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Clash of the Superpowers America vs China S01E02
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00:05Xi Jinping and Donald Trump the leaders of the world's most powerful countries are locked in a
00:12high-stakes battle for global power and influence it's a fight that's threatened to explode since
00:20Trump first took office and tore up the diplomatic rule book we can't continue to allow China to
00:28rape our country and that's what they're doing it's the greatest theft in the history of the world
00:35this is the story of how these two superpowers have become tangled in a struggle for economic
00:40and technological supremacy told by top US officials and Chinese academics who give the
00:47inside track from Beijing when the president's off the handle you don't know what's gonna happen
00:57in this episode a global pandemic rocks the US-China relationship
01:01I think the president started to realize I'm not sure I can deal with these people
01:06one of America's most formidable figures provokes a storm
01:11you have to understand whether it's going to Tiananmen Square or going to Taiwan
01:15you cannot let somebody else decide where you're going
01:22and in a new era of strongman politics America's president sets out to show the world who's boss
01:45before he even took office Donald Trump gave a foretaste of how he'd navigate the choppy diplomatic
01:51waters around China and how he'd do it his way still in his New York headquarters the president-elect
02:00was receiving congratulatory calls
02:04when the calls come in they all get put on a callback list and then are answered in turn but
02:10there's a list of who's not supposed to be on the list and not supposed to be on the list
02:15was Taiwan
02:16I said we've not usually had the president of the United States had direct contact with the president
02:21of Taiwan president Trump's response was interesting he said they buy a lot of our stuff we buy a lot
02:26of
02:26their stuff we buy their chips and so he did take the congratulatory phone call
02:33just off the coast of China the island democracy of Taiwan was regarded by Beijing as a breakaway province
02:40they wanted back since establishing relations with communist China in 1979 Washington had refused
02:49to recognize Taiwan's independence to avoid antagonizing Beijing the Taiwanese president and
02:57her team gathered for the call with Trump Taiwan has been so much isolated on the diplomatic front so
03:08uh someone who is going to be important is willing to talk to you certainly we welcome the opportunity
03:18the call itself was the biggest diplomatic overture to Taiwan for generations then Trump went even further
03:27he offered to invite President Tsai to visit him in the White House she didn't even
03:34uh respond to to the very kind of offer because she knew it won't happen I think the president-elect
03:44obviously
03:44did not have much background knowledge of uh the cross-trade uh relationship
04:00well it's quite a shock I would say unprecedented because that would mean you know the president-elect is
04:10recognizing Taiwan's status
04:17it creates opportunities for the Taiwan separatists to misuse
04:22this phone call as if for example they can really achieve the so-called independence of Taiwan
04:31China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi was immediately dispatched to New York
04:39we were in Jared Kushner's family real estate building in New York on Fifth Avenue and it was a
04:49group of folks from the Trump campaign and then a delegation from from China they all pulled out their
04:54binders and in very Chinese bureaucrat fashion they all turned to the same page and Yang Jiechi
05:01the senator begins reading his uh prepared talking points no pause no break no room for a dialogue it's
05:09just this is my laundry list of talking points and I'm going to get through as many of them as
05:14I possibly can
05:16they go through what they refer to as their core interests what that meant was these are our
05:21non-negotiable demands and it usually started with Taiwan and ended with Taiwan they try to describe
05:28their core interests or the red line if it's really the case that the US president-elect to support the
05:36Taiwan independence it's too dangerous it's too risky because China will react in a very radical way
05:48the message seemed to land for the next three years Trump had no further contact with President Tsai
05:56and largely avoided the Taiwan issue as he did with sensitive topics like Hong Kong and human rights
06:04trade was going to be his priority with China
06:09he'd be in the Oval Office sitting behind the Resolute desk which is a very big desk
06:14and he'd take out one of his sharpie pens and he'd point to the tip and he'd say see that
06:19that's Taiwan
06:20Taiwan then he'd say see this desk that's China that tells you everything about his view of
06:27the relative importance of Taiwan and China
06:37three years into office
06:39Trump was signing off a major trade deal with China's vice premier
06:45not a bad start to an election year
06:48nobody's ever seen anything like it this is the biggest deal there is anywhere in the world by far
06:55but within weeks everything would change
07:03in the early days of this strange new virus President Trump picked up the phone and called
07:08Xi Jinping to offer assistance to see whether Beijing would agree to allow officials to come in and see
07:17how they could help and uh Xi Jinping clearly pretty much just didn't directly answer he was he was
07:25saying no by by not saying yes and what's more Xi Jinping really tried to persuade President Trump
07:32that this new virus was no big deal well it was only a month or so later that the US
07:41economy contracted
07:43uh by about 33 percent
07:59the ink wasn't dry on a great trade deal and all of a sudden
08:03the plague comes in from China we're not happy about it
08:07I remember in the summer of 2020 President Trump telling me that if he did a hundred trade deals
08:13with China like the one that he'd completed earlier that year it still wouldn't make up for the losses
08:20that COVID pandemic had inflicted on the United States I think the president started to realize
08:27I'm not sure I can deal with these people I'm not sure there's anything that Xi Jinping is willing to
08:32do
08:33when he is so focused on hiding his complicity in this horrific outbreak they call it corona it sounds
08:40like a beautiful seaside island in Italy no it's not corona it's called the China plague
08:48when Trump is out of control blaming China using this ridiculous language kung flu and so on so this is
08:57how the relation even become worse worse and the worse the US side accused uh basically claimed that
09:04the the virus was from China's uh you know lab in Wuhan uh we were very angry about that then
09:11Chinese
09:12that began to say maybe that's from the US we began to throw mud to each other very unfortunately
09:22amidst the mudslinging for many in America there was little doubt that this was a virus that came
09:27from China which Beijing had sought to cover up I think COVID in so many ways showed you know
09:35unfortunately the hostile and uncooperative nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its system so
09:43President Trump gave us guidance to move out on a wide range of um of actions to impose costs on
09:54Beijing
09:58High on the agenda for Trump's team was Taiwan where tension was growing as Xi Jinping instructed his
10:05military to ramp up drills around the island
10:12the government
10:22Having played down the issue of Taiwan for three years
10:26Trump now gave the green light for a multi-billion dollar arms sale to the Taiwanese government
10:32the purpose to purchase weapons or is to defend ourselves
10:39President Xi Jinping
10:42he is warning us he is threatening us that he is there this is uh very scary
10:51and they are getting more and more aggressive
10:56Arming Taiwan wasn't an entirely selfless act
11:01the island now produced 90 percent of America's supply of advanced semiconductor chips
11:07vital components in everything from smartphones to electric cars to the latest military technology
11:15most of these chips were designed in the US
11:19If China were to follow through on the kinds of threats that Xi Jinping has been making and
11:25open a war over Taiwan
11:29the threat that it could bring about a global catastrophe and economic depression
11:33because of Taiwan's outsized role in the semiconductor economy is very acute and very serious
11:44Taiwan was just one battleground as America and China race to dominate technologies of the future
11:53Another was the telecoms giant Huawei a key part of Xi Jinping's vision for China to become a high-tech
12:01powerhouse
12:02It was winning contracts around the world to install new 5g networks
12:07But the Americans had decried Huawei as a security threat and wanted their allies to join them in restricting the
12:15company
12:16Just before Covid really started ripping the president decided to give Prime Minister Boris Johnson a call
12:24The president was very adamant that we should get rid of Huawei
12:30When I say well, where's the brilliant American solution?
12:34It's all very well getting rid of Chinese technology from, you know, highways and byways
12:41But where's the alternative?
12:44I remember thinking that it was a bit rich
12:48that we were being told that we had to dispense with
12:51Huawei when as far as I could see America had no
12:55alternative
12:55There weren't alternatives that could operate at the same scale
12:58It was absolutely clear that this would slow down the rollout of that important communications capability
13:05It would be expensive
13:07To do so
13:08Our technical experts were clear that they could manage the security risks
13:12President Trump was irritated that Prime Minister Johnson wasn't shifting to see things his way
13:19And President Trump cut the call short
13:22But it actually led to a shift in our approach that ended up being quite effective
13:31Trump's new approach was rolled out in May 2020
13:35A worldwide ban on the use of American technology to make chips for Huawei
13:41This would seriously jeopardize its ability to deliver systems to countries like the UK
13:48This was kind of an atomic option that expanded US reach, but it was also quite effective
13:56It was after that that the UK parliament voted in favor of ditching Huawei
14:04We saw other countries like almost like dominoes follow suit
14:10Also in Trump's sights was Chinese owned social media platform TikTok
14:16Which was rattling its American rivals like Instagram and Facebook
14:21It's almost impossible to exaggerate what a shock the eruption of TikTok was to the powers that be in in
14:29Silicon Valley
14:30Because it exploded in scale
14:33Mark Zuckerberg would say to politicians in DC
14:36Look, they're taking our market share in our home market in the US
14:40And we're not able to compete for their customers in their home market in China
14:44This is just not a level playing field
14:47For Trump's team, TikTok's popularity with American users
14:51Also posed a growing threat to national security
14:56We're looking at TikTok
14:57We may be banning TikTok
14:58We may be doing some other things
15:01There are a couple of options
15:03President Trump signed a measure that would have banned TikTok
15:07In doing so, he spoke about TikTok's threat
15:11Especially as a platform for data exploitation
15:15And also potentially as a platform for hostile subversive propaganda by Beijing
15:23Trump's stance on China was getting tougher in the run-up to election day
15:27His team called out Beijing over human rights and Hong Kong
15:32While the president kept up his own lines of attack
15:36China is desperate for Biden to win
15:39Because if Biden wins, China wins
15:42And if China wins, China will own America
15:46They will own America
15:47And they're not playing games
15:52Trump's pitch to American voters didn't land
15:56The Democrats retook the White House
16:01China watched closely as the United States prepared for a peaceful transfer of power
16:08China
16:09What they saw was anything but
16:11USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA? USA! USA! USA! Philadelphia!
16:18For ordinary Chinese, there are a lot of coverage
16:21About the, you know, social unrest in the United States in recent years
16:26You know, those mass shooting
16:29Those you know, like occupying Wall Street
16:32This is all the evidence of declining the U.S.
16:37January 6th is another evidence to that argument.
16:43China's laughing.
16:45They're loving this tonight.
16:47And Beijing, they're high-fiving because they point to this and say,
16:50this is proof the future belongs to China, America's in decline.
16:56You're coming into power.
16:58Washington is essentially almost an armed camp.
17:04So here's my message to those beyond our borders.
17:08America has been tested, and we've come out stronger for it.
17:14I came on my first day in an armored Humvee,
17:18so a tremendous sense of domestic upheaval and uncertainty.
17:25It was a dark time.
17:28China looked at the United States and saw a country in terminal decline
17:31and was determined to ultimately surpass the United States.
17:36And President Biden made that point to me emphatically
17:40in how we manage the relationship with China.
17:42This is going to be one of the defining foreign policy issues of my time as president.
17:51A decade earlier, Xi and Biden had got to know one another
17:55when they both served as vice presidents.
17:59In Beijing, the return to the White House of a familiar face from a less turbulent period
18:05lifted hopes for a reset in the relationship.
18:10We just had an erratic presidency.
18:13He's lost his election, and we have a kind of stable type.
18:19Biden is a known figure.
18:21So initially, the hope is high.
18:27Three weeks after Biden took office, he had his first phone call with Xi.
18:34President Biden felt it was really important that he explained to President Xi why he was
18:42focused on human rights issues like China's horrific treatment of the Uyghurs.
18:46And he basically said to President Xi, you need to understand what it means to be an American
18:52president and an American citizen.
18:54It is deep in our DNA to care about human dignity and human rights.
18:58And I wouldn't be representing my people or discharging my responsibility
19:02if I didn't speak out on these issues.
19:05He mentioned the struggle of civil rights still being unresolved in the context
19:09of the Black Lives Matter protests that were occurring at that time.
19:12And he said, look, even we're reckoning with this issue.
19:17The two leaders agreed that their teams would meet the following month.
19:22The Americans chose the venue.
19:28I think when we imagined this, we would be in some kind of cool Alaskan hunting lodge,
19:36and it would have sort of autumnal winter-like views.
19:41Instead, we ended up meeting in the Captain Cook Hotel, which is in downtown Anchorage.
19:48It's sort of the finest 1970s architecture one can imagine.
19:55All of the murals of the hotel depicted white settlers coming in and basically taking over from Alaskan natives.
20:06So it was not particularly politically correct either.
20:10You need to think of the Chinese officials' feeling.
20:12I need to travel far from China.
20:15I come to visit you, and you host me in a place very, very cold, created a very cool atmosphere.
20:25I don't think that's a good place for the two teams to talk to each other for the first time.
20:33The meeting was opened by Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
20:38If the Chinese were expecting a friendly reception after their recent clashes with Trump, they were in for a surprise.
20:46We'll discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber-attacks on the United
20:55States, economic coercion toward our allies.
20:59Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.
21:07The attitude very beginning shocked me, because they start talking about the first two minutes we are talking to you.
21:16It's so condescending.
21:20We needed to show them, not tell them, but show them that they were just dead wrong, thinking America was
21:26on its way down after the Trump years and after COVID.
21:29From a Chinese perspective, we already suffered from China's very bad U.S. policy to China for four years.
21:36We waited for this reset for four years.
21:40But to the contrary, they criticized China in front of all the cameras.
21:45I think Chinese officials have to fight back.
21:57Director Yang Jiechi spent 17 minutes, unprompted, just blasting the United States.
22:03This is a monologue.
22:14I thought that it was possible we would have a sharp exchange before the cameras.
22:18I did not expect that it would be a 20-minute exchange.
22:21And this is all being done in Mandarin without simultaneous translation.
22:27Only a few of us in the delegation spoke Chinese.
22:29And so I was one of them.
22:31I started transcribing what he was saying and passing notes around to our delegation.
22:37Many of us were passing notes down the table among ourselves as we're listening to Yang go off for quite
22:43some time.
22:44But I passed in a note to Kurt that Yang was trying to really knock us off our game here.
22:50You're sitting there and you realize that, you know, all the cameras are on and pointed.
22:57This is exactly the kind of car crash they're coming to see and just precisely what we're seeking to avoid,
23:06right?
23:09We left that meeting.
23:10We went back.
23:10And I remember folks saying, wow, is this the beginning of a new Cold War?
23:17Once you define the international relation that way, democracy versus autocracy, from a Chinese point of view, there is nothing
23:27you can talk to them.
23:28You know, at least it's impossible to talk meaningful things.
23:32Then I began to think maybe they are going to be worse than Trump people.
23:37Gentlemen, how is it going in there?
23:39Has it calmed down?
23:41We're seeing headlines about dust-up in Alaska, brawl in Alaska.
23:47And so we realize when we get back to Washington, we're going to have questions to answer.
23:53And so we had to make a detour and find an open liquor store because we had to load up
23:59for the plane back.
24:02The mounting tensions weren't just about human rights and opposing ideologies.
24:09In Washington, concern was growing about the military threat posed by China.
24:16I worry that they're accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based
24:26international order, which they've long said that they want to do that by 2050.
24:31I'm worried about them moving that target closer.
24:35Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then.
24:39Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then.
24:44Taiwan is now one of their ambitions before then.
24:47Since the end of the Second World War, the United States had been the Pacific's dominant naval power.
24:55But China had spent the past decade building warships at breakneck speed, overtaking the U.S. as the world's largest
25:03navy.
25:03Its fleet included increasingly advanced aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.
25:12The threat of conflict was alarming America's allies in the region.
25:21One of the great challenges in the Indo-Pacific has been to alert our allies and partners that, frankly, this
25:29is now the centre of the world.
25:31This is where the greatest risks to global stability reside.
25:35A conflict in the Indo-Pacific will leave the world unrecognisable in every quarter of it.
25:42For Morrison, the key to standing up to China lay in transforming Australia's navy.
25:53For many, many, many years, Australia had harboured a desire to have a nuclear submarine capability and had asked and
26:03been denied in the past.
26:04It is the most closely guarded military jewel in the world, the United States nuclear propulsion technology for submarines.
26:21The Americans had only ever shared this technology once before, over half a century earlier with the British.
26:30Now Australia came up with a proposal, a security pact that would see the U.S. and the U.K.
26:37provide them with nuclear-powered submarines.
26:42The U.K. and Australia should be building a new submarine for a long time to come.
26:46The Australians will be buying American boats and so it's, you know, it's a good deal for America.
26:51It's a good deal for Australia too.
26:52And it's good for, it's good for the U.K. because we will, we will be making stuff.
26:57When Britain hosted that year's G7, it was a chance to pitch it to Biden directly.
27:05This was going to be the first opportunity in person for President Biden to see the two other leaders.
27:11This is a huge strategic initiative, almost like a strategic marriage.
27:16And you got to have the principals ultimately look one another in the eye and say, do we want to
27:24do this?
27:26But there was a problem.
27:27The Australians already had a contract in place with France to build less powerful diesel submarines.
27:34A contract they were now proposing to break.
27:39I had to get Scott Morrison and Joe Biden into a room together with me to do this deal without
27:48Emmanuel noticing what was going on.
27:59We had some cunning manoeuvre. I think we did it just after the Red Arrows had flown overhead.
28:06And everybody was going to be down on the beach having a beer or something.
28:11Somehow we got away with it.
28:14The Australians and the British were on board, but the U.S. president needed to be convinced.
28:22President Biden was concerned about the nonproliferation implications.
28:26Having a country, particularly like Australia, which had such a pristine nonproliferation record,
28:31now end up being a steward of highly enriched uranium, what would be the knock-on effects of that?
28:37I think it would be fair to say that both the Australian delegation and the British delegation were a little
28:43nervous when they raised it.
28:44They knew that we had only shared this technology once in 1957, 1958 with the Brits, so like coming up
28:53on 65 years.
28:54And other countries that asked, we'd always said no.
28:58I was like, you know, a year 12 student swatting for my finals all that day.
29:04And when I walked in the room, I was ready to go. And Boris said, g'day to everyone, and then
29:08handed it over to me.
29:10Prime Minister Morrison gave an A-plus laydown of what Australia was prepared to bring to the table.
29:18He said, this is the time for us to take the next step.
29:21The president was very gracious, and he raised, I think, very reasonable points that he wanted to be satisfied about.
29:28There was the potential for this to be misrepresented from a nonproliferation point of view on nuclear, and he just
29:34wanted to put that to bed.
29:36The leaders agreed to move ahead, fully expecting some diplomatic ructions.
29:43We prepared to do a diplomatic blitz to say what this was and what this wasn't.
29:49And what it was, yes, was nuclear-powered submarines.
29:51What it was not was nuclear weapons for a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty, like Australia.
29:58And so we got geared up to do that, knowing that China was going to be aggressive on the diplomatic
30:04front.
30:05I'm honoured today to be joined by two of America's closest allies, Australia and the United Kingdom, to launch a
30:11new phase of the trilateral security cooperation among our countries.
30:16Three months after the G7 meeting, Biden went public with the nuclear pact between the US, Britain and Australia.
30:24I do respect sovereign choices, but you have to respect allies and partners, and it was not the case with
30:30this deal.
30:30Do you think he lied to you?
30:31I don't think I know.
30:35Whatever the French president said, the reaction in Beijing would have much more serious implications.
31:00I think for Australia to possess and operate a nuclear submarine has only one purpose.
31:09That is to fight against China.
31:12Once you arm yourself with a nuclear submarine, you will be targeted, and you need to figure out who will
31:20be targeting you.
31:21The Biden administration understand that if they take some action by themselves, the effect will be limited.
31:29But if you unite the whole developed world, the pressure will be much bigger on China.
31:38The Biden administration, I would say the policy was the West versus China.
31:43So that's different. We don't like that.
31:56That summer, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary.
32:19The message to America was clear. China had the strength to resist any attempt to constrain it.
32:27But it wouldn't be Xi Jinping who provided the next big challenge to the West's resolve.
32:39I remember the day that Russia did an unprovoked attack on Kyiv.
32:46Many analysts around the world at the time said that if Kyiv falls in just a few weeks, as Putin
32:53initially predicted,
32:55then Xi Jinping will do an unprovoked attack on Taiwan, also forcing our allies to fight a two-front war.
33:08Only weeks before the invasion, Putin had traveled to Beijing, where he and President Xi declared a partnership, which they
33:16said had no limits.
33:22When the White House heard reports that China might provide lethal military assistance to Russian forces in Ukraine, Biden picked
33:30up the phone to Beijing.
33:35Biden came directly at President Xi and said, this is not in American strategic interest.
33:41If you continue it, we're going to resist.
33:44Xi basically says, are you threatening me?
33:46President Biden said, I'm not, I'm not making threats to you.
33:49I think I owe it to you to be clear and direct because the implications and the consequences are severe.
33:55The Chinese do think it through, decide that direct support is not in their interests.
34:04The U.S. didn't send troops to Ukraine, but it was providing billions of dollars' worth of military aid.
34:12Questions arose about what it would do if China attacked Taiwan.
34:16...by the rest of the community.
34:17Very quickly, you didn't want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons.
34:23Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
34:28Yes.
34:29You are?
34:31That's a commitment we made.
34:35On three or four occasions, the president, when asked, yeah, we're going to defend Taiwan.
34:41We'd have to say, look, boss, this is not exactly our policy.
34:44We're going to have to clarify that.
34:46I think he understood that there was sometimes a tension between plain spoken, here's how Joe from Delaware is going
34:55to respond and what our national policy would be.
34:59I think what we used to say in government is let Biden be Biden.
35:06Biden's remarks broke with a long-standing U.S. policy called strategic ambiguity.
35:12This meant not saying how America would respond to a conflict over Taiwan.
35:18By keeping both sides guessing, the aim was to deter China from invading and Taiwan from declaring independence.
35:28The White House team braced themselves for the Chinese reaction.
35:34He destroyed the only reliable, say, instrument that helped maintain stability in Taiwan's trade.
35:45Biden completely shifted to the one side, basically saying, because of your democracy, you can do whatever you want to
35:52do.
35:53We will defend you, right?
35:57That means you shift strategic ambiguity into strategic clarity.
36:03Following Biden's comments, China increased its military presence around Taiwan.
36:13The danger escalated when word got out that the Speaker of the House of Representatives was planning a visit to
36:20the island.
36:22We were having a trip to Asia.
36:24We were going to Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, South Korea.
36:33And then we get this invitation from Taiwan.
36:36They're very strong support for Taiwan in the Congress, House and Senate bipartisan.
36:48Nancy Pelosi had long been a critic of the Chinese government.
36:59Back in 1991, on a congressional visit to Beijing, she'd shaken off her minders to show solidarity with the protesters
37:07who were massacred in Tiananmen Square two years earlier.
37:11We've been told for two days now that there's freedom of speech in China.
37:16The description of China that we received for two days led us to think that it wouldn't be any problem
37:21for us to go have a private moment in front of the monument.
37:30Now, three decades later, when news reached Beijing that Pelosi might be visiting Taiwan, it was seen as another provocation.
37:39It's a tacit recognition of Taiwan independence.
37:44It's very much like selling weapons.
37:47In my view, this is a war talk, basically.
37:53Biden's top advisers sensed a crisis looming.
37:56They went to see Pelosi at her office in Congress.
38:01The argument to Pelosi was that it was going to precipitate a severe reaction from China and that that severe
38:09reaction from China would degrade the security of Taiwan because it would bring Chinese ships and planes operating in closer
38:20proximity to the island on a long term basis.
38:23You have to understand whether it's going to Tiananmen Square or going to Taiwan, you cannot let somebody else decide
38:31where you're going.
38:33You know, the speakers, by some people's evaluation, is the second most powerful position in the federal government.
38:41She's going to tell us where we can go?
38:44I don't think so.
38:45It's pretty tough. She's like, I'll make my own decisions. You guys are not going to back me off if
38:51I think it's important to go.
38:53She was extremely gracious about hearing us out and then extremely direct about telling us that she was going to
39:00do her thing.
39:00We weren't going there to talk about independence for Taiwan. We were talking about the status quo.
39:06And if the geniuses in the White House had any, they would have just said, this is just a status
39:13quo visit because that's what it was. It was a status quo visit.
39:19Pelosi's flight to Taipei was carefully routed to avoid Chinese airspace amidst fears that whether intentionally or by accident, it
39:28could be shot down.
39:46We're finding out that hundreds of thousands and then millions of people were tracking the plane was like, what are
39:53they doing that for? Well, this is the closest moment in my view of a military encounter.
39:59Chinese could have done something radical. My understanding is that 20% of Chinese woke up, did not sleep at
40:08that night.
40:25When we landed, we leave the airport. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people in the street.
40:33It was the most remarkable signs lit up on buildings, everything welcome to Taiwan. It was pretty exciting.
40:49Speaker Pelosi, she's a star. And she's standing next to our president, the two beautiful ladies fighting with Xi Jinping.
41:02So that's the very inspiring moment for Taiwanese to look at it.
41:08America's determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.
41:19As Pelosi was being greeted by her Taiwanese hosts, in Beijing, the U.S. ambassador was getting a taste of
41:26the Chinese response.
41:28Speaker Pelosi, we heard, was going to land at 10.46 p.m. in Taipei. And the Chinese knew this.
41:35And so my staff told me, Ambassador, the Chinese vice foreign minister has asked you to arrive at the foreign
41:43ministry in Beijing at 10.46 p.m.
41:47I don't want to be at their beck and call. I don't want to arrive at the exact time they
41:51told me to arrive. And so we waited until about 10.48 p.m. We walked in the front door.
41:56And I think I had a three-hour meeting with Vice Foreign Minister Shia Fung. He said, Ambassador, we are
42:02so outraged and offended by what you have done in allowing the Speaker of the House to visit Taiwan. We're
42:09now going to take action. There'd be no more talks about climate change. There'd be no talks about the conflicts
42:15in the Asia Pacific that separate us. And I thought, well, they're shutting down the relationship.
42:23Just hours after Pelosi's arrival, Taiwan suffered a massive cyber attack that included hijacking public screens around the country.
42:34In the convenience stores around Taiwan, the message on the screen were injected to say the witch Nancy Pelosi should
42:46stay out from Taiwan.
42:52We looked at the source and found out that these cyborgs were manufactured in Beijing and running Beijing software.
43:07As soon as Pelosi left, the military response began.
43:28In a show of strength, China fired ballistic missiles directly over Taiwan and started moving its warships closer than ever
43:38to the island.
43:42They saw an opportunity to change the equation, to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, and they took
43:48it.
43:49It led to a basically permanent encroachment by the People's Liberation Army with all of its assets, its ships, its
43:59planes, its subs, you name it, closer to the island of Taiwan.
44:03Nancy Pelosi was actually to be given credit. Why? Because China now moved all the way to, much closer to
44:13Taiwan.
44:14So I think what Nancy Pelosi did was not really enabling the Taiwan separatists.
44:22It was pushing their unification one step closer.
44:29Biden's team knew they had to respond to China's actions. The question was how?
44:37They turned to an issue that had been on their agenda since their first days in the White House.
44:42The race for technological supremacy.
44:47The most advanced semiconductors in the world, which power everything from large language models to military and intelligence capabilities.
44:57They're made by American companies and allied companies.
45:00China does not have the capacity to make the most advanced semiconductors in the world.
45:06Sullivan had been working on a radical plan to starve China of the most advanced microchips.
45:13America would impose worldwide restrictions on the sale to China of any of these chips made using US technology.
45:21In the months after Pelosi's visit, this unprecedented policy was rolled out.
45:28They're going for tech war. And it's led by Jake Sullivan. There is no historic precedent throughout human history.
45:38You can stop technological diffusion across the borders.
45:44It's not the first time China facing blockade. So very quickly they began to push chip industry.
45:51Biden people's ban makes no sense. They don't see the future. They did not have a vision.
45:59Relations between Beijing and Washington had hit their lowest point in years.
46:04As critical military communication channels were cut.
46:12It took a year of grinding diplomacy before Xi was ready to visit Biden.
46:17This time the Americans took no chances with the location.
46:22Rolling out the red carpet in California.
46:26The amount of preparation and details, it makes a wedding look like some sort of seat-of-your-pants exercise.
46:35Every minute is scripted. Every handshake. Every talking point carefully gone through.
46:44We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.
46:49High on the agenda was Taiwan.
46:51To work together when we see it in our interest to do so.
46:54You know, for a long time people have been saying that maybe China has a timeline to invade Taiwan by
46:582027.
46:59What was interesting is President Xi took that point on directly in speaking with President Biden.
47:03He said, there's no timeline. If there were a timeline, I'm the one who would set it.
47:08That was a pretty powerful statement.
47:11Xi had his own talking points for the summit.
47:14China's economy was struggling in the post-COVID climate, putting even more pressure on his ambitions for the Chinese tech
47:21industry.
47:24President Xi was, you know, adamant that, you know, it wasn't right for the U.S. to cut off the
47:29flow of these chips to China.
47:30He wanted the chips.
47:31And President Biden was very clear, very forthright, very candid.
47:35This wasn't in his talking points.
47:36He simply said, I know you want the chips.
47:39You're not going to get the chips.
47:40And then he said, you'll probably get them from someone else, but you're not going to get them from me.
47:47That evening, Xi found a more receptive audience when he was guest of honor at a dinner in downtown San
47:53Francisco, hosted by the great and the good of Silicon Valley.
47:59Security for President Xi is through the roof, right?
48:02U.S. Secret Service and the Chinese equivalent trying to keep him safe.
48:05As a result, all these executives have to walk the final block to the site.
48:10They can't drive up to it.
48:12These were some of the most powerful businessmen in the world, like Tesla's Elon Musk and Apple's Tim Cook.
48:19But they were happy to wait their turn for a handshake with Xi, knowing their company's fortunes depended on access
48:26to China.
48:30Companies like Apple, you know, steeped in China.
48:32They placed the whole bet on China, manufacturing China, being in China and so on.
48:36It was almost a given in Silicon Valley that if you weren't in China, you were not going to win
48:40the race to sort of global preeminence in whatever tech sector you were operating in.
48:48Chinese assembled some top CEOs who had interests in China.
48:52They know CEOs have an influence on American government.
48:57Xi knew the tech titans were there to stay.
49:00But American governments come and go.
49:06Ladies and gentlemen, the President-Elect of the United States, the Honorable Donald John Trump.
49:25Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history.
49:32And I've learned a lot along the way.
49:35He had a sense that he was not a year one president.
49:41He was more like in the ninth year of a presidency.
49:45And he felt he knew what he wanted to do in a whole bunch of areas and he wanted to
49:49move quickly.
49:51Returning to office, Trump set out an uncompromising agenda, doubling down on America first.
49:58China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we're
50:05taking it back.
50:08But after four years of Biden's team pushing democracy and human rights, Trump's return was cause for some optimism in
50:15Beijing.
50:18It's Trump's message that's most significant.
50:23He's dealing with China as a regular competitor.
50:27Right?
50:29Normal competitor.
50:31Just another great power.
50:33Competition.
50:34He never used ideology.
50:47In his first term, Trump had shown he was ready to play hardball with China over trade.
50:53What few expected was that now he would also unleash huge tariffs against most of the world.
51:00Even America's longtime allies.
51:02You know, you think of European Union, very friendly.
51:06They rip us off.
51:07It's so sad to see.
51:08It's so pathetic.
51:1039 percent.
51:12It's hard to think of a presidential decision in the last several decades that was more consequential than what Donald
51:19Trump did on Liberation Day.
51:20He basically said, I fundamentally reject the post-Cold War economic order that is predicated on the idea that the
51:29United States should just de-industrialize, take everybody else's cheap goods, and we should all be happy to go work
51:36as clerks in a service economy.
51:40While countries around the world scrambled to respond, China saw itself as uniquely well prepared to take Trump on.
51:49The United States under President Trump took great delight in striking fear in so many countries in the world, leaving
51:57only China standing up against the US maximum bullying.
52:03And I think when China says, you know, if you want to talk, we'll be very open minded in talking
52:08with the tariff issues.
52:09But if you want to fight the tariff war, we will fight with you for this tariff war till the
52:15very end.
52:19Within weeks, Beijing's tariffs on the US had climbed to 125 percent, whilst US tariffs on Chinese goods were up
52:27to an unprecedented 145 percent, before seesawing over the following months.
52:35But Xi had an ace up his sleeve.
52:38China had spent years acquiring a near monopoly on the world's supply of rare earth minerals, vital ingredients for advanced
52:46technologies.
52:50Now Xi threatened to cut America off.
52:54The defense department was very worried that if it didn't get access to the Chinese export of rare earth minerals,
53:00it would really impede our ability to manufacture defense products.
53:07Rare earths weren't the only pressure point between these two intertwined economies.
53:11Chinese banks owned over $700 billion of US government bonds, while America remained the largest market for Chinese exports.
53:21The two countries agreed to a partial climb down.
53:29Beijing was proving itself increasingly immune to US pressure, as it had shown on the very first day of Trump's
53:36presidency, with a stunning development.
53:39Technology shares on Wall Street have fallen sharply in response to the emergence of a low cost chatbot built by
53:46a Chinese artificial intelligence firm.
53:50Deep Seek proved that China could innovate even when the US had blocked their access to the most advanced chips.
53:59The significance of Deep Seek is it is Chinese able to do it without using billions of dollars to do
54:08the same kind of technology.
54:11It's a wake up call to Trump and his team.
54:14What China has shown is you're not going to be able to keep them down.
54:18It doesn't matter how many bands you put on high-end chips, you're not going to beat them.
54:23There is no such thing as winning definitively.
54:26There's coexisting, there's rivalry, there's competition.
54:28You can't beat China in the AI race.
54:32Thank you, Mr. President. Tomorrow we have a jobs report coming out.
54:34A hallmark of Trump's second term was his open door to the biggest players in tech, some of whom had
54:41been hit directly by Biden's export controls.
54:46Trump soon relaxed this policy.
54:48He cut a deal allowing American firm Nvidia to sell chips to China, as long as the US government got
54:55a slice of the profits.
54:59Next, he placed the American arm of TikTok under the control of US investors, rowing back from his previous calls
55:06for an outright ban.
55:13I'll say, Trump, maybe in the long run a good news for China.
55:17We have a chance to make a deal on other core issues, geopolitical issues, Taiwan in particular.
55:23So I see the hope.
55:29For many in Taipei, Trump's behavior was ringing frightening alarm bells.
55:36Trump's recent choice of words for describing US-China trade ties are turning heads here in Taiwan.
55:43They've agreed to open China, fully open China.
55:47And I think it's going to be fantastic for China.
55:50I think it's going to be fantastic for us.
55:52And I think it's going to be great for unification and peace.
55:55His use of the words unification and peace have caused worry about potential US concessions to China's territorial claims over
56:04Taiwan.
56:05When the two leaders held a call that summer to discuss trade, Xi warned against steps that could inflame tensions,
56:12including over Taiwan.
56:15Soon after, the Pentagon cancelled a long-planned meeting with the Taiwanese defense minister.
56:23That worries us.
56:27Is Trump's administration pushing Taiwan away?
56:30Don't they want to be Taiwan's friend?
56:33And are they trying to be close friends with China?
56:38If they really want to, you know, make a good deal with China, then what's going to happen to Taiwan?
56:48As the world tried to make sense of Trump's foreign policy, one characteristic shone through.
56:54A harsh realism when it came to great powers dominating their smaller neighbors.
57:01Traditional Western fantasy is all non-Western countries, as they economically develop, they automatically began to converge to Western system.
57:12values, you know, democracy, and so on and so forth.
57:17But now we see the reverse, and Trump began to converge with Xi Jinping in some way.
57:25Xi had asserted China's power across Taiwan and the whole Pacific region.
57:32Now Trump was staking his own claims on what he saw as America's backyard.
57:38Especially those places rich in oil and minerals.
57:43Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western atmosphere will never be questioned again.
57:52We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don't do it,
57:58Russia or China will take over Greenland.
58:01And we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.
58:09There is a ground shifting trend underway.
58:16Trump is the one basically brought down liberal international order.
58:22This is a sea change that China very happy to welcome.
58:27This battle's not over.
58:29The president, I have no doubt, knows the battle's not over.
58:32This is going to be a multi-presidency, geopolitical chess match with the Chinese Communist Party.
58:37I think President Trump and his core teams realize China is not to be bullied.
58:44And if you bully China, China strikes back.
58:47And you may lose more than you ever expect.
58:58Behind a South Korean tech giant, an epic tale of a feuding family, scandal and betrayal.
59:04Listen to Inheritance Samsung on BBC Sounds.
59:08Casting away the stress of the day with Bob and Paul on BBC Two Wales.
59:12It's an Irish gone fishing.
59:14Next.
59:16Newspers.
59:19Hot 3
59:20Number 3
59:21It was the song called Siri Inheritance.
59:24Mulher They gift from the case.
59:25March 7
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