January 9, 2024 • 9 mins
Josh Rogin joined A&G to discuss how the Chinese government is pro Palestine and how they share a lot of the same values.
Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post and a political analyst with CNN. He is also the author of “Chaos under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century”
Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
You can read Josh Rogin's latest article here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Like this Chinese run hotel. The owner estimates there are
as many as one hundred hotels in Quito that like hers,
host Chinese migrants headed to the US. They've got essentially
a how to guide to go from here and to
continue north, and they tell you here how many days
you should be preparing, the vaccinations you might need, other
documents you should carry with you. They even mentioned bringing
(00:21):
three hundred dollars and hiding that amount of money because
of presumably being robbed at some point and eating cash
as a backup.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We're about to talk a little bit about China. I
thought it'd slide in that story about the Chinese that
are coming to the United States through Ecuador, and the
Chinese have actually set up a hotel in the capital
in Ecuador with a guide on getting Chinese nationals into
the country.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Sounds like a pretty good travel agent too. It covers,
you know, vaccinations and everything, how much cash to have
on head our most potent and dangerous for an adversary
getting their nationals into our country sneaking across the board.
I wouldn't worry about that at all. Speaking of kin,
the most excellent Josh Rogan Global Opinions columnists for The
Washington Post and author of Chaos under Heaven, Trump she
(01:07):
in the Battle for the twenty first Century, joins us
to talk about matters reach China. Josh, how are you, sir.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Great, Happy to year, Happy new year to you.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Thank you so far, so good. I guess ah, So,
I was so intrigued by something you wrote recently about
anti Semitism in Chinese media and social media. Just on
its face, it's pretty interesting. But why it's important to
the West and what it shows. Can you just start
with telling us what's going on, what you've observed.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Right, Well, it's kind of crazy actually, because you know,
we sort of saw ever since the October seventh terrorist
attacks on Israel that the Chinese government has been pretty
much pro Palestinian. That's not really that like surprising, you
might say. They have, you know, Chijing being hosted the
Palestinian authority just a couple months earlier. They see the
Palaestiny struggle is a great way to screw with our
(02:02):
ally Israel and thereby screw with us and promote their
anti anti imperialist, anti West autocratic agenda. So they make
common cause with a lot of these you know groups,
But What was really crazy when a lot of my
you know, Chinese friends especially notice, is that on the
Chinese Internet, especially on their social media, it wasn't just
like criticizing Natanyahu. It was Jews or Nazis and the
(02:25):
Jews control of the media and the Jews control of
the world, and all of this really sort of old
school anti Semitic garbage.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
If I might, if I, if I may jump in,
if I may jump in quickly, Jews are Nazis indicates
a lack of understanding of some terms.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, and it's not like there's a ton of Jewish
folks kicking around in Beijing either, But go on, John.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, that's the thing. I mean, I've traveled in China
many times, and usually it's like a philo Semitism. It's like, oh,
Jews are so smart, you must have so much money,
and you know, oh you know, how did you know?
But they now it's like really like, oh, you guys
are genocidal maniac and you're right, a cabal running the
world behind the scenes, and it's really nasty. And because
(03:10):
we know the Chinese Internet is controlled by the Chinese government,
it necessarily means that they're fueling this and then all
of a sudden, here comes to the state TV with
clips about how you know, uh, you know, the Jews
control of the American election, so democracy doesn't work. And
you realize that what they're doing is they're trying to
say that democracy is a sham. Therefore, did everybody want
like an emperor? Isn't that a much better deal? And
(03:32):
that comes to the cost of like a lot of
anti semitism and hatred. And once you stir up all
of those things in China, they don't just go away.
You're training all these people who have no choice really
but to read the heavily sister Chinese Internet to hate,
and it's really messed up. I just thought it was
really messed up, saying, well.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
The first thing my mind jumps to is is TikTok
and how the Chinese government has been so successful in
piping ideas into the heads of our young people. Have
you seen that same sort of anti semitism on TikTok
for instance?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Oh yeah, My whole TikTok feed is anti semitism and
Chinese propaganda. Now maybe that's because I click on those
things and I watch them because it's like from my
professional research, But somehow. You know, it seems like TikTok
is a wash which like really viral, and every time
I report the anti semitism, it never gets taken down,
you know what I mean? And then the Chinese propaganda
(04:24):
so sophisticated, it's so savvy in a way, because what
is more and more through American voices. It's like that
Osama bin Laden thing, Like how did forty thousand you know,
American teenagers all decide on the exact same day that
Osama bin Laden was right about, you know what I mean?
Like that doesn't happen organically. That's what the algorithm does.
And that's not to say that I don't have a
(04:44):
problem with Facebook or x or Instagram or threat whatever.
Their algorithms also need to be more transparent. We need
to know how they're manipulating what we see and how
that affects what our children's minds perceive as the reality.
But if they're not the genocidal, mass murdering dictatorship that
they out to get us, And I think that's what
(05:05):
people don't realize is that TikTok is run by the genocidal,
mass murdering dictatorship. That's that teachs us harm. That's trying
to influence our society to come to theirs. And that's
really an order of magnitude worse than Facebook. It's worse
worse than Instagram all put together.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And here's where we must point out that the move
to get TikTok banned or more heavily regulated has completely
died because they're so successful in spreading bribes around the
political spectrum. Nobody has any interest in the topic anymore.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, yeah, that's exactly right. Well, first they had that
horrible hearing where like the guy who you know, you
had that one center who was like, how come I
keep just doing dancing men on my TikTok? And they
build that CEO was like, I don't know, should I
tell you know what? Like that was like the level
of investigation that we got from you know, then I
understand have no idea what they're talking about. And then
(05:58):
of course here comes the lobbying. And it's not just
the Chinese companies with millions of the American companies like
Oracle and who are making money off of the making
the money and who want, you know, to have their
own politicians in their pockets, and the Wall Street guys,
because you know, all these Chinese companies are using Wall
Street money, that means private equity. That's big power in Washington.
(06:18):
So of course it's nothing happens and everybody pounds the
table and then we go back to business. But you know,
if you just think about how, like, you know, what's
going on in our so sitey, how much it's driven
by the content that people see on social media. Putting
that in the hands of our greatest adversary is is
it's crazy, it's stupid, and you know something's got to
(06:38):
be done.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It makes the Trojan Horse seem like, you know, a
minor incident in world history. It's one of the most
amazing things that's ever happened. Historians will look back on
this someday if historians are allowed to print anything when
China takes over the world and think, how did any
superpower allow all their young people to be educated by
their number one adversary?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Right, And it's sort of like, you know, it's good
that you point out's on a new tactic, right, So
they've been doing it since Trojan times. But if you
just think about, like just the difference between twenty sixteen,
no matter what you thought about the Russian interference. In
the end, it was a bunch of Facebook pages. This
is like a heavily organized, artificial intelligence driven thing. It
makes the Russian interference look like like child's play by comparison.
(07:23):
And that's what you don't realize about the Chinese is
that they don't do it in the clumsy way. They
do it in the smart way, which is to make
it have their messages come through American phones with American
voices and American influencers. And we're not savvy enough as
a democracy to have in suspicious that can even understand
that much less regulated. But essentially in the end, that's
(07:45):
exactly what's gonna have to happen.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Good Little Herd is discouraging. Yeah, it's like the Trojan
Horse was a moving sidewalk in the Greeks or the
Spartans or the Irish or whoever got Trojan Horse didn't bother.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Shutting down the sidewalk.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
They just left it open.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Good lord.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Josh Rogan, Global Opinion's columnist for The Washington Post, is
online speaking of China taking over the world. Josh, there
have been a number of headlines in the business papers, especially,
but China's run into some serious, serious economic stumbles, haven't they.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Well, yeah, these two things going on. One is that
the Chinese economy has been slowing for over a decade.
All right, that's like structural when it's the bigger it gets,
the lower the growth rate is going to be. It's
just natural that it was going to slow. And then
you add on the extra things that's usually thing has
done wrong. And you know, there's two ways to analyze it.
There's the Wall streetway and then there's the honest way. Right.
(08:41):
The Wall Street way is to say, oh, well, this
is a good time to invest in China because all
the stocks are down and oh you know, everything's going
to be fine and they're going to bounce back, so
you know, or some people will even say, well that
this means they're not that powerful, so we don't really
have to do anything to compete with them. But the
honest way didn't out analyze it, is to say that
the reason in that China's economy is in the toilet
(09:02):
is because Jijen King has destroyed private business in China
because he's nationalized the education, the gaming, everything, it's all
becoming the technology. He put people falling out of windows,
putting people in prison, the executives dying all the time.
This is a scary scenario. This is an environment where
(09:23):
American businesses are getting scooped up and shut down. And
what that really should tell us is that China is
becoming more dangerous as it gets weaker.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Not less interesting. Josh Rogan Global Opinions columns for the
Washington Post. Excellent follow on X as well. Josh, thanks
a million for the time. Good to talk to you anytime.
Like this Chinese run hotel. The owner estimates there are
as many as one hundred hotels in Quito that like hers,
host Chinese migrants headed to the US. They've got essentially
a how to guide to go from here and to
continue north, and they tell you here how many days
you should be preparing, the vaccinations you might need, other
documents you should carry with you. They even mentioned bringing
(00:21):
three hundred dollars and hiding that amount of money because
of presumably being robbed at some point and eating cash
as a backup.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We're about to talk a little bit about China. I
thought it'd slide in that story about the Chinese that
are coming to the United States through Ecuador, and the
Chinese have actually set up a hotel in the capital
in Ecuador with a guide on getting Chinese nationals into
the country.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Sounds like a pretty good travel agent too. It covers,
you know, vaccinations and everything, how much cash to have
on head our most potent and dangerous for an adversary
getting their nationals into our country sneaking across the board.
I wouldn't worry about that at all. Speaking of kin,
the most excellent Josh Rogan Global Opinions columnists for The
Washington Post and author of Chaos under Heaven, Trump she
(01:07):
in the Battle for the twenty first Century, joins us
to talk about matters reach China. Josh, how are you, sir.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Great, Happy to year, Happy new year to you.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Thank you so far, so good. I guess ah, So,
I was so intrigued by something you wrote recently about
anti Semitism in Chinese media and social media. Just on
its face, it's pretty interesting. But why it's important to
the West and what it shows. Can you just start
with telling us what's going on, what you've observed.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Right, Well, it's kind of crazy actually, because you know,
we sort of saw ever since the October seventh terrorist
attacks on Israel that the Chinese government has been pretty
much pro Palestinian. That's not really that like surprising, you
might say. They have, you know, Chijing being hosted the
Palestinian authority just a couple months earlier. They see the
Palaestiny struggle is a great way to screw with our
(02:02):
ally Israel and thereby screw with us and promote their
anti anti imperialist, anti West autocratic agenda. So they make
common cause with a lot of these you know groups,
But What was really crazy when a lot of my
you know, Chinese friends especially notice, is that on the
Chinese Internet, especially on their social media, it wasn't just
like criticizing Natanyahu. It was Jews or Nazis and the
(02:25):
Jews control of the media and the Jews control of
the world, and all of this really sort of old
school anti Semitic garbage.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
If I might, if I, if I may jump in,
if I may jump in quickly, Jews are Nazis indicates
a lack of understanding of some terms.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, and it's not like there's a ton of Jewish
folks kicking around in Beijing either, But go on, John.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Well, that's the thing. I mean, I've traveled in China
many times, and usually it's like a philo Semitism. It's like, oh,
Jews are so smart, you must have so much money,
and you know, oh you know, how did you know?
But they now it's like really like, oh, you guys
are genocidal maniac and you're right, a cabal running the
world behind the scenes, and it's really nasty. And because
(03:10):
we know the Chinese Internet is controlled by the Chinese government,
it necessarily means that they're fueling this and then all
of a sudden, here comes to the state TV with
clips about how you know, uh, you know, the Jews
control of the American election, so democracy doesn't work. And
you realize that what they're doing is they're trying to
say that democracy is a sham. Therefore, did everybody want
like an emperor? Isn't that a much better deal? And
(03:32):
that comes to the cost of like a lot of
anti semitism and hatred. And once you stir up all
of those things in China, they don't just go away.
You're training all these people who have no choice really
but to read the heavily sister Chinese Internet to hate,
and it's really messed up. I just thought it was
really messed up, saying, well.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
The first thing my mind jumps to is is TikTok
and how the Chinese government has been so successful in
piping ideas into the heads of our young people. Have
you seen that same sort of anti semitism on TikTok
for instance?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Oh yeah, My whole TikTok feed is anti semitism and
Chinese propaganda. Now maybe that's because I click on those
things and I watch them because it's like from my
professional research, But somehow. You know, it seems like TikTok
is a wash which like really viral, and every time
I report the anti semitism, it never gets taken down,
you know what I mean? And then the Chinese propaganda
(04:24):
so sophisticated, it's so savvy in a way, because what
is more and more through American voices. It's like that
Osama bin Laden thing, Like how did forty thousand you know,
American teenagers all decide on the exact same day that
Osama bin Laden was right about, you know what I mean?
Like that doesn't happen organically. That's what the algorithm does.
And that's not to say that I don't have a
(04:44):
problem with Facebook or x or Instagram or threat whatever.
Their algorithms also need to be more transparent. We need
to know how they're manipulating what we see and how
that affects what our children's minds perceive as the reality.
But if they're not the genocidal, mass murdering dictatorship that
they out to get us, And I think that's what
(05:05):
people don't realize is that TikTok is run by the genocidal,
mass murdering dictatorship. That's that teachs us harm. That's trying
to influence our society to come to theirs. And that's
really an order of magnitude worse than Facebook. It's worse
worse than Instagram all put together.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And here's where we must point out that the move
to get TikTok banned or more heavily regulated has completely
died because they're so successful in spreading bribes around the
political spectrum. Nobody has any interest in the topic anymore.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Well, yeah, that's exactly right. Well, first they had that
horrible hearing where like the guy who you know, you
had that one center who was like, how come I
keep just doing dancing men on my TikTok? And they
build that CEO was like, I don't know, should I
tell you know what? Like that was like the level
of investigation that we got from you know, then I
understand have no idea what they're talking about. And then
(05:58):
of course here comes the lobbying. And it's not just
the Chinese companies with millions of the American companies like
Oracle and who are making money off of the making
the money and who want, you know, to have their
own politicians in their pockets, and the Wall Street guys,
because you know, all these Chinese companies are using Wall
Street money, that means private equity. That's big power in Washington.
(06:18):
So of course it's nothing happens and everybody pounds the
table and then we go back to business. But you know,
if you just think about how, like, you know, what's
going on in our so sitey, how much it's driven
by the content that people see on social media. Putting
that in the hands of our greatest adversary is is
it's crazy, it's stupid, and you know something's got to
(06:38):
be done.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It makes the Trojan Horse seem like, you know, a
minor incident in world history. It's one of the most
amazing things that's ever happened. Historians will look back on
this someday if historians are allowed to print anything when
China takes over the world and think, how did any
superpower allow all their young people to be educated by
their number one adversary?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Right, And it's sort of like, you know, it's good
that you point out's on a new tactic, right, So
they've been doing it since Trojan times. But if you
just think about, like just the difference between twenty sixteen,
no matter what you thought about the Russian interference. In
the end, it was a bunch of Facebook pages. This
is like a heavily organized, artificial intelligence driven thing. It
makes the Russian interference look like like child's play by comparison.
(07:23):
And that's what you don't realize about the Chinese is
that they don't do it in the clumsy way. They
do it in the smart way, which is to make
it have their messages come through American phones with American
voices and American influencers. And we're not savvy enough as
a democracy to have in suspicious that can even understand
that much less regulated. But essentially in the end, that's
(07:45):
exactly what's gonna have to happen.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Good Little Herd is discouraging. Yeah, it's like the Trojan
Horse was a moving sidewalk in the Greeks or the
Spartans or the Irish or whoever got Trojan Horse didn't bother.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Shutting down the sidewalk.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
They just left it open.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Good lord.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Josh Rogan, Global Opinion's columnist for The Washington Post, is
online speaking of China taking over the world. Josh, there
have been a number of headlines in the business papers, especially,
but China's run into some serious, serious economic stumbles, haven't they.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Well, yeah, these two things going on. One is that
the Chinese economy has been slowing for over a decade.
All right, that's like structural when it's the bigger it gets,
the lower the growth rate is going to be. It's
just natural that it was going to slow. And then
you add on the extra things that's usually thing has
done wrong. And you know, there's two ways to analyze it.
There's the Wall streetway and then there's the honest way. Right.
(08:41):
The Wall Street way is to say, oh, well, this
is a good time to invest in China because all
the stocks are down and oh you know, everything's going
to be fine and they're going to bounce back, so
you know, or some people will even say, well that
this means they're not that powerful, so we don't really
have to do anything to compete with them. But the
honest way didn't out analyze it, is to say that
the reason in that China's economy is in the toilet
(09:02):
is because Jijen King has destroyed private business in China
because he's nationalized the education, the gaming, everything, it's all
becoming the technology. He put people falling out of windows,
putting people in prison, the executives dying all the time.
This is a scary scenario. This is an environment where
(09:23):
American businesses are getting scooped up and shut down. And
what that really should tell us is that China is
becoming more dangerous as it gets weaker.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Not less interesting. Josh Rogan Global Opinions columns for the
Washington Post. Excellent follow on X as well. Josh, thanks
a million for the time. Good to talk to you anytime.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!