the iron rule of xi jinping. >> strong man, authoritarian dictator he has become. >> he's the most powerful man in the world of today. >> he created a personality cult around himself. his vast ambition. >> the chinese military grown dramatically over the course of the last few years. we deserve this. we want this and we are going to take this. >> the threat to america. >> you want your men to handle china? >> no. none of that is acceptable to the chinese government. >> controlling the chinese people, east, west, north south. >> the party must control all. >> hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras and drones. >> big brother is always watching. >> there is the freedom to get rich. >> lamborghinis and ferraris and a lot of people were getting very, very rich. but get too rich and you m may disappear. >> where is jack ma? >> publicly criticized the chinese authorities. you can't do that in china. #. >> fight the system? #. >> xi jinping will meet you with massive force. religion can make you an enemy of the state. >> cultural genocide is going on here. >> what is the end game for china's supreme leader, xi jinping? >> china's time is now. >> china has risen. ♪ good evening, i am fareed zakaria. one and five people on this planet lives in china. 1.4 billion people and their rises have been remarkable. 800 million people climbed from poverty to the middle class. beijing now has more billionaires than any other city in if world. china is addic dictatorship, it forbids religious freedom. anger the government, you can simply disappear. for years this once close country seemed to be opening up. not anymore. one man has changed the course of history. china's supreme leader xi jinping. should the u.s. be afraid? should the world? polls show they are already are. more than 80% of the people do not trust xi jinping. new fears of china's growing military might. who is xi jinping? what does he want? let's start with two crucial days this year. >> the beating heart of democracy. the u.s. capitol. >> the beating heart of communism. the certification of the new american president. a triumph china bursting with pride, marching as one. in washington, americans at war with each other, tearing democracy apart. >> the chinese government saw that. xi jinping is set to have january 6th. >> that can't happen in china. no. none of that is acceptable to the chinese government. >> that was a moment of the chinese saying those americans, they're not who they think they are and they're not who we think they are. >> he sees the united states as a real decline and he sees a lot of dysfunctionalty in american society. >> systematic racism and black lives matter and political gridlock in washington and the trump years and charlottesville. >> they see themselves as promoting border against a forces of chaos and increasingly they see the united states as representing the forces of chaos. there was a time when xi loved america especially the hartland town of iowa, he started farming there in the 1980s, muscante. he came back just as he was about to become the president of china. i feel he says like i am coming home. >> i want to welcome vice president xi to the oval office. >> xi also went to the white house and in l.a. he took in the lakers game. >> self-confident and gregarious. >> inappropriate but i love that man >> how did that xi jinping viewed with so much hope, how did he become this xi jinping? >> jipg xi jinping making a threat against the united states. anyone tries to threaten china will be banging their head against the great wall of steel. >> it struck people around the world. many china's scholars do not recognize the xi jinping they see now. >> i didn't see and i don't think anybody saw the kind of sycophant control freak that he has become. china is much more of a dictatorship today because of xi jinping. >> that's a recipe for serious danger. >> xi jinping is the most suppressive leader china had seen since chairman mao. they see greater state control over everything from education to technology and entertainment. >> things as simple as who you can admire in the movies, every piece of entertainment culture. no more men on television. china calls them sissy men. >> also ford bidden, karaoke songs that endangered national unit. many video games no longer allowed. >> hold on, you want control what's in my heart and what's in my mind. what's left for me? that's a very dangerous thing actually. a risky thing for the government to do. >> china has censored the internet but now it's scrubbing its own homemade entertainment. popular television shows and movies have disappeared. and of course there is no google, no facebook and no snap chat and no instagram. some of that predated, xi double downed on a separate chinese t techno spill. >> the chinese government says we are going to separate, we don't want a worldwide web. >> they have tens of millions of monitors of social media 24/7. >> watching and taking down postings like whackamo. >> step by step over the years xi jinping has been in power, he's eating away the domain of autonomy of consolidating the hands of the party. now xi jinping bringing the communist party back into domi dominance. >> today's government really now controls the physical environment of the chinese people through hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras and drones that can identify chinese person and facial recognitions and by how a chinese person walks and all this information is transmitted back to china's public security burrow instantaneously. >> surveillance system that's unpres bent dented. this is all well on steroids. that includes watching xi jinping's app on your cell phone. >> the xi app is on many chinese phones. its purpose is help to study xi jinping's thought. that's right, study what he thinks about everything. >> xi jinping is saying his speeches and activities and party dogma and take quizzes and they have to report those quizzes to the local party head of their work unit. >> there is even a game show, how much do you know? how much do you know ant xi jinping's thought? >> much of xi jinping's thought is communist ideology. and the central road he believes should play in chinese life. but he's preaching stricter hearing to socialism in a country of capitol capitalism e for decades. >> things like lamborghinis and r rolexes and louis vuiton. the richers are getting richer and more decadent. there is a school for butler. young chinese billionaire behaves badly as they could wanter parts around the world. >> it's like raising a child. i have deep affection for my dog. >> this young man started a chinese version of pets.com and used his money to build a mansion for his dog. xi is now cracking down on all kinds of private enterprise. >> he does not have a problem with them getting rich but he wants them to get rich in a patriotic way. >> at the point which it began to feel it was brushing up against the outer edges of his power and authority, that's the point it which became intolerable. he may be trying to quell a deeper fear. could communist china collapse? the way the soviet union did. >> always in the back of his mind is the subject of the soviet collapse, why did it happen? >> for xi, the fall of the soviet union became an obsession. >> xi jinping often talks about the fall of the soviet union as a lesson for china. >> what accounted for? what were the stress? >> why did the soviet union collapsed? >> xi's answer, don't try to be too american. >> even though china has emulated america. china still is a socialist country. >> whatever economic reforms they engage in. >> you can't allow political liberalization to accompany it. >> he would point to the soviet example as a sign that's the risk we face. >> that means the party must be seen as strong, clean and legitimate. >> it's ironic because no one suffer more under communism than xi jinping himself. to understand it we have to go back to tell the dramatic story of xi's childhood. it begins in the 1960s. the chaos of the cultural revolution. chairman mao wanted to reassert his control over the communist party, he accused it being too liberal. he called on the young people to rebel against the elite of their own party. >> basically turned chinese life upside down. people fell themselves attacked and criticized. >> and xi jinping was right at the center of the storm. >> at the center of the storm because he was a son of privilege. >> his father was one of the leading revolutionaries of his generation. one of the people that will created the people republic of china. his son had the best of everything. he grew up in the leadership compound on the center of beijing where all the leaders worked. he had a very privileged existence and socialist society. >> they used to call themselves born red which means they had been brought into this world with the expectation that they would eventually lead and would eventually take over the country. and then it all came apart. first, xi's father was arrested. supposedly for supporting a play in a book that criticized -- his mother was forced the denounce his father. one of his sisters reportedly committed suicide. >> he was pounded so much for the family's political problem. that's a fact that you won't see in the official party's history. >> xi still just a child was forced to fight for his life in the streets of beijing. >> there was nobody at home. there were no parents for a young teenager. and that teenager was trying to survive in the chaos of a revolution. >> the cultural revolution was in implosion of chinese society right down to the family's level, justice kind of inferno of all of the bonds of trust and hierarchy that organized society. >> in his late teens, the party sent xi out to work as a peasant in the countryside. >> he spent many years in northern china doing labor and being a farmer and feeding pigs. >> after years spent working as a farm. xi made a decision about his future. >> he did a surprising thing. he applied to be a member of the party. he was rejected because his family's name poisoned in chinese politics. finally he gained admission to the party and began an almost 40 years climb up the ladder. why? why would xi jinping a victim of some of the worst cruelty of communism devote his life to streiten the party? >> he decided his response to all of this pain and turmoil is to become redder than red. to become the truest of true believers. the traumatic childhood of xi jinping may have made him softer. instead, it made him hard as steel. next up, china verses the world. >> china is becoming more assertive and this is a scary country. >> when you have the president of the united states and former president trump rallying against china, accusing of china of raping the united states, you want to call on china and you want to man handle china? china will stand up. known it, why don't you say so?♪ ♪didn't even notice,♪ ♪no punches left to roll with♪ ♪you got to keep me focused♪ we have to be able to repair the enamel on a daily basis. with pronamel repair toothpaste, we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair. ♪ ♪ there are beautiful ideas that remain in the dark. but with our new multi-cloud experience, you have the flexibility you need to unveil them to the world. ♪ hey! it's me! your dry skin! i'm craving something we're missing. the ceramides in cerave. they help restore my natural barrier, so i can lock in moisture. we've got to have each other's backs. cerave. developed with dermatologists. ♪ ♪ well would you look at that? 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[ding] >> it captured a mood in china. >> a new found swagger in the world. #. >> much like the rambo film. >> mr. gorbachev teared down this wall. >> china's bold new attitude became known as wolf warrior diplomacy. and its real life champion is xi jinping. she has made a big departure from decades of a very different chinese foreign policy. to understand how, we need to remember china's first leader. mao was one of the world's most notorious revolutionaries, destroyed western capitalism. inspiring and aiding insurgencies all over the globe. >> burma and thailand and malaysia and the plhilippines. >> in latin america, the gorilla movement. >> even a nuclear of apocalypse was acceptable to mao in his great struggle. >> if worse came to worse and have hoffmof mankind died, he s imper imperialism, the whole world would become socialist. >> mao's successor had a polar approach. >> millions have died for a lack of food >> his main goal was to make the country rich so he opened its borders to trade and saw peaceful coexistence with the west. >> xao ping came up with a theory that he called hide your strength and buy your time. invest in the chinese economy and ease your way into the international system. china funded the u.n. and provided humanitarian aid, a remarkable turn around from the days of mo. >> the chinese communist party is about to announce a new leader. >> when xi jinping took power in 2012. >> what can china and the word expect from the leadership of xi jinping. >> the time for hiding strength and buying them was over. xi declared a great rejuvenation for china. >> a return to historic place as an undisputed world power. china once called itself the land between heaven and earth out pacing the west with its innovations line the compass and gun powders. >> other countries would come and pay tributes. >> beginning in the 19th century. >> foreign powers carved up the country. a period that became known as the century of humiliation. xi wants to move far away from that story of victimization. and seize china's destiny as a super power. there is a sense of entitlement that this is our due and this where we should be. >> now fate is really in his head. >> xi transformed china's military into a force that now rivals america in the region. he's not afraid to use it. >> two nuclear powers facing off. >> in 2020, china seized about 100 square miles along its disputed border with india. at least two dozens died in vicious hand to hand combat. >> they built airfields, ports, deployed weapons there. >> xi's fleet has extend its influence into the south china sea. >> china claims virtually all of it. >> harassing dozens of vessels. >> even sinking ships. >> the international blow back against china, the willingness to see china as a threat is directly because of xi jinping. xi's most defiant move according to hong kong. >> hong kong belongs to china once again. back in 1997 when the british returned the city to china, beijing had promised the world that it would allow autonomy and freedom there. >> he repeated and reassurances to the people there. >> not anymore. >> the political state of hong kong remade by beijing. >> a sweeping national security law in 2020. >> activists have been charged. >> the press literally under attack. >> journalists are under physical threats. >> the end of a vibrant free press. >> and a network of party informants. just like any other city on the mainland. china is flexing its military mic. >> many fears that xi's next target could be taiwan. >> china sees taiwan is a great province that needs to be brought back to the fold. >> bringing the island of democracy, 23 millions under beijing's iron fist would be a crowning achievement for xi. the capstone of china's great rejuvenation and while the risk of invasion are sky high, there are reports that xi's military advisers have told him it would succeed. >> this problem is much closer to us. >> could america aid taiwan? we have a commitment to taiwan. yes. more than a dozen of games over taiwan. china triumphed every time. both! r thm and this is for new and existing customers. upgrade to the iphone 13 pro and airpods both on us. this week only, at t-mobile. nyquil severe gives you powerful relief for your worst cold and flu symptoms, on sunday night and every night. nyquil severe. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. ♪ my songs know what you did in the dark ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ i'm on fire ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em... ♪ and that's just basic wavy guy maintenance, right? next up, carvana. oh, boy. carvana just doesn't seem to understand how the test drive works. they give their customers seven days. and if they don't like it, they give 'em their money back. wait, they take the car back? that's crazy! what if it was driven by like a zookeeper? or a mud wrestler? or a guy who's on the outs with the missus and he just needs a place to sleep for seven days? 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(rapping) hah i do what i want when i want it i buy my own rocks and i flaunt it stunnin', you know i'm a diamond, honey wow, i'ma celebrate this feeling feeling elevated, gotta celebrate it you know that unstoppable feeling every single time that i walk in the building ♪ walk in bold, eyes on me ♪ ♪ raining down like diamond rings, everyday ♪ (rapping) i be shinin', what you know about it? no way around it, yeah ma rose out of poverty and became the richest person in china. he's the ultimate showman. ♪ known for putting on flamboyant or even bizarre performances for alibaba employees. >> he became the first ceo. he's not only famous inside china. he was embraced by the world's most powerful leaders. >> jack ma seemed more popular and admired than xi jinping. >> young people across the country would have photos of jack ma above their beds in ways that historically you would have seen. >> to understand how that could be a cult in xi jinping's china. you need to know one thing. >> in the beginning skbxi jinpi needed jack ma. china had missed the industrial revolution in the 19th century and america invented the internet by the end of the 20th century. >> china was not even connected to the internet yet. >> two decades after ping opened china's door, jack ma had his moment. he founded alabibaba in 1949. all of these people around the country could be connected to the rest of the world. the company became an internet, selling everything from cars to high-end fashion and offering food delivery and financial services. it's china's amazon, google, ebay and paypal and more. by 2014, jack ma arrived at the new york stock exchange to ring the bell. >>. >> he unlocks a huge amount of economic potential. >> tech giant like alibaba showcased china e's rise to the leading edge of technological power. when xi took control over 2012, many expected him to open the country. >> there was believes among all the leaders in the west that china would integrate towards a private sector-led system. after a decade of growth, xi inherited the world's second largest economy. kmie na faces serious challenges. an aging population, crippling deaths and a slow export machine. >> a big concern is how to keep the growth going. >> they unleash the tech sector. at first the company seemed like copy cats. that changed fast. >> no one out there thought that china would be a parody with the united states in major technologies. they thought these guys would steal stuff but could not innovate it. >> china's sector exploded. china's tech was out facing the united states. tiktok taken the world by storm. china's beat out uber, jack ma digital system made cash and credit card in china ober on obselite. >> jack ma was a huge threat. only days before -- >> china putting the breakes. >> what happened? >> based on our reporting, president xi jinping himself personally intervened to stop the ipo from going forward. >> with global investors reeling, jack ma seemed to suddenly disappeared. >> there are growing question of whereabouts of jack ma. ma given a speech accusing china's regulator of stifling regulations in a room full of government officials ten days before the ipo. >> you can't do that in kchina. if jack ma believes he could challenge the party itself well then the entire ediface was controlled in china. >> they had created a capitalist free for all, a wild west which the government had little to say. >> huge power, they got the data and technology and they got the capitol. xi jinping decided enough and began the crack down on big tech. >> it was this sudden assertion of political power in the face of what had felt like this inevitable growth of chinese commercials and capitalist power. >> xi wants capitalism. when jack ma appeared in a first time since his disappearance, he seemed unrealistically subdued. is this the necessary reigning in of an out of control system or is it the end of china's capitalist golden age. >> even if it costs them a huge economic, that's a risk he's willing to take. the alternative is the collapse of china itself. ♪ my songs know what you did in the dark ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ i'm on fire ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em... ♪ jeff's been to the bottom of the ocean. the tops of mountains. and wherever this guy runs off to. a life well lived should continue at home. with home instead care, older adults can stay home, safe, and happy. home instead. to us, it's personal. two rvehicles ran into shoppers at the market. >> may 2014, two suvs careen damaged and crashing into bodies and tossing explosives. a terrorist attack in china. just one and a serious of strikes that locked the country and killed dozens. the bloodshed reaches china's very heart, tiananmen square. >> those attacked really shook xi jinping. >> xi jinping is going to attack and punish those responsible. >> the attackers are uighurs. building reeducation camps that have locked up over a million people. and ripped loved ones away from their families. former camp prisoners say uighurs have been tortured and forced into abortion and even sterilized. detainees are brainwashed with communist party ideology. they are forced to speak mandarin rather than their own language. they're forbidden from practicing the religion they follow their entire lives. >> there is a kind of cultural genocide going on here. why is xi doing this? because he sees uighurs as a threat to china's very survival. >> he's afraid they would split from the country and form a whole new nation. separatism is one of xi jinping's biggest fears. >> the symbol of the soviet union flooding down in a moscow win on christmas night. nothing will ever be the same. when the soviet union was teetering on the edge of collapse. >> gorbachev destroyed the whole country. >> those republics -- >> each dominated by a different ethnic group declared themselves free. >> the parade out of what's left. the lesson xi took from that, allowing cultural separatisms. so he is stamping out diversity in favor of a national chinese identity loyal to just one thing. >> i love the communist party of china this man has written. >> the accusation is that there is a kind of forcible brai brainwashing uighurs in camps tn concentration camps. >> a danger of separatism is a crime in china. if anyone wants to split any parts of china against or from china, he or she becomes our public enemy. >> xi and his loyalist often responds. whey argue what about american human rights abuse. >> if any country -- that's the real crime against humanity. >> china's abuses are hidden from westernize. . >> we are here to film what we believe is a camp for uighurs. >> cnn's journalists have been shut out from the camp. >> it's part of a larger campaign to snuff out threats everywhere. >> from tibet to hong kong. >> it's one of the final pieces of china e's revolution under x jinping. xi jinping said that's no longer how we are going to talk about it. we are not going to apologize. they're just going to do it. from all the criticism from the west, it's important to understand that in china, which is more than 90% of chinese, there is not much sympathy for the uighurs. populist nationalism has swept the world and china is no exception. xi jinping has used that nationalism to keep his and the communist party iron grip on power no matter what the cost. ♪didn't even notice,♪ ♪no punches left to roll with♪ ♪you got to keep me focused♪ with voltaren arthritis pain gel. my husband's got his moves back. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren, the joy of movement. can your longwear do this? 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