- há 10 minutos
Taiwan becomes a dangerous flashpoint as the battle for supremacy ramps up. Trump’s first term ends with relations with China at their lowest point for years as both countries deal with the devastating consequences of the Covid pandemic – or, as Trump called it, ‘the China plague.’
Xi’s government have high hopes for Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, but these are dashed after a frosty meeting in Alaska. Biden sparks further anger in Beijing when he signs a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK, and takes on China over tech – before speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan brings the two superpowers closer than ever to military confrontation. Tensions remain high as Donald Trump takes over for his second term, throwing world politics into disarray.
Top interviewees include US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and Taiwan’s foreign minister David Lee, as well as top Chinese academics who give the inside track from Beijing.
Xi’s government have high hopes for Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, but these are dashed after a frosty meeting in Alaska. Biden sparks further anger in Beijing when he signs a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK, and takes on China over tech – before speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan brings the two superpowers closer than ever to military confrontation. Tensions remain high as Donald Trump takes over for his second term, throwing world politics into disarray.
Top interviewees include US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and Taiwan’s foreign minister David Lee, as well as top Chinese academics who give the inside track from Beijing.
Categoria
🗞
NotíciasTranscrição
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
00:21Trump first took office, tore up the diplomatic rulebook and smashed the consensus on free trade.
00:27We lose almost $500 billion a year with China and we want to know what's wrong with us.
00:35We are about to help President Trump affect the biggest shift in US foreign policy since the end
00:41of the Cold War. Now with both sides staking their claims on different parts of the world,
00:47this is the story of how these two superpowers have become tangled in a struggle for economic
00:52supremacy with repercussions everywhere. We have to realize there's this crisis and we
00:59have to take action to change. The alternative is total defeat. We'll hear from top US officials
01:06and Chinese academics who give the inside track from Beijing. When the president's off the handle,
01:14you don't know what's going to happen. As well as those caught in the middle of this dangerous
01:20standoff. The message from the White House was the president of the United States wants you to choose
01:28America.
01:48A few days before Donald Trump was first sworn in as president, Xi Jinping headed to the Swiss Alps.
01:56The leader of the world's largest communist country was there to join the business and political
02:01elites at the annual World Economic Forum.
02:06This is first time President Xi attended. So China want to make a clear point where we stand
02:13on international economic system.
02:21Davos is an extraordinary environment. It's jammed solid with the world's political leaders,
02:29bankers, financiers. This year in particular was extraordinary because Trump was about to be
02:38inaugurated. And many of us were quite alarmed. We have never seen a politician like Trump.
02:47You can nobody know his quality, how he operates. Trump was clearly turning his back on free trade and
02:56open markets. The traditional American mantras that had led the free world for decades. And then
03:04he enrolls President Xi in a magnificent piece of theatre and delivers a speech which says essentially,
03:13I am the custodian of free trade and open markets.
03:41I never thought in my lifetime to see a communist leader actually to defend the free trade.
03:47But remember, free trade is good for China. The other thing is to remind Trump that this is your
03:55system you created to benefit you and also benefit the rest of the world. So you better keep it. Don't
04:03abandon the ship. You are the captain. People didn't know whether he was taking the mickey a little
04:11bit at first. It was such an extraordinary counterintuitive speech for Xi to be making.
04:20Follow me, work with me to ensure that we don't allow anyone, in brackets, incoming US President Trump,
04:28to trample down this magnificent free trading structure that has made us all so much more prosperous.
04:38He saw an opportunity and he took it. It was a brilliantly crafted
04:43intervention and it completely stole the show. Xi was the toast of Davos.
04:52Quite a journey for a man who become leader of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, only four years earlier.
05:04He'd taken office promising to build on a booming economy and to reclaim China's centuries-old place as a leading
05:11nation of the world.
05:12He called his vision the Chinese dream.
05:28What China dream basically means that China restore its previous
05:36position. It's not China will dominate or try to take over the world.
05:44In the West, the press call it rise of China, which is a total misnomer.
05:51Xi makes a point saying this is a restoration, not rise.
05:56Please welcome the next President of the United States, Mr. Donald J. Trump.
06:04Now Trump was heading to the White House with his own promise to make his country great again.
06:11His victory followed a campaign where he put China front and center of his foreign policy,
06:16in his own unique style.
06:19We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing.
06:25It's the greatest theft in the history of the world.
06:31One of the first times I briefed President Trump was during the campaign.
06:36I get about four sentences into my briefing, my brilliant briefing on China, and then
06:41Donald Trump, with like a staccato approach, starts firing questions at me.
06:47What's China's GNP? What's the trade imbalance between the United States and China? Is there military any good?
06:55And then I realized he cared about the balance of payments.
06:59He knew about tariffs. He understood the business aspect of the relationship.
07:08For many decades, we've made other countries rich,
07:12while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.
07:23He paid attention to a group of people, what we call our Rust Belt, the former manufacturing
07:27part of the United States. He was the only candidate who recognized their legitimate pain,
07:32and the only candidate who had a solution, which is we're going to go and renegotiate all those trade deals
07:38with China.
07:39Together, we will make America great again. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
07:57I remember walking into the executive office building one day into the Trump presidency,
08:03and there's a big sign that lists all the meetings that are being held. And one of the titles is
08:08something like,
08:09let's talk about greater U.S.-China economic integration. This is a day into the Donald Trump
08:15administration, and he's just won an election with a significant part of his agenda being to fight
08:22off China's economic predation. And people in his bureaucracy, in his building, are having meetings
08:29about how we could do more economically with China. I was surprised by some of the assumptions that were
08:38being presented by longtime diplomats, longtime intelligence officers and others. There was a view
08:46that really all that Beijing wanted at the end of the day was just to access a large American market
08:52and
08:53to prosper and thrive in a U.S.-dominated world order. I thought that those assessments were out of date,
09:03to put it mildly. In the 80s and 90s, the Chinese Communist Party had opened the country to Western
09:11markets, part of what they called socialism with Chinese characteristics. The country enjoyed
09:18unprecedented growth, which was given a huge boost in 2001, when China was welcomed into the WTO,
09:25the World Trade Organization. It defined China as a developing economy, meaning trade rules were applied
09:35more leniently, while the world's biggest companies continued to flood into the country.
09:40I was there as a reporter for Reuters news agency all the way from the late 90s until 2005.
09:50It was a heady time. It was hard not to feel optimism that China would continue opening up,
10:01that its marketization would continue, and there was a hope the politics would begin to moderate as well.
10:11But by the time I left, I had this sinking feeling that many of those optimistic assumptions
10:19were going to be dashed.
10:24I think China entered the WTO with a really good deal. They got the benefits of participating in a
10:31global trading system in which there were rules and norms, but it was given a special carve-out where it
10:38could pretend that it was a developing country, which I think is always tough when you're one of the
10:44world's largest consumers of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. It's entirely logical and sort of expected that
10:51Beijing would want to maintain that system.
10:57Coming into the White House, Trump's team included hawkish advisors who wanted to ensure the new
11:03president would deliver on his promise to take on China. But they knew that for all of Trump's tough
11:09talk, he had a reputation to protect as a champion of business. And he wanted to keep the CEOs on
11:16side,
11:18many of whom had moved manufacturing to China.
11:23In the White House, we had the two camps start to develop. The more globalist establishment camp,
11:30and more the kind of disruptors, populist, nationalist camp. The biggest fights were about China and trade.
11:38And that's because the reason is we had so many Wall Street guys. And look, I worked at Goldman Sachs,
11:44we had Goldman Sachs guys in there. Goldman Sachs and Wall Street is the investor relations partner
11:50for the Chinese CCP, this radical cadre that runs China. Chief amongst the Wall Street faction
11:59was Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs and Trump's choice as his top economic advisor.
12:06As a market practitioner, I think that we can have a globalized world that works well.
12:15You want to expand your plant? Or when Mark wants to come in and build a big massive plant? Or
12:21when
12:22Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special? You're going to have your approvals
12:29really fast. Thank you, sir. The question is, can we both be complementary to each other?
12:35I think the answer is yes.
12:39Whether the Hawks or the globalists would have their upper hand,
12:43would be put to the test at Trump's first summit with Xi.
12:48As he got ready, the U.S. president was briefed by his national security advisor.
12:54President Trump is kind of reflexively contrarian. And because he's reflexively contrarian,
13:00if you advise President Trump and say, hey, everybody agrees, this is what you should say,
13:05he might just say the opposite to spite everybody. So what we decided is what we would emphasize with
13:11President Trump is what Xi Jinping wants him to say. And let President Trump be contrary to Xi Jinping,
13:18rather than to his advisors.
13:24What we said to President Trump is how Xi Jinping uses this language that sounds nice,
13:30or at least innocuous. And when the Chinese Communist Party officials say win-win,
13:34what they mean is they win twice.
13:37Xi arrived in America, hoping Trump might back down from the aggressive threats of his campaign.
13:44You know, for people in China, basically, we know every election, there's always a bashing
13:49China element somewhere. A lot of name-calling, a lot of blaming. I think also the advisors that he's
13:57using at that time was very hawkish, like Steve Bannon, Matt Partinger, and all those people.
14:02But then, normally, when the new administration come into the White House, it becomes more,
14:07you know, pragmatic.
14:11President Xi attached great importance to the personal relationship. His personality is,
14:18he's very easygoing. He wants to make friends, and when he recognizes the other side as a friend,
14:26I think that will be very helpful for the bilateral relations.
14:32Trump had chosen to host Xi, not at the White House, but at his Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago.
14:40President Trump, he fancies himself as a great negotiator.
14:44And part of that is separating the relationship from the tough issues you're negotiating.
14:49Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
14:51He's in the hospitality business. He had his granddaughter, was learning Chinese,
14:59singing a Chinese folk song.
15:06This is a great move. It's very positive. It's like a family reunion.
15:17One of the biggest parts of Mar-a-Lago was time set aside for the two heads of state to
15:25be alone
15:25one-on-one. The two spent a vast amount of time together.
15:31The main message the president was delivering to us is that, you know, he and Xi were hitting it off.
15:39It seems they like each other. Yeah, chemistry is good.
15:45We've had a long discussion already. And so far, I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing.
15:54But we have developed a friendship. I can see that. And I think...
15:58You know, President Trump, he's a New Yorker. I'm a New Yorker. And New York men of that certain age,
16:04they tend to say he's my best friend. He's a pal of mine.
16:06Very much fall into it.
16:08And they were not really friends. They've just met each other.
16:10And they probably have business interests together. But it doesn't mean they're golf buddies.
16:15So when President Trump says, oh, he's my friend, I think what that meant is that President Trump
16:19met him. He understands how he's going to negotiate with him.
16:22Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much.
16:29Xi wasn't only relying on his budding relationship with Trump.
16:33He'd been working to ensure China would be at the center of global trade with or without America.
16:42A month after Mar-a-Lago, he played host to leaders from around the world to celebrate his flagship initiative.
16:50Belt and Road
17:00Parking back to the ancient Silk Road between East and West,
17:04Belt and Road aimed to better link China with the world,
17:07world financing huge infrastructure projects.
17:12One of the most ambitious schemes ever conceived.
17:16It spanned continents with over a trillion dollars spent,
17:22showcasing China's ability to deliver world leading feats of engineering.
17:28Now Xi put on a summit befitting its scale.
17:33The Chinese do know how to put on a show. The biggest rooms you've ever seen. Vast
17:39banqueting tables, you know, more flowers than they've got in Kew Gardens.
17:43To invite President Xi to the podium.
17:47President Xi decided to make a Belt and Road summit to assure the world if the US is back to
17:53the
17:54protectionism, China is still there to help and to work with everybody.
18:00Well, the road is important in the demonstrating to the American president or American government
18:09that China could have alternative if Western countries decide to block or slow down Chinese
18:17economic activities.
18:19Our world will be like the old road to the old road to the old road.
18:27Cutting a somewhat lonely figure at the summit was the US representative Matt Pottinger.
18:34One of the things that Beijing does is to try to create the sense that the Communist Party's
18:40success is inevitable. So come jump on the bandwagon.
18:46They wanted to assemble as many world leaders as possible to essentially endorse Belt and Road.
18:55I remember speaking to President Trump explaining that Belt and Road was actually a system
19:02designed to diminish the influence of the United States. It was an extremely opaque system
19:10system whereby governments would have to surrender sovereignty over critical infrastructure
19:18as collateral in case they weren't able to pay back debts.
19:23And so it was really sort of a form of loan sharking on a global scale.
19:30Pottinger's line didn't go down well with the other attendees.
19:34One of them was Kenya's president, whose country had just that month opened a multi-billion dollar
19:40new railway, largely financed by China.
19:45Kenya took a big loan to build the standard gauge railway and it was never going to be easy paying
19:52it.
19:52But was there a Chinese debt trap? No.
19:56African countries are caught in a debt trap, but it's not of Chinese making.
20:00The predominant amount of money owed by African states is owed to Western governments and private banks.
20:10The Americans were uncomfortable with any Chinese initiative that looked as though it had a strategic
20:16dimension. And this clearly was a strategic project. It was about projecting Chinese influence,
20:22securing Chinese supply lines and securing export routes as well.
20:28The same day that Xi was hosting his guests in Beijing, Trump's new trade representative was being sworn in.
20:39Robert Lighthizer had spent years accusing China of breaking trade rules.
20:44Thank you all very much for being here. I'm very grateful for your friendship.
20:47He quickly summoned top officials to the West Wing.
20:51The senior people were there, and a lot of them were in the direction of, well, we have to
20:56have dialogue, we have to tell the Chinese what we want, all these kinds of things. You know,
21:01I said, you know, I don't agree with any of this. The Chinese game plan has been dialogue, dialogue,
21:09dialogue, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and then don't do anything at all.
21:15Lighthizer's strategy was to tax goods coming to the US from China.
21:19Very, very good chance of happening.
21:21But his plans ripped open divisions with the Wall Street faction in the White House.
21:26I wanted tariffs on as much as we can to change the economic relationship between the United States
21:32and China, to force companies to come back to the United States or to find other places to manufacture.
21:37You're saying a lot of my shit.
21:39But there was an organized group who's against tariffs.
21:44I thought there was more question to who we were hurting and who we were helping by putting tariffs on.
21:53Lighthizer started to get to the president and say,
21:56Mr. President, your voters, the people who trusted you, expect that this is going to get done.
22:04It's not getting done, not because you don't want it to get done.
22:07It's not getting done because people on your team are deliberately obstructing your order
22:13to bring China to account for what it's done to the American people for 30 years.
22:19And the president said, I'm not going to let people delay anymore.
22:27Trump gave Lighthizer the green light to launch a major investigation into China's trade practices.
22:32Thank you very much, Ambassador Lighthizer.
22:35Especially claims it was forcing U.S. companies to give up blueprints for their most valuable technology.
22:42We're going to be fulfilling another campaign promise by taking firm steps to ensure that we protect
22:49the intellectual property of American companies and very importantly of American workers.
22:55American companies were desperate to do business in China and the Chinese would say,
23:00you can enter the Chinese market, but you have to allow us access to your proprietary technology.
23:06Well, when American companies did that, very quickly they found that that technology belonged to
23:12their Chinese partners. And then they would go flood the market with these products at a much cheaper rate,
23:19put American businesses out of business and dominate the global supply chains.
23:26The investigation could pave the way for wide-ranging tariffs on China.
23:33Economists believe that tariffs are going to raise prices and lead to inflation.
23:38Even if you bought the idea, what's the alternative that we teach our children Chinese and tell them to
23:46prepare for a life of servitude? We have to realize there's this crisis and we have to take action to
23:54change.
23:55And if there's some small cost associated with it, the alternative is total defeat. And that's not an option.
24:06In Beijing, Xi was showing no sign of making concessions.
24:13Although China's phenomenal growth was slowing,
24:17his ambition remained resolute.
24:20The Chinese Communist Party is the greatest revolution.
24:25It's not easy to beat the trumpet and beat the trumpet.
24:30In a three-hour speech to the annual party congress, he described 5,000 years of China's great imperial past,
24:39before the century of humiliation that started with the Opium Wars of the 19th century.
24:48Before British came to invade the Opium War, I'm talking about 1820s, 30s, Chinese economy 32.5% of global
24:59GDP.
25:01When Communists took over in 1949, Chinese economy less than 2% of global GDP.
25:08That is a freefall disaster. At the time Xi Jinping announced the China Dream, we are about 12% or
25:1515%
25:17of GDP, which means if you compare with the 1830s, we still have a lot of room there, right?
25:26Three weeks later, Trump arrived in Beijing for what the Chinese were calling a state visit plus.
25:34With the threat of tariffs looming large, this was a chance for Xi to win round the US president.
25:42Xi wants to make it as spectacular as possible, for obvious reasons.
25:50Everybody knows that Trump likes spectacle.
25:57He likes, well, being treated like a king, maybe.
26:03We talked to President Trump about the images that Xi Jinping would try to create.
26:08He would try to make it seem like the leader of the free world, President Trump,
26:13Trump was coming to Beijing to kowtow, you know, to the emperor, you know, to Xi Jinping.
26:25Picture yourself as Nero, the emperor of Rome, and you want to impress somebody.
26:32What would you do?
26:35It was everything you can imagine.
26:40Everything from music, to singing, to dancing.
26:48They really pulled out all the stops and
26:53it was impressive.
26:56Perhaps most extraordinary, Trump was invited to dine in the Forbidden City.
27:05Forbidden City means forbidden.
27:09Historically, this is a residence of emperor.
27:14This is an extraordinary honor.
27:17Chinese are not even allowed to go.
27:20So it's quite amazing to treat Trump that way.
27:25That's something, we're having a great time, thank you.
27:28I don't believe Putin even get that treatment.
27:33Earlier that day, Xi had even given Trump a personal tour.
27:38But not everyone was welcome.
27:41As President Trump was about to be escorted through the Forbidden City,
27:46before I understood what was happening, I was diverted before I could get into the gate.
27:53Matt Pottinger is like the man who knew too much, you know, and he really would make the Chinese
27:58leadership very uncomfortable. I mean, there's a guy who's fluent in Mandarin and knew the Chinese
28:04karma is partying so well. When we get to the Forbidden City, I'm looking around, you know,
28:10where's Matt Pottinger? He's not there.
28:12The one guy who could actually speak the language and know something about this system
28:16has somehow been kept out.
28:23The imperial setting was the perfect spot for Xi to give Trump an education on China's historic
28:30place in the world.
28:32And I guess the oldest culture, they say, is Egypt at 8,000.
28:47So this is your original form, right?
28:50Yes.
28:53So this is your original form, right?
29:09That's good.
29:11Xi's charm offensive looked to be working, as the leaders and their team sat down in the
29:16great hall of the people.
29:18Our meeting last night was absolutely terrific. Our dinner was beyond that.
29:28Then Trump turned to his team.
29:31The president, after the first two or three statements, asked me to address the trade issue.
29:39I didn't have a script. I didn't know for sure that I would be called on.
29:44Lighthizer is really the trade war warrior for many, many years. So Chinese know that.
29:51His basic argument is familiar, but the way he presented is quite,
29:56uh, I will say quite aggressive from a Chinese point of view.
30:02Lighthizer couched his presentation around their practices of forcing the transfer of intellectual
30:09property. So he just went through many of these practices with such clarity.
30:13I think it was arresting to Xi Jinping and the other officials there.
30:19I basically made the argument that we were the victim here. It wasn't China. And it can't continue
30:27and it won't continue. And I think that was a little befuddling. Like, what's going on here?
30:36But the Chinese hosts weren't done yet.
30:40Trump had traveled to Beijing with dozens of American business leaders in tow.
30:46In front of the cameras, they signed more than $250 billion worth of deals with China.
30:56China was quite, uh, generous to really make all those things happen.
31:02Shows that China is really willing to collaborate with U.S.
31:05Dallas, the president and CEO of Boeing commercial airplanes and Mr.
31:08Jia Baojun.
31:09That was really a big boost for President Trump. And he really
31:13had a big harvest for his first trip to China.
31:17Donald Trump wanted to show the American people that during his visit to China, he got something
31:23for, you know, America. And this was something really tangible and right in his wheelhouse.
31:31Now Trump had his chance to talk directly to the press.
31:36I don't blame China.
31:42After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country
31:50for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.
31:57He turns to Xi Jinping and goes, for all this, I don't blame you. I blame us.
32:02But in actuality, I do blame past administrations for allowing this out of control trade deficit
32:11to take place and to grow.
32:13It was very Trumpian in that it was simultaneously gracious to the host,
32:18but also had a sharp edge to it. In spite of all the flattery and the rest, he was not
32:23going to back
32:24off his demands for a really significant shift in that economic relationship.
32:29When that shift did not materialize, President Trump resorted to a trade war.
32:35Here's what's on the power lunch menu. President Trump hitting China with $60 billion worth of
32:41tariffs, raising fears about a global trade war.
32:44In March 2018, Lighthizer's report was published.
32:48It says the economic harm to the U.S. of unfair trade practices on intellectual property
32:53is in the range of $50 billion. And so it plans to try to recoup some of that cost with
32:59these tariffs.
33:01Trump announced tariffs on Chinese exports, particularly those the U.S. said use stolen technology.
33:10China would respond in kind, sparking a tit-for-tat escalation that spiraled over the coming months.
33:16If they charge us, we charge them the same thing. That's the way it's got to be.
33:23Trump was smashing decades of Washington consensus on trade.
33:28Earlier that month, Gary Cohn resigned.
33:31The only thing the tariff was doing was acting as a consumption tax
33:40to the U.S. consumer that bought that good from China.
33:46I can remember talking with business leaders and investors and many folks assuring me that there's
33:53no way these tariffs could stay on more than three or four months, because it would be too harmful
33:58to the U.S. economy. And I can remember telling folks that I think we're actually much more in
34:04a new normal. Just because they have a business model that works really well, that the rest of
34:10the world should just stay static so that they can benefit from that, isn't a realistic perspective
34:16to have. And that's tough to hear, particularly when you're a powerful company, you've been kind of
34:22a master of the universe. But that's the reality. Trump's team now had to face officials from Beijing.
34:31The Chinese really were taken aback. They didn't think that Trump would really go ahead with the
34:38tariffs. They had a sense for a long time that it was a bluff. You know, they had signed this
34:45$250
34:46billion worth of deals just back in November. You know, that was a serious amount of money. And
34:52they thought, you know, they had done the necessary and didn't understand why, you know, it wasn't working.
35:02As America and China braced for what could be a costly trade war, Xi put on a show of strength.
35:11Within weeks of the tariffs being announced, he donned military fatigues to preside over a massive
35:17naval parade, the largest of its kind ever conducted by the Chinese. It took place in the South China Sea,
35:26a crucial shipping corridor where China was building artificial islands to back up its claims on the area.
35:33Claims rejected by most countries, including the US.
35:38He says he wants a modernized military by 2035. He wants a world-class military by 2049,
35:47which means pretty much he wants to displace the United States from the Indo-Pacific.
35:52They want to defend all the waters surrounding China and manage the trade and everything passing
35:58through them. This was China interrupting and trying to change international rules and norms
36:04that we felt that we couldn't tolerate.
36:08The situation was becoming more and more dangerous as US ships and aircraft continued what they called
36:15freedom-of-navigation exercises.
36:18U.S. military aircraft, Power 8 Alpha. This is the Chinese U.S. reef. China had 70 of the
36:25national islands including U.S. reef and its adjusted waters. Leave immediately and keep
36:29far off so as to avoid any misstanding.
36:39Tensions were high as world leaders arrived in Argentina for the annual G20 summit.
36:45It would be Trump and Xi's first meeting since Beijing.
36:50The U.S. president had a new national security advisor.
36:55I thought this was obviously a significant opportunity to make points about things that
37:03concerned us about China's aggressive behavior along its periphery and talk about the big strategic issues.
37:11What Trump mostly wanted to talk about though was trade.
37:16By now, the U.S. had ramped up tariffs to hit $250 billion worth of Chinese goods.
37:26Trump was threatening to go even higher.
37:30But Bolton feared the prospect of a trade deal with China might soften Trump's resolve.
37:38The two leaders met for dinner on the sidelines of the summit.
37:44This was the first time I had seen them together.
37:46It was unnerving to watch Xi in a very systematic, thorough way advance what were clearly his
37:57well thought out objectives and to watch Trump wing it.
38:02The relationship is very special, the relationship that I have with President Xi.
38:15Xi had come to the meeting with a headline-grabbing pitch.
38:19If the U.S. would hold off further tariffs, China would commit to buying U.S. goods and services worth
38:25over a trillion dollars.
38:28Chinese site, for example, Walmart and other successful retailers, how they're successful because of Chinese made in China.
38:38So that is what the argument they are making, saying you might end up hurting yourself.
38:46I was worried throughout the dinner that we were basically going to agree to things.
38:50And indeed, Trump did make concessions in terms of not putting tariffs in place that he had threatened,
38:56so that we could have good trade discussions with China.
39:01A truce in the trade war was agreed.
39:07But just then, news came through that had the potential to undermine any goodwill.
39:13I hear my phone ringing, I look down, and it's my colleague at the Justice Department.
39:19And I don't normally get calls from the Justice Department.
39:23And he informs me that they're going to exercise an arrest warrant against the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei
39:30as she goes through at Vancouver Airport.
39:32I immediately think about how this is going to be interpreted as a deliberate snub and a deliberate affront to
39:40the Chinese counterparts
39:42and how this will throw a wrench into what the president is trying to achieve.
39:47And let's get back to the big story this morning weighing on futures with big implications for the U.S.-China
39:51trade truce and relationship.
39:52Canada has arrested the CFO of Huawei, who also happens to be the daughter of the company's founder.
39:57Meng's charges were part of a sweeping set of criminal charges by the Trump administration unveiled yesterday,
40:03accusing the company of stealing trade secrets and violating sanctions.
40:07We all hear news, we were surprised, because while we're shaking hands on the table,
40:14the U.S. is kicking us back under the table.
40:18We knew for some time before that Meng was coming, it was imperative that not leak out.
40:26John Bolton had been told that Meng's arrest was imminent just before the dinner with Xi.
40:32He decided not to inform Trump until it was made public.
40:37On the flight back to Washington, I explained what had happened in Canada and what would flow from that.
40:44He didn't really have much of a reaction to Meng's arrest when I briefed him on it.
40:50Officially, the Chinese government isn't directly linking Meng's arrest to the trade negotiations just
40:57yet. But unofficially in the state media, this is being seen as a political decision.
41:07Trump had a Christmas dinner in the East Room for his top White House staff.
41:12And at one point out of nowhere, he said, by the way, why did we arrest Meng, the Ivanka Trump
41:20of China?
41:21I thought maybe first I would say, you didn't tell me that Ivanka was a spy and an agent of
41:28our government.
41:29But I didn't, fortunately for me, probably.
41:34Telecom's giant Huawei was a shining example of Xi's vision for China to dominate technologies of the future.
41:41It had become a battleground with the Americans who placed restrictions on the company,
41:47citing fears China could use its equipment for spying.
41:52Meng's high-profile arrest only raised the tensions.
41:57Meng's high-profile arrest only raised the tensions between China and China.
42:14With relations between the superpowers deteriorating,
42:19other countries were finding themselves caught in the crossfire, and not just over Huawei.
42:26The British Chancellor got a taste of this when he addressed that year's Belt and Road Forum.
42:33The speech lauded the scale and ambition of the project and the Chinese delivery of it,
42:40but said explicitly that if this is going to work, it's got to
42:43be very careful about the debt burdens that recipient countries are taking on.
42:49I was invited to the heads of state lunch, which was hosted by President Xi.
42:55And he just lashed into me, saying this was none of my business, and the Belt and Road was China's
43:04project,
43:05and China would run it in the way that China chose to run it.
43:09So it was quite a moment being given a finger-wagging lecture by President Xi.
43:17Returning to London, Hammond would find that the fallout wasn't over.
43:23So I get a call from the White House.
43:27I get the Deputy National Security Advisor on the phone, and he says,
43:32we'd like to talk to you about your speech.
43:34We had seen a speech that Philip Hammond had just delivered that it appeared to be an endorsement
43:41of China's debt trap diplomacy. So it was a bit cheeky, but one of my colleagues from the State
43:47Department printed out Hammond's speech on a poster board with some of the key phrases that looked
43:55like they'd been taken straight from Beijing's propaganda highlighted.
44:00A meeting was set up, and somebody came over and arrived in my office in Number 11.
44:07He laid them out in my office in Downing Street, along the wall, so that all the text of the
44:15speech
44:15was there. And I was asked by the Americans to justify the, or to explain my thinking behind the
44:25less critical parts of that speech. I'd said from the outset, the UK cannot be in a position of
44:34having to choose between the world's largest economy and the world's second largest economy.
44:40And that was what I told the Americans. The response I got was, that is exactly what the
44:46President of the United States wants you to do. He wants you to choose, and he wants you to choose
44:52America.
44:57Trump now ramped up the pressure even more. He signed an executive order preparing the ground
45:04for a total ban of Huawei equipment in US systems. And the Americans set to work,
45:11persuading other countries to follow suit, beginning with their closest ally.
45:19We had to start with the UK, because in many ways, the UK's position as sort of a cyber security
45:25and
45:25telecommunications power, GCHQ, is seen as sort of world-class. And that was allowing, you know,
45:32everybody else to essentially point to and say, well, GCHQ says it's okay, so why are you,
45:37America making a big deal about this? The position of the British government was
45:46very strongly against making any significant changes to Huawei. And we met with a lot of resistance.
45:53Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others were very strong on that.
46:00The message from the White House was, we want Huawei out, get it out, and tell these Europeans
46:07that they've got to toe the line. The Chinese had made this a totemic issue, that if we cut Huawei
46:16off,
46:17there would be significant trade and other consequences. So we're very much squeezed in the middle.
46:27As Trump arrived for a long promised state visit, the Brits hoped to convince the Americans
46:34that they could keep Huawei out of the most sensitive parts of their network.
46:40Our security experts essentially said, we've engineered the systems in a way that
46:44that the Americans are overstating the risk.
46:49We had very deep concerns and plenty of evidence that there were back doors,
46:56there were software and hardware vulnerabilities that would make it fairly easy for data to be
47:03siphoned out of those networks. They thought they could protect telecommunications in Britain,
47:09and we simply didn't agree with that. There was this tension between our security experts
47:15Ours were clear that we could manage any risk from Huawei. It was never in the core of our
47:21infrastructure, only in the periphery. And they didn't agree.
47:27Our main point is that this is not a technical discussion. This is a policy discussion, right?
47:34We felt that they simply did not want to re-examine the decision because changing their decision that they had
47:41made before would likely entail retaliation by Beijing.
47:46We explained to Trump how our network was configured differently from the American network,
47:52that we were very confident that what we had was a robust system, but he was not listening. In fact,
47:59most of the time when you engaged with the president, there was no sense that he was actually listening
48:05to what anybody else was saying. He was simply preparing for the next sentence that he was going to say.
48:13We said to each other that this is a foretaste Huawei. We're going to be here a lot in the
48:19future.
48:19We're going to find plenty of issues where the Chinese are squeezing us from one side and the Americans
48:24from the other. Not just the UK, but all the middle ranking powers.
48:32The Brits stood firm on Huawei for now. It was some of Trump's aides who worried their boss might not
48:39stick to his guns.
48:44I felt that it was important to impress on Trump that if we were going to take strong measures against
48:49Huawei, this was not something to give away later. This had to be the beginning of a strong and consistent
48:56policy because to Trump, everything is negotiable. Everything is a bargaining chip.
49:05While Trump was in the UK, in Hong Kong, thousands joined a vigil to mark 30 years
49:12since China's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
49:20The vigil took place in the midst of a growing wave of protests against a new law
49:24that would make extradition to mainland China easier.
49:29Normally, every fifth anniversary of Tiananmen, the White House would put out a statement on behalf
49:35of the president. And I had given Trump a draft statement that would commemorate the 30th anniversary.
49:42And Trump said, I'm not going to put it out. And I said, but we always put it out every
49:47five years.
49:48And if you don't put it out, it will look like we're not concerned about what happened to Tiananmen
49:53or what it represents for the future of China and Hong Kong. And he said, I don't care.
49:59Trump sees international relations through the prism of his personal relations.
50:04He thought Xi would take offense if we put out a statement by the president on
50:09Tiananmen, and he wasn't going to do it.
50:25It was against this backdrop that Trump would next meet Xi at that year's G20 summit.
50:38The U.S. president was facing further calls to confront him about Hong Kong and China's
50:44wider human rights record, including the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
50:49As he landed, he took a call from the Speaker of the House.
50:55So, well, since you're at the G20, you're in Asia. Isn't it remarkable what's happening
51:01in Hong Kong? Millions of people are in the streets demonstrating for democracy.
51:08I'm sure G20 won't say anything about that because she is there.
51:14But I think it would be great if you could say something to him
51:18that the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, have voted in favor of the Uyghurs.
51:29There's always a summit dinner at these G20 summits, and typically it's just the leader of each country
51:35and their spouse if they're there. One of my staff talked to the U.S. interpreter who was with Trump,
51:43who reported that he had a conversation with Xi Jinping and talked about the Uyghurs, and Xi
51:50defended against charges that these are essentially concentration camps. And he said the Uyghurs
51:56appreciated it. They liked it. It was a good thing to do. And Trump basically said, well, then go ahead
52:01and do it.
52:05Next day, he calls me back and he said, I mentioned Muslims to President Xi,
52:11and he said they like being in those labor camps.
52:20China's record on human rights was never going to be top of Trump's agenda.
52:26Trade negotiations had ground to a halt and election year was fast approaching.
52:31A trade deal with China could be a vote winner in the manufacturing and agricultural heartlands of America.
52:39You know, we've had an excellent relationship, but we want to do something that will even it up
52:47with respect to trade. I think it's something that's actually very easy to do.
52:52Trump basically said to Xi, look, I want to win this election and I need the farmers vote,
52:57and you can help me out on that. And indeed, the trade negotiation then turned into
53:04how many tons of soybeans are they going to buy next year.
53:08At that point, the trade is mostly focused on Chinese buying things,
53:15on a massive scale.
53:31Xi Jinping had great skill in flattering Trump, and Trump responded as he often did with flattery of his own.
53:40China. So he took to calling Xi king. And in Osaka, it got even worse. He told him at one
53:50point,
53:50you're the greatest leader in contemporary Chinese history. And 30 seconds later, he said,
53:56you're the greatest leader in all of Chinese history. So we waited to see how Xi would respond to Trump.
54:04But he didn't call him the greatest leader in all of the American history. He just pocketed it and the
54:09conversation went on.
54:20At home, Xi appeared more powerful than ever. Later that year, he took center stage as the Chinese Communist Party,
54:29celebrated 70 years of rule in China.
54:34A statement of power in the face of the Hong Kong protests.
54:38Today, the socialist socialist country is still in the middle of the world.
54:47There is no power to prevent the Chinese people and the Chinese people and the Chinese people.
55:01China.
55:01Unlike Trump, Xi didn't have to worry about elections.
55:07In fact, China had abolished term limits, meaning he could now remain president for life.
55:15And when it came to negotiating with Trump, the Chinese were increasingly confident that by playing the long game,
55:22they would ultimately win out.
55:25China understood Trump's way of operating as a professional wrestler.
55:33Start opening Tsar Bo is always outrageous, frightening.
55:39If you chicken out, then he will push even more.
55:43If you know you have the capacity to stand up, he will come down.
55:50While Xi was parading his military might, his negotiators were putting the final touches to a trade deal with Trump.
55:58It was optimistically named the phase one agreement.
56:03Trump would sign it with China's vice premier to much fanfare.
56:08The U.S. agreed to ease tariffs on China.
56:12In return, China pledged to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. goods.
56:18But Trump didn't get the major concessions on China's trade practices he talked about on coming to office.
56:25It's a relief from Chinese side because we had a very, we have a tension, you know.
56:32And January 2020, it's less than one year ahead of the general election.
56:37We believe we would have a relatively stable bilateral relations in that year.
56:42And if President Trump won the election, it would pave the way for the second term.
56:49It's important to remind yourself that it's not possible to have an agreement between the United
56:57States and China that's going to resolve the problem of a Marxist-Leninist country that wants
57:03to be the number one country in the world. It's like you can't imagine an agreement between the
57:08United States or the West and Soviet Union that would have resolved the fact that they want to take
57:14over the world and we don't want them to, right? Today we take a momentous step,
57:20one that has never been taken before with China. But what these agreements can do is stop movement
57:26towards a hot war, which would be a catastrophe. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. This is the
57:31biggest deal there is anywhere in the world by far. Trump had his deal. But as he talked it up,
57:39the world was about to be hit by a catastrophe that few saw coming.
57:44One that would bring the US and China closer than ever to a new Cold War.
57:52China plague. That's where it comes from. They say, please don't mention China. I say, why?
57:57That's where it comes from. I remember President Trump telling me that if he did a hundred trade deals
58:03with China, it still wouldn't make up for the losses that COVID had inflicted on the United States.
58:12In the next episode, as a global pandemic rocks the US-China relationship,
58:18the race for technological supremacy ramps up.
58:23And the stakes are raised as one of America's leading figures crosses a Chinese red line.
58:30You have to understand whether it's going to Tiananmen Square or going to Taiwan. You cannot let
58:37somebody else decide where you're going.
58:41This is the closest moment of a military encounter.
58:46My understanding is that 20% of the Chinese did not sleep at that night.
58:51She's going to tell us where we can go? I don't think so.
59:06The last time is the next few inaugurated finals.
59:07I'd also think that each of us are going to mild water.
59:07It, it, it, it, it.
59:18Such a simple county.
59:19A seven-year letter of theall and Ukraine.
59:20We'll see you next time inены.
59:21The last four days of the future.によって,
Comentários