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She is definitive out of Michigan with their view of China. We look back to the giants of Jonathan Spence Oravile Shell, and so wonderfully all of that has been taken by Elizabeth Economy holding court at the Hoover Institution, Hargrove, Senior Fellow, this of course at Stanford University. I'm really taken back, Elizabeth by the cursory review of President Ji and his moment in China. You wrote of a third revolution, Ji Jimping and the new Chinese state. How's he doing?
Okay, So we're starting off with the big, big question. Look, I think she Jinping is doing very well given to Jenping's ambitions. I think if you look at what he started off to do you know when he came into power back at the end of twenty twelve, well, and you fast forward to today, you know he has consolidated power in his own hands. He's increased the role of the party. He certainly has set out major Chinese ambitions on the global stage and has made progress on achieving them.
He wanted China to be a leading technology and economic power on the global stage. And he's achieved that as well. So I think when he looks back again, according to his own metrics, he's done extremely well.
I've studied the geography of Taiwan. How does a pro like you respond to his stridency over Taiwan being the major issue? How does that is it ninety miles? I don't know. It's like from here, it's like from here to downtown Elizabeth economy. How do you respond to the Chinese discussion of Taiwan?
So I'm actually quite relieved by the fact that, yes, Tgenping has raised this as sort of the central issue for Beijing, which we already new. But the response from the United States has been very muted, and so all we've seen thus far coming out of the summit is a statement by the Chinese side. There's been no acknowledgment by the US side that we take this on board and somehow are going to change our position or our
approach to Taiwan. And I think that's something that many people in the national security space, many in Congress, even probably members of the president's own cabinet, we're concerned about. So I think it's fine that she did. Pink raises this as the number one issue for China. What's critical is how we then address it. Elizabeth.
Typically when a US president goes to China in particular, the expectations are fairly high that there's going to be some material agreements, some material discussions. Do we have any of those expectations for this summit.
We haven't heard much so far.
I mean, I'm actually pretty pleased by what's come out thus far. I think we went in with sort of three big buckets of issues. You know, First, we wanted some mechanisms first, stabilizing the relationship, and I think here the two countries were aligned, and there's the talk about the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment. I think Board of Trade is further along than the Board of Investment. But basically this is going to be an area where the two sides will come together and try
to make progress in non sensitive areas of trade. So fine, check that box. Second, I think you know, the president wanted big, short term purpose purchases. And I think you know, we've seen there's going to be soybeans, there's going to be planes, there's going to be beef, maybe energy. He'll get these big purchases. And then finally, and I think this is the most important area. The bigger strategic areas
so Iran, Ai and again on the Taiwan front. No acknowledgment on our side that we're prepared to change our position, But we did get the Chinese to acknowledge on Iran that they want the Straight or wormos open. They don't think Iran should profit once the strait is open, and they don't think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. Have to see whether or not we can make China actually
translate that agreement into action to pressure pressure Iran. But I think it's a very positive, very positive turn of events.
We welcome all of you across America, around the world. It is Bloomberg Surveillance on YouTube. Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcast air a Marie Horden coming up from Beijing. But we're thrilled to bring you Elizabeth Economy of Stanford University and their Hoover Institution. Her book years ago, The River Runs Black, was a definitive graduate school study that was hugely successful on the environmental impact of China. Liz, in your wonderful effort of a few years ago, the World according to China,
you close with a China reset. How does China reset after President Trump.
So I think the thing to bear in mind with this summit and the sort of meeting between Presidency and Asident Trump is that I think Secretary of State Mubio really defined the relationship pretty well when he said, look, we're going to look for areas of cooperation, but we each have our own areas of interests. They're going to conflict, They're going to continue to conflict, and we want to
manage the relationship. And so I think that the goal here is largely the same as it's been, you know, for two decades or more, which is sort of a managed competition, managed strategic competition. The only question is whether or not the conflicts are sort of greater occupies a
greater amount of space than the areas of cooperation. You know, we're going to continue to have a lot of frictions, and President She is going to continue to do just what President She wants to advance Chinese interests how he defines Chinese national interests, irrespective of whatever the United States says or does during this summit.
Elizabeth, I think for many of our viewers, many of our listeners, President She is the only leader that they've ever known in China. Give us just a sense of what his position is today. How do you think about that position three, five, ten years from now?
So, I mean, what makes presidency different from a number of leaders who have come before him in China is just the degree of power that he's managed to consolidate into his own hands and the extent to which he's managed to translate the vision for China both at home and on the global stage that you know, he articulated
fourteen years ago. I think critically he's coming upon you know, what will be probably his fourth five year term as General Secretary of the Communist Party, likely president of the country, and so you know, this is he's you know, people will say he's president for life. I think he will step back probably and won't have a fifth five year term, but will remain as sort of chairman of the party
so he can continue to exert control. But really, the degree to which he's consolidated power I think was you know, unexpected did by people either outside China or frankly inside China.
I look, Liza, where we are, and I go back to our misjudgment of our intelligence of the Soviet Union years ago. Do we have intelligence on China, or are we as blind looking at Beijing, Shanghai and the rest. There's submarine threat, et cetera. Are we as blind as we were with Gorbashev?
I mean, I think are we as blind? I think the challenge now is Hijinping has made China more opaque rather than less of pique as his tenure has progressed. So it takes more effort to sort of get inside China to understand what's happening. It's also more difficult because we don't have as many journalists on the ground. It's much harder for scholars and students to go to China to spend time to do research. So our intelligence in that respect is more challenging than it was, you know,
a decade and a half ago. At the same time, I think we do see evidence if you look closely enough, we do see evidence of fractures within Chinese society. We see the evidence of it in the fact that the Chinese consumer is not buying. You know that there's a sort of the lie flat movement, the youth saying we don't want to work, the high rates of youth unemployment, concerns over what AI is going to do to labor in China, just as there are concerns in the United States.
So you have to spend more time and more energy looking and maybe have a little more expertise to get at what's going on inside China outside of the incredible skyrocking exports and the technology accomplishments and everything that we're kind of sort of fed on a daily basis from the Chinese media and frankly from our own media. But it's there if you look look for it. You know, we can get at the impass, but it's tough.
Liz, thank you so much. Elizabeth Economy with the Hoover Institution