Economist on the Future of China and What the West Misunderstands | Amanpour and Company | by 700ETH | Jun, 20...
now the United States and China are looking to reset relations as the U.S Secretary of State prepares to visit Beijing this weekend the trip comes months after the meeting was canceled when the U.S shot down a Chinese spy balloon over its airspace our next guest was born in China educated in the United States and she is a world-renowned economist k.
u Jin traces China's rise and relationship with the West in her new book and she's joining Walter Isaacson with her valuable perspective thank you Christian and KU Jen welcome to the show thank you great to be with you Walter the news in the past few days has been about China perhaps developing a listening or spy station in Cuba that comes on the heels of the balloons that perhaps China sent over that were surveillance balloons as somebody was born in China has three degrees from Harvard now lives in London and Beijing you understand this relationship well to
what extent is there something alarming about the increase in surveillance or is that just a normal order of business between the two countries that we should live with well I think very few people would disagree with a statement that everybody spies on everybody but to be fair you know it is China is a rising Nation with Rising aspirations and as we've seen throughout history all of these Rising Nations have had their Global agenda and China certainly wants to have a greater say in the global Norms in order and it's often
interpreted as aggressive tactics and acts but the Chinese also have their own perspective they consider their influence in the region to be increasingly important yes they probably have aspirations to diminish U.S power and influence in what they believe to be their sphere of influence as we know from the Monroe Doctrine way back the U.
S always also interested in ousting European powers as it became a much stronger Nation but leaving all that aside I think you know in the short term the Chinese and Americans are pointing fingers each other and talking past each other but most recently they do have a desire to stabilize the relationship for their own good and to take the temperature down well the big news in the coming weeks will be the fact that Secretary of State Anthony blinken is traveling to China a trip that was canceled earlier on or postponed earlier on because of the balloon surveillance
issue what do you think he should say on that trip and do you have hopes that that will lower the temperature in this confrontation look the dialogue channels has to be open as in any relationship as we all know communication is key here but they have to start really having substantive uh dialogue and there is also a Chinese perspective on this for the whole list of U.
S grievance on China there's a similar one of Chinese grievances against the US and so the dialogue needs to be kept open but the U.S should also focus on specific issues specific areas where China is pushed to to negotiate or change rather than having all this tension corrode the entire economic and trading relationship and the world economy I think that China believes it's New Normal now with U.
S restrictions on technology but they do have hope that trading and investment relationships can resume normality and further talks about discussions on collaboration and China has also accepted it as a new normal that these technology restrictions are simply going to be around but for the US is China going to go away no what fundamental misunderstandings do you think that Americans have about China well how the model works the unique economic system the fact that there's just a centralized State With An Almighty centralized system with An
Almighty State I think I think they often miss the very creative entrepreneurial on the ground decentralized mechanisms that China has made China very successful an early reformer and the Innovative power but I think we also miss a cultural and historical lens this is why Americans Chinese will look at the same question and come to radically different conclusions for one the tolerance of State in some cases the Chinese State intervention is not only expected they are also desired but the same actions would be totally intolerable to other
cultures so we come back with a different take on the similar issues and this is why we keep on talking past each other by not seeing the other's perspective do you think that also exists the other way which is that China's leadership or the Chinese people have some fundamental misunderstandings about the U.
S absolutely I think the fundamental understanding that the U.S wants to suppress China's growth wants to hold back China's growth is is also misplaced I think the Chinese government underestimates the scope and room for dialogue and to ease tensions with China negotiating and giving up some and also the huge impact that China could have by opening up its economy further and much more enthusiastically to American businesses let them make money give them Level Playing Fields I think these could be real accomplishments and the American
businessmen will then go on and Lobby their governments so I think there's a lot more to do but from the Chinese perspective it's almost like this is it there's nothing we can approve on there is no ground for for really improving the relationship and I think that's mistaken one of the misunderstandings we had I think was that if we had a greater trade relationships with China if they were more networked into the world if they became part of the World Trade Organization which they did that would
lead to a gradual liberalization in China it's worked the other way why is that and was that a misunderstanding well I think the common assumption that somehow globalization will bring convergences of All Sorts apart from economic convergence was probably a mistake and this is not just of China but many other countries and cultures where their peoples are are firmly rooted to their local communities and uh China after the WTO is still very much Chinese that hasn't changed there's Super Love official levels of
convergence the new generation they aspire to the American lifestyle to a certain degree they like Hollywood and NBA but their identity is still firmly local and the fact that 80 percent of these uh half a million students studying abroad every year returning to native soil is an indication of that even though they have great economic opportunities elsewhere and I think yes you're absolutely right political liberalization has totally stalled but we also have to ask you know what does a new generation want yes they have a very
different appetite for consumption and borrowing compared to their risk-averse parents generation but politically what is their mentality now there are many International surveys that show they're much more open-minded and socially conscious and I think there is a lot more conversions of social values of the new generation around the world where the Chinese but they also look abroad and do not find inspiration they don't look at Western liberal democracies as Paragons of success or the other democracies that were transposed onto
native soil as models that they aspire to instead the appetite again for stability for government accountability for economic opportunities is still dominant in their thinking one of the values of the United States a sort of a moral compass is that Liberties Free Press democracy these are good in and of themselves are you saying this new more Cosmopolitan generation of Chinese don't really believe that I don't think that's true I'm not suggesting that in any way I think they they would want to have a Freer and more
open Society I think that is the desire that the general public have uh on the uh for the for China um but um and I think these values are evolving I just don't think that anything we should treat as totally cultural totally indigenous and that things won't change that's not that's not the case I think if you look at China in the 1990s there was a totally very liberal era and people were debating and talking about all kinds of things so I'm not suggesting that these are fixed uh preferences but I'm what
I'm saying is that first of all if they had to choose and I'm not saying there's necessarily A trade-off between freedom and security as International surveys a show 95 of the Chinese population choose security over freedom in the U.S 37 will make the same choice you you talk about surveys you talk about the opinions that the younger generation have some of that's in your book to what extent are those surveys something that's reliable to what extent would you or for that matter a younger person in China want to
speak out against the state well these are World value surveys which are widely recognized and used and as random selection as possible they're also American economists or sociologists own a gathering of data there's a wide range of sources that would basically suggest the same it's true that the new generation has aspirations for more liberalism but it's interesting that their sentiment towards the U.
S or Western democracies did also make a turn in 2017 and that's during Trump era so we can't underestimate how the external environment and what's perceived to be greater pressure on China the kind of idea that somehow the West doesn't want China to become a richer nation and other developing countries that really do shift their preference and their sentiment and shape their their their their their understandings uh and so we can't unders estimate that as well so I think I think we can't take these
preferences as given but the external environment their observations have made them come to a conclusion that maybe uh the Western democracy doesn't really suit China you say that some of the reaction that's happened in China against the liberalization that it occurred 20 years ago or so happened out of reaction to Donald Trump a reaction to what the U.
S did but to what extent is it uh XI jinpen's own values that have changed and to what extent might China change after he's no longer in power well the one thing is true is that China has been constantly evolving adapting and adjusting and maybe because the West has been so focused on the same three set of issues that they have often missed the vast changes and the evolution and yes we can maybe say that there are some preferences on the top that are that are imposed on the general public um but you know China faces a real challenge it's no longer the country
where the entire population uh revolves around one goal Which is higher income and more GDP it's becoming a much more complex Nation with individual preferences uh diverse diverse opinions and how do you manage a greater complex society is going to be the key critical challenge for the leadership going forward and it's not going to be easy if you look at the youth unemployment rate 25 of people with bachelor's degree without a job I mean that is really signaling social instability issues but also don't underestimate the Chinese
government in their rapidity and Swift adjustment to policies in the U.S policies take a time take a long time to change but the parties chain in China parties the party doesn't change but policies can change very quickly if the government has their mind on something and they believe that's the right thing to do things will happen uh swiftly so never read anything as being permanent even these rhetoric or the Ambitions the grandiose messages they're not permanent they're always recalibrated fine-tuned
to fit the circumstances and accommodate the reality you talk about a 25 unemployment rate among young people people have just graduated from college that seems explosive why is that happening is that a basic economic problem and what could that mean it is very high stunningly High because the world average is around 14.
5 percent of youth unemployment I think there are some short-term economic reasons uh the economy is doing very poorly in China but I think the more General problem is that diplomas have raced ahead of the economy the Chinese economy is still very much manufacturing base they don't need that many Bachelor degrees but what they do need is vocational technical skill training especially when China aspires to be a giant Germany with this industrial power at the same time there's youth unemployment there's 30 million manufacturing jobs to be filled
by 2025 and every year 300 000 skill Gap in the semiconductors industry so it's really a skill education mismatch and also the big Chasm lies in the expectations and reality the difference between expectations and reality for for the Youth they have high expectations they went to get a college degree and yet they have only jobs as nannies or as a worker and a cigarette manufacturing company and that really leads to disappointment a lost reduced expectations and that affects the families as well and that's a sign a
real sign to be aware of the Chinese lived under zero covid policies for I think it was almost three years and the government seemed to begin to Pivot away from that following the policy the protests of the two weeks of protest how did the covet zero policy impact the relationship between the state and the people and what does it show about the Chinese government that it would really do a pirouette on this issue I think in the beginning early stages of the pandemic the Chinese public were generally supportive of the of the
controls in place and saw China as a success but as we know as the virus evolved the policies did not evolve and that became a huge problem and towards the very end you know people were losing jobs they weren't having any income and they were pretty much fed up with the lockdowns and in a very surprising turn you saw how the people's voices and people's preferences ultimately you can say it was way too slow but it did move the government it did change the government way faster than anyone had ever expected and so I think that it is
one example of this feedback and and this this most important thing is that the Communist Party the boast stays afloat because of the Sea of people so that's something that is really important in China and so they always have to answer to the vast majority not every single individual Chinese but the vast majority and if they're not happy it will topple the boat so do remember that about China let me read you a sentence from your book that I found fascinating you said about China its Ambitions do not include exporting its
ideology or foisting its development model on the rest of the world that in some way sets it apart from what we always thought about Russia for the past whatever 400 years that it wanted to spread its ideological models that also is unlike the U.S which from the days of Woodrow Wilson to the days of George W bush and Joe Biden has felt that we're supposed to spread democracy do you see that as a fundamental Clash China is more practical it understands that its unique model is impossible to be replicated elsewhere so it doesn't
strive to do so but it does also believe that some of the developmental lessons that it can impart on developing countries could be important for instance like infrastructure development on which it has a great amount of expertise but I don't think spreading ideologies is really a goal for China but you know this leadership especially the past generation of leadership have eminently practical we have to remember that 80 of the global population still lives in developing countries so China wants to work more with developing
countries and I think Chinese technology is eminently more suitable for developing countries than many American or european ones but and you can say that the current leadership is more ideological but it's more internally driven rather than trying to replicate trying to want to replicate or export some ideals into the rest of the world KU Jen thank you so much for joining us thank you [Music] foreign
