In this week’s episode of China Insider, Miles Yu discusses Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Tibet to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule in Tibet. In particular, he looks at the significance of this trip and the planned celebrations. Next, Miles unpacks President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement that excluded China from being a possible international security guarantor in any negotiated agreement that would end to the Russia-Ukraine War. Miles then details China’s record of financial and material support for the Russian invasion since 2022. Lastly, he revisits the eightieth anniversary celebrations and military parade planned for September 3 in Beijing, which will feature the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization efforts.
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 threats, and their implications to the US and beyond.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
It is Tuesday, August 26th and we have three topics this week. First, we track Xi Jinping's recent trip to Tibet marking 60 years of CCP rule in Tibet and the significance of this trip in particular. Next, we discuss the latest round of talks regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine and assess President Zelenskyy's comments regarding China's potential peacekeeping role in the conflict. Lastly, we revisit our conversations from prior weeks regarding China's rising nationalist sentiments surrounding the upcoming 80th anniversary of World War II victory, but this time with specific attention to the upcoming military parade and the historical focus of such celebrations. Miles, great to be with you again this week.
Miles Yu:
Good Tuesday and nice to be with you again Colin.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
So up first this week, Xi Jinping made a rare visit to Tibet last week to mark the 60th anniversary of CCP rule in Tibet. Xi arrived in Lhasa last Wednesday and celebrations included a parade in front of the Patala Palace, former home to the Dalai Lama, and speeches from various officials, including Xi himself. A little brief background for our listeners, the CCP began operations to occupy Tibet in 1950 and 1951 following the victory in the civil war and forced the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government to flee eventually in 1959. The now termed autonomous region in Tibet took form in 1965. Miles, let's start from the top here with the reasons for Xi's visit to Tibet and what were the key messages he delivered in his speeches?
Miles Yu:
Well, actually that's a very interesting thing because he never did make a speech during this two-day trip, which is very interesting because this trip was a little odd if you are a China watcher, for several reasons. Number one, as I said, he made this huge hoopla and the state media false when reporting his historic visit to Tibet, yet he didn't make any speech at all. The only thing he did in public was go there just to meet with the leaders of the Chinese People Liberation Army. This is hard power, and he made a huge group of PLA soldiers in full uniform, colonels and above. Even that meeting was kind of odd because he started during the middle, sandwiched by the Tibetan military region's political commissar, which is understandable because Xi Jinping himself is an ideological animal. And then, the other side sitting next to him was the main CMC’s Central Military Commissions disciplinary officer who is basically a PLA’s gestapo type, is the purge implementer executioner, if you will. So, what's missing here is the commanding general, a gentleman by the name of Makai, his Lieutenant General in charge of military affairs for the entire Tibetan military region. And it's very hard to find him in the Chinese version of Google– Baidu. So, this is kind of odd.
Another thing about this trip is according to Chinese state media, Xi Jinping now not only is the political military leader over the Tibetan affair, he's also the spiritual leader of Tibet, which is kind of very, very strange. [The] spiritual leader of Tibet, of course, is the Dalai Lama. To have an atheist, a Chinese communist party chief as the spiritual leader of Tibet, this is kind of the supreme absurdity. So, that's a thing. I think there's also another reason why he chose this time to go to Tibet because China just announced it's going to build the world's largest hydroelectrical dam over this river called Yarlung Tsangpo (雅鲁藏布江) in China, in Tibet, in India, which is downstream is called Brahmaputra. So, this river, if China basically tried to control the river flow to get at India. So, Indians were very, very incensed by this. So, India-China border tension, once again rises.
So that's why he goes there to show his toughness. This is basically very important. But I think most importantly it has something to do with the succession of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is now 90 years old. Who is going to be the next Dalai Lama is of supreme importance for the Chinese. Because one of the most important aspects of Chinese communist party rule in Tibet, almost 75 years now since 1950 and 51, is the total failure to eradicate the spiritual leadership. The prestige of a Dalai Lama in the hearts and minds of Tibetans. China has built the most extreme surveillance system; it's the most extreme brainwashing system in Tibet over the decades. Yet they try to eradicate any image, any reference to the Dalai Lama. Yet the Dalai Lama lives very strong in the hearts and minds of Tibetans. So that's why they're trying to, this is basically very important. So, they're going to enhance the CCP’s control over Tibet, and first and foremost is through military means. That's why Xi Jinping showed up to congratulate, to meet and to boost the morale of the Tibetan soldiers, the Chinese occupiers if you will. And, of course, the cultural genocide, as termed by many human rights experts, continues. And there's many, many measures that we're going to discuss in just a moment.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, absolutely. And while Xi himself didn't actually participate in the speeches, several party officials emphasized, at least during the visit, a need to resist separatism and “guide Tibetan Buddhism” specifically in adapting itself to a socialist society, which seems to be in a more direct support of Xi’s comments generally in the past few weeks and months, even senior party leader Wang Huning (王沪宁)said Tibetan affairs, and I quote, “Tibetan Affairs are China's internal affairs and no external forces are permitted to interfere all schemes to split the motherland and undermine stability in Tibet are doomed to fail.” Seems quite ominous, but Miles, I'd first like to get your impression of these remarks, but perhaps also tied into maybe explaining a bit more about the major issues involving Tibet today,
Miles Yu:
Wang Huning (王沪宁) is a disgusting human being. He's the sycophant extraordinaire. He's a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the highest ruling body of the Chinese Communist Party, only seven of them. So, he basically, his rise to power has everything to do with his extraordinary capability to suck up to the supreme leader. And here's another example, so Wang Huning (王沪宁) goes there and to continue the all this gobbledygook about the separatism over there. I mean the Dalai Lama really is not extremist. He really is known for his ability to reason, to rationalize things, the Dalai Lama says, okay, if you don't like independence, I'm not going to advocate for independence. I just want to have true autonomy. If you promised Tibetan people for autonomy, religious autonomy, political autonomy, and then let's do it right? So, the Chinese government just could not deal with this kind of stuff, anything short of complete obedience, complete capitulation to the Chinese Communist Party's will and whims and is considered separatist.
So, this basically, Wang Huning (王沪宁) by the way, was accompanying Xi Jinping to Tibet. So, I think he's probably the organizer of this show. This is something that's very, very interesting to say the least. Now, yes, Tibet now falls within the Chinese sovereign domain, but what China has done to Tibet is absolutely atrocious. Xi Jinping's predecessor Hu Jintao was the most draconian party leader in terms of Tibet. In 1989, when Hu Jintao was the Tibetan party chief, he engineered one of the most severe, most disgusting crackdowns on Tibetans in March of 1989, on the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. In 2008 when Hu Jinta was a party chief, he's the number one in all of China. He engineered another really, really tough crackdown and [by]musing brutal force of the regular army, by the way. So, he ordered them to crack down. So, of course, Xi Jinping continued that kind of legacy and he basically turned Tibet into an incredible, unbelievable beyond 1984 style surveillance prison.
And so, when Xi Jinping was there last week and he said, ah, we have improved the living standards in Tibet. We have invested in these projects, highways, the railways, all the stuff, yes, but you cannot really buy the heart and minds of Tibetan people because the improvement of material life is nothing but the improvement of prison living standards, nevertheless they are still living in prison. So, this is basically the party's logic and some of the draconian brainwashing system is also pretty mind boggling. For example, in some Tibetan temples, you're not supposed to hang the leaders’ portraits of Dalai Lama, of course, and many other Tibetan locals. You have to hang a portrait of Mao, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao, of course, all those leaders over there, this is amazing. But one of the most atrocious and absolutely bad policies is the mandatory boarding school system.
So, in Tibet, the party forced the children of Tibetan families to be separated from their parents to be so-called educated or brainwashed in separate schools in Mandarin, they're not allowed to use their Tibetan language. This boarding school system separates large numbers of Tibetan children from families for what Xi Jinping even called the patriotic education. This really, really is a 21st century extreme violation of human rights. So, their aim is to eradicate Tibetan culture, and they're doing this quite successfully in a very alarming way. Of course, there is a continued tight restriction on dissent and religion under the rubric of stability and anti-separatism, they did this. By the way, many of these terrible policies toward the minorities originated in Tibet. And then they use this kind of method to develop Tibet to other regions. Uyghurs, we have a Uyghurs issue that has been in the news for several years now, but everything that the Chinese Communist Party is doing to the Uyghurs, they did it in Tibet first. Even the party chief in Tibet who would be indicted in the international opinion would be reassigned to Xinjiang and to the Tibetan area. That basically is a continuation of many of the policies including cultural eradication and obscuring the religious identity of the Uyghurs and the brainwashing in the concentration camp. A lot of stuff that's going on there that started there. So, if you want to understand China's egregious violation of human rights to the minority people, you will start with Tibet.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
It's such an incredible contrast to recognize the role that the CCP occupation in Tibet has played in the overall institutional cultural genocide of other ethnic minorities across China. And specifically in contrast to, I'm going to cherry pick the same speech I quoted from earlier with Wang Huning (王沪宁). He also mentioned that only under, and I'm quoting again only under the leadership of the CCP, can Tibet achieve prosperity and progress, create a bright future, et cetera, et cetera. Mind you mentioned him being the orchestrator behind this particular visit and certainly for the profile, he was likely the orchestrator behind pulling together a crowd of roughly 20,000 supporters, I believe Xinhua news agency reported. That whole trapping almost seemed to be an attempt to counter the recent birthday celebrations, as I recall for the Dalai Lama. But Miles, wrapping this all together, here we are now with years of CCP rule in Tibet. Are there any final comments you would like to add on this topic?
Miles Yu:
I mean, I think Tibet has been an issue in international media for decades, but there's no solution, right? People just condemn China's violations in Tibet, but there is very little action taken by major western countries, leaders, and as well as international organizations. So, I hope there will be some kind of international organization, international coordination I should say, or alliance to really, really look at the issue of Tibet as a start to deal with this religious freedom issue. You cannot allow the world's largest, longest ruling dictatorship to basically create a model of repression on religious affairs and to use that to spread to the other parts of the world. I mean, this is a very serious matter. I mean one Wang Huning (王沪宁) speech is so blatantly stupid, so stupidly bad, and Wang Huning (王沪宁) is a pseudo intellectual In the Soviet Union, there is a chief propagandist under Stalin. This guy's name is Zhdanov, and I think Wang Huning (王沪宁) is China’s Zhdanov. His kind of brainwashing on the Chinese population is the hallmark of the CCP. I think that is something that the world should be more aware of.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Up next this week, despite its concerted efforts to support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, Beijing has advocated for a peacekeeping role in the conflict claiming that Chinese involvement would help bring an end to the ongoing conflict and create a lasting resolution usually under the terms of seeking a constructive role as foreign ministry officials have frequently used the term to describe China's implied intentions. However, in a recent response, President Zelenskyy quickly put that notion to rest and further blamed China for not helping to stop the invasion back in 2022 and its concerted support since. So, Miles, to start us off on this topic, can you walk us through Zelenskyy's recent response and why this is a big blow to China?
Miles Yu:
Well, this is a big blow because Zelensky has always been wobbly on China. He has a lot of illusions about China's so-called positive role mediating this quagmire for both Russia and Ukraine. But Zelenskyy seems to have forgotten that China has been a supreme opportunist when it comes to Ukraine's security guarantee. Now, China was a signatory country to the Budapest memorandum that supposedly guaranteed Ukraine's security after Ukraine's independence and after Ukraine sort of transferred its nuclear weaponry to Russia. China has signed no fewer than three strategic partnerships with Ukraine. All China wants from Ukraine is for Ukraine to give China Russian designs of advanced weapons. Ukraine has been the major supplier of China's modern weapons. Without Ukrainian support, China's People's liberation Army would not have been as advanced technologically as it is today. Virtually every major platform short of nuclear power, the Chinese People's Liberation Army's warehouse is from Ukraine.
You look at the aircraft carrier and heavy bomber engines which is basically air cushion, the amphibious landing assault ships, and also the missile technology. So, all of this comes from Ukraine. So, for a long time China has been exploiting Ukraine's loophole. That's one reason why Russia and China have been sort of very acrimonious towards each other because China basically was scaling Russian technology by way of Ukraine. Now, this war is very interesting because Russia invented Ukraine three years ago, and this war is basically a middle finger from the point of view of Putin to the west. And China is fundamentally anti-west. To do that, China forged an alliance with Vladimir Putin who is also anti-west. And so, the Russia-China rapprochement is totally based upon the common shared sentiment against the west led by the United States and NATO. So, for that China sacrificed all its prior commitments to Ukraine and security, none of the strategic partnership deals with Ukraine have ever been implemented by the Chinese. Instead, China has stood steadfastly on the Ukrainian war on the Russian side, China not only morally, politically rhetorically on the side of Vladimir Putin, China has materially supported the Russians war effort in Ukraine.
Without China's support, Russia would not have been fighting for this long. The support company in many ways, mostly in kind of a dual use technology, drones and computer chips and the trucks. So, all the things China has been, of course, financial. So, Russia has effectively become basically China's proxy power. So, war in Ukraine is as much as Russia's war is as it is China's war. So, despite all this obvious front to Ukraine, President Zelenskyy still has been always reluctant to call out China for its betrayal, and he still sort of harbored this illusion that China somehow could possibly play a positive role in not only ending the war, but also post-war reconstruction. So, that's one reason the United States is very, very frustrated with Zelenskyy. That's one reason why President Trump insisted that one of the major settlements is that Ukraine would provide the United States with the right to have some kind of mineral and rare earth rights after the war.
That's because it wants to preempt China's involvement in all this. The United States is doing this mostly because of its bitter lessons learned in the last 20 something years. Thousands of American soldiers die in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In the end, the United States did not get the peace dividends after the war, after the tremendous sacrifice of the United States, the Iraqi government, and the Afghani government signed deals with China. So, China got the best dividends and President Trump said no more. This is one reason why this is such a big deal because for the first time ever, Zelensky clearly said that China will play no role in the post-war security guarantee deal with the United States with Ukraine. Now, he didn't say China would not get involved in this, but this is very important without China playing any role in security guarantee effectively, basically to rule out any meaningful post-war reconstruction. So, that's one reason why this Zelenskyy stance of late is significant,
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And I think that's an incredible assessment of how this all breaks down, especially considering China's support of Russia is certainly significant beyond material goods. China has primarily helped Russia to circumnavigate global sanctions mostly through large scale purchases of Russian oil. But like you've mentioned, they've also contributed in terms of providing critical supply chain needs for drones in the ongoing conflict. So, in response to Zelenskyy’s comments about excluding countries who support or have supported Russia from participating as international security guarantors, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning said, “China has always acted openly and above board on the Ukraine crisis, adhering to an objective and fair stance,” and later goes on to say “and believes that all sides should work to promote a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis,” reiterating China's intent to play a constructive role. Miles, what can we really make of these statements from China's Foreign Ministry and particularly as they relate to the current status of the conflict? Why is this all such a huge moment of equal significance for Ukraine?
Miles Yu:
Well, if there ever will be a course on the art of mendacity, and all you have to do is the study remarks by the Chinese government spokesperson. Every day they spew out lie after lie after lie. I mean, it's just so obvious it's not a press briefing, it's an absurdity show. So, that's one reason when Mao Ning says something, that's very, very ridiculous. Now, not only there's a personal story here back to the earlier topic about Tibet. So, Mao Ning, about three years ago announced the Chinese government's sanction against me, Miles Yu, for the American government's sanction of the Tibetan party chief at the time. So this kind of tic-tac response to the sanction. So, of course, I took it as a badge of honor, but the irony here is that that very party secretary of Tibet last year was arrested and convicted of embezzlement. So, he's now probably serving a life term in prison. I don't know exactly the term, but it's pretty severe. So, I think Mao Ning should really apologize to me, even though I may not need her apology. But this is saying, this is something that, because whatever criticism the west has lodged against the party chief, the Chinese party chief in Tibet turned out to be correct because that guy was a crook, even according to the Chinese standard.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
So I guess kind of to round this topic out. Miles, I'd like to tie in US China relations to all of this, especially as we've talked about this previously on China Insider, the US is still seeking to find common terms with China on a bilateral trade agreement among other bilateral and multilateral considerations involving the two countries and the Indo-Pacific as well. So, how might the latest developments in this conflict and Zelenskyy’s comments impact the state of US-China relations?
Miles Yu:
Well, mostly this is going to be very significant in the settlement of the Taiwan issue because the Russian invasion of Ukraine is based upon the exact same logic of aggression that China has said it's going to do with Taiwan. It is basically complete denial of the sovereignty and independence, sovereign and independent country like Ukraine. China is all the same, because Russia's claim of the legitimacy of its aggression against Ukraine's, is based upon the fact that Ukraine and Russia share history, share language, and ethnic sort of common origin. China does the same thing to Taiwan. They say most of the people in Taiwan speak Chinese and the ancestry of the people in Taiwan, most of them come from mainland China, therefore Taiwan belongs to China. This kind of nonsense is the logic of global instability. So, that's one reason why the settlement of Ukraine that defeated Russia in Ukraine is of supreme importance.
It's not just about Russian defeat in an unjust war. It's about a principle, a major principle in global international relations. You cannot say a certain country speak the same language that my ancestors did, and therefore we should be one country. I'm going to unify you. So, if that's the case, all English-speaking countries should belong to England. So, the logic is very, very skewed. The reason is because we have international law, we have development of sovereignty and independence. So, this is the reality. I'm actually surprised that the United Nations, an organization that professes to be the keeper of global peace, has not been so strong on this issue. All the UN does nowadays is to ceasefire, it doesn't matter which aggressor should be punished, it basically says, hey, as long as [there is] no fight, and that's fine, it's kumbaya. You know what if the aggressor is not defeated, if not eradicated, and there's no peace in the world. So, that's why I think the United Nations should really look at itself to look deeper, and to be the real agent of progress and the agent of global peace and is not doing that.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, it's an interesting cognitive dissonance between China's attempts to be an international security guarantor yet approach the conflict from having always supported Russia and its invasion here. It's an interesting dichotomy. But, as we turn to our final topic today, we've been tracking the ongoing and upcoming celebrations of China's 80th anniversary of World War II victory and the rise of Chinese nationalist sentiment that is always tied to these sorts of national celebrations. So, this week we'd like to focus more on the specific celebrations involving the military parades as we draw near to the planned parade on September 3rd in Beijing. Over the past few weekends, I think roughly tens of thousands of PLA troops have marched through the center of Beijing as part of their rehearsal process. And the parade itself is said to be a roughly 70 minutes in length, highly choreographed and will feature cutting edge military assets including fighter jets, missile defense systems, and even hypersonic [missiles] alongside Xi Jinping will also be several foreign dignitaries, including President Vladimir Putin, who is now the announced as the guest of honor for September 3rd. So, in light of our previous topics in previous weeks Miles, but also today, what exactly is the current obsession with the military parade and what does Xi hope to achieve with this celebration?
Miles Yu:
It's not a current obsession. I mean it's been going on all communist dictatorships like this kind of parade because communism is based upon this false logic and narrative that the party itself is invincible, the party itself is infallible. So, that's why build up on this kind of a self-assessment. Therefore, they must have a periodic show of its invisibility. And to have a pompous military parade is the best way to do it. If you look at the history of the PRC, and they do this normally once every decade, they have a big one, and normally it falls on the ninth year of the decade. That is because China, the party took over China in 1949, so 49, 59, 69, and 79, 89, it all have this kind of stuff, but normally also on so-called China's National Day, October 1st, they do that sometimes on a party's anniversary they do that and sometimes it's on the army's date, which is August 1st.
So, on the 50th anniversary of the PPRC in 1999, then Party Chief Jiang Zemin had this huge 50th anniversary of the PRC parade. And then, Hu Jintao, in 2009 on the 60th anniversary of PRC, he had a huge national day parade over there as the commander in chief of the Chinese Communist Party armed forces. Now, the People's Liberation Army is not a national defense force, it's basically the party's armed forces. It's like a SS trooper for Hitler. The People's Liberation Army is under a hundred percent control of the Communist Party, right. Now. Xi Jinping, unlike his predecessors, is particularly obsessed with parades. I mean, he has done more than any of his predecessors, even Mao. So, let me just say in 2015, in celebration of the end of World War II, this is the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he had a gigantic parade on September 3rd in Tiananmen Square.
Of course, very few people went there, Vladimir Putin went there. And also, the only leader of democracy who attended was the then sort of CCP friendly South Korean President, President Park. And then in 2017, two years later, on the Army Day, August 1st, he had another 90th anniversary parade just to boost his own ego and to showcase the instability of the People Liberation army. And then in 2018, on April 12th, which is the anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, he organized a gigantic naval parade over there on his high seat, which is also very extravagant and pompous. So, in 2019, on the 70th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, he organized another one that's six years ago.
He tried, I think he’s trying to compete for pomposity with Kim Jong Un. North Koreans were notorious for this type of parade. So, four years ago on the Chinese Communist Party's birthday, July 1st, he also organized not a parade, but a whole gigantic celebration of equally extravagant events in China. And now, on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, he's going to repeat what he did 10 years ago. So, this is actually coming next week. That's right. Next week's parade. So, this is basically the history of Xi Jinping. I don't know what kind of image it is going to pose. The CCP is the world's largest military force for sure. It has made tremendous progress in its fighting capabilities and equipment in particular. But, the CCP has tremendous weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and you wouldn't be able to see it. I mean the, it's party control.
So, there's a commander rigidity, it's a dual leadership system. Every Chinese People's operational army unit is controlled by a commander and also a political commissar. In many cases, the political commissar is much more powerful than the commander who is actually doing the operation. So, you have this problem, commander rigidity is a problem. They also, the PLA does not really have really large-scale modern warfare fighting experience. We also say that logistic and power projection is limited nowhere it can be compared with the United States. They have a very thin overseas footprint, and there is a host nation constraint. The United States is a country with an enormous global alliance system where we can basically conduct our military operations from pretty much everywhere. Plus, we have the world's largest carrier fleet. That means that we don't even have to have host nation agreements to organize military strikes from the high sea. And not only that, but you’ve also got tremendous corruption and organizational disruption within the PLA.
Xi Jinping is a purger in chief in China. He has purged more senior military officers than anybody in the history of the PRC, including Mao. So, I mean, if you look at those soldiers, those parade participants show of their awesomeness, their precision in goose steps. Yes, very impressive. But don't forget, this is the military that has been ransacked by Xi Jinping. Mostly eroding trust in senior leaders and forcing sudden commander reshuffles. So, I'm sure a lot of people during the parade know this, so you never know what exactly is going through their mind, but I can guarantee that some of them have some doubts. There's also, the PLA, there are technology check points in the supply chain, they're exposed. So, we have many ways to counter. So, all in all, I can go on and on about the weaknesses and the vulnerabilities of the PLA, but none of this will show up in this supposedly extravagant pompous parade that will take place next week.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And I know we're getting close to our time today, but I kind of want to conclude on this thread that's emerged from at least this conversation and certainly in prior weeks, which is this kind of rising rapprochement like you've mentioned between China and Russia. And I think for the point that we're talking about here on the military parades, from the perspective of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, it's clear they both take the commemoration of the war and its victory very seriously in terms of national demonstration and propaganda all within the context of resisting Western influence. Miles, I'd like to ask you kind of to round out today, should the West be concerned at all with the rising nationalism across both countries, China and Russia, especially given the context of current geopolitical conflicts and that both leaders seem to believe that they are driving historical changes within the existing international order.
Miles Yu:
Russian nationalism obviously is a concern. Any kind of ultra-nationalism is a threat to peace and stability, not only domestically but also internationally in many cases. However, if you measure the domestic disenchantment against the CCP regime itself it far overpowers nationalism. Nationalism is a fan and controlled by the central machine. So, every single piece of a posting on the internet is censored by the Chinese Communist Party. Even with that, you can see this avalanche of complaint and of disenchantment. The country economically is broke. There is a tremendous social injustice going on in China. So, the country, even though it has a strong anti-west sentiment overall, but domestically its regime is not really that strong and invincible. Any spark could potentially cause a prairie fire. As the Chinese always say, if you look at this little, tiny county, right? If a girl is bullied and if a cop acts outrageously, and that could basically cause a mass riot in China. So, you’ve got half of the youth unemployed, what do they do? The Chinese population overall has lost its faith in the Communist Party period. That's one of the reasons why the Xi Jinping regime is trying to fan as much xenophobia as possible to get itself off the hook from its government crisis.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
That's unfortunately our time for this week. Thank you as always to our listeners for joining us. And thank you Miles for your expert insight and analysis in this week's conversation. Always great to hear from you and we'll check back in with you next week.
Miles Yu:
Alright, looking forward to being with you next week