Podcast: China's uphill battles, from Putin to COVID: Newsweek's Melinda Liu

TRANSCRIPT: China's uphill battles, from Putin to COVID: Newsweek's Melinda Liu

Melinda Liu:

Sometimes I wonder when Xi Jinping looks around and he looks at Putin, does it seem like he's looking in a mirror? Here are these two autocrats. They've been very isolated. Xi Jinping hasn't left China since the beginning of the pandemic. Obviously, we saw it from the dynamics of Putin meeting with his generals and things, he's surrounded by yes-men. We have to assume the same is true of Xi Jinping. Where are they getting their information?

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended conversations with newsmakers I interview every week on my public television show. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today where China fits into the Russia-Ukraine War, President Xi Jinping has cast his lot with the Russian president, but wants to avoid a new Cold War with the West. Can he pull it off? My guest is Newsweek's Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu. She's spent over 30 years reporting from inside China. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more. GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. Could empowering women in the workplace be the simplest way to boost the global economy? In a word, yes, but how? The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is a new limited series podcast from Foreign Policy, featured on Apple Podcasts, new and noteworthy. Listen to the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women wherever you get your podcasts.

Ian Bremmer:

Melinda Liu, thank you so much for joining us on GZERO.

Melinda Liu:

Thank you. Good to be here.

Ian Bremmer:

So how would you describe Xi Jinping's relationship with Putin right now?

Melinda Liu:

These are two people who've been thrown together in the marriage of convenience. They've known each other a long time, so it's not entirely awkward, but it's not entirely comfortable either. There's not a lot of trust between these two people. And so then they kind of saw this disastrous American retreat from Afghanistan, withdrawal from Afghanistan, and they thought, "Huh, okay, we've got bad relations with the United States. But the good news is the US is on decline is in decline, and China's is on the rise and this is inevitable." They see it as inescapable, relentless. And so they thought that they could do what they wanted to do. They could use language that was more aggressive than it had been in the past. It was clearly unexpected by China to suddenly see the Biden administration kind of rally the allies in a way that I think the whole world did not expect. And also to see their best friend Vladimir Putin stumble in Ukraine. They may not have known it was going to be a full bore invasion. I think many people suspect that they just thought it would be another replay of 2014.

Ian Bremmer:

They claimed they weren't told. Publicly they claim they claim that not now. Yeah.

Melinda Liu:

They claimed that. I think the way we have to look at this is that this whole... The dynamic, it's The Romance of The Three Kingdoms, which is an ancient Chinese historical novel, about three kingdoms that are constantly circling each other, vying with each other, allying and then falling out. It's a love triangle in geopolitics. So it's The Romance of the Three Kingdoms meets the Godfather. So the analogy that of Putin and Xi Jinping was that it's like two mafia dons. They meet and they're on good terms because they're clans are on good terms, and one of them says, "So-and-so is a problem there in Europe and we're going to take care of it."

Ian Bremmer:

I do want to ask you... So I have to say I've been annoyed by just how many questions I get about the likelihood that now China's going to go into Taiwan guns blazing. That's clearly not the case. What lessons do you actually see the Chinese government having taken away from Ukraine in terms of how they think about Taiwan going forward?

Melinda Liu:

I think it's been a sobering experience for Beijing. You've got to understand that this is a leadership where obviously their rhetoric can be kind of belligerent, and they play a lot of games in the South China Sea and then the air above China's islands and things like that. But this is a country that hasn't had a real war since the '70s, literally since a border incursion with Vietnam, where you had runners bringing orders to tank commanders because they didn't have modern communications. And I think what really made them kind of pull up would've been the incredible bravery of the Ukrainian people willing to do whatever they could, make a Molotov cocktail train with a rifle cut out of a piece of cardboard or something. That's something that they would not have expected. And then most importantly, the way that the allies were rallied.

Ian Bremmer:

Rallied. Yeah.

Melinda Liu:

NATO has not been so energized in a long, long time, and I think everyone was surprised, but I think China especially would look at that and see it mirrored in their nearer environment in the Pacific and say, "Whoa. If you translate that, if you take that and place it against the template of Asia, we could have a problem." And so I think this has all had a very sobering effect. They were in no rush to in invade Taiwan anytime soon anyway, and I think if anything, it's put that timetable back a little bit.

Ian Bremmer:

So when the Russian foreign minister went to China, the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi praised him.

Melinda Liu:

Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

For Russia helping to avert a humanitarian disaster on the ground in Ukraine. Again, the Chinese know how that's going to read in the West, not just in the US but in Europe. What are they thinking when they make a statement like that well over a month into this devastating war?

Melinda Liu:

They have an astounding capability to maintain a state of denial, to say things that are clearly not true. Their propaganda needs sometimes can spin out of control and they don't know exactly how to play it.

For example, the Chinese state run broadcaster CGTN, which is English language. They broadcast overseas as well as within China. And they're actually kind of interesting because they've been trying to show some of what's going on in Ukraine and just these past few days when everyone is focused on the absolute horrific evidence of civilian deaths, torture, executions, as Russian troops withdraw from some areas of Ukraine, a lot of the CGTN coverage has been on the Russians who have died and left behind devastated tank convoys and things as they've pulled back, including bodies of Russian soldiers and whatnot.

But the problem with that is if you focus too much on the losses of the Russians, then what happens when you have to turn around and say, "Oh, Russia has achieved its goals." If Moscow wants to say, "Okay, we are declaring victory and we're going home now." China will say that too without a blink, without any sign that they've just contradicted themselves.

Ian Bremmer:

You've been focusing on the English language, which again, I mean I've watched in the US CGTN as well, but of course that's not remotely as popular as Chinese language media, and I'm wondering what the Chinese language media coverage has looked like again, all the way through this war. Is it changing? Is it starting to reflect more reality on the ground or not at all?

Melinda Liu:

I think it has changed a bit, but even early on in the conflict, there was a very strange thing. People may not know it, but actually the Chinese relationship with Ukraine was pretty close before Russia invaded. And so there was almost like two channels of communication. The Chinese ambassador to Ukraine was very friendly to Ukraine. There are some social media... There have been posts of people who are Ukraine or at least showing some sympathy for Ukraine.

And the range of Chinese language media tonalities on this whole conflict is quite wide. I mean, of course, even though the general message is still very pro-Russian. What we have to understand is China's focus right now in media as well as in the halls of power, is not necessarily 100% focused on Ukraine. They've got a big problem with COVID still now. They've got the worst...

Ian Bremmer:

Yes they do indeed, yeah.

Melinda Liu:

The worst numbers of COVID infections, including in asymptomatic infections since February 2020. And that is actually a bigger nightmare for Xi Jinping than what's going on in Ukraine because he has tied his legacy and his reputation on a zero-COVID strategy, and it stamped COVID out, except it didn't stamp COVID out. And now we've got a really serious uptick in cases and something's got to give, either they've got to revisit this so-called zero-COVID strategy, or they're going to have to get used to a lot more casualties.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, the numbers, I mean of course from an American perspective, are still tiny. I mean, the fact is that 1 million Americans have died of COVID in the last two years, which is a staggering figure if you think about it. China has for the last two years, trumpeted just how successful they have been compared to the US, compared to Europe, compared to just about every major Western economy out there.

But now, as you say, that success coupled with no flexibility in the system has led to the largest city in China being completely locked down. I mean, no one on the streets, no one leaving their apartments for a week and counting.

How is that likely to play out? Are we starting to see any level at all of social dissent as a consequence of that? Are we starting to see any political figures saying, "Maybe we should reconsider that."? Or is that way too far beyond the pale for a country with as much centralized control as China?

Melinda Liu:

Well, first of all, there's not really much social dissent and people taking to the streets because there's actually nobody in the streets. I mean, the streets are actually physically empty of people right now in China.

Ian Bremmer:

I know that.

Melinda Liu:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Melinda Liu:

But-

Ian Bremmer:

You can have social dissent when you are locked into your apartments, right?

Melinda Liu:

Yes, you can.

Ian Bremmer:

And so I'm just saying, is there any of that going on in China right now?

Melinda Liu:

Yeah. On social media, for example, one of the trending hashtags was #it'sdifficulttobuygroceries in Shanghai and it had 40 million posts on Weibo social media platform. Okay, it's hardly an incendiary thing, but I mean, for China's premier city, it's most cosmopolitan city, to have people complaining that it's hard to buy food in Shanghai. It's because they're locked down and the people who normally deliver food are also locked down and people are just not ready for this sort of a challenge.

And people have had two years of it, so that means it's been two years of a pretty bad economy for a lot of people. Certainly the gig economy and a lot of sort of retail restaurants and things have been hurting, and suddenly there's all these tech workers being told they have to sleep in their offices, they're told to bring their pillows and their air mattresses or their yoga mats, and they can sleep in their offices.

This is not what they expected. Let's face it, there's a streak of elitism in Chinese society just as there's a huge gap between rich and poor. Urban dwellers are quite used to hearing that people in rural areas have hardship. They kind of travel for days on trains and things like that, and they can live in very dire circumstances. They don't want to live that way themselves.

And so when you have Shanghai locked down, people having trouble finding either food or the food that they want people having to sleep in their offices so that they can keep working. Some factories are trying to set up what they call a closed loop, which keeps the workers also in the factory so that they can keep working. But these are not places that had necessarily dorms for everyone to stay in comfort or even privacy. So I think there is definitely a level of discontent or a vocalization of discontent that we would not be hearing if we didn't have a serious lockdown in Shanghai.

Now, will it spread? I don't know. I kind of think that the parts of the country that are not experiencing lockdown or maybe just going about their business, we're not hearing too much in Beijing because things haven't reached that level, but the cases are ticked up again just a couple days ago in Beijing as well. The thing is, you can't ...

Ian Bremmer:

No and look at in Guang Dong. I mean, they had the outbreak in Guang Dong, but they cracked down really hard and they were successful and then they could let it go. But so far in Shanghai looks like it's well beyond their capability to actually contain it.

Melinda Liu:

And it's quite symbolic. I absolutely agree with you. It's quite symbolic that it's Shanghai because Shanghai was always thought to be the best managed, the most advanced, the most sophisticated. Well, we'll put it this way. The people of Shanghai always thought that they were those things, and so when they see themselves facing a challenge and scrambling in a way that they never thought they would have to, that hits right to the soul. We're seeing localized expressions of discontent about certain lockdown measures. We are seeing a lack of very vocal and numerous positive voices about some slogans that are identified with Xi Jinping. What am I talking about? Two years ago, everyone was talking about something called common prosperity. It was-

Ian Bremmer:

Common prosperity. Yeah, absolutely.

Melinda Liu:

Exactly. It was something that Xi Jinping coined, and it was supposed to explain a new economic approach. It was supposed to address the very disturbing, rich-poor gap in China, and it was supposed to sort of cut the tycoons and the billionaires down to size, and for a number of months it was-

Ian Bremmer:

It was basically make China great again. I mean, it was his buzz phrase running it. Absolutely.

Melinda Liu:

Right. Well, there's not a lot of it being talked about now, and then you got to ask, "Why?"

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Melinda Liu:

There's also-

Ian Bremmer:

No, I think it's important.

Melinda Liu:

I mean, economically, there are a few things happening. You can see, for example, one big question was, "How is China going to react to the sanctions that were levied against Russia? Will they try to be some kind of sanction busters for Russia? Some kind of backdoor?" Well, Sinopec-

Ian Bremmer:

Not at all.

Melinda Liu:

It doesn't appear to Sinopec and other of the big petrochemical players have been told, "You've got to be really careful now." And they've suspended talks on petrochemical agreements with Russia just to see ...

Ian Bremmer:

Well, you know why, Melinda. These companies have lawyers and they recognize they don't want to get hit with secondary sanctions...

Melinda Liu:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

... and I think it's pretty clear.

Melinda Liu:

And of course, they trade with the West so vastly. I think this is a year of unpredictability for China. It already has started that way, but even before the invasion of Ukraine, we kind of knew it was going to be a tricky year because in the fall, there's going to be a very important party congress and Xi Jinping is widely expected still to push through a highly unusual third term for himself, which basically opens the door for him to be leader for life if he wants to be.

Ian Bremmer:

Be president for life.

Melinda Liu:

Sort of like Mao Zedong was. Okay. Now, the last time we saw the cycle in this same position, in the same leadership dynamic, in other words, heading into a year where there was going to be an important party congress and succession issues or lack of succession issues, one way or another was going to all come out and be decided. That was 10 years ago, and that was a hell of a year. Between December 2011 and June of 2012, you had a British businessman killed by the wife of one of the top leaders of China, Bo Xilai. Then you had Bo Xilai himself dramatically purged. Now, he was seen as a rival to Xi Jinping. Then you saw his police chief-

Ian Bremmer:

The major regional governor.

Melinda Liu:

Yeah. His police chief carrying documents, walk into the American consulate-

Ian Bremmer:

US consulate, yeah.

Melinda Liu:

In Chengdu and kind looked like he might have wanted to stay for a while or at least did stay for a number of hours, and then finally it was negotiated that he would leave on of his own accord. And then out of the blue, a blind dissident escaped from house arrest and wound up in the American embassy in Beijing. That all happened within a very short number of months.

Now, I'm not saying they were all orchestrated and created because of the politics of the leadership, but they happened at a time of heightened unpredictability, a need for some things to happen, and a lot of players hoping for competing outcomes. We're in that situation right now, and it's only April. There are plenty of months left for unexpected stuff to happen. It's been very opaque in terms of elite politics. It's very hard to see what's going on. A lot of people who normally might talk a little bit are absolutely not talking now. It's quite difficult to do work as a journalist, but it also has a feeling-

Ian Bremmer:

Well, and they haven't been traveling at all, right?

Melinda Liu:

No one's been traveling.

Ian Bremmer:

They've been doing this for two years now.

Melinda Liu:

Certainly.

Ian Bremmer:

Your top experts around the world. No one's going to China. No one's leaving China. That's a serious problem. I mean, these lockdowns, this pandemic, one of the biggest, I think, implications of it has been just the lack of direct interpersonal contact with people that you don't necessarily agree with very much.

Melinda Liu:

Exactly.

Ian Bremmer:

That only heightens those disagreements. It doesn't facilitate them.

Melinda Liu:

Sometimes I wonder when Xi Jinping looks around and he looks at Putin, does it seem like he's looking in a mirror? Here are these two autocrats. They've been very isolated. Xi Jinping hasn't left China since the beginning of the pandemic. Obviously, we saw it from the dynamics of Putin meeting with his generals and things, he is surrounded by yes-men, we have to assume the same is true of Xi Jinping. Where are they getting their information? Where is anyone getting their information? I think it's a pretty unsettled situation here. I'm not predicting anything because I just don't see enough. I think anyone who thinks that they can predict what's going on in China now are precisely those who don't know.

Ian Bremmer:

I've encountered many of those people. Melinda, it's really nice to talk with you. Thank you so much for joining us on GZERRO World.

Melinda Liu:

Thank you, Ian. My pleasure.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at gzeroomedia.com and sign up for our newsletter signal.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more. GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. Could empowering women in the workplace be the simplest way to boost the global economy? In a word, yes, but how? The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is a new limited series podcast from Foreign Policy featured on Apple Podcasts, new and noteworthy. Listen to the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women wherever you get your podcasts.