up that point, China is in in the in the sort of thinking of DC, people in DC, >> uh China is the opposite of America because it's authoritarianism to America's democracy. It's the opposite of America because it's state intervention in the economy, to America's free market economy. And of course it's the opposite of America because it rejects American hijgemony over the global system. And so so China kind of like serves symbolically as and it's and it's the only country that is close to being a peer competitor with the United States economically and militarily. So you put all that together and it's like uh it's it's it works as a as a way to >> it's it like binds together like if you look at and and and I think this is also really important and why this transition in the way that China is understood happened in the first Trump administration foreign policy establishment was experiencing a particularly acute form of this long-running crisis under the power of Trump because he was repudiating American alliances. is he was um you know he was calling he he like he was he when someone was like isn't it bad that Putin kills people he was like well we kill people too >> like that's >> sir you're not supposed to say that >> yeah that's like the entire ideological justification of why the United States is supposed to have power over other countries for the foreign policy establishment so so Trump was really destabilizing this whole thing and I think for a lot of the foreign policy establishment that's when it really all came together there's like increasing frustration with China there's increasing fear that China could use its power in systemic ways, even if it wasn't so far. There's this sense that there's a crisis of democracy and free market capitalism and American power and China is the symbolic opposite of all of those things. And now Trump is coming in here and he started the trade war. So he definitely hates China. So maybe we could like instead of just overcoming his power, we could co-opt it. we could channel it into something that was actually useful, which is we could marshall American power to push back the primary rival that we face. So, I think that like anti-China politics really came together in that hot house atmosphere and uh and it and incidentally, it was also nice because then uh uh people in Washington didn't have to worry about how they screwed up the war on terror. So, we we didn't there was no accountability for that because we got to we look, everyone's got to be on board for the fight against China. you don't really have to look back and see who made mistakes and who like you know was responsible for torture and things like that like everyone everyone's on the on the same team here which is the anti-China team right >> so it it was a way of shrugging off accountability too uh and uh and then all of a sudden people finally people who had been in the midst of uncertainty and confusion they're like okay now I understand what I have to do I have to devote myself to strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party >> very persuaded by the the um what a like rational gift that is for Washington's elites who hate accountability like delivered from on high a reason something to organize the US project around afterward it seemed like we didn't know what we were doing next I mean I think this is a good transition to to this moment now we talked I think you did a really good job laying out like you said the hot house in which the anti-China politics grew so then what can be achieved now Trump is is going to be meeting with China's president uh this week like in this climate, what do you think like the Trump team aims for? And then maybe more broadly, what would a genuinely different or transformative or better approach to dealing with with this relationship look like?

[00:45:03]>> Uh yeah, what does the Trump team hope to accomplish? I >> he s he's really setting us up for success with that long oh >> I mean you know like we we didn't we didn't really um talk in any detail about what happened under Biden uh but Biden took that new consensus that had been formed in 2018 2019 and tried to put it into effect given the limitations of uh of the administration itself and its position in Congress and the you know the pressure of the business community and um and and just like even the dead weight of kind of people who were not fully converted to the new anti-China orientation. Um they they tried to put that into effect. So they essentially were trying to systematically restrict the ability of China to grow and gain in stature in the global system. Uh and and I think fortunately they mostly failed in that because if they had succeeded then we probably would have been full-on into violent conflict pretty quickly.

[00:46:06]uh and they failed. Trump comes in, he doesn't care about that. He doesn't he can't he's incapable of thinking systematically. He doesn't and he certainly doesn't care about the the US orchestrated global system. He just wants to squeeze stuff out of people and feel like he's in charge and get and get the respect of people other people who are powerful. And so he came in and he tried to at first he tried to to humiliate and subordinate China the same way that he humiliated and subordinated so many other leaders last year. Uh and he did this by refusing to talk with China really wanted to talk and was like okay let's try to stabilize things. Uh he refused to talk to them. He put these uh tariffs on supposedly about fentinel even though China had already been cooperating on fentinel coming out of the B administration.

[00:46:56]And um and China didn't respond very strongly. They were still trying to keep room open to talk. Uh and then and then liberation day came and Trump said um you know everyone gets tariffs. Tariffs for you, tariffs for you. Uh and China was the only country that responded and said no, we reject this. And they and they and they retaliated in a proportionate manner. And then Trump said you can't do that. You can't fight back. And so we had this this ridiculous escalation where the two sides ran up the tariff rates to on the US side it was 145%. And the Chinese side was just short of that. Uh and if they had gone forward with that it just would have it like that would actually have ended the e economic relationship almost overnight and probably would have led to a global uh recession, >> right?

[00:47:41]>> Which we're not in now.

[00:47:43]>> Which we're not not yet.

[00:47:45]>> Which we are not in now.

[00:47:46]>> Just get ahead of yourself.

[00:47:48]The the thing that really walked the Trump administration back from that was that China put restrictions on uh rare earth elements and uh the ones that are necessary for um for magnets that actually started to shut down some US-based manufacturing supply chains.

[00:48:07]>> And so so Trump then walked it back walked it all the way down to where it started uh on Liberation Day. Uh and then the two countries got into a basic kind of truce. Uh so that's kind of still where we're at. There were there was another couple roll roller coaster rides last year where it looked like things were going to spin out of control again. Um but uh but eventually Trump and Xiinping met in South Korea, Busousan uh towards the end of last year and they kind of put this truce in place. So the first thing to come out or the first aim of the meeting with Xiinping and Trump is just to further stabilize that truth so things don't fly out of control again like Trump has his occupi his attention occupied elsewhere.

[00:48:52]Uh the second thing I think is there has been discussion about moving the the trade grievances that that the US has moving that into more a more re routinized track that is uh going by the name the board of trade. Uh there has been further discussion of a board of investment to match that that would facilitate uh Chinese investment into the United States maybe along the same lines that uh both Japan and South Korea >> agreed to um these like gigantic investment figures uh under Trump's trade pressure.

[00:49:26]>> Uh so something along those lines is something that China has been suggesting it could do and that the US side has been has expressed some interest in that. uh uh that that probably won't go anywhere uh this meeting, but I think it's still available and it could potentially and I just came out with a policy note on this. It could provide a framework that actually would be helpful for American companies to catch up on some of these technological areas where Chinese companies have moved ahead. So I think it's it is worth exploring that and if that came off that would be a way of showing to uh to Americans broadly that that economic connected with connectedness with China doesn't have to be something scary and dangerous. It's it's something that we could really gain from too. And and I I think I think there's a strong argument to be made that by cutting ourselves off from China in the way that we we're kind of going towards that is really going to hurt the US economically in addition to building up pressures for a disastrous geopolitical conflict. So I and this is the kind of opening that Trump would do that the Biden administration never would have done.

[00:50:33]>> Right? So as as as crazy and as as as for for all the terrible suffering that the Trump administration is causing and for and despite the fact that he almost got us into a a very serious conflict with China last year. Um so it's not like he's a dove by conviction or something. Um nonetheless I I think you have to look at Trump himself if not his administration which which really is filled with China hawks. Um, Trump himself is open to some possibilities that could contribute to stabilizing the relationship, but I don't think that the Trump administration is capable of addressing the deeper tensions which have to do with the way that the global system has become zero sum in nature economically and politically uh over the last 15 years. And for that you would need I think a more ambitious and robust reform agenda for how the global system would have to change that that I I think China would be willing to talk about uh if the US could bring that agenda. um Trump administration is not going to bring it, but that doesn't mean it's >> Look, Jake, first I feel like this really helps set like a kind of basic I don't know groundwork for more complicated conversations in the future which I hope that you would like come back on because I do have a lot of questions like I need to know what ought to be the relationship between the US and China and like >> I don't know there's just like so many questions again even with like the automobile of it all these I don't know comparison what what's going on in Iran like I do have so many questions unfortunately we're out of time but um I I feel like I've walked away with China bad question mark um no I'm just >> kid there I I have I do have a better sense of what's going on but I still I got to tell you I don't understand how China is the boogeyman even to like everyday Americans. Um or or why they are like I like those four pieces like you know end of history we're no longer on top yada yada yada but it's like but why like I just don't I no but I do get it but like I it just doesn't make sense to me like mentally. Anyways, >> let let me let me just say one thing which uh which kind of ties all of the points I was making together. the under the you know the under the crisis conditions we've been experiencing for the last 15 years American society and the American elite has become more and more fragmented and it's become increasingly hard to pull it together and coordinate it so that it can do something together to address the the underlying sources of the crisis. The one thing that seems to have been effective for almost everybody except for Trump uh and it doesn't have popular support but that's sort of optional for people in DC.

[00:53:30]>> Yeah. is China is like everyone can kind of get on board and coordinate their agenda that way, right? So like like protectionist businesses can support that, labor unions, many labor unions can support that. Um like human rights liberals can support that. Uh people who want to support the military industrial complex can support that. People who are worried about American primacy slipping away can support that. Um it's like everyone can kind of get on board for that. And those kinds of issues have been in really short supply. Uh, so when when they when they kind of landed on that, they're like, "Oh, hey, this is going to work."

[00:54:02]>> Genius. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like we would lose so much um with an actual war with China or an economic stalemate with China. Any of like the endgame of these hallucinations of overpowering China lead to America failing more. And it does seem like there's actually some quick fixes. Well, this is a little scandalous, but it seems like there's a little bit of quick fixes for like the kind of problems that we have with China, which is like namely that our economy is hurting, which is like what if we regulated stuff? Like what if we had rules for how our own economy works, right? But then that's too much like China, right? It's like, uhoh, don't don't don't do that. Don't you can't do that. Um and so there we are. That's the stalemate. It seems like if we're not willing to change, then China has to be the enemy because we don't want to change. Is that >> Yeah. But the the Well, the funny thing is that we are changing um for Yeah. For the worse. Yes. So So the United States is become is becoming more like China, but it's becoming more like China in the ways that are really bad about China. is more >> um like more state interference in the economy on behalf of >> the military industrial complex rather than on behalf of the people who live in this country or on behalf of making a better world.

[00:55:22]>> Um there's there's more like authoritarianism. There's more kind of uh there's a lot of McCarthyism out there. Um, a lot of like the FBI put together a program that basically systematically university teachers who had any connections with China >> um and and ruined a lot of careers that way and didn't actually >> manage to get >> deported a lot of grad students >> convictions.

[00:55:50]>> Yeah. So, we've we've built up the sense that like every Chinese person is a spy and so they have to be >> mistrust. So, a lot of racism is coming out of that. Um and and just the just the sense that you know the the US foreign policy is about confronting enemies instead of trying to find a way that everyone in the world can live together. Like that has gotten obviously way way worse and it's it's impossible to understand as long as we have defi have defined China as incompatible with American interests.

[00:56:19]>> Yeah.

[00:56:20]>> Thank you Jake. That was really really dark but very helpful.

[00:56:24]>> Um thank you Jake. This has been excellent. And like Courtney said, I mean, we'll we'll just go ahead and call this part one of 12 or something. Um, we haven't back.

[00:56:33]>> Yeah. Yes. I'll I'll I'll give a more optimistic take about the the possibilities because I don't >> that day.

[00:56:42]>> Yeah. I I think there there are there are possibilities that are out there that we're not um we're not examining very closely right now, but that need to be explored. So, >> put your thinking cap.

[00:56:54]>> Happy to come back on. Yeah.

[00:56:55]>> Yeah. All right. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Thanks for joining.

[00:56:58]>> Yeah, great to be on, guys.

[00:57:00]>> Thank you.

[00:57:01]>> High are the mountains, wide are the seas, but ideas travel from land to land.

[00:57:08]Today, the magic of modern communications has in effect shrunk the earth itself.

[00:57:15]The free interflow of knowledge among nations quickens the onward pace of world civilization.

[00:57:35]All right, folks. That was a great episode. I mean, I I we mean it.

[00:57:39]Seriously. We're going to have to have Jake back. That felt like part one. We didn't get to cover a lot there, but there's a lot there. And it is again like we said like the single most important relationship in the world. It is how how and if the US and China choose whether to cooperate or slide towards conflict uh certainly implicate our lives in the 21st century.

[00:58:05]Um so very important and uh yes funnily enough for something that important we didn't cover it all in an hour. We tried. But for that reason, you should stay up to date on Jake's work until we get to have him back to continue this conversation.

[00:58:20]Make sure to follow him at JW Warner on Twitterx, whatever you want to call it.

[00:58:25]You can find his work on Quincy inst.org.

[00:58:29]Some really fascinating thinking about the USChina relationship and how it does not necessarily need to be zero sum. It does not necessarily need to end in death and emiseration on one side. that there can in fact be mutual beneficial exchange, common growth. Again, not at the expense of one another. This is how the world can work if we choose not to hand over our faith to the weapons companies. But why do we ever choose that? We love those guys. Anyway, thank you for listening to Always at War. Um, you know where to find us if you are watching or listening to this. You don't need instruction. But what you do need is a reminder to please leave a comment on YouTube. Tell me that you find this flyaway on my head kind of annoying like I do or uh don't comment on my physical appearance. Say something substantive about the episode. But every comment really helps to uh help people discover the show. Same with ratings and reviews on the podcast apps. Um we've been told those are really important and we love the kind words you guys are dropping again about the beautiful thoughts coming out of my head and Courtney's head, not our beautiful faces. Make sure that you check out the Quincy Institute social media where you're going to find a lot of great writing, thinking, doing by all of our staff, including Courtney and I, Quincy Inst., you know, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, you name it. Um, and help get the word out. Like, we're a nonprofit who is trying to change the US warfare state. You might say that it's an uphill battle, but uh together we're trying to make a change. So, we love your support. We uh always welcome your feedback, questions, all that good stuff. Always at war quincyst.org is our email. And yeah, we'll see you next time. Peace.