China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping

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MARTIN SMITH, Correspondent:

In July of 2021, China marked the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

PRESIDENT XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Since its inception, the party’s primary mission has been happiness for the Chinese people and the revival of the Chinese nation.

MARTIN SMITH:

In his speech, President Xi Jinping celebrated China’s emergence as one of the wealthiest countries on Earth.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] This is a great and glorious achievement for the Chinese nation, for the Chinese people.

MARTIN SMITH:

By all accounts Xi is the most powerful Chinese leader since the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong. And like Mao he has immense ambitions for his country.

China promotional video

MARTIN SMITH:

In his first decade in power, Xi launched the largest infrastructure project in history, building ports, roads and a massive digital network linking China to around 150 countries. He has made China the world’s number one producer of electric vehicles.

EX-ROBOT VOICE:

[Speaking Mandarin] Nice to meet you.

FEMALE EX-ROBOT EMPLOYEE:

[Speaking Mandarin] This is our company’s next-generation robot.

MARTIN SMITH:

He has invested heavily in a race with the U.S. to dominate the development of artificial intelligence. He has plans to dethrone the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And Xi has presided over an increasingly antagonistic relationship with the U.S.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Chinese people will never allow any foreign power to bully, oppress or enslave us. Anyone who tries will have their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel that was forged by 1.4 billion Chinese people.

ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:

Xi Jinping is different. He does not want to be part of the world as it is. What he wants is to be much more dominant in the way the world is run. He doesn't want—

MARTIN SMITH:

Orville Schell is widely recognized as the dean of China experts in the U.S. and has served as a consultant on this project. He has made many trips to China and has closely observed the rise of Xi Jinping.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

You can read his speeches and it's all there. He says what he's going to do, and he does it.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Taiwan’s independence goes against history. It’s a dead end. We do not rule out the use of force.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

And we can't quite believe it's anything but propaganda which is just maybe nonsense, but it isn't. He's laid it all out there.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] [We must] enhance the level of realistic combat training and truly master the ability to fight and win wars.

CCTV

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Xi Jinping speaks all the time about hostile foreign forces, didui shili. That is the core of his sense of the U.S. and China relationship. It’s hostile.

MARTIN SMITH:

We set out to understand the roots of this hostility, to understand Xi himself and the China he is leading. But China has heavily restricted international media, and we were not allowed to report from inside the country. No current official would speak to us on the record.

China is not allowing us to come into China. Why?

VICTOR GAO, Prof., Soochow University:

China's handling all kinds of challenges in the world. You may or may not be on their radar screen.

MARTIN SMITH:

Victor Gao is a well-known figure who travels the world speaking in defense of Xi’s China. We interviewed him in New York.

What is it about Xi Jinping’s presidency that has fomented this hostility between the U.S. and China?

VICTOR GAO:

I disagree with the way you characterize the situation.

MARTIN SMITH:

But after 2012, when he comes into power—

VICTOR GAO:

I would say fundamentally China and the United States need to deal with each other as equals, but China-U.S. relations are moving in a direction which is proving to be difficult and dangerous.

The Princeling

MARTIN SMITH:

To begin, I wanted to know where Xi Jinping came from and how his past shaped him into the man he is today. He grew up during a tortured time in Chinese history, but he was a child of privilege, with Red roots. Xi’s father had fought alongside Mao Zedong and after the Revolution had risen to become a high-ranking Communist Party official. Young Xi lived in a comfortable home and was able to attend the best schools.

JOSEPH TORIGIAN, Author, The Party's Interests Come First:

He was one of the so-called princelings, and there was a lot of privilege that he enjoyed. So Xi Jinping would have grown up—

MARTIN SMITH:

Joseph Torigian is an author and professor at American University.

JOSEPH TORIGIAN:

He went to a school that was primarily attended by the offspring of high-ranking cadres, and they were told that they were going to be the ones who were going to bring China to modernity, who were going to draw upon the legacies of the Chinese Communist Party to transform society.

MARTIN SMITH:

Prior to the 1949 revolution, China was ruled by a U.S.-backed dictator, Chiang Kai-shek.

U.S. NEWSREEL:

Well known to every American is lean, keen Chiang Kai-shek, undisputed leader and idol of millions of Chinese.

MARTIN SMITH:

Mao called Chiang a “running dog of imperialism.” He fought to depose Chiang for 22 years.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Despite aid from America, Chiang’s forces were beaten back. The Revolution was now within Mao’s grasp, and it was the start of the biggest political and economic experiment the world has ever seen.

MARTIN SMITH:

Before Mao’s victory, China was among the world’s poorest nations. Inspired by communist theory, Mao blamed China’s wealthy elites for the nation’s ills.

CCP PROPAGANDA FILM:

[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party calls for a complete turnaround. Heaven and earth turned over.

The Red Detachment of Women, 1961

MARTIN SMITH:

Mao embraced communist propaganda like this film to rally the people against landowners.

CCP PROPAGANDA FILM:

[Speaking Mandarin] Isn’t he a landlord? Evil elite? Bloodsucking monster?

MARTIN SMITH:

Dunce caps, a regular feature of Mao’s China, were used to publicly humiliate landowners, intellectuals and disloyal politicians.

In 1962, when Xi Jinping was just 9 years old, his father became an unlikely victim of these purges. Mao accused him of being disloyal. Xi’s father was subjected to so-called struggle sessions where he was beaten and denounced.

ALFRED CHAN, Author, Xi Jinping:

His father was framed by a trumped-up charge that he supported a novel that might have cast doubt on Mao's leadership. That simple.

MARTIN SMITH:

Professor Alfred Chan is author of an exhaustive biography of Xi Jinping that chronicles his life.

ALFRED CHAN:

His father was dragged out and paraded in the street. In those days, they put a dunce cap on him, and he was subjected to mock trials. Those were essentially kangaroo courts.

MARTIN SMITH:

Here a sign hangs around the neck of Xi’s father that reads “Anti-party element Xi Zhongxun.”

JOSEPH TORIGIAN:

We know that this was an emotionally traumatizing experience for him. When you're a member of the Chinese Communist Party, everything is the party. Your entire life is the party. So for the party to tell you that you oppose Mao, it's hard to overestimate just how galling it is for a member of this kind of organization to hear that.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi’s father was sent to work in a factory and was later incarcerated for eight years.

Meanwhile, some of the party elite were having doubts about Mao’s leadership. A famine, the result of Mao’s failed farm policies, had devastated the country.

U.S. NEWSREEL:

These people have come with reports of people dying in the fields and starving peasants eating some of the seed for next year’s planting.

MARTIN SMITH:

Undeterred, Mao launched his so-called Cultural Revolution in 1966, expanding the categories of those who would be purged.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

So during the Cultural Revolution there was something known as the hei wu lei, the "black categories." And these were the people who had no standing as human beings. They had no rights. They were considered unacceptable, or I guess you’d have to say evil. They had to be overturned and even possibly, in all too many cases, exterminated. And we saw millions killed. They were not fully human.

CHINESE RED GUARDS SONG:

[Singing in Mandarin] Red Guards, Red Guards, burning with revolutionary zeal.

MARTIN SMITH:

Marauding bands of youth known as Red Guards were encouraged by Mao to help root out the so-called black elements for punishment.

CHINESE RED GUARDS SONG:

[Singing in Mandarin] Standing firm, direction clear, our revolutionary spirits strong. We follow the party with full devotion. We are Chairman Mao’s Red Guards.

CAI XIA, Chinese Communist Party, 1982-2020:

[Speaking Mandarin] Our education taught us that Mao Zedong was our great savior.

MARTIN SMITH:

Cai Xia, a longtime party member, came of age in the midst of the Cultural Revolution.

You say he was the savior. What did he save you from?

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] At that time, our understanding was that Mao Zedong led the Chinese people to overthrow what we called imperialism—the capitalists and landlords who oppressed the Chinese people. He made the Chinese people stand up and become masters of the country.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

One of the most pernicious and harmful aspects of the whole Maoist revolution was that it distorted and made it impossible for people to be human and to have family loyalties, friendship loyalties—to keep any moral compass on whatsoever.

MARTIN SMITH:

As a 13-year-old boy, Xi himself was subjected to struggle sessions. He was forced to wear a dunce cap and was publicly denounced by his own mother.

ALFRED CHAN:

According to Xi Jinping, he suffered quite a few of those struggle sessions. And his half-sister, she couldn't take it, and she committed suicide. The psychological and physical abuse was tremendous.

MARTIN SMITH:

At 15, Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside to do manual labor—a so-called sent-down youth.

ALFRED CHAN:

At that time, 17 million young people were sent to the countryside to be reeducated by the poor peasants. Mao thought that's the reality of China: the poor and underdeveloped countryside. Xi Jinping went to one of the poorest parts of China, and he stayed there for seven years and essentially worked as a peasant. Work was really strenuous. So Xi Jinping, being a city kid, a princeling, was never used to the farmers' work style, like beasts of burden.

JOSEPH TORIGIAN:

At first it was something he couldn't handle. He talked about the hard labor. He talked about living in a cave. He talked about how difficult it was to get along with the peasants.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Xi Jinping did at one point just leave and try to go home. And his family refused to accept him. So it's difficult to know what the consequences of something like that are, but we do know fundamentally that all human beings have close connections to parents. And when those close connections go awry, they have consequences.

EDWARD WONG, Author, At the Edge of Empire:

I managed to visit this area where Xi had served out the Cultural Revolution, a village in Shaanxi province, so I think I got a somewhat unvarnished look at what life was like there.

MARTIN SMITH:

Until 2016, Edward Wong was the New York Times Beijing bureau chief.

EDWARD WONG:

This area of China is one of the poorest areas of China. Back then, people lived in these cave homes, and Xi lived in a cave home in the back of the house of this elderly man whom I met, Mr. Lu. Mr. Lu told me Xi had books with him, and his light would be on late at night sometimes, reading.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi's time in exile has become part of his creation myth. A cave where he lived during his seven years here is now a tourist attraction. It’s filled with books on Marxist philosophy and political theory, which Xi says he read in the evenings while struggling to survive, shaping him into the leader he would become.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Being sent to the countryside was an incredibly formative experience. Afterward, I felt I had gone through a type of purification. It was really a sense of reinvention, transformation.

MARTIN SMITH:

Jianying Zha and her family also barely survived Mao. She now lives in New York, the author of eight books on China and a contributor to The New Yorker.

JIANYING ZHA, Author, Tide Players:

I was born into this so-called New China, and I was fed this diet of “we’re living in a strong and happy country, and we’re going to grow up and not only build a better China, but at some point we're going to liberate mankind, including the Americans."

This was my mother, with myself.

I was 6, and I remember clearly this night where our house was ransacked by these Red Guards. They came at night and our house was turned upside down. My parents were humiliated. You go from the flowers of motherland, Mao’s children, to suddenly we’re black elements.

MARTIN SMITH:

How many people died as a result of the Cultural Revolution?

JIANYING ZHA:

There's different estimates of that. Officially, one of the party elders said several millions of people died. But the figures are far from being accurate, because the government, whoever was the dominant regime, had always a tendency to cover up.

MARTIN SMITH:

Between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, China suffered an estimated 25 to 45 million deaths, from the famine and from the eradication of black elements.

JIANYING ZHA:

This is our Holocaust. And to this day, the world has not really come to realize that's really what happened. And the same party responsible for it are still in power, and Mao is still an icon.

MARTIN SMITH:

Today, President Xi Jinping lives and works aside this familiar portrait of Mao overlooking Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Xi has embraced Mao.

LI YUAN, The New York Times:

It's a mystery why these people don't hate Mao. Why don't they reflect why the Cultural Revolution happened, why they went through so much suffering?

MARTIN SMITH:

Li Yuan, who grew up in China, now writes a column for The New York Times.

LI YUAN:

Xi Jinping himself talk a lot about his suffering when he was a young kid.

MARTIN SMITH:

He says it was good for him.

LI YUAN:

Yes. And now he's telling the Chinese young people, "You should learn to eat bitterness. It will be good for you."

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Xi Jinping learned as a teenager that if you want to survive, you have to master the tools of the Maoist tool kit. You have to be Redder than anybody else. His education was one of surviving in a highly politicized environment of the Cultural Revolution, when his father was one of the anti-Christs and Xi had to find his way. And to do that, he had to become more politically correct than anybody else. Fundamentally, Xi Jinping drank the Kool-Aid of the Cultural Revolution. And those formative years really did cast the die.

Return From Exile

MARTIN SMITH:

At age 22, Xi Jinping returned from the countryside. He had missed years of schooling, but he would manage to gain entrance to one of China’s most elite universities.

ALFRED CHAN:

Yeah, he was lucky to be accepted into the Tsinghua University. It's China's MIT.

MARTIN SMITH:

This is a kid who has no secondary education, and he's able to get admitted to the most prestigious university in China.

ALFRED CHAN:

Yes. Very unusual. Mao destroyed the educational system. But then in the early 1970s, Mao decided the educational system had to be reformed. Not favoring the elite, but welcome peasants and workers and soldiers as well. And that's how Xi Jinping got admitted.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi got a degree in chemical engineering. But his interest was in party politics. In 1979, after graduation, he was posted as a junior aide to a senior Communist Party official. But after three years in Beijing, Xi decamped to the provinces to pursue his own political career and would rise through the ranks of local government.

It was a time of great reform. Mao had died in 1976, and China was now under a new leader, Deng Xiaoping. Twice purged himself, Deng had seen the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.

DENG XIAOPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades!

PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY SOLDIERS:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, leader!

MARTIN SMITH:

He set out to reverse many of Mao’s policies.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

The 1980s were an extraordinary decade. Deng Xiaoping was radically changing the relationship of the party to society. He broke up the people's communes, gave peasants property to farm individually. And suddenly you go to the countryside and saw the most amazing open markets, where people were selling things they had raised. That was a huge change.

ANNE STEVENSON-YANG, Founder, J Capital Research:

It seemed like China was really different and opening, and it was changing really fast.

MARTIN SMITH:

Anne Stevenson-Yang worked for decades in China as a financial analyst and entrepreneur.

ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:

Ever since Deng Xiaoping told the Politburo that they should change their Mao jackets for sports jackets, every big city built these huge airports, and they had straight avenues, straight to these five-star hotels. And these hotels were better than any hotel you'd stay in in Europe, and you'd think, "What’s wrong with China? This is fantastic.”

MALE REPORTER:

Today, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the attitude toward capitalism is changing. Not quickly enough for some member of the new generation, who see nothing wrong in mixing Marxism with the market economy.

MALE REPORTER:

As one China specialist put it, such astounding things have been happening under Deng that no one who works in the China field is willing to make predictions any more.

MARTIN SMITH:

In 1979, Deng visited Washington. Deng’s opening was seen as a welcome development in the West, and a policy of economic engagement held for the next four decades.

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:

Now we share the prospect of a fresh flow of commerce, ideas and people, which will benefit both our countries.

MARTIN SMITH:

In China, free trade and foreign investment helped lift millions out of poverty.

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Freedom of assembly. Freedom of the press.

MARTIN SMITH:

But many Chinese were not entirely won over, especially students. They were concerned about corruption and wanted democratic reform.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Democracy cannot be delayed!

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Democracy cannot be delayed!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] We want free speech!

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] We want free speech!

MARTIN SMITH:

In the spring of 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations around the country were gathering momentum. While still a provincial official, Xi Jinping watched carefully.

ALFRED CHAN:

Xi Jinping tried to gauge the political climate. What's going on? Is the central government supporting this?

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Severely punish corrupt officials!

ALFRED CHAN:

And being a very cautious bureaucrat, back home he tried to prevent students from outside to come in and to link up with the local demonstrations.

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Long live freedom!

MARTIN SMITH:

By early June, the protest boiled over.

MALE REPORTER:

At this hour there are hundreds of thousands of people here in Tiananmen Square.

MALE REPORTER:

Some observers say the current wave of unrest is the greatest challenge the Communist Party has had to face.

ZHOU FENGSUO, Pro-democracy activist:

The momentum on Tiananmen Square was strong. For me, the most amazing experience is just hearing people's voice from everywhere.

MARTIN SMITH:

Zhou Fengsuo was a student leader during the Tiananmen protests. He was among the first to enter the square.

ZHOU FENGSUO:

We want to have a dialogue with the Communist government, and I think at that time there was a real chance, because the party had positioned itself after the Cultural Revolution in the way of open and reform.

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Dialogue! Dialogue!

ZHOU FENGSUO:

So you feel like there’s freedom in the air on Tiananmen Square.

PROTESTERS:

[Singing in Mandarin] With our flesh and blood, let’s build a new Great Wall. We’re millions with one heart against the enemy’s fire.

JIANYING ZHA:

I was on Tiananmen Square at the night of June 4. We were all standing like clusters, talking to each other. And suddenly, there was a guy standing there, and he fell backwards. And we didn't hear anything, so we're all stunned. And everybody thought, "It must be rubber bullets." Until we saw that he's not waking up and there was a pool of blood or something from his neck.

MALE REPORTER:

Tanks are rolling in, down the main thoroughfare towards Tiananmen Square.

JIANYING ZHA:

As we were retreating there were I think at least a dozen people right around me being shot down.

MALE REPORTER:

There's sporadic shooting. Automatic weapons opened up. People were diving for cover.

JIANYING ZHA:

That night it was the worst of China. The monster reared its head.

MALE REPORTER:

At one of the big intersections, an APC just ran over a young girl on a bicycle. It was charging down anything and everything—barricades, people. And the protesters had put up the steel barricades, and this APC got stuck. And the crowd started gathering around it, hurling insults and rocks and sticks and everything.

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] The incident in Tiananmen gave me a big shock. The biggest shock was how the People’s Army could shoot at the people. I began to question, what is wrong with this country? With this party?

MALE VOICE 1:

See that guy?

MALE VOICE 2:

No.

MALE VOICE 1:

There’s a guy running in front of the tank.

MARTIN SMITH:

The next day, a man stood in defiance, blocking a column of tanks.

MALE REPORTER:

It wasn’t just a single tank he stopped. There were 18 tanks and armored carriers in this convoy.

MALE VOICE 1:

He’s climbing it.

MARTIN SMITH:

The image of the Tank Man, as he was called, was carried around the world.

PETER JENNINGS, ABC News anchor:

At one point defiant demonstrators set an ambulance on fire and aimed it at the troops. But the vehicle smashed into a traffic island, and that prompted the soldiers to open fire once more on the students.

DAVID SHAMBAUGH, Author, China’s Leaders: From Mao to Now:

Just overnight, the optimism that Chinese felt for their own country, for this newly awakened, newly modernizing, newly reforming China came to a very abrupt halt.

MARTIN SMITH:

David Shambaugh is a professor of U.S.-China relations at George Washington University. He served in the State Department and on the National Security Council during the Carter administration.

DAVID SHAMBAUGH:

I lived in China right after Tiananmen, in Beijing. That was severe. This was martial law. The city was occupied by military forces. There were roadblocks everywhere. Foreigners were monitored constantly. Chinese were monitored constantly, interrogated. So that was a really repressive period.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the news this morning, the government crackdown continues in China, where officials say they have arrested student leaders on their "most wanted" list.

MALE REPORTER:

One of those captured, Zhou Fengsuo, a 22-year-old physics student. He reportedly was turned in by his sister and brother-in-law.

MARTIN SMITH:

It’s been reported that you were turned in by your sister.

ZHOU FENGSUO:

That was government propaganda. I—

MARTIN SMITH:

It’s not true?

ZHOU FENGSUO:

It’s not true.

MARTIN SMITH:

Zhou says it was a party tactic to sow distrust among his family. Zhou Fengsuo was fifth on the party’s “most wanted” list and was thrown in prison for a year.

ZHOU FENGSUO:

When I was in prison, and later, for about five more years, the support for students, even after the massacre, was so strong. Even the policemen, the prison guards, they would acknowledge that the students were right in their demands.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Today, the Beijing Intermediate Court publicly sentenced the violent criminals who looted and vandalized during the anti-revolutionary riots in Beijing.

MARTIN SMITH:

After the massacre, these photos were smuggled out of China––evidence of what happened to scores of protesters.

“Arsonist, executed by gunfire.”

MARTIN SMITH:

To this day, there is no final accounting of how many people were executed.

A footnote: After the Tiananmen crackdown, soldiers who had opened fire on the protesters were serenaded by a popular Chinese folk singer, Peng Liyuan. Two years earlier, Peng had married a junior Communist Party official, Xi Jinping.

Xi has never spoken publicly about the Tiananmen events.

He went silent?

ALFRED CHAN, Prof. Emeritus, Huron University, Canada:

Yes. Nothing in the public record that I am aware of. That really shows his cautious demeanor as a provincial official. And he always look to the center for guidance, always trying to gauge what the central government intentions are.

MALE SHOPPER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Once I have money, I have to buy this car.

CAR SALESMAN:

[Speaking Mandarin] I can put down the backseat.

MARTIN SMITH:

After Tiananmen, China moved on.

MALE SHOPPER:

[Speaking Mandarin] You should be able to adjust the backseat.

MARTIN SMITH:

Under Deng Xiaoping, China’s unwritten, informal social contract stipulated that if you stay away from politics, we, the party, will make you rich.

FEMALE SHOPPER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Do you see how wide this is?

MARTIN SMITH:

It’s a deal many Chinese accepted without protest.

The Heir Apparent

IAN JOHNSON, Author, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians:

We shouldn't underestimate the amount of political control inside China. But at the same time, it's also important to recognize that over the past 40 years, the government has done a good job in raising living standards.

MARTIN SMITH:

Ian Johnson is a journalist with a long history of reporting on China.

IAN JOHNSON:

And if you think that tomorrow is going to be a better day, that you've just bought a house, that your kid's going to be able to go to college, that you’re going to be able to go abroad to travel, all of these things that have never been possible before for the vast majority of Chinese people, then you'll hold your nose or say, "Well, the party isn't doing such a bad job on balance," and you'll go with the flow.

MARTIN SMITH:

By the mid-1990s, China’s economy was growing at an historic pace.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:

Supporting China’s entry into the WTO represents the most significant opportunity that we have had—

LINGLING WEI, The Wall Street Journal:

You know, especially after China's entry into the World Trade Organization, China's economy just got another tremendous boost and more opportunities for individuals. And back then—

MARTIN SMITH:

Lingling Wei, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, grew up the daughter of loyal Maoist parents. Her maternal grandfather was part of Mao’s inner circle. She remembers how under Deng, China became more open to Western culture.

LINGLING WEI:

We knew that China’s relationship with the United States was getting better.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Col. Sanders's Kentucky Fried Chicken has just arrived in Beijing.

LINGLING WEI:

We were exposed to American pop culture. When I was growing up one of my favorite shows was this American TV series called "Growing Pains." I just loved it, watching how kids could just talk back to their parents.

"GROWING PAINS" CLIP:

I was just being friendly. What is it with you people?

LINGLING WEI:

I grew up with a lot of admiration for the United States. I really wanted to go there. I was very curious about the U.S. Not just me—a lot of my classmates, a lot of my friends, the entire reformed generation had that kind of mindset toward the United States.

MARTIN SMITH:

China was most open to Western influence in the coastal provinces, where Deng Xiaoping lured foreign companies to invest, offering them tax incentives, flexible labor contracts and cheap real estate.

One of the fastest growing provinces was Fujian, where by 2000, Xi Jinping had become a provincial governor. He had earned a reputation for rooting out party corruption.

MALE REPORTER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Did those who were punished hate you?

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] They didn't hold it against me. I think they understood I didn't do this for myself, as I had nothing against them. I upheld justice.

MARTIN SMITH:

Beijing took notice, and in 2007 Xi got his big break. A corruption scandal in Shanghai led the old guard of the Communist Party to search for a new Shanghai party chief. Shanghai was the biggest and wealthiest city in China. Xi was brought in to address the fallout from a party secretary’s theft of pension funds.

ALFRED CHAN:

The move to Shanghai was a huge promotion because the party chief of Shanghai is always inducted in the 25 members of China's apex of power. He was picked because of his long experiences in coastal provinces, which were the most open, most developed.

MARTIN SMITH:

In Shanghai, Xi distinguished himself by eschewing lavish party perks such as a private chef, special doctors, luxury cars and palatial housing, and after just seven months he was brought to Beijing, where he was catapulted onto the Standing Committee of the Politburo. Suddenly, Xi Jinping became one of China’s nine top leaders. He was on his way.

At just 54, party leaders saw Xi as pliable and cooperative. They didn’t expect a strongman.

In one of his first assignments as a committee member, Xi was appointed to head the Central Party School in Beijing, a post once held by Chairman Mao. It’s where top party officials are trained, and for Xi, it was an early indicator of the leader he aspired to be.

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] In July of 2008, Xi Jinping issued a directive to the school’s teachers.

MARTIN SMITH:

Cai Xia taught at the Central Party School at the time.

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] Teachers must align their speech with the spirit of the party’s central leadership. He threatened the teachers, saying that if they wished to express themselves freely, they should leave the school and find other employment. Xi Jinping spoke like a mafia boss. For me, it was a harbinger of things to come.

MARTIN SMITH:

But few people in the West were paying much attention, and inside China, the country was preparing to celebrate its newfound riches. That year, China was hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics. The person heading up the preparation committee for the Games was Xi Jinping.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, Vice Chairman Xi Jinping inspected the Olympics facilities in Beijing this morning, making sure the Olympic transportation network and the Olympic Village are up to international standards.

ALFRED CHAN, Author, Xi Jinping:

Xi Jinping actually was named the coordinator for the Olympics. Now, he had very little central government experience, and that was fairly tough, because he had to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Defense.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] During the Beijing Olympics, the People’s Liberation Army will mobilize parts of the army, navy and air force to participate in Olympic security operations.

ALFRED CHAN:

The Olympics, it was a means to test him in his probationary period.

MARTIN SMITH:

To see if he was material for the top job.

ALFRED CHAN:

Exactly. The Beijing Olympics was China’s coming-out party, and everything has to be perfect.

CHINESE ANNOUNCER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Many years of anticipation and seven years of preparation. The 29th Summer Olympics finally opened at the Beijing National Stadium.

MARTIN SMITH:

No expense would be spared. At over $40 billion, the Games were among the most expensive in history.

CHENJIAN LI, Prof., Peking University:

2008 was a spectacular Olympic Summer Game. It was great.

MARTIN SMITH:

Professor Chenjian Li is a neurologist at Peking University. We interviewed him while he was a visiting scholar at Stanford.

You were in the stadium?

CHENJIAN LI:

Yes. I would say that was a high point. There was a true sense of joy. But it was not a nationalist joy. It went beyond that. Honestly. It was I think more like what can only be described by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It was that good.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi Jinping had passed the test. Better yet, he was inheriting a country at its peak.

MATTHEW POTTINGER, Dep. National Security Advisor, 2019-21:

The Olympics were a major propaganda coup for the Chinese Communist Party to say, "Look, we've arrived. We're a world power right now." I remember—

MARTIN SMITH:

Between 1998 and 2005 Matthew Pottinger worked as a reporter in China for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. He also served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.

Pottinger sees the 2008 Games as a key moment when the U.S.-China relationship shifted.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

They coincided with the global financial crisis, the first spark of which was lit in the United States.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Stunning news on Wall Street tonight.

MALE NEWSREADER:

At one point the market fell as if down a well.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The debt crisis and economic chaos could have a dangerous ripple effect.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

So those two things juxtaposed together created an incredible sense of jubilation in this idea that China was slingshotting ahead of the United States.

LINGLING WEI:

Chinese leaders realized, “Wow, your system used to be one we were trying to emulate, at least economically, but now you’re no longer our teachers.” There’s this feeling that we’re equal to the United States now.

CHENJIAN LI:

About that time, China had passed Germany, passed U.K. and then passed Japan. And of course, every year it goes up and up and up to be the second-largest economy.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy. We’ve seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed.

MALE REPORTER:

The collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered turmoil in markets around the globe.

ORVILLE SCHELL, Co-editor, The China Reader: The Reform Era:

The economic crisis made it look to people like Xi Jinping that history was moving on, the U.S. was in decline, China was on the rise. They could do just like the Great Powers had always done: "It’s our way or the highway." And that was a very important moment that changed the relationship between China and the rest of the world, particularly the United States.

Papa Xi

MALE REPORTER:

The day had finally arrived. It was time to elect a president, the leader of the world’s most populous nation. But there was no discernible tension, no suspense. The election of the Chinese president had been decided months in advance.

MARTIN SMITH:

By 2012, Xi Jinping had been able to impress upon the party’s elite that he was the man to lead China into the future. He was elected general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and a few months later he became president.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] We must continuously achieve, maintain, develop the fundamental interests of the greatest number of people.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi tried to outwardly cultivate an image as a man of the people. His nickname: Papa Xi.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Who is this?

FEMALE SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Call him Grandpa!

YOUNG BOY:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hi, Grandpa.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hello.

LI YUAN:

When he came into office, he portrayed himself as a normal person. He launched a charm offense. He went to a steamed bun restaurant. And he said he's not going to have traffic control for his car, for his motorcade.

MARTIN SMITH:

Initially this charm offensive worked. Many thought Xi would be a moderate.

DAVID SHAMBAUGH:

The wishful thinking that existed I think was something that Westerners delude themselves with about all Chinese leaders. “Is this the next Gorbachev?”

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Continue to liberate your mind and insist on reform and opening up.

DAVID SHAMBAUGH:

Xi Jinping is no reformer. But nobody saw the repressive, dictatorial, control-freak, insecure leader that he has become. None of us saw that.

MARTIN SMITH:

A few months after coming to power, a secret memo surfaced called Document No. 9.

EDWARD WONG:

Document No. 9 is an important internal party document in which Xi talks about different forms of subversion that might be taking place in China. It points to civil society groups or NGOs, and it says these are dangerous, subversive elements in China.

JIANYING ZHA, Contributor, The New Yorker:

It’s stipulating a whole list of ideological restrictions, including the so-called universal values, which is a code word for Western constitutional rule and rule of law.

MARTIN SMITH:

The document is explicit, instructing party members to forswear Western ideals like constitutional democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and civil society. Party members should stay true to the Revolution.

Soon after, a 71-year-old journalist, Gao Yu, was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison after allegedly leaking the document.

Xi was just getting started.

MALE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] The news, four top officials removed for taking bribes, was announced on state TV.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi had famously fought corruption in Shanghai, and now, as top leader, he launched a nationwide anti-corruption campaign.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—from top bureaucrats to low-level clerks. China their nickname Tigers and Flies.

MARTIN SMITH:

Corruption was a real problem, but the scope and scale of Xi’s campaign took many by surprise.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

Xi Jinping began to purge. And people at the time, including Chinese officials, said, "Well, look, this is going to be a six-month thing. He's got to consolidate power."

MALE REPORTER:

More than 80,000 Communist Party members have been investigated so far.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

That was 12 years ago. The purges are not only continuing, but they’ve deepened in many respects. They’re now encompassing not only Xi’s enemies, but he's actually also purging many of his loyalists.

MALE REPORTER:

Xi Jinping has just sacked his foreign minister, just sacked his defense minister. He’s sacked a whole lot of other people at the top of the military establishment.

FEMALE REPORTER:

The former security czar has not been seen in public for more than a year. The investigation—

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

Those were handpicked people by him—people that he had appointed. The historian Stephen Kotkin said, "Hitler used to kill his enemies, and Stalin killed his friends." Xi is purging both his friends and his enemies. And that is the mode by which he governs.

MARTIN SMITH:

As Xi tightened his grip, he watched for other threats. Today in China, there are some 600 million surveillance cameras, one for every two citizens, able to track people’s movements down to the minute.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Every street corner, there's facial recognition. There's digital recognition. There's the social credit system.

MARTIN SMITH:

The social credit system is what?

ORVILLE SCHELL:

So the social credit system is the sort of highest aspiration of the Chinese Communist Party, to have everything every human being does go into a computer system. And with AI and all sorts of other sophisticated programming, you can know exactly where a person is because he'll have bought something with a credit card or a digital payment system. His car will have gone down a highway. Every kilometer, there's a camera taking pictures of your license plate. They will know everything about everybody, real time.

Software demo

ORVILLE SCHELL:

So this creates a kind of a techno-autocratic system that’s unprecedented, and with which we've had no experience. It makes George Orwell look like something from the Stone Age.

MARTIN SMITH:

There is also a designated Ministry of Public Security tasked with monitoring the internet.

LI YUAN:

Xi Jinping came to power and created this agency to control the internet. We were all like, "Ha ha ha, how can you control the internet? Internet is so massive, so vast.”

MARTIN SMITH:

Good luck.

LI YUAN:

Yes. And then he did. He controlled the internet.

MARTIN SMITH:

It’s part of the Great Firewall, a combination of legislation and technology used to regulate and block huge swaths of the internet. In China, there is no Google, or YouTube, or Facebook. When a meme comparing Xi to Winnie the Pooh went viral on Chinese social media, Xi Jinping was not amused. Censors banned any such comparisons.

"Unable to download image"

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] My articles and even my name were banned from the internet.

MARTIN SMITH:

When Cai Xia published an op-ed calling for the protection of individual rights, she was purged from the party. She says she was already being monitored 24 hours a day.

CAI XIA:

[Speaking Mandarin] They can see everything, just like living in a fishbowl with a lid on it, where I’m just a little goldfish or insect, clearly visible. But all my sounds, anything I say to the outside, can’t get out. They knew everything I do. That’s how I lived.

JIANYING ZHA:

There could be millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions who have negative thoughts about Xi or the system, but it's very hard for them to mobilize to act together. Any direct, more confrontational, organized political movement will be zapped. The fear is almost a subliminal air that you breathe in.

Crackdown

MARTIN SMITH:

There has been significant resistance to Xi’s rule among large groups of ethnic minorities. The resistance today is concentrated in Xinjiang, home to 15 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities, many of whom feel like they’re not even part of China, which is primarily Han.

EDWARD WONG, The New York Times:

Xinjiang becomes one of the great early challenges to Xi's power. Xinjiang for years before Xi took power in 2012 had been a region where ethnic tensions had flared. The party had tried different forms of control, and sometimes very repressive measures, but had often met resistance from different ethnic groups out there, in particular the Uyghur Muslims, who live in a belt of oasis towns mainly along southern Xinjiang.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xinjiang was first taken over by China in the 18th century, but twice it broke away. Beijing has for decades tried to suppress Uyghur resistance to Chinese rule.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Headline News brings you to yesterday’s incident inside Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Blame is pointing toward Uyghurs from Xinjiang region. Official statistics state that there were at least five deaths and 38 injured.

MARTIN SMITH:

In the months after Xi became president, China was rattled by a series of attacks the government said were carried out by Uyghurs.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] The news at 9:20 p.m. on March 1, 11 uniformly dressed, masked rioters slaughtered innocent people at Kunming's train station plaza, ticket office and other areas.

MARTIN SMITH:

They intensified in the spring of 2014, when scores of people were killed at a railway station in southwest China by individuals wielding machetes and long knives. Chinese officials blamed the attack on a group of Uyghur separatists.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] As of 6 a.m., March 2, 29 people had been killed and 130 injured.

MARTIN SMITH:

Several weeks after the incident, President Xi traveled to Xinjiang. As he wrapped up his visit, there was a suicide bombing and another knife attack at a train station in Xinjiang's capital.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Due to the bombing, about a hundred Uyghur people have been arrested.

ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:

This was a trigger. Xi decided, "That's it. We're not going to coddle these people. We're not going to try to work it out. We're going to control." And I think this bespoke of his toolbox, which he had carried with him ever since he was a teenager, which is, "How do you fix things? Control." That’s his main tool.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi would return to Beijing and enact what the party called called a “People’s War.” The idea was to curb separatism and extremism.

A chilling directive was sent out to local officials in Xinjiang instructing them how to separate families and begin arresting Uyghurs en masse. The directive was clear: Use the “organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy.”

This drone footage appears to show Uyghurs being rounded up. It's estimated that over a million have been detained since 2017.

EDWARD WONG:

Xi says that we must assimilate the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups into the mainstream Han culture. And what that means in his mind is elements of Islam have to be eradicated or severely weakened. Not even more radical ideas that are taking root, but basic practices such as not eating pork, fasting during Ramadan, trying to make a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. So, very mainstream Muslim practices must be pulled back, is what he’s saying.

The central government starts to put in place these internment camps across parts of Xinjiang where large groups of Uyghur Muslims, and sometimes Kazakh Muslims, are put into these camps, forced to live there, and the point seems to be to really eradicate knowledge that Uyghur culture is built on.

CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Witness the transformation.

FEMALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] I can’t imagine the consequences had I not studied here.

CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:

[Speaking Mandarin] One after another.

FEMALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] My skills have improved, my thoughts have improved.

MARTIN SMITH:

The Chinese government portrays the camps as a place for self-improvement—

CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Beautiful Xinjiang.

MARTIN SMITH:

—promoting peace and stability in Xinjiang.

MALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Society is stable. Ethnic groups are harmonious.

FEMALE UYGHUR SPEAKER:

[Speaking Mandarin] The Communist Party caught me just in time and gave me a chance to change myself. I’m very thankful.

EDUCATION CENTER STUDENTS [in unison]:

[Speaking Mandarin] I am a law-abiding citizen.

CHINESE CCTV ANNOUNCER:

[Speaking Mandarin] In the education center, the main focus is learning the national language.

EDWARD WONG:

They want them to not speak Uyghur. They want them to speak Mandarin Chinese. And families are separated. So it's really changing the entire foundation of the Uyghur culture.

MARTIN SMITH:

Mihrigul Tursun was detained at the airport as she returned to Xinjiang from her adopted home in Egypt. She was coming back to introduce her newborn triplets to her parents. Mihrigul says they accused her of being a spy and separated her from her children.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

I asked them, "Where is my babies? They are hungry. They need to change diapers." The Chinese police never answered me. But they asked my family contact information. Where’s my family? Who was who? So I was writing, then one man coming from my backside suddenly taped my mouth, and I cannot speak. Then they put my hands backside, handcuff, and then put a black hood on my head. Then—

MARTIN SMITH:

Mihrigul was held for several months without her children. When she was reunited, there were only two.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

Then they gave me his dead body. Like ice cream. Like, you know you take some ice from the outside? His body, ice.

MARTIN SMITH:

It's cold?

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

Yeah, cold. Total ice. He said, "Sorry. He's dead. You can take him now, his body." So and then I said, "Wake up! Wake up!" And then I screamed. So that time, the doctor take the call, please, two police coming say, "Get out from here. Shut your mouth. Don't scream. Don't say anything. Just go out from this place." Then they kicked me out from hospital.

MARTIN SMITH:

Later she was detained again. Mihrigul remembers spending time in three different camps.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

They don't allow me to sleep. Then they shaved my head and they gave me electric—

MARTIN SMITH:

Electric shocks?

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

Yeah, electric shock. I witnessed nine people die with me, together in the same jail.

MARTIN SMITH:

Mihrigul’s account has been carried by multiple Western news outlets, and in 2018 she was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

[Speaking Uyghur] The officers beat women and some died from the beating.

MARTIN SMITH:

In 2019, a Chinese government-owned TV outlet accused her of lying.

CGTN REPORTER:

Mihrigul Tursun claims one of her triplets died. A claim that a hospital adamantly denies.

MARTIN SMITH:

They're saying it's all false. This is not true. You've seen these reports?

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

Yes, because they won't tell. They're always lying. This is 100% true.

CGTN REPORTER:

Both Mihrigul’s brother and mother say—

MARTIN SMITH:

The state TV report included Mihrigul’s brother denouncing her.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN'S BROTHER:

[Speaking Mandarin] My sister has never been to the education and training center. She made that up. It was a lie.

MARTIN SMITH:

In fact, many other Uyghur men and women who have reported abuse have had family members testify against them. A Uyghur Human Rights Project investigation says the government is simply media-washing. Meanwhile, the so-called reeducation camps are still in operation. Chinese officials have maintained that there has been no terrorism in Xinjiang since 2016.

JIA QINGGUO, Prof., Peking University:

Xinjiang is an issue that needs to be studied very carefully.

MARTIN SMITH:

Dr. Jia Qingguo is a prominent Chinese academic and political adviser to the government who often speaks out on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. I interviewed him at a China conference in San Diego.

We had an attack on 9/11, but all Muslims in the United States were not forced into reeducation camps. Would that have made sense in the United States, in your view?

JIA QINGGUO:

But you fought two wars, against Iraq and also against Afghanistan. How many people were killed? In Xinjiang, China was launching a large-scale campaign against terrorists. The Chinese government decided that this is something they have to do.

MARTIN SMITH:

They were taken from their homes.

JIA QINGGUO:

Taken from their homes, yeah.

MARTIN SMITH:

Placed in these camps. But all of those people were not terrorists.

JIA QINGGUO:

And they were not harmed in a physical way.

MARTIN SMITH:

But families were ripped apart.

JIA QINGGUO:

Uh—

MARTIN SMITH:

We talked to one woman whose child was taken from her when he was only a few months old and never was returned.

JIA QINGGUO:

I don't know, maybe there are better ways of dealing with this issue. But then in the process, I think some of the human rights are violated. That cannot be avoided.

CHINESE VIDEO NARRATOR:

[Speaking Mandarin] At the Vocational Skills Training Center, there are courses for various skills, such as garment manufacturing, construction, food production—

MARTIN SMITH:

An estimated 80,000 detainees have been forced to work in factories across China, some supplying American brands. These companies have denied using Uyghur labor, but forced labor for other manufacturers continues.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Xi decided, as he did after the economic crisis, that China did not need to bow to any Western demands. It's none of our business what he does in Xinjiang. He has once again turned to control as the answer for a problem.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

The whole world knows what Xi Jinping is doing. He's not a very strong, powerful country in this world.

MARTIN SMITH:

China is a rich country now.

MIHRIGUL TURSUN:

China is a rich country. But he is very weak. He just believes—He thinks he's rich, his money, but no. Money cannot be everything.

The Trade War

MARTIN SMITH:

Over the last 40 years China's economic growth has been eclipsing that of the United States, growing at an average rate four times faster. China dominates global supply chains, and it holds nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt.

VICTOR GAO:

China is a peer country with the United States today. If we use purchasing power parity, its economy is larger than the U.S. economy. And if anyone believes that they can stop China's steady rise as an economy, it's probably indulging in fantasy.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

One thing I have to do is economically take on China. Because China has been ripping us off for many years. Somebody had to do it. I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it. So I’m taking on China.

MARTIN SMITH:

In fact, Donald Trump’s predecessors have employed measures to restrict China trade practices.

DONALD TRUMP:

They’re taking our business. They’re taking our jobs. They’re making our product.

MARTIN SMITH:

But in 2016, Trump made China a major campaign issue.

DONALD TRUMP:

Because we can’t continue to allow China to rape our country. And that’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.

MARTIN SMITH:

Days before Trump's inauguration in 2017, Xi wanted to make sure the incoming president knew where he stood on trade. He sent a warning from his podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Pursuing protectionist economic policy is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, it also blocks the light and air. No one will emerge as the winner in a trade war.

MARTIN SMITH:

Less than three months later, Xi would fly to Mar-a-Lago to test the waters.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump’s most important foreign meeting yet, greeting the leader of the country he’s previously called our enemy.

MARTIN SMITH:

Behind the scenes, Trump’s advisers were advocating bold new measures.

H.R. McMASTER, National Security Advisor, 2017-18:

President Trump understood that we had failed to compete with China, and I think because of his business background—

MARTIN SMITH:

Gen. H.R. McMaster served as President Trump’s National Security Advisor.

H.R. McMASTER:

One of the lines that he would use with Xi Jinping periodically is he would say, "I don't blame you, I blame us." So, I think that that summit communicated to a shocked Xi Jinping that the Trump administration was determined to compete, and to no longer pursue this kind of flawed strategy of cooperation and engagement.

DONALD TRUMP:

I don’t blame China, I blame our leadership. They should have never let that happen.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

I wrote a lengthy, maybe a 12-page provisional strategy, in a sense, but it really started out by saying how many of our assumptions had been wrong.

MARTIN SMITH:

Matthew Pottinger was one of the architects of Trump’s China strategy.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

One of the things that I've learned over the years, first as a reporter and later working on national security on China, is that the more comfortable China gets, the more comfortable that the Chinese Communist Party leaders are, the more aggressive and the grander their ambitions. And I actually think that a more confrontational approach, something more reminiscent of key periods of the Cold War, is what we should be looking to right now as examples. You always want the enemy to be worried about what you might do.

MARTIN SMITH:

The first line item on the agenda was to clamp down on China’s effort to steal intellectual property from Western corporations.

H.R. McMASTER:

CEOs of our most successful and our largest companies would come to me and say, "Let me tell you how our company is being victimized by Chinese Communist Party economic aggression." And they would lay out the story of forced transfer of intellectual property.

MARTIN SMITH:

In other words, you can't do business here unless you give us your secrets.

H.R. McMASTER:

Exactly. And then also the false promises of access to the Chinese market. As soon as they rip off your intellectual property and pick a state champion to produce those goods at an artificially low price because of the subsidies, they close you out of their domestic market. And then guess what? They dump that hardware and equipment on the international market and drive you out of business internationally.

MALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:

[Speaking Mandarin] This claim of technology transfer has no basis in fact.

MARTIN SMITH:

The Chinese government repeatedly denied stealing intellectual property. And Xi Jinping ordered his diplomats to tap their, quote, “fighting spirit,” adopting Trump's more aggressive style of communicating.

MALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:

[Speaking Mandarin] [The U.S.] should have more confidence in itself and compete with other countries in a proper manner.

JOHN BOLTON, National Security Advisor, 2018-19:

They were unleashing what they themselves called “wolf warrior” diplomacy. And it was pretty objectionable, frankly.

MARTIN SMITH:

John Bolton was another National Security Advisor under President Trump.

JOHN BOLTON:

But, in a way, I think it was beneficial that they did that. They took the mask off. There's no more concealing what their ambitions were.

DONALD TRUMP:

Sixty thousand factories in our country, closed, shuttered, gone. Six million jobs at least, gone.

MARTIN SMITH:

Trump was exaggerating, but less than a year after welcoming Xi to America, Trump was ready to take off his own mask.

DONALD TRUMP:

So we’ve spoken to China and we’re in the midst of a very large negotiation. We’ll see where it takes us. But in the meantime, we’re sending a Section 301 action. I’ll be signing it right here, right now.

MARTIN SMITH:

He was firing the first shot in a war that had been building and would last for years to come.

DONALD TRUMP:

This is number one, but this is the first of many.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Trade war worries igniting after the president signed this order to slap tough tariffs on China.

MARTIN SMITH:

He started with a 10% tariff on Chinese aluminum, 30% on solar panels and electric vehicles, 25% on steel and nearly everything else made in China.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Not surprisingly, China’s not happy, already threatening retaliation.

FEMALE CHINESE OFFICIAL:

[Speaking Mandarin] This behavior by the United States is typical trade bullying. China will definitely take necessary countermeasures to resolutely protect its legitimate rights and interests.

ANNE STEVENSON-YANG:

What China did was move its exports to other countries and move its imports from other countries as well. So it shifted the purchase of soybeans, for example, from the U.S. to Brazil. So that wasn't a useful policy.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump has just slapped tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese exports—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—igniting the biggest trade war in economic history.

MARTIN SMITH:

Trump’s trade war would consume the remainder of his presidency.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

China is now punching back with an equal amount of tariffs on American exports.

MARTIN SMITH:

After several tit-for-tat tariff increases, the trade war, which continued into the Biden administration, actually increased the trade deficit.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The trade deficit has skyrocketed to $891 billion, the highest ever.

MARTIN SMITH:

Cost increases also led to a decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—destroyed the industry in the United States—

MARTIN SMITH:

Intellectual property theft continued, and the costs imposed by tariffs were simply passed along to consumers of imported products.

And now Trump has promised to impose even higher tariffs once he is back in office.

Tariffs were put in place because China’s economic policy was hurting U.S. factories and workers.

JIA QINGGUO:

That’s a belief on the part of some people in the U.S., especially by the people of the Trump administration.

MARTIN SMITH:

The Biden administration has even extended those.

JIA QINGGUO:

But if you talk in private, many don't agree with such kind of policy. Why? Because it hurts the U.S. economy.

MARTIN SMITH:

There is the argument—

JIA QINGGUO:

You have the high inflation. Where do you get it? In part because of these tariffs.

Xi’s China Dream

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

Our top story: For the very first time since taking office, all seven Standing Committee members of the Politburo have appeared together at a cultural event, led by Xi Jinping.

MARTIN SMITH:

Beyond his crackdowns and trade wars with the U.S., Xi has had greater ambitions for China’s place in the world, which he revealed even before he assumed the presidency. It was just after he was made general secretary of the party back in 2012.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

The seven party leaders took a tour of the grand exhibition "Road to Revival."

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Remember, when Xi Jinping came into office, the first thing he did was he took the Politburo across Tiananmen Square to the National Museum, where there was a show on the humiliations of China's past.

CHINESE NEWSREADER:

During the exhibition, the party leaders reviewed the different historical stages the nation has gone through.

MARTIN SMITH:

Six leaders had come and gone since Mao Zedong. But at the exhibition, Xi made clear his allegiance was to Mao.

SUSAN SHIRK:

There were pictures of Deng Xiaoping and stuff, all of which he by and large ignored, and—

MARTIN SMITH:

Susan Shirk served as an assistant deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration.

SUSAN SHIRK:

It's like he wants to eliminate the Deng legacy, which of course was to institutionalize a system of governance in China that would be more responsive as society modernized.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] The Chinese people never gave up, continued to fight—

MARTIN SMITH:

In the Great Hallway, he delivered a speech and laid out his vision––now known as the China Dream.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] —and we finally took control of our own destiny. We are closer now than any other time in history. The dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely come true.

ORVILLE SCHELL, Author, Mandate of Heaven:

And what he was saying to everybody was his greatest calling was to restore China to a position of international greatness. Now, that didn't just mean trading greatness. It meant a position of political greatness, military greatness, to re-flesh out the old imperial empire that had occupied many peripheral territories, including Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, Mongolia, Taiwan. Xi wants to restore China to its grandest state. So this actually came to be the roadmap for the China Dream.

MARTIN SMITH:

A key strategy for increasing China’s might is expanding Chinese control of the South China Sea. During his presidency, Xi ramped up these efforts.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

The South China Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Japan and Korea completely depend on it. So it's no small matter who controls this waterway. And China in effect is saying everything from the Straits of Malacca up around Taiwan to the Chinese coast is ours.

H.R. McMASTER:

These are waters through which one-third of the world's maritime trade flows. What China did to actually effect that its claim was to commit a lot of ecological destruction, to build up these man-made islands.

MARTIN SMITH:

The same year that Xi became president, China began building artificial islands on top of seven coral reefs in the South China Sea. The man-made islands covered almost five square miles.

H.R. McMASTER:

And so they dredge coral reefs to build up islands, and then to claim that these islands were just for research purposes, environmental research purposes. And then of course landing strips appeared, and then fortifications appeared, and then missile batteries appeared.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] The South China Sea islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi has repeatedly pledged he would not militarize the islands he had built.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] China’s construction activities in the Spratly Islands are not intended to be militarized.

MARTIN SMITH:

But after many assurances, surveillance shows there are not only runways for fighter jets, but also deep-water harbors able to dock warships.

H.R. McMASTER:

The Chinese Communist Party has a really long record of just lying to our face, and you can't take anything they say at face value. What they had done is promised a lot and not only delivered nothing, but actually intensified their aggressive actions.

MARTIN SMITH:

In addition to the Chinese coast guard and navy, large fleets of civilian vessels have been sent by Beijing to patrol the waters of the South China Sea. Frequently, they surround and harass vessels from other countries like the Philippines, ramming them and blasting them with high-velocity water canons.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The water cannon attack lasted for almost an hour, with the force of the water causing damage to the railing and canopy of the Philippine vessel. The latest incident of Chinese aggression is expected to further escalate tensions—

EDWARD WONG, Author, At the Edge of Empire:

This is happening very far away from China in the waters near the Philippines. There are warnings from Washington saying, "We are a treaty ally of the Philippines. We have a mutual defense clause in our treaty. You need to back off from this." But China's completely ignoring that for now.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Achieving complete reunification of the motherland is the common aspiration of all Chinese sons and daughters. [We have] enhanced the national awareness and patriotic spirit of Hong Kong—

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi Jinping has also taken aim at Hong Kong.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] —[so Hong Kong] can share in the glory, prosperity and strength of the motherland.

MARTIN SMITH:

A major port on the South China Sea—one of the busiest in the world—Hong Kong has become the financial capital of Asia.

ANNA KWOK:

Hong Kong was the gateway of a lot of businesses entering the Chinese market, and we were that international financial hub essentially connecting the Chinese market with the Western market. And a lot of that legacy still stays today.

MARTIN SMITH:

Anna Kwok grew up in Hong Kong. She was born in 1997, the year that Britain returned Hong Kong back to China.

What was the promise that was made to you?

ANNA KWOK:

The promise was high autonomy in Hong Kong. That we would have what is essentially called “one country, two systems,” meaning that even though we are supposedly part of China, Hong Kong would have its own system, its own governance, its own autonomy, and the people of Hong Kong have their own way of living.

CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES:

Britain is proud of the rights and freedoms which Hong Kong people enjoy.

MARTIN SMITH:

In fact, China promised that “one country, two systems” would remain in place for half a century.

JOEY SIU:

In Xi Jinping's eyes you can't be an obedient citizen, you can’t be an obedient people when you're living under a different system, a different governance structure.

MARTIN SMITH:

Joey Siu was also raised in Hong Kong. She came of age during the so-called Umbrella Revolution of 2014.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the streets, a sea of umbrellas––the symbol of a mass demonstration underway in Hong Kong.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy—

MARTIN SMITH:

Calling for free and fair elections, demonstrators used umbrellas to shield themselves from pepper spray and surveillance cameras.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—fighting to maintain its freedom.

MARTIN SMITH:

For Joey Siu, protesting was part of being a Hong Konger.

JOEY SIU:

I could see demonstrations, people fighting for different rights and freedoms inside of Hong Kong. So growing up, what it meant by the promise to the people of Hong Kong to me was that freedom of expression, that freedom to assemble, to say whatever you want. To be free to criticize the government or to support the government.

MARTIN SMITH:

But in 2019, things began to shift. Local Hong Kong officials began to cut back on civil liberties. Senior party officials endorsed the move.

PROTESTERS:

[Chanting in Cantonese] Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong. Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution now.

MARTIN SMITH:

It began with legislation allowing authorities in Beijing to extradite Hong Kongers to China. Around a million poured out onto the streets, defying President Xi. It was a stunning display of public anger with his presidency.

PROTESTERS:

[Speaking Cantonese] Run, run, run!

ANNA KWOK:

I think that 2019 really was a nail in the coffin. I think Xi Jinping—

MARTIN SMITH:

Anna Kwok became a leading underground activist that year, running operations from outside Hong Kong.

ANNA KWOK:

Even though Hong Kongers were all out on the streets, millions of them, even though the entire international community showed support, Xi was not afraid to say, "No, we're not giving you the freedoms and rights you deserve." And he was not afraid to employ police violence against us. The government is just not worried about optics at all.

PROTESTERS:

[Speaking Cantonese] Water cannon truck is coming! Move, move!

ANNA KWOK:

They don't care.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Now, Xi Jinping was very astute. Some thought that he might march soldiers over the border and take Hong Kong when it had all those demonstrations. He didn't do that. He waited. And then he passed a national security law, and they locked everybody up slowly and quietly.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi Jinping’s national security law gave China a broad legal framework to deal with protesters. The law criminalized collusion and subversion—and secession.

Joey Siu was on the front line, facing tear gas and risking arrest on a daily basis.

JOEY SIU:

I believe it is almost a consensus among Hong Kongers that eventually the Chinese communist regime would try to take over Hong Kong and turn Hong Kong into just another mainland city. But I think what surprised Hong Kongers and the international society was how fast that was being done.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] One county, two systems is a great innovation never seen before.

MARTIN SMITH:

Throughout his presidency, Xi has repeatedly made assurances that he is committed to Hong Kong’s autonomy.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] It’s in Hong Kong’s best interest. It won’t change. Unwavering.

MATTHEW POTTINGER:

In 2020, Beijing subverted the 50-year guarantee it had made to honor Hong Kong's, quote, "high degree of autonomy." It completely kneecapped that agreement.

JOHN BOLTON:

Hong Kong is, I think, an excellent case study in how China lies. They abandoned the one country, two system policy. They began to suppress economic and political freedom. And they're now obliterating the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China. It's one of the great tragedies of our time, really, to see Hong Kong snuffed out like this.

JOEY SIU:

Since the implementation of the national security law, a 17-year-old student now faces between 10 years to life in prison.

MARTIN SMITH:

Since the 2019 protests, Joey Siu is now a dissident operating from America, as is Anna Kwok. In 2023, Hong Kong police held press conferences presenting bounties for the women’s arrests.

You have family that's still in Hong Kong.

ANNA KWOK:

Yes.

MARTIN SMITH:

What has been their fate?

ANNA KWOK:

One month after the bounty was released on me, in last August, they were taken into questioning by the police.

MARTIN SMITH:

What did they ask?

ANNA KWOK:

I have no idea, because I'm not in touch with them, and—

MARTIN SMITH:

You're not in touch with your family?

ANNA KWOK:

No, and that is for their best interest. Oh, my God, I'm going to cry. Yeah.

MARTIN SMITH:

You can't call your mom?

ANNA KWOK:

No.

MARTIN SMITH:

Or your siblings?

ANNA KWOK:

No. And I think that's the toughest strategy the regime has on people. It's about breaking up the trust and breaking up the human connections you have with each other so that you cannot have that power and that connection you need to keep fighting the fight. Because at the end of the day, it's about fighting for people you love, right? And once that connection is gone, you lose that motivation. So I think that’s what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing, for decades, actually, to various communities that have been trying to fight for freedom.

Unfinished Business

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] From Beijing, I extend my best New Year's wishes to everyone.

MARTIN SMITH:

On New Year’s Eve 2023, President Xi addressed the nation.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] We’ll remember this year as one of hard work and perseverance.

MARTIN SMITH:

While he celebrated China’s many accomplishments that year, he also made a notable reference to Taiwan.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] The reunification of the motherland is inevitable. Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait must join hands and share the great glory of national rejuvenation.

MARTIN SMITH:

His remarks on Taiwan were more pointed than in previous years. They came during Taiwan's presidential election season, a recurring reminder to Xi that Taiwan is not in step with China. Today, Taiwan is a vibrant democracy, and its capital, Taipei, is one of the wealthiest cities in Asia. But Xi has been clear that a central goal of his China Dream is to reunify Taiwan with mainland China. It’s a position that the party has held ever since they seized power in 1949.

MALE NEWSREEL REPORTER:

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, now on the last stronghold of nationalist China—

MARTIN SMITH:

It was in that year that America’s ally Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island and set up a separate government. For Beijing, this was unacceptable, and the problem has festered ever since.

VICTOR GAO, Prof., Soochow University:

The Taiwan issue is a direct result of an unfinished civil war. Very simple. There is only one China, Taiwan being part of China.

MARTIN SMITH:

The problem today is that the people of Taiwan have made pretty clear with their elections that they do not want to reunify with mainland China.

VICTOR GAO:

The future of Taiwan is not to be decided by the local residents in Taiwan themselves.

MARTIN SMITH:

Why shouldn't these people have the right to self-determination?

VICTOR GAO:

The status of Taiwan eventually will be decided only by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, including the 23 million people in Taiwan, as well as the 1.4 billion people on China's mainland.

MARTIN SMITH:

Taiwan was on the agenda when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made their groundbreaking trip to China in 1972.

MALE REPORTER:

History in the making. The first American president to set foot on Chinese soil.

MARTIN SMITH:

But they were here primarily to explore how China could become an ally against America’s arch enemy, the Soviet Union.

WINSTON LORD, U.S. Ambassador to China, 1985-89:

Kissinger asked me to go along to the meeting. I had been a good note-taker, and this relieved him of having to take notes.

MARTIN SMITH:

A young aide to Kissinger, Winston Lord, was on the trip. He found that Mao was willing to engage on Taiwan, but Mao was also wary of Soviet power and seemed more interested in exploring a U.S. alliance. Taiwan got pushed down the list.

WINSTON LORD:

During the summit, Mao would outline the basic Chinese position. He said that the Taiwan issue could take 100 years. That's another way of saying Taiwan's important to us, we'll maintain our principle, but we don't have to solve it for a while.

MARTIN SMITH:

After a week of negotiations, the status of Taiwan remained unresolved. Nixon referred to Taiwan as an "irritant." His private handwritten notes reveal Nixon was prepared to yield. “Our policy is one China,” he wrote. “Taiwan is part of China. Won’t support Taiwan independence.”

It became known as the One China policy. Nixon conceded that Taiwan was officially part of China. At the same time, Nixon and Kissinger defended Taiwan’s right to autonomy. It was a compromise.

WINSTON LORD:

On the specific issue of Taiwan, of course we had to make a gesture, and we came up with a One China formulation that's quite elastic and elusive and has served until this day. Both parties, over seven or eight or nine presidents, have used this formula both to maintain through ambiguity our relations with China on a sensitive issue, but meanwhile helping to protect Taiwan's autonomy.

MARTIN SMITH:

The arrangement has remained relatively stable. In 1979, President Carter attempted to strengthen America’s commitment to Taiwan, signing into law the Taiwan Relations Act, which stipulated that the U.S. promised to maintain the capacity to aid Taiwan.

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:

The citizens of Taiwan will still be secure.

MARTIN SMITH:

But what exactly does that mean? The policy is deliberately, strategically ambiguous. lea there have been incidents between the U.S. and China. Planes collided over the South China sea in 2001, with both countries blaming each other.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

This accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two countries.

MARTIN SMITH:

But the extent of today’s saber-rattling over Taiwan is new.

Sky News translation

MALE VOICE [translating Xi]:

We will continue to make utmost efforts for peaceful reunification, but never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option to taking all measures necessary. Complete reunification must be realized, and it can without a doubt be realized.

ORVILLE SCHELL, Asia Society:

I think Taiwan is the next great danger in the world. Even in this era where the United Nations proclaims self-determination is a high principle, if Scotland wants to leave the U.K. or Quebec wants to leave Canada. But China has a more old-fashioned view of sovereignty. “We claim it. It’s ours. Get off our ranch. Don’t get in the way.”

MARTIN SMITH:

China’s military drills over Taiwan airspace are a regular reminder of the possibility of a real war. In early 2023, a memo from U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan to his subordinates circulated online that flatly gave a date for when Xi would invade. “I hope I am wrong,” it read. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

"My gut tells me we will fight China in 2025." You reacted negatively to that. You think—

COLIN KAHL, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 2021-23:

Yeah. Well, so first of all, anybody who says they know the date that Xi Jinping is going to invade Taiwan doesn't know what they're talking about. Because Xi Jinping doesn't know the date.

MARTIN SMITH:

Colin Kahl is a former National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden and former under secretary for policy at the Pentagon. While he disputes the 2025 date, Kahl and other U.S. military analysts, as well as the CIA, are wary of Xi’s near-term intentions.

Xi has made some statements about the urgency and—

COLIN KAHL:

He has, and the date that most analysts point to is 2027. That is the date that Xi Jinping has given his military to have the ability to do it. Now, the ability doesn't mean they'll actually manifest that ability. His giving them the homework assignment doesn't mean they'll actually complete it.

MARTIN SMITH:

But Taiwan’s military doesn’t want to tempt fate.

ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON:

We have several scenarios that we have imagined that the enemy will take, and we have plans to weaken those invading forces or even take them down.

MARTIN SMITH:

In July 2023, I traveled here to watch Taiwan’s military rehearsing how to repel a possible Chinese invasion.

So this is one of the beaches where you expect the PLA to—

ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON:

Yes, correct. We expect this place to be high on the list for PLA. As you can see, we’re basically right here, and this is where Taipei is sitting east, and––that would bad for us.

MARTIN SMITH:

So you want Xi Jinping to see what you’re doing.

ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON:

Yes.

ROC ARMY SPOKESPERSON 2:

[Speaking Cantonese] For our media friends, on the shoreline is our navy's Landing Tank Group.

MARTIN SMITH:

This beach is one of 14 landing sites that the Taiwanese military has identified as potentially vulnerable to a Chinese amphibious and air assault.

ADM. SAMUEL PAPARO, Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific forces:

The Taiwan Strait is a difficult crossing: 20-feet tide, three-mile mud flat, really only conducive for a crossing three or four months out of the year.

MARTIN SMITH:

I spoke to Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of all U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, about the feasibility of a successful Chinese takeover.

SAMUEL PAPARO:

It is difficult terrain to get to population centers.

MARTIN SMITH:

It's mountainous.

SAMUEL PAPARO:

Mountainous, and canalizing terrain, as we call it, meaning very few passes, that could be easily closed.

ROC ARMY SOLDIER:

[Speaking Cantonese] Each exercise is based on assessments and the most probable actions of the enemy. We’re showing that we will do everything we can to defend our country.

MARTIN SMITH:

Is it likely that we're going to go to war over Taiwan?

SAMUEL PAPARO:

The likelihood is low, but the consequence is so very high, that I owe you every bit of urgency that I can. The effect of some war spiraling out of control would dwarf the Second World War, so we seek to uphold the status quo. We seek to deter conflict.

Xi Jinping believes that the unification of Taiwan is existential to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party's rule of China.

MARTIN SMITH:

They've gotten along for 70-plus years without reunification. So what makes this existential?

SAMUEL PAPARO:

I don't know. I hope he grants you an interview and tells you.

MARTIN SMITH:

Adm. Paparo says that in his view, Xi Jinping and China see Taiwan as an existential issue. That it must be unified. Why?

JIA QINGGUO:

You don't have the right to separate the land from your motherland. Just like in the U.S., you don't automatically have the right. You need to go through procedures, right? Like Texas, if they want to get independent, you cannot just have a plebiscite in Texas. You need to get other states to approve. Okay? This is by the constitution, okay? Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan has never been separated.

MARTIN SMITH:

More than ever, a successful Chinese takeover of Taiwan threatens global stability.

COLIN KAHL:

If China takes Taiwan, you're talking about an island that is responsible for 70% of all the semiconductors in the world, and 90% of the highest-end chips that power the most advanced technologies that all of us have in our pockets with our iPhones and our laptops.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

The world needs this technology. Europe needs it, Japan, we all need it. And nobody else does it the way Taiwan does.

MARTIN SMITH:

China also depends on Taiwanese chips. A war that destroys Taiwan’s chip industry may give Xi pause.

So does the war in Ukraine. In 2022, when Putin invaded, President Xi took notice.

FEMALE REPORTER:

Ukraine is marking an anniversary of infamy: two years since Vladimir Putin launched his war—

ORVILLE SCHELL:

I think Xi is watching Ukraine incredibly closely, because the parallels with Taiwan, although not complete, are nonetheless haunting. And Ukraine could be the best deterrent against Xi doing anything in regard to Taiwan.

MALE REPORTER:

People thought that that invasion was going to last several weeks, that Russia would have its way. But the Ukrainians have fought valiantly. They continue to fight.

COLIN KAHL:

I don't think Xi Jinping is happy about the war in Ukraine. Without question, he took notice of how good U.S. intelligence was on Russia. And he has to wonder, "Well, gosh, if they know this about Russia, what do they know about me?" So if he's counting on surprise, vis-à-vis Taiwan or the South China Sea, I think he's got to calculate the odds of him pulling off a strategic surprise are less than they were before because of the quality of U.S. intelligence.

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi has denied that he is preparing to invade Taiwan any time soon. But every few years, he orders the military to Tiananmen Square for a display of China's readiness and might.

CCTV

EDWARD WONG:

One of the things that has been very consistent about Xi is his alignment of his identity with the Chinese military. I’m in the crowd across from him, and—

MARTIN SMITH:

Ed Wong witnessed several of these spectacles.

EDWARD WONG:

It feels very much like this imperial event where the leader of this great nation, this great power, is surrounding himself with people who’ve come to pay tribute to him and to pay tribute to China as a military power. And he goes out in a car, standing out of the sunroof as it drives up and down these rows of troops.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, comrades.

PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:

[Speaking Mandarin] Hello, Chairman!

EDWARD WONG:

We see things like intercontinental ballistic missiles on flatbeds. And this is all a signal of China's military strength.

XI JINPING:

[Speaking Mandarin] Job well done.

PLA SOLDIERS [in unison]:

[Speaking Mandarin] Serving the people!

MARTIN SMITH:

Xi's rapid buildup of China's military capacity has prompted the U.S. to send more weapons to Taiwan. Given the stakes, President Biden has been consistent and straightforward.

SCOTT PELLEY, "60 Minutes":

To be clear, sir, U.S. Forces, U.S. men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

Yes.

DAVID SHAMBAUGH, Author, Where Great Powers Meet:

President Biden has said unambiguously four times, "The United States shall defend Taiwan." No American president has ever said that, and no American president has that responsibility. The Taiwan Relations Act says nothing about the United States defending Taiwan. It simply says that should coercive measures be used by mainland China against Taiwan, it will be a matter of, quote, "grave concern" to the United States.

MARTIN SMITH:

Now the question is what will the incoming Trump administration do?

You've worked for Donald Trump. If China encroaches further on Taiwan, will Donald Trump, who preaches "America first," go to war to defend Taiwan?

H.R. McMASTER, Author, At War with Ourselves:

You know, I'm not sure, and the fact that I’m not sure may not be a bad thing, because as long as it remains ambiguous, as long as he doesn't say, "Hey, I'm not going to do anything on Taiwan." And I think it's also important for us not to make promises that we may not be able to fulfill if Congress doesn't authorize military action.

JIA QINGGUO:

I don't believe that we should fight unless Taiwan becomes independent. But Taiwan is not separated from China. Why should China use force? If it's a domestic issue, then we can do it in a peaceful way.

MARTIN SMITH:

Taking stock of Xi––his ambitions, his deceptions, his human rights abuses and his threats against Taiwan––I come to wonder what U.S. policy should be. To date, little has been done to effectively stop China’s moves in the South China Sea, or in Hong Kong, or to de-escalate the situation in Taiwan.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

I think engagement was right to try, and it was a great tribute to American diplomacy under nine presidential administrations, with the perhaps somewhat naive hope that China might not turn into a Jeffersonian democracy, but might become less hostile. That was a good diplomatic effort. Did it succeed? Not yet. And engagement has now ended. Now, can we start it up again? I believe that under Xi Jinping it’s probably impossible.

The Future

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

For decades, the growth of China’s economy was described as a miracle, fueling the rise of a new and massive middle class. But these are less confident days for most of China.

MARTIN SMITH:

Despite Xi Jinping’s grip on power, his China is not invincible.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

And much of that middle class—

MARTIN SMITH:

In recent years, the economy has faltered. Growth has slowed.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—by a property crisis.

MARTIN SMITH:

A housing boom has morphed into a housing glut, with tens of millions of vacant units littering the country. The workforce is also aging, but as China’s youth attend job fairs, they face a staggering unemployment rate, estimated to be as high as 25%. Foreign investment is fleeing the country.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The Chinese economy is headed down, for much more of a slowdown than we have today.

LINGLING WEI, Author, Superpower Showdown:

It's heartbreaking. Whenever I talk to my friends back in China, the sense of hopelessness is something I never felt before. People are just very worried about the direction the country is going.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The Chinese economy is having a lackluster month—

IAN JOHNSON:

I think Xi Jinping has taken the economy for granted for most of the past 10 years. He sort of figured that it didn’t matter as much as ideology, as controlling the way people think and clamping down on dissent.

MARTIN SMITH:

When COVID hit China, Xi’s lockdown policy drew huge protests, becoming the largest anti-government demonstrations since Tiananmen Square.

PROTESTER:

[Speaking Mandarin] We want freedom, not COVID tests!

MALE NEWSREADER:

Citizens, millions of them, yearning to escape almost three years of intermittent lockdowns.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

The lockdown became a kind of lockjaw. And it’s no secret if you talk to people in Chinese cities who were locked down what a nightmare that was.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the central city of Wuhan, they break down the fence that kept them quarantined.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

But it also was a kind of a perfect metaphor for the way a Leninist system does things: control.

MARTIN SMITH:

Because the government forbade overt messaging, protesters began holding up blank pieces of paper as symbols of China’s strict censorship.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The White Paper Movement is spreading. First it was all about opposition to China’s strict zero-COVID policy, but in recent days the message has morphed, touching the rawest of political nerves.

PROTESTER:

Freedom!

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Freedom of speech!

ZHOU FENGSUO, Co-founder, Humanitarian China:

This White Paper Movement was a very exciting time. I heard these young people shouting, "End CCP."

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down! Communist Party, step down!

ZHOU FENGSUO:

And it’s the first time that public protest forced CCP into changing its policy.

PROTESTER:

Xi Jinping!

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down!

PROTESTER:

Xi Jinping!

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down!

LI YUAN:

But many of the protesters paid huge prices. And they were harassed and they were locked up. Because still for many Chinese, Xi Jinping is a name you cannot say. You cannot speak out.

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Step down! Step down! Step down!

LI YUAN:

The zero-COVID policy woke up many Chinese.

PROTESTER:

Xi Jinping!

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] End lockdown in Xinjiang!

ORVILLE SCHELL:

I think the White Paper protests suggested exactly the degree to which these forces, dissenting forces, are latent beneath the surface of things.

PROTESTER:

[Speaking Mandarin] Chinese people have human rights, too.

CROWD:

[Chanting in Mandarin] Chinese people have human rights, too.

ORVILLE SCHELL:

Having watched China for so many decades, these forces are there and they keep coming up again and again and again, and they actually grow and multiply under repression. But right now, China has affected a kind of a techno-autocracy that makes it more difficult than ever to have these kinds of manifestations, because the cost is so high.

MARTIN SMITH:

Today, Xi is trying to find a way forward that balances control with the need to get China’s economy moving again.

IAN JOHNSON:

Xi Jinping thought that he could have it both ways—clamp down and still have economic growth. But the recipe for success, that you had to unshackle society in order for things to move forward, has now been abandoned. If China continues their policies, which I think they will, you're going to have longer-term slower growth, and that'll lead to more tensions at home. So I think we're in for a rockier time.

EDWARD WONG:

Even though Xi feels that engagement with the outside world might be necessary to jumpstart the economy again, I think at the current moment he has made the other choice. He has chosen to go down the route of consolidating power, the route of nationalism.

MARTIN SMITH:

So, he's taking the darker path.

EDWARD WONG:

For now he's taking the darker path.

Mihrigul Tursun emigrated to the United States with her two children in 2018.

Her husband joined them in 2023.

Zhou Fengsuo now lives in the U.S.

He has made several secret trips to China, in support of fellow activists.

Cai Xia is now living in exile in the U.S.

She was expelled from the Communist Party after she compared Xi to a mafia boss.

In November 2024, a Hong Kong court convicted 45 pro-democracy activists for subversion of state authority.

They were sentenced for up to 10 years in prison.

In 2018, Xi abolished term limits, allowing him to remain president for life.