Shownotes Transcript
So is Trump still heading to Beijing? What's the future of global trade? And is the world becoming multipolar? We're going to ask our very special guest, Arnaud Bertrand. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life and everything in between. Hey, everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge.
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Hey everyone, my name is Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. Arnaud Bertrand is an entrepreneur and CEO of Mianqi, which offers a range of products inspired by traditional Chinese herbalism. Arnaud is a well-known commentator on economics and geopolitics. He is regularly featured on media like CGTN, the Global Times, New China TV, and more. He's a giant on X.
almost 400,000 followers now and growing. Welcome back to the Bridge to China, Arnaud. Thank you so much, Jason. I'm delighted to have you. Before we get into the meat, I just wanted to ask you, because you're a CEO and you're also the former CEO of a very successful company. How did you get into geopolitics and social media? That's a good question.
Yes, so I started my first company in Europe with my wife, who is Chinese. And then we sold the company to TripAdvisor and we decided to move to China because we wanted to have kids and we wanted to educate them in both cultures, French and Chinese culture. So the idea was to put them in the French school in China, like that they would get both, which you can't do in France, by the way. There is no Chinese school in France. So that's why we kind of had to be in China.
And living in China, I started to grow more and more angry at the way China was shown, basically, in Western media, which, you know, I could see a very little relationship with reality that I was seeing around me. There were, at the time, very few people cutting that out. And so, you know, it's not much more complicated than that. That's what motivated me.
Because I really like China, I enjoy living there, and I thought that the way the country was being shown was extremely unfair. That's actually my story, except for the France part. And the CEO part. Yeah, basically, around 2018, it became very apparent that everything that was being said in the media about China, in my country also, was disconnected from reality. Things have dramatically escalated recently with the tariff war, and...
I think we're looking at even more escalations coming up. What do you make of the chaos? So I think it's a major mistake by Trump. In fact, I think pretty much I haven't seen one credible person who doesn't think that it is a mistake. And you can see the impact in the market and everything. It's...
clearly the consensus because what Trump is basically doing, I think it stems from his idea, which is first that any trade deficit is bad, right? As soon as you buy more,
from a country that you sell to them, somehow that country is stealing from you, which economically makes no sense whatsoever. So for instance, take the case of Madagascar, which is an island country in Africa. They're the world's biggest producer of vanilla.
And they're a poor country, so they can't buy much from the U.S. People can't afford Teslas, iPhones, and so on over there. So does the fact that they sell vanilla to the U.S. and don't import Teslas and so on, does that mean that they steal from the U.S.? Of course not. I mean, anyone can see that it doesn't make sense. It's like saying...
You know, my local supermarkets, I buy more from them than they buy from me. Therefore, they're stealing from me. I mean, no, it's just like the U.S. needs Madagascar vanilla, Madagascar...
can't afford American products and that's it. So it's based on a completely deluded understanding of economics. And the fact that it is deluded is you can see that based on the justifications that are given by the people around Trump because everyone has a different
different explanation for it, which means there is no explanation. There is no rationale behind it. So one person says that it's to get manufacturing back to the US. Another person says that it's to raise taxes.
Then the third person says that, in fact, it is to make deals with countries and that the terrorists will come out. All of those are mutually exclusive, right? You can't have one and have the other. So I think this demonstrates that, in fact, it's something that comes from Trump. And then you have people around him that try to rationalize it, rationalize something that is not rational. Wow. It looks like MAGA Republicans are celebrating. Wow.
We're in different social media groups. And I actually see a lot of Republicans, MAGA Republicans, like, yay, it's working. I'm taken aback and shocked because I thought the several days in a row of market crashes getting worse and worse would have made them think, well...
Maybe it's not working as well as we planned, but instead they're doubling down. What do you make of the fact that all of Trump's supporters think that the market's crashing seem to be a good thing for America? You know, the very definition of MAGA, I think, is that anything that Trump does is by definition working.
Right. Of course, they're going to say that. But I think it's factually bad for the U.S., right?
It's going to affect American companies first and foremost, because just take the case of Apple, for instance. So Apple is right now stuck between, you know, rock and a hard place because they make abroad, mostly in China, like the iPhone is made in China and so on. And therefore, if they want to continue trading,
do things that way, then they're going to have to pay huge tariffs. I mean, right now, with Trump's announcement yesterday, it's more than 100% in order to import iPhones from China to the U.S., which would make them way more expensive. So that's one choice. Like the status quo, they keep doing things the way they were, and then the iPhone is crazy more expensive. Or they can try to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.,
in which case it's also going to be way more expensive because
Then they will have to spend billions and billions of dollars building, manufacturing there. They will have to hire a lot of people who, by the way, do not exist in the US. You don't have that many educated engineers who can build this type of product, so you need to train them and so on. The salaries of those people is going to be extraordinarily expensive. So there is no winning there for Apple, right? Either way, they lose and
And they face competitors like Xiaomi, those holders in their way. Like China is not telling them, like they make everything in China. They don't have to change anything. It's going to make Apple way less competitive in the global markets compared to Xiaomi. And then you scale that to, you know, so many other American companies like Apple.
I don't think you could find a single American company that doesn't source at least some of its products from abroad. Like we're speaking about Madagascar, for instance, like they sell vanilla, right? So if you're an ice cream company, if you're, what's the name of the ice cream group? Ben & Jerry's or like, yeah. So if you're them,
like the vanilla that you use to make your ice cream just got 50% more expensive how is that good for America so yeah there is no reason to celebrate if you're if you're if you're an American that's that's factually bad for for American businesses
I'm also looking at, it does look like treasuries are being sold off. So I don't understand how the dollar would be affected by this massive trade disruption. But for me personally, if I was a small country, I would want a diverse portfolio of trade because I'd be concerned about the stability of the markets.
What about the dollar? Do you think that Trump's tariff frenzy is going to negatively impact the dollar? I just checked it before this interview, and it is negatively impacting the dollar. I can see that the dollar lost 5% so far this year, which is a lot.
which is actually a double whammy on the American consumers because not only the tariffs made everything more expensive, but now because the dollar is less strong, then they can afford less, right? Because it's 5% weaker than they can buy 5%...
products before the tariffs with the same amount of dollars. So I don't know if that's going to continue. And that's actually quite worrying because normally in times of markets, growth,
like we're having right now, the dollar is normally like the safe haven, right? Everyone goes in dollar and the dollar strengthens. We're not seeing that. It's weakening. So I'm not an economic forecaster, so I can't say if that's going to continue one way or the other. I can just tell you that's what's happening right now. You're listening to The Bridge.
You're from France, and I think France is part of the European Union. That's a trade bloc or some kind of union. I don't fully understand how it works, but it's an economic bloc of some kind.
Will the EU be responding to U.S. tariffs by reducing tariffs to zero as Trump has requested? Or is the EU going to fight it in some way? Because I know that there are certain holdouts, like certain kinds of American products like chicken, that European countries don't want. So what's your take about the direction that the EU or France is going to take? So I saw that Ursula von der Leyen made an announcement yesterday. And basically what she was saying is that...
It can be one way or the other. So she said that she proposed a deal to Trump of basically free trade for industrial equipment, if I'm not mistaken, meaning zero tariff on both sides. If the U.S. doesn't charge any tariff for European industrial equipment, then Europe is not going to charge tariffs to the U.S.,
But she also said that they can have countermeasures if Trump decides to double down with his tariffs, basically. So, yeah, it can go one way or the other. One thing is for sure, I think it is going to reduce trade between countries.
the US and the European Union, if only for the uncertainty and the volatility of the situation, which means that probably Europe is going to look for alternatives out there. And one alternative is China, which is, of course, the other very big trading partner, in fact, their major trading partner.
So I think all in all, we can expect much like what happened during the first Trump trade war, during his first administration, it actually strengthened the trading links between other trading blocks. So between
China and Europe decided to collaborate more on trade. Asia, you know, made a very significant trade agreement. And the U.S. was kind of left isolated. So I think that's probably fairly likely as a result of this new trade war. Well, that's interesting. So it looks like Europe will be diversifying away from the United States for safety, really. Well, I wanted to ask you in general, since Trump has taken presidency, what's
How would you characterize Sino-U.S. relations in 2025 so far? I think that it didn't actually start too badly. Trump made quite a few overtures to China. For instance, he invited Xi to his inauguration. Well, Xi didn't come, but I think the Chinese vice president came.
He had very positive language on China, saying he wants good relationship and so on. So it started well, but deteriorated very fast. I mean, what we're seeing right now is extremely hostile. Trade wars, tariffs, I mean...
they can be considered, uh, acts of, of war. Anyone who's watched, uh, Star Wars, uh, knows that, right? It's, uh, so, um, in, in this present moment is probably the worst has been, uh,
It's just a whole balloon saga, I would say. I find that balloon saga fascinating because at the end of weeks of them, media, US media and Western media in particular, saying, oh, it's spying on us. Then it crashed and the Pentagon investigated, found that it wasn't spying. But you barely heard about that. So US media had no interest in undoing the disinformation that they had been spreading. So it's a very bizarre story.
episode in U.S.-China history. What would you say? Well, I guess you've already said the largest missteps look like this just massive trade war. So do you think, because I think Trump is maybe convinced that it's working, is Trump's tariff war a winning strategy for the U.S.?
How do you think Europe is going to react? Is Europe going to try to do the same thing where it's going to try to build everything in Europe and cut itself off from other manufacturing powers? What do you think? I mean, you're seeing a general trend of...
countries wanting to manufacture more at home. So that's what Trump is saying is one of his primary motivations, right? And Europe wants to do that as well. So yeah, you're definitely going to see that. If you want to do that, which is a very legitimate goal, I think that one of the worst things to do is do a trade war. Because at the end of the day, if you want to manufacture more,
At home, you need customers, right? And a trade war is, by definition, antagonizing your customers. So I think that makes very little sense. If you look at China, for instance, the reason why they became the factory of the world is because...
During that whole period, they had an excellent relationship with the rest of the world, with America, with Europe, and so on. You need to be very friendly to the rest of the world in order to attract them in your country, to build things in your country, to sell your products to them. I mean, that's the way trade works.
If you start to be incredibly hostile, then obviously people are going to be less motivated to buy your products. So yes, it's very paradoxical in a way. Like you have a specific objective, but at the same time you do
you act against it. So it's, we live in times that are not very rational. At the beginning of the show, you mentioned the reason you got into geopolitics and talking about China with, in its relations with other countries is because the,
the connection between reality in China and the way that China is portrayed in media around the world is not connecting. So what would you say are some of the most damaging narratives in Western media about China, in your opinion? All I say is that the narratives on China in Western media are actually much more damaging to the West than they are to China. Because at the end of the day, China...
knows what China is, right? Every Chinese person, like, they don't read Western media. They don't need it to understand themselves. Like, they understand China very well. Those who read Western media are Westerners. And it's actually very bad. Even if you view China as a rival or even an enemy, it's all the more important to understand them, right? It's that famous...
I think Sun Tzu quotes in The Art of War, which says that if you don't understand your rival, then for every battle, you're going to lose another one. I think that the quote goes like that. So I think China actually understands the West very well.
So many Chinese people have studied in the West. So many people speak English. They read Western media. They understand how it works and so on. They do business with the West. The inverse is not true at all.
No one in the West reads Chinese media. They don't understand the first thing about China. They don't understand Chinese. They don't go to China. Like the number of foreign students in China right now is ridiculously low. I think it must be, you know, just a few thousands or something like that.
That's not hurting China. It's hurting the West, actually. Because then things happen where the West gets completely blindsided, like we saw with EVs, right?
I checked EVs as being an objective in China's industrial policies for, I think it started in 2007 or something like that. Like since 2007, they're saying this is a very big strategic objective of ours. We want to develop the EV industry. And then every five-year plan, you had something around that. And then suddenly, when they finally make it, they have like those amazing EV companies.
The West wakes up and is like, "Wait, China is doing EVs now?" If they had taken the time to understand China, to follow what's going on there, they would have seen that 10-15 years ago. So yeah, that's concretely what's happening. They keep getting blindsided. They keep having this mirage of China, this completely deluded notion of the country.
And the primary victims of that is not China, it's themselves. You know, that's fascinating. I think you're absolutely correct. And one thing that's really interesting I see on your account and my account also is that we're trying to tell people in the West, the humanoid revolution is coming in China. My own, what I've said many times now is that there will be
millions of humanoid robots in China by 2030. But you've also said some similar things. What do you think the West is misunderstanding about what is coming in robots? - I think it stems from this sort of exceptionalism notion where they still think that China can't innovate, China can only steal IP. I mean, all those narratives, right? You know, seeing anything that comes from China, including around humanoids,
propaganda, not real. Like, you know, for instance, when, if you remember, Elon Musk, you know, he has his own humanoid. I can't remember...
Yeah, Optimus, that's right. So they had a big event with Tesla where they showcased Optimus robots and they were serving drinks and so on. And that made a huge impression in social media. Like it went crazy viral. Wait a minute, like there is this Chinese company called Unitree that has a much more advanced robots than Optimus. I'm looking at the videos of that company on social, on X because they have an account.
And they have like a few hundred likes. So I'm like, this makes no sense. Like you're treating Optimus as some kind of revolutionary things. Like that company one year ago could already have those capabilities. So it's another example of us.
And by us, I mean Westerners kind of voluntarily blindsending ourselves to what is out there, what is the reality, what we could see if we paid attention. You're listening to The Bridge.
You know, one thing I'd like to add to that, in addition to the fact that China has many humanoid robot companies like Unitree developing all kinds of different products that are coming out already, is the simple ability of China to manufacture things. Because China has more than half of all factory robots in the world, the largest manufacturing sector by far of any country in the world. So when Boston Dynamics
or Tesla wants to scale their robot, it's going to take time to get it up to scale. But when Unitree is ready to start pumping out 200,000 a year, it can start doing that in one or two years. And so the difference there is going to be dramatic just because China is the manufacturing hub of the world, especially now that Trump is trying to cut Chinese manufacturing off from the US. Where is Tesla going to manufacture its Optimus?
or Boston Dynamics, where are they going to turn? Are they going to just start building factories from scratch? It's going to make it impossible to compete with China. By the time the U.S. is finally starting to manufacture some robots, China will already be selling them to like Sudan. I mean, you know,
everywhere. You know, you mentioned Apple specifically, but how do you think corporations feel with tariffs and sanctions on China and other nations? Because Apple's caught in the middle, you mentioned, but there are a lot of other companies. I go to the grocery store, for example, in China, and I walk around and there's every American product I want, you know,
shavers and like potato chips or whatever it is. There's like hundreds of American products. How is it going to affect these companies like Johnson & Johnson with tariffs going up between China and the United States or the United States and many countries it looks like? Yes, so it's going to affect them for sure. So I would imagine as a company, you have several choices, right? So let's say you're Johnson & Johnson.
I think that a lot of those products must be manufactured in China already. As such, they won't be victims of tariffs, the retaliatory tariffs that China puts on U.S. products because it comes from within their country. But for those products that are, in fact, imported from the U.S.,
Then the motivation is for those companies to say, actually, we're going to stop making those products in the U.S. We're going to instead make them in China, right? In a way, Trump is doing that to encourage manufacturing of products in the U.S., but in that specific scenario, he's going to encourage those companies to make those products in China. And then it's kind of a tug-of-war between China
The Chinese market with its 1.3, 1.4 billion consumers and the American market with its 300 million or so consumers. So, of course, Americans can afford more. They're wealthier than the average Chinese. But also, you know, the Chinese market is growing much faster than the American market is.
The Chinese government is repeatedly saying now that its primary objective is to boost consumption. So if companies want growth, I think it makes more sense for them to prioritize the Chinese market as opposed to the American market, because it's bound to grow much faster than China.
than the American market. So, yeah, even in this tug of war between Chinese and American consumers, I think China has very good calls to play, which is another reason why the tariffs make very little sense. I've also been watching disposable income per capita in China, and it's just going up pretty steadily for 20 years, almost unbroken in its upward trend. So I think there'll be a lot more money
discretionary money for Chinese consumers to spend in the future. So I wanted to talk to you about, we mentioned what the West gets wrong, but for people watching who want to get China right, what are some practical steps people can take and even media can take to better understand China, divorce it from maybe the media bubble that has foreshadowed
formed in the West? I mean, the single best thing you can do is to go to China. Yeah, and just travel there. I think a mistake many people make when they go to China is they tend to stay in those two, three first-year cities and
that are in China, but I think don't give you a good overview of China. Even when you speak with the people there, their opinion is not representative of the average Chinese, I would say. They're much more liberal and so on. So my advice would be not only go to China,
but also try to see China in its diversity. Like, of course, go to Beijing and Shanghai and so on, and you're going to see that's one side of China, but also make the effort of going to the Chinese countryside, going to the
deeper China as it were like Hunan or you know Qinghai or Gansu those types of places and you know just speak to people speak to normal everyday Chinese to understand their view of the world and
try to speak to a diverse amount of people. I think a mistake that many journalists make when it comes to China, first of all, most of those are not based in China. They're based in Taiwan right now, most Western journalists. So you're not going to understand the mainland at all if you're based in Taiwan. That's one thing. But even those who are based in China often say,
they tend to stay in Shanghai or in Beijing or in Shenzhen and speak with a certain segment of the Chinese population that's maybe like 5% of the Chinese population, like wealthy, liberal, like people who have studied abroad, who are more liberal in their mindsets, who live in those coastal cities. You're not going to have a fair understanding of China if that's people you're talking with. You need to
diversify the people you speak with. And I think that's actually a mistake that the media make even in France. Like, even in France, my country, like, if I look at the media like Le Monde or Le Figaro and so on, they also just stay in Paris and speak with the elites there and think that's the view of the French population. That's not the case at all. If you want to understand a country in its complexity, in a nuanced way, then, you know, you also need to
speak with the everyday person, understand what they're thinking, which is particularly important in China because actually the Chinese government, they often make their policies not based on what the wealthy elites think, but very much based on what the rural population, what the population in the vast majority of the population in like the second tier, third tier, fourth tier city,
based on what they want. And it's quite different from what the elites want. That reminds me, I saw a video of yours a few weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago, where you were in a small town and you referred to it as a fifth tier city. Until you posted that video, I wasn't sure that there was such a thing as a fifth tier city, but then actually looked it up and it turns out it's true. So there are fourth and fifth
tier cities. And could you just share your observations about this tiny town? And what was the... Do you know the population? So I think you're speaking about Mudanjiang, right? In Heilongjiang. Yeah. So...
I checked, it's the 113th biggest city in China. Definitely not first tier. I actually don't know if it's fourth or fifth, but it's way down the list of cities in importance. I think most Chinese people have probably not heard of it, of that city. And I haven't heard of it myself.
Before I went there, we just did a little tour in the northeast of China. Bear in mind, remember, like for the audience, that Heilongjiang is the second poorest province in the whole of China. And so I expected, if you tell me 113 biggest city in China in the second poorest province of the country, like you don't expect to see a place that's going to be like look like New York or something.
But actually, it does. Anyone can see the video on my Twitter feed. The place looks super impressive. High-rises, buildings everywhere, beautiful lighting, beautiful roads, modern cars everywhere, big avenues, big squares, luxury bakeries, luxury shops, and so on. That's the China experience.
of today. Well, it cooks, I would say, just as good as a first-year city in the West. You're listening to The Bridge. The Bridge.
You mentioning that not only regular people, but also Western journalists come to China, and then they stay in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, and then they only interview this elite class of relatively wealthy international travelers. I think largely it's because those are the English speakers. But we're actually now entering into a period where translation is extremely easy. I have an app on my phone called Doubao, which is made by ByteDance.
If someone wanted to just download this app, they could just speak to it in English and it translates into Chinese. It also works as AI and Chinese can be instantly translated into English. So your proposal that people go to these smaller villages, smaller cities in China and rural areas and talk to regular people for the first time ever, it's actually possible to do that. So if someone coming from France or Germany or America or Canada or whatever, coming to China with
no Mandarin skills, they cannot speak a word of Chinese beyond Ni Hao or something, they can actually go and talk to anyone. And I think that's, we're now in a remarkable period of time where that's possible. I'd also like to point out that I just want to reiterate what I've already just said, in that I've met a lot of the journalists for the really big newspapers that live here in Beijing, and most of them can't even speak Chinese.
So I think that's why they rely on English speaking, wealthier, international traveling Chinese people, because they never took the time for themselves to actually learn Chinese, which can be a challenging language to learn. - I don't know if you saw the HSPE video, apparently you have. - Oh yeah. - Now even those glasses
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That can translate in real time. I don't know. I've never tested them, but that's even better. That's really cool. Yeah. I mean, imagine two people wearing them. Someone with Chinese or English translation. Someone with... Yeah, exactly. And you could just both read what one another are saying instantaneously. There's also an earpiece now. I saw...
Einar Tangen, he's a member of the Taihe Institute. He has an earpiece now that does instantaneous translation in six languages. So, I mean, if you get something like that, come to China, talk to anyone. That's amazing. It is amazing.
I want to ask you about Xiaohongshu, which is known as Red Note. I guess it's English name. It's not an exact translation. But what have you noticed for yourself when you talk to people back home or when you look at the media landscape? What effect has a couple million foreigners suddenly jumping onto a Chinese app had on the discourse about China? I have to be honest, I think it had very little effect because I think it was more of a temporary thing.
Because, you know, TikTok got banned for, I think it actually got banned during a few days.
And then, you know, people jumped over to Xiaorongshu, Red Note, but then it got somehow debanned or something, you know, people went back to it. So I think my view has always been that any direct contact between Chinese and Westerners is great because...
I profoundly believe that conflict and hatred and so on is very deeply linked with ignorance. The solution for that, like no one wants conflict, no one wants tensions. The solution for that is people-to-people exchange. I really, really deeply believe that. So anything that leads to people-to-people exchange should be encouraged.
That was a very nice thing to see, people-to-people exchange in that app. But unfortunately, I think it was relatively short-lived. I mean, probably a few TikTok refugees stayed on there, but I would be surprised if many did. Also, it's a very foreign environment to them, right? Most of the content is in Chinese. Most of the
references and jokes there are related to Chinese culture and so on. It's pretty hard as a foreigner to understand all of that. So, yeah, it was nice to see. It was a nice episode in U.S.-China relations. You know, before this latest iteration of tariffs, which
to me just look insane. During most of the Biden administration, there were very targeted tariffs, especially related to Gina Raimondo and the Commerce Secretary, trying to target specific technologies to prevent Chinese technology like semiconductors from developing. How, in your opinion, has Chinese tech industry navigated those U.S. sanctions and innovated in
in technologies that the U.S. attempted to suppress China? What they've done systematically is in any technology where the U.S. tries to suppress them, they double down to boost domestic demand
capabilities in that technology, which makes perfect sense. If the US tries to cut supply of advanced semiconductors to China, that's extremely bad for the country because you need those for so many modern applications like AI and so on. So that's the natural reaction by China. And I think, you know, I can't believe that the US didn't predict that.
that China will do that and in the long term succeed because they're actually pretty capable. Like they have hundreds of thousands of engineers. So I think the calculations from the US standpoint was less China will never catch up
But more, we want them not to catch up in the short term because we think AI is going to be such a revolution in the short term that if we manage to be there before China and sort of derail China in AI, then that will give us a sustainable advantage for a few years. I think that was more the calculation, the mindset.
But as we've seen with DeepSeek, despite the sanctions on semiconductors, China is there. They have caught up with the U.S. in AI. So it's yet another effort by the West to contain China, that thing. Everyone seems to be celebrating multipolarity right now. I'm actually not convinced.
It does look like we have trades and supply chains diversified around the world and so that there is a degree of multipolarity. But if you look at U.S. base counts around the world, the U.S. is very much still a global empire de facto. So in your opinion, are we living in a multipolar world or is U.S. hegemony still dominant? I think we are living in a multipolar world where one of the poles is stronger than the others. I think that's
that's the best way of putting it. The US, I think, is still the strongest player. It depends. You always need to look at multiple dimensions of power, right? So militarily, it's obvious that the US is, I don't know if they're stronger than China because they will need to fight a war to
I'm not sure that the US would win, actually, but it's a fact that they are more expanded. They have those bases everywhere and so on. So they are more, I would say, they occupy the field more than
than China. They dominate more strategic territory than China, which is also part of military power. So that's one thing. Another dimension of power is economics and trade. There, I think that China is probably more powerful than the US. I mean, clearly in trade, they trade much more than the US. On manufacturing base, it's immensely more
vast than the US. I mean, it's the recognition of that that is motivating Trump's startup. So that's a way of admitting that China is the upper hand there. And then you have soft power, the ability to project your culture and so on. I think there...
America is also clearly dominant. But I actually don't think that's a goal of China to be dominant in that sphere. Like they've never been, they've never tried to convert the world to their own culture. That's just something that's not done. Like even, you know, centuries ago,
you never had like Taoist monks or Chinese Buddhist monks going abroad trying to evangelize the West or anyone really. Like China has always been like, that's our culture, that's your culture, we respect that. We don't want to be influenced by you, we don't want to influence you. So that's going to stay that way. So you need to look at the different dimensions of power. I would say overall, the US is still probably the most powerful pole in
But there are several poles. I think it definitely goes US, China and Russia. I think Russia is also a pole. And the way you define a pole is, I think, simply, you know, a great power that doesn't submit to another one. The reason why Europe is not a pole is because whatever the US says, they complain. And there are very little room of maneuver. Like they can't...
The US has many bases in Europe, like they protect Europe with NATO. So Europe has very little choice than to obey. That's why they can't be considered a power in the multipolar world. Fascinating. I'm going to have to spend some time thinking about that. One of the things that the US did in the early 1980s was outstripping
outsource most of its manufacturing over a period of 20 or 30 years. But it does look like China is starting to set up factories around the world, especially in special economic zones that China helped set up in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Can Chinese companies setting up manufacturing operations, not just in developing countries, but also in the U.S. and Europe, provide jobs and alleviate tensions? What do you think? Yeah, I think, I mean, one way I've always said you should view the Belt and Road Initiative is a bit like a Marshall Plan, right? Which is what the U.S. did yesterday.
after World War II in Europe to redevelop Europe economically because it had been destroyed with the war. We had all those debts and so on.
And the US basically faced two choices, like either let them deal with their own program or we help them, which would be very good for us, the US economically, because then they can be our main customers, which is exactly what happened. And also it helped them strategically because...
When your geopolitical partners are powerful, then it strengthens your alliance overall and so on and so forth. So it's not out of the goodness of the heart.
They always make the decisions based on their interest. And I think that's the same thing for the Belt and Road. It's not something that China does out of the goodness of its hands. It's in China's interest, but it doesn't mean that it's not in the interest of all those countries. Also, I think it is genuinely to help
countries develop economically, which will be good for the countries in question and also good for China because then China can trade with them. It's as simple as that. So I think there are a lot of myths around that which rationally don't make sense, that China wants to kind of subjugate
those countries and like as if it was China's objective to make them poor and miserable with that. No, it makes no sense from China's standpoint. So why would they do that? You're listening to The Bridge. You know, I've also just noticed with the Belt and Road Initiative, before this term was used to describe China's development partnerships with developing countries,
China was developing things in Africa as early as the 1960s. They were helping build small-scale hydropower dams and little hospitals and things. So, I mean, it's easy to see that China is up to helping countries in ways that they want to be helped. So it's not like also China doesn't say...
oh, we're going to come in and build something. Those countries usually reach out and say, hey, China, could you help us build this bridge? Could you help us build this road? So it's clearly obviously also in the interest of those smaller countries. I want to switch to Europe. It looks like Europe is not ready for peace. I mean, that's at least what I see in the Western media. I don't know if that's really accurate.
Are NATO countries really willing to cut welfare programs to boost military expenditures? And how do you think Europeans are going to react to that? Yeah, so I mean, you're right. They are definitely not ready for peace. Yes, they are extremely likely to cut welfare programs to boost military expenditures. Europeans won't obviously be happy about that.
I'm in two minds on this. So first of all, I think that Europe was the biggest victim of the Ukraine war. Besides Ukraine, that is, of course. Ukraine is part of Europe, obviously, although not the EU.
I really think that it would be better for Europe if the war stopped, if they managed to find a way to reconcile with Russia, because I think division is always the enemy of prosperity. At the end of the day, if you want a prosperous Eurasia,
From China to Europe, it needs to be united. The more divided it is, the victim is obviously the people in Eurasia, right? Division never benefits the people who are divided. But I also think that Europe should develop its own defense capabilities because...
That's actually what we were discussing before. The reason why Europe is not a pole is because it doesn't have those defense capabilities because it relies on the US and therefore it's kind of like a protection racket, right? When you have someone protecting you, then
you rely on them for your security and therefore whatever they say goes. Like, you have no choice. If they start protecting you, you die. So they have incredible leverage over you and the only way to break that leverage is to develop your own defense capabilities. So,
I think that European leaders use Russia as the boogeyman to try to sell that to a European population. I hope that in the back of their mind, they don't believe that, that they understand that the goal is not for long-term tensions with Russia, but
more to simply be masters of their own destiny and be able to assert their sovereignty and defend themselves. That's fascinating. I never thought of that. So you're thinking is that maybe there is a logic that Europe is trying to become more autonomous from the United States and less of a vassal, using Russia to frighten the population into allowing them to develop their own security force so that they're not dependent on the US. That is...
Wow. I've got so much out of this interview. Thank you so much. I have one last question. We discussed this a little bit last time. I think it's important to reiterate this, especially for Americans who are always like, oh yeah, China has healthcare and stuff, but we have freedom. China has these material things. And so people always use this word, freedom. I wanted to ask you, how do you think freedom manifests differently in China? Is China free or are the people oppressed in your opinion?
So, I mean, freedom, a lot of people don't understand what freedom means. They think that freedom is purely individual freedom, the ability to basically do what you want. But I actually think that the more people have individual freedom,
Actually, the less free a society is, because, I mean, we can see that concretely in the US, we have a lot of individual freedom, including the freedom to own guns, for instance, which means that there is a lot of gun violence.
which means people are more afraid to go on the street, to go in certain areas of the US. For example, I remember going to California and there is that place called Oakland, which is incredibly dodgy apparently. I was told never go there or you're going to get killed. That's not freedom. There are some places where you simply cannot go because there is too much individual freedom.
And as a result of this very high amount of individual freedom or so, the US has the world's largest prison population, which is the very definition of you being not free because you're in prison. Right. So freedom is a much more nuanced and complex notion.
than people would believe at first. There was this speech, I think, made by Roosevelt called the Four Freedoms Speech at some point. So he defined freedom in four aspects. So there was freedom from fear, which is what we just talked about. Like you should be able to, for instance, walk on the street without being afraid, or especially as a woman, like...
You're free if you can walk on the street wearing a miniskirt any time of the day or night anywhere in your country. That's the ultimate freedom, which is something that exists in China, very much so, but doesn't exist in the US. And then I think the second freedom is
Roosevelt's speech was "freedom from need", which means no poverty, basically. Again, there, I think, you know, we can look at China and the US. I mean, there is no homelessness in China. Like, anyone who goes there can tell you that. It's, I mean, it does exist, of course, but it's extremely rare, very, very rare. Like, you can
walk during literally weeks in China and not see a single homeless person, which happened to me many times. In the US, you can see them everywhere. That's the case in most Western countries.
China put a lot of effort around poverty alleviation, which means extreme poverty is now gone. So there is a good case to be made that also around freedom from need, China is in a better position than the US. So yeah, I think that people should have a much more nuanced understanding of freedom. Like China has less individual freedom,
That's for sure. But that's not freedom with a big F, right? That's not freedom when you take a step back and try to really understand the complexity of freedom and what it means. I love talking to you so much. I hope we can have you on again because I learn so much from listening to you. And I read all of your posts as well. But just having you articulate this,
answers to these questions really helps me understand the world a lot better. Thank you so much for your time, Arnaud Bertrand. Thank you, Jason.