Transcription
Why so thin-skinned? And particularly those young people you mentioned can be online very thin-skinned about what I consider very minor things. I don't know. I think you've got to put yourself in their shoes.
Um, you know, I think the West, especially America, has been extraordinarily arrogant. You've been lecturing everybody so much everywhere around the world. You're so used to lecturing people and humiliating people. You don't think you're humiliating them. And finally, you've got somebody who's grown big enough to say, "No, we're not going to take that anymore," and you think they're thin-skinned. And that's the case.
Let me ask you the question then: Without elections, where does the Communist Party in China get its legitimacy? They, I mean, they were originally a revolutionary party, they won the war. They get, they get their legitimacy, like I said, based on outcome. Okay? Procedural legitimacy, I think, is what is getting liberal societies in trouble. It's what is getting liberal politics in trouble. As long as you follow procedure, even if you elect people that are completely incompetent, even if you elect people that are selfish, that are corrupt, that don't deliver, you're still legitimate. Um, we don't want that. We want leaders who get their legitimacy by delivering. If you can deliver the goods, you are legitimate.
So, but the kind of dissent that you're talking about, I don't think we need in this country. Just look at the countries that have it. They're not being governed very effectively. They are polarized. Their government is dysfunctional. Their people hate each other. Their media hate each other. We don't want that.
But another one of the strengths of the Communist Party, as far as I know it, and they've been looking at it for a couple of four decades going back now, is has always been self-criticism. They've always gone back and self-criticized when things and said, "Look, we made mistakes. Now we're correcting those mistakes." There doesn't seem to be a lot of self-criticism now. And I say very specifically that, for example, there are whole areas of the past that are just off-limits for discussion and debate. You don't hear any discussion about the Great Famine. You don't hear any discussion about the Cultural Revolution. Certainly not 1989. And it almost seems as if everything started with the opening and reforms. Nobody ever wants to talk about what came before. Is that healthy?
Well, let me, uh, disagree with that. Okay. I think there is an extraordinarily high degree of self-criticism within the party right now through this self-reinvention. Okay. Now, first of all, self-criticism is only useful when it's relevant. Um, and, and let me just point out the party has been engaged in three major, major areas of self-criticism since the 18th Party Congress. One is political corruption. Okay. From 2012 on, every single newspaper, every single television, you can't get away from Chinese official media without reading and hearing about the horrible situation with corruption, and they attacked it because of that self-criticism. Okay. Second, environmental degradation. Okay. You can't get away from media reports from the party itself about, "We've got to fix the environment. We screwed up, okay?" And, and, and anybody who lives in Beijing will tell you how much improvement they've had in their air, uh, in the past five, six, seven years, okay? That 10, 20 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, you go to Beijing, you can hardly catch a day with blue sky. Uh, now most days are blue sky. Okay? Self-criticism. Third, most important right now, inequality. Okay. You know, um, the, the last campaign to eradicate extreme poverty in the country, the campaign lasted about eight years. They took the last 99 million people out of absolute poverty. Mhm. Nearly 2,000 party members died in the process. Okay. Several million of them went to the front lines. They went to rural areas with harsh conditions. Okay. So why did they do that? Self-criticism. They realized there was a problem that economic reforms have lifted a lot of people, made a lot of rich people, and built this great big middle class, but many, many millions of people were left behind. And there was something wrong with that. So the entire campaign was driven by self-criticism.
Yeah, fair enough. Those are all, those are all three fair points of self-criticism. I guess what I'm thinking about is, and again, bear with me here for a second. If you look at what's happening in the United States now, where they've had a lot of historical problems with slavery, racism, they're going through this cathartic moment where they're discussing all of these issues. Europe as well, after the Black Lives Matter movement, Europe is going through a reckoning with its own past of colonialism, etc. In China, it seems again, the past is always blocked off. Nobody wants to talk about it. It's not open for discussion. Uh, you can't talk about, they even try to crush any memory of what happened in 1989. When will China have that kind of historical reckoning? When will the party go back and say, "Look, we made some mistakes"? That doesn't diminish their power now.
Well, race is always a big problem in America. I, I know that's from the, the country's DNA. So, I think I, uh, I will support, uh, a great discussion, a greater discussion in America, and that came very late. Um, you know, come on. When did Lincoln live? 150 years ago? Whenever it was. Okay. Now you're doing this, and you call it self-criticism, and you're asking China when you're going to do it about 1948? Come on, cut people some slack.
Well, I think we didn't wait until after, uh, it's been since Lincoln that we've discussed race in America. I'm sure, I am sure, I am sure things that have happened in the history of the People's Republic will be discussed much, much sooner than how soon you, you address the race problems in America.
Okay, fair enough. By the way, if any of you have questions, please send it to questions@fcc.org. That's questions@fcc.org. Uh, let me just ask you a couple more questions here. Um, first of all, the, the party used to, and one of its other strengths I mentioned, one strength was always self-criticism. Another one was, it always allowed a lot of decentralization and a lot of innovation at the local level. And when I was covering China, there was a lot of stuff with grassroots democracy going on in villages and in, in, in, in counties. I don't hear about that anymore. It seems to be more of a top-down node innovation, and I've never even heard anybody speaking about this kind of village election, grassroots democracy. What happened?
Well, the pendulum does swing from one period to another, you know, and, and in the history of the People's Republic, uh, the pendulum has swung several times between decentralization and centralization. Okay? And, and it will take too long to go into that history. I know the cyclical history, right? But, but, you know, we had a period of decentralization for a couple of decades, uh, and it's now swinging towards more centralized, uh, uh, power. I think that's correct. Um, driven by changes in circumstances and, and the needs of the development of the country. Uh, but, but I'll tell you, there's still tremendous amount of innovation and policy innovation and economic activities at the local level. Uh, so if you, I mean, I was just in Suzhou, I was in, uh, uh, U, other, you know, different cities, uh, in China, different counties. Uh, the county governments, provincial governments, they're being very aggressive in coming up with economic development policies that are that are, uh, uh, uh, that that work within the specific circumstances in the regions they're in. Um, very aggressive. Yeah. I mean, for example, Wang Yang, when he was in charge of Guangha, was credited with a lot of innovative policies there. He moved up to the center. But, you know, I mentioned, you know, uh, self-criticism was always a strength. Local decentralization and local innovation was always a strength. A third strength, I think, and people have credited this, was always collective leadership. Uh, you know, nobody got too powerful, and leaders stepped aside. Does China still have that kind of collective leadership?
Well, that's also the pendulum does swing, uh, and has one for many times, uh, between collective and more centralized, more collective, less collective. Um, you know, the, uh, the, during the 16th and 18th Party Congress, those 10 years, they had nine members on the C, uh, uh, Standing Committee of the, the Party Bureau. Uh, it was, you know, bigger, uh, than, than before. So the pendulum swung toward, you know, a greater collection, a larger number of people at the top, and, and, and there's something good about it, but also it led to certain inefficiencies, certain, uh, uh, power being diffused. Um, and now they're in a new phase. So, so they, they shrank it, uh, at the 16th Party Congress back to seven. Um, and then, of course, we have a, a leader that's, that seems to be more powerful than leaders in the past. Uh, but, you know, the pendulum does swing. I mean, I, I think it is still, decisions are made by the Central Committee under the leadership of the, of the Party Secretary, Secretary General, uh, and the Standing Committee of, of the Party Bureau. That system, that in those institutions, stay intact.
Is it, is it fair to say, and you may disagree with me here, but is it fair to say that this, the party, at least with this new centralized leadership and Xi Jinping in power, they don't like dissent? I mean, they don't like criticism, they don't like dissent. There have been academics who've been, you know, lost their jobs for dissenting. There have been bloggers who've been arrested. My question is, where are the checks and balances if you've got that much power centralized and you don't like criticism, you don't like dissent?
Well, I'm not so sure the kind of dissent that you have in liberal societies and how productive that is. Um, you know, the kind of dissent that you're talking about, I, I mean, I assure you, there are a lot of criticism in China. There are a lot of differences of opinions within the party institution when they discuss policies at different levels, lots of debates, and all the policy decisions that come out at the end are results of, of debates, vigorous debates. I know that for a fact. But the kind of dissent that you're talking about, I don't think we need in this country. Just look at the countries that have it. They're not being governed very effectively. They are polarized. Their government is dysfunctional. Their people hate each other. Their media hate each other. We don't want that. Okay?
But I mean, you know, when you think about it though, good. That's a good answer. But when you think about it, the party, 92 million members, that's only 6% of the population of China, which is about 1.3 to 1.4 billion. Can 6% of the population really represent, you know, the entire population of China?
It is, it is bigger than what I call the holy trinity that runs America. The holy trinity. The one America is also in, in, in some way, a one-party state, and it's run by a party called the holy trinity. I call it Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. Mhm. These three groups of people, including the nannies that they employ, no more than 100, no more than a million people, they make all the decisions in America. That's why you have all these dissatisfaction in the country.
Well, some people would add in the gun lobby and a lot of others in there as well.
Gun lobby, too, into that trinity. But, uh, but seriously, I mean, what, what are the checks and balances in a, in a one-party state? What if, what if, what if the party, what if Xi Jinping's got something wrong?
So, let me tell you, without real checks and balances, the party would not have survived this long. Okay? So, so when we, when we talk about all these abstract concepts like checks and balances or democracy, for that matter. Okay. We ought not only focus on procedure. We ought to focus on outcome. Okay. When you have these really beautiful things like checks and balances and democracy and people's will, when you have them, the outcome should be success. Success means people are satisfied, and their lives are getting better, and they look towards the future with optimism, and society is cohesive. Okay? I don't care what kind of procedures you have if you don't achieve those outcomes. I don't think you're democratic. I don't think these checks and balances do any good.
So, are you one of those who believes that the East is rising and the West is in decline?
Well, I wouldn't put it in those terms. I mean, I, I'm one that I hope liberal societies could rejuvenate themselves. You know, liberalism needs some self-criticism. Liberal, liberals in liberal societies should learn from the party-state in China. The party-state in China has been very good at at self-criticism. That's why they reinvent themselves. You only reinvent yourself when you see problems. Otherwise, why would you reinvent yourself, right? Mhm. So, liberal societies have been failing at that for the past decades because they take their system for granted. They think there's some kind of moral imperative that, that sometime, somehow, they take their system as a given, that it works. It's the best thing you've got. So, of course, you don't need self-criticism. You don't need to reinvent yourself. Um, I, I, I, I hope for a world where we have a, a degree of pluralism, a degree of plurality, different kinds of systems and ideologies could coexist and compete. Um, so, I, I wish liberalism well.
Well, let me, let me ask a question that might be slightly provocative. Don't mean it to be, but I, I mean it and I mean it with all seriousness. I mean, most people would say that the vast majority of Chinese support what, what the Communist Party has done and what the Communist Party is doing. Why don't they have an election like in Singapore, where the ruling party has been in power? They have elections to legitimize their rule every once in a while. They continue to stay in power, but that kind of rejuvenates and allows them to claim legitimacy from the people.
Well, we have a system of selecting capable people from the population and move them up to lead the country, and they've proven to be great leaders and effective leaders. They have delivered countries. I mean, Singapore is a small place. I don't want to use it as an example. Okay? Countries, especially big liberal societies, at least in the past few decades with your elections, have not been able to produce leaders that are capable and effective and can deliver. So, the best way for you to convince the Chinese to have elections is to make yours work.
Well, let me ask you the question then. Without elections, where does the Communist Party in China get its legitimacy? They, I mean, they were originally a revolutionary party. They won the war. They get, they get their legitimacy, like I said, based on outcome. Okay. Procedural legitimacy, I think, is what is getting liberal societies in trouble. Is what is getting liberal politics in trouble. As long as you follow procedure, even if you elect people that are completely incompetent, even if you elect people that are selfish, that are corrupt, that don't deliver, you're still legitimate. Um, we don't want that. We want leaders who get their legitimacy by delivering. If you can deliver the goods, you are legitimate.
So, it's performance-legit, performance-based legitimacy.
Correct. Whatever you want to call it. I think democracy needs a set of new measurements. I think democracy needs to be measured by outcome. Mhm. Not by procedure.
But what, what happens in China if the economy suddenly collapses? You've got a demographic challenge looming ahead. You know, you could always have some economic problem with debt, etc. If the party is tying its fate to making people richer, how long can that go on? And again, the question, can China keep rising?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. The party is tying itself by making people richer. I don't think that's the right term to put it. The party right now, like I said, in this current phase of reinvention, is tying itself with the future of China's more equitable and productive, not making just a few rich. They want to lift everybody. Okay? They are tying their legitimacy with that mission. And I think most of Chinese people agree with that mission. And they need to succeed. If they fail, they'll lose legitimacy. Okay? If they succeed, they, they'll keep that legitimacy for a very, very long time. Okay? So, there's no need for any kind of election, no need for even a referendum on whether you support the party. I, I've already said what I wanted to say. Um, if, like I said, if they deliver, they will have legitimacy. Okay? We don't want a system where you hold a vote and you don't deliver and you're still legitimate. That's bad.
Okay, fair enough. Let me, let me ask you something that often has me scratching my head, and a lot of outsiders who care about China and have been following it a long time, scratching our heads, which is, at the time when the party and President Xi are at the peak of power, China's about to become the world's top economy, if not already there. They're at the peak of their military success. Why are they so thin-skinned? Why is it that some, a basketball owner who I've never heard of can put out a tweet and all of a sudden it hurts the feelings of the Chinese people, so you take the NBA games off the air, or you can shut down a newspaper because it's, uh, running editorials that somehow are threatening the national security of China? I mean, why, why so thin-skinned? And particularly those young people you mentioned can be online very thin-skinned about what I consider very minor things.
I don't know. I think you've got to put yourself in their shoes. Um, you know, I think the West, especially America, has been extraordinarily arrogant. You've been lecturing everybody so much everywhere around the world. You're so used to lecturing people and humiliating people. You don't think you're humiliating them. And finally, you've got somebody who's grown big enough to say, "No, we're not going to take that anymore," and you think they're thin-skinned. And that's the case.
You know, that's okay. Well, when, uh, a Chinese Communist group puts on Twitter a picture of a rocket going up saying, "Here's China lighting a fire next to Indians cremating people because of the virus," and say, "This is how we light a fire. This is how India lights a fire." Isn't that being arrogant?
I'm not sure. I, I've seen that picture before. I don't know what the intent of that picture is, but I think it expresses a particular view. It's, it's, it's a view that the Indian people are not being treated well. The, the, the leadership of India needs to have some self-criticism. It speaks for millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of people in India that are suffering. Mhm. I mean, how can you, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.
How about when, how about when, think about these people who are dying, who are sick, who are really being buried every day. You can't even put out a picture and say something for them.
How about what? I don't think that was, uh, I think it was mocking India, quite frankly.
How about the, how about these, uh, Twitter accounts coming out from people in China, and some of these young people you were talking about, that were mocking New York because of the number of dead going during the Coronavirus, or they've been mocking news, they've been mocking Australia because of a situation that happened before with Afghanistan.
I think that's winning. I don't think, I don't, I, I don't know what you're referring to. If you're referring to the oil painting of an Australian soldier putting his knife at an Australian girl, that's, I totally support it. I think it's, it's a horrible thing these Australian soldiers did. Okay. And this is, this is an artist's rendition of the tragic events that took place in Afghanistan. It is not mocking. It is serious.
So you think these kind of wolf warrior?
It was a crime. It was a crime, and they needed, an artist attempted to call it that to show it to the world what happened. It was an artistic rendition. It was not a photograph. It was a painting.
And so you mentioned, uh, countries being arrogant. You don't think China is acting arrogant now?
I hope we won't be arrogant. All right. But even if we are, we're far behind someone else.
Well, let me ask you a question then. Another question. China's at the top, as I mentioned, they're at the top of their power economically, militarily, uh, etc. But, you know, I just looked at the recent Pew survey of of 14 countries and, uh, excuse me for looking down, I want to get it accurate. Negative views of China have increased in every one of the countries, uh, that they surveyed. 81% negative on Australia, 74% in UK, Germany, 71% negative. Spain, 63% negative. South Korea, 75% negative. US, Canada. I mean, the negative views of China and negative views of Xi Jinping's ability to handle things in Asia and in Europe and in the US and Canada. Why is that?
I, I've seen those numbers, and it's very interesting until I noticed something else. Okay? You know, I noticed a very interesting trend, and that sets China apart from these other countries, many of these countries. Okay? In China, we have two trends going opposite directions. Okay? The, in China, we have, you know, the Chinese people's view of their own government, of their own country, has been improving significantly. They're getting more and more positive. Yet, other people's, in other countries, their view of China has been, have been deteriorating. Then you notice these people's views about their own countries and about their own governments are also deteriorating. So they're just unhappy.
Well, if you, if you dig into those numbers, what it actually says, what the Pew report says is that this negative view of China and negative view of Xi Jinping's ability to handle things are directly related to the Coronavirus. And particularly because, uh, you mentioned, and I think it's correct, that once February of 2020 came along, China, with its lockdowns and quarantine, managed to handle the virus extremely well. But nobody likes to talk about how what happened in December of 2019 and January of 2020 when they were locking up doctors and and arresting bloggers who were trying to warn the world what was going on. Why won't China become more transparent and allow people in unfettered access to find out what happened?
Hey, we had our first known case of Coronavirus at the end of December 2019, at the almost last few days of the year. Okay? And we had the Wuhan lockdown in January 20th. Merely three weeks passed from the first known case of a virus that's completely unknown to mankind to a complete lockdown of a major city and a major province in China. That was also unprecedented in human history. Three weeks. Three weeks. We showed the world how serious this virus was in action. Three months later, I mean, six months later in America and Europe, you were still debating whether you ought to wear masks.
Why were doctors being, uh, why were doctors being called into the police for trying to?
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I don't. You can talk about all these specific events you want. I mean, I can go to America and find all these things that are happening in America. Okay? You guys were in America and Europe, you, you were debating where, I mean, people were protesting about wearing masks. They're insulting people. Political leaders in America are insulting American people for wearing masks in May. Nobody's, nobody's defending America. We're talking about China here.
Yeah. What I'm saying is, you've got to cut people some slack. You can't be too arrogant. Okay? Don't be too arrogant. You've got to. We have three weeks. We had three, it took us three weeks, like I said, from the first known case of Coronavirus, of a virus that was completely unknown to the world, ever in history. Took us three weeks to shut down an entire city of 10 million people. There was supposed to be some enough to show the world how serious it was.
There was supposed to be some information sharing that was set up after the SARS epidemic between doctors in China and the world. And that didn't happen.
Yes, it did. Yes, it did. You've got to read the history. That the, the, the genome sequence of the Coronavirus was put into NIH in Bethesda and shared with the world, I think, in the first two weeks of January. Like I said again, it took us 10 days, took China 10 days, maybe two weeks to share the genome sequence with the entire world.
Okay, look, we're all at the same starting point. I mean, everybody was surprised by the virus. I mean, we weren't geniuses here. It took us some time to figure out whether it was serious to begin with. Okay? And it took us three weeks. We showed the world in action how serious it was. We locked down Wuhan. We locked down Hubei province. Okay? Nobody's ever done it in human history.
Well, look, I'm not going to go back and debate the history of that. But what I want to ask you the question is again, I'm going back to these negative views of China, which, if you believe the surveys, uh, a lot of that is tied to the Coronavirus and a feeling, and it may be inaccurate, a feeling that China's not being 100% transparent. When countries like Australia, for example, have asked for an international investigation, China says, "We're going to cut off trade." I mean, come on, why are they being so resistant to a real investigation so we can find out how this thing happened?
So we can argue all day long about how open they were to investigations. At least China was the only country that did allow WHO to come in and investigate. No other country has done that. I mean, you have countries that have 10, h, 100 times more deaths, a thousand times more infections. You know, why ar, why isn't the WHO being called to go investigate there?
Because the ch, because the virus first was identified in Wuhan, and they're trying to find out if it came from the wet market or if it was an accidental lab leak.
But what about how it spread so quickly? It, well, maybe it spread because that lockdown of Wuhan didn't come until after Chinese New Year. Yeah. Why aren't these countries being investigated? You know, so, so I'm just saying, look, there's a degree of openness. Every country has a degree of openness, and I think in comparison, China hasn't done so badly. All right. I mean, we have our own problems. I, I get it. We got, we got problems. Okay. But, but, but I hope, I think one of the reasons why negative views of China have been rising in the rest of the world, in other parts of the world, especially in the West, that's linked to the Coronavirus, is that debates like this one, the one you and I are having, are not being aired in Western societies enough.
Would this be aired in China?
I hope. Well, I hope it needs to be aired in America. It also needs to be aired in China. The Chinese already know. The Chinese, this debate should be aired in China right now so everybody can hear this.
Maybe it should be, but, but America and Europe need it much more.
All right. Well, with that, I'm going to give you a slight break here, and I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca Bailey, who's got a couple of audience questions coming in. Uh, Rebecca, do you have some?
I do. I do. Um, hi Eric. Um, our first question is from Frederick Demopoulos. Uh, he, I've, I've subbed your question down a bit, Frederick. Sorry. Um, he says, "Rule-based societies tend to scale more efficiently, whereas relationship power-based societies tend to be more flexible in periods of great social or economic change, like China's seen over the past few decades." So, first of all, do you accept that premise, I guess, that that rules-based societies are more efficient over the long term? If you accept that, do you think that China's willing to move towards a rule, a more rules-based system as it, as it sort of enters, I guess, this next stage of its reinvention? And if, if that is the case, would that change how the CCP has to operate?
Well, I'm not sure what that means. Um, I'm not sure how he defines rules-based societies. I mean, I guess, I guess would you, would you characterize China as a rule?
Of course. I, I, I, I'm, yes, I do.
So, so you reject the premise that, that the premise of the question is somehow China is not rule-based and only America and the West are rule-based.
Um, I, I disagree with that premise. Um, different countries have different rules and how they work those rules. We have rules here. I tell you, if we don't have rules, we won't have thousands of these corrupt officials in jail. Okay? Okay.
Um, the second question is from Alejandra Reyes. He says, um, "A lot has been made of Xi Jinping eliminating the two-term limit on the presidency, with some analysts arguing that this is a sign of the atrophying of the party itself and a sort of, I guess, what Keith was saying earlier about a move away from collective leadership. Um, what, what are your thoughts on Xi's move, and has there been any pushback within the wider party against that?"
Um, I think the Chinese public and the party, uh, in particular, are had been very supportive of this constitutional amendment. Um, and, and the country felt that, and I'm just stating what I see on the ground here. Okay? The country. You can disagree with those views, but I, I feel that most people here think this was the right thing to do, given the circumstances and, and the stage of development of this country and the international environment it faces. Um, and, and institutionally, it, it brought the office of the presidency in line with the other powerful offices, uh, in the country, which the Party Secretary, uh, uh, the General Secretaryship of the Party, and the Chairman of the Military Commission, both of them did not have term limits.
So, are you saying that Xi Jinping doesn't have more concentrated power than any other leader?
No, he does. He does. I'm just saying the country is in, is supportive of that.
But that is a change, right? That is a change away from, like, the Hu Jintao era. So you said, you said that the circumstances necessitated that change. But what, what are those specific circumstances?
I've already, I've, I've said that the, the pendulum has swung many times from more centralized power to less centralized, back to more centralized, back to less centralized. So it's nothing new. It's nothing new. This country's institutions have always been evolving, and if they evolve wrong, they'll pay a price. If they evolve right, they will succeed. Right? And they've been evolving correctly, mo, in most cases. I mean, they made mistakes, like the Cultural Revolution was a mistake. The Great Leap Forward was a mistake, and they corrected course.
Sure. But I guess, I guess what people are interested to know is, you said there, there are particular circumstances now that make the pendulum swing, I guess, necessary. Well, what are those circumstances?
What question? Good question. Good questions. Let me give you the circumstances that I think demanded stronger and more centralized leadership in this country. Okay? One, official corruption. Okay? We had a huge corruption problem before the 18th Party Congress. Huge. And it was getting worse and worse. Uh, and they needed to correct that. And they needed more centralized power to implement the most aggressive, most ferocious anti-corruption campaign known in history in entire Chinese 5,000-year history. And they've been succeeding at it. Okay? Without centralized power, they would not have been able to do that. Second, they need to have a basically move from, like I said, headlong pursuit of economic, uh, uh, market economics and economic growth to a more balanced and more fairly distributed economic system, and you need a centralized power to do that, to redistribute essentially. Okay? Third, environmental degradation. Okay. You, you needed stronger central leadership to implement environmental policies and laws. Uh, all the localities and regions were competing on economic growth. So they were putting the environment on a back burner, and you needed to, to organize and have stronger central power to say, to put, put the environment, which is always long-term, not short, you know, against short-term gains. Uh, and you need a stronger leadership at the top.
Is central leadership, centralized leadership, is that the same as like, an individualized leadership, which is what we're kind of seeing now, which again, all leaderships are individualized. Leadership is always in persons. They don't exist in, I mean, leaders are not computers. The American leadership is is individualized in Joe Biden. Okay? So, so you can't, computers don't run countries. Human beings do.
There's still a difference between a committee and a person. But, sorry, I'm, I'm diverging from our audience questions. I have one last one for you from Dr. Matthias Bach. Um, he says, "China is not just its tier-one cities," and Matthias has lived in a lot of, uh, cities outside of, I guess, like, you know, your main big ones. He says, "His experience is that unless Beijing defines an action, the kind of local government is basically either paralyzed or robotically executing something, which he thinks is a sort of disadvantage, and you often end up with these situations where people don't want to be the bearer of bad news. So you're not necessarily getting like an accurate picture on the ground relayed up to your central government." I mean, do you agree with that analysis, I guess, but also, can the CCP overcome that problem if it is a problem?
Yeah. Um, so I think it's all, everything's a matter of degree. Okay? You, you want to achieve a balance that works. Uh, you want, you don't want to, you want a situation where local governments and local leaders have the latitude to make decisions on the ground. Yet, you, you don't want to go so extreme that, like I said, the problem of the environment. Okay? The problem with corruption. Um, so, so you, you want some centralized lead, stronger centralized leadership to, to fix on those problems, to implement the right policies. But of course, you don't want to go so far the other way, the local governments are paralyzed. And I don't think that's happening. I just don't. I mean, there's always risks of that happening, and I'm sure you can find instances of that happening. It's a big country. Uh, but I think in general, um, we're at a place where, you know, the, the balance is being kept reasonably well. Uh, and I think the country will succeed from this point forward.
Thank you very much. Um, I'm going to hand back to you, Keith. That's all the questions we have.
Well, thank you very much, Rebecca, and Eric. Can I just follow up on that question a little bit? Now, again, I don't want to belabor what happened in Wuhan with the virus, but what Rebecca was just asking about in that question. Could that have just been a situation where local officials were afraid to tell people in Beijing, "Hey, there's a problem here, you know?"
Yeah. Like I said, this was a virus that was unknown to mankind. It's unprecedented for hundreds of years. We never seen anything like it. So, so I don't think you can keep information from someone when you don't even know what that information is. I mean, I think it's unreasonable to say, okay, people in Wuhan in on January 5th, they, they, they should have known this virus is going to cause this, this, the worst pandemic in 500 years. Come on. I mean, even, you know, when everybody knew, when months after they shut down Wuhan, millions of people in America did not think this thing was anything any big deal.
Okay, we're going to circle it back around because I keep trying to say that there were people in Wuhan who were trying to sound the alarm, and they were being arrested.
That's, that's of course people sound alarms, but how could you know? In fact, let me go back to the, in fact, in the early days, some people were calling, they thought it was SARS, but it wasn't SARS. Okay? Nobody knew anything. That was a SARS-like zoological virus.
No, it was not SARS at all. Okay. If it were SARS, SARS-like, that would, if it were SARS, Donald Trump would have been right, it would have gone away magically. Okay. So there people, the people were sounding alarms was calling it SARS. Okay. Then, then, then Donald Trump would have been right.
Well, one of the things, one of the things you'll never hear me do, Eric, is defend anything Donald Trump ever said. So, but let me, we agree. Let's get back. One thing we can agree on. But let me get back to, uh, the party. Let me ask you, uh, just a broader question. Um, what do you think are the main challenges or the main dangers for the party, both inside of China and in its foreign relations, coming up over the next, uh, 5 years to a decade? What, what are they? What should they be looking out for?
Yeah, like I said, in, I think in China, domestically, the big risks and the challenges are when they pursue a more equitable society, which is, I think, the top of the agenda for the party's political platform. Okay? This is the reinvention that's taking place. We're swinging from economic growth at all costs to a more equitable society, common prosperity. In that process, the risk is they don't get the balance right. Okay? We need to have a balance that we need to redistribute and move more benefits to common people and bring the entire society up. But at the same time, if we misdirect that, if they misdirect that initiative, they, they, they destroy entrepreneurial initiatives, which is what made this country so successful for so long. That would hurt the economy, and that will come back and, and, and hurt the party and the country. Okay? So, so to get that balance right is no easy task. Uh, but if they don't do it, we're going to be in trouble, too, because the wealth gap is is widening. So, they have to do it, and, and, and they have to take the risk. Um, and I wish them well.
How about on the foreign relations side? Biggest dangers, biggest challenges. You, you know that better than I do. We read that every day in papers, on TV. I mean, the, the, obviously the biggest challenge, unfortunately, is to manage relations with the US, which is used to running the entire world, uh, and telling everyone how to run their, uh, countries, um, and, and is finding it very difficult, uh, somehow another country could potentially even, uh, surpass it, um, and that's a difficult, uh, situation to manage. Um, and I think China needs to, uh, needs finesse. Uh, it needs to stand its ground, uh, because obviously, uh, you know, China should not be contained, and won't allow itself to be contained. 1.4 billion people cannot be contained. Their aspirations for a better life, for a stronger country, cannot be contained. But at the same time, they need finesse.
Let me ask you a question. Do you think these wolf warrior diplomats who are adopting Donald Trump's trash-mouth tactics on Twitter and, you know, insults and all that, do you think that's, you know, benefiting China, or do you think they need to dial it back?
I think the wolf warrior thing was a made-up thing. Uh, I think the world is just not used to a China that could talk back, right? And you better get used to it. And it's not wolf warrior. It's, it's, they're just being normal. They're being frustrated. They're seeing their country being portrayed wrongly, being demonized by Western politicians and media, and they're reacting to it for the first time in many decades. They kept their mouth shut, and now they're saying, "Wait a minute. We can't allow this to go on, and we're going to be normal, like every other country, to express our views openly."
For the record, "wolf warrior" was a term that came out of China, not out of the West. They called themselves Wolf Warrior.
No, no, no. It was a movie that had nothing. Chinese movie. It was Chinese. It would be like me calling, uh, Chinese American diplomats, rainbow diplomats, you know, but, but we don't do that. Okay. It was a label that was being placed on people who, who have changed their behavior, uh, uh, from the past, but the label was put on them by Western media and Western politicians. I guarantee you no Westerner I know has ever seen "Wolf Warrior," any of the "Wolf Warrior" movies, and wouldn't know what it is, except Rebecca. She's seen it.
Oh, yes, they do. Well, they never seen the movie. That's another problem. They never seen the movie, but they do know where the label comes from. I mean, it's being often referred to in the New York Times and CNN say, "This Chinese Rambo-like movie," you know, but they, they haven't seen the movie. I agree.
Okay. And one last question for me, and then before I get a recommendation from you for an author. Uh, one last question. What, and again, I'm just throwing this out there. I know you haven't researched this. I'm looking at the seven Standing Committee members of the Politburo. I don't see a single woman. I see the membership of the Communist Party. They're very weak on women. Uh, I thought Mao said, "Women hold up half the sky." Why aren't they half the Communist Party?
Uh, I, there are a lot of women members of the Communist Party. Uh, we don't have enough of them at the top. Uh, I do hope that that we improve on that.