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April 30, 2025 - Epoch Times
59:40
Is Xi Jinping’s Grip on Power in China Slipping? | Heng He
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A recently leaked directive details the Chinese Communist Party's strategy to respond to Trump's tariffs.
The purpose of this internal directive is to tell the whole party system that it's time to end the dominance of the United States.
In Chinese, they call it weiji.
Weiji is crisis and opportunity.
So any crisis will be considered an opportunity.
How is the CCP trying to leverage this moment?
Will this be the end of China as the "factory of the world"?
Those businesses based on the exports are all closing now.
And what's behind the purges in the military, the apparent removal of two Xi Jinping loyalists, and recent changes in top CCP leadership?
Why did two top Chinese Communist Party officials recently swap positions?
Joining me today is longtime China analyst Hung He.
This swap is very strange because in Chinese CCP's history, it never happened.
Either you were purged or you retired.
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanye Kialik.
Hung He, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Thank you for having me.
The Chinese Communist Party recently issued a secret internal directive in response to these broad tariffs that the US administration has put on China and, of course, other countries, but with China as a focus.
So what was the most important thing that was leaked?
I think the strategy is the purpose of this internal directive is to tell the whole party system.
That it's time to end the dominance of the United States since World War II on three fields: economic, military, and international political.
So this is huge.
I have never heard they openly talk about this.
Of course, this is internal.
But even internal, since the end of the Cultural Revolution, they never really mentioned that.
So this is huge.
But we've known that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to subvert the US to take the dominant position.
I think supposedly by 2050, right?
That was the original timeline.
So is it really that significant that they're putting it in an internal directive like this?
Just explain to me what makes this particular directive different.
For 40 years, The Chinese Communist Party focused on the economic reform and they tried to police the United States, tried to get the chance to take advantage of this openness to the world.
But now it seems they think it's time they have strong enough to take over.
I think this is the totally openly admit their
their goals totally changed.
From the following the world economy development to take over.
I mean, that's kind of astonishing because we hear all sorts of things about how the Chinese economy has huge problems.
How Xi Jinping has lost a lot of power.
I'm going to get you to talk about all these things in a moment.
So how is it that they're saying, well, this is our chance to come out and actually, you know, officially, you know, take over, take that top position in the world?
In Chinese, this is, they call it Wei Ji.
Wei Ji is crisis and opportunity.
So any crisis will be considered an opportunity.
At this time, I think they try to calm down the internal uneasy from the tariff war.
So I think this is important.
And every time when they meet some crisis, they need something to encourage the system.
To kind of rally everyone behind, that's what you mean.
Yeah, because people will think at the time when China's economy is bad, right?
The situation is really bad there, and they need something to blame others.
So this is a good chance to blame the United States.
So let's go through a couple of things I pulled out from these notes that were leaked from looking over the document.
One of the things in here has to do with working with the United Front and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working together to influence.
I guess the European countries create a kind of united front against the United States.
Can you explain that to me a little bit and maybe even just start by reminding us what the United Front is?
The United Front is the CCP's three major weapons to take over the power in China.
Mao Zedong said that there's three weapons that made the Chinese revolution successful and the military.
The United Front and the party's organization.
So the United Front is to make friends.
They must unite all the power, even sometimes they consider them as enemies, but at this moment become friends and all the possible friends together to fulfill CCP's purpose.
That's the United Front.
They identify some countries in there.
I think the UK, Germany, France.
Why are they thinking about these countries?
At this moment, they will consider European countries will be their friends against the United States.
So the United Front work will unite those European countries that are also targeted by the US as a tariff target.
That's the United Front will make friends of the European countries against the United States.
Well, it's interesting because I believe the US administration officials have talked about the need to kind of bring the various European nations under the US banner.
So almost like this is a choice that people will have to make.
It seems to be the US strategy as well.
So the fact is that no single country can replace the consumer market as the United States.
So China cannot take this position, because China's economy is not based on the consumer-oriented, but export-oriented.
Nobody can replace the United States.
How can you unite other countries?
Because every country considers their policy based on their own interests.
Something else that is mentioned in here is the implementation of a rationing system.
Why would that be something they would be implementing now at a time when they're claiming supremacy?
I don't understand this.
They actually didn't know exactly why they got rich.
It's an openness to the West.
But now they consider if the worst scenario happens, then they must go back to the Cultural Revolution, even before Cultural Revolution.
At the time, China was totally isolated.
So the material, the consumer products will be very rare.
So they have to make preparation for the distribution in a totally different system.
It's not a market, but a planned economy, fully planned economy.
That means China prepares, CCP is preparing for the closed door, totally closed door.
That's the worst scenario.
You talked a little bit about the United Front as being one of the three Yes,
this swap is very strange because in Chinese CCP's history it never happened.
Either you were purged or you retired and some replacement.
But two important CCP has only four departments at the top.
Four departments.
Those are two.
And this swap and the change, it doesn't make sense.
But if we consider CCP now has a big power struggle on top, that could be explained.
Because the organization department is very important.
It decides who sees power and who...
The United Front, even though it's very important, is only dealing with the outside.
It's not considered as the most important element in the internal power struggle.
That's why I think the important person must be put in the organization department.
The United Front is a well-organized effort for many, many years.
Even if you change the head of the department, the workers will still be done.
So I think somebody wants to make sure the other
because for the past 10 years Xi Jinping is in charge, but somebody now wants to take over this position and probably put some other
people on those positions.
I want to talk a little bit about this power struggle.
On the surface, Xi Jinping is the paramount leader in charge of everything.
In reality, I've been following your analysis.
You're saying that his power has been actually reduced quite a bit.
But before we go there, explain to me how this works.
This is a very opaque system that a lot of people just don't understand.
What are the power centers in the Communist Party?
What is the role of the Politburo Standing Committee and then the whole Politburo?
Just explain to me how that power works, maybe even if you have some analogy in the West.
Yeah, usually the most powerful is the standing committee of the Politburo.
That's usually nine persons or sometimes seven persons in charge of everything.
So only standing committee makes the decision.
And sometimes some retired top leaders also can make the decision.
But it needs opportunity.
That's why when Deng Xiaoping was in power, he tried to get the old, retired top leaders to control the whole system.
So he set up an advisory committee.
And once the standing committee expands the meeting, he can include those old guys, like the advisory board, to join the meeting.
Not only that, they can vote.
That's the one thing.
But now the advisory board doesn't exist anymore.
When Xi Jinping took over, he made sure that the standing committee is all his people.
So that's his third term.
He made sure everybody is his people.
That means you have to have somebody, you know, retired people, old leaders, if they're still alive, they have to have somebody inside the party and at the top to help them get the chance to vote,
you know, make the decision.
Some crisis happens.
Maybe at that time they have the chance to...
To influence the outcome.
To influence the final results.
So I sometimes describe how the CCP functions as a kind of a mafia organization.
Yes.
And so now Xi Jinping is the head don who's consolidated all his power.
I'm wondering if you could just comment on that for me.
Right.
If you consider Stalin's death, when Stalin lost conscience.
They have to include lots of important people, even at the time they are not necessarily really in power, to discuss how to solve the situation, how to deal with it.
Mao Zedong times are also the same.
So I think what happened last year, during the third plenary session of the party central committee, During that time, something happened.
Very likely, he got a stroke.
And at that time...
So that's Xi Jinping we're talking about.
There were rumors that he's gotten strokes.
And one in particular, we're talking about July of 2024.
July.
That's the only time I can consider somebody getting involved.
You know, the old leaders.
Those are not in the power circle currently.
But also with the help of those people still in the standing committee.
So they made a decision to strip Xi Jinping's power from a certain field, most likely from the military first.
And then he recovered a little bit.
But a decision is made.
So that's like if you're in a mafia family and once somebody had the dong, for some reason lost the power for several days, and then
different family had made the decision.
You have to follow.
What did you say to my family?
I think that's what happened also in the Chinese Communist Party.
The same thing.
And once he lost part of the power, it's very difficult to regain it.
Because it's a decision.
Maybe most likely it's a written decision.
I think that's the possibility.
I talked about the Standing Committee is all his people.
But once somebody in a position, because they're assigned to different jobs, And when somebody is in a special position, then his interests connect more to his position than to Xi Jinping.
For example, Mao Zedong as the party leader, he never got the chance to totally take over Zhou Yuenai's position, because Zhou Yuenai is the prime minister.
In China's system, the party leader is taking care of the revolution ideology, and the prime minister is taking care of the economy.
That's conflict.
Once you have this setting and the different people in the head, and they will conflict each other, no matter how good body they were before.
And I'm pretty sure in China...
Currently, the same situation, because Xi Jinping's purpose is to go back to Mao's ideology.
But Li Xiang, as Prime Minister, he has to make sure the economy is not totally collapsed.
So it's a conflict.
Once you're in this position, even if you are friends or followers of Xi Jinping, you have your own interests.
So at the time when the crisis happens, somebody inside helped to bring the outside, the former leaders, into this circle to make the decision.
I think that's the case.
Let me see if I've got this.
I'm going to try to bring together a bunch of different threads here.
We have Xi Jinping having a stroke.
You believe those are rumors?
It's not confirmed by the government, but we believe this is what happened.
At that moment, other people looking for power, as everybody is, kind of swoop in, take some of that control.
But he doesn't lose power entirely.
At the same time, we have this whole situation where China's economy is going through a crisis.
The whole real estate sector is collapsing.
And foreign direct investment is shutting down, which is a big part.
And probably she's being blamed for that because he's assumed a lot of power.
So this is all happening concurrently.
This is the picture you're painting.
So on the other hand, the prime minister now is looking and saying, hey, this isn't right.
because ultimately if we can't keep the economy going, we're gonna lose the support of the people because that's kind of the deal, I guess.
But does that sound right?
Yes, that's why we can see the conflict policy.
From our side, we can see recently that the policy is really conflict because the Prime Minister is trying to get the investment back.
back and try to pursue the whole world that China is still doing the reform
openness. But on the other side, they created some laws and tried to scare the foreign investors.
The purpose of the Chinese government and their policy is to keep the Communist Party in power For the people, life is easier.
It's not that way.
Every movement made sure the party is in power.
CCP is in power.
And all the conflict came from this part.
So I know, of course, you're not an economist.
But if you can kind of remind us, what are the elements of the Chinese economy here?
And why is it in so much trouble?
The investment in infrastructure and consumer.
And another one is export.
So the first, just the investment in infrastructure, you're talking about these big projects, kind of building lots of huge things, grow the GDP, but they are not necessarily used afterwards.
Right.
including the train, the high-speed train, the whole nation.
This is the longest in the world.
This is the most important economic driving force.
The consumer part is never a big, important part, even during the best time of the economy.
What do you think?
So that's the third piece.
But why is China not growing its consumer part of the economy?
I think the system designed this way.
When Deng Xiaoping started the reform in the early
the purpose is to learn from the Asian countries.
So anybody follow the United States gets rich.
So it's designed as the manufacturer of the world.
So the manufacturer for the world, not for China.
What do you mean by follow the United States?
Like not copy them?
No, no, no.
You trade with the United States.
Yeah, you trade.
But your major trade partner is the United States.
And then they made China the world of...
Basically the manufacturing hub of the world, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So manufacture, they call the factory of the world.
So it's designed this way.
So all the infrastructure, the transportation, everything is designed for export, not for the Chinese consumers.
Yeah.
But what about all these buildings that they built, all these apartments for investment and so forth?
Presumably someone's supposed to live there one day.
No, no.
This is also designed to keep the government power.
Why the government is so fascinated about the buildings?
because they sell the land.
This will never happen in other countries because land is private.
But in China, the CCP took over China and took over the land.
So the ownership is the government in China.
So they sold the land to the developer, and the developer built and then sold to the end user.
China's housing is very expensive because of the money.
Half of the money goes to the government.
The government can get rich.
It's all designed this way.
That's why we have so many ghost cities in China.
They didn't really think somebody would live in there.
They just sell the land as a developer, build the buildings.
That's it.
That's astonishing.
Yeah, why so many coastal cities?
They know that no people will live there, like Xiong 'an.
Xiong 'an is the plan, Xi Jinping's plan, to make it the substitute of Beijing's capital, at least partially.
So the whole city was built from the ground, and now nobody lives there.
It's so many years.
But so he knew nobody would live there already?
In China, the decision-maker is not based on the research study or the real needs.
The market needs or something like that.
It's kind of still keep a very big portion of the planned economy.
And the planned economy is based on the leader's idea.
And nobody knows where the idea comes from.
But, you know, that's the decision.
Well, this is fascinating because the other part is, you know, clearly they liberalized some of the economy, right?
Yeah.
But you're kind of suggesting, based on this directive that we discussed at the beginning of the interview, that they're actually going back to more planned.
Can you explain that to me?
Like, what did they liberalize?
And are they really going back to more planned now?
Yes.
During the early stage of the reform, they have to withdraw party's power from the economy part, and less party interfere with the economy.
And that's why it developed really fast, especially the private section.
Private section developed for 20 years and become bigger and bigger.
Even though in China it's not very normal, they still have connections with the government power, otherwise you cannot get rich.
Everybody knows that.
But the private section still has its interest.
And when they get more and more powerful, they want more political voice.
So that's one reason.
Another reason is that reform is only partial reform.
They never get serious.
Because China's reform is only in the economy, never in the political system.
While the political system is planned, socialism,
planned economy, while the market economy is basically a private section.
So it has a conflict.
In the world, I don't think any country successfully combined them together.
China is the only one.
So you can see that socialism countries are failed economically.
But China is the only exception.
Now, Finland tried to follow China's rule.
But if you don't go to the political reform, then the system is conflicted with the economy.
In early 2010, some of the leaders inside the Chinese Communist Party realized that reform is going to the end.
It won't have the power to continue because it conflicts with the system.
They have to find the solution.
And I think the first one who tried that one is Bo Xilai in Chongqing.
You're talking about a leader who was being groomed to be the head of the CCP, tried to coup against Xi Jinping, but ultimately got deposed.
I'm just kind of reminding our audiences about this guy.
This guy used to be Minister of Commerce and then he was demoted to Chongqing as the head of Chongqing city.
And then he started the "Chan Hong Da He", Sing Revolutionary Song and get rid of the gans in the economic
This one is like, ideologically go back to Mao Zedong time and economically try to limit the private section's power.
He was very popular at the time.
Everybody was afraid that he would become the leader of China.
But for some reason, he lost power in the power struggle.
He lost power, and Xi Jinping became the real leader.
He's the challenger.
They have the same background as Bo Xilai.
They all belong to the princelings.
The second generation of the revolution leaders.
Their fathers are following Mao Zedong's revolution.
They were raised during the Cultural Revolution.
They are basically familiar with the time.
Their golden time was before Cultural Revolution.
Their golden time.
And before then, of course.
Of course, before then.
So, Xi Jinping basically followed Bo Xilai's idea.
Which is ironic, because Bo Xilai was contending for his position.
Yeah, but their ideologies are the same.
Power struggle doesn't mean ideology struggle.
It's kind of different.
Got it.
I took over the power.
I can still go this way.
So this is what happened during that time.
And then, since the Xi Jinping time, we can see very clearly it's expanded the state business, state power.
and reduce the private section's power, reduce the power of the market economy for the last 10 years.
It's very clear.
I think that's the way they try to solve the conflict between the system and the economy.
And Xi Jinping's way is to go back to Mao Zedong time.
You know, I'm just reminded again, in this secret directive, one of the issues was returning the capital outflows, right?
So maybe explain that to me a little bit, because as I understand it, it's like punishable by death to take your assets overseas, even if you're high level, right?
Is that right?
Especially high level.
The party leaders in the middle or high ranks should withdraw their assets back to China.
But this is the way to try to make sure the party leaders at any rank won't challenge the party's power.
war, and if the trade war or the tariff war or even the hot war started, and make sure nobody becomes
the traitors.
That's the purpose.
Well, why are so many assets overseas?
Because it's safe.
Because everybody knows in China the private property is not guaranteed by anything.
They never give up the ideology of the communists.
That means that anytime they can seize your assets, seize your property.
So for safety purposes, they put them in free countries, basically.
Yeah.
Even though the most party leaders at any rank, they will say communist socialism is better than capitalism.
But they still trust capitalism.
So they put money and buy...
But wasn't that already treason to do that?
No at the time, because everybody is doing that.
Now they make sure that if the trade war gets worse, you have to withdraw the assets.
One purpose is to hit the United States, because you have so many properties, assets, and even cash go back to China.
So you will lose some money, right?
United States.
Another purpose is to make the party loyal to the CCP.
The members of the party loyal to the CCP.
Do you have any interest in the United States?
So we talked about these three weapons: the United Front, the staffing or organization department, and of course the military being the third one.
We haven't talked about the military yet.
There's been huge changes.
I mean, the number two guy in the PLA has just been disappeared and I think demoted or removed, disappeared.
What is the significance of that?
No, nothing says he's demoted or purged or arrested.
He just disappeared.
And he is the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Totally three chairmen.
One chairman, two vice chairmen.
And the chairman is Xi Jinping.
His name is still the chairman.
And another two, one is disappeared.
Ho Weidong, right?
Ho Weidong, yeah.
Ho Weidong disappeared.
Another member of the Central Military Commission, Miao Hua, was demoted.
Miao Hua and He Weidong came out from the same military unit.
So they are the same.
But they belong to Xi Jinping's faction.
Because Xi Jinping promoted many military generals.
But for the first term, basically, he tried to get rid of the members who belonged to the previous leaders.
His second term, he tried to put more his people in the military.
And this term, the third term, basically, most of the military generals belonged to his faction.
all his people, and he promoted them, especially Miao Hua.
Miao Hua is the previous one who got purged.
And Miao Hua is in the military staff department, organizing department.
That means he put all Xi Jinping's people in different positions inside the military.
It's very strange.
Only Xi Jinping.
Otherwise, Xi Jinping won't put him in such an important position.
But he was purged.
And now He Weidong.
So they all belong to the same and also from Fujian.
Xi Jinping's faction is from Fujian, Zhejiang, and partially Shanghai.
That's his faction.
And those military people are also from there.
I think the difference starts with July last year.
It's the third plenary session of the Communist Party Central Committee.
Before, Xi Jinping purged other people.
But after that, it looks like somebody else is purging Xi Jinping's faction.
We see the purge of the military high-ranked leaders, but it's a little bit different before and after.
We have this rapidly growing military.
I've been reading a bunch of intelligence reports about this.
I hadn't fully realized how quickly they've been growing, how many new ships are being built.
There's all this activity, kind of gray zone activity that's happening all out in the Philippines and so forth.
On one side, that's happening.
On the other side, it sounds like you're telling me that Xi Jinping is losing his people.
Yeah, that's very strange.
Xi Jinping was never really in charge of the military.
He has no background in the military in Korea.
So when he took over the power, of course, he needed to reform the military.
So he did reform the military in 2015.
He tried to totally change the military settings and follow the structure of the United States Army.
Changed everything.
But it's very difficult because the Chinese military, the CCP
I would say CCP military because this is the military It belongs to the party, not belongs to the state.
Yeah, that's incredible.
A lot of people can't even imagine that.
It would be like the Republican or the Democratic Party having a military.
Yeah, it's written in the Constitution.
It's a party's army.
It's not a state.
And they were designed to protect the power of the CCP, not to protect the nation.
So it's different.
Actually, this army, this military is not designed to fight foreign wars.
It's designed to suppress internal rebels or protests.
But even today?
Xi Jinping tried to change that.
That's his structure.
The whole new military structure is based on his idea that when they are
Sooner or later, we'll fight the United States through maybe Taiwan or South China Sea.
So that's his design.
The problem starts from here.
Because the expansion military is not a problem.
Everybody gets benefit from it.
Everybody gets rich from it.
Because more money, they build more ships, airplanes, aircraft and everything.
But there's lots of money you can take from it.
Everybody gets rich.
But once you really want to get into war, that's a totally different story.
Right?
When Xi Jinping tried to reform the whole army, he tried to see if he had enough power.
military power to take over Taiwan.
then he suddenly realized the military is not as
The first thing he found out is that the rocket unit is not functioning well.
Sometimes it's called the rocket force, I think.
Yeah, rocket force.
Rocket force is not functioning as well as he expected.
If he wants to invade Taiwan, he needs a very strong, non-conventional military power.
So the rocket force is most important for him.
But then he realized that this rocket force is not ready for the war.
First, he was disappointed with the military.
And then he found out that the American Air Force think tank published about the rocket force detail, very detailed.
The think tank claimed that they got information from the public publications.
From public domain information, I think.
But it's not.
I checked their reference.
They have everything referenced.
But the reference is part of the reference from their own research paper.
And their own research paper still doesn't have any source.
So that means they publish first and then quote their own publication.
That means they try to hide their real source.
And those resources only can come from the military internal military, very
rank. Because any low rank military
only know their part.
But this is huge.
It's the whole picture.
So it has to be somebody who leaked the information.
That's why CCP got really mad.
And then we see the purge of the rocket force.
officials, one by one.
I think that's two main reasons.
That's a very big issue in the military.
And then also the military supply
People involved in the supply chain also got purged.
Because this is a very easy part for corruption.
And the most corrupted
I'm looking at this leaked secret directive.
Your analysis here basically is that it's almost like the CCP is going for broke.
But to me, when there's that kind of thinking, that's when the possibility of war becomes very real.
Is it through the tariffs?
Is America pushing the Chinese now to go to war?
I've heard that said.
The war only happens in two situations.
One is when Chinese military is ready.
The economy and the military are ready to invade Taiwan.
That's the one possibility.
When the military is ready, I don't think it's in the near future, five years, they can be ready to fight because they will consider the war is not against Taiwan, it's against the United States and even the allies in Asia,
Japan, Australia, you know.
So I don't think they're ready for that.
But another possibility is when the CCP's ruling power is in danger.
So they need to switch people's focus to the outside, and they need the war to prove their legitimacy of the rule.
That's the only possibility.
But I don't think currently...
They are ready for that, because they are still purging the military, high rank leaders.
If you remember, the Soviet Red Army, before World War II, started to purge all the military leaders, high rank officials.
At the beginning of World War II, the invasion of Nazi Germany into the Soviet Union, the first month, they lost 1 million armed
Because nobody knows how to fight.
Anybody who knows how to fight got purged or killed by Stalin.
So now you are purging those military high rank officials.
How can you make the war?
I think it's very difficult.
Besides, if the CCP's military is not ready, And then that war will accelerate the collapse of the CCP regime.
Why?
Because if you cannot win the war, then you lose the support of the people and the support of the party itself.
So bottom line, what is the impact of this tariff approach that the Trump administration has imposed on China?
I think the neighboring countries, Xi Jinping just visited three countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia.
I don't think those people, those countries are following China's path to trade with the United States, especially Vietnam.
I don't think they can.
In some fields, in the export field, there are competition.
They compete with each other, not help each other.
So I don't think it will help China to get support from those Southeast Asian countries.
There's no way.
Vietnam made a lot of promises, but never really kept the promise to the CCP.
They tried to keep the promise to the United States, and they want to zero tariffs with the United States, not China.
I think they tried to get zero tariffs as the way to fight the United States.
I think yesterday they claimed they...
They have zero tariff policy to 45 countries.
Less developed countries.
So I think the tariff impact is huge.
Currently, the three major drive force for Chinese economy, two, are already failed.
It's consumer and infrastructure.
It's totally failed.
And now they have only one way to get the economy forward.
It's the export.
That's the only way.
But the tariffs will stop the major part of their export income.
And without this money from the United States, their other projects are gone.
For example, the Belt and Road.
The Belt and Road is based on...
Basically, you invest money, and most likely you cannot get the investment back.
Because those countries are not stable, and the economy is not stable, politics are not stable, the whole environment is not stable.
They tried to get money from the United States to invest in those Belt and Road.
And once the money is stopped from the United States, then the Belt and Road and
gold bricks are also based on China's economy.
I don't think those countries have any ideology or any similarity, except they want to get some benefit from the trade with China.
So other projects will fail.
For example, Panama just cancelled the Belt Road contract with China.
Italy, I think, cancelled.
So the Belt Road will shrink.
China's influence in the world will shrink.
The money to buy, especially in African countries.
But the money comes from trade.
So this is a huge impact.
And also, inside China, there's more and more information come out.
Those businesses based on the exports are all closing now.
And there were lots of people who won't have jobs.
The whole society will be in a mess.
That's what the CCP is very afraid of, because so many people don't have a job, and they cannot create a job.
So many years, they're based on the export.
Their economy is not built on the consumer, not based on manufacturing something for the people inside China to consume.
And you cannot change the whole structure overnight.
That's the problem.
This has been an amazing conversation.
As we finish up, let's talk about this.
We're talking right almost exactly after this new COVID.org website has appeared from the White House.
I don't know, it changes the game in a whole bunch of ways.
Very relevant to China.
And I want to get you to comment on that, what you think about this.
I was so surprised yesterday.
I saw the website, the new website.
It's a game changer.
Exactly, it's a game changer.
Because the United States government never really blame China for the pandemic.
I think for so many years, so many governments...
We try to blame China for that.
The only country that did that is Australia.
And Australia got punished.
It's like a small trade war.
They banned lots of Australian products imported into China.
And now this is the United States government's formal stand.
So I think this is huge.
Especially...
And not only the CCP didn't prevent the spread of the pandemic, but also the cause is man-made cause.
So this is not a natural disaster.
This is a mammoth disaster.
And, you know, I was discussing this with people.
At the very least, you know, we know that for years they had really shoddy...
Really shoddy practices at this lab, which was experimenting on very problematic viruses and so forth.
At the very least, and at the worst, well...
Yeah, gain of function.
This webpage is directly making sure the United States won't let it go.
It's not something small we can let it go.
We still remember that, and we need to...
Even the website didn't say that, but I think the following will be some lawsuits.
There were a number of lawsuits that I've had people on who were launching lawsuits specifically to hold the Chinese regime accountable.
I saw also yesterday Jamie Metzl announced model legislation to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.
So this is very much in line with what you're saying.
Yeah, I think this is a whole new effort.
I think it has something to do with the tariff war, even though it didn't say.
But, you know, this put the United States on the high ground.
I think at least high ground, because, you know, every country is the victim of the pandemic.
The lab leaked is one accident, I think.
Or maybe not.
Nobody knows.
China won't let anybody to do the investigation.
The United Nations sent delegates to investigate, but where is the conflict-rich person inside?
So you won't get any truth.
But even if you went to China, you won't get any truth.
The CCP is very good at destroying the evidences.
The CCP is responsible for the cover-up.
When they spread inside China, nobody knows what happened there, and everybody is not prepared for the pandemic.
Actually, the CCP and Xi Jinping already know exactly what happened in Wuhan, but they try to hide it.
That's the reason why it spread all over the world.
Fully their responsibility.
So I think the cover-up is more important than the origin of the...
Well, the cover-up and then also the sort of stopping internal transportation but demanding an international transportation.
I remember that.
The international flight to other countries.
Yes, that's what happened there.
In fact, protested when people wanted to stop them, if I recall correctly.
So there's all these different dimensions here.
Yeah, that's what happened.
So you can assume that's their intention.
I think this is very important because the whole world put a pause key for two years and nobody takes responsibility.
I think this is not fair.
Last question.
Some analysts have described this as the most dangerous time since World War II for the world.
What do you think?
I think it's the most important time since World War II.
I wouldn't say it's dangerous.
Dangerous is always there.
Things like the trade war.
CCP started the trade war without claiming the war, without declaring the war.
A long time ago, you mean?
Yeah, the United States only fought back.
It's not that the United States started the trade war or any other war.
And the tariff war is also the same thing.
China has tariff and non-tariff barriers.
So the United States just fought back, make it equal, the fair trade.
So I think the danger is always there.
I think the important thing is that the United States realizes the situation and faces the situation.
So all the steps the United States takes is to recognize all the problems and try to solve it.
and then I think this is the rewrite
What are the rules since World War II?
Since World War II, especially since the 1970s, the globalization is the trend.
But now you find out that the whole world is hard to collaborate, very difficult, because it's a totally different system, totally different idea, even totally different civilization.
prevented globalization, actually.
But now it's time to realize that.
And also, the United States used to have the
to connect the CCP against the Soviet Union.
Yeah, they wanted to use...
Yeah, but after the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, supposedly the game should have changed.
But I don't think the United States made any change.
And then the CCP took advantage of the globalization, especially when they joined the WTO.
But they abused WTO, abused this globalization.
Now, the United States realized this is about state security, about you cannot rely on somebody trying to take over and destroy you.
So this is, I think, it's the fact, just being ignored for a long time.
Well, Hung He, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you all for joining Hung He and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.
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