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On March 4th, Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, said this. Quote, if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end. End quote.

Well, that remark came just after President Donald Trump had hiked tariffs on Chinese imports by 10 percent on top of the 10 percent he imposed in February. China retaliated with a 15 percent tariff on U.S. grown chicken, wheat, corn and cotton. It also added a 10 percent tariff on products like U.S. soybeans, pork and beef.

Then on March 20th, the New York Times reported the Pentagon planned to brief Elon Musk on the military's plan if the U.S. were to go to war with China. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied the story at a briefing the next day. You know, you're talking about a potential war with China. Now, I deal with these people all the time and I'm dealing with Pete, I'm dealing with these gentlemen on numerous different levels.

airplane purchases, and I think they're all going to be great. But I don't want other people seeing, anybody seeing potential war with China. We don't want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it. Roughly one week later, Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing with a group of multinational CEOs from companies like AstraZeneca, FedEx, and Toyota. We always think that

We have always believed that the stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-US relations is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples.

The essence of China-US economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and win-win, and economic and trade frictions should be properly resolved through equal dialogue and consultation. China will handle the broad future of Chinese-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.

So today, we're going to look at the view from China during this second Trump administration. What does the world's second largest economy make of a radical U.S. foreign policy shift and the dismantling of American government? So to talk about that, Yongyong Chong joins us. She is a fellow and research scholar at Yale's Paul Tsai China Center and a frequent columnist on Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations. Yongyong, welcome back to On Point. Thanks so much for having me.

Okay, so first and foremost, it's not unusual at all for a head of state and a spokesperson to say two different things in two different tones, right? Like the good cop, bad cop routine is very frequent in global geopolitics. In the United States, it's oftentimes the head of state, a.k.a. Donald Trump, saying, you know, somewhat outlandish things and then spokespeople trying to tamp that down.

But can you explain to me, Yong Yong, this statement from the Chinese foreign minister about we're ready for any kind of war in China, be it trade, tariff or actual war. It seemed more pointed than we usually hear. I'm not particularly surprised by this kind of rhetoric and rhetoric.

I think it needs to be seen in different dimensions. First of all, the Chinese leadership is in some ways prepared for a hostile U.S.-China relations, and that is regardless of how the election last year turned out.

And it is in anticipation of U.S.-China relations to continue to deteriorate for the foreseeable future. And that is the position of the U.S. government as well. If we go to the State Department, for example, it says strategic competition is the basic framework of governing U.S.-China relations. So it's very, very important for the Chinese government in terms of its domestic legitimacy, as well as its geopolitical positioning, to adopt this kind of tough rhetoric.

On the other hand, of course, the Chinese government has a host of issues, including domestic economic issues and such. And so it is also seeking opportunities in terms of

finding other allies and countries and also foreign investment as well as domestic private businesses and such. You know, I recall the last time you were on the show, Yong Yong, you said no matter who's in office in the White House, China is looking upon the United States from an adversarial point of view, right? Because, I mean, the Biden administration wasn't friendly to China either. And I thought that was a really important point to hear, right?

However, with this second Trump administration and the chaos that he brings back to the White House and also the sort of U.S. domestic chaos that he and Elon Musk are unleashing, has that made China even more wary of the United States?

I think wary is a way to describe it. And I would say this, first of all, is that the Chinese government governs primarily by its self-interest. So it is not simply reactionary to the U.S. However, it is indeed like seeing different...

types of policies that's coming out from the U.S. government. First of all, with regards to policies directed towards China, like in terms of the tariffs and some of the rhetoric. And that is the part where the Chinese government is least caught by surprise. And it has a host of measures, both rhetorically and policy-wise, to counter it or to mitigate some of the effects.

The second part is the U.S. government's policies and sometimes drastic actions towards its traditional allies in other countries. And I think this is a part where, on one hand, Beijing may be seeking opportunities to build and foster new alliances. And it's also very important to note here that a lot of, for example, the sanctions on technologies and such the U.S. government has placed on China is significant.

implemented unilaterally, but it needs cooperation from other countries. So some of these breakdowns of traditional U.S. alliances may create opportunities for Beijing as well. However, it also creates a lot of volatility and uncertainty in geopolitics. So in that sense, it's not as like Beijing is simply celebrating

what the U.S. government is doing. And then finally, when we come to domestic policy with regards to the U.S. And on one hand, even though we may see some like hints of shuddering fluid from certain Chinese nationalistic outlets, but those were mostly like focused on very specific things, for example, like discrediting electoral systems or celebrating like the defunding of human rights organizations or Radio Free Asia, Voice of America. However,

However, one also needs to understand that economic, like a potential economic recessions or institutional breakdowns in the U.S. are not necessarily good for Beijing. And also Beijing also looks to certain areas, for example, like climate monitoring, like global public health, that really needs U.S. effort and U.S. input as well. So I think it is an uncertain perilous terrain and it creates certain opportunities, but it also creates a lot of potential problems

problems. And that is all these things that the Chinese leadership needs to take into account. I hope I'm interpreting this correctly, but you said that when it came to the Trump administration's trade war, that Beijing had policy plans ready or already in place to cope with that. I mean, are you talking about policies other than the retaliatory tariffs that China raised? Yeah.

Yes. But when I put these into three buckets, right, the first is in terms of China's trade with the United States. And these we are seeing retaliatory tariffs as well as like Beijing also implement some sanctions and extra scrutiny on U.S. companies and U.S. investment. And these are broadly being seen as like retaliatory actions. The second part is with regards to

Beijing's relationship with other countries and foreign capitals and foreign companies. And as you mentioned earlier, right, there is this summit of global multinational companies where it is really interesting to see the Chinese leadership position itself as a defender of free and fair trade, of WTO rules and things like that, and emphasizing the importance of foreign investments to China and Chinese economic development.

And the third part, I think this is also very important, is that the Chinese government has been aware of this potential vulnerability in geopolitics and out of a host of political economy reasons has been trying to boost this.

on domestic spending and domestic consumption. Right after the February tariffs, one of the first things Beijing did is to host this workshop or this symposium with leading domestic private entrepreneurs. And very interestingly, this is the same thing Beijing did back in 2018 during Trump 1.0, and that is an important domestic signal as well.

You know, Yang Yang, you're one of our favorite China analysts. That's why we keep inviting you back because I don't know if you remember, but we did an hour about China's determination to increase domestic consumption. You shined a lot of light in that hour as well.

We're going to talk a little bit more about why China as a nation, but specifically President Xi Jinping, actually seeks a kind of reduction in volatility. But President Donald Trump is simply a volatile leader. We know that for a fact. And you had talked about...

with our producer, Claire, that the Chinese people, I guess, they have some nicknames for President Trump. Can you tell us what those are? Yes, because Donald Trump's name is transliterated two ways in Chinese. One is Chuanpu, the other is Telangpu. And so on one hand, Donald Trump has been known as Chuanjianguo, or Trump makes China great again. And this has come up for

For example, because of the domestic volatility, there was a brief rallying of like Chinese stock prices have been rising and saying that Donald Trump is making Chinese stock a great again, even just briefly. And on the other hand, because of the Te Lang Pu transliteration, and there is also being this new nickname is called Te Mei Pu or like super, super clueless. And you'll see like some social media posts asking about whether or not Te Mei Pu super clueless could save Chairman Xi and things like that.

So Trump makes China great again and super clueless. Wow. I think that actually also says a lot, too. But I'm going to I want to hear from you a little bit later about where these nicknames are coming from. You said Chinese social media. So we'll we'll hear more about that in just a moment. This is On Point.

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Follow wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of the episode. Yong Yong, I just have to follow up with these nicknames that are going around for President Trump in China. Can you clarify a little bit? Are these sort of being organically developed from Chinese social media or is it not so organic?

I believe they're quite organic and the Chinese people are very creative, especially on social media. And I should also mention like Chuanjian Guo, the name is a very traditional Chinese name that harkens back to the Mao era. And that, I think, came out during the 2016 election cycle.

And that is a direct reference to make America great again. And then later it moved into make China great again, in a way, because of some of Donald Trump's policies. But there is a hint here is also because Donald Trump's strongman style to some ways is

is familiar to the Chinese public, that it reminds them of traditional strongman Chinese leaders and some of these elements in Chinese history and Chinese society. That is, I guess, some of the incentives in addition to just the way it sounds, how these nicknames came about. That is so fascinating because every time I speak with you, I'm constantly reminded that we obviously...

I keep saying, what does Beijing want? What does President Xi Jinping want? But we're talking about China, which is a vast, vast nation. So for these nicknames to have come up organically from the Chinese people on social media is really interesting to me. Can you get a sense as to why or what exactly it is about President Trump that has engendered the super clueless nickname? I mean, what are the Chinese people saying that makes him deserve that nickname?

I think a lot of these are not so much about Trump's China policies per se, but it's really like in the two areas. On one hand is the domestic policy with the attempted dismantling of a lot of the traditional federal bureaucracies and targets on issues like public health and education that really creates a lot of domestic turmoil and downside effects. On the other hand, it's really these seemingly very

puzzling actions towards traditional U.S. allies and also these attempts to annex Canada, annex Greenland. And so these are actions that do catch a certain segment of the Chinese public by surprise, but also catches their fascination. And that's how these clueless names come about. Okay. I'm going to put a fine point on it. Even the Chinese people on social media are looking askance at the decisions that Donald Trump and the Trump administration made

are making. Okay, that should be quite a wake up call for Americans. Well, Yong Yong, hold on for just a moment here, because I want to bring in Julian Gortz into the conversation. Julian is former senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the White House National Security Council, a position that he served in during the Biden administration. Julian, welcome.

Thank you. It's great to be with you both. OK, so you heard Yong Yong talk about how while the Chinese people may be kind of scratching their heads about Donald Trump's super clueless management of the United States, at the same time, the volatility isn't necessarily celebrated by President Xi. I mean, what's your take on that?

Well, I thought that you had a great conversation about some of the potential upsides that President Xi sees from the Trump administration's actions at the moment.

China sees upsides in its relationships that it can leverage more effectively in Europe and Asia and elsewhere in the world. But I also do think they see a period of tremendous risk for the Chinese economy coming ahead. And while President Xi believes that

He can lead China, I think, through almost any challenge. It's certainly choppy waters. And, you know, finally, I think they don't yet have a sense of what the Trump administration's strategy toward China is.

is going to be, whether they're going to pursue the kind of intense confrontation that we saw in the final year of the first Trump administration several years ago, or whether, as President Trump has indicated, they're going to pursue some sort of wide-ranging deal. So I think Beijing is worried, confident, and confused all at once.

Yong-Yong, can you pick up on that? Because I know you've talked about how, I mean, you mentioned Mao Zedong earlier, that President Xi doesn't necessarily thrive off the same kind of chaos and instability that Mao did. That is correct. And I think not every dictator is a revolutionary. Mao was a revolutionary and Xi Jinping very much is not. And he had seen the personally suffered and seen from...

the downsides of chaos. And so he's someone who really seeks control. And this is a situation where a lot of things are out of his control. And I do think that I agree with Julian's points here that the Chinese leadership are cautious. There are potential opportunities it could seize, but it is a very, very volatile environment, both in the context of domestic violence

economy and social development, on the other hand, in terms of geopolitics. Wait, Yong-Yong, can you clarify something? When you said that President Xi personally suffered under, are you saying under Mao's rule?

Like Xi Jinping's family background, well, of course, someone who personally suffered and his family were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. And I do think that was a formative experience for him. And of course, different people take away different lessons from that. And I think one of the lessons he took away was the importance of seizing and maintaining control. Fascinating. Okay. Okay.

So, Julian, you and Yonggang also actually shared an important point of analysis that I'd like to hear more about. And that is that the potential economic break, well, let's not call it breakdown, but, you know, even possible recession in the United States is not that President Xi and the Chinese government doesn't necessarily see that as a good thing for China. Is it fair?

simply from the fact that we are still the world's largest market? Is that it or is there something more to it, Julian? Well, I do think that's really what it boils down to. You know, from Beijing's perspective, while it has been pursuing a really state-led policy

path in recent years for economic growth with a complex position for the Chinese private sector, critically important for innovation, but also under tremendous political pressure at home.

Their view really of trade with the United States is that they want to reap as much benefit as they can from it while also favoring Chinese businesses and Chinese industries to the maximum extent possible. And so there is still a tremendous degree of interdependence between the Chinese and American economies. And so –

a slowdown in the US economy or even a recession would have negative effects on the Chinese economy as well. Of course, the reverse is also true, meaning that the slowdown in the Chinese economy has

has created challenges for certain segments of the United States that sell and do business with China. You take those dynamics, you take the tariffs and a range of other economic policies, and it's a very challenging picture. Yongyong, do you want to add to that? Mm-hmm.

One thing that I might denote here is that if we look at the gathering of leading private entrepreneurs that Xi Jinping did a few weeks ago after this round of tariffs and compared with trade war 1.0 during the first Trump administration, last time in 2018, the representation was more diverse in terms of industries and there is more emphasis on traditional industries such as agriculture and manufacturing in addition to some of

of the high-tech businesses. However, in this February gathering, it is overwhelmingly in these high-tech sectors and these so-called emerging technologies. And I think that is also an interesting area that Chinese leadership has been placing a lot of emphasis on. And that is partly out of domestic considerations, but partly also in the context of this kind of strategic competition with the U.S. in these high-tech sectors. I see. Okay.

Julian, can we, I just want to like take a little side road here for a second because, you know, thinking about your experience as, you know, former NSC senior director on China and Taiwan affairs, I imagine that you went to China somewhat frequently or at least had many, did you have meetings with Chinese leadership during that time? Definitely, yeah. What's it like to work with them?

Well, you know, I think there are a few things that come across. You know, the first is...

This is a very different system, very different political system, very different context. And that is something that you feel when you engage with officials who've come up through the Chinese Communist Party, which is a very different thing than coming up through a system in the US Foreign Service or in my case, as a China scholar and expert who went into government.

And they're tough in trying to assert their interests, just like we're tough in trying to assert our interests. So it's quite an interesting dynamic. It makes for quite a back and forth. But candidly, at the end of the day, you hope that everybody's a professional diplomat and can get done what you need to get done.

I mean, do you have any stories about times where there were talks about anything going on and maybe it didn't quite go as the U.S. had hoped? And, you know, what happened and how maybe those times were smoothed over?

Well, you know, one rule of being a professional diplomat is that what happens inside that closed-door room, you let stay inside that closed-door room. But there certainly are moments, some of which were fortunately or unfortunately captured on cameras where things have not gone quite as planned, including some early interactions in 2021 that were quite tense.

in public. But the reality is that at the end of the day, both sides, both the US and China,

do, I think, have an interest in preventing the intense competition between our two countries from veering into conflict. And so even if those interactions are sometimes bumpy and often tough, it's still worth the effort of doing it. While I appreciate your diplomatic discretion, Julian, and I really do, it's also piqued my interest. So I'm going to try one more time here. Let me put the question to you this way.

When you yourself have been part of conversations about highly sensitive matters such as, let's say, Taiwan, right? I can't think of a more sensitive matter when discussing things with China. How did you prepare yourself to enter the room or the sort of mindset or thinking that you had during those moments? Yeah.

Well, first, Meghna, let me say that you've demonstrated the key quality of success in diplomacy, which is tenacity in the face of a stonewalling interlocutor. And, you know, for me, in terms of preparing for those interactions or preparing even more senior folks for those interactions, you know, I'm a historian by training and you want to bring to the interaction that you're having, the meeting, even if you know it's going to be quite tense and hard edged, a

a deep and nuanced understanding of the history of how US-China relations has treated this issue, how the Chinese counterparts have seen it, and how we in the United States have stood up for our interests and values around that issue. And so you want that deep historical understanding, you want to marry it with an

up to the minute sense of where tensions are. So on Taiwan, this is an area where Beijing has increased steadily the pressure on Taiwan, military pressure, economic coercion, political pressure and the like. And so you want to have that up to the minute sense of the details so that you can push back, you can call out where you need to.

And then third, and maybe most importantly, you want to have a sense of what you're trying to get done. The point of these interactions, these meetings, is not just to have a meeting, say you've done that, put out a release and move on. It's ideally to get something done. And so in our interactions in the Biden administration with Chinese counterparts, we were talking about some of the toughest issues in the relationship.

For instance, China's support for Russia and its war against Ukraine. But we were also talking about specific things that could benefit the American people, like getting the Chinese to crack down on some of the exports of fentanyl precursors, which is a really important area. Yeah.

Yongyong, let me try to pull some threads together here, because in listening to what Julian's talking about regarding the kind of sort of preparation approach and thinking that American diplomats need to have when discussing any matter with Chinese leadership, it's the kind of careful thought process that I don't think President Trump is known for.

Right. I mean, his current envoys to China might be practicing the kind of diplomacy that Julian's talking about. But President Trump simply does not do that. He is volatile. He's unpredictable. He's emotional. I'm actually wondering, given what you said earlier about President Xi's dislike for that kind of chaos.

Could this actually potentially be to the advantage of the United States that Trump's unpredictability could it be sort of making it a little difficult for President Xi to really decide how to handle Trump? This is interesting. Well, I think I would say, first of all, I think I think we should give the Chinese leadership and also its people working in Chinese government leadership.

in a sense was they can prepare for a number of different scenarios in response to the potential volatility. And also some of these things are not that unpredictable. A lot of the policies, both domestic and foreign, that has been carried out by the current U.S. leadership were outlined in Project 2025. And so I think sometimes one just needs to take the people in power at their word as well. My second point is I think the Chinese leadership actually has a lot of experience.

dealing with potentially volatile leaders or people who are not necessarily so competent but came into positions of power because they pledged fealty to the leader. And I think these are things that people who came out of an authoritarian system and who came out of an authoritarian bureaucracy are actually very adept at.

Ah, excellent point. Okay. So with that, Yong Yong Chung and Julian Gortz, hang on for just a second. When we come back, I do want to turn our attention to the Pentagon and to military relations between U.S. and China vis-a-vis not just Russia, but I had mentioned Taiwan a little earlier. So we have a lot more to discuss. This is On Point. Yong Yong, a little bit earlier, you had mentioned Taiwan.

domestic actions taken by the Trump administration, such as the attempted shuttering of Voice of America. So I want to just play a little tape related to that. You're about to hear Carrie Lake.

I think it's just worth remembering that she began her career as a television news anchor. She was the Republican Party nominee in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election and the 2024 U.S. Senate election in Arizona. She lost both those races. President Trump then later said he wanted to appoint her as the next director of the Voice of America. That position is not legally appointed and nominated by the president himself.

So Lake was then later sworn in as special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, Radio Free Asia and other news entities. Lake and the Trump administration have been working to dismantle these news agencies. They accuse Voice of America and Radio Free Asia of anti-American bias. Here's Carrie Lake on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, March 17th.

Unfortunately, the product is not pro-American. It's not pro-American at all. And that's really a symptom, though, of a bigger problem. The disease is that the people who've been leading the umbrella agency that oversees all of that, you know, many of these are the Obama and the Biden people that came into this agency, have committed absolute, in my opinion, waste, fraud, abuse of the American taxpayer.

Now, Carrie Lake attempted to shut down Voice of America, or they did shut down, I should say, operations two weeks ago. But last week, federal judges set back Lake's drive to dismantle the broadcaster, saying Lake could take no additional steps to close VOA. Julianne Gortz, look, I can't point to exactly what Carrie Lake thinks is anti-American about Voice of America. But

But what's your response to this move by the Trump administration to shut down these broadcasters?

Well, I think in this area, as in foreign assistance with the efforts to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and a number of these areas, one way to think about it vis-a-vis competition with China is that the United States is unilaterally disarming. We are laying down tools that are very important for asserting U.S. influence in parts of the world. And

That is something that China benefits from. These are organizations, Voice of America, USAID, that the Chinese Communist Party loves to denounce. They regularly take on these entities because, for instance, Voice of America has provided a platform to a really diverse range of voices that are sometimes critical of the government in Beijing, sometimes highlight problems

minority groups like Uyghurs or Tibetans. So Beijing doesn't like that and I think is candidly quite pleased to see these thorns in their side get pulled out by the United States itself under the Trump administration.

Yongyong, it's fascinating to me that Carrie Lake and Donald Trump see VOA as anti-American because, of course, for a lot of the history of Voice of America, many Americans have called it pro-American propaganda. Does the Chinese government have similar kind of international broadcasting programs like the Voice of America? Is there a Chinese equivalent? Yeah.

Well, first of all, I thought I would mention it was really ironic as a Chinese person who grew up in China to hear this kind of rhetoric saying VOA is anti-American because for as long as there has been a VOA, it's been called anti-China by the Chinese government. And back in the Mao era, tuning into VOA is a highly dangerous act. It is called a toting detail, listening to the enemy's radio station in secret.

On the other hand, even as for myself, when I was learning English in middle school in the early 2000s, I used VOA to help me learn English. And a lot of Chinese people across generations who grew up

after the reform era, listen to VOA, not just as a window to know the outside world, but also just like to learn the language and some of the culture and the news. And so it is really sad. And on the other hand, the Chinese government, it has been pushing some of these global media outreach initiatives, probably most notably through CGTN, the China Global Television Network, as well as Xinhua, its Newswire service. They have some reach. They have...

made some inroads, especially with the developing

partly because the newswire service actually is much cheaper compared with other newswire services such as like AP or Reuters. So there is an economic advantage. It also has a lot of really great Chinese journalists who can work on these foreign assignments. And that is a way for them to practice journalism in a way that is a step removed from the most stringent censorship from Beijing. And so it has made some inroads, but it's certainly not to the reach

all the type of unestablished institution as VOA or Radio Free Asia are. And so it is a really sad thing to see these institutions being dismantled. Not that they are without fault. They have their problems. However, I think I should also mention here that a lot of journalists who work at VOA and Radio Free Asia come from these countries with authoritarian governments, have taken a lot of personal risks and their family members have taken a lot of personal risks.

There is a human cost to a lot of these policies that the current U.S. administration have been implementing. Absolutely. You know, Julian, I know that you can't answer this because I'm asking you to look into the minds of the members of the Trump administration. But I just want to ask it out loud anyway, because we do request interviews with them and they say no. But I just wonder if any single one of them does carry like does Donald Trump. Do they do they know of stories like Yong Yong just told us?

that something like VOA was actually so, let's call it successful from the U.S. point of view, that it was considered a subversive act to listen to it in China for so many years. I mean, why would you want to shudder that if it's actually that effective in terms of advancing a U.S. message? I just do not understand it.

I don't either. And I think there's, you know, in many of these areas, uh, there are clearly, you know, not, not what we would call complete information, but I also have to say, I'm not sure they, they care. You know, I think there's a, there's a, you know, an effort to take on parts of the, the U S government. Um, that is, seems like that's the end in itself and it's, it's irresponsible to my mind, but, uh,

I'm not sure that even if they heard that incredibly powerful history, that they would care all that much, unfortunately.

Okay, so let's turn to things that have happened regarding the Pentagon and China recently. And there was this New York Times report that said that Elon Musk was going to go to the Pentagon to get briefed on possible responses from the U.S. if there were to be a war with China. That then was denied by the Trump administration and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. I'm just wondering what you think about that.

I don't know exactly in that case what happened. And I would say, though, stepping back, one of Beijing's main goals strategically is to everywhere it can raise doubts about U.S. credibility and to raise doubts with countries around the world about the reliability of the United States as a partner.

And I think stories like this, along with many others that we've seen that are about very unorthodox and deeply concerning ways of handling the most sensitive information. I'm obviously also thinking here of the signal chat incident, which maybe we'll come to. But, you know, I think in these areas, we note.

that Beijing is pushing out a message that, as one commentator over the weekend said, it is evident, in his words, that the highest levels of U.S. security decision-making suffer from a significant lack of discipline. That's his words. And they're pushing out that message not just internally, but to audiences around the world. And why are they doing that? It's because they believe that they can contrast

this dynamic in the United States with China being a better, more reliable partner. And that's very concerning. But I mean, it's entirely believable because of these very actions or missteps is too light a word that have been happening in the United States. Right, Julianne?

That's right. It's one of the reasons why having responsible national security leadership is so important and why this irresponsibility that we've seen from these folks is concerning to so many is that something like countries trusting the United States as a partner, wanting to do more with us,

There are a lot of intangibles. It's not just raw power. It's not just the ability to get your will. It's respect. It's credibility. It's the sense that you follow through as a partner. And the United States, at its best, does that. And that's certainly what we work toward in the administration I worked in. But it doesn't seem to be as much of a priority for these folks, to put it mildly.

Yong Yong, I just want to stick with the Elon Musk story here for a second because, you know, he has no formal position in the Pentagon. The White House insists that he's not even the head of Doge, right? They just named some random person a while ago as the head of Doge, even though obviously functionally he is.

But I think the reason why the New York Times piece was so concerning is not only because of Musk's relationship with the president or his lack of a role in the Pentagon. But here's a person who has actual business interests in China. So I'm wondering if you want to – can you talk about that a little bit or maybe more broadly what Chinese leadership or the Chinese people even think of Elon Musk? Yeah.

well, it's not just Elon Musk has significant business interest, but also like even his mother is like a social media influencer and a well-known like spokesperson for Chinese, a number of Chinese private businesses in China. And so, however, I think

I think this is a wild card and a good degree of uncertainty here. But I do want to note here that I found it interesting with regards to the Chinese reactions to this alleged Pentagon briefing, is that it tried to downplay it.

It didn't highlight it in central media. A number of the nationalist outlets and provincial papers that reported on it, the headline was overwhelmingly, Donald Trump says it does not want a war with China. Donald Trump.

claims that the New York Times is fear, rumor mongering. And I think there is an interesting data point in terms of seeing how the Chinese government is taking a cautious attitude towards some kind of explosive news like this.

The safest way to approach it is to discredit the New York Times, which plays into its longtime rhetoric and attitude towards foreign media as well. And also the Chinese leadership does not want to inflame, cause public panic or inflame certain kinds of nationalistic attitudes among the Chinese public beyond what they can control. Yeah, no point well taken. I mean, and also, to be fair, we played that clip at the top of the show of

of President Trump actually saying, I don't want war with China. And at the same time, it's not unusual at all for the United States military to have war plans for various countries. I mean, that didn't surprise me at all. But to your point, the sort of diplomatic handling of

around that is what was interesting. I mean, Julian, we just have about a minute left with you. I'm wondering if you have sort of some final thoughts on what you see potentially in the future, just even over the next six months with the U.S.-China relations. Well, I think the big question is going to be whether the Trump administration decides that it wants to get into some sort of negotiation with Beijing about a deal, as the president would call it.

would call it, and what the boundaries of that will be. Will this just be economics, or will they put other topics, security and technology, on the table in a negotiation? And I think as we've seen in this administration's dealings with Russia, a negotiation that is

has no boundaries around it can be very bad for U.S. interests because it allows the negotiating partner to claim all sorts of things are being discussed. And it's hard to push back on that effectively or to say, you know, no, it isn't, especially when you've damaged your own credibility.

So I think that question is top of mind, and I think the biggest predictor of it will be whether we see President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet at some point in the next few months, or if reports are to be believed as recently as today, whether they may not meet for quite some time because, as Yang Yang was alluding to,

Xi Jinping does not want to end up in a situation that he feels is tremendously uncertain and volatile. And his staff wouldn't let that happen. Well, Julian Gewirtz, thank you so much for joining us today. Pleasure.

It's a pleasure. Thank you. Yangyang, I'm going to give you the last word here, too. What do you see coming potentially or what will you be keeping your eye on over the next six months, let's say? I should say here that since we talked a lot about high-level policies here between the two countries' leadership, one thing that I really want to keep an eye on is the human cost and the social cost.

including how do people in China, like Chinese students, how do they navigate this environment who are like myself from 15 years ago? And if they had planned their entire lives to come study in the U.S. and pursue a career in the sciences, how would they change their life plans? And so I think that human dimension is something that I'll focus on. Yongyong, I really appreciate you mentioning that because policy is one thing, but it has an impact on actual people.

Yongyoung Chung is a fellow and research scholar at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. It's always a pleasure to listen to you, Yongyoung. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.

Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. When the same big investors buy stakes in multiple competing companies, are those firms still competitors? That phenomenon is known as common ownership. And a recent episode of Is Business Broken? dives into how common ownership affects prices, innovation, and more. Here's a preview of that episode.

You've uncovered a number of interesting effects in companies and industries that have common owners, how it can affect competition, prices of products in the market, innovation, executive compensation, managerial incentives. What have you seen that happens when this power is consolidated like this?

Yeah, I think it's a fascinating question. Of course, I think it's a fascinating question because much of my work in the last couple of years has been in this space. But just to clearly state the hypothesis of common ownership again, it's a situation really where you have these common owners that hold large stakes in companies that are competing against each other.

But now, because the companies are held by these common investors and common owners, perhaps they have less of an incentive to engage in such intense competition with each other. Now, that has positive effects for the profits. And that's something that the investors actually quite like. And that benefits companies.

potentially all of us who are invested in these companies, but that has potentially negative effects for consumers of the products that these companies make. So just as an example here, if you represent a lot of shareholders in Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, then you basically aren't going to pressure one of them to lower their prices and really go after the market share of the other.

because you get more profits in one company, you get less in the other, and it's all kind of a wash. You would rather see both companies keep their prices higher and make more money across the market because you own that market. Exactly. It's a very, very simple logic. And when I talk to people about common ownership,

that are not in economics, they immediately say, yeah, but isn't that totally obvious that this is something that would happen? And I said, well, you know, it's something that is obvious once I've explained it to you. And this wasn't a situation that was so predominant 40 years ago, but it is very much a dominant paradigm right now.

Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.