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Telesur English presents a new episode of “China Now”, a wave media's production that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian Giant.
China Now is a show that explores the past and future of the Asian Giant.
Join teleSUR's community and be part of a space where your ideas matter.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, Telesur English presents a new episode of China Now, a Wave Media's production that
00:09showcases the culture, technology and politics of the Asian giant.
00:13In this first segment, the Thinkers' Forum welcomes Michael Brenner, Professor of International
00:18Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, to discuss about the meaning of political system
00:23based upon the principle of popular sovereignty.
00:53In some sense, it was a political system based upon the principle of popular sovereignty,
01:00multi-democratic representative institutions, and so forth.
01:04That was unique in the world at the time.
01:09And so the United Americans have always been very self-conscious about what they believe
01:13to be their exceptionalism, and in some sense, the superiority in terms of political virtue.
01:19And there's always been a great underlying or two versions of how this might express
01:25itself in regard to the rest of the world, either as an example, as a model of what could
01:32be accomplished, or as an agent, or actually as a combination of the two.
01:38You know, the former notion is associated with the first, presented by George Washington
01:45in his farewell address, and he spoke explicitly, the United States should avoid the great power
01:51games, the entangling alliances of the old world, wanting to separate itself from that
01:58and believe that it could.
01:59At the same time, over the course of the 19th century, the United States did pursue an expansionist
02:06policy in North America.
02:09It started the war with Mexico in 1848, which was a war of conquest.
02:15It started the war on a flimsy pretext against Spain in 1898, and so on.
02:22But the country as a whole did not seem to have as having global ambitions, until World
02:30War I came.
02:31And of course, after World War I, there was, you know, a well-known version from a global
02:39role in leadership of the United States, and by that time become the dominant financial
02:44power and played a significant role with reparations and all of that after the war.
02:52The great sea change came in World War II, and after World War II, with the post-war
02:58period, the United States as a whole, leaders and populists accepted that it was a world
03:05power.
03:06But the thought of itself as a world power with good intentions that would create what
03:13the social scientists called public goods, that is, conditions that would serve everybody's
03:20interests, not just the self-interest of the United States, and of course, the two, in
03:27American minds, merged.
03:28So, therefore, what was in America's self-interest was also in the world's interest.
03:37And so, the United States became a global power, you know, at that time, and the Cold
03:40War, etc.
03:41After the Cold War, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in a way, the question, you
03:47know, reopened itself, what would the United States position on the world?
03:52There were very few voices saying that we should retreat again or greatly diminish our
03:59presence.
04:00Instead, what you got was a dedication to a far-reaching program to promote liberal
04:09values, political and economic, across the expanse of the former Soviet Union and around
04:18the world.
04:20And this conformed very nicely to American philosophy, American ideals, and so forth.
04:32There was also a hard-nosed Realpolitik aspect to it.
04:38And there were, if you want to see a seminal document of this Realpolitik version of an
04:48American commitment to reshaping the world in its own image, you look at the famous memorandum
04:57called Paul Wolfowitz.
05:00Paul Wolfowitz, you recognize that name?
05:02He was a figure in the Defense Department, he was a leader of the group, of the school
05:08of thought we now call the neoconservatives or neocons.
05:13He wrote a memorandum in February of 1991, in which he laid out in detail a comprehensive
05:25program for what today we would call American hegemony.
05:32And he said this was a unique historical opportunity to achieve one, complete security for the
05:41United States, two, this is the predominance, almost globally, of American and Western values
05:52in Western-style institutions, political and economic, and so forth.
05:59And as part of this, the United States has to be actively engaged in every region of
06:04the world.
06:07And Wolfowitz's doctrine, if you want to call it that, argued in very traditional power
06:15political terms, not in traditional American idealist terms.
06:20They had this merger, you know, this convergence of both the idealistic strength, the United
06:26States was going to lighten the path, shed light on the path of enlightenment, democratic
06:34institutions and prosperity and international cooperation, and the West would be the custodians
06:43of this, and the United States would be the lead agent, that was the idealistic version.
06:49The Wolfowitz version, and the followers who have since prevailed, was the United States
06:57simply has to use its predominant power to create this world.
07:03And that meant preventing any rival from arising that could challenge the United States.
07:12And this might entail diplomatic, political, economic, and also coercive military action.
07:23And that's where the idea came out of, not just preemptible, but preventable.
07:30And that is to use coercive means, whether they be military or otherwise, depending on
07:36the circumstances in the region and so forth, to prevent the emergence of any hostile nation
07:45or grouping of nations who could oppose and resist and thwart this grand American strategy.
07:55One expression of this was in NATO enlargement.
07:59NATO enlargement from the very beginning was predicated on the notion that Russia was a
08:07separate entity and should not be included, or should not be included in what would become
08:14pan-European institutions, which is Gorbachev and subsequent Russian leaders, actually down
08:24to Mr. Putin, and always heard and expected.
08:29But instead, you get this core NATO alliance and these other European countries absorbed
08:36into NATO and its accompanying economic and political collectivist institutions.
08:47And Russia was to be kept marginalized and weak.
08:50At best, it would be like a country cousin, which is an American phrase, I guess, a second-class
09:00citizen in the future, and economically, of course, everybody desired its vast natural resources.
09:09Over time, this was 1991, at the time that it was leaked, it was thought to be embarrassing.
09:17I was in Paris at the time giving a talk at the French military, and President then George
09:27W. H. Bush, the elder Bush, publicly said, no, no, this is not American policy, and so on.
09:35What happened over the ensuing 30-odd years is that the Wolfowitz view of the world and
09:43conception of American global interest and American strategy has prevailed and is now pervasive.
09:54And almost all of the American foreign policy community bases their thinking on premises that
10:05were built into an underlay and were the foundation of the Wolfowitz doctrine,
10:13which means that the United States and the thinking, American sort of, you know,
10:18geostrategic policymakers and the Pentagon as well, because the Pentagon actually took on the,
10:24developed their own version of this, which was to have escalation dominance in every region of the
10:30world, including Central Asia. Even Hillary Clinton at one point talked about making Afghanistan
10:38an American-leaning, adapted, stumbling block to the Belt and Road Initiative.
10:50And the United States at that time, in the 2000s, was very active, trying to win over Uzbekistan
10:58and Kyrgyzstan and, you know, the Stanislaus, absolutely absurd, of course.
11:06Because that gives an indication of how expensive were these ambitions and the conception
11:13of what would represent American hegemony, which is increasingly divorced from reality,
11:24increasingly improbable of success, which has produced failure after failure,
11:32but which now maintains, still maintains its hold on the thinking of the U.S. government.
11:42I'm going to simplify things somewhat. So, the big question is, how do you,
11:49one, what are the implications, and how do you get out of this trap? Go back to the failures.
11:54United States, in terms of interventions in the Middle East, it failed in Iraq and caused
12:02incredible havoc in the region. Iraq just wants the United States to get off its territory now.
12:09It failed in Syria. It failed ignominiously in Afghanistan. And, of course, those failures in
12:17the Middle East are now becoming much deeper and deeper because of this quite illogical
12:23willingness to act as an accomplish to Israel, which has lost it, as you know,
12:31much of its standing in the world, certainly its moral standing, etc., outside of,
12:39you know, the West, as rather narrowly defined. And, of course, its greatest failure,
12:50which it doesn't recognize, was to provide very powerful incentives for Russia and China to become
13:00very deep partners. I mean, after all, the opening to China in 1972 was meant to deepen the visions
13:10between the Soviet Union and China. And, to some extent, you know, it worked. That was a very
13:16complicated triangle. In a less dramatic way, it would certainly be the United States' interest in
13:23any conventional, traditional, strategic thinking, at least not to encourage
13:34Russia and China to become close partners. Until very recently, the United States did entertain
13:41the idea that it could separate, keep them separate, even after it became evident
13:50that their interests were converging. Their primary and common interest being to prevent
13:56American domination, obviously. So, they, you know, even under President Biden,
14:06before the Ukraine war, Secretary, not Biden himself, Secretary Blinken, you know, went to
14:14Moscow. And, in effect, said to the Russians, look, you guys should really be afraid of the Chinese.
14:24You know, look how strong they are, their vast economy, you have all these empty lands in Siberia
14:32and so forth. And don't forget the Mongols and so forth. You know, you'd be very careful. Why don't
14:42you simply hang around with us? Of course, you'd be in a subordinate position.
14:51We'd offer them nothing in the way of serious incentives,
14:55you know, Russians. And, of course, the Russian response was, Ukraine, go to hell.
15:03Polite, polite language. But the fact that the American leaders retained these fantasies
15:11right up to a few years ago is hard evidence of how divorced American strategic thinking has
15:20become, divorced from reality. And then, you know, its messages to, you know, your government
15:29in China have been equally unrealistic, you know. And this hasn't been really very, very professional.
15:38I mean, there's constant, you know, the constant, you know, you state publicly,
15:44United States recognizes the one China principle. Well, the United States does everything it can
15:51to secure Taiwan's autonomy and independence. I mean, this is childish. It's not just
16:00ineffectual. I mean, you know, you'd have to believe that the Chinese leadership are absolute
16:08what? I mean, low IQ, you know, idiots to not see the contradiction.
16:19So, as the United States has become locked into this deeply flawed and impossible
16:28strategy of subduing its rivals in Russia and China, as absolutely necessary to maintain and
16:39extend the American global dominance, it's accompanied by a very unprofessional
16:47diplomacy. The United States, as Ambassador Freeman, Chas Freeman, has said many times
16:53frequently, he says the United States does not conduct diplomacy anymore.
16:57It issues, you know, it takes unilateral action. So, it issues demands, gives instructions
17:05and so forth. Now, that's the situation within. Now, I have a few ideas of my own.
17:15We have a short break now, but we'll be right back. Stay with us.
17:24Welcome back to China Now. Thinkers Forum welcomes also Yi Meng, Professor of Economics
17:42at Shanghai Yaotong University, and David Hertz, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye
17:48to discuss the challenges of the present world. Let's see.
17:54Donald Trump's policy, this so-called forbidden to sell computer chips to China,
18:08is a very destructive way to compete and will eventually help China and destroy the U.S.
18:14The reason I give to them is the following. I said, if you look at the U.S. own industrialization
18:20policy, and then look at the history of the rise of Europe, look at the UK and Germany,
18:26for example, and Japan, and look at China, as I said earlier, every successful nation
18:32has relied on, you know, in one way or another, industrial policy. China has gone all the way
18:38from rural industry, also called the township village enterprises, all the way to high-speed
18:44rails, and all the way to sort of frontier. But China still has the last mile to travel
18:51in terms of before becoming the leader of technology innovation. And this last mile
18:57to travel actually is the high-precision equipment and computer chips. And if China
19:03would want to use the traditional approach, which was used by the U.S. in the 19th century,
19:09used by the UK in its history, and Japan, China should do the following. To violate every possible
19:15WTO agreement, to set up high tariff laws against importing U.S. or foreign computer chips,
19:23so as to protect China's domestic computer chip market and incentivize Chinese firms
19:30to engage in chip production. Even though this is going to take a long time for China to catch up,
19:35and this is going to utilize China's huge domestic market to facilitate competition
19:41among Chinese firms to upgrade their chip technology. But this is very expensive, and
19:46the government also needs to spend a lot of money to facilitate this process. But however, because of
19:53the WTO agreement, the Chinese government dared not to do that. And if China starts to do that,
19:59I think every nation as a member of WTO will sue against China and will kick China out of WTO,
20:06because this is an obvious violation of WTO agreement. So China could not do that. But if
20:13China does not do that, China will never be able to develop its own chip industry and will always
20:19rely on foreign imported computer chips. But it turns out that has been the case, and the U.S. is
20:25the largest beneficiary of this kind of global trade. The U.S. designs computer chips, and some
20:32other economies produce it, and China purchases it. And China is the largest market to absorb
20:39this kind of chip industry output. So I think that situation ideally should be long-lasting.
20:45But it turns out that Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, decided to destroy that. Donald
20:49Trump says that, you know, hey, I want to help you, China. I'm not going to sell you any computer
20:54chips. And from now on, you have to rely on your own to innovate, to invent, to produce, to design
21:01your own computer chips. So I told my American colleagues, actually, that's good news for China.
21:07You know, China wanted to do that by setting up high tariffs to protect the chip industry and
21:14spending 10, 20, 30 years to develop that. But China could not do that. And China also lacks
21:21national will to do that. You know, if the government says, we want to do this,
21:25all the private sector will revolt against the government. But Donald Trump is actually
21:31creating a magical policy to help China. Say, you know, I don't want to sell you computer chips. Now
21:38you're on your own. This gives China the greatest possible opportunity and strong willpower to
21:46develop its own computer chips. And even though in the short run, it's going to be very painful
21:51for China, but in the long run, China will be the biggest winner and the U.S. will be the biggest
21:57loser in this regard. So I think this is fundamentally the largest possible strategic
22:04mistake made by the U.S. government. You know, and the Biden administration, unfortunately,
22:11inherited this Donald Trump policy and keep doing this kind of policy. There's a view that,
22:16you know, the Chinese economy has already peaked. I think that view is completely inconsistent with
22:22the history of industrialization. As I mentioned earlier, you know, China is still in the process
22:28of finishing its industrial revolution or industrialization. You know, if we further
22:34divide the process of industrialization into several stages, we can call the first stage,
22:40you know, the textile light industrial revolution and the railroad or steel-led heavy industrial
22:47revolution. And then the so-called IT technology-led third industrial revolution. Today, AI
22:55and new energy-led fourth industrial revolution. But, you know, based on my research of economic
23:01history, any nation, if we want to become modernized, you cannot just directly jump
23:07into fourth industrial revolution. You still have to repeat the earlier waves of industrial
23:13revolution to be successful, because every earlier wave of industrial revolution created the market
23:20condition for the second or the next industrial revolution to take place, because that requires
23:25a market condition for all type of new technology to be profitable. Now China's entering the race of,
23:32you know, fourth industrial revolution on a par with the U.S. So even though China now is already
23:39entering this race of fourth industrial revolution, but China has not completely finished its earlier
23:46phases. For example, China still has a large agricultural sector which is not completely
23:52modernized. And leaving China with still about 30 percent, around 30 percent or even more population
23:59living in the rural area. So China still has a huge room to develop and to finish its industrialization
24:07process. And today, China's average per capita income is still at the average level of the globe,
24:14and it's not high-income economy yet. But what gives me the confidence that China is able to
24:21fill that gap and completely finish the earlier phase of industrial revolution was based on the
24:27three observations. Number one, China has followed the right industrial sequence or industrial policy.
24:34The second most important aspect is the state capacity. And China clearly still keeps that
24:41state capacity, and that's a very important critical element. And many developing countries
24:47now, we see they are not able to develop, and they fall into the so-called poverty trap
24:52or middle-income trap. It's precisely the lack of state capacity, which is not the case in China.
24:59And the third most important element, which I view very importantly to support my argument
25:06to be optimistic about China, is that technology development mostly comes from learning by doing,
25:13not from universities, not from schools. Therefore, in a sense, the most important university is not
25:20on school campus, but it's in the manufacturing sector. And China has the world's largest
25:26manufacturing sector ever in human history. That created the largest learning opportunity
25:33and opportunity for innovation in China. China's universities, of course,
25:39still look backward compared to U.S. universities. But if you look at U.S. history,
25:45fundamental science was never an important issue for the government in the 19th century.
25:52In the 19th century, the U.S. government never paid attention to fundamental research.
25:56They just applied the scientific research from Europe to their economy. They tried to become
26:03the number one manufacturing center. And it is only after the U.S. became the manufacturing center
26:09that their innovative capacity started to explode. Earlier, they were just simply a follower
26:15or mimicking European technology. But once they moved into the frontier of manufacturing,
26:22the U.S. was forced to become the leader, and the opportunity for innovation also became
26:28widely open. That's also the case in China. And that's the foundation for China to become
26:34one of the most innovative nations in science, even in basic science, in the future.
26:41A lot of people say that China became the factory of the world, became the center of
26:47global manufacturing, was because of WTO. I think that view is biased, because China became
26:57the number one nation in terms of capacity and market for textiles by 1995. In other words,
27:07in 1995, six years before China joined WTO, China was already the world's number one
27:15textile producer and exporter. Therefore, six years later, when China joined WTO,
27:21China was ready to exploit or utilize the global market. Whereas other developing countries,
27:30such as India, they joined WTO earlier than China did, but there was very little effect.
27:38The most important reason was because those nations were not ready at all. Their government
27:45did not, or they failed, to nurture the correct industry using correct industrial policy.
27:51But China started to nurture the textile industry, started in economy reform by 1979.
28:01And so with almost 15 years of continuous government nurturing, and facilitation,
28:09and assistance, China's textile industry developed very rapidly. Earlier, it was led by
28:17SOEs, state-owned textile factories. Later on, it was led by private enterprises. But even private
28:24enterprises also needed government help for them to grow rapidly and in a healthy manner.
28:32So therefore, the very reason WTO served as an important juncture for China to become
28:39the center of manufacturing was not because of WTO per se. It was rather because of China's
28:47government industrial policy to facilitate and to develop the textile industry before that.
28:54Now China's industrial revolution is featuring automobiles, and China's EV cars,
29:02and China's solar panel, new energy technology, now is the leader of the world.
29:08The Chinese government started to nurture, facilitate new energy technology back 10 or
29:15even 20 years ago. And so there has been a long history and preparation for China to develop
29:22and to innovate in this industry. Chinese government has provided lots of financial
29:28support to build lots of infrastructure, which is required for EV cars to function
29:36smoothly and to be commercializable and to be accessible and user-friendly by household.
29:44And without those industrial policies, for example, China's capacity to generate electricity
29:49is very important. Nowadays, if you travel to some other emerging economies, such as Vietnam
29:55and India, you realize one thing which is very striking, that is the lack of the capacity to
30:02supply enough electricity. China's electricity capacity or supply capacity now is the number one
30:08in the world. It's producing twice as much electricity than the U.S., and that provided
30:15the foundation for the EV industry to emerge. The American attitude to China has waxed and
30:25waned. It was very hostile. And then there was Nixon in China under Kissinger, who was a great
30:33pragmatist about China. And now what we've got is a very, very old-fashioned order where you have
30:40basically China and America confronting each other. And I think primarily that is a result of
30:48an imperial decline of America. You know, all empires crumble. They crumble quite quickly as
30:56well. But they also find it quite difficult to work out what's happening as they're crumbling.
31:03China's a rising power, and it is waiting quite patiently for that Western influence to die down.
31:11What should be happening is fundamental reassessment by the West of all world relations.
31:18And we should be building up, not destroying the UN. And there should be a specific dialogue
31:25between America and China. But the forces pushing China and America away from each other
31:34are massive. And that really is a great sadness, because we're in a historic transition. But we
31:42really do think the West is at a real inflection point at the moment. And that affects
31:49everything that happens around it. In a sense, powers like China, Iran, Russia are moving into
31:57a vacuum created by the retreat of the West. And so that's all that's happening in that sense. It's
32:02not overtly projecting its power, but it is moving into a vacuum. Yes, I think China is playing a
32:07very important role in the Middle East and an increasing one. I don't think it is directly
32:12involved yet in actual negotiations, but it's becoming a platform for agreement, which is also
32:18quite interesting. China has become a platform for two quite interesting agreements. One was
32:24a reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which was suddenly announced
32:31in Beijing by the Chinese, and Saudi Arabia invited China to be the host of a
32:39reconciliation agreement with Iran, which is very, very important for the stability of the region.
32:43I'm not saying China was involved in the reconciliation itself, but it became a platform
32:47for that. And the second time in which it hosted a meeting, which could potentially have been
32:53significant, was it hosted all the Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic jihad,
33:01and the secular factions as well, for a national unity agreement. Again, it didn't have
33:08that much traction on the ground. But China is being used, I think, in that sense, as a way of
33:15indicating by... it's used as a message board to America to say, no, you're not the only ones
33:23now capable of hosting potentially significant diplomatic moves. China is there for us as well.
33:31And that Saudi Arabia chose that, and also that the Palestinian factions chose, I think, is a sign
33:38of, I would say, an increasing ability of a non-American actor, a non-Western actor,
33:47to mediate. Because one of the things that's happened, particularly in the Gaza War,
33:52but before that, is that America's lost its role as a mediator. It used to mediate between the two,
33:58and there used to be shuttle diplomacy. But America has been so adamant that it will continue to
34:05fund Israel, that it has lost the power to mediate between the Palestinian factions,
34:11lost the trust. And so it is an opportunity for other nations to step in and say, right,
34:18we will be the honest broker. We will be the one who actually looks for peace and is capable
34:24of actually playing a real mediation role. And China has started. It's a long way to go, but it's
34:30started to perform that function. We've got into a frame of mind. Basically, what's happened
34:38psychologically, in terms of the Western mind, is that the war has never stopped. First, it was a
34:44confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union, a global confrontation. Then it very
34:51quickly became a confrontation between the West and Islam, or Islamic fundamentalism, but Islam
34:56in general, another global power, nothing like the Soviet Union but imagined. And now it's become
35:04a confrontation between the upholders of democracy, so-called, and authoritarianism,
35:12right, which is classed as China, Russia, Iran, axis of resistance, axis of evil, as they put it.
35:21And all of these are powers threatening democracy. There is this thing that's going on in the West,
35:26which I think is very dangerous, which is that when we have an internal social problem,
35:32we blame the Russians or the Chinese for influencing social media, or for trying to
35:37change an election, or for some plot, technology transfer to China. But somehow there is this sort
35:45of feeling that the liberals have circled the wagon train and are defending themselves against
35:56the Indians, and the rest of the world are the Indians. Of course, it's an incredibly primitive
36:01view, but it's very, very held. In reality, what's happening is that liberal democracy is being eaten
36:08away from within, and the government's becoming less and less liberal, more and more authoritarian
36:14to hold things down. And that's exactly what happened in the riot, which is an internal
36:21cause. It's nothing to do with China, or Russia, or anything else. It's a completely internal
36:26reason. There were scenes of racial hatred not seen since the early 1980s. So I think these
36:33riots show how volatile and fragile democracy is in Britain, in Europe. Millions of voters have lost
36:40faith in their own governments, and millions of voters lost faith in the information they get from
36:44the mainstream media. Hence the power of social media to put lies out, basically complete misinformation.
36:52And the far right are strategically on the march and getting closer and closer to power each time.
36:58The more liberal democracy is threatened, the less liberal it becomes. And so the riots
37:03sort of were broken by with instant and very, very heavy justice. Long prison sentences were
37:09given to people who had never, never fallen foul of the police, had no prison record,
37:15and who had never been in trouble with the police. And they are now facing, for social
37:20media posts, three years in prison. I think what you've got is a lethal combination between
37:25migration that was initially encouraged by the government. Even the last government,
37:30post-Brexit government, had more immigrants came in than ever before, legally through student visas
37:38and all sorts of other things. So even that government was promised to reclaim control of
37:43the borders, hasn't reclaimed control of our borders. So you've got a combination of migration
37:49and neoliberalism. And the two, i.e. cutbacks always to public services, not enough public
37:55housing, not enough council housing, not enough schools in the right area, a shortage of housing,
38:02a shortage of good jobs. There are lots, there are jobs, but there are lots of bad jobs around,
38:07and people are having two jobs just to make ends, high cost of living, high taxation. You put all
38:13that together, and the lowest, and the people who are really angry, not people in London, London's
38:20booming, because all the economy's gone down to the south. So there's an internal collapse happening.
38:27And that's why foreign policy is not subject to really a fundamental review, which it should be.
38:35And we've seen a retreat of the state over the past 30 years. So
38:44there is a profound crisis going on in what you'd call Western liberal democracy.
38:51And the right, the far right, which is neither particularly Western nor particularly liberal,
38:56is coming back up. So again, this may be too pessimistic, but the clearest analogy
39:05historical analogy to where we are now is 1929, 1928,
39:10before a very big war, before a very big depression. That is where we think we are at the moment.
39:19And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the
39:24present and future of the Asian giant. Hope you enjoy it. See you next time.
39:35Transcribed by https://otter.ai