Transcription
Most people are very shortsighted. Number one, that's a problem. The second thing is they're very emotional. That's another problem.
I feel bad for those foolish people who move out of Hong Kong in the last 3 years. I think most of them will regret this decision within a short period of 1, 2, 3 years. I was with two very, very senior Singaporean friends of mine, dear friends of mine whom I respect tremendously. We spent two days together in Italy last week, uh, 10 days ago, and they both are of the opinion that the heights, shall I say, of Singapore benefiting from the co and the the plight of Hong Kong, that's already at the tail end of it. And by the way, Singapore government is really brilliant. They're the top brains, and the top brains, they are so smart that they are too smart for their own good, often. And you know, they change policies very quickly, and so you, you know, you go to a place that the government policy can change with a stroke of a pen, and so it's not a long-term solution.
I think it, the grass is always greener across the fence. And so a lot of people say, see the the ills of Hong Kong, and there's plenty of it. And I, for one, very few businessmen in Hong Kong criticize the local government. I, for one, have been criticizing the Hong Kong government severely. And you ought to hear what I say privately to these guys.
"Yeah."
But beyond that, the grass is always greener. You always know your own ill far better than you know the ills of your neighbor. And frankly, as I look around the world, and I travel a lot, as you know, the ills of the rest of the world to which people from Hong Kong have wanted to to immigrate, I think they have no idea what they are getting into. I was in London not long ago. They have the the Hong Kong people who move, they have no idea. And this is, I mean, talking about investment bankers, talking about market, talking about the, you know, the the trend. You are jumping into a sinking boat. Singapore is not sinking. Okay, some other people are sinking. Singapore is doing fine. Other places are sinking fast, and you jump into it. Short-term thinking, emotional, and really very short of knowledge, short of understanding of the world of many other countries. And so I can sympathize with those people who had a hard time with Hong Kong. I can sympathize with them. But on the other hand, those people, I guarantee you don't know the ills of the the places where they're going to. And I should say, welcome back. But I'm not sure if we should. But that's another subject.
"What's going to bridge the East-West divide right now?"
Nothing.
"Do we need to bridge it? Do we need an empty bridge to Macau to the East?"
I wish you can bridge it. We all wish that you can bridge it, but it's far bigger than you and me. When the number one country in the world, America, is not the strongest country in the world today. No, America is the strongest country ever mankind has ever seen. And when the United States wants to beat up on China and you try to make that relationship better, you're going against the US government. You think you will succeed? I don't think so. Right? So, anybody who looks at these small blips, you know, oh, Blinken is going to China. Pardon my French. Total B something. You look at what they do. It is not what they say. They just instigated the the Canadians to leave the AIB. Do you think that the Canadian decided on its own? I was in Italy. I was with Mario Monti. We were talking about them leaving the Belt and Road Initiative. And you think that Italy made that decision on its own? You are either naive if you believe so, then you're either...
"So you believe there's, you believe I mean, the United States has talked about economic coercion coming from China, where China's come back and said it's diplomatic coercion from the United States."
Well, you've seen it with the French shoring, with chip manufacturing going to Japan, going to Germany, going back to the United States. Do you think this is all being driven by coercion by various powers?
"I'm going to ask you, Stephen."
"I just asked the questions."
"I'm asking my answer is Steve, what do you think?"
"I cannot say."
"Okay, this is not the Steven Angel fireside."
"I don't think I don't think you're that naive. Right, Steve?"
"No, I'm not that naive."
"Good. Thank you. You answer yourself and you answer my question. So if there is no answer to the East-West divide, where are we going to be in 10 years?"
I happen to not be that pessimistic about the US-China relations. First of all, I don't believe that it will get to a kinetic war. Kinetic war, a physical bang bang, you're dead. Of course, today's war is not just with guns and gunpowers, right? It is very much cyber, it is space, it is currency, right? Of course, trade, many other things. So from that perspective, short of just shooting at each other, the war is already ongoing. Anybody who doesn't know that the war has been ongoing for the last many years is frankly a very, very naive individual. So we are already in the thick of it.
"But can we be competitors without conflict?"
Yes, we can. But not if one party wants to make the other side beat the other side down. I'll give you some numbers. Sure. When Japan became 15, 20% of the economy of the United States, America began to be worried. And so when it got to 30%. That was 1985 in Plaza Accord. Right. Jim Baker pushed the US dollar down and inflated the Japanese yen. The economy took another 10 years for it to begin to to wane in Japan. By 1995, 10 years after Plaza Accord, it was at 71% of the United States GDP. But that's because our currency is doubled. Right? So if you take away the currency issue, that it is only 35. What is it today? 21. So Jim Baker succeeded in 1985. Now let me give you the numbers of China's economy as a percentage of the US economy in the years 1980, right after the economic opening, and then 90, 2000, 2010, 2020. Okay, I'll give you those numbers. 6, some 12. 2000, they were at 12%. They joined WTO. 10 years later, 2010, it was 40%. 2020, it was 71%. And then 2021, it was 76%. And last year, it was still at 76%. You think America will not try to beat you down? Read American history.
"Well, sure. I remember in the 80s when the US auto industry came to Reagan and they said, 'You need to slap tariffs on the Japanese imports because they're killing us.' And Reagan turned around and said, 'Build a better car.'"
I wish Reagan was around to say that now. Then there's another set of events. 1992, 1993, there's a white paper on East Pacific Asia Pacific in the United States that says that China was America's number one enemy. That's 30 years ago. 1993. 1993, the same year, the Yinhe incident. You remember the boat, the ship Yinhe in the Indian Ocean, right? And then 1996, there was a Taiwan situation, Taiwan Strait situation, where two aircraft carriers outgunned the entire PLA. You wonder how come the PLA had to develop a blue water navy, right? And there were 14 at that time, 14 aircraft carriers, and two outgunned the entire PLA. That's 1996. 1999, bombed the Belgrade embassy. 2001, there was the the EP-3 spy plane, right? I asked Bob Gates a couple of months ago. I said, "How come all these things are happening on the coast of China? What if, uh, it's happening on the coasts of California and Oregon, right? What will happen?" "Oh, we abide by international law." Okay. Okay. So if somebody else abides by international law also, but they're under California's coast, what would you do? Now, mind you, all those things are military actions. 93, 96, 99, 2001. And then you have Pivot to Asia. You have Donald Trump. The breakpoint came in 2021, March 18, 19 in Alaska. I won't go into detail because time is up. The young lady is standing there already.
"So nobody wants us to end."
So China has given up hope. The Alaska meeting, let me tell you about this Alaska meeting. Why? The key questions are three. Number one, why Alaska? Number two, why March, end of March? Number three, why two people showed up, Wang Yi? Right? Why both of them? If you cannot answer those three questions, you have no idea what the hell is going on. The reason it was in Alaska was because the last meeting was in Hawaii. There's no reason why they should still be on American soil except that Beijing wanted that meeting. Beijing wanted March because Beijing urgently wanted to have an answer. Why number one and number two? For those of you who know anything about Chinese political protocol, they don't send number one and number two out anytime. Only number one and number three. The only last time I heard was 1997, Hong Kong, the return of Hong Kong, which is a national thing that is so important. So number one and number two came. So why did Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi both show up in Alaska? Because they wanted to know if there's any chance to restore the relationship. And we all know what happened in Alaska. It was horrible.
"Yeah. It was, they just sat across the table from each other and lectured each other."
Well, it started by Blinken. And so the Chinese know all thoughts, all hopes are gone. So what do you do if you are a responsible leader? You prepare for the worst. Whatever the worst is, from that day on, every decision, I believe that I made by Beijing, I'm just an observer, analyst. I have no inside information whatsoever, but from any source. But even the co decisions, I bet you at the back of the leader's mind is what happened in case there's something that happened militarily or otherwise with the United States that is really undesirable. They were thinking for the worst. And so since 2021, March 18, 29th, I think it was, no, in 18, 19, before Biden was in the White House, in less than 2 months, they urgently wanted that meeting. And I believe that that was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. And from that point on, all hopes are gone. And if you are still looking at, oh, Blinken is going to China, I said, you don't know what the heck is going on in the world today. I'm sorry. And you journalists always have to worry about what happened yesterday and what happened tomorrow. That's a professional hazard. So I understand that if you are a national leader, you always have to plan for the worst, right? Especially when I stated to you all a series of economic numbers and a series of military events. If you were in Beijing in that position, what would you do? So you, you have to prepare for the worst, right? And the worst can be anything. But I am hopeful that the Chinese are very rational. Consider the following fact. 10 years ago, it is unimaginable that a junior congressman in the United States can visit Taiwan. Several months ago, Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, went there. What did China do? Nothing. Until she left. She left. You tighten the ring, so to speak. Right? Notice that there's no accusation from around the world for what Beijing did. And so people ask me the question, they said, "Is what's happening in Taiwan Strait today hastening the return of Taiwan or delaying it?" I said, "Both." Hastening it in the sense that once there is an opportunity for Beijing to do that, giving the cost, the international cost, just like that Nancy Pelosi, nobody criticized them, right? You bet Beijing would take it back next time possible. In the old days, Beijing may still think, well, in the long run, are there pos are there advantages to us? If we wait another 10 years, 20 years, 30, right? No more thinking. Not possible. Next time there's an opportunity, they will take it. So, in that sense, it's hastening it. But is it delaying it? Possible, because of what America is trying to do. It's trying to stir up trouble in China. And China is so far very coolheaded not to fall into that trap. And that is not overreacting. But you can also not not react. If you do not react, you will invite a lot more scorpions and and mice and everything else that will come out of the closet. So they have to react, but they have to react in a wise way, like the way they handled the Nancy Pelosi visit. And so I think that I personally am on balance, when you analyze all the factors that I know of, I came to the conclusion that we should be able to prevent an actual war. But it doesn't mean that econom and I don't think that China needs to go to war. There's a lot of economic means, a lot of cultural means, social means. There are many other ways to skin a cat. And so I think that, um, China hasn't really used any of those economic means yet. Right? So I think that I'm hopeful. And there's another aspect, another side of it, and that is I do believe that America is forcing itself to withdraw from the global sea. I just came back from the Middle East. I went there three times in the last 6 weeks, and both the Egyptian, the Israeli, the Saudi Arabian, the UAE, all tell me that America is no longer a force to contend with in that part of the world. I believe that I know that I'm being very controversial, but I have my rationale. I don't have time to tell you that. That in Europe, America will also sooner or later retreat from it. The Ukraine war delayed that process, but it cannot reverse that process. So I think that America, and I tell Beijing friends, I said, don't think that the US is waning. It's a very dangerous assumption to make. Okay. America is not waning. America is one of only two countries that can choose to close the doors and live. And the other country will live miserably, and that's Russia. The country that can live relatively happily is the United States. Nobody has that right. China needs energy. China needs food security. Right? Whereas the United States has everything, and the technology, the universities, the economic system, it is still the strongest in the world. So if you think that the United States is waning just because they are retreating, you are making a big mistake. And mind you, America was never founded on internationalism. America was founded in isolationism. Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Exceptionalism of the 19th century. Roosevelt Corollary era of 1904, not joining the League of Nations. The trade retreating in the 1920s. America is a country that is rooted in isolationism. So if America, it was only forced out because of World War II. So if America were to retreat back to isolationism to some form or another.