In this week’s episode of China Insider, Miles Yu unpacks the historical ties between the Chinese Communist Party and Harvard, and the broader implications of CCP influence in American academia. Second, we revisit the origins of COVID-19 and statements by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that claim the West is over-politicizing the issue. Lastly, Miles lends his perspective on the Wage Marchers movement gaining traction across China, and the history of public dissent and protests in the People’s Republic of China.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute’s China Center, hosted by China Center Director and Senior Fellow, Dr. Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute’s China Center. I am Miles Yu, Senior Fellow and Director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat and their implications to the US and beyond.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
It is Wednesday, May 28th, and we have three topics this week. First, we take a look at the ongoing legal battles between the Trump administration and Harvard University and how China fits into the equation. Second, we discuss China’s accusations of US officials for politicizing the search for the origin of COVID. And third, we examined the growth of wage marches and the gaining momentum of worker protests across several Chinese provinces over unpaid wages and factory closures. Miles, great to be with you again this week.
Miles Yu:
Nice to be with you again, Colin.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
So we start this week off with the latest between the Trump administration and Harvard University. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, issued a letter regarding Harvard’s status to be able to enroll students through their student exchange and visa program. But within this exchange, however, lies a key element that Miles, you may be able to shed a bit more light on here exactly as to what China’s ties are to this ongoing issue and as well as in academia historically.
Miles Yu:
Well, the Harvard-Trump fight was triggered obviously by Harvard’s anemic response to antisemitic pro-Palestinian protests and also the violent demonstrators and agitators. Harvard University failed to take executive action to stop it so that Jewish students in Harvard felt not safe at all to even attend classes. This is really absurd in the land of the free. So that’s one of the reasons why Trump administration began to take Harvard into account. So what really is started with that simple matter has developed into something much larger. In the letter sent by Secretary Noem to Harvard, she basically accused Harvard not only antisemitism, but also it’s a complicity with the Chinese Communist Party. This is one of the most serious accusations by a US government against the university. And on top of that, the Trump administration has stopped, withheld, federal assistance to Harvard University in the realm of close to $6 million, I’m sorry, $6 billion. As if Harvard really needs money because Harvard is the world’s richest organization in higher education, it has more than $53 billion of endowment. That’s a huge amount of money.
But nevertheless, the whole issue about China is actually pretty salient and also has been there for a long time. Because Harvard, the America’s, the oldest university, which was founded in 1636, has enjoyed several hundred years of excellence. That excellence, that academic renown, has given Harvard global reputation and has turned Harvard into the center of advanced research. Along with it also arrogance and snobbery, elitism, and also ideological leaning toward the bad guys. So this is where the China angle comes in. For all practical matter, Harvard basically has turned itself into a tool for the CCP. If you are a Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party, or if you’re an ambassador from China to the United States, if you want to make a major policy statement, if you want to make some kind of a US bashing speech, the top place to go is Harvard. So this is a very, very bizarre place to be. Now, it has a very long history, so I’ll be happy to elaborate more if times allowed.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, and in a press release, I should add on May 19th, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party penned a letter to Harvard as well, requesting answers on several issues related to ongoing CCP policies and including allegations of Harvard’s training of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, XPCC, research partnerships funded by DOD with Chinese military linked universities, and among several other claims. So Miles, why does China seek out academia in the US as a principal lobbying forum? And are there examples of this beyond just Harvard?
Miles Yu:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of them, but Harvard is really the primary place for China because Harvard has prestige. Another thing is Harvard for a long time, for generations, basically Harvard is the birthplace of modern China study, mostly because of one person, that is John King Fairbank, who was a professor of history at Harvard for more than half a century. I mean, during World War II, Fairbank served as an agent for the Office of Strategic Services in China. And he knew the political terrain very well, but the Professor Fairbank was very left leaning, ideologically aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. For decades Harvard, under his tutelage, trained generations of America’s preeminent China scholars, and those China scholars spread all across America’s higher education. In virtually every key university you find the student of John King Fairbank. Now, most of them obviously were most outstanding scholars of modern China, but politically they were all sort of bought into this Fairbankian approach about the Chinese Communist Party, and the main narrative was pretty dominating. The main narrative being that the Chinese Communist Party was not really real communists, they were Chinese nationalists. In the forties the narrative phrase to be used was the Chinese Communist Party were “agrarian reformers”. They could never believe, according to this school of thought out of Harvard, that these people, looking at peasants in straw hats like Mao Zedong, could be diehard genuine orthodox communists with the design to dominate the world. So that’s one of the reasons why you have this very strong cultural, Harvard culture, of championing the cause of Chinese Communist Party over the decades.
Now, of course, the recent reincarnation of that kind of a school of thoughts was embodied in the Kennedy School of Government. The Kennedy School of Government, if you go to China, you ask a lot of people, particularly in a higher education scholar, Kennedy School of Government is jokingly known as the Kennedy School of 关系. 关系means relationship, connection. It’s a symbol for corruption. So Kennedy School of 关系is specifically manifest in several key facts. Number one, the school was also jokingly known in China as a second party school. That is the second Chinese Communist Party school, 第二党校, because Kennedy School, since I dunno, at least the 1990s, train several iterations of the Chinese communist cadres, its military’s governing bureaucracy, the bureaucrats. So they are a training ground for the Chinese Communist Party. So this is so blatant, it’s amazing.
And also within the Kennedy School, there is Ash Center, A-S-H. Ash Center is basically a joke in eyes of serious scholars in this country. If you watch closely the Chinese foreign ministries spokesperson’s statements year after year, year after year, they cite one source of support for their claim that the Chinese Communist Party is deeply loved by the Chinese people. That evidence is provided by Harvard’s Ash Center. It’s a survey, multi-year survey conducted since 2003. The conclusion being that over 90% of Chinese people surveyed, conducted by the Ash Center at Harvard, support the Chinese Communist Party policies. This is ludicrous, also, it’s a fraud because this survey was not done by Ash Center at all. It was a Chinese firm controlled by the Chinese Communist Party it’s called Horizon Research, and Ash Center contract these guys out to do research inside China. Of course, it’s a Chinese Communist Party controlled survey. Of course, they’re going to say over 90% of the people in China support the Chinese Communist Party. As a matter of fact, I don’t think that’s even enough. If you go to North Korea, the answer probably is one hundred percent of people support the Kim Jong Un regime. And then which also begs the question, if 90% of Chinese people support the Chinese Communist Party, what happened to the 10% who don’t support Chinese Communist Party? Most likely the probably all in jail. So this is why Ash Center has served as a tool for the Chinese Communist Party.
And you also have outright collusion with the Chinese Communist Party. The best example is Harvard’s former chairman of the chemistry department, a professor by the name of Charles Lieber. Lieber, basically lied to the FBI, to the government, and failed to disclose his connection with the Chinese Communist Party’s Thousand Talents program, and basically he went to jail. And after out of jail, out of the legal problem, guess where Professor Lieber is right now, he’s now hired by the Chinese university, he is now in China. So this is, absolutely it is ethically very challenged institution. Now, of course, you also have a lot of proxy voices out of Harvard for the Chinese Communist Party. The best example is a Harvard professor, the strategist Graham Allison. Graham Allison wrote this ridiculous theory about Thucydides Trap, which itself is a trap because it wrongly assumes that United States is a declining power, the Chinese Communist Party is a rising power. This is really, really is music to the ears of Xi Jinping because he believes there is a 东升西降, “the East is rising and the West is declining”. So of course he become their favorite scholar from the United States. He basically, he wanted to be the next Henry Kissinger. And secondly, Professor Allison’s theory was very, very sneaky and tricky because it incorrectly position the world’s problem today is between China and the United States, just two countries. Well, the fact is it’s really a problem between China and the rest of the world. So by putting us as the exact opposite, exclusive opposite, of the Chinese Communist Party, basically, I think this theory is really misleading to say the least. So having said all this, I think Harvard, yes, it has excellence, but Harvard has excellence with arrogance and excellence with ethical challenges. That’s where I think the whole matter should rest on. It is not just about pro-Palestinian, it’s not about the academic smugness. It’s really about something that’s far more cultural, far more ideological.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And so moving on to our next topic today, as of March, there have been discussions in Germany and several other EU nations, as well as the United States, about the publication of all available information regarding the origins of the COVID pandemic, including intelligence service reports regarding the Wuhan Virology Lab. Since then, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to hold the policy line that such determination should be “science-based” and that they oppose all forms of political manipulation. While China seems to rely on the WHO China Joint Mission report as an external bolster, Miles, maybe you can help us unpack the comments from China’s MFA here in the ongoing claims of politicizing the COVID origin search.
Miles Yu:
Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson is a lady by the name of Mao Ning. She is a disgusting person. She lies through both sides of her mouth on a daily basis. Last week she accused the United States of politicizing the origin of COVID issue, and this is absolutely bizarre. The Chinese government is a perpetrator, not only of the virus, but also the cover up. And she lie in front of the world in both face. It is pretty amazing. Now, the Chinese communist government controls information, controls all major access to information so that the official position of the Chinese government still is and has always been that the origin of COVID, Coronavirus, comes from the United States. To be more specific, it is the US Army bio-defense lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. This is the Chinese official position. This is also the position of probably overwhelming majority of Chinese people because they have not been given access to all other alternative information. So for a country, for a government, with such a bold brazen mendacity, accusing other country of politicizing the issue is absolutely ridiculous. It’s actually surreal in my view.
So we have now enough evidence to convincingly declare that origin of COVID virus came from the Wuhan lab. There’s no other alternative. Anybody who says otherwise now is going to be a laughing stock. Even including all those hundreds of scientists who signed a letter during the Trump first term that the lab leak theory was impossible, it was unscientific, as they say. So I think this is actually is a very, very big incident in which that the world should hold China accountable. Not only we aught to force China to open up all the possible venues to investigate the real sources of coronavirus, open up the books and the Wuhan lab, and so let the world see. China has steadfastly refused to do so. So China acted like an arson who set the fire and then called the fire department. After the fire is wiped out, the arson demands the award for calling the fire department to put out the fire. This is actually a pretty irrational logic.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah and these conversations have been going on for some time now, really and principally since the US Intelligence report itself was released, I think back in 2021, regarding the origins of the COVID pandemic. Then WHO Director General said that they were still considering all hypotheses and further studies and that there have been a “premature push” to rule out the lab leak theory. So in brief Miles, what is the recent history of China’s claims about the origin of the pandemic and why are they surfacing now in the significance of what’s at stake at this point in time?
Miles Yu:
WHO was captured by China. So WHO, the leadership was very corrupt, because the leadership will always rise to the position to China in WHO. So they send the first team to China. Initially they are even allowed to go to Wuhan. So finally in the last day of the visit in 2021, 2 team members of that WHO organization delegation were allowed to go to Wuhan, but not to the lab, somewhere else in Wuhan. And then they sort of perfunctorily wrote a report praising China’s effort and told them. Even then the working staff at the WHO were furious. So they’re pushing the Director General to basically push China. So even the Secretary General of WHO was unhappy. So he’s basically pushing China to open up all the sources to allow researchers and investigators to find out. China has steadfastly refused this. So WHO is a weak organization in the pockets of China. China has a pledge of something like $500 million to WHO right now. So China’s influence is going to be much more dominant in WHO right now. So I think that organization is pretty much like useless when it comes to issues like investigating the true origin of a major pandemic, which cost the life of tens of millions of people. And the property damage is in the trillions. So I think we should tie the origin of COVID to the punitive damage caused by the pandemic, and so to find out who is probable, who is responsible for this, and give the bill to the responsible party. And basically I think China should pay for this.
This is also not just a matter of punishment, this is the matter related to global health security. To understanding the virus’s origins is crucial for preventing future pandemics. So WHO has obligation and duty to push China to absolutely cooperate and it has failed its mission. This also is very important because the finding of the origin of COVID affects diplomatic ties, particularly between United States and China, influencing cooperation and global health initiatives. Now, you know, US-China relationship, nosedove in the first Trump term, primarily after the pandemic because China refused absolutely to cooperate and also instead accused United States being responsible for the pandemic. That infuriated President Trump at the time, and I think it still does today. Another issue basically is simple, its public trust. Transparency and accountability are essential for maintaining public confidence in health authorities and scientific research. Without that, China should not be trusted. This is why I think finding out the true origin of COVID is so crucial and so important for all parties involved.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, certainly when it concerns global health security crises and being able to unilaterally respond in a collective and collaborative environment, there’s really no reason to work against each other in such a crisis. Moving on now to our final topic today, and track a growing popular movement among China’s factory and labor workforce. For several weeks now protests by workers demanding unpaid wages have gained considerable momentum across China as factory closures have spiked due to high US tariffs and the slowing Chinese economy. While the CCP has a well-documented history of silencing public dissidents and effective control of popular movements, the notable aspects with this particular movement are the geographic spread really. Radio Free Asia and NTD both have reported marches in several local counties such as Dao in Hunan, Suining in Sichuan, Wuxing in Zhejiang, and including even in Inner Mongolia in Tongliao. Workers have taken to the streets over these unpaid wages and job losses. Miles, can you give us a bit of background here on how these wage marchers formed?
Miles Yu:
Well, this wage marchers is probably hundreds, if not thousand times more voluminous, more numerous than what used to be called the Bonus Marchers in the 1930s in US history. So these wage marchers represent a huge swath of the Chinese population who worked really hard, but who have been unpaid by their employers. Many of them actually are public sector employers, like state owned organizations. So this, as you say is nationwide, it’s also more and more organized and more and more violent. Just last week, there is a story out of Sichuan. There is a young man in his twenties, working in a textile factory. He is owed by the employer something around 800 yuan, which is really not much. So it’s under $200. But his effort to collect those owed wages has proven unsuccessful. Out of sheer rage, he set the entire factory on fire. Basically it is a cost, damage, of millions and millions of dollars if you look at the fire, the scenes. Miraculously, this young man become the national hero, because many people cheer for him. That shows the depth of resentment and anger on this matter. So I think this is going to be one of the major, major fault lines of Chinese society. If society is going to collapse suddenly this probably could be one of the triggers. By the way, that story about that young man who set the fire on the factory for $800 unpaid wedges was disputed by the police. They said this is not the case, they arrested these two guys who initially reported the story, but the more they tried to cover up this incident the more people will pay attention to violent incidents like this. So I think it’s really counterproductive.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, and one of the interesting things as you track these popular dissident movements historically is how prone to violence and how quickly these things form, and it’s interesting that this has taken shape so quickly over so many different areas. And I want to go back to our conversation a couple weeks ago regarding I think Secretary Bessent’s, Scott Bessent’s comments of job loss in China due to US tariffs. I believe that number was estimated around the 10 to 15 million mark, depending on long-term variables. And several Goldman Sachs analysts have predicted considerable impact on the Chinese economy from these continued tariffs that will further strain a labor market already struggling from a slowing economy. So Miles, if you can walk us through what the significance of these marches is in the context of the ongoing trade war, and are we going to see more of this movement?
Miles Yu:
I think this wage marchers really is reflective of Chinese economic reality. The Chinese economy is near the bottom, if not at the bottom, and the unemployment rate is so high it has become unsustainable. And the US unemployment is somewhere hovering over 3 to 4.5%, depends on which statistic they’re looking at. The Chinese government has been in intransigent and has refused to share any economic data with anybody with the public. So you don’t know. But the fact is that these marches provides one of the few tangible evidence that we can sort of guess how severe Chinese economic situation has become. You are looking at in any given city, tens of thousands of people, if not millions in some major metropolitan area like Guangdong and Zhejiang. And so that’s because overall Chinese economy has been misguided by the Chinese Communist Party’s economic policy, which is pretty draconian sometimes. It’s basically shattered the consumer’s confidence, investor’s confidence, and also severely curtailed trade. When I say this is caused by communist party policy, I’m talking about primarily the zero COVID lockdowns for over a year. So draconian calling. And also talking about the Chinese Communist Party’s absolutely greedy demand for non-state sector enterprise to give their money and wealth to the party. So what you’re seeing here is a vicious cycle that is going to deteriorate and it’s going to be deepened Chinese economic wares.
In the meantime, if you look at the Chinese Communist Party’s main international posture, it gives billions and billions dollars to buy the loyalty of many other countries in this dream of forging a global anti-US alliance in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America. And so even in the Middle East, don’t forget, China is a country that gave the Iranian regime $400 billion in March, 2017. Iranians used that gigantic amount of money to fund its state projects, including supporting Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East. So there’s China’s hand behind the many of the major international movements. So I don’t think China has any creative way of getting out of this economic abyss other than absolutely striking hard and deepening its totalitarian authoritarian control over the population. So that’s why I think the wage marchers is a very important movement to observe if you are seriously concerned about China and if you aren’t seriously concerned about China, China’s implication to the rest of the world.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, absolutely. And it all absolutely comes together and adds up here. And I would think I’d like to close out with a question and almost rather a concern, in a sense, fear for where things currently stand for the various wage marcher groups. Because as we have seen historically, the response from the CCP to popular dissident movements is very harsh, very violent, and very quick in time. I guess this is kind of two parts Miles. Do you see a chance of a national unification of efforts to connect these disparate marches? And on the flip side of that, is there a growing concern that the CCP will respond to these dissident movements with extreme violence if they do continue to gain momentum?
Miles Yu:
Well, under normal society, which China is not, issues like this will definitely have united a national movement of some sort. Very easy because it is national, it’s pretty deep, affecting millions and millions of people’s lives. But in China, no, it’s difficult because the Chinese Communist Party has tried its utmost best to prevent any local issue of national significance from becoming a national organization, from becoming a national movement. And they really have a lot of tools in their hands, mostly sheer brutal force. The police, the secret police, the whole financial system, the whole household registration system, social media control, the entire surveillance, draconian surveillance, Orwellian system work toward that purpose to prevent any local issue from becoming a national crisis. And I think there’s a long way for China to become a true democracy and open society.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Well, we’ve unfortunately reached our time for today, but Miles, thank you again for another great conversation and contributing your expertise to these critical issues. We’ll check back with you again next week.
Miles Yu:
Thank you very much. I’ll see you next week.