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00:09Hello! Telesity English presents a new episode of China Now, our immediate production that showcases
00:15the culture, technology and politics of the Asian giant. In this episode the Thinkers Forum welcomes
00:22Shen Yi, professor of international relations at Fidan University to address the United States
00:28and China relations regarding the U.S. interest in the Taiwan issue. Also, Pepe Escobar, international
00:35journalist and author on global geopolitics, will analyze the meaning of the recent visit of United
00:41States President Donald Trump to Beijing. And lastly, Yong-Pen Fan, deputy director of the China
00:48Institute at Fidan University, will discuss how Chinese population has received the Epstein scandal.
00:55Let's have a look.
01:09I think we all understand that that is the optimal case coming out of Trump's mouth,
01:14but I think a lot of people are saying that for China it will never allow the Taiwan issue to
01:19be
01:19explicitly something on the bargaining table, meaning that is something that is purely domestic for the
01:25Chinese and it will never be offered up as something to be traded with. Do you agree with that view?
01:29Of course, it's a domestic issue, but we have three joint communique between China and the United States.
01:37And the third joint communique is purely on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Let's say that U.S. will
01:44not serve the
01:46permanent arms sales to Taiwan and promise the total amount or the quantity of the arms sales to Taiwan
01:53will be not higher than those. So that you will say that you will find out during this summit in
02:00several
02:01times, China said in these Taiwan issues, he said that we wish the United States will keep its promise.
02:08What promise? Of course, the promise you make in the joint communique. You say that you are not
02:14continuing the same arms sales to Taiwan, but you break out your promise.
02:18So China will hold the U.S. to its own words. The second, it's the first time China said it
02:25very clearly.
02:27And the sentence is, a moment, I will find out the sentence.
02:39Ensure the security and the stability of Taiwan's street is the common or the shared
02:49strategic requirements from both sides. We don't say that the Taiwan issues, you have the right to
02:55launch interventions, but we say that the Taiwan street, the peace and the stability of the Taiwan
03:01street is our shared strategic requirements. Don't be that naive that China is so naive on these Taiwan
03:11issues. If you go back to the 1950s, in Wanlong Conference, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai said that
03:19he said that we will never discuss about the so-called ceasefire on the Taiwan street.
03:24There's no fire to cease in this street. But we'd like to dialogue with the United States
03:30on how to release the tension situations in faster regions, including Taiwan area or
03:40including Taiwan street. That's our diplomatic arch. We face the reality. You cannot say that because
03:47legally, United States cannot intervention China's domestic issues. So we will refuse to dialogue with
03:53the United States on this Taiwan issue. Taiwan issue is very crystal clear, one of the most important
04:02part of Sino-US relationships. That's our terms. We have the bottom lines, the red lines. Of course,
04:09you cannot cross the bottom lines, cross the red lines. But also on the other side, it means the Taiwan
04:16issue
04:16just are timing bombers or it's the untiming bombers that threaten the strategic
04:21stability of these bilateral relationships. We of course want to debomb it. How to debomb it? We need to
04:29dialogue with the United States and try to find a way how United States can send in a very clear
04:35signals. So the thing is very interesting. The point is the United States has different options. It has
04:45options spectrums on these Taiwan issues. They can choose to support the so-called Taiwan independence.
04:53If they choose it, it means war. They can say, I don't support it. They can say, are obsessing it,
05:01opposing it. And the United States can say, I support peaceful reunifications. And of course,
05:09you say that I support a United States supported reunifications, that at least you have five options.
05:16For U.S., you need to find out what's your major interest on these Taiwan issues. If the major interest
05:25is you don't want to risk a direct military confrontations on China in the Taiwan street,
05:35the best choice is you say that you will oppose Taiwan independence and support peaceful reunification.
05:45Because it's not my logic. It's U.S. scholar logic. Since the Biden administration, there are articles in
05:53Washington Post and the Foreign Affairs and even in a random report. You always share the same framework.
06:01First, the fact is you don't have enough military strength on Taiwan street to launch your coercive
06:11policies to mainland China. Second, you cannot share the burden that you have been publicly,
06:20militarily defeated in Taiwan street. That one means your hegemonic collapsing.
06:26Third, your interest. What's your real interest on these Taiwan issues?
06:36If you're talking about the semi-productions, you already coerced the TSMC to remove their
06:43production capacities to U.S. mainland. Such kind of removing of technical capacities can
06:51very concretely avoid or decrease the risk, the so-called potential risk after this reunification.
06:59And the second, the so-called geopolitical advantages of this Taiwan street. Come on,
07:06friends. That means you want some imaginations. You can cover up the People's Republic of China's
07:15and naval forces in this mainland by the so-called island chain. But the fact is, the naval force is
07:22already beyond that deadline. Today, it's nearly mission impossible to realize such kind of geopolitical
07:33advantages. So you need to face the fact. You need to face the fact.
07:37And the third point is, so-called the United States wants its reputations. Don't want losing face.
07:45So the smart ways to avoid losing face is you actively support peaceful reunification. Because
07:52according to U.S. strategic blurs, they always say they agree the peaceful settlement of Taiwan issues.
08:01Then the peaceful settlement of these Taiwan issues, of course, has three potential options. The so-called
08:08peaceful dependence, the status quo, and the peaceful reunification. The peaceful independence,
08:16mission impossible, definitely will be used first. That's leading to trigger the red lines.
08:23The status, they never really exist. The so-called status is heavily dependent on
08:28the power distributions across the street and the power distributions among the United States and China.
08:36And this power distribution has already defectly changed. And you have the last options to support,
08:46very actively support the peaceful reunification. It will not lead to a losing face of the United States.
08:54And of course, it will give you a very important gift, the friendship from this reunified China.
09:02I think that will be very important for the future development of this U.S.-China relationship in general ways.
09:11The most important diplomatic meeting. What does he bring to the table? How can Trump possibly
09:19think that he will change the situation just by sitting on the same table with President Xi Jinping
09:25in Beijing? The Chinese are not in a hurry. We are talking a few hours before the President of the
09:32United
09:33States arrives in Beijing for arguably the most important diplomatic meeting of this year of war,
09:422026. What does he bring to the table to discuss in Beijing with President Xi Jinping? Not much.
09:51To be blunt, we can say that he holds zero cards or even less than zero cards. He wants to
10:01have a summit
10:03in Beijing that he can sell to domestic public opinion, especially as a win, a victory.
10:11That's the typical Trump language. There's not much that he can extract from President Xi Jinping to be
10:19sold as a victory. Because everything that Trump 2.0 unleashed against China, there was a serious blowback.
10:31The trade war, the tech war, intimations, blocking technology to be sold to China. The war in Iran itself,
10:44which was originally conceived by people who are way above Donald Trump. Let's say a connection,
10:54a very dangerous connection of big banking in the United States, techno feudalists, the future present and
11:05future leaders of high tech and artificial intelligence in the US, and what we could describe as a
11:14Zionist international axis. These are the people who actually control Donald Trump. And of course,
11:21the war against Iran was very important for these actors in terms of the reorganization of the geopolitical
11:33and geoeconomic space. It went terribly wrong from an American imperial point of view. And the fact that
11:45that the President of the United States, after suffering a strategic defeat in the battlefield in Iran, comes up with
11:56the idea of
11:57blockading Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz, at the same time that the horrible effects on
12:06the American economy are getting sharper and sharper, not to mention the effects on the global economy, this has to
12:16be seen as among
12:18one of the most extraordinary debacles in the history of American foreign policy, if not the number one debacle.
12:28So how can Trump possibly think that he will change the situation just by sitting on the same table with
12:36President Xi Jinping in Beijing? It's not going to happen. And essentially, President Xi and the Chinese
12:43in the ship want to get rid of this summit as soon as possible and go back to what they
12:48have been doing, which is
12:50solidifying the strategic strengths of China. They are essentially enshrined in the new five-year plan.
13:03And there's nothing that Trump can do to alter these basic facts. Talking about Donald Trump, you always have to
13:11look at what to many people might seem very petty details, which is essentially his political career.
13:20and the favors that he owns, to his donors in the American political sphere, and to people who still
13:31can be described as his constituency and his voters. The most important aspect is the midterms election next
13:42November. And the prospects for the Trump brand and for the Republicans are absolutely horrible. So he's thinking,
13:52most of all, in trying to sell some idea of victory after this summit in Beijing with Xi Jinping,
14:02for this domestic audience. Same thing if he convinces China to buy more Boeing planes. That's going
14:10to be a very, very tough sell. China prefers to invest in their homegrown aircraft. And if he convinces
14:19China to sell rare earth with no restrictions whatsoever to the United States, it's also going to be a very,
14:28very tough, hard sell. Because this is absolutely essential for the way the whole industrial-military
14:35is very complex in the United States work. Can he pressure President Xi Jinping on any of these three points?
14:43Maybe in only one of them, the soybeans. The other ones, it's going to be very, very hard.
14:48And of course, in terms of foreign policy, he's going to try to pressure President Xi Jinping to apply
14:56pressure on Iran in terms of unblocking the Strait of Hormuz, which is not blocked by the Iranians.
15:07The Strait of Hormuz has a new rules of passage, which they are entitled to because the Strait of Hormuz
15:14falls into Iranian territorial waters. What is being blocked is not only the Strait of Hormuz from
15:22the outside, but Iranian ports by the Americans and outside of the Persian Gulf. So, in fact,
15:29the Americans would have to end their own blockade, which Trump already said is not going to happen.
15:35So, it's even more absurd to expect that Trump will convince President Xi Jinping to apply pressure on
15:43the Iranians to unblock what is not unblocked, which is their own Strait of Hormuz. So, then he can
15:50sell this as a victory inside the United States. And if there is a total unblocking of everything in
15:59Hormuz and in the Persian Gulf, this means that less stress on the American economy, less stress on
16:07increasing inflation in the U.S. The Fed could cut interest rates. And even for the global economy,
16:15this would be much better. Trump simply has no cards to pressure President Xi about any of the above.
16:23In fact, it's fascinating to see that large sections of Western mainstream media actually agree
16:32that President Trump arrives in China with virtually no cards or, to be correct, zero cards to pressure
16:42President Xi Jinping. Many of these media, they are, I would say, avidly anti-Trump. But some who want
16:52to conduct a more or less impartial analysis and looking at the effects of Trump's policies on the trade
17:00war, on the tech war, on the tech war, and on the war of Iran, completely illegal and condemned directly
17:09by China, in China and at the UN in New York. They see that, obviously, Trump has absolutely no means
17:20of
17:20persuading Xi Jinping on any of these fronts. On the trade front, on the technological front, on the rare
17:29earth front, on evading U.S. sanctions, and especially on the war as a whole. Because Xi Jinping, the Chinese
17:41leadership, and virtually everyone around China and Southeast Asia, parts of East Asia, Central Asia, etc.,
17:50they understand that this war is not only against Iran, and especially for the Americans to control
17:58oil being produced in Iran and gas, which is part of their overall large global strategy, but it's also
18:05a war against China. And all these sanctions, all these pressures are always directed against China,
18:14China, of containing China, of, I would say, very, very brilliant, between commas, idea of,
18:23okay, we go to Iran, we control the Strait of Hormuz, and then we control the amount of energy
18:30that Iran exports to China. Reality is proving to everyone around the world that this backfired
18:37completely. And on the contrary, tankers leaving from Iran and going to China, they keep moving
18:45through the Strait of Hormuz virtually with no problems. One or two may be intercepted later.
18:52Iranian tankers may be intercepted later by the Americans, but the Americans will never dare to block
18:59a Chinese tanker leaving from an Iranian port, transporting energy to China. So once again,
19:09there are zero means of pressure in China. China does not react well to being pressured by a foreign
19:17power. And this is something that by now the Trump administration should be fully aware of. The problem
19:23is they are not. The Taiwan issue, of course, let's say, is probably the last remaining possible
19:30card for the Americans. The problem is Taiwan is considered by China correctly as an internal security
19:39matter. It's impermeable to foreign interference. So on the table, in theory, President Xi Jinping could
19:49even argue to Trump face-to-face, would you consider stopping or restricting this $11 billion sale of
20:00weapons to Taiwan? Everything including Patriot missiles, F-35 planes, etc. This is not absolutely
20:14essential or necessary for China. It's not going to alter, essentially, the geopolitical and the military
20:22situation in Taiwan and in the South China Sea. And obviously, even if President Xi gets deeper into
20:30it, he knows that Trump will never make a concession because he will be wanting concessions in between. So
20:44these are not essential for the continuation of the Chinese project in the five-year plan of becoming
20:54a ultra-high-tech power, where artificial intelligence will be permeated into at least 70 percent of the
21:04Chinese economy. There are steps to get to it very well designed, very well organized. And, of course,
21:13in terms of rare earths, all the cars are in the Chinese camp. They can be absolutely immovable,
21:21unless the Trump administration would make serious concessions. And even concerning Taiwan, these are
21:29not essential. Perhaps the most important concessions will be, OK, let's end this tsunami of tariffs
21:36against China. This is something that might influence President Xi Jinping. But apart from that,
21:43everything else is peripheral to the absolutely main drive of China for the next five years,
21:53which is the ultra-high-tech modernization of the Chinese system, Chinese society, and the way China
21:59works. The West-China relations, as we all know, is one of the most complex geopolitical issues of the 21st
22:08century. Arguably the most complex issues. The best possible outcome of a summit that is not going to
22:19dig deeper or solve serious structural problems in this relationship will be a continuation of the fragile
22:31status quo, as we have it, for the next few months, until the end of the year. And after,
22:40of course, the midterm elections, where Trump will probably emerge even more weakened than he is now,
22:48he will have, if he has less than zero cards at the time, as we speak, the cards will have
22:58completely disappeared after November this year. So the Chinese are not in a hurry. And they know that
23:05that the desperation to get some sort of deal or some sort of alleviation of structural problems
23:16is on the American side. And all that is compounded by something that in front of the whole planet now
23:25is becoming extremely, it's self-evident, in fact, the strategic defeat, practically total strategic
23:35defeat of the United States in West Asia, in a war against Iran that they launched unilaterally,
23:42without thinking about the consequences. And now that they are desperate to extricate themselves from
23:48this war, they simply cannot find a way out. After the Epstein case came out, this line went viral
23:58on the Chinese internet. Why? Because people suddenly felt that in China, in the age of Confucius,
24:04more than 2000 years ago, the moral standard we established is something today's Epstein circles
24:09still cannot reach. I want to ask you a question, because I think many of my American friends would
24:14also say, no, we also think this is morally extremely depraved, completely impossible to justify.
24:20I believe many decent Americans would also think this is immoral. But look at how people pay attention
24:25to this issue, including the Epstein files. After people pay attention, how many of them are really,
24:31well, many are criticizing, mocking, and some are even spreading it as a kind of voyeuristic pleasure.
24:37How many people really raise the point that your political system should be held responsible for this?
24:43You mean the political system should be responsible for this widespread moral depravity?
24:48How many people really propose a thorough investigation and punishment of the people
24:52involved in this event? If this kind of thing happened in China, probably most ordinary people
24:57would direct their questioning straight at the foundation of the system. But in America, I see
25:02relatively little of that. Most people still direct their anger at a certain group, a certain party,
25:07or a certain class. They do not turn it into a questioning of the entire basic system.
25:15Hello, everyone. Welcome to Thinker's Forum. My name is Yunpeng. Today, I want to do something
25:20different. I want you to remember the first time you've heard Epstein's scandal. Where you are,
25:28what you felt. This is a wild guess. But I'm thinking that you probably think if you believe that American
25:34elites are always like that, you feel vindicated. If you've never thought about it, you feel shocked
25:39that corruption can run that deep. The extent of that corruption is just unbelievable. But I want to
25:47say that if you ask that question to most of the Chinese people who are paying attention to the
25:52political sphere, and there are a lot of Chinese people who are paying attention to American politics,
25:56because American politics is being globalized, they would say that they are shocked because
26:02this is not a form of corruption that they are familiar with. I'm not saying that China doesn't
26:08have corruption. Of course it does. But I'm saying the specific form, that network effect that Epstein
26:14cultivated, the drug, the sex, all that stuff, is unfamiliar to the Chinese public. And today,
26:22I want to talk with Professor Fan Yongpeng precisely about why that is so unfamiliar to Chinese people,
26:29and what that says about the different systems and how they shape corruption in China and America.
26:37Professor Fan is a professor of international relations at Fudan University. If you're not familiar,
26:41if you're not familiar with the Chinese universities, that is the kind of place that I can never get into.
26:46I'm going to say one more thing. This conversation will take place in Chinese,
26:50Chinese, because Professor Fan wants to use the language of his academic training to talk about
26:55this particular subject. But we are real people. We're not AI. It will be AI dubbed post-factual in
27:04English. Hope you enjoy this conversation. Hello, Professor Fan. Hello, Yun Pang.
27:10So let's begin with this question. What do you think someone like Epstein's success depended on?
27:14Why was he able to operate in the United States for decades, escape legal punishment again and again,
27:19and especially after escaping the American justice system, still maintain communication with so many
27:24people in elite social and political circles? Do you think this reflects an internal problem in the
27:29American system? Or was it caused by Epstein's personal ability? Right. I think one thing you
27:34mentioned in your opening is already the answer to this question. This is a form of corruption that
27:38Chinese people are very unfamiliar with. So why would this form of corruption appear? It must have
27:43something to do with America's cultural soil and institutional soil. Let me give one example.
27:49Chinese people and say Americans actually have different ideas of corruption. For Chinese people,
27:55what is the opposite of corruption? It is Qinglian, clean and upright governance. I don't know whether
28:01English has a truly corresponding term. I feel it is quite hard, Qinglian. But in English, what is the term
28:07often paired against corruption? Transparency, right? Transparency. Behind that is a difference between
28:13two sets of ideas. In China, many things can be viewed as corruption. As long as you are not upright
28:20as a person. As we say in Chinese, you are a Xiaoren, a petty person. If you use money to
28:26trade with power,
28:27if you use public power for your own private interest, or if you violate institutional rules,
28:33bend the law for personal relationships, all of that is corruption. But in the American context,
28:39corruption is defined as something like only when you violate a specific law or when you have some
28:45hidden dishonorable act, a conspiracy, then it is illegal, then it is corruption. So the two ways of
28:52seeing it are very, very different from a Chinese perspective. What issue does corruption involve? It
28:58involves how public power is used. Public power can be corroded, corrupted, or exchanged in many ways.
29:04It is not only about power and money. For example, in my study of the history of human political
29:09institutions, there are several pairs of relationships that are very important indicators for understanding
29:15whether a system functions well and whether its corruption has become serious. One is civil-military
29:21relations, the relationship between politics and military force. Another is church-state relations,
29:28the relationship between politics and religion. A third is government-business relations,
29:34the relationship between politics, capital, and commerce. A fourth is the relationship with technology,
29:40politics, and technology. From these pairs of relationships, whether military force captures
29:45political power or religious power controls political power, in a certain sense, that is all a kind of
29:50corruption. But in the context of modern society, we usually understand corruption in a much narrower
29:55way, as a connection between political power and economic power. So if we put this in world history,
30:01it has very deep historical reason. Compared with most civilizations, Chinese civilization was very early,
30:08about more than 2,000 years ago, in relatively successfully resolving the relationship between politics and
30:14the military. For example, during the spring and autumn and warring states periods. Many states needed to
30:22change their laws and reform. The spring and autumn and warring states period is roughly 500 years before
30:28221 BC. During that process, China had many small states to compete with one another. These small states
30:36needed to stimulate a positive feedback loop of military power internally and build strong military states.
30:42So military power rose sharply in that process. But after the Qin unified China in 221 BC, you can see
30:49that
30:49from then until today, China has always kept military power firmly under political power. Of course,
30:56there were times in the middle when this failed. Once it failed, China would face major crises, but very
31:02soon that control would be restored. Especially after the Song dynasty, after the 10th century AD, China basically
31:09established firm civilian control over military power. So this is not a big problem for China. But if you
31:16look at the world today, in many places, military power remains an important political force. That includes the
31:23United States. Whether it is the military-industrial complex criticized by President Eisenhower or people
31:29like Peter Thiel today, and companies behind him like Palantir and Andrel directly taking part in military
31:35industry and military operations, they have in fact become a political force. Not to mention many third
31:41world countries that still have military governments today. The military remains an important political
31:46force. So from this perspective, China got away from this problem relatively early second, from the
31:52perspective of church-state relations. China is also one of the earliest, even perhaps the only large
31:58civilization to have escaped religious control over politics. We don't need to expand on that here.
32:04Everyone can clearly recognize that in the world today. Political power that is completely free from
32:09control by religious forces probably exists mainly in the East Asian civilizational sphere centered on
32:15China. If people want to hear this topic, we'll invite Professor Fan back another time to talk about
32:20religion and politics. I think when we talk about Palantir, many Americans, when hearing about Epstein,
32:26can instinctively feel that this form of corruption is not quite the same as the traditional corruption
32:32that comes out of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower described. And when I talk about
32:38this with my lawyer friends or finance colleagues, sometimes they find it very awkward because in their
32:43daily work, people in finance, more or less, will come into contact with people who are not as extreme as
32:49Epstein, but are still what we call in Chinese political brokers. People who use their connections to benefit
32:54their clients. Some people would say this form of corruption is rooted in America's contemporary
33:00financial and political system. Do you agree with that? I agree. I agree. I will talk about this a
33:05little later. Let me return to those two relationships, politics, military, and politics, religion.
33:11China has basically solved those two. But one problem China has still not completely solved today is the
33:16relationship between politics and commerce. In human history, political power is the greatest kind of
33:22public power. It can determine the life and death of a political community, and it is a core force
33:28in the distribution of resources. So all kinds of forces want to control and share in this power.
33:34The strongest among them is economic power through commerce or capital in its hands. Through money,
33:39it can exchange with politics. In Chinese history, from around the spring and autumn and warring states
33:45periods, commercial capital began to develop rapidly. After the Qin unified China, and especially from
33:52Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, China began to restrict commercial power. So for the next 2,000 years,
33:59this struggle continued. Overall, political power was able to steer economic power. But in quite a few cases,
34:06economic power could bite back against political power. The decline and collapse of many dynasties even
34:12were due to the excessive development of economic and financial forces.
34:16So what does that excessive development usually look like?
34:19For example, commercial capital successfully captures the bureaucracy, or financial power can
34:24cooperate with external threats with foreign enemies. For financial capital, it has no motherland.
34:30What it cares about is only returns. So as for who becomes emperor under heaven, right?
34:36For example, China's reform and opening up was very successful,
34:39and has stimulated the development of all kinds of private economy and all kinds of capital forces.
34:45But we always have to pay attention to a firewall. Economic forces must not be allowed to enter the
34:50boundary of political power. Why in ancient China there was a concept, scholars, farmers, artisans,
34:56and merchants. People in the Han Dynasty already explained very clearly why merchants are placed that
35:01way. It is not that merchants are discriminated against. It is that merchants or capital have the natural
35:07duty of seeking profit. What you pursue is private interest. China places special emphasis on the
35:13relationship between public and private, and on the public. So you should not also hold public
35:18power. If you hold public power, there is no way to prevent you from using public power to seek
35:23private profit, right? So Chinese people are very sensitive about this. You can see that since the 18th
35:29Party Congress. The 18th Party Congress is the Communist Party of China's. The 18th National Congress in 2012.
35:37Since then, China has particularly emphasized what is called a new type of government business
35:43relationship, meaning the establishment of clear boundaries between public power, social power,
35:48and economic power. So the kind of Epstein case you mentioned, under the Chinese system, you cannot say it
35:54as completely impossible. There may be individual cases. But as a systematic and widespread phenomenon,
36:01it is impossible. Why? Because our system has very strict control over boundaries. But on the point
36:07your friend raised, the American system is very different from China's in this respect. For example,
36:14how did this Western system, including America and Europe, come into being? It arose from medieval Europe
36:21and developed into a new system, capitalist, representative government, right? Before that,
36:27what was medieval Europe? It was a system of feudal private rights, feudalism. But once capitalism began
36:33to develop, people were quickly liberated from that feudal system. And a new bourgeois citizen class emerged,
36:39the bourgeoisie, and new proletarian workers also emerged, right? New peasants as well. In 1843, Marx wrote a
36:46series of articles and books analyzing this issue. He proposed several important concepts. One was
36:51political emancipation. What is political emancipation? It means your economic status no longer determines your
36:57political status or social status. He considered this a form of political emancipation. Another point
37:04was the emergence of civil society, a new social class different from the fixed classes of nobles and serfs
37:10in the past. A new social class began to appear called civil society, right? At the time,
37:15Marx was relatively optimistic. He believed capitalism had overthrown the feudal features of feudalism.
37:21So a basic feature of future capitalist society would be that your economic status could not directly
37:27become your political status. But in reality, capitalism never fundamentally solved this problem.
37:32Marx was correct about that development, but the process was not completed. Why?
37:37Because the capitalist state adopted a system based on representative government,
37:42what is representative government? I have done some research in this area. For example,
37:47I have a book called From Company to State. Of course, it only touches a small part of this.
37:52I was studying questions such as what are the differences between the key points of the system we see now
37:57and feudalism. The difference is that economic status cannot directly turn into political status.
38:03But where is the similarity? Representative government competes for seats through votes and seats.
38:10And what is the fundamental determining factor in the end? Money. So it becomes a conversion in which
38:15economic status can indirectly turn into political power. In your view, today's American representative
38:21democracy? Today's America, including the West and including most countries around the world,
38:27that adopt so-called liberal democracy. That is, mass elections plus a multi-party system are not,
38:35in essence, decided by one person, one vote. They are decided by one dollar, one vote. So this kind of
38:42system has a natural feature. Its political power is open. It is a pluralist or polyarchic political system.
38:49For example, its legislature is open to lobbying. Its political power is open to being corrupted by economic power.
38:57It has revolving doors in all kinds of mechanisms. From the positive side, it can reflect the interests of different
39:03parts of society, especially some new interests and new voices, which can play a role inside it. Its weakness is
39:09that
39:10ordinary people cannot generate a loud enough voice to influence this decision, making mechanism,
39:15this legislative body. Only large interest groups, corporate interest groups, or major special interest
39:21groups can influence such a system. So the appearance of someone like Epstein serves precisely such a system.
39:28Epstein is not an abnormal phenomenon in American politics. He is a normal phenomenon. It is just that
39:35he committed too many illegal acts, so he became a very typical case. But before him, less serious Epstein-like
39:42figures were everywhere. Go to Washington, D.C. Look at the organizations on K Street. All those think
39:48tanks, and also in Europe, the think tanks that lobby you institutions in Brussels, a large amount
39:55of what they do is similar. They broker among commercial capital, various issue groups and interest
39:59groups, and political power. So when you compare it with the Chinese system, you discover that the biggest
40:05feature of our system is a strict firewall between public power and any private power. In America,
40:13there is a very smooth channel. I want to ask you, to what extent is this a uniquely American problem?
40:18And to what extent is it a general problem when representative democracy and capitalism coexist?
40:25Because when we look at the Epstein list and see important politicians and public figures,
40:30from Bill Gates to Peter Mandelson to Bill Clinton, most of them are figures from the Anglo-American
40:35capitalist world. But Australia and even Japan's list, not because he did not try to approach them,
40:42but because, for various reasons, they did not enter Epstein's inner circle.
40:46First, it is certainly a general problem of modern capitalism and also a general problem of this
40:52representative democratic system. But the specific Epstein case also reflects America's uniqueness.
40:57The United States itself is different from most Western countries. For example, the United States
41:04has separation of powers, checks and balances, separation of powers. In the past, many Chinese
41:11scholars would say this is a universal value. In fact, it is not universal. It is not a universal system.
41:19In many countries, for example, among the 20-plus major Western countries,
41:23maybe only a few adopt strong or weak separation of powers. Most do not, including
41:29The United Kingdom is also based on parliamentary sovereignty, not separation of powers.
41:41But Britain later also moved somewhat in this direction, France too. The more orthodox cases would be
41:47Canada, including Germany. For example, the late American political scientist Robert Dahl wrote a book,
41:54How Democratic is the American Constitution? In that book, he compared 22 advanced so-called democratic
42:00countries with the United States. He argued that things like a strong presidential system, separation of powers,
42:06federalism and so on are all minority exceptions among Western countries. What is special about America first?
42:12America is especially large, so it formed a federal system. Federal power and state power are divided.
42:19So there are many cracks in between, many places where people can lobby and operate.
42:24What do you mean by cracks in power? Because the central government cannot directly govern everything.
42:29Unlike some small or medium-sized European countries, which are centralized and can directly
42:34manage all parts of the country. So the entire country is covered under one power system. In America,
42:39the states have their own independent sources of power. Strictly speaking, according to the U.S.
42:44people at the Constitutional Convention, the first words of the U.S. Constitution were,
42:49we the people, right? At the time, there was controversy. Representatives of the states said,
42:54you, the federal government, have no right to say, we the people.
42:58Or at least on which issues can the states or the federal government better represent the people?
43:04It is not only about issues. The states were saying, we are the source of power. We are the only
43:10people.
43:11Then through the Constitution, we enumerate certain powers and give them to the federal government.
43:16All powers outside the enumerated powers, the residual powers, belong to us. So during the Civil War,
43:23a famous Southern politician, John Xi, Cajun proposed a nullification, meaning, I can refuse to accept
43:31federal law. But contemporary American constitutional scholars would say this issue was already resolved
43:38after the Civil War through three consecutive constitutional amendments. But in practice,
43:43it was not fundamentally resolved. For example, in the past year or two, some American states opposed
43:48President Trump's border measures, right? At one point, it almost came to armed conflict,
43:53including California and Texas resisting certain federal policies. This has not been fundamentally
43:59solved. So America's sovereignty structure is double layered. This double sovereignty structure
44:03creates a lot of space in the middle for political operations. Second, because America's separation of
44:08powers, gaps also form among different branches. So in some countries like Germany, with a scale of tens of
44:15millions of millions of people, things may be better. Or in smaller countries, where centralization is
44:20stronger, it may be better. Also, European countries do have their own historical accumulation,
44:25including some civilizational and moral traditions. In some respects, they may not produce a phenomenon as
44:31exaggerated as Epstein. Also, some non-Western countries that later became Western countries, like South Korea and
44:38Japan, have both an East Asian civilizational foundation and borrowed liberal democratic institutions.
44:43So they adopted different forms. For example, they operate political activity behind the scenes
44:49through something like feudal power or chaebo power. So in Japan and South Korea, you don't see very
44:54active government business transactions on the surface. But in reality, many major transactions happen
44:59in deep political games. The image you see may therefore be different from America.
45:04So you think it is this political vacuum created by checks and balances that gives political brokers like
45:10Epstein the potential to use their resources, to engage in lobbying work that is not only allowed
45:16in politics but needed by politics. Yes, that is right. What do you think are some? Because I can imagine
45:22an American listener hearing this and thinking it makes sense logically. But when we look at what Epstein
45:26actually did, it often does not look as grand as what you are describing. Much of it was very typical,
45:31low-level corruption. For example, Peter Mandelson, the British politician, did many things that look
45:38like taking small bits of inside information from Epstein and passing them to British investors or passing
45:44British intelligence information through Epstein to American investors. That seems like a very low-level
45:49form of corruption and does not require invoking a grand narrative about checks and balances creating a power vacuum.
45:56As an individual case, that is indeed true. But Epstein is not a simple individual case. He involves all kinds
46:02of factors. For example, President Biden can pardon his own son. President Trump can use his son-in-law,
46:09Kushner, to handle international affairs. Speaker Pelosi can use her legislative work to trade stocks.
46:16For example, President Trump can use his presidential power to sell his own cryptocurrency. Not to mention that in
46:23federal and state legislatures. In recent years, there has even been a phenomenon of letting relatives,
46:28daughters, wives, family members succeed them and take over their position. This is a typical feudal
46:34behavior. So the fact that it can explode like this shows that the system itself already has very
46:40serious problems. Why does this phenomenon appear today? American politics itself has undergone a process of
46:47decay. I remember around 2013 or 2014, the American scholar Francis Fukuyama wrote a book on political
46:54origins and political decay, right? Actually, Huntington had raised this topic even earlier. Raising it at
47:01that time was very timely because American politics was undergoing decay. So some behaviors that people
47:06previously might have considered indecent in the past 10 or 20 years have begun to become accepted behavior.
47:12So someone like Epstein could become even more at home, able to move with ease. But in any case, we
47:17have
47:17to see that his problem is systemic corruption, not an individual problem. Earlier I mentioned that
47:23in the American concept, the word paired with corruption is transparency. Many Western countries
47:28have this kind of culture. It creates a problem. Corruption is not treated as a moral judgment,
47:33but as a legal judgment. And a legal judgment can solve the problem very simply through legislation.
47:39I can legalize it. If a conspiracy is a hidden illegal thing, then if I legalize it,
47:44isn't the problem solved. Let me give a typical example, American political donations.
47:50Businessmen can use money to buy votes. Is this behavior corruption? In the Chinese political context,
47:56I think it is certainly corruption. But in America during the progressive period in the 1970s,
48:01it was also once regarded as corruption. I remember the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act
48:09set some rules. Your donations could not exceed certain limits and later political action committees
48:15began to appear. And that continued until about 20 years ago. This law was still widely used until
48:20Citizens United overturned the core provisions of the law. Starting in 1976, there were lawsuits trying to
48:26overturn this all the way into the 2010s, right? I remember, yes, in the 2010s, it was overturned by the
48:34Supreme Court.
48:34The reason was that it violated freedom of speech, the freedom of money to speak. It violated the free speech
48:48rights of American corporations. Right. So legally speaking, it is no longer corruption, but from the
48:53perspective of human civilization and institutions, it is corruption. This American culture of corruption,
48:59this system will inevitably lead to institutional corruption. It is not about whether an individual
49:06has committed a crime or whether someone like Epstein has high or low moral standards. It is a
49:13systemic behavior. I want to talk about why Chinese people find this form of Epstein-style corruption so
49:17shocking. It is not only shocking in degree, but shocking in form. You just explained it from the
49:22perspective of Chinese traditional culture. But I want to talk with you about how China institutionally
49:27ensures that this kind of phenomenon is very hard to appear. We are not saying it is impossible in
49:32China, but it is very hard for it to appear in contemporary China. From the perspective of
49:38institutional design, what has China done? First, many details in the Epstein case really cross the moral
49:45bottom line for Chinese people. It is not that a particular criminal act does not exist in China. It is
49:52that such
49:52conduct in China would be considered an extremely serious crime and an immoral act. One reason comes
49:58from, for example, the minors, 30 or so underage girls, and one prosecutor could give him how to say it,
50:06an exemption or something, and not prosecute him, right? Give him a sentence that other people considered
50:14extremely light, right? For example, in prison or in the detention center, he somehow committed suicide, right?
50:20This kind of behavior in Chinese history was morally denied very early on. One very important figure
50:27in this was Confucius. Because in Chinese history, we also went through dark periods, wars, and periods
50:34of general moral decline. But Confucius established something very important for Chinese people,
50:39a moral standard. So there is an old saying, if heaven had not produced Zhongni, the ages would have
50:45remained like a long night. I was actually very curious how AI would translate this line. After
50:50the Epstein case came out, this line went viral on the Chinese internet. Why? Because people suddenly
50:56felt that in China, in the age of Confucius more than 2000 years ago, the moral standard we established
51:02is something today's Epstein circles still cannot reach. I want to ask you a question, because I think
51:08many of my American friends would also say, no, we also think this is morally extremely depraved,
51:13completely impossible to justify. I believe many decent Americans would also think this is immoral.
51:19But look at how people pay attention to this issue, including the Epstein files. After people pay
51:24attention, how many of them are really, well, many are criticizing, mocking, and some are even spreading
51:30it as a kind of voyeuristic pleasure. How many people really raise the point that your political system
51:36should be held responsible for this? You mean the political system should be responsible for this
51:41widespread moral depravity? How many people really propose a thorough investigation and punishment of
51:47the people involved in this event? If this kind of thing happened in China, probably most ordinary
51:52people would direct their questioning straight at the foundation of the system. But in America,
51:57I see relatively little of that. Most people still direct their anger at a certain group,
52:02a certain party or a certain class. They do not turn it into a questioning of the entire basic system.
52:08I want to ask you about that. You said that when China sees this kind of, not this kind, but
52:11large
52:12scale corruption, Chinese citizens and Chinese officials generally point the root of the problem
52:16toward institutional design and fundamental logic. Can you give us a few examples? When large scale
52:21corruption appears in China, what are the government's usual methods of responding? Because in this case,
52:26one thing many people find incomprehensible is that Epstein's corruption involved so many people
52:31and lasted so long. But in the end, only he and Maxwell really went to prison for it. Many people
52:37cannot
52:37accept that. In China, we first have to begin with the concept of political responsibility. Political
52:44responsibility is a very important concept in human history. Any ruling group, while enjoying the right to
52:51rule, must first fulfill the responsibility of ruling. This is the most basic balance between rights and
52:57obligation. So if you look at ancient China around 1046 BC, roughly 3000 years ago, when the Zhou dynasty
53:04was founded, the Zhou people proposed an entire set of ideas about political responsibility. For example,
53:11in one of China's oldest documents, the Book of Documents, there are many discussions. A ruler must be
53:17cautious and fearful, right? Like driving a chariot pulled by six horses with rotten reins, like walking on
53:23ice that is about to melt, as if standing before a deep abyss. And there's the idea, if all under
53:29heaven are
53:29guilty, the responsibility lies with one person. That means for all the problems under heaven, I bear ultimate
53:37responsibility. This was the period when the Chinese concept of political responsibility emerged from then on
53:43throughout Chinese dynastic history. Our basic requirement for a good dynasty, good politics,
53:49and a good emperor was that you must take responsibility, right? And in Western history and in
53:56the histories of other civilizations, we can see more or less the same thing. For example, in the era of
54:01primitive tribes, if I am the tribal chief, I must bear ultimate responsibility. In the aristocratic era,
54:07if I am a noble, when foreign enemies come, I must ride my horse, drive my chariot, and fight. I
54:14do not
54:14work the land, but I must lead and sacrifice for the country. That is the honor and mission of the
54:19nobility. So what lies behind this? A concept of responsibility. But the modern bourgeoisie is the
54:25first ruling group in human history that only enjoys the right to rule without assuming political
54:31responsibility and obligation. Through representative government, separation of powers, federalism,
54:37and other systems, it divides power into a very plural and fragmented form. Through mutual
54:43vetoes among different branches of power, it forms a very complicated power machine. As Fukuyama put it,
54:49it becomes a vitocracy, a veto mechanism. Meanwhile, through mass elections, it creates the illusion of
54:56democracy. So-called democracy means everyone has voted. Since you voted, how this country turns out
55:02is your responsibility. This official was elected by you. This party was voted into power by you. It is
55:10your responsibility. So you have to bear responsibility. Completely ignoring that this is the result of
55:16a two-party representative system. The group that actually occupies the ruling position behind a capitalist
55:22country. It bears no political responsibility. For example, in China, if I encounter a crisis or a
55:28problem, I will definitely go to the government. You must take responsibility. If you do not take
55:32responsibility, I will protest, I will petition. But in America, if someone is treated unjustly,
55:38who does he go to? Who is the government? He gets a lawyer and sues the federal government. Or the
55:43state
55:44government, or the city government, or the county government. Does he go to the executive branch,
55:49the legislative branch, or the Supreme Court? So in front of him, it is like Kafka's novel,
55:55The Castle. Like a castle whose door you can never find. You do not know where it is. It is
56:00invisible.
56:01This kind of system successfully exempts itself from political responsibility. But China's system,
56:08the Communist Party system, is a system of unlimited responsibility. In my book, I define America as what kind
56:15of state, a limited liability state. It is limited. China is unlimited, a state of unlimited responsibility.
56:23Why do I say America is limited? Because if you look at the design of its whole system,
56:28it is like a company. It only bears limited responsibility. So after COVID in America,
56:34including during COVID when so many people died, and after COVID when America saw declining life
56:39expectancy, it does not have to take responsibility. During the entire pandemic, no American official
56:46was punished. No matter how large the tragedy, and later, no matter how many major public infrastructure
56:52accidents or public disasters occurred, no one bore responsibility. American politicians might say that
56:59the responsibility they bear is that they can be voted out of office through elections. But you mean
57:05that this is not truly taking responsibility because they do not personally pay a real consequence for it?
57:10Right. That is really only the responsibility of a manager. It is not real political responsibility.
57:16In China, every year we can see in the news that if there is a traffic accident, a mining disaster,
57:22a problem with food at an elementary school or kindergarten, a public opinion incident, or a violent
57:29conflict on the street, officials may be disciplined, removed from office, or even in prison.
57:35Our system, the Chinese Communist Party system, assumes unlimited responsibility toward the people
57:41and the country. This creates a situation. When facing corruption, government business transactions,
57:47and the capture of political power by various forces, it acts as the final regulator, the final responsible
57:54party. The Chinese Communist Party sits in the final chair of Chinese politics. All problems in the
57:59political system are ultimately mine to bear. So it has an incentive, I must watch all problems and
58:05solve them, right? So for some behaviors you just mentioned that break through the moral bottom line of
58:10humanity. If they happened in China, of course they can happen, but they are individual cases.
58:15Once they are exposed, once they go online or are reported, something like Epstein sexually assaulting
58:21more than 30 underage girls could not simply be handed to one prosecutor in China. An investigation team,
58:27possibly even once sent by the central government, would definitely come down. The locality might
58:33conduct investigation and trial in another jurisdiction, and multiple departments would jointly
58:44And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present and future
58:52of the Asian giant. Hope you enjoy it. See you next time.
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