# Transcript: The great game

## Description

How has China changed since President Xi Jinping came to power? And where is it headed? The near future of China and its next moves will likely be influenced by the outcome of the US elections taking place on November 5. These important elections will have a major impact worldwide. How and why? How will the relationship between the two strongest economies in the world develop, and how will it affect the rest of the world? These are all topics we will discuss with Tomáš Etzler.



Who is Tomáš Etzler



Tomáš Etzler is a journalist, producer, and author. In 1999, he began working for CNN as a news editor, then spent five years as a CNN war correspondent, reporting from places including Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He spent seven years as a permanent correspondent for Czech Television in China. For his work, he has received numerous awards, including an Emmy Award, which he was the first Czech to win. In 2019, his book of interviews “Who knows where I’ll be tomorrow,” conducted by Jindřich Šídlo, was published. In summer 2021, his feature-length documentary about an orphanage in rural China, “Sky,” was released in cinemas. That same fall, his debut book “A journalist in China. What on earth have I done?” hit the market and became the best-selling title of that year for Vyšehrad publishing house. In fall 2023, his book “A journalist in China 2. Don’t go crazy!” was published.Currently, Tomáš Etzler lectures and continues to write.

## Transcript

**[00:00:00]** Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning,

**[00:00:30]** Good morning to everyone who got up early and made their way here to the Magenta Experience Center.

**[00:00:36]** Good morning to all of you watching us live, whether you're at school,

**[00:00:41]** a coworking center, a library, or watching from your companies, we're waving good morning everywhere.

**[00:00:47]** Welcome to another classic Brain and Breakfast.

**[00:00:53]** As always, the breakfast is interactive and will be interactive, so please,

**[00:01:00]** take your mobile phones in your hands as usual,

**[00:01:05]** you can either scan this QR code,

**[00:01:09]** or enter www.slajdu.com into your browser,

**[00:01:14]** add the hashtag, which is the pound sign, and type Brain, and that will give you the option

**[00:01:21]** not only to ask questions but also to interact with us live.

**[00:01:26]** And now, after many, many years, I will make a small change.

**[00:01:32]** I won't ask if this is your first time at the breakfast,

**[00:01:36]** but I will ask a slightly different question.

**[00:01:40]** When you hear the word China, what is the first word that comes to your mind?

**[00:01:47]** I can already see from the huge,

**[00:01:53]** that many of you think of communism, evil, the wall, the Great Wall of China,

**[00:01:59]** Red China, communists, lack of freedom, giant, oppression, power.

**[00:02:12]** I'll give you a moment more to vote, then we'll come back to it.

**[00:02:17]** We should thank our partners, whether it's the beautiful

**[00:02:23]** and healthy breakfasts from Frutisima, the Magenta Experience Center,

**[00:02:27]** which hosts us, many thanks to them,

**[00:02:31]** and thanks also to slajdu for their help.

**[00:02:34]** And none of these breakfasts or anything around them would exist,

**[00:02:38]** without something called Red Button.

**[00:02:41]** So if you'd like to stay in touch with us,

**[00:02:43]** because Red Button does not only these breakfasts,

**[00:02:45]** but many other interesting projects,

**[00:02:47]** this QR code will appear during the breakfast,

**[00:02:51]** and it will take you to a newsletter called Shortcut.

**[00:02:54]** So if you'd like to receive news,

**[00:02:57]** make sure to sign up.

**[00:02:59]** Now I would like to welcome our honored guest,

**[00:03:06]** Tomáš, come join us, hi.

**[00:03:09]** Good morning.

**[00:03:11]** Good morning.

**[00:03:15]** And maybe I'll ask the director to show us again the words

**[00:03:19]** that come to your mind somehow.

**[00:03:23]** So what else do we see there?

**[00:03:26]** I like the noodles, that's one simple truth.

**[00:03:28]** There is a debate between Italy and China,

**[00:03:31]** about who invented spaghetti and who invented noodles.

**[00:03:33]** Whether Marco Polo brought them from China,

**[00:03:35]** or if they were introduced there centuries ago.

**[00:03:39]** I think everything I see there is basically true,

**[00:03:44]** or at least has some basis.

**[00:03:47]** And I just wanted to pass the floor to you,

**[00:03:51]** because you are the one here today who will tell us about China,

**[00:03:54]** and not just about China, but also about the context.

**[00:03:58]** So I'm really looking forward to it.

**[00:04:00]** Here is your spot for an hour, and you all look forward to it too. Thanks.

**[00:04:03]** Good morning again. I'll just introduce myself quickly.

**[00:04:06]** I am a journalist, not a sinologist, not a scientist,

**[00:04:08]** not an economist, but as a journalist I lived in China for seven years.

**[00:04:12]** I traveled all over the country, visited every province.

**[00:04:15]** I spoke with thousands of people, from the poorest farmers

**[00:04:18]** to Chinese multimillionaires.

**[00:04:21]** So I have empirical experience from China.

**[00:04:24]** And in the annotation we created,

**[00:04:27]** I still follow China to this day,

**[00:04:30]** I have written two books about it, maybe a third will come,

**[00:04:33]** and I keep following the topic. In that annotation we stated

**[00:04:36]** that China dominates world news practically every day.

**[00:04:42]** I read a lot of global newspapers and media,

**[00:04:46]** and I selected just a few of those news items,

**[00:04:49]** because today it's no longer just about

**[00:04:52]** China's economic growth, but unfortunately

**[00:04:55]** more and more disturbing news keeps appearing,

**[00:04:58]** whether about China's growing aggressiveness,

**[00:05:01]** especially towards its neighbors in the South China and East China Seas,

**[00:05:09]** but many reports also concern China's economy,

**[00:05:14]** which has been struggling heavily lately.

**[00:05:17]** What I'm showing you are just headlines from several,

**[00:05:22]** or this is the front page of The Economist

**[00:05:26]** from a few weeks ago, showing that disturbing news

**[00:05:31]** about China is increasing.

**[00:05:35]** But it wasn't always like this.

**[00:05:37]** When I arrived in China in 2006,

**[00:05:41]** the news was mostly dominated

**[00:05:45]** by China's huge economic growth.

**[00:05:50]** So the aggression wasn't there yet.

**[00:05:54]** I'll come back to that later, where it comes from,

**[00:05:57]** why it happens.

**[00:05:59]** But as I said here, I was a journalist by nature,

**[00:06:02]** a TV journalist, so I would start with a video.

**[00:06:06]** Let's get a bit into China with it.

**[00:06:09]** Please play the video.

**[00:06:19]** End.

**[00:06:49]** End.

**[00:07:20]** End.

**[00:07:26]** End.

**[00:07:33]** End.

**[00:07:44]** End.

**[00:07:50]** End.

**[00:07:59]** End.

**[00:08:05]** ...to start, if you could again, it's a voting question,

**[00:08:09]** if you could quickly vote on it again.

**[00:08:13]** But I'll continue right away.

**[00:08:17]** When I came to China, I played that video because

**[00:08:20]** when I arrived in China, I saw exactly the China

**[00:08:24]** as shown in the video.

**[00:08:27]** I saw it as an incredibly dynamic,

**[00:08:31]** energetic, growing country.

**[00:08:34]** And when I arrived in Beijing, two years before the Olympics,

**[00:08:37]** Beijing was...

**[00:08:40]** Beijing was said to be the biggest construction site

**[00:08:43]** in human history.

**[00:08:45]** Two days before the Olympics, new stadiums were being built, of course,

**[00:08:48]** new hotels, the National Theatre was being built,

**[00:08:50]** or the National Centre for the Arts in China.

**[00:08:53]** Entire new housing estates and shopping centers were being built,

**[00:08:56]** at an enormous pace.

**[00:08:58]** There were over 500 million square meters under construction.

**[00:09:01]** In autumn 2006, when I arrived in Beijing,

**[00:09:04]** there were two metro lines running.

**[00:09:06]** By the start of the Olympics, there were six, four new ones opened.

**[00:09:10]** I was completely thrilled by

**[00:09:13]** the energy of the city

**[00:09:16]** and its huge diversity,

**[00:09:19]** because the old China was still there.

**[00:09:22]** You saw expensive cars on the roads,

**[00:09:25]** Western-made, from Audi to Ferrari,

**[00:09:28]** and in between, guys in greasy, shabby retail clothes

**[00:09:32]** on battered bikes.

**[00:09:34]** For me, it was absolutely fascinating.

**[00:09:36]** And I was convinced that I was witnessing,

**[00:09:38]** experiencing something truly historic,

**[00:09:41]** the birth of a 21st-century superpower.

**[00:09:45]** But the more I was in China,

**[00:09:48]** the more I began to doubt that superpower status,

**[00:09:53]** and the deeper I got into Chinese life,

**[00:10:00]** the more I realized not everything is as shown in that video.

**[00:10:04]** So now I’d like to look at the results, how I see it.

**[00:10:08]** Yes, I see. Do I have any 'no' or 'not' there?

**[00:10:12]** No. And 13%. You know, that’s a very

**[00:10:16]** good question, one the whole world debates today.

**[00:10:20]** I’d start with what the definition of a superpower is. I looked it up, for example,

**[00:10:24]** in the Britannica encyclopedia, which says a superpower is a state

**[00:10:28]** that has enormous economic or military power, or both,

**[00:10:32]** and whose influence in the world far exceeds that of other countries.

**[00:10:36]** From this perspective, at first glance, it would seem that China is indeed already a superpower,

**[00:10:40]** but I’d like to look at it from a slightly different angle.

**[00:10:44]** I’ll tell you when my first doubts about China came, or why.

**[00:10:48]** When I was researching and writing my first book

**[00:10:52]** as a journalist in China, I was looking for an image

**[00:10:56]** or a cover photo that would tell me,

**[00:11:00]** how to capture my mood in China over those seven years.

**[00:11:04]** And I think this is quite a good illustration. China obviously does not have freedom of speech.

**[00:11:08]** And in China, there are media, of course, TV, news, but all of them are

**[00:11:12]** strictly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

**[00:11:18]** And today, the censorship is absolutely brutal.

**[00:11:22]** But so China doesn’t look like North Korea, it has to tolerate

**[00:11:26]** foreign correspondents and foreign journalists.

**[00:11:30]** But then it does everything to make their work

**[00:11:34]** more difficult, impossible,

**[00:11:38]** just really hard. And it does it very well.

**[00:11:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:11:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:11:58]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:06]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:10]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:14]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:18]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:22]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:34]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:38]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:50]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:54]** And it does it very well.

**[00:12:58]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:06]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:10]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:14]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:18]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:22]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:34]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:38]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:13:50]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:13:58]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:06]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:10]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:14:22]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:34]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:14:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:14:50]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:15:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:06]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:10]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:14]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:18]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:22]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:34]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:38]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:15:50]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:15:58]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:06]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:16:22]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:34]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:16:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:16:50]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:16:58]** And it does it very well.

**[00:17:02]** And it does it very well.

**[00:17:06]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:17:18]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:17:26]** And it does it very well.

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**[00:19:26]** And it does it very well.

**[00:19:30]** And it does it very well.

**[00:19:34]** And it does it very well.

**[00:19:38]** And it does it very well.

**[00:19:42]** And it does it very well.

**[00:19:46]** And it does it very well.

**[00:20:00]** And GDP per capita is also one of the major indicators of the strength of an economy.

**[00:20:07]** Just so you know, China ranks 97th with 12,000 or 12,500 dollars per person.

**[00:20:15]** The Czech Republic ranks 48th with 30,400 dollars. So the GDP per capita in the Czech Republic is three times higher than in China.

**[00:20:25]** So the situation there isn't exactly...

**[00:20:31]** Moreover, the manufacturing model stopped working for China as effectively as it used to.

**[00:20:38]** Then came COVID, and China today, as many headlines showed,

**[00:20:43]** you saw, China today has huge economic problems.

**[00:20:48]** Many global economists believe that China is in a certain crisis, maybe even in a recession,

**[00:20:55]** because no one trusts Chinese statistics.

**[00:20:58]** The Chinese statistics published by the Chinese government and statistical office,

**[00:21:03]** are practically all distorted.

**[00:21:06]** The bad statistics are downplayed, the good statistics are inflated.

**[00:21:11]** In one of the headlines you saw in the introduction,

**[00:21:15]** China's manufacturing fell to the lowest economic growth in the last 18 months,

**[00:21:21]** which was the peak of COVID.

**[00:21:23]** But I read that many people believe

**[00:21:26]** that today China is growing at its slowest pace since 1990.

**[00:21:30]** So the slowest in the last 28 years.

**[00:21:34]** China is going through a major period of deflation, which is a big problem for it.

**[00:21:39]** There is a huge problem with internal debt.

**[00:21:44]** And now, in a moment, I will play

**[00:21:48]** how China produced

**[00:21:53]** an enormous amount of goods.

**[00:21:56]** I have a few illustrative shots here.

**[00:22:04]** Also, one of the big problems in China is,

**[00:22:07]** of course, the main source of

**[00:22:09]** or the main source of GDP growth in China was exports.

**[00:22:12]** These were huge percentages, tens of percent.

**[00:22:15]** Another huge source was the real estate market.

**[00:22:19]** The real estate market at one time, or sometimes,

**[00:22:22]** accounted for up to 30% of GDP growth.

**[00:22:26]** But it collapsed three years ago.

**[00:22:28]** And in a moment, I will play another video,

**[00:22:31]** which might clarify or outline the problem,

**[00:22:36]** and I will return to it after the video.

**[00:22:38]** Can we play the video, please?

**[00:22:40]** Ordos, a brand-new city in the steppes of the vast Chinese province

**[00:22:44]** of Inner Mongolia.

**[00:22:46]** As is common in modern China, it grew in an incredible time.

**[00:22:49]** Its construction began only five years ago.

**[00:22:52]** At first glance, everything here looks normal.

**[00:22:54]** Ordos has all the features of a modern Chinese metropolis.

**[00:22:57]** Government buildings, a new library, a modern museum, a new theater.

**[00:23:01]** The only thing missing is people.

**[00:23:04]** The plan was for a million people to live here.

**[00:23:06]** So far, only about 50,000 have moved in.

**[00:23:09]** The vast majority of apartments in the city are unoccupied.

**[00:23:12]** Street after street lies empty.

**[00:23:14]** Yet the housing estates are rapidly expanding.

**[00:23:17]** Ordos was an idea of the local government.

**[00:23:19]** Their motivation? GDP growth.

**[00:23:21]** Economic growth remains one of Beijing's priorities,

**[00:23:24]** and provincial authorities compete

**[00:23:27]** to satisfy the central government's hunger for development the most.

**[00:23:30]** The city's construction was funded by the local government and state bank loans.

**[00:23:34]** This helped meet the GDP growth plan.

**[00:23:37]** However, experts say it also created a bubble.

**[00:23:40]** Its burst could cost the government and banks hundreds of billions of crowns.

**[00:23:44]** It's a challenge. It could be a good thing.

**[00:23:47]** It's possible these investments will improve productivity and the economy,

**[00:23:50]** but it's hard to say. Especially since so many bank loans were used

**[00:23:54]** in such a short time and banks have no way to value empty real estate.

**[00:23:59]** It seems the government in Ordos doesn't worry about investment quality

**[00:24:03]** and keeps building at a breakneck pace against the backdrop of huge fountains

**[00:24:06]** and the sounds of the national anthem. Whether justified or not,

**[00:24:10]** here they build without fear of the future, no matter the cost.

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**[00:30:00]** but other institutions estimate that China spends up to 700 billion dollars annually on armaments.

**[00:30:07]** Which still does not reach the 800 billion dollars per year,

**[00:30:10]** that the United States spends on defense every year.

**[00:30:14]** But China is doing what it can. It is estimated today that China

**[00:30:19]** may already have a navy as large or larger than the United States,

**[00:30:24]** in terms of the number of ships, but largest does not mean strongest.

**[00:30:29]** For example, when we talk about the navy,

**[00:30:32]** I want to say that China is already building its fourth aircraft carrier,

**[00:30:37]** but to give you some context, China acquired its first aircraft carrier

**[00:30:42]** in 2010 or 2011, when I was still living in China,

**[00:30:47]** and it acquired it by commissioning a Chinese businessman,

**[00:30:52]** a billionaire, to buy it from Ukraine.

**[00:30:55]** He told the Ukrainians he was buying it to turn it into a casino.

**[00:30:59]** China then dismantled it to study it,

**[00:31:02]** the ship was originally named Varyag.

**[00:31:05]** As I said, the Chinese People's Army

**[00:31:08]** is growing enormously.

**[00:31:11]** They claim today, as many observers do,

**[00:31:14]** that this is the largest increase or expansion

**[00:31:19]** of any military force in human history.

**[00:31:25]** And they abandoned...

**[00:31:29]** In 2015, the Chinese government announced

**[00:31:35]** that it would reorganize its army,

**[00:31:39]** that it would abandon the Soviet model

**[00:31:42]** and instead orient itself more towards the model

**[00:31:47]** of army organization in the United States

**[00:31:52]** and other Western countries.

**[00:31:54]** So this is the biggest reorganization and modernization of the Chinese army

**[00:31:58]** since the 1950s.

**[00:32:02]** As I said, this naturally challenges

**[00:32:06]** many people.

**[00:32:09]** And China is starting to negotiate with various countries

**[00:32:14]** about bases. Sri Lanka, Cambodia,

**[00:32:17]** now they will build a base in Djibouti as well.

**[00:32:20]** It will be lively there, there is a French base,

**[00:32:22]** an American base, and now there will be a Chinese base.

**[00:32:25]** So China is negotiating with several countries in the Pacific Ocean

**[00:32:30]** about building ports or with Myanmar

**[00:32:33]** about building military ports, so it is growing.

**[00:32:36]** It is still far from where the United States is, of course.

**[00:32:40]** A bit more about the military, as I said,

**[00:32:43]** bigger doesn't mean stronger.

**[00:32:46]** The Chinese lack any experience.

**[00:32:49]** No one can estimate the combat readiness of that army,

**[00:32:53]** because China has not been actively at war since 1979,

**[00:33:00]** when it attacked Vietnam and got a terrible thrashing within a few months.

**[00:33:06]** Sorry.

**[00:33:08]** The Americans have bases all over the world,

**[00:33:12]** they are able to maintain troops in distant seas

**[00:33:18]** off the coast of the United States since World War II.

**[00:33:21]** They simply have bases all over the world.

**[00:33:23]** China does not have this experience.

**[00:33:25]** China has experience, like their navy for example.

**[00:33:28]** Even the army originally served mainly to defend its own borders

**[00:33:33]** and to defend coastal waters.

**[00:33:36]** China has become more expansionist, of course,

**[00:33:40]** so the function and focus of the military

**[00:33:47]** is already changing to possible deployment outside Chinese territory.

**[00:33:53]** And a lot, of course, I will return to this,

**[00:33:57]** a lot is naturally talked about Taiwan,

**[00:34:02]** but also about the Philippines and other countries.

**[00:34:09]** Here I might return to Chinese claims

**[00:34:12]** on territories or simply on territories of other sovereign countries.

**[00:34:18]** So, but they are arming, it is estimated that today China has 410,

**[00:34:24]** China possesses roughly 410 nuclear weapons,

**[00:34:28]** but the Americans estimate that by 1935 they will have 1500,

**[00:34:32]** and by 1950 there could be over 3000.

**[00:34:35]** So they study this, for example, from the fact

**[00:34:39]** that hundreds of missile silos have been built in China,

**[00:34:45]** whether tactical missiles or missiles

**[00:34:51]** capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

**[00:34:55]** Who got the most scared, that also amused me quite a bit in 2021,

**[00:34:59]** and even before the war in Ukraine, it was the Russians.

**[00:35:02]** In 2021, the Russians announced they would modernize their nuclear arsenal,

**[00:35:08]** but as the main reason that year.

**[00:35:10]** They also mentioned China that year, today it's a bit different.

**[00:35:14]** So another thing is that all the generals,

**[00:35:22]** all the officers leading the Chinese People's Liberation Army today,

**[00:35:26]** studied either in the Soviet Union, North Korea, or China.

**[00:35:29]** And when we see how the Russians are performing strategically and militarily in Ukraine,

**[00:35:36]** no one can really estimate

**[00:35:43]** the capability of these generals, the ability of these officers to lead the army.

**[00:35:49]** So there are many questions regarding China.

**[00:35:53]** Moreover, China has huge problems with corruption.

**[00:35:56]** Even in the army. I always say that from what I read,

**[00:36:02]** from what I know and have heard, the Chinese People's Liberation Army

**[00:36:06]** is as corrupt as the Russian one, just more restrained.

**[00:36:10]** And I don't know if you noticed, last year, sometime in June

**[00:36:18]** or July, a Chinese defense minister disappeared.

**[00:36:22]** He just vanished. This is happening there.

**[00:36:25]** They appointed a General Li to replace him, who then disappeared in turn.

**[00:36:30]** Now they have another one. They replaced two defense ministers

**[00:36:34]** within four months. And on December 39th last year,

**[00:36:41]** nine top generals were dismissed.

**[00:36:47]** In the Chinese People's Army, three of them belonged to the rocket forces

**[00:36:53]** or led the rocket forces. And all this was linked to the fight against corruption

**[00:36:58]** in the Chinese army. Then the US ZZK controllers reported

**[00:37:03]** that some of the missiles in the silos,

**[00:37:08]** whether tactical or nuclear,

**[00:37:11]** had water instead of fuel. The fuel was stolen.

**[00:37:16]** Imagine what that does to the army's morale,

**[00:37:20]** when you see the army leadership disappear or get arrested.

**[00:37:27]** So there are many questions about combat readiness and how effective the army is.

**[00:37:35]** Anyway, I recently read some American studies,

**[00:37:39]** that whether the missiles are filled with water or not,

**[00:37:44]** it won't change American military policy on China,

**[00:37:47]** which considers China a major threat.

**[00:37:50]** And they will act accordingly.

**[00:37:54]** They won't downplay it by saying they have a dysfunctional army.

**[00:37:59]** China should be regarded as a very strong and growing military power.

**[00:38:11]** At least also because the president visited the rocket forces this week.

**[00:38:17]** I think it's being monitored there and he simply announced that

**[00:38:19]** the Chinese and Soviet armies must prepare for war.

**[00:38:24]** No one knows exactly what kind of war he means,

**[00:38:29]** but it's something that obviously leaves no one calm.

**[00:38:39]** Now I would move on to another topic.

**[00:38:42]** What makes China a great power is, of course, its influence in the world,

**[00:38:54]** as mentioned in that definition.

**[00:38:56]** And the biggest factor influencing that global influence

**[00:39:00]** is the foreign policy of the respective country.

**[00:39:04]** Since the rise of the CCP to power, China's foreign policy has changed drastically.

**[00:39:09]** And China, after it started to grow,

**[00:39:16]** which was in 1978-79 when the reforms were announced,

**[00:39:21]** and Deng Xiaoping, then leader of China, simply said

**[00:39:25]** that China wants peaceful growth,

**[00:39:29]** that China's foreign policy is one of non-interference,

**[00:39:37]** a policy of non-intervention.

**[00:39:39]** This was maintained for many years and then began to erode a bit,

**[00:39:44]** China started to become a bit more aggressive,

**[00:39:48]** already under the previous administration,

**[00:39:51]** which was President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao,

**[00:39:55]** but this aggressiveness, or increasing assertiveness,

**[00:40:00]** which China greatly escalated under Xi Jinping's leadership.

**[00:40:03]** So the policy of non-interference is completely gone today.

**[00:40:07]** It is dead and China has shifted to a truly

**[00:40:13]** combative or even offensive foreign policy.

**[00:40:19]** They even have a term for it. They call it

**[00:40:23]** Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, which means diplomacy of wolf warriors.

**[00:40:28]** Wolf Warriors was a Chinese film

**[00:40:33]** about Chinese special forces who rescue some Chinese in Africa.

**[00:40:38]** Diplomats started to be very unrestrained, like in France,

**[00:40:44]** in the United States, in Australia, attacking local politicians.

**[00:40:48]** They lied about them, spread disinformation. At press conferences,

**[00:40:53]** the Ministry of Foreign Affairs became very aggressive again.

**[00:40:57]** That's one thing. They are just... Now they are somewhat...

**[00:41:01]** I think they realized they went a bit too far.

**[00:41:05]** And now this Wolf Warrior Diplomacy is somewhat fading.

**[00:41:09]** They are no longer as vulgar, no longer as aggressive,

**[00:41:15]** but still aggressive.

**[00:41:20]** China's foreign policy today

**[00:41:24]** can be characterized by two major moves.

**[00:41:28]** In 2009, China was at the birth of BRICS, which is currently holding

**[00:41:32]** another annual meeting of the leaders of those countries

**[00:41:38]** in Kazan, Russia. Originally, there were four founding states there,

**[00:41:44]** which were Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Very soon, South Africa joined them.

**[00:41:50]** Today, Iran, Egypt,

**[00:41:54]** the United Arab Emirates, and Ethiopia are also members. Other countries, including Turkey,

**[00:41:58]** are simply applying to join. I consider BRICS, which was created

**[00:42:03]** as a kind of counterbalance to the European Union, they wanted to create

**[00:42:08]** one of the basic pillars or motives

**[00:42:14]** of Chinese foreign policy is that they want to change

**[00:42:23]** They are trying, and here I strongly agree with Russia, they are trying very hard,

**[00:42:28]** of course, China wants not the United States,

**[00:42:33]** but China to be the global superpower, and BRICS

**[00:42:37]** was meant to be one of those organizations that simply

**[00:42:41]** would not be pro-Western, would just make its own policy,

**[00:42:46]** either as, as they say, the global south or the east.

**[00:42:50]** But I consider it an extremely dysfunctional family,

**[00:42:54]** because if you look at it, even the founding countries,

**[00:42:58]** India and China have long-standing territorial disputes.

**[00:43:03]** In 2020 and 2021, there were several very brutal clashes

**[00:43:08]** on the China-India border, where there were even deaths.

**[00:43:12]** Fortunately, there is a zone along the border, about three kilometers wide,

**[00:43:16]** where the two countries agreed that no firearms are allowed,

**[00:43:20]** and they respect this agreement, so they fought with sticks

**[00:43:25]** or sticks and stones, but there were still fatalities.

**[00:43:29]** Just before the meeting in Kazan, at BRICS,

**[00:43:33]** China arranged, knowing the meeting would take place,

**[00:43:38]** an agreement between the Chinese and Indian presidents on certain rules

**[00:43:43]** for patrols to ease the situation

**[00:43:48]** on the border,

**[00:43:52]** so there are several

**[00:43:57]** issues where they don't really get along.

**[00:44:01]** China and Russia, for example, are pushing to remove

**[00:44:06]** the dollar as the main international payment currency.

**[00:44:10]** But other countries, like South Africa,

**[00:44:14]** and India, do not want that.

**[00:44:18]** Moreover, China and Russia claim they want to oppose the Western coalition

**[00:44:23]** or Western organizations. India doesn't like that,

**[00:44:27]** India says, we want to cooperate internally,

**[00:44:31]** The BRICS countries cooperated very intensively among themselves.

**[00:44:35]** We don't want to be against Western institutions and so on.

**[00:44:41]** So there are a number of contradictions that will come to the surface.

**[00:44:46]** Moreover, it is said that it is a terribly unbalanced

**[00:44:51]** organization, because China, I think, has a larger economy

**[00:44:55]** than the rest of the countries combined, so it has a dominant voice there.

**[00:44:59]** Another interesting act of international foreign policy

**[00:45:09]** is the famous new Silk Road,

**[00:45:12]** which came about in 2013 in China.

**[00:45:17]** In English, the Belt and Road Initiative, which started with

**[00:45:22]** building roads and railways directly to Europe,

**[00:45:27]** to increase trade and change the exchange between the two continents.

**[00:45:33]** Many European countries joined, but one by one they dropped out.

**[00:45:39]** And today China has somewhat reoriented,

**[00:45:44]** this was still before 2013,

**[00:45:48]** focusing heavily on Africa, Central Asia,

**[00:45:54]** but also on countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

**[00:45:58]** And this is also starting to be criticized,

**[00:46:02]** even by the host countries themselves, or where they operate.

**[00:46:06]** China has never done anything for the good of someone else.

**[00:46:10]** I have never noticed that in my life.

**[00:46:14]** They simply develop Africa a lot, building railways,

**[00:46:19]** ports, and roads there.

**[00:46:23]** But the main reason is to bring raw materials to the coast and then to China.

**[00:46:28]** Africa is one of the main sources of raw materials,

**[00:46:33]** and China is now hungry for resources.

**[00:46:37]** Today, this is talked about, and many critics discuss it,

**[00:46:41]** as a new colonialism, because they simply build the countries,

**[00:46:45]** but they don't give them money, they just give them loans for it.

**[00:46:49]** And these are loans that the countries have no chance of ever repaying.

**[00:46:52]** I would like to give the example of a railway,

**[00:46:56]** which runs from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya,

**[00:47:02]** to the port of Mombasa.

**[00:47:04]** This railway cost nearly a third of Kenya's GDP.

**[00:47:10]** Of course, it is a debt to China.

**[00:47:13]** It is a railway that Kenya cannot afford to maintain,

**[00:47:17]** or operate.

**[00:47:19]** And now it is simply, like forever,

**[00:47:22]** going to owe China money.

**[00:47:27]** Very similar projects exist in Kazakhstan,

**[00:47:30]** in other Chinese, in other African countries.

**[00:47:34]** So it's a kind of subjugation of those countries

**[00:47:37]** in a financial way.

**[00:47:39]** This practically brings nothing to those countries,

**[00:47:42]** because this also happened in Montenegro,

**[00:47:45]** when they had a highway built by the Chinese,

**[00:47:51]** that is, by Chinese from Podgorica, the capital, to Belgrade.

**[00:47:56]** And then often in those contracts,

**[00:48:00]** if the country can't repay the debts,

**[00:48:04]** they simply have to cede huge territories to China.

**[00:48:08]** For example, for 99 years, where China then grows soy,

**[00:48:12]** grows cereals and who knows what else.

**[00:48:15]** They use it for other purposes.

**[00:48:17]** And this exactly happened in Montenegro,

**[00:48:20]** when suddenly Montenegro was...

**[00:48:22]** First, they didn't finish the road.

**[00:48:24]** The road ended a few kilometers before Podgorica,

**[00:48:27]** and Montenegro simply couldn't repay.

**[00:48:30]** So China said they demanded that they cede some territory,

**[00:48:32]** which was already in the contract.

**[00:48:34]** And Montenegro panicked and asked the European Union for help.

**[00:48:36]** The European Union, I believe, either paid off the entire debt,

**[00:48:39]** or often provided money so they could repay it.

**[00:48:42]** So these are things...

**[00:48:45]** Our president Miloš Zeman was also a big fan of the new H2.

**[00:48:48]** And I always ask, show me a single benefit

**[00:48:54]** that those 500 personal meetings with that team ever brought.

**[00:48:57]** Show me a single benefit for the Czech population,

**[00:49:03]** for the Czech Republic. Nothing at all.

**[00:49:06]** A few people profited from it, including, for example, Tvrdík.

**[00:49:08]** And for China, a hole was made in the European Union,

**[00:49:11]** where many Chinese could flow in without any security checks,

**[00:49:15]** like many Chinese who then disappeared in the European Union.

**[00:49:19]** So this is something that doesn't really work, I think.

**[00:49:24]** And as I said, it brings nothing to those countries.

**[00:49:29]** For example, even in Montenegro, when they built that highway,

**[00:49:32]** Chinese workers built it. In the dorms, there are Chinese cleaners.

**[00:49:35]** Whether it's Montenegro, Kenya, Namibia,

**[00:49:40]** or Malaysia. There are Chinese cooks,

**[00:49:47]** so they don't even create any local employment.

**[00:49:49]** Yes, in Africa, the Chinese simply employ the locals,

**[00:49:52]** for the worst jobs, in some dangerous mines,

**[00:49:55]** under dangerous conditions, but most of these constructions,

**[00:50:00]** construction works, whether railways,

**[00:50:04]** buildings, stadiums, are done and built by the Chinese.

**[00:50:10]** So these are two examples, I wanted to mention Bricks and Nová Hedvarná from Tesco.

**[00:50:15]** China is, of course, trying to spread its influence, I always tell people,

**[00:50:20]** who try to oppose that China should have a bigger say in the world,

**[00:50:27]** and why, why Brian will become a world power,

**[00:50:30]** I always say, be careful what you wish for.

**[00:50:33]** Do you want to live in a world dominated by the imperfect, flawed United States

**[00:50:44]** the United Kingdom, Canada,

**[00:50:46]** or do you want to live in a world dominated by China and its friends,

**[00:50:50]** Russia, North Korea, Iran, Eritrea.

**[00:50:55]** Be careful what you wish for.

**[00:50:58]** Another change in Chinese behavior is Chinese assertiveness towards its neighbors.

**[00:51:06]** I already mentioned the claims China makes on some parts of Indian territories.

**[00:51:14]** It has already taken small territories, for example in Bhutan or Nepal,

**[00:51:20]** but these are tiny lands and they do it without asking anyone.

**[00:51:23]** And in Nepalese territory, they start building a Chinese city.

**[00:51:26]** And Nepal does nothing at all, they have no chance to do anything.

**[00:51:29]** So there have been a few such incidents.

**[00:51:34]** They have big claims like this.

**[00:51:37]** In 2017, I spent two months in Russia for CNN,

**[00:51:44]** and during one shoot, we ended up in Vladivostok in eastern Russia,

**[00:51:49]** where I spoke like this and we were doing reports

**[00:51:55]** about slave labor from North Korea,

**[00:51:57]** about slave workers, yes, in slave-like conditions,

**[00:51:59]** which North Korea supplies there.

**[00:52:02]** And there were a lot of Chinese in Vladivostok.

**[00:52:05]** One spoke English, so I started talking to him.

**[00:52:07]** I asked him, what are you doing here?

**[00:52:08]** He said, well, we are here on vacation

**[00:52:10]** and we come to see how the Chinese maintain it for us.

**[00:52:13]** Because Vladivostok was part of Manchuria,

**[00:52:16]** when it was Chinese territory before the World War.

**[00:52:20]** So these fears already exist today,

**[00:52:25]** that the Chinese will really come one day.

**[00:52:30]** And then there are the conflicts, or the accessible asepticity

**[00:52:36]** in the East China and South China Seas.

**[00:52:39]** This is a photo from when I was there in 2013.

**[00:52:42]** These are the Senkaku Islands.

**[00:52:44]** The Chinese call them Diaoyu.

**[00:52:46]** These islands have been under Japanese administration

**[00:52:49]** practically since World War II.

**[00:52:53]** Historically, it was the independent Ryukyu Kingdom.

**[00:52:59]** But officially, internationally, they belong

**[00:53:05]** under Japanese law, and China claims them.

**[00:53:11]** I went there

**[00:53:13]** and wrote about it in one of my books.

**[00:53:17]** I was there with Japanese fishermen.

**[00:53:20]** Suddenly, three Chinese ships approached us,

**[00:53:24]** coast guard vessels.

**[00:53:27]** I don't know what they wanted, whether they wanted to sink us,

**[00:53:30]** or what, so that we had to be protected.

**[00:53:32]** Here you see in the first shot the first ships,

**[00:53:34]** the Japanese coast guard, who anytime we...

**[00:53:37]** And the second is Chinese.

**[00:53:38]** And whenever the Chinese tried to get close to us,

**[00:53:41]** the Japanese tried to get between them and us,

**[00:53:45]** to protect us.

**[00:53:47]** Another, but the biggest dispute...

**[00:53:51]** Because the Japanese defend themselves.

**[00:53:53]** The Japanese have very, in my opinion, potent...

**[00:53:56]** They don't call it an army, it's the Self-Defense Forces.

**[00:54:00]** But there are very dangerous situations,

**[00:54:03]** when the Japanese found out that once some Chinese fighters

**[00:54:06]** already had their radars locked on

**[00:54:09]** or even locked onto Japanese fighters,

**[00:54:12]** and it only takes a mistake.

**[00:54:14]** And there will be a skirmish, it will be bad.

**[00:54:16]** Then there is the South China Sea...

**[00:54:18]** I went there in 2014.

**[00:54:21]** These are the Spratly and Paracel Islands,

**[00:54:23]** which are simply

**[00:54:26]** in the Philippine economic zone.

**[00:54:29]** But the Chinese claim them and claim many...

**[00:54:32]** In the South China Sea, there are simply hundreds of islands and reefs.

**[00:54:36]** Seven countries claim it, like in its East Asia.

**[00:54:40]** But then China came and said it's all theirs,

**[00:54:42]** that the entire South China Sea belongs to them, which is complete nonsense.

**[00:54:46]** And on some of the shoals they illegally took over,

**[00:54:49]** for example, the Philippines' economic zone,

**[00:54:51]** they started building islands.

**[00:54:53]** At first, they claimed they were building for tourism.

**[00:54:56]** Today, there are military bases on those islands.

**[00:55:00]** I read in a study that it might be a kind of preparation,

**[00:55:03]** a defensive belt against the United States,

**[00:55:05]** in case of a US-China war, that it's basically a protective wall

**[00:55:08]** in the South China Sea against the United States.

**[00:55:13]** Anyway, they are much more aggressive there.

**[00:55:17]** It has been widely discussed even in Czech media.

**[00:55:20]** There are simply clashes happening there.

**[00:55:22]** China behaves very aggressively there.

**[00:55:24]** Chinese ships are buzzing around.

**[00:55:27]** No fisherman dares to enter those waters anymore.

**[00:55:29]** But they also behave very aggressively towards the Philippine coastal guards and so on.

**[00:55:35]** The ship behind me is Mielčina and Jungin.

**[00:55:38]** And since the Philippines obviously don't have the money

**[00:55:41]** to build artificial islands,

**[00:55:45]** they rammed this ship there about 15 years ago.

**[00:55:50]** This ship was built in 1944 in the United States.

**[00:55:55]** And the ship serves as...

**[00:55:58]** Sorry, the ship basically serves as a base there.

**[00:56:02]** But it's slowly falling apart and the only thing they have to do,

**[00:56:05]** if you see in the picture back there, that's a Chinese ship,

**[00:56:08]** there are three Chinese ships,

**[00:56:10]** that always circle around that shoal.

**[00:56:12]** Here you can see one of those Chinese ships a bit better.

**[00:56:15]** And the Chinese, as you can see, are reserved.

**[00:56:18]** The only thing they have to do is wait until the ship falls apart

**[00:56:22]** and then take the shoal without firing a single shot.

**[00:56:25]** And the ship will fall apart sooner or later.

**[00:56:27]** It already looked pretty bad when I was there seven years ago.

**[00:56:31]** So many people are really afraid of that Chinese assertiveness.

**[00:56:35]** There is a lot of speculation and talk about Taiwan here.

**[00:56:37]** I will return to Taiwan a bit.

**[00:56:45]** So in Asia, there's this fear of some kind of physical conflict,

**[00:56:50]** because China won't stop at Taiwan.

**[00:56:52]** China is interested in Palawan, parts of the Philippines.

**[00:56:55]** I remember, I was just sitting at dinner,

**[00:56:58]** where there was an older retired Chinese army officer.

**[00:57:07]** There were also two Japanese women, it was a kind of dinner,

**[00:57:09]** I don't know who invited that guy.

**[00:57:11]** now in foreign policies, you know that China is on Russia's side,

**[00:57:14]** it was a dinner in Beijing.

**[00:57:16]** About 10 people sat in the restaurant, and the Chinese officer had a few drinks,

**[00:57:21]** and he said, it's not just about 8 Kaku.

**[00:57:26]** One day, all of Japan will be Chinese.

**[00:57:29]** The two girls were completely terrified.

**[00:57:31]** And he said, don't worry, ladies, we have time,

**[00:57:34]** this won't happen in your lifetime.

**[00:57:36]** But we have long-term ambitions and long-term plans.

**[00:57:39]** So many people, as I say,

**[00:57:47]** regarding the Ukrainian conflict.

**[00:57:51]** I call it a marriage of convenience.

**[00:57:58]** I think so.

**[00:58:00]** If I were to describe the long-term relations between Russia and China,

**[00:58:04]** I would describe them with one word: distrust.

**[00:58:07]** Now they are somewhat aligned with North Korea as well.

**[00:58:11]** But even that shows the direction China might take,

**[00:58:14]** or how it appears,

**[00:58:16]** or the character of Chinese foreign policy,

**[00:58:19]** that it supports Russian aggression in Ukraine, but cautiously.

**[00:58:23]** Even though they supply weapons and components for weapon production,

**[00:58:28]** they are very careful about how they describe it.

**[00:58:32]** They always defended themselves when someone asked if they are allies.

**[00:58:35]** They say, we are not allies, we are strategic partners.

**[00:58:38]** It's very important to read exactly what the Chinese say,

**[00:58:41]** because it all has meaning.

**[00:58:44]** And repeatedly, when votes were held at the United Nations against Russia,

**[00:58:48]** China mostly abstained from voting.

**[00:58:51]** They never joined the countries trying to revoke the vote,

**[00:58:56]** or simply vote for Russia.

**[00:58:58]** And even once or twice at the United Nations,

**[00:59:01]** they voted against Russia.

**[00:59:03]** So those are kind of special relationships.

**[00:59:08]** As I said, of course we can't influence it,

**[00:59:12]** but be careful what you wish for.

**[00:59:14]** Like you said, in a world dominated by the United States

**[00:59:18]** or China.

**[00:59:20]** Now I would move on to the next topic,

**[00:59:23]** how China... I talked a bit here,

**[00:59:26]** because most of what is happening in China today

**[00:59:30]** has been happening since 2012, when President Xi Jinping came to power,

**[00:59:36]** who abolished the previous...

**[00:59:39]** He was supposed to end his presidency in 2012,

**[00:59:43]** after the madness of Mao Tse-tung's rule,

**[00:59:47]** after the personality cult of Deng Xiaoping.

**[00:59:49]** They agreed to introduce ten-year terms

**[00:59:53]** for how long a Chinese president could serve.

**[00:59:57]** Xi Jinping abolished that.

**[00:59:59]** He effectively made himself president for life.

**[01:00:00]** I've researched a bit

**[01:00:03]** what Xi Jinping's priorities are, what the current Chinese government's priorities are,

**[01:00:06]** and the number one priority of the Chinese communists is to stay in power.

**[01:00:09]** That is simply the number one priority, at any cost.

**[01:00:12]** Priority number two is

**[01:00:15]** modernizing the Chinese army, which has been ongoing since 2013,

**[01:00:18]** under Xi Jinping's leadership.

**[01:00:21]** I also mentioned that they want to make the transition

**[01:00:24]** to an innovative economy, away from manufacturing,

**[01:00:27]** and build a dominant position in the world,

**[01:00:30]** to change, as I also mentioned, the world order,

**[01:00:33]** the world order,

**[01:00:36]** which is led by the West, or as they see it,

**[01:00:39]** or under the leadership of the United States.

**[01:00:42]** These are the priorities China will try to fulfill

**[01:00:45]** in the coming years.

**[01:00:48]** Since Xi Jinping came to power,

**[01:00:51]** the human rights situation in the country has greatly worsened.

**[01:00:54]** When I was in China, when I arrived there,

**[01:00:57]** there were sometimes dissidents,

**[01:01:00]** some groups of dissidents, there were critics of the regime,

**[01:01:09]** Occasionally, an independent journalist would appear somewhere in the provinces,

**[01:01:12]** reporting on local corruption,

**[01:01:15]** local officials, or on slave labor,

**[01:01:18]** poisoned food, and so on. That's all gone.

**[01:01:21]** Sittinbchin has tightened control significantly,

**[01:01:24]** and all those people who tried

**[01:01:27]** to act independently in any way,

**[01:01:30]** are either in prison, dead, in exile,

**[01:01:33]** or afraid to speak out.

**[01:01:36]** There were beginnings, at the time I experienced it,

**[01:01:39]** of some civil society.

**[01:01:42]** That's all destroyed.

**[01:01:45]** Sittinbchin abolished all non-governmental organizations.

**[01:01:48]** He practically abolished everything

**[01:01:51]** that the Communist Party does not directly control.

**[01:01:54]** He abolished NGOs

**[01:01:57]** that spread information about violence in the world,

**[01:02:00]** physical and sexual violence against

**[01:02:03]** children and women in rural areas.

**[01:02:06]** He abolished nonprofits that in the western Chinese provinces

**[01:02:09]** helped people because there are many

**[01:02:12]** semi-deserts, a lot of dust,

**[01:02:15]** and many eye infections.

**[01:02:18]** They educated people on how to protect themselves and treated them,

**[01:02:21]** but they were not part of the system.

**[01:02:24]** Either he destroyed them or put them under Communist Party control.

**[01:02:27]** So he completely consolidated power.

**[01:02:30]** And under him, the old order became

**[01:02:33]** much more aggressive in the world.

**[01:02:36]** I believe that in the long term, the system

**[01:02:39]** is completely unsustainable.

**[01:02:42]** I spoke with a Chinese political scientist,

**[01:02:45]** not a dissident, but a professor

**[01:02:48]** of political science at a Chinese university,

**[01:02:51]** and he said that what is happening in China today is no longer party politics.

**[01:02:54]** It is clan politics. China today is controlled

**[01:02:57]** by several of the richest clans in the country.

**[01:03:00]** And they all have something on each other.

**[01:03:03]** And they have an agreement

**[01:03:10]** or such rules of triads among themselves.

**[01:03:13]** And when every five years

**[01:03:16]** the Communist Party congresses take place,

**[01:03:19]** when ministries change there,

**[01:03:22]** he said there is no real logic yet.

**[01:03:25]** He said it's a trade of fiefs.

**[01:03:28]** We keep the interior ministry, you take defense,

**[01:03:31]** we exchange trade for that. Industry is simply,

**[01:03:34]** a trade of fiefs. And he said that with this,

**[01:03:37]** when he declared himself president for life,

**[01:03:40]** he broke the triad rules,

**[01:03:43]** because some other clan was probably already sharpening their teeth for that.

**[01:03:46]** And he made a huge number of internal enemies this way.

**[01:03:49]** I heard that today he is as paradoxical and isolated

**[01:03:52]** as Putin, that he changes

**[01:03:55]** his security apparatus around him every month.

**[01:03:58]** So I also hear voices that maybe they will fight

**[01:04:01]** among themselves up there.

**[01:04:04]** Time is running out, I would still like to come a bit

**[01:04:07]** to the elections, where China is heading.

**[01:04:10]** Will China attack Taiwan, how will Chinese cooperation develop?

**[01:04:14]** This will be hugely influenced by the American election

**[01:04:17]** and who will be elected in less than two weeks on November 5th.

**[01:04:21]** So, Xi Jinping is unhappy with both.

**[01:04:24]** Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump.

**[01:04:29]** Because both agree on one thing,

**[01:04:32]** that China is a military, political,

**[01:04:36]** and technological enemy,

**[01:04:40]** an adversary of China.

**[01:04:43]** Now the question is, each approaches it a bit differently.

**[01:04:47]** I would start with Trump, that China

**[01:04:51]** is a bit nervous about Trump if he wins again,

**[01:04:54]** because Trump imposed huge tariffs on China.

**[01:04:58]** He basically started a trade war with China,

**[01:05:01]** which China lost and is losing.

**[01:05:05]** Of course, China took some measures,

**[01:05:09]** which were retaliations, but the impact on the United States

**[01:05:13]** was much smaller, much lighter than the impact on China.

**[01:05:18]** For example, banning semiconductor exports

**[01:05:22]** almost crippled Huawei.

**[01:05:25]** It has strengthened her in the long term because the company had to,

**[01:05:28]** but it almost collapsed.

**[01:05:31]** However, they simply haven't yet reached

**[01:05:35]** the level they were at before,

**[01:05:38]** but they were forced to start looking for resources elsewhere

**[01:05:42]** or start producing them themselves.

**[01:05:44]** So overall, this might strengthen the company in the long run,

**[01:05:47]** because it had to become independent from American suppliers.

**[01:05:51]** But Trump introduced the big tariffs,

**[01:05:56]** the big duties,

**[01:05:59]** and they fear that if he comes back to power,

**[01:06:03]** he will introduce more.

**[01:06:06]** He promises that.

**[01:06:07]** Trump promises he will keep fighting.

**[01:06:09]** He introduced them to reduce, or claimed,

**[01:06:11]** that he introduced them to reduce the trade deficit

**[01:06:14]** with China, which is about 200 billion dollars, I believe.

**[01:06:19]** And now he claims,

**[01:06:23]** this is one of his pre-election promises,

**[01:06:25]** that he will simply impose more tariffs.

**[01:06:27]** He's just rambling.

**[01:06:28]** He says tariffs of 100, 200 up to 1000 percent,

**[01:06:31]** which is complete nonsense.

**[01:06:32]** It was a disaster not only for American industry,

**[01:06:35]** but also for American consumers.

**[01:06:38]** And Biden kept the tariffs that Trump introduced.

**[01:06:44]** Not only did he leave them in place,

**[01:06:46]** he even added more.

**[01:06:48]** Last year, or was it this year,

**[01:06:52]** he imposed a 100 percent tariff on electric cars imported from China.

**[01:07:01]** And what makes Biden,

**[01:07:06]** in this regard, in my opinion, somewhat more dangerous for China,

**[01:07:08]** is that what Trump did,

**[01:07:11]** were just outbursts, impulses.

**[01:07:13]** It was just a shot in the dark.

**[01:07:15]** Biden is much more systematic.

**[01:07:18]** Not only did he keep the tariffs

**[01:07:21]** and introduce new ones, he also forced

**[01:07:24]** many allies in the European Union and Asia

**[01:07:27]** to impose restrictions on the import of certain technologies into China.

**[01:07:31]** And China, in the long run, is the one it would hurt the most.

**[01:07:34]** What China would welcome with Trump is that

**[01:07:38]** Trump repeatedly expressed contempt

**[01:07:43]** for international institutions and directly for his own allies,

**[01:07:47]** or the allies of the United States.

**[01:07:49]** He repeatedly criticized and even threatened

**[01:07:52]** that the United States might leave NATO,

**[01:07:55]** he rightly criticized the United Nations as completely dysfunctional,

**[01:07:58]** but he also attacked and criticized individual countries,

**[01:08:04]** while speaking very approvingly and flatteringly

**[01:08:08]** about dictators, whether it was Kim Jong-un in North Korea,

**[01:08:12]** Xi Jinping, or Putin.

**[01:08:16]** So this is again music to the ears

**[01:08:24]** of the Chinese government,

**[01:08:28]** because they try to undermine Western institutions,

**[01:08:32]** they try to disrupt the unity of the Western community,

**[01:08:36]** and Trump would, in my opinion, help them a lot with that.

**[01:08:39]** From this perspective, they should be much more afraid of Joe Biden,

**[01:08:42]** who has greatly strengthened relations between the United States

**[01:08:48]** and Asian partners like Korea, Japan, Australia,

**[01:08:52]** and especially the Philippines.

**[01:08:55]** Here is another big thing: Biden repeatedly said

**[01:08:59]** that the United States will defend Taiwan.

**[01:09:03]** There are already military studies, such as those prepared by

**[01:09:06]** the Center for International and Strategic Studies,

**[01:09:11]** which developed 8 scenarios of what a war over Taiwan might look like

**[01:09:15]** if the United States gets involved,

**[01:09:17]** and in all 8 scenarios, China loses.

**[01:09:20]** There would be huge losses on the American side,

**[01:09:22]** the Taiwanese side, and the Chinese side,

**[01:09:24]** but Taiwan would lose.

**[01:09:26]** On the other hand, Trump said Taiwan stole American business ships,

**[01:09:37]** which is a complete lie, and that he simply has no German interest in defending Taiwan.

**[01:09:40]** Moreover, Biden not only strengthened alliances with the countries mentioned,

**[01:09:44]** but also created a new community organization

**[01:09:48]** called AUKUS.

**[01:09:50]** Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States.

**[01:09:55]** It is an organization created to strengthen security

**[01:10:00]** in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

**[01:10:02]** So from this perspective

**[01:10:04]** China is more afraid

**[01:10:06]** of Biden

**[01:10:08]** than of Trump.

**[01:10:10]** But still, I think that

**[01:10:12]** they would probably

**[01:10:14]** rather

**[01:10:16]** prefer Trump to win.

**[01:10:18]** Because Trump, being impulsive,

**[01:10:20]** and simply unpredictable,

**[01:10:22]** he is also, as we've seen,

**[01:10:24]** very easily manipulable.

**[01:10:26]** And I think that China and Russia

**[01:10:28]** are absolutely phenomenal manipulators

**[01:10:30]** and would probably be able

**[01:10:32]** to influence him somehow.

**[01:10:34]** So, that's about it.

**[01:10:36]** Sorry for going on a bit too long.

**[01:10:38]** Yeah, you can see that.

**[01:10:40]** And we still have

**[01:10:42]** one last question.

**[01:10:48]** Is China a threat,

**[01:10:50]** an opportunity, or both?

**[01:10:58]** We still have another question here.

**[01:11:10]** There is another one here.

**[01:11:12]** Can I start?

**[01:11:42]** Can I start?

**[01:11:44]** Can I start?

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**[01:20:00]** Before COVID boom. How many Chinese families did you see, for example?

**[01:20:04]** Almost none. These are all just groups, everything is shared within groups.

**[01:20:08]** They have a bit of a mentality, but what really struck me,

**[01:20:12]** They're just normal people like us.

**[01:20:16]** Of course, there are many nationalists there, there are

**[01:20:20]** really nationalists, there are racists who basically

**[01:20:24]** internally believe they are the best race in the world.

**[01:20:28]** But for example, with those people in the countryside,

**[01:20:32]** if you spend some time with them and they get used to you,

**[01:20:36]** they start talking to you like someone they've known for a long time.

**[01:20:40]** They always treated us very nicely, very kindly,

**[01:20:44]** and I realized they just want the same thing. They want

**[01:20:48]** at least a decent livelihood, so they don't go hungry,

**[01:20:52]** they want their children to have a better life, they want the young people to have that,

**[01:20:56]** and people are just people.

**[01:21:00]** Humanism, in my opinion, is exactly the same everywhere.

**[01:21:04]** That's why I also have hope for China, because there...

**[01:21:08]** I always say that Chinese people know how to endure.

**[01:21:12]** But every suffering has its limits. And I think

**[01:21:16]** part of humanity, part of being human,

**[01:21:20]** is the innate desire for freedom.

**[01:21:24]** I believe it's an inseparable part of our very DNA,

**[01:21:30]** so those people give me hope.

**[01:21:34]** I talked with Lenka Hrabalová,

**[01:21:38]** a lady who deals with

**[01:21:42]** Asian culture, Africa, and so on,

**[01:21:46]** and the Quran and Islam, and by the way, she will be a guest.

**[01:21:50]** So that's basically it.

**[01:21:54]** So that's basically it.

**[01:21:58]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:02]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:06]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:10]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:14]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:18]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:22]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:26]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:30]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:34]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:38]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:42]** So that's basically it.

**[01:22:46]** So that's basically it.

**[01:23:16]** So that's basically it.

**[01:23:20]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:24]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:28]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:32]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:36]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:40]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:23:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:24:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:24:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:25:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:25:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:26:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:26:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:27:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:27:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:28:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:28:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:29:14]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:29:44]** So that's basically everything.

**[01:30:00]** millions of people. There is a huge amount of talent.

**[01:30:03]** Talent like scientific,

**[01:30:06]** there are simply, in my opinion,

**[01:30:09]** very capable people. The Chinese are incredibly hardworking people.

**[01:30:12]** And I would

**[01:30:15]** really like to see some kind of cooperation,

**[01:30:18]** a greater cooperation between China

**[01:30:21]** and the rest of the world. But I fear that in the near

**[01:30:23]** future this is not possible, because China

**[01:30:25]** doesn't play fair, China doesn't follow international laws,

**[01:30:28]** doesn't honor international agreements. And when China,

**[01:30:31]** and I've heard this from various businessmen,

**[01:30:34]** whether American, Swiss,

**[01:30:37]** or even Czech, tells you it's a win-win situation,

**[01:30:40]** you know you've lost.

**[01:30:43]** So I always say,

**[01:30:46]** that China will truly become a superpower

**[01:30:49]** only when the Chinese

**[01:30:52]** are free. When they can think freely.

**[01:30:56]** Chinese science is growing, China is much more significant,

**[01:30:59]** but I always give this example.

**[01:31:02]** Japan, which has ten times fewer inhabitants than China,

**[01:31:05]** since 1945, since World War II,

**[01:31:08]** has won about 627 Nobel Prizes in sciences.

**[01:31:13]** China has one. It was awarded to a female doctor about ten years ago

**[01:31:17]** for her first research on applying traditional Chinese medicine

**[01:31:20]** to malaria treatment. Research she did in the 1950s.

**[01:31:23]** Yes, China has scientists.

**[01:31:28]** Let me put it this way. China does not. There are Chinese scientists,

**[01:31:31]** who have Nobel Prizes, but they don't live or work in China.

**[01:31:34]** They work at American and British universities.

**[01:31:37]** So I think that once the potential of that society is unleashed,

**[01:31:40]** we will truly see huge growth,

**[01:31:45]** how talented the country is, what it is capable of.

**[01:31:49]** How not to just talk about the collar or the muzzle

**[01:31:54]** of those communist parties.

**[01:31:56]** Tomáš Hetzler. Thank you very much, Tomáš.

**[01:31:58]** Thank you.

**[01:32:13]** Thank you very much. Thanks for watching us.

**[01:32:18]** I would ask you for feedback.

**[01:32:21]** If you could vote on how you liked today's breakfast,

**[01:32:25]** and also one word, again, like at the beginning,

**[01:32:29]** and at the end, that came to your mind,

**[01:32:32]** we would really appreciate that word cloud.

**[01:32:35]** I'll quickly skip through it.

**[01:32:38]** A lecture is a great thing.

**[01:32:42]** Better is a lecture followed by a discussion.

**[01:32:46]** So if you are somewhere in a group or watching with a friend,

**[01:32:50]** try to sit down with your close colleagues,

**[01:32:53]** try to discuss what you heard,

**[01:32:56]** try to touch on some aha moments,

**[01:32:58]** we have guides online,

**[01:33:00]** so you can download the right questions,

**[01:33:02]** or they are here under this broadcast.

**[01:33:04]** So definitely think about it.

**[01:33:07]** We also offer you such a circle and discussion

**[01:33:12]** and we regularly offer it after every classic breakfast

**[01:33:15]** Brian Breakfast and the discussion is called

**[01:33:17]** Brian Breakfast Digestive.

**[01:33:19]** Tomáš and I warmly invite you on 8.11.

**[01:33:24]** to such a discussion, where we deliberately invited

**[01:33:29]** Vladimír Dzura, whom you might remember

**[01:33:32]** from the important Brain&Breakfast breakfast

**[01:33:35]** about former Yugoslavia, the war there,

**[01:33:37]** and also Pepa Holý, who promotes democracy in the network scanner.

**[01:33:40]** And the theme of this discussion line should be

**[01:33:42]** totalitarian regime communism, hate speech,

**[01:33:44]** and actually social networks and Echo Chambers,

**[01:33:47]** and then how it can ultimately end up

**[01:33:50]** in the aftermath of major catastrophes.

**[01:33:55]** So this is a line we would open there.

**[01:33:58]** So if you have the time and interest,

**[01:34:02]** then on 8.11. at 10 a.m., it's Friday,

**[01:34:04]** definitely join us.

**[01:34:06]** And of course, in addition to the classic breakfasts,

**[01:34:09]** I add the business ones, so pay attention especially you, companies,

**[01:34:13]** we have topics that we offer you

**[01:34:16]** very regularly.

**[01:34:19]** The following ones are a follow-up with Palav Pumperla,

**[01:34:21]** Trends and Technologies of the Future with Michal Šraer,

**[01:34:25]** so you can look forward to this.

**[01:34:28]** Red Button, many projects, one of them

**[01:34:30]** is Book of the Month, so here Honza Řezáč

**[01:34:33]** recommended another book, so read it,

**[01:34:37]** it's a good thing.

**[01:34:41]** And I would like to announce the next breakfast,

**[01:34:43]** it will be a bit different again, I believe it will be just as good

**[01:34:49]** as today's, and Ondra Kobza accepted the invitation.

**[01:34:55]** Ondra is an undeniably inspiring person,

**[01:34:59]** because I received a lot of feedback,

**[01:35:03]** hey, I should do a breakfast

**[01:35:05]** about connecting people, about how you do it in the community and such,

**[01:35:07]** and I think Ondra is the right partner

**[01:35:10]** to show how to build a bridge,

**[01:35:13]** where people eat together on Charles Bridge

**[01:35:16]** and many of his projects you may have heard of

**[01:35:19]** or maybe not, so it will be Ondra Kobza,

**[01:35:22]** and it will be on 21.11. in November at 8:30,

**[01:35:24]** here traditionally at Magenta Experience Center,

**[01:35:28]** or watch us via live stream.

**[01:35:34]** And many thanks, Tom, once again to you,

**[01:35:37]** many thanks to you, thank you for watching us,

**[01:35:40]** take care, bye and see you.

**[01:35:42]** See you.

**[01:35:43]** Thank you.

**[01:35:44]** You'll come back to life after all.

**[01:35:45]** Thank you.

**[01:36:04]** www.arkance-systems.cz