Discussing now the trumpet ministration began its 1st term by essentially repudiating the use china policy over the last couple of decades and at times it sounded as if it wanted to undo the entire system of state capitalism i mean. 9 people like steve down and present to china as waging a war on the industrial democracies of the west is that still how china is seen in washington are at least within the the trumpet ministration in your view well i think one thing thats worth noting is that this wasnt just the Trump Administration you can actually if you look at articles in Foreign Affairs if you look at the discussion among u. S. Pundits the view of china has changed in this country to my mind wrongly but there is a sense that china was as you say launched in a systematic assault on the International Order as the United States understood it that has not changed with the trade deal and its unlikely to change in the near future with that said. It seems to me that abroad especially if you look at japan or if you look at russia if you look at europe there is a sense that china like other Major Players is a problem but its not the kind of existential problem that the United States under talk receives currently portraying in other words china seems to be in many ways spitting into the system whether it was by abiding by judgments against it in the w t o whether it was by signing on to the paris agreements the sense was that yes trying to have its own interest but it was something that could be worked with and that will have to be worked with Going Forward you mentioned that china has its own inches but you also obviously it has its own insecurities as you point out in a very interesting book that youll publish last year called taunted by chinas grand strategy from outside dont to president xi and i think you make a very persuasive case and that book that much of chinas development and much of its actions recently driven by a very deep sands of insecurity and compared to what china has been federal is to current American Post viewed there as just another Monkey Wrench thrown by history or is it indeed an existential challenge for china of this scale that for example a mr bannon sees china as a challenge for the United States. Thats a fantastic question i think there are a couple of different ways of approaching this 1st of all that deep sense of insecurity is something that has become even deeper with the ascent of xi jinping and i would say that has to do with his own personal background being a victim during the cultural revolution. There has also been the perception in china since the jiang zemin or a certainly that the United States kind of janice feast policy towards china if you want to think of it that way on the one hand the United States had jiang zemin would have argued a vested interest in china being. Economically successful it was a market for the u. S. The trade benefited both sides so on and so forth on the other hand there was deep concern within the United States about chinas rise and what that would mean and there was the perception that the United States wanted to keep china down a perception which given the statements american officials would make given the idea that chinas integration into the World Trading system for example but inevitably lead to a change in chinas system of governance which the Chinese Communist party clung to out of as much out of a belief in its own virtue in as an interest in staying in power. That notion that the United States was out to undermine china never quite went away and given recent trends certainly has taken hold all the more strongly so i would argue that the chinese sense of insecurity has deepened even since i wrote the book and that there might be reasons for its deep meaning that are hard to get rid of now what i particularly like about your book is that its not just the book about history i think its a book about National Psychology and without psychologizing it too much and i want to just know that its Common Knowledge that the experience of chaos or the experience of instability insecurity usually leads to an excessive need for control its a basic compact satori mechanism in people but i think it also works on a National Level to what extent authoritarianism the way it exists in more today china and to russia for that matter is a function of of the scarce of this ng sic insecurity rather than a deliberate cures thats aimed at killing lets say liberalism around the world i think it depends on what part of the picture youre looking at but by and large chinese conduct certainly to my mind and to an extent as you point out russian conduct is driven by insecurity the distinction between a deliberate decision to undue liberalism and a crisis driven response or a sense an insecurity driven response to protect ones frontiers thats a hard line to draw so to take one example the situation in shin jiang which has been in the news for a long time thats a bit of both and that seems to be personality driven the idea is that something thats. A system that allows for the existence of a threat within john is something that cant be tolerated hence a massive surveillance state. Reeducation camps really horrific stuff but driven by a sense of fear of what could go wrong and in that fear it to my mind is unjustified but that doesnt mean that given the experience chinas had given the experience thing in particular is had the fear is and comprehensible its comprehensible but it drives a response thats deeply dangerous and problematic you could see the similar you can see the similar dynamic playing out in hong kong or taiwan for that matter russian case with ukraine i would argue the same its driven by insecurity that said its a response thats deeply problematic and violating norms about sovereignty but i think the line between that being a deliberate decision to overturn a philosophy of government thats a broad versus it being an insecurity driven response isnt one thats really clear you mentioned in your book and in many of your interviews that president xi for example are deeply influenced by the cultural revolution and he is own families bitter experience of it and you wrote that for him the only way of making sure that it never happens again is to be personally in charge now i think that fits the classic american definition of authoritarianism but this kind of authoritarianism is fueled by a sense of personal responsibility even selflessness if you will rob the down south service as its usually presented in the west do you think these difference in motives matters. I think its both for one thing itself service and that this must never happen to me again so theres a selfserving element to that there is also the preservation of china element which is an element of service to china does the difference in motive matter it doesnt matter in terms of the effects it has and china or in terms of the effects it has on the International System the outcome of. A Foreign Policy and a domestic policy driven by an authoritarianism rooted in insecurity is that china becomes more repressive and the perceptions of it abroad become more. And more terrified so that doesnt change what it does mean is that the way to deal with someone like she shouldnt being or the way to negotiate with a country like china is something that might benefit from taking that insecurity into mind so the view in quite a few places seems to be chinas becoming more assertive as it feels more powerful and if you talk tough with the chinese that will cause them to back down that if youre dealing with someone who is terrified of what the future might hold could be a counterproductive premise on which to conduct a relationship so some measure of reassurance of china while saying repressiveness in Chinese Society is problematic or dumping a ton of land into the South China Sea is deeply problematic or what youre doing in shin youngest deeply problematic thats the balance that has to be struck and if you dont understand where the insecurity is coming from then striking that balance become extremely difficult if not altogether impossible i say well professor how do we have to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy. Let it be an arms race off and spearing dramatic to follow through the only posts really im going to resist i dont see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and talk. The world is driven by shaped by our own person or those. Who dares thinks. We dare to ask. Welcome back to worlds apart this still month dan isnt here of International History and diplomacy at the fleischer school top tier versity professor. As i was reading your book i cannot tell you how many times i caught myself thinking that wow this is so true about russia these. Deeply entrenched sense of national and security even the way it manifests in the leaders because what you sad at one point about president xi that he is both strong and insecure i think thats a very accurate description of president putin but there is one crucial difference they governance in russia is on their institutionalized its very personalized but they have the role of institutions. Very limit that china is a totally different story the communist party has been around for. What feels like an internal d. C. They have a very deliberate very detailed process of collatz of a ding their leaders and putting them through their ranks making sure that they have enough experience before ascending to the top positions how is it possible that the countries would be so similar and so different at the same time what role do you think the chinese institutions play in in train showing this sounds all for insecurity i think for one thing chinese institutions are much weaker than they look on the surface and if you look at the difficulty in Something Like overhauling coal plants for example or institutionalizing a proper water usage policy that shows you both how the institutions exist but also how weak they can be so in that there seems to be a certain similarity id also say there is a certain sense of. Insecurity thats common to both because of a sense that the institutions are weak certainly in china shes insecurity in part is driven by the sense that the institutions might not work and the institutionalization of a cult of personality if you would within the military for example reflects that now the chinese from what i know have long taken pride in the system of college debating the latest they have ridiculed the american elections as a political pageant when the euro lacked. On the basis of likeability rather than on merit the or on a particular skill sat has donald trump changed the chinese perception of how the american system operates do they see him more as an exception or as a rule i think donald trump has challenged everyones concept of how the american system operates the view in china seems to be twofold one is trumps strong its surprising how many chinese especially Young Chinese ive met who would tell me that the other is trump is good for us here is someone who by stepping back from the kinds of systems that made the United States works opens up certain opportunities for china which one of those perceptions holds out to be true at the end of the day remains to be seen but i would say both are there i heard you say that the biggest problem for china is not trump or his trade wars not even the north korea or any other International Debacle but rather the fact that its previous strategy its previous model all of you know to be strong you have to have a Strong Economy that model has reached its limit and i wonder if that realisation has started to sink in with the chinese leadership before donald trump or do they have to be grateful to the current american president to actually driving that massive age home so starkly. I think that message that a modern economy needed to be sustainable that it needed to be sustainable based on Natural Resources had taken hold before and if you travelled in china seen rivers drying up or the air pollution you would begin to see why and thats what drove the diplomacy it barrus and part of the disillusionment with the United States came from the fact that the United States was stepping back from addressing what was a global threat that problem that an economy has is not the end all and be all of life is one thats common to all of us right now Climate Change really is an existential threat and i think within the chinese leadership theres different perceptions of that but there are people who are motivated by the genuine belief that this has to be dealt with now in your book you write several historical examples of how the chinese were able to you re assassin their grand strategy readjust the means of achieving it do you have any inkling how it may be recalibrated now that the limits of growth i so clearly manifested both by trump and the environmental degradation i think right now is a time of confusion and were waiting to see which way they will recalibrate it i think as i mentioned one attempt was to build a world that did not rely solely on the United States whether by courting countries in africa whether by strained relations with japan whether by strengthening relations with russia the environmental front it remains to be seen there i think its a question of strategic ally more than anything the perception existing that something has to be done about this one belt one vote however for example undermining stated objectives on Global Warming so the recalibration is still underway and where it goes well have to see and what about them eric and grand strategy i mean the american leaders have a long postulated that they will make the world safer with freedom and democracy everywhere that clearly has also reached its limit compared to the chinese how good of the americans said john. Dagg grand strategy to reality is. Americans are not typically very good at doing grand strategic readjustments i would say it happens now and then but that kind of readjustment is difficult to achieve in a democracy the flip side of that of course is that the domestic governance structure by and large tends to work i do think there needs to be a rethink of american grand strategy there needs to be a commitment to a fight against Climate Change there does need to be some sense of where our interests are in the world that is defined clearly articulated and my hope for the United States is that we see a debate about that in the forthcoming president ial election now they it from what i understand their merican policy views every china has long been based on the presumption of its eventually liberalization and implicitly on the submission to the american head gemini what do you think is more disturbing for the americans right now that the chinese are not going to remake themselves in their american image or is it that they are more assertive in openly defying the american will. Its incorrect in my mind to suggest that american policymakers actually taught china would liberalize american academics might have but if you look at nixon and kissinger if you look at Brant Scowcroft if you look at the debate about china within governments over the years its not being chinas going to become a democracy in the american image its being china has to be part of the system responsible stakeholder to use the phrase that Robert Zoellick i think popularized so thats the idea the debate now within the United States about china is that doable really and here i think theres a misunderstanding of how a great power coming of age can be handled in the International System thats what has the United States worried right now and thats what underlies a lot of this revisiting of the past and saying was this really something we should have done now even mentioned Henry Kissinger. Former u. S. Secretary of state who just a few weeks ago warned that the United States and china may be and if with heels all of a cold war and he actually said that the major conflict on the scale of world war one could not be excluded. Do your share such an alarmist no says. I think major conflict cannot be excluded i also think major conflict can be avoided on the scale of world war one there are several points where we could have had that major conflict the taiwan straits crises of 95 to 6 the high on spy plane incident of 2001 those were places where if things had gone wrong and decisions had been made wrong you could have had a world war one type conflict except there were Nuclear Weapons on each side foothills of the cold war is an odd turn of phrase to my mind we hear a lot about a new cold war between the United States and china to my mind at least thats a statement most frequently made by people who know very little about the cold war well you cant accuse Henry Kissinger of that no you cant which is why foothills of the cold war was an interesting phrase but i think you can see. That Henry Kissinger was around at a period of to taunt which is interesting in the reading of the origins of the cold war would probably have been a little different what you do not see over here that you would have seen in the cold war was ideologies on both sides that did not think they could coexist with the other so i dont think china is committed to the overthrow of the United States system its benefited from that system in a sustainable relationship with the United States is in chinese interests and there is the perception of that the other thing youre not seeing thats kind of crucial is proxy conflicts to my mind that was part of what made the cold war a war and the absence of that the absence of an ideological conflicts so deep that it would insist on the complete destruction of the other is what differentiates now from the cold war era now you mentioned the absence of proxy a conflict and certainly some chinese officials may disagree with you because they see whats happening in hong kong and the products there as some sort of an american or western meddling and the american political elites. I think simulating that kind of perception that with bipartisan support for retribution for their weight china has been dealing with those protests do you think thats going to make things better or worse and dont you think that i mean this is my opinion the u. A. E. You may disagree with that but from my perception i think chinese have been dealing with hong kong much more a calf a lead then they would have otherwise i mean theyre treating that territory with greater care than they treat protests in Mainland China thats true i think thats partly because hong kongs unique cities to feed the chinese economy and then shopping was very aware of this when he was negotiating one country 2 systems was precisely the existence of one country 2 systems the notion that there would be a different way of doing business in hong kong than there would be in china proper that couple. With the other problems china is facing whether its the environment whether its shin jiang whether its a difficult relationship with the United States would make one more inclined to be careful in dealing with hong kong the idea that the United States is somehow behind the protests is misguided what is true i think is that the kind of protests hong kong has sustained for quite a long time now are going to make life harder for china and that they do have to come up with a way of managing them now and if i may very quickly i dont know if you would agree with that data but i think both the chinese and the russians believe very strongly that one of the reasons why the americans have been so or reckless about interfering in the affairs of others and launching wars is because they have long been shielded from these carriers from this sand self self doubt insecurity the fact that both russia and china in a profound way and that hasnt changed yet but i think the election of dont trump did produce the kind of disorder the kind of selfdoubt that we havent seen in the American Society before do you think that americans will be any different in dealing with this vulnerability. The russians and the chinese have been. I think they will be i think were already i think the change actually proceeded donald trump the change was probably about the wars in afghanistan and iraq and if you look at the substance of obamas Foreign Policy for example it was very different from george w. Bushs Foreign Policy it was a reaction to that what trump did was to exacerbate divisions within American Society in a way that this country will have to grapple with i think whats notable about the rhetoric running up to the president ial election is that there are people with plans to fix it there is an optimism about the american future that remains on quench a bill in the campaigns of people like you and the campaigns of most of the democrats actually there is a. Belief that the country can work and despite everything less fear about the future than one might expect so i think that insecurity has yet to take hold here and i dont think it will for a while yet while our lives hold for the bass vo where shoulder bass to us and the American People as they grapple of a some new sense of vulnerability in their lives thank you very much for taking part in this conversation professor. Thank you very much for having me i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages asked for me and the team to help you siri get on the same place same time when worlds apart. I had a spiritual experience. And i have a little girl that died in the fire sent here collins. There. Were looking for a good retreat. 54 years old and 21 years on good. Crime i didnt commit. To that it was in the sense. That nobody but this. Trial was pretty much of force. And im guilty for that. Not people you will learn it all. Through through to me hasnt forgiven himself for something. I knew she was there and i knew exactly what i was doing. People like. These sometimes theres no explanation. You know world of big partisan lot and conspiracies its time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that Mainstream Media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. And shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. Join me every thursday on the elec simon chill and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im show business ill see you then. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy from day shouldnt let it be an arms race is on offense clearly a Dramatic Development the only really im going to resist i dont see how that strategy will be successful very critical time time to sit down and talk. The top stories of the week here on Arch International russias top athletes vented their frustration at the World Antidoping Agency bans at the country from major tournaments for 4 years. To decide so. How could the punish the whole country all athletes no matter whether they doped or not they should just punish those guilty. Britains conservative party sweeps to its biggest election victory in more than 30 years but the Scottish National party makes an almost clean sweep north of the border ways and the prospect of independence from the u. K. And the talks between the u. S. And the taliban are put on hold after a suicide bombing outside an american