My view is 1st and foremost the fact that the world is moving from having been off to the end of the cold war predominantly unicode meeting dominated by you know the states and towards a much more multipolar system in which china is an increasingly important country but one among many powers that are going to have great influence so its stuck change that is at the bottom of whats now happening in the u. S. China relationship now i think it also has something to do with a new generation of thinkers who gained a lot of influence in and around the white house and given President Trumps own antics i think its very easy to dismiss him as a charlatan but i also tend to think that hes policy visit china is pretty elaborate im not saying its good but all im saying that there is a lot of thought behind it by people like Michael Pillsbury of the hearts and institutes of bana etc is there anything in their world view of china as well and they cannot make war on the industrial economies of the west that rings true to you as well. Not as an economic war i mean that your skills and make any sense i mean china is competing in the International Marketplace like any other country is competing in the National Market because the program which is the correct problem to focus on is that china because of its economic structure has had certain advantages in terms of the development of its own market. That all the countries more advanced countries including you know what the states including europe have not been able to to obtain but this is not uncommon in terms of the Historical Development so countries that are rising often cut off their own markets to foreign competition the worst similar that i can think of in historical sense in this case is you know the states which for a very long time was the most difficult country in the late 19th and early 20th century to get access to for all of them were drawn to the quantum is so this is not this is not surprising now im not so sure how advanced the thinking is strategically with regard to tariffs so i think youre right in saying that some of the us view on china is changing but i think that has to do. With everyone who is thinking about Foreign Policy or discussing Foreign Policy here at the moment and that has us much to do with the relative reduction in the overall american position it has to do with the royce of china so what im saying is that i dont think the trumpet ministration has a particularly toward or well strata joists attitude or a policy toward china but i also dont think that this administration is necessarily do worse Administration China could face i could easily imagine a Democratic Administration coming into the white house off to the next election that would be asked tough if not tougher on china know now professor west that you said a moment ago that china is competing just like everybody else and i think the argument prevailing in the white house at the moment is that china is competing in in an absolutely unique way like no one has done before and i mentioned. Before one of his bass no on the boards both in the west one of his most revered works in china is they are at the war which focuses on the exact same thing know how to advance and win while awaiting direct confrontation you know the use of. Delay and deceive the use of spying temporary submission that cetera if one sees that as a cornerstone of the chinese worldview is it at all surprising that people like steve bannon and Michael Pillsbury would ultimately see chinas strategy as aggressive and aiming to take something away from the United States then i think they take. Losses for who lived more than 2000 years ago a little bit too seriously arent chanos are to to to go outside world is dominated by politics current politics and not the ancient philosophy i spent most of the 1st part of this year in beijing met a lot of policymakers i dont think they are a day have much too advanced in terms of their understanding of chinese history all that will trump house of American History which is to say very very little so i dont think thats the issue here i think very often you find an overrating or for china is able to do on the western side and especially on the u. S. Side on that front and sort of people now look our who shouldnt over look the issue on the chinese to do something or competition that there is an attempt very concerted attempt to steal secrets from Foreign Companies to obtain them for free that there is a link between an increasingly or through tarion chinese to do ship and what they have been able to do in terms of getting controlled economy all of that is true but the idea that china is somehow in totally different from whats happening in the rest of the world thats the one object at the same time in your own book you do provide a sudden basis for a sort of philosophical clash you you mention several concepts that essential to the Chinese Press option of the world and one of them is the concept of justice particularly as it relates to chinas own place in the world this feeling that chinas loss of influence in the previous centuries was unjust that china is now trying to regain what rightfully. Belongs to it and ultimately thats thats an odds of it the american perception of the world to be cheese any rising power as an offense if aggressive and aiming to take something away from america do you think those perceptions how things a supposed to be with ever be reconciled i think its always very hard when you have an adjustment in terms of power between rising powers and status quo post some index what we have seen throughout history does also true with regard to china no youre absolutely right in part of course because you quote in my book. In saying that china is owed to regain what it sees its its position within eastern asia and i think thats going to happen i mean china is the most populous country within the region it is seen as the center within the region not these now in in economic terms and i think there is very little over a long period of time that you know to states can do to prevent that the question is how do we get from here to there while avoiding this quite natural great power why will vary from moving on to a full scale conflict and eventually war thats the key issue i think at the moment so there will be there will be conflicts connected to the royce of china thats not thats not surprising but the question is how it happens and i think people in beijing also very aware of what is so this is part of the reason why a lot of people know there are very concerned about whats happening and do the rapid deterioration in the Us China Relationship now another point that you make in your book is how well integrated china is into the Global Economy and into the American Economy much more than any rising power before is when President Trump talks about the crumbling of chinese manufacturing as he did on twitter just the other day. Can he be sure that some of those big debris wont land on his own shores no he cant i mean i think china is intimately connected to the Global Economy and the way it works. I think if there is a severe decline in terms of the chinese economy does going to hurt everyone and i think one of the choices that this administration has to make and its successor Administration Whenever that comes in also will have to make is whether u. S. Strategic interests are sole predominant in terms of how do you know the states or to view the world that it would prioritize such a decline in spite of the negative consequences it would have for the u. S. Economy over seeking a more collaborative relationship with china in spite of the political and strategic differences so in other words the big question is will one on the u. S. Side and the chinese side for that matter decide that one can compete and cooperate at the same time or will the competition move in the direction of an overall. Clash which will have both economic and political and military. Consequences in a very negative sense for both countries i think that would also depend on how far they trumpet ministrations a bishop is go do you think they would be satisfied with you know limited concessions on that terry of them intellectual Property Rights or od they indeed out to destroy or undermine state capitalism as a system as an ideological concept if you will no i think they would like to do that at all but i think theyre all a number of people within this administration who understand that that would be would be very difficult. Maybe unattainable if you if you think about chinas direction so i think there are some severe weaknesses in terms of how the chinese economy works at the moment i think economic reform to try to. When taken forward has in many ways stalled as a 1st and foremost a problem for the chinese but i think in the way that this is seen by body Trump Administration i think politically because they have an election coming up what they would like to do is to have some kind of agreement which trump condemn present us a great weak story which will form part of his platform for deep for the reelection campaign. Whether such a deal is going to be last thing that is the big question and im im very doubtful with regard to that not necessarily because you know the states is out to undo deep political or Economic System in china but simply because the the trade and economic contradictions between the 2 countries are so strong well professor west that we have to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments they. Join me every thursday on the Alex Salmonds show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics Small Business im show business ill see that. Says he stressed to make sure that the british and the bill of voted out that he had the will to. Stop the show was so he or she then that is to face charges hes a c. E. O. Which quite all shot. To which she never had one plan and look what youve seen in investments future occur in america for sure and. Want to go to the show through my if youre going to contribute. To the mystery of the words that were on the list for them to spill over for good as they seem to be for you both just that its a studio actually that person to be broken or should stop them spinning. Expressed. Well you know that they were kind of adopted because we were called pirates for so long. Ive been there in the small ball and sniffed at harpoon ships and its standing. Up in. The limo self to beak cold fish already 90 percent of it are not and it wont encounter. A concept 15 scoops 75 tons of tuna and they do it several times a day with a big fleet oh you get an idea why ocean fish. We have to understand we can all still use to just. Be witness of the deal going to go. Im doing this because i want the future world to the future can generations to have and enjoy the ocean we have. Welcome back to worlds apart with the odds are they have west that professor of history of a Global Affairs at the University Professor west the world often the accuses china of stealing ideas lets put it this way but as i was reading your book it occurred to me that the chinese man proceed differently because you provide many historic examples of them trying to emulate not just industrial designs but whole chunks of other countries political and Economic Systems 1st it was the soviet one then that was the american the one that they tried to recreate according to the own needs and understandings how does china go about. Choosing what it wants to take when it comes to those. Larch strategic things. Well as us russians we know better than anyone and this is of course connected to chinese politics and the directions that chinese politics have been taken over a fairly long period of time so the 1st in many ways encounter with the west for china was to disorient union and was true communists which competed transformed the country and then starting in the late 19th seventies china started under a different Political Leadership to think in the direction of using Market Mechanisms in order to transform the country and ive been tremendously successful in doing so which is one of the reasons why i did Chinese Communist party is still in power while the soviet communist party is long gone so i think china has had an incredible ability to pick up ideas not always the best suited ideas but different kinds of ideas from elsewhere implementing them and this is why i call. China in many ways a hybrid civilization the way it comes up no i mean it it consists of domestic traditions and domestic ideals but its also taken an immense amount in from elsewhere yes but it also got them in trouble with the americans and to some extent europeans because even before. Heard the europeans complaining about china is stealing that trade designed to be the very quietly now intellectual Property Rights are clearly essential to the current dispute the trumpet ministration seems to believe that chinas growth could be slowed down theyve this capacity for appropriation is somewhat curtailed do you bill believe that to be the case do you think china at this point can fuel its own innovation that without relying on Technology Transfers from other countries no i dont think any country is capable of developing and so an economy well without access to ideas and to science and patents dont have been developed elsewhere i mean the point here and this is a correct point i think coming from the Us Administration is that Chinese Companies from the. And his government have to do this in a way step all in conformity with what happens elsewhere in the world according to International Standards for these consequences now china is not the only cinema my friends who know much more about his than what i do. Convincing me that china has made significant improvements in terms of intellectual Property Rights overall but i do think that there is still a problem there is still an issue that needs to be either a sort of the current Us Administration probably overstates it but there is an issue that china needs to resolve for its own interests as well as the rest of the world now according to your book china had the soviet era we talked a little bit about it the american you know which ironically america is now trying to bring in and to what do you think will come next will china have a genuinely chinese era. I dont think any country really in this day and age can afford to turn inward but its also a misunderstanding within parts of the Chinese Communist party is so one of the things thats really striking in the political discourse in beijing today is the number of people to be close to power who are saying that some of the what i call the american era in china sort of off to denounce and seventys was a mistake right that china needs to return war to its own roots and become more independent of the outside world i think that would be really difficult to do china needs to stay integrate to do i think there also policymakers in beijing who realize this that this is chinas interest as long as the chinese economy still needs to grow very substantially to deal with domestic problems including rising inequality poverty in some parts of the of the country so i think the idea overturning from this engagement with the outside world and because im more in with looking simply is not is not an alternative which on china has to stay involved but what it wants to do i think and look at its relation. To put russia on this is to broaden its ability to work with different powers in different parts of the world and thats i think is a is a is a sensible strategy you often make a point that china needs to create a better system of governance particularly finding a better balance between regional and the central levels and yet you also meant that vertically integrated system has served that well how do you see you know i dont know i hesitate calling it a democracy but the chinese characteristics about how do you see the system that china could develop that would both give its citizens more protein to express themselves including politically but also preserve the efficiency that they chinese are so proud of right thats a very good question i mean what china needs to do and this i think is the biggest challenge actually bigger than the relationship with the outside world is to make it possible for ordinary chinese to feel that they have a bigger stake in terms of the development of the country and that includes to do more in terms of freedom of speech freedom of organization i dont think china you know lifetime is going to be anything like a democracy in patisserie for 3 terms but it needs to become a much more open society and thats the problem i think that the current chinese leadership post is that he says dont very little about dealing with these kinds of issues internally and therefore pressure is building and i think a very significant economic downturn and charm know if it comes. And it will come at some point you know could have really serious political consequences inside inside the country but most chinese are very proud of what they have achieved. Over the last generation and a whole but there is also a need i think now for political reform that would make it possible for people to feel that they have more of a stake. In this remarkable transformation that china has gone through you often talk about how they can any believe that they are a system is superior to that of the west and i think in this regard donald trump is every interesting historic phenomenon because he is putting the chinese system to historic test hes also putting the western system to quite a substantial task which of these 2 systems do you think. May withstand the chum test better. I am very tempted to answer neither of them. I think there are severe challenges and now in terms of governance. In europe and in do you know other states i think to a severe test to governance in china and in russia i think the most important thing is that people who have their own concerns who want to see things develop maybe in a different way than what has happened before or actually listened to by the elites and body by the people in in power and that it doesnt all because an issue either or 3 tarion rulers in incheon on to some extent in russia or the kind of populist form of democracy does youre seeing in the United States and europe that the challenge share for china to come back to that is that the room conclusion i think now for chinese leaders to draw is that the resoled much trouble in the west that this makes it possible for china to keep the current of system of government in place that they have now forever with any attempt at serious reform it at the political level or in terms of the political economy does it i think would be historical mistake this may be in many ways open an opportunity for china to say ok look this is what we want to go this is how we want to improve seriously improve governance within our own country when the economic going is still relatively good. I know that in the 1st fired off your career you were mainly preoccupied with the history of the cold war you mentioned the soviet union and the u. S. Soviet rivalry and i know also that youre very adamant that what were seeing now between beijing and washington is not a repeat or a replay of the cold war how would you characterize whats going on between these 2 great nations. I think what we see coming back to what we talked about earlier is a great poet delivery that remind speak quite a lot of what happened back in the 19th century meaning that there are several powers that compete for influence and for controlled within the regions so what were looking at now is not a bipolar system like during the cold war where you have royal ideologies in terms of how society should be organized and economy should be organized you have a conflict and are widely read between several great powers where the main point as we see in the current trade conflict is to get more for oneself its not about you know fundamentally changing the global system in terms of the way it works its not even rival systems of governance because thats not a key issue here it is a boat you know getting more in International Trade in terms of resources in terms of International Finance for ones own country and that i think is whats going to characterize the global system as it develops from 0 but im not saying that that is less dangerous necessarily than even a cold war i think it could become a very dangerous forms of competition but its just a different kind of competition from what we saw during the cold war i heard you say that the more the United States and china bit each other more room for maneuver ah their powers will have and being from russia naturally interested how do you think moscow can leverage that they thrive already for its own benefit and for the benefit of the world but i think russia could leverage it must. Both for its own benefit and for the benefit of the world but it depends on how russia handles the situation that still no i mean if the russian leadership believes that this is the moment to get as close to china as possible in order to have some kind of united front against us dominated world i dont think russia is making use of that leverage for many good historical examples of all how dangerous the. Kind of you know towing one slow train with with one so it would actually be maybe especially for russia or in russia china relationship but if russia tried to deal with the problems you know around its own borders for tried to deal with us russia thats where the relationship however difficult it is in a way that made it possible to leverage both sides i think that would be an immense advantage for russia and probably lead to broader stability in terms of the world over a few years ago you described my country as a dissatisfied scavenger on the fringes of the current order and its evident to me that you didnt try to hide the ideas they had there but dont you think that this scavenger as you put it may prove to be a crucial to both china and the United States as the balance or if the rivalry indeed continues to deepen im sorry for that formulation but what i was trying to say is that the way russia has spent over the posts decade or so is very much not engaging with what are the central issues in terms of Global Governance but broader issues that have to do immediately with its own beliefs is natural for any country right which is true to some extent for any country but not for countries who want to see themselves as a global power necessarily i think thats the just a question so so what russia has to do is to decide what it wants to be i mean does it want to move back into having a strong global position or those that want to antagonize most of its neighbors spoilt by insisting on its own rights or on the its borders now is possible to do both but the there is usually a price to pay for that i mean its really its really difficult to do both politically and this kind of situation where its clear that russia is compared to do not the states and china is not royce ing power in a global sense particularly with regard to its economy. So. Formulation what i tried to say is that you know what russia needs to do is to up its game it needs to think of itself as smooth and what it is at the moment and that it can actually play an important global balancing role but only if it takes its responsibility while professor west that lets leave the debate on russia for some of that time in the meantime let me thank you for being with us today absolutely your perspective it has been a great pleasure i invite our viewers to keep this conversation going on our social media pages and hope to sear again same place same time here on the balls of fire. During the Great Depression which are old enough to remember that it was most of the family were working. There wasnt it was bed you know much worse objectives listen today but there was an expectation of the things youre going to get better. There was a real sense of hope. There isnt today todays america was shaped by the turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. Reduced democracy attacks. Engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to no on. One set of rules for the rich. Thats what happens when you put her into the. Narrow sector will switch is dedicated to doing. Virtue of just as youd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. The barbarians the vandals on wall street are now actively plundering your bank account with a negative Interest Rate an astonishing amount of policy there and theres no economics behind it that would cue to any school of economics that has ever existed as dr Michael Hudson said since the bronze age its just out right for. You. Know. That. Theyre not going to get. It so much top stories in the last 7 days on this channel the United States could potentially be smuggling tons of weapons and ammunition that ends up with militants in the middle east thats according to leaked documents we showed you a. Journalist writing the price and. Being the department of labor. They are. Britains Prime Minister how to be the week suffering a string of humiliating defeat so please no deal breaker to the