Empire of Illusion: Frank Dikötter on Why China Isn’t a Superpower

Frank Dikötter is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has recently returned to the United States after living in Hong Kong since 2006. In this provocative conversation, Dikötter challenges the prevailing narrative about China’s rise. Drawing from his latest book, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, Dikötter argues that the Chinese Communist Party has masterfully projected the image of a powerful, modern, and economically dominant nation—but says that image is largely a façade.

Dikötter contends that far from being a true superpower, China remains fundamentally fragile: an empire held together by repression, propaganda, and paranoia. Despite gleaming cities and impressive-seeming economic statistics often cited by the West, he asserts that much of China’s so-called growth has been built on the backs of an impoverished population, often without its consent or benefit. He further explains how inflated numbers, hollow institutions, and internal contradictions undermine China’s long-term strength. In his view, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hasn’t lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty—it has merely stepped aside as ordinary people began reclaiming their autonomy after decades of devastation under Mao.

Dikötter delves into how the CCP’s fear—of its own citizens, of capitalism, of peaceful evolution—has driven decisions for decades. Dikötter also draws parallels with the Soviet Union and suggests that, like the USSR’s, China’s power is brittle beneath the surface. Xi Jinping, he argues, is not a break from tradition but a continuation of the Party’s long-standing obsession with control.

This conversation calls into question not only China’s global ambitions but also how the West has consistently misread the CCP’s intentions and capabilities. Ultimately, Dikötter leaves us with a stark question: Are we overestimating China’s strength—and underestimating its fear?

Recorded on March 27, 2025.

Episode Transcript

>> Peter Robinson (00:00):
China, a nation of 1.4 billion people that in the lifetime of
anyone over the age of 35 has liftedhundreds of millions out of poverty and
built a navy bigger than ours.
How did China do it andhow frightened should we be?
Frank Decatur on Uncommon Knowledge now.

(00:25):
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge,I'm Peter Robinson.
A native of the Netherlands,Frank Dikötter holds bachelor's and
master's degrees from the Universityof Geneva and his doctorate
from the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies at the University of London.
For 18 years a professor atthe University of Hong Kong, Dr.

(00:49):
Dikötter is now also a fellow atthe Hoover Institution here at Stanford.
Dr Dikötter's many works on Chinainclude his classic trilogy,
known as the People's Trilogy,Mao's Great Famine,
the Tragedy of Liberation andthe Cultural Revolution.
Dr Dikötter's most recent book,China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower.

(01:10):
We'll come to this butDr Dikötter argues that China,
as the supposed economic superpowerisn't all that it appears.
Frank, welcome.

>> Frank Dikötter (01:19):
Thank you for having me.

>> Peter Robinson (01:22):
Frank,
let me set up my first question asfollows by giving you a quotation.
This is the late Hoover fellowHarry Rowan writing in 2007, quote,
should China's economy andthe educational attainments of
its population continue to growas they have in recent years.
The more than one-sixth of the world'speople who live in China will,

(01:45):
by 2025, that is this year,will by 2025 be citizens of a country
correctly classified as belonging to thefree nations of the earth, close quote.
That hasn't happened.
On the other hand, South Korea,economic growth, pressure for
political freedoms, democracy,Taiwan, economic growth,

(02:08):
pressure for political freedoms,it's a democracy.
Why was Harry Rowan, who was no fool,I don't know that you knew him, but I did.
Harry Rowan was a highly intelligent man.
How did he get it wrong?

>> Frank Dikötter (02:21):
If my memory is correct, Harry Rowan,
I read the stuff in the archiveshere at the Hoover predicted
that China would bea democracy by the year 2015.

>> Peter Robinson (02:33):
This is the later, I'm going a little soft on him, actually,
because he revised that.
He put it back a decadein a later article.
Yes, yes.
But at first he thought it was going soquickly.
It would be 2015, you're quite right.

>> Frank Dikötter (02:43):
Yes, so it does sound a little bit like assessments of
the Soviet Union's economyin the 1960s and 70s.
It will overtake the United States,but of course, the date is constantly
postponed until the moment where thatentity implodes altogether in 91, 92.
Why was he wrong and so many others.

(03:05):
It's a very good question.
I think that ultimatelythere is at the very
heart of this a failure orunwillingness to
recognize somethingreasonably straightforward,
namely that Chinesecommunism is communism.

(03:29):
That would be the wayI would summarize it.

>> Peter Robinson (03:33):
And that distinguishes it clearly from South Korea and Taiwan.

>> Frank Dikötter (03:37):
Yes. >> Peter Robinson
something happened.
You argue again and again,and we will come to this,
that you can't trust a single statistic inChina, including the economic statistics.
So if I may,
the next largish question that I'dlike to get at is what has happened?

(03:58):
We all feel, I mean, I don't know.
Here's a pen, the chances are very goodit was made in China 30 years ago.
I wouldn't be using a pen made in China.
We all feel something has happened.
So could I ask this?
You began your studies in China in 1985,you write at Nankai University.
I will apologize right now,once and only once for
all my mispronunciations ofChinese words in our program here.

(04:21):
Nankai University in the city of Tianjin,
a coastal city close tonot far from Beijing.
And you returned to Tianjin,that same city, in 2019,
to celebrate Nankai University's100th anniversary.
The city of Tianjin in1985 when you arrive, and
the city of Tianjin in 2019.

(04:42):
What was different about it?
What could you see?
How was life in the city different?
Well, it's like everything.
It's completely different.
You wouldn't recognize it.

>> Peter Robinson (04:51):
So a transformation has taken place.

>> Frank Dikötter (04:54):
Absolutely.
The question is whatkind of transformation?
And what is it that you see andwhat is it that you do not see?
Now, if you take the countryside,for instance,
you will find out that thosebeautiful manicured highway with
roses all along from Tianjin orfrom Nanjing or from Shanghai,

(05:17):
out of the city at some pointbecome sort of dusty roads and
then disappear altogetherin the countryside.
So there's really two worlds.
There's people in the countrysidewhere the majority people live.
And they are>> Peter Robinson: The majority is still
rural.
The majority is still rural.

>> Peter Robinson (05:35):
I see.

>> Frank Dikötter (05:36):
If you include, of course, the migrants in the cities who
come from the countryside to work fornext to nothing with no protection.
So the countryside, if one is born from
a woman who is classifiedas being a villager,
one's status is not the same as onewho was born a resident of a city.

(06:02):
It's an apartheid system,like South Africa.
In other words, a great manypeople have an inferior status.
They don't have accessto the same welfare or
other resources allocated by the state.
So that's somethingimportant to bear in mind.
So what has happened?
Well, it's always been the same story forall of these communist regimes.

(06:24):
They spend great amounts of moneyinto projecting an image of power,
stability and wealth.
So from 49 onwards, not just from themoment that good old chairman died in 76,
from the very beginning,
they poured vast resources in buildingup cities that look spick and span.

(06:46):
Nice beautiful buildings,highways eliminate all the dirt,
including people who don'tbelong in these cities.
Round them up, get rid of them.
That image, unfortunately, is not the onlyaspect that you will find in China.
But the other key point is that a greatmany resources have been poured into

(07:08):
building up those cities and projectingan image of power, strength and modernity.
But who has funded all of it?
It's the savings of ordinary people.
In other words, the vast majority ofpeople in the countryside and of course,
those in cities from 1949 till now.
There's one constant,there are many constants.
One constant is thatthe vast majority of GDP of

(07:31):
growth goes into the coffers of the state.
And ordinary people have the lowest shareof GDP in the history of the modern world.
In other words, the state is rich andthe people are poor.
Or to put it slightly differently,the temple is rich amongst the poor.

>> Peter Robinson (07:50):
All right, how big is the state?

>> Frank Dikötter (07:52):
You're looking at the temple.

>> Peter Robinson (07:57):
The state is rich, that means.
Members of the Communist Party.
What are we talking about here?
The figures I saw when I wasgetting ready to talk to you.
Wikipedia is a very good place to go forconventional wisdom, I think.
And the number that I found over andover again was 8 to 900 million people
lifted out of poverty since Deng Xiaopingannounces his reforms in '78.

>> Frank Dikötter (08:21):
Yes. >> Peter Robinson
when you say the states->> Frank Dikötter: Yes,
you read that in Wikipedia,but no, that's all propaganda.

>> Peter Robinson (08:27):
All right, that's what I'm asking, Frank.

>> Frank Dikötter (08:29):
Yes, so who lifted who out of poverty?
Chairman Mao dies in 1976, at that point,the average standard of living for
the vast majority of Chinese islower than what it was in 1949.
So they've been going through,first a massive famine,

(08:51):
a man made famine from 1958 to 62,which caused tens of millions,
at least 45 million people to be beaten,starved to death.
Then we have the Cultural Revolution.

>> Peter Robinson (09:05):
Excuse me, in that famine, that induced famine is at least
an order of magnitude greater thanStalin's famine, is that correct?

>> Frank Dikötter (09:12):
Well, it's a large country you know.
[LAUGH] The number of victims just forthose four years, 58 to 62,
is roughly equivalent to the number ofvictims during the Second World War,
it's roughly comparable, 45,50 million, it's enormous.
The vast majority of victimsbeing in the countryside.
Then you have a Cultural Revolution whichpretty much devastates the entire country.

(09:35):
So by the time this man dies in '76,people live in dire poverty.
This is an extraordinarilybackward country.
So to somehow have some sort of growthfrom there onwards is actually not all
that difficult.
But the question is,who lifted who out of poverty?
Even before Mao dies, ordinary peoplein the countryside by 1972, when

(09:57):
first every party member has been takento task during the Cultural Revolution.
And then the army,which was deployed in every farm,
every factory,every office from 1968 onwards,
that army goes back to the barracks andis purged in turn.
People in the countryside realizethere's nobody there to supervise them.

(10:19):
There's nobody there to tell them,go and work in the collective fields.

>> Peter Robinson (10:23):
The boot is off their neck.

>> Frank Dikötter (10:24):
The boot is off their neck, so
they start operatingunderground factories.
They open black markets,they trade among themselves.
They take back the tools thatbelong to the collectors.
They divide the land among themselves,
frequently with the approvalof the local party officials,
who are sick and tired of decades ofrevolutionary violence and poverty.

(10:46):
So, well, before Mr.Deng Xiaoping returns to power in 1979,
these collectives in the countrysidehave already been sapped from within,
so what am I trying to say?
I'm trying to say that Deng Xiaoping,when he allows the countryside to have
a certain measure of economic freedom,he does it in order to maintain what he

(11:09):
calls the best backbone of agriculture inChina, namely the collectivized economy.
But in fact, he's merely puttingthe stamp of approval on something
that escapes them altogether,namely the drive of ordinary
villagers to claim backthe freedoms they had before 1949.

(11:29):
By 1982, the People's Communes collapse.
The hundreds of millions of people inthe countryside have lifted themselves out
of poverty.

>> Peter Robinson (11:39):
All right, this is an absolutely vital point,
because it gets to the waywe understand China today.
And this notion that in one way oranother, the regime, the government,
I don't know what is a neutral word.
You say what you want, butI should be trying to use neutral words.
The government, the Communist Party, thatit has achieved some degree of legitimacy.

(12:02):
We have to grant it some degree oflegitimacy, because when it came to power,
China was poor and backward.
And now, after, what is it now,seven decades of the CCP in power,
at least half of the country isreasonably well off by global standards.
And there are some thousandsof real entrepreneurs and

(12:24):
some thousands of truly rich people.
And it has to be granted some legitimacybecause it has lifted these hundreds of
millions of people from poverty.
And Frank Decatur says, not a chance.

>> Frank Dikötter (12:36):
And I will go further.

>> Peter Robinson (12:37):
All it did was get out of the way enough to permit Chinese to be
Chinese.

>> Frank Dikötter (12:42):
Exactly, exactly.

>> Peter Robinson (12:44):
Exercise that whatever it is that makes people Chinese, somehow
or other, there seems to be a particularcultural genius toward enterprise and
organism, is that correct?

>> Frank Dikötter (12:52):
Yes, absolutely.
You allow ordinary people toget on with it, they will.
But this is not a party that will allowordinary people to get on with with it.
You got to remember that the keyof the reforms, the party calls it
40 years of reform and opening up,that's the official slogan.
So it starts in 79, 40 years,

(13:13):
all the way till roughly nowit's a little bit more than 40.
So what is it they wish to achievewith reform and opening up,
quote unquote,a little bit like the Russians
perestroika, Vietnam->> Peter Robinson: Yes is quite what
it means.
In fact,
every run of the mill dictatorshiparound the world from the late 70s,
early 80s onwards, start allowingfarmers to have a private plot,

(13:36):
foreigners to invest, andprivate entrepreneurs to participate.
This is how these dictatorsmanage to avoid complete and
utter economic collapse.
So it's hardly China that isbeing alone in doing this.
But the key point is,what is it they wish to achieve?
It's actually very straightforward.

>> Peter Robinson (13:54):
And when you say they, you mean the party?

>> Frank Dikötter (13:55):
I mean the party.
What is the party wishes to achieve?
It's very straightforward,
Deng Xiaoping puts the four cardinalprinciples into the constitution.
The Party Constitution, 1982,these four cardinal principles
are being repeated time andagain by every single leader.
The last time I heard about it was,

(14:18):
I think in January justbefore I left Hong Kong.
This January,it was repeated by Xi Jinping,
when he wrote about it in oneof the party's mouthpieces.
So what are these fourcardinal principles?
Which nobody ever seems to remember,
that the moment you leavethe People's Republic of China.
Very roughly, uphold Marxism,Leninism, Mao Zedong thought.

(14:41):
Uphold the socialist way of doing things,the socialist economy.
Uphold the dictatorshipof the proletariat.
All the four principlesreally boil down to two.
One is Marxism, the other one is Leninism.
Uphold the Communist Party isthe fourth cardinal principle.

(15:02):
What does it mean?
It really means uphold the monopolyover power of the Communist Party and
uphold the socialist economy, that'swhat it means, it's Marxism, Leninism.
So this regime sets out toreinforce the socialist economy,
transform it, not get rid of it.

>> Peter Robinson (15:20):
All right, so let me ask you then [COUGH] this will be a little
bit crude, butyou'll see the point I'm trying to get at.
Let me just assert it again it's crude.
There are a couple of ways of lookingat a big communist operation.
And I'm going to call one the Tito model,Josip Broz Tito.

(15:43):
Now the there he is,trying to hold Yugoslavia together and
the Balkans for centuries, not decades.
Centuries are after each other ongrounds of nationalism and religion.
The Orthodox Serbs hate the Catholic.
Croatians, andthey both hate the Muslim Bosnians, and

(16:05):
so Tito uses Communismprecisely because it is useful.
It is an instrument he can use tosuppress nationalism and religion and
hold the country together andprolong his power that way.
Question, is Tito a believing Communist?
Answer, who cares?
It doesn't matter,
he's using it to hold together somethingthat might otherwise fall apart.

(16:26):
And that indeed, the moment Communismended, did fall apart, all right, and then
the other model is, well, our colleagueand friend Stephen Kotkin, who spent,
as far as I can tell, more time examiningSoviet archives than anyone else alive.
And I once said to Stephen,
what's the central finding after all thesedecades of studying these documents?

(16:47):
Can you reduce it to one sentence?
And Stephen immediately answered, theywere Communists, they really believed it.
Even when you've got the Politburotalking among themselves, at their ease,
with no reason to posture for anyone,they still sound like Communists.
They really believed in some kind ofworldwide revolution that Russia or

(17:08):
the Soviet Union, forgive me, would lead.
So is the CCP, China's a big country,
the dialects are different,the regions are different.
The history is extremely difficultthrough the late 19th century and
into the first half of the, well, youcould argue that it's still difficult now,

(17:31):
but you've got warlords andthe Cultural Revolution, violence.
If this is in the living memory of thepeople who are running the Communist Party
today, and is it fair to say,who knows what they believe, but
what they are sayingis we must have order.
We will not permit that, the CulturalRevolution, the humiliation of our country

(17:52):
by foreign imperialists,we will not permit that to happen again.
Or are they true believers?

>> Frank Dikötter (17:58):
Well, they are both, so
it goes back to what I said in the->> Peter Robinson: Option three is
the worst, Frank.
[LAUGH] Both, it's what I said at the beginning,
Chinese Communism is a true communist.
And you should listen to what they sayrather than try to second guess or
think, we know better,or they must say that,

(18:19):
no, they are true believers,but what is it they believe in?
They believe in the existence of an enemyreferred to as either capitalism or
the capitalist camp orthe imperialist camp surrounded.
That's the impression they'vehad from 1949 onwards,
when the red flag goes up over theForbidden City in Beijing, if not before.

(18:43):
That's the impression they'vehad from 1949 onwards,
when the red flag goes up over theForbidden City in Beijing, if not before.
They inherited the boundariesof the Qing Empire,
the Qing Empire that collapsed in 1911,
very much like the Bolsheviks inheritedthe boundaries of the Tsarist Empire.

(19:04):
So the key geopoliticalquestion here is how do
the Communists maintainthe boundaries of an empire and
not decolonize likemost empires have done?
So that includes Tibet,it includes Xinjiang and the Uyghurs,
it includes a whole Muslim belt.

(19:25):
So how do you do that?
Well, by imposing unity, andthat is what communism does,
one language, one time zone.
Do you know the difference in time zones?
The entire country is one time zone?
It's one time zone, yes, it's like theUnited States would have one time zone.
In fact, it's slightly longerthan the United States,
I think there are about four orfive hours in that.

(19:46):
It's all one time zone,one language, one party,
one time zone, and on and on it goes.
There's a firm belief inorder imposed from above, but
here's the trouble,not just with China, but any and
every attempt to impose order fromabove through a monopoly over power.
That's what Leninism is,it's a monopoly over power,

(20:08):
you basically have a choicein the 20th century.
You can either have the separationof powers is what you and
I refer to as a democracy, or you can havea monopoly over power, that's what you and
I refer to as a dictatorship.
[LAUGH] so the key pointreally is that when you impose
order from above througha monopoly over power,

(20:31):
you create disorder on a huge scale,some of which you can see.
Some of it will only appearthe moment that whole projection
of stability vanishes,as it did with the Soviet Union in 91.

>> Peter Robinson (20:47):
This brings me to the midpoint in this period of reform.

>> Frank Dikötter (20:50):
Yep.

>> Peter Robinson (20:50):
And that is the events at Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989,
and again, the conventional view ofthis is that there was a democratic.
Excuse me, democratic may be too stronga word, but there were pressures,
students protesting for greater freedoms,let's put it in that modest way,

(21:14):
including greater political freedoms.

>> Frank Dikötter (21:16):
Yes.

>> Peter Robinson (21:17):
And that at first, the regime does nothing, perhaps even on some
accounts, tries to see if it can findways of accommodating the students,
and then the regime says,no, we can't permit this.
And the tanks roll in andnumbers are disputed to this day, but
the conventional wisdom that I see as Igoogle around looking at all this is a few

(21:39):
hundred students perhaps are killed.
And you say, Frank Dikötter says, no,
that's not quite the wayit went down in 1989.

>> Frank Dikötter (21:49):
It does not, so you are quite right,
it is portrayed as a studentmovement in favor of democracy.

>> Peter Robinson (21:56):
Yes.

>> Frank Dikötter (21:56):
In Beijing.

>> Peter Robinson (21:57):
Yes >> Frank Dikötter
now, here are a few thingsyou want to bear in mind,
what happens in 1984 isCharles Young [INAUDIBLE]
allows local banks to makeloans to a much greater extent.
Now, in a one party state,this means that the person who can go and

(22:18):
get a loan locally is your party official,knocks on the door, says,
I want your money, and I want it now.
That's the form a loan takes.
So what you get from 84 to 85 isinflation to the extent of about 48, 50%
by the summer of 1988, in a country where->> Peter Robinson: It's running

(22:40):
at an annual rate of 50%?

>> Frank Dikötter (22:41):
It has reached 48 to 50% in the summer of 1988, in a country
where people are used to paying the sameprice for decades, they are outraged.
You don't like your inflation here,try 50%, right?
People in the cities are enraged,
what happens with the peoplein the countryside?
They must deliver theirgoods to the states, but
the extent to which the bank ofAgriculture on the countryside has

(23:04):
been used by local cadres issuch that they are bankrupt.
So farmers by the end of1988 get little IOUs,
pieces of paper, okay, sowho turns up in May 1989?
It is people from all walks of life and
people from the countrysidewho didn't get paid.
It is people in the cities whoare sick and tired of corruption, and

(23:27):
they see how power is used.

>> Peter Robinson (23:29):
Cities plural, not just Beijing, cities plural.

>> Frank Dikötter (23:32):
Yes, ordinary people see how party officials can turn their
power into money, whereas theyhave to suffer with inflation.
Students appear not just in Beijing,but in cities around the country,
all the way to Xinjiang, Urumqi,demonstrations in May 1989.

(23:53):
So people of all walks of life, not justin Beijing, but in every major capital,
including provinces most people haven'teven Even heard of Gansu Province,
Lanzhou, with violent assaulton the party headquarters.
So what you see is an upheavalwhich is threatening the very
existence of the Communist Party.

(24:15):
Within the party,there are voices who are actually in favor
of doing something to help thissystem get rid of corruption.

>> Peter Robinson (24:25):
Frank, am I still stuck in simplistic thinking, or
is this a moment, 1989,
is this the moment when China might haveturned towards some form of democracy?
This is the moment when Harry Rowanmight have been correct.
They might have been ableto choose in one way or
another to move toward reforms of the kindthat might ultimately lead to democracy.

(24:46):
They have to choose betweenwhat do they have to do?
They have to choose between the goodof the ordinary, of the common people,
restoring some kind of economic order andeconomic growth on the one hand, or
the power of the party on the other.
And they say the power of the party.

>> Frank Dikötter (25:02):
Yes, and there's a reason for that.
I'll tell you that in a minute.

>> Peter Robinson (25:05):
All right. >> Frank Dikötter
1989.
Yes.

>> Frank Dikötter (25:09):
The poles in Poland, [LAUGH] As it so happens,
vote themselves out of Communism.

>> Peter Robinson (25:16):
Yes.

>> Frank Dikötter (25:17):
And that very same day, 200 tanks and
100,000 soldiers crushthe population in Beijing.
Now, why is it that there are->> Peter Robinson: They sent 100,000
soldiers?
100,000 soldiers and 200 tanks, plus other vehicles.
It's a civil war, right, no mercy.

(25:37):
And the army has been trying for severalattempts to get back into the city.
They were turned back by the citizensabout six weeks prior to that.
So about 2,600 to 3,400 peoplekilled in Beijing alone.
But the key point is that the leadershipis not prepared to do very much about it.

(25:59):
The key stakeholders here,the party members,
overwhelmingly remember what happenedduring the Cultural Revolution.
And what happened duringthe Cultural Revolution?
What is the Cultural Revolution?
There's an old man calledMao who was afraid.
But after having caused tens ofmillions of people to die during
the Great Leap Forward,he will be shown the door.

(26:19):
There will be a coup against them.
He will be demoted.
So he thinks very carefully,how can I find who opposes me?
Well, I'm going to try to.
I will allow ordinary peopleto denounce every party
member who has doubts about me.
In other words, the Communist Party.

(26:40):
That's the culture.
The Cultural Revolution Mao usesthe people to purge the party,
and then he uses the armyto purge the people.
So every party member has beena victim of the Cultural Revolution,
remembers this, and is afraid of everallowing ordinary people to have a say.

(27:00):
Because during the first stage of theCultural Revolution people are up in arms
and announce every crime that has beencommitted by a local party member.
Of course Mao uses the people.
He allows them to criticize ortake the task,
every person,basically Mao purges the party.

(27:21):
That will not happen again.
So these tanks,they send a very strong signal.
That signal is very clear,resonates to this very day.
Now do not query the monopoly of the powerof the Communist Party of China.

>> Peter Robinson (27:33):
All right, [COUGH] 1989 takes place and
then China under Jiang Zemin and Huintao.
I'm sure I'm mispronouncing these,but we get again,
I'm just giving you what Wikipedia says.
Under Zhang's leadership, Chinaexperienced substantial economic growth
with the continuation of market reforms.
That's so we get about 20 more years.
According to the conventionalwisdom of economic growth,

(27:57):
Hu Jintao succeeds Jiang and his signalcontribution is to take China abroad.
We now have so much capitalaccumulated in China that we begin,
we the Chinese begin investing abroad andwe get a signal moment in 2001.
This is just at the transitionbetween Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao when

(28:17):
China joins the World Trade Organizationwith the support of the United States.
I'm gonna quote George W Bush,president at the time,
quote WTO membership will require Chinato strengthen the rule of law and
introduce certain civil reformssuch as the publication of rules.

(28:40):
In the long run, an open rules basedChinese economy will be an important
underpinning forChinese democratic reforms, close quote.
So as late as 2001 you have the Presidentof the United States believing it all.

>> Frank Dikötter (28:55):
And a great many others too.

>> Peter Robinson (28:57):
Did he get any of that right?

>> Frank Dikötter (28:58):
No, of course not.
And he should have known better,first of all.

>> Peter Robinson (29:02):
So all right, I wanna get to that question of the extent
to which we have genuineeconomic reform in China and
the extent to which the we inthe west deluded ourselves.
Meaning should have known better.

>> Frank Dikötter (29:16):
Should have known better.
So look, first of all, the economicgrowth that we have witnessed in
the People's Republic of China reallyonly dates from the WTO onwards.
In other words, 2001,1999 at the earliest.
So before that,the World Bank has a number
of statistics which Ithink are quite clear.

(29:40):
If you take China in 1976,when Chairman dies,
Chairman Mao dies,then the GDP per capita of
China ranks 123rd on the global scale.
In other words, yeah, it's very low.
This is 1976, a quarter ofa century later with extraordinary

(30:04):
emphasis by the leadership on GDP,GDP growth, growth, growth.
25 years later in the year 2000,
the World bank saysthat China ranks 130th.
In other words, it has barely been ableto keep up with the rest of the world.

(30:24):
That's the delusion we have lived with.
The so called decades of doubledigit growth is nonsense.
The countryside by the year2000 is entirely bankrupt.
The four state banks are awash in red.
The state enterprises as a wholecannot generate a profit.

(30:44):
This country is on the verge of utter andcomplete bankruptcy.
In comes not just Bill Clinton,but others.
May 99, Belgrade,
NATO accidentally hitsthe Chinese embassy.
Jiang Zemin is up in arms.

(31:05):
You should read the transcript of whathe says to the standing Politburo.
I read it in the archives.
He says the Americans hate us,we must build up our army.
We must join the WTO, butnot adhere to their rules, okay?
Now this was not publicly available,but at this point in time,

(31:25):
Bill Clinton apologizes several times andthe Chinese say,
show your sincerity byallowing us to join the WTO.
Which Bill Clinton doesa few months later.
So from there on was a very clear story.
Now, why should he have known better?
Why should everyoneelse have known better?
Because the People's Republic ofChina has a leadership which time and

(31:46):
again has made it very clear thatthey are fighting capitalism and
wish to maintain a socialist economy.
Time and again.
Because time and again, when it comes forinstance to intellectual property rights,
promises Have been made every two,three years, which are then broken,

(32:06):
there's a long record ofmaking pledges and promises.
More transparent governance,
greater protection ofintellectual property rights,
strengthening the rule of law, openingup the country to foreign investment.
But very little of that is ever done.
The result of the WTO is thatin an economy which suffers,

(32:27):
we think of communism as lackof production, underproduction.
But what we're talking about in China isoverproduction, massive overproduction.
Already with the Asian crisis in 1997,
where China is seen as a sort ofisland of stability, about a fifth,
if not two-fifths, of the productsthat they make end up in warehouses.

(32:53):
A total of some 68 square kilometers ofwarehouses in total where stuff is stored.
They produced 30 million televisions,they can only sell 15 million.
This goes on for bicycles, refrigerators,sewing machines, clothes, you name it.

>> Peter Robinson (33:09):
It's not just real estate that gets overbuilt,
that's what makes the front pagesof the Wall Street Journal.

>> Frank Dikötter (33:13):
Exactly, so this is before the WTO, so when they join,
you can see what happens.
All that stuff that has accumulated,factories are not allowed to go bankrupt,
in a normal economy, bankruptcy happenswhen you cannot sell your stuff.
Now there's a point whereyou have to account.

>> Peter Robinson (33:30):
It's a market discipline.

>> Frank Dikötter (33:31):
Yes, exactly, so what you have is boom and bust.

>> Peter Robinson (33:35):
So they join the WTO and start dumping this.

>> Frank Dikötter (33:37):
And they can just export as much as they want to anyone,
not even Bangladesh is able tocompete in the production of clothes.
By 2004, 2005, China has been allowedto join the WTO on promises and
pledges and has not been requiredto reform the state enterprises.

(34:01):
Make its capital account convertible andfloat its currency rate,
unlike all other countries.
So, by 2004, reform ofthe banking system is put on ice,
reform of state enterprisesis postponed forever.
In fact, by 2005,some 96% of the 500 largest
enterprises in China are inthe hands of party members.

(34:21):
Yet, yet still abroad,you have those who go on and
on about the private sector in China.
Now, of course it's there, there wasa private sector under Lenin, right?
With the new economic policyafter the First World War.
Communists will always allow,
will give some leniency tothe private sector when they need it.

(34:44):
Only to clamp down when theybelieve it is no longer required.

>> Peter Robinson (34:48):
All right [COUGH], Go ahead.

>> Frank Dikötter (34:52):
Overproduction, the rest of the world must buy.
And then something else happens in Mexico,in the United States, in Japan, in Europe.
Since you can no longer compete, you havea very simple choice, you go bankrupt, or
you set up a factory inthe People's Republic of China.

>> Peter Robinson (35:10):
Right, all right, China today, Xi Jinping,
again, I'll give youthe conventional view.
Xi Jinping emerges in 2012, here's theconventional view, he represents perhaps
the most powerful and consequentialChinese leader since Mao himself.
In 2018, Xi has the party changethe rules enabling him to serve a third

(35:33):
five-year term as president after hissecond term ended, which it did in 2023.
He's now two years intohis third five-year term,
he's dramatically expandedthe Chinese military.
He's overseeing the Belt and
Road Initiative that has projectedChinese influence around the world.
He's put China in a position tomake increasingly credible threats

(35:53):
against Taiwan, conventional view.
Here's what Frank Dikotter writesabout Xi in China after now.
And this is from your epilogue,
when you're writing about the party'sdecision to make Xi the new leader.
Xi had several advantages, not leastan ability to say or do little of any
consequence, thus avoiding closerscrutiny by potential rivals.

(36:15):
He rarely took sides,cultivating a neutral persona and
a benign smile which revealed nothing.
He seemed harmless, and
was therefore acceptable to differentfactions within the party, close quote.
Frank, Xi Jinping is the supreme leaderof a country of 1.4 billion people.

(36:36):
How can you dismiss him withthe back of your hand like that?

>> Frank Dikötter (36:39):
I don't dismiss him, he's very important, but
you got to remember, quite a few dictatorswho seemed utterly harmless were
picked as compromise candidates.
Including, of course, Nicolae Ceausescu,
who was the youngest member at the timewhen he took over in the mid-60s.
And of course, another man,who went by the name of Stalin.

(37:01):
When most leaders inthe Soviet Union thought,
Trotsky is the one who can write,Trotsky is the one who can speak.
Trotsky is a true revolutionary,Stalin is a mere scribbler.

>> Peter Robinson (37:14):
He's the bureaucrat.

>> Frank Dikötter (37:15):
He's a bureaucrat, and he was very quiet, just like Xi Jinping,
and he tried not tooffend too many people.
He bided his time, he was very clever,he was good at corridor politics.
Well, Xi Jinping is verygood at corridor politics.
Having said that, he is not substantiallydifferent from his predecessors.

(37:35):
Take the issue, you mentioned Taiwan,Taiwan Strait Crisis,
1955, under good old Chairman Mao.
Again, three of the islandsbelonging to Taiwan bombed in 1958.
Jiang Zemin, 1995 and 1996, sends missiles

(37:57):
near the coast andover Taiwan, the third crisis.
Deng Xiaoping himself in 74 says,we will never renounce violence,
79 says again, we will neverrenounce violence against Taiwan.
Hu Yaobang,always seen as a reformer, 1985 says,
the moment we have a stronger army,we might very well recuperate Taiwan.

(38:20):
Every single one of them has made itvery clear that Taiwan is a threat,
so Xi Jinping is no different.
The key difference here is thathe can do what his predecessors,
in particular Jiang Zemin,would have liked to do, but couldn't.
You got to remember that Mao,somewhat paradoxically, and now,

(38:43):
I know this may sound somewhatcounterintuitive, but
Mao didn't just purge the Communist Party,he pretty much ruined it.
It had to be built up again from scratch,and that takes decades.
So he ruined the economy, he ruinedthe clout of the Communist Party,
that is being rebuiltvery gradually over time.

(39:05):
So Xi Jinping profits fromthe wealth brought about by
China's participation atthe WTO from 2001 onwards,
he's got more assets at his disposal.
He can afford to put hundreds of thousandsof cameras in every single city.
He can afford to build up his army likenone of his predecessors was able to do.

(39:32):
He can afford to supervise,to surveil his citizens,
he can do things thatJiang Zemin could only dream of,
but the structure comes from Jiang Zemin.

>> Peter Robinson (39:44):
All right, China is our adversary,
[COUGH] Here's the argument thatChina is very, very strong.
China now has a bigger navythan that of the United States,
shipbuilding capacity in Chinais some 100% greater than ours.
If fighting broke out over Taiwan, this istold to me by a retired four star admiral,

(40:07):
our aircraft carriers would have toremain 1,000 miles away from the action.
The Chinese have already pushed thesurface perimeter out a thousand miles.
Under President Trump, it appears tobe American policy to end the war in
Ukraine and limit fighting inthe Middle East precisely so
we can concentrate our resourceson the threat from China.

(40:28):
In the words of Elbridge Colby,
President Trump's nominee asUnder Secretary of Defense for
Policy, quote, everything should be goingto Asia to deal with the Chinese threat.
We will have to deprioritizeeverything else.
China is formidable.
Here's the argument that China is weak.
China had 49% out, I don't knowabout these statistics, Frank, and

(40:52):
you may take them on, butthis is the best I could find.
China had 14% economic growth in 92 andagain in 2007.
In 2022 and 2023,you've got just 3% and 5.2% growth.
The Chinese population is aging andshrinking.
By 2100, the UN estimates almost half theChinese population will be over the age

(41:16):
of 65, which will make China evenolder than the population of Japan.
And nobody, not even Xi Jinping,
knows whether this great bigshiny military is any good.

>> Frank Dikötter (41:30):
Yep.

>> Peter Robinson (41:31):
Because it has not been battle tested in three quarters
of a century.
Here is Frank Dikotter,in China, after Mao, quote.
China resembles a tanker that looksimpressively ship shaped from a distance,
while below deck sailorsare desperately pumping water and
plugging holes to keep the vessel afloat,close quote.

(41:53):
Are we too frightened of the Chinese ornot frightened enough?

>> Frank Dikötter (41:55):
One thing is for sure, they're damn frightened of you,
they're paranoid.

>> Peter Robinson (42:00):
So Frank, this has been a kind of sub theme of several points
that you've made andI wanna just take it straight on.
You've talked Mao was afraid that this,that or the other might happen.
In 1989,the Chinese Communist Party was afraid.
It is so striking that conventional view,the view that I've just read,

(42:23):
the notion that China isimmensely formidable.
It looks to us as though these people havetotal self confidence, national morale.
And you say no, no,no again and again and again.
They do what they do because of fear.

>> Frank Dikötter (42:39):
Beyond fear is paranoia.

>> Peter Robinson (42:41):
All right.

>> Frank Dikötter (42:42):
It's paranoia, the fear is two things, fear of their own people,
they live in fear of their own people.

>> Peter Robinson (42:50):
How big is the CCP,
how many of those people livein fear of everybody else?

>> Frank Dikötter (42:56):
If you're a party member, you get benefits, right?
So clearly you're not too keen onseeing your party being overthrown.

>> Peter Robinson (43:08):
Right.

>> Frank Dikötter (43:09):
But of course,
it's also true that withinthe ranks of the party,
there may very well be those who secretly->> Peter Robinson: But
I mean,of the 1.4 billion people in China.
Yes. >> Peter Robinson
are party members?
I would say about 120 or so.

>> Peter Robinson (43:23):
120 million?

>> Frank Dikötter (43:24):
Yeah, obviously maybe is 80 to 120, I haven't counted recently.

>> Peter Robinson (43:27):
8 to 10%, so
we've got a ruling class to put itin old 19th century European terms.
We've got a ruling class of 8 to 10%,is that fair?
Is that the right way to think of it?

>> Frank Dikötter (43:36):
Plus all those who of course, depend on that ruling class.
Okay, all right.
All those who profit from it.
So you've got 10% afraid of the 90%.
Well, I would say 25% afraid of the 75%.
But of course there's a big chunk inthe middle who will just go in whatever
direction they need togo to somehow survive.

(43:56):
But the key point is that theylive in fear of their own people.
Whether this is justified or not, whetheryou can come up with a percentage or not,
they're terribly afraid of it.
And it goes back to something that goodold Chairman Mao said on 5th January,
1930.
Very simple saying,a single spark can set the prairie alight.

(44:18):
He said this to explain how a revolutioncould just happen like that.
A single spark was flipped.
But now it's flipped.
Now it's flipped.
They're the status quo.
It could be a counter revolution,which is why they're paranoid and
why they must crush even the faintestattempt to have a voice.
During the Olympics 2008,two elderly ladies age 70,

(44:45):
wish to use the rightthey have to speak out.
That's the right that's beengranted by the Olympics Committee.
They get arrested right away, they'rein the seventies, two old ladies, why?
Why Hong Kong, why crush Hong Kong?
Because there's always the fear thatsomething that happens might trigger

(45:05):
a counter revolution.
And the other fear is fear ofthe capitalist camp, from 1949 onwards,
if not earlier on.
This is a country that sees itselfsurrounded by the formidable
capitalist system.
And the idea is, the convictionis that that capitalist camp is
out there to get them,to infiltrate them, to subvert power.

(45:28):
1989, the tanks, the army,that has all been
organized by the capitalist camp andinsiders.
The black hands behind this drama,what happened recently in Hong Kong,
it's the Americans who are behind it.
They've been funding it and provoking it.
Whatever happens, everything [LAUGH]is organized by these wicked.

(45:52):
So I asked a moment ago, to what extenthave we been deluding ourselves?
But you're describingthinking that is delusional.
Completely delusional, yes.
I mean, Japan is a capitalist country.
In Asia, South Korea's,there are capitalist countries.
Vietnam is becoming more capitalist.
I suppose if I were Chinese,that would make me nervous.
The notion that the United Stateswas behind the democracy movement in

(46:13):
Hong Kong, somehow or other,it was capitalists who organized
the events in Tiananmen Square in 1980,that is delusional.
Yes, and you know what it's called?
So how do we deal with thesepeople if they're delusional?
It's very difficult,be very patient, I would say.
Peaceful evolution, have you heardof that concept, peaceful evolution?
Comes from one of your Secretaries ofState, a man called John Foster Dulles.

(46:37):
So we're talking somethingvery close to containment.
1957, peaceful evolution helpsatellite states of the Soviet Union
help them economically.
And by doing that, they willpeacefully evolve into a democracy.
Now, you remember whatwe said about Poland.
This is exactly what happenedon the 4th of June, 1989.

(46:57):
The Poles vote themselves out ofcommunism, they become a democracy.
That's the biggest fear.

>> Peter Robinson (47:04):
And in Beijing, they can hardly-

>> Frank Dikötter (47:05):
In Beijing, they say-

>> Peter Robinson (47:06):
They're horrified.

>> Frank Dikötter (47:07):
This is peaceful evolution, they're horrified.
That becomes the number oneconcern from July 1989 with
Jiang Zemin all the way to Xi Jinpingtoday, that's the major concern.
When Gorbachev wraps up the Soviet Unionand it goes out of existence
on December 25, 1991,the Chinese say to themselves, not that.

(47:30):
Never, never.
All right.
Never.

>> Peter Robinson (47:32):
Frank, would you look at a video for
a moment of Niall Ferguson,our colleague at the Hoover Institution,
Niall Ferguson, during an interview atthis table just ten days ago, as I recall.

>> Niall Ferguson (47:41):
So the key question for us, the big geopolitical question is,
does Xi make a move on Taiwan?
While the opportunity is almostirresistibly tempting, it will be,
I'm absolutely sure,
during this administration,during this presidential term.
All I can,I can't tell you if it's 2025, 2026 Or

(48:01):
2027 nobody knows,only in the end, only he knows.

>> Peter Robinson (48:05):
Niall Ferguson is absolutely certain,
that Xi Jinping will makea decisive move on Taiwan,
during the second andfinal term of Donald J Trump, Frank.

>> Frank Dikötter (48:19):
Like Niall, [COUGH] I studied the past [LAUGH] I can't foresee
the future [LAUGH] But you did say thatthe PLA, the Chinese army, doesn't have
any fighting experience in three quartersof a century that's not entirely accurate.
They did go into Vietnam in 1979.

>> Peter Robinson (48:37):
All right I was thinking of Korea, but yes.
Vietnam is more recent.

>> Frank Dikötter (48:41):
It was a disaster.

>> Peter Robinson (48:44):
The sorting into Vietnam was a disaster.

>> Frank Dikötter (48:46):
Absolutely, and then they went in again, in 1989, and that
went slightly better, although admittedly,>> Peter Robinson: You mean Xing'an men
when they attack their own people?
Yes, >> Peter Robinson
So, when it comes to unarmed civilians,
it's fair to say that they did better,right?
But otherwise, we don't know.

>> Peter Robinson (49:06):
And neither does he, neither does Xi Jinping.

>> Frank Dikötter (49:08):
Neither does he Xi Jinping how would he know?
He's been purging the ranks ofthe army from the moment he got into
power 2012, a general disappears,another one goes.
God knows what's going on andwho tells you,
that the army is actuallywilling to fight?
There's something very interesting,

(49:30):
something very interestinghappened in 1989.
Not only Poland, but in other countries.
They all watched the massacre inTiananmen Square on television, right?

>> Peter Robinson (49:40):
Yes, yes.

>> BBC News (49:41):
After hours of shooting, and facing a line of troops,
the crowd is still here.
They're shouting, stop the killing anddown with the government.

>> Frank Dikötter (49:54):
Indeed, there's this great fear in Eastern Europe.
But the Chinese solution might be used by,for instance, the East Germans in Leipzig.
When these Germans went out to protest,but he didn't.
And I think even the Russians realized,watching that, they realized,

(50:14):
we don't have it in ourselves.
We just can't do that, we cannot applya Chinese solution, and within years,
the whole thing unraveled.
So my question really is,can they fight how corrupt are they?
And secondly,do they have the will to fight?

>> Peter Robinson (50:30):
Frank, thank you,
because I haven't slept sincethat interview with Niall.
You were giving me some reason tosleep a little bit better tonight,
once again, Naill.

>> Niall Ferguson (50:42):
The fate of this administration, and
of Donald Trump's reputationhinges on whether his realpolitik,
this Nixonian realpolitik that he,J.D. Vance,
Marco Rubio are applying,whether it avoids, China gaining Taiwan.
If China gains Taiwan,
I think that is the end of Americanprimacy in the Indo Pacific.

(51:05):
If it's the end of Americanprimacy in the Pacific,
I think it's at least the twilight of thereserve currency status of the dollar and
the ten-year treasurythat's the risk they run.
That's the game.

>> Peter Robinson (51:17):
So, the Trump administration's realpolitik,
as Naill laid it out,end the war in Ukraine,
tamp down conflicts everywhere elseincluding the Middle East, and
with the war in Ukraine ended, persuadePutin to join us in resisting China.
Does that make any sense to you?
Will that work?

>> Frank Dikötter (51:36):
I would say good luck to you, sir,
in particular with the Russians.
[LAUGH] Good luck to you.
It's not going to happen.
Nonetheless, the keypoint is that if Taiwan
were to go, then, you got to remember,
Thomas Hobbes, power, it's never enough.

(52:01):
And he explains it very clearly.
It's not because there'sgreater enjoyment, as he said,
to be derived from more power.
It's that more power is required toprotect the power one already has.
There's no limit,within a one-party state.
So, the fear, would be thatonce Taiwan has been acquired,
then there might be an attack comingfrom Guam, so you must take Guam.

(52:26):
And then of course, as the Japanesereasoned quite some time ago,
Pearl harbor is a potential threat.
And before you know it,they'll be out here in California.
In other words,there is no situation in which a.

>> Peter Robinson (52:40):
There's no limiting.

>> Frank Dikötter (52:41):
There's no limit, until that opponent, the capitalist camp.

>> Peter Robinson (52:48):
Is gone.

>> Frank Dikötter (52:49):
Is gone.

>> Peter Robinson (52:50):
All right, so then let me put this question to you.
Again, it's an outlandish question, but again,
it gets at something, I think.
What difference would it make,if Xi Jinping and
the Chinese Communist Party,got everything it wanted?
How would it change life forus, here in the United States?

>> Frank Dikötter (53:13):
Well, your basic freedoms will be curtailed even more,
because as I said, [LAUGH] If the PLCwere allowed to extend its power,
by taking, for instance,Taiwan and possibly even beyond,
the clout it will have on youreveryday life, will be greater.

(53:37):
They will not give up.
They will always want toknow what you are doing.
They will always want to.
They will always live in fear of whoyou are and what you might be doing.
Therefore, the surveillance state, tothe greatest extent of their strength and
ingenuity.

>> Peter Robinson (53:54):
They will extend, okay.

>> Frank Dikötter (53:56):
Much further.

>> Peter Robinson (53:57):
All right. >> Frank Dikötter
So at a minimum,
it will mean that when we'reworking on the computer,
the computer will be watching us.

>> Frank Dikötter (54:03):
For instance, yeah.

>> Peter Robinson (54:04):
All right, all right, so,
a couple of questionsabout grand strategy.
Now, I know that you're Dutch,you studied in Switzerland and London.
You've lived a substantial partof your life in Hong Kong.
You've only just moved.
You've only just joined ushere in California months ago.

(54:27):
You haven't spent your entire life lookingat the world through the American lens,
but I have.
So here's one possibility.
The Soviet Union comes into existencein 1917, and collapses in 1991.
That's a span of about three generations.
The founders are zealots, buttheir grandchildren are cynics.

(54:48):
And Mikhail Gorbachev himself says,when he becomes
General Secretary in 1983,we cannot continue this way.
The People's Republic of Chinacomes into existence in 1949.
They're about a generation behind,the Soviets.
Can we expect this just, as an arc thatwill be produced by human nature itself,

(55:12):
that Mao's grandchildren,that the grandchildren,
that the princelings or the grandprincelings, great, great, grand.
That the next generation, the risinggeneration, will have had enough?

>> Frank Dikötter (55:25):
I think they've had enough.
I think the moment with COVID.

>> Peter Robinson (55:30):
Really?
Yes, the moment when they got locked up,not for a few weeks, for
months on end,including in big cities like Shanghai,
that made people think,gave them enough time, right?
There's nothing else to do.

>> Frank Dikötter (55:46):
Literally locked in.
I mean, doors locked.
Cities closed down, months and months on end,
cost an absolute fortune, alienatedjust about every person in that country.

>> Peter Robinson (56:01):
And yet there's nothing they can do.

>> Frank Dikötter (56:03):
Well, they could, they had the paper revolution, you remember.
They upheld blank sheets of paperin protest, [LAUGH] In Shanghai.

>> Peter Robinson (56:12):
So does that imply that, again, it's crude, but
here we are searching forhistorical analogies.
I don't know what else to do.
Containment, the policy that wedisplayed toward the Soviets for
four anda half decades during the first Cold War.

>> Frank Dikötter (56:34):
Yes.

>> Peter Robinson (56:35):
It worked it might not have been as honorable and noble.
It may be that we let the Hungarians godown in 1956 instead of going to their
assistance.
But containing the Soviet Uniondid force it, in the end,
to confront its owninternal contradictions.

>> Frank Dikötter (56:51):
Yep.

>> Peter Robinson (56:53):
And when the moment came, it just collapsed.

>> Frank Dikötter (56:55):
Yes.

>> Peter Robinson (56:56):
So do you advise a similar policy toward China?

>> Frank Dikötter (57:01):
Yes.

>> Peter Robinson (57:02):
Contain them and wait.
Yes, they've locked themselves in, right?
They're hopeful.

>> Frank Dikötter (57:08):
Take, for instance, the Internet.
There's two.

>> Peter Robinson (57:11):
Yes, yes.

>> Frank Dikötter (57:11):
There's an Internet for the world,
there's an Internet to cut off the world,which is in China.
[LAUGH] It's not an open country.
The leadership goes on about reform andopening up, but it's not an open country.
And open means, people, ideas,objects can move in and out.

(57:32):
People can move out in massive quantities,very few people go in.
But 0.5% of the entirepopulation is foreign.
There are more foreigners->> Peter Robinson: 0.5, 1/2 of 1%.
Sorry, 0.05.
Sorry, I apologize, 0.05.
One-half of 1/100.
Yes, there are more foreigners as a proportion of the overall

(57:53):
population in North Korea than thereare in the People's Republic of China.
Ideas can go out, it's called propaganda.
Few can go in.

>> Peter Robinson (58:01):
Wait, but, Frank, the last time I checked,
there are almost 400,000 Chinese nationalsstudying in the United States right now.

>> Frank Dikötter (58:09):
This is what I'm trying to say.
People can go out.

>> Peter Robinson (58:12):
I see.

>> Frank Dikötter (58:12):
But they can't go in.

>> Peter Robinson (58:13):
But most of those nationals go home.

>> Frank Dikötter (58:16):
Well, some of them go home, but foreigners, clearly, not keen,
right?
This is a very archaic society,you could walk around for
days without ever seeing any foreigner.
You try that anywhere else onplanet Earth, not going to happen.
Ideas are blocked.
Can go in, they can go out.
Money can go in, they can't go out.
Commodities can go out, they can't go in.

>> Peter Robinson (58:37):
This is the Hotel California.

>> Frank Dikötter (58:39):
You may check in, but you may not check out.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So I would say, contain them even more.
Contain them even more.
Let them rot.

>> Peter Robinson (58:51):
All right, last question, Frank.
This is a question about this country,the American Diplomat George Kennan,
who is in some ways the main authorof the containment policy, writes.
At the beginning of the Cold Waragainst the Soviet Union,
the first Cold War, quote,I'm quoting Kennan.

(59:12):
The thoughtful observer ofRussian-American relations will find no
cause for complaint in the Kremlin'schallenge to American society.
By providing the American peoplewith this implacable challenge.
Providence has made their entiresecurity as a nation dependent on their
pulling themselves together and acceptingthe responsibilities of moral and

(59:35):
political leadership that history plainlyintended them to bear, close quote.
That was at the beginning of the Americanstruggle against the Soviet Union.
And it worked, the American peopledid pull themselves together enough.
It wasn't an unmarked glorious four anda half decades, but

(59:55):
they pulled themselves together enough.
Is this country up to containing China?
Can the American people do it again?

>> Frank Dikötter (01:00:01):
There's been a sea change, right?
And a sea change that predates COVID.

>> Peter Robinson (01:00:07):
In America?

>> Frank Dikötter (01:00:08):
In America, but COVID accelerated that.
It was difficult to believe how naivethis country was about the PRC and
how many people were naive aboutthe PRC up till roughly 2018,
19, and particularly COVID 2020.
There's been a complete change there.

(01:00:30):
My only fear might bechange has gone too far.
[LAUGH] It is an evil empire,no doubt, but it's not a superpower.
You got to remember there were people whowould go to Siberia in the 1960s and come
back to the United States and say, God,why are we even fighting the Soviet Union?
These people have discovereda superior system.

(01:00:51):
Their economy will overtake ours.
Let's not even try.
Well, that's the PRC.
Now, all these regimes,as I said in the beginning,
are very good at projecting power.
But what you find behindit is a very frail empire.
Xi Jinping himself lives in fear, not justof the capitalist camp, as he calls it,
but of number two, three, four,five, and everyone around him.

(01:01:13):
You cannot approach him withoutgoing through a metal detector.
Dictators live in fear and paranoia abouteverything and everyone around them.
He must keep tabs on just about everyone.
That's his daily routine.
You think he's got time to think aboutgrand strategy and this and that?
This is a machine that keeps onturning on, if you wish, but

(01:01:35):
inside, it's much weaker than it appears.
So don't underestimate the cloutthat the United States have,
and a great many other democracies.
And yes, people are fed up inside China.
And yes, the population has probablyreached a peak already a few years ago.

(01:01:57):
You said 1.4 billion,I've seen that figure many, many times.
But there's at least one economistin this country from the PRC who
says these numbers are fake, andit's probably already less than India.
It's probably more like 1.3 billion.
So, Taiwan, yes, of course, it's a threat.

(01:02:18):
Imagine that during the Soviet Union,the Soviets come, take Cuba,
drag this island all the way up,if it were possible, right, and
place it somewhere between,say, New York and Washington.

>> Peter Robinson (01:02:33):
That's what Taiwan is doing.

>> Frank Dikötter (01:02:34):
Which you could bomb.
Yes, which is exactly what Taiwan is.
It's an unsinkable battleship, andit belongs to the imperialist camp.
Of course, they're afraid.
Of course, they're paranoid.
Of course, they believe thatthe Americans are hypocrites.
They say they are true friends.
Had they been true friends,
they would have handed over Taiwan ona golden plate, which they never did.

>> Peter Robinson (01:02:58):
So, Frank, you'd put your money on the United States?

>> Frank Dikötter (01:03:02):
Yes.

>> Peter Robinson (01:03:03):
Frank, thank you.
Frank Dikotter, the man whocommands all of Chinese history and
whose most recent book is China After Mao,The Rise of a Superpower.
Although I now think thatthere's an implied subtitle,
the Rise of a Supposed Superpower.

>> Frank Dikötter (01:03:21):
There is that question mark, yes.

>> Peter Robinson (01:03:23):
Frank, thank you very much.

>> Frank Dikötter (01:03:24):
Thank you.
Thank you.

>> Peter Robinson (01:03:26):
For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation,
I'm Peter Robinson.
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