 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. The word of the day is Russell Liu, a Hawaii attorney practicing and teaching in Beijing. He joins us by Zoom from Beijing. And he looks great. Let's take a flash. Oh, there's Russell. Russell, how are you in your favorite coffee shop in Beijing? I'm Great Jay Nihao. It's 10 a.m. now. We're live in Beijing, and we're in the Heidian District in Beijing, China. You look terrific. Anyway, so I wanted to talk with you about this very provocative title you made for the show today. This is, of course, Think Tech Asia. We do this with you every week or two. And the title of the show is America on the Wrong Road to Making America Great Again. And the tagline, my favorite part, is one road, wrong turn, Russell, that is so creative and provocative. But tell us, what do you mean? What are you getting at? What is this about? What's going on here? Well, it's very interesting, Jay. China has a polish now, one road, one belt. So this is a converse. This is America's road. One road. Remember, one road. There's only one road. You can't move in it. And it's going the wrong way. It took the wrong turn. Wrong turn. It got off on the back roads. So that's what we were going to talk about today, Jay. Why do I feel you're referring to none other than Donald J. Trump and his policy and the policy of this administration? Yes, it's a very interesting time. As an American, it is my daily duty to open the Internet and to read the latest. And that's the big talk, even among the Americans or the expats here. What is he doing today? What did he do last night? Where is this going to go? We're on this one big road, all of us. And I think we took a wrong turn. Well, you know, I just came back from Australia and I asked people as a regular matter what they thought about what was happening in the United States. And one guy summed it up pretty well. He said, I am so sorry for you people. I think that's a sentiment with a lot of people who are not Americans, especially. I know a lot of Europeans in the European community here. And they always come up to me and joke and say, are you coming to the party? I said, what party? And they then tell me, well, we're coming to the party. It's for your president. It's the party, you know? So we can commiserate with you. We're in this together. That's the word of the day, commiseration. So OK, let's talk about the relative policies as they are emerging in the—what do we call it, the administrations on the one hand of Xi Jinping in China, now president for life, and I'd like to talk to you about that, and the administration here at Donald Trump over the past year and change, and how they differ and how they relate to each other and why you say one road wrong turn, referring to the road in the United States. Well, Jay, I take this approach because it's interesting how the policy of the U.S. is headed by one man, and how everybody on that road, I think, are missing what's happening. I think that the big theme here, we talked the last week, the last show, about the tariff on the steel industry. So we're taking this path where the president is making good in his promise of going back and making America great again. But his strategy is, well, we're going to rebuild these industries that have died out, such as the steel industry. So we put a 25% tariff on imported steel, and so we're building an industry that has changed because of computerization and so forth, and we're talking about industry with very few workers, and so we're taking this approach that we're going to go back and rebuild these industries. And the question is, how does this back up against where the world is going, where we have technology, where it's a new economy, and you have to be on that road. So that's a different road. The road that looks and is the future using high technology, we're there, we're continuing the road. And I see it in China because in China, I carry a very few little cash, as you know, I carry my smartphone. I use my WeChat. I buy my cup of coffee, which I have here, using my smartphone, using WeChat. I go to the grocery store, I buy groceries using WeChat. And it's a great way, it's the future, it's the technology we hear. But when I go back to the US, we're still hung up in an old world. And we're going back even further to the old economy, a labor economy. When everybody around us, around the world, it's no longer a labor economy. It's a knowledge technology innovation economy. Yeah. And what did I see recently? You know, one would believe that the United States was a manufacturing country. It's not. It provides services. Most workers in this country provide services, not manufactured goods. That has been taken over by other places in the world, not only China. In fact, China is giving manufacturing up to some extent itself. It's farming out and delegating out, manufacturing to other countries in Asia. What I find interesting is that we're still living in this kind of dream of returning to, you know, America as a manufacturing country. It's not. And it's not going to be either. That's the remarkable thing. So here you have the United States folding in on itself, becoming isolationist. Isolation is never a good policy. And you have China opening up. And actually, you know, as far as Xi Jinping is concerned, this is a good break for him to find Donald Trump, you know, going isolationist and leaving the world to him, to Xi Jinping to open up and exploit. Now, exploit is the wrong word, but to find opportunities. And he is finding opportunities. And China is finding opportunities. So even if you assume it's a zero-sum game, which I don't think it really is, you find China is developing in the vacuum that Donald Trump has left. And the question I put to you and I put it to other guests in our show on the same general topic is, so if you have an administration like this in the United States folding up on, you know, on world influence and abusing and criticizing and sending negative tweets to our allies, our allied countries who have been our allies for years and hundreds of years sometimes, that's damaging our international reputation, tarnishing our brand, so to speak, the piece about that this morning in the newspaper. And otherwise, you know, damaging our opportunities, damaging our prospects in the world, in the global world, how quickly can you repair that damage, if at all? You know, so Xi Jinping is making inroads. You know, there's a momentum, don't you think? There's a momentum in fall. He's not going to stop. He's going to, you know, the more opportunity he sees, the more he will seize. And the more opportunity we lose, the more likely we won't be able to get it back because Xi Jinping and others will have seized it. So my view, and I like your view, is that this damage to our brand and our global reputation, it may not be permanent, but it is long term and it is not easily, you know, reversible. Well, Jay, I think you raised some really good points here. I think it's a long term damage. And I think it goes beyond maybe just the president. It goes beyond because if you look what happens in the U.S. and our Congress, they're fighting all the common partisan politics, but they don't give leadership. They don't lead the country. They don't come out with policies to help people to earn an extra dollar due to live a better life. I've seen very different in China for the last 15 years. You know, in China, about 30, 35, 40 years ago, they had a new policy where they started having their children as a core requirement. They must learn English every year. So they learned a second language. They knew that even back then for a long term that they had to build capacity to realize that the business world outside of China, even through that time when it was closed borders, they knew that they had to integrate. The knowledge comes outside. They had to get that knowledge. So when the internet opened up, they could read English. And fast forward, when they started to do business abroad, unlike the Japanese who are very limited and speak mostly Japanese, the Chinese can speak English. They can read and write English. And as you know, I teach law school here. Everything is seamless. I speak in English. The kids read cases that are in the US law, textbooks. They're up the curve. And again, what scares me for most Americans and my fellow Americans is that you're not doing anything about it. The leadership in the country is not helping to transition to what is the real world and that's the knowledge economy, innovation. So we're going on this one road right now. And that road is going back. We've gone off the road. We're on a road that is broken, it's paved. But that road will not bring us anywhere. That road will lead us down nowhere. And again, so I think there's a big divergence. We've taken two different roads. China has gone one way, the US has gone another road. Well, I think we've been doing this for some time and it didn't begin with Trump. I remember they used to joke about the members of Congress how only a small fraction of them had passports. They didn't travel. Travel is not only broadening. It's necessary. You can't appreciate the world unless you get around a little and talk to people from other cultures and so forth. So it's really going on for a while now that the US has been shutting itself in. Now it's accelerated, of course. And this does damage to our own, you know, we're shooting ourselves in the foot in this way. But what I find most interesting and we really need to talk about it is the immigration of Chinese over the past, what, a couple of decades anyway. I mean, I, quite remarkable how many Chinese are in this country and doing well. I remember going back to my old neighborhood, which is in Queens, New York. And there was a Chinese restaurant there that was as big as anything I've seen, even when I'm with you in China. It was huge. And then a Chinese supermarket, you know, everything Chinese, all Chinese foods, huge as big as anything I ever saw in China. So what you have is, you know, a substantial immigration of Chinese nationals to the United States, going to school, taking out permanent residents, whatever, and doing very well, you know, participating in the economy, building their cultural, the cultural islands, if you want, all across the country. And that's part of this global process of diversity. And you find it everywhere. I found it in Australia where I recently visited. And you find it in Europe, although it hasn't really settled down in Europe and people are not particularly happy with it. But the fact is, diversity comes from transportation. It comes from softening borders. Diversity is ultimately the destiny of the world. No question about it. With diversity comes, in my view, better thinking, better relationships, better economies, all that. So what I want to ask you about is whether this migration from China to the United States is somehow threatened by the Trump administration, who seems to change his mind, but mostly he's into white supremacy. And whether that immigration into the United States is threatened, whether it will be reversed or diminished, and what the effect of that will be on the economy and the diversity of the country going forward. Well, Jay, I think you reached out to some really very important key points here. It's sort of like a national will. What Trump has done is he's brought up these people for many years who kept quiet, silent, who've come out in Charlottesville, who've come out and are expressing viewpoints that maybe is a greater problem in America. And so Trump, what he's doing now, I think, he's turning back the clock. We're going to be a society that does not want immigration. We don't want foreigners to come to the U.S. And the question is, who is a U.S. citizen? I think the country is built upon diversity. People from different nationalities, from different ethnic groups, who've contributed to a society that's supposed to be equal. And along the way is, if we take a look at back of the years, the Chinese came to the U.S. late 1800s and built a railroad and in Hawaii to build a sugar plantation. And then at that time, there are anti-Chinese policies. 1898, the anti-immigration policies get some Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act, lest we forget. Yes, we can't forget that. And then fast forward, we had in the 50s, 60s, influx of Taiwanese who came to America as students. Lot stayed, lot, some returned, but they helped bring a lot of engineering skills, a lot of technical skills. And today, it's the Chinese. It's no secret that, for example, one of the big industries is artificial intelligence. And you're talking about eight percent of the workers are from China. These are students who stuck along in the U.S., who are contributing to an American economy. There's a lot of great things happening because these kids come to the U.S. study, their masters are PhDs, and fine jobs settle in the American dream. But we're seeing a change now with this policy now, where the U.S. is flip-flopping. They're making it anti-Chinese to some extent. They're targeting Chinese. There was a 10-year visa now, Trump is considering to eliminate that. Also, the EB-5, the quotas for Chinese, that's used up. So you won't get that kind of money, not for a while. But again, the contributions are tremendous in the science field, in the high-tech deal. Well, I think if a Chinese immigrant comes to the United States, goes to school, excels in school on his own merits, his own effort for sure, then he gets into business and makes a good living in business. Who would begrudge him that? I don't understand it at all. And he stays here. As you said, he participates in the United States economy. All of that is really good for us. And he's not, you know, he may be competing with other people as to how well you do in school, but so do we all. That's the way of the world. There are some people believe that because he's in school doing well, it takes something out of their rice bowl. But that's not really true at all. It's not a zero-sum game. Yeah, go ahead. I think we've got to really be cognizant of what's happening on a global scale. The big, huge tech companies, e-commerce, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, all these companies, for example, are listed in the US. They bring money to the economy. And they're attracting talent. And now there's a reversal because many Chinese in the US who are working in these industries are telling you that because of Trump policies, because of the way things are going, we don't feel at home. We don't feel at home. So there's a major push for them. There's recruiters that actually go out and recruit these skilled technology people. The pay is getting better in China. The opportunities are getting better. Again, so they're going to come back and really cement and accelerate China's policy of moving towards the number one leader in artificial intelligence and technology. We're going to be behind the game because of this anti-immigration, there's this kind of feeling you're not welcome here. Not two hours ago, Russell, we had a show with Pete McGinnis-Marco, the School of Ocean Earth Science and Technology, the Hawaiian Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, who's in Houston right now at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. And one of the things that was remarkable about that conference is that the preliminary part of it was called China in Space. And China has entered into the science of space and exploring space to the point of sending missions to Mars, to the moon already done, and Mars to come. And what's interesting about it is that China is joining the international science community at a very rapid rate and participating shoulder to shoulder with the scientists in that area around the world and at this conference in Houston. So what you have is an equality, if you will, in science, which you have is a very express ambition by China to be in science, to be among the world leaders. Why would we, the United States, send Chinese scientists away? Why would we discriminate against them? That puts us at a disadvantage. Because where will they go? And then I want to ask you about this, where will they go? Many of them would go back to China because China is offering them incentives. Xi Jinping is no slouch. He's trying to get them to come back home with their American education. Why would we do that? Why would he want that to happen? Jay, you raised some really very interesting observations. And I've been in China for 15 years. 15, 10 years ago, I would see the president of all the major universities in the U.S. and the governor, for example, Wisconsin, Minnesota, all these states. Why? Because these universities would attract a lot of Chinese students. They had actually a large Chinese alumni in China who went and attended schools. They were in the technical programs. And one of the things that I think people forget to realize is that these people bring a lot of the core competencies that America has lost out on. If you go to Google, you go to Silicon Valley, a lot of workers are foreign workers. They're not Americans because you can't find them in the American system. Well, Russell, I think we're going to take a short break while we reconnect with Russell Liu. He's in Beijing. He's an American lawyer practicing and teaching in Beijing. We'll take a short break to reconnect and we'll be right back. I'm going to the game and it's going to be great. Early arriving for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy, say good morning. I'm the guy that says, let's go. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate and power and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. and we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. Okay, we're back. We're live. We're in contact again with Russell Liu, American lawyer, Hawaii lawyer, practicing and teaching in Beijing, joining us by Zoom. Russell, you want to continue the conversation about the incentives that Xi Jinping and the Chinese government are offering people. For example, if you wanted to be, you Russell, American citizen, if you wanted to become a Chinese permanent resident or Chinese citizen, would you have the possibility, the right to do that? Yes, a new policy effect of February 1. The China government has a new policy to attract ethnic Chinese, overseas Chinese, as they would call it, back to China. Many have skills, talents, bring entrepreneurial skills as well as bring in knowledge back to China. So the new program started February 1. And it applies to Mandarin or of former Chinese citizens. And it also applies to foreign-born Chinese like me, if I can prove that I have an ancestor that was a Chinese citizen, which means I presumably think I would go to the state of Hawaii vital statistics office, I would get the certificate of my grandfather. And I would also, I have his records from the US government as to his entry into the country. And it shows where he came from. I believe that that and my birth certificate is showing the state of Hawaii birth certificate says my ethnicity Chinese. So I think I would take that back and I could get maybe a five-year residency permit. Okay, would you have to give up your American citizenship if you took a five-year residency? No, you wouldn't give up your American citizenship. Well, that's pretty interesting. So are people doing this? You have any information about Americans, Chinese Americans in the United States who are taking advantage of this kind of program going back to China and trying their luck there? And if so, what are they doing when they get there? What is the government offering them in a way of economic incentives if they take permanent residence? Well, I think that's great for American company that needs to get residence in China that maybe needs somebody to be the bridge and to be in China because the hardest part is getting the permanent residency. I think that's a great bridge. Second of all, I think it's great for somebody who does a global business. For example, if I am a mediator arbitrator, I arbitrator disputes between Chinese and U.S. companies. I need to be back in the U.S. to do arbitration or I need to be out of the country, but I can still be based in China and I can still do my work there. So I think it opens up opportunities. But I think this is really, this new policy, Lisa, is really to bring back what they call the Chinese a highway. These are called the sea turtles. Sea turtles, because these are the Chinese citizens that went across the ocean and the turtle laid eggs in another place. And it has brought it into America, where they're in Silicon Valley. They're living the American dream. But you know what? When they pick up the paper, they read about these things with China, the U.S., the trade war, then they look around themselves and say, oh, the Chinese food here in Palo Alto is hot or not tasty. Let me think about China. And the Chinese policy really is saying, you have black hair, you have black eyes. You may have a race in America, but you always will be Chinese. You always will be Chinese, but we welcome you back. So that has been the approach of the government. But I think with it comes the economic incentive because they are also doing something new. All the big companies like Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent that are listed overseas, for example, you know how successful Alibaba was, the largest IPO in U.S. history. And last year, it went up $495 billion. The stock shot up. The investors are great. They're happy. Billions there. I thought you said billion. Billion. Billion. I thought that's what I thought you said. Billion. Billion dollars. Several hundred billion dollars. Now imagine if you had that money raised in China and you had a listing, if Alibaba could list in China a secondary list. Imagine how much money that would generate at the capital of money markets would stay in China. So, and that money doesn't have to go overseas. It would be in China. So what they're doing is they're setting up a new policy or new law. They're looking to where they're going to allow these companies to do a secondary list in China. And with the easing of restrictions, they're also trying to bring back these companies because that will advance and feel their whole goal of this going on this road to technology. Whereas the U.S., we're going to put it in the steel industry. We're going to slap tariffs on everybody in the U.S. And we're going to keep it American only. The Chinese are saying, well, no, we're going to go on this technology road. We took this turn. You guys could go in that turn. We're in this turn. And we're going to have lots of money to fuel this economy. Well, you know, when I get out of this, I mean, the United States policy is essentially rejecting brain power. It's rejecting smart and, you know, studious citizens and not valuing them, not keeping, not taking steps to keep them here. I remember I told you before about a story in the New York Times about an Indian doctor from India who went to medical school in this country and he was doing, you know, medical practice in a hospital that serviced to disadvantage somewhere in the south. And there was an attack on another Indian not too far away from his hometown there. And the other Indian was killed, I think. And he and his wife, who had lived in the United States for many decades. So we can't tolerate this. This is racial hatred, the worst sort of bigotry. We're leaving. We're not only leaving our town and the hospital. We're not only leaving our careers in the United States. We're leaving the United States. And they left. And I think that's a sad story, because think of the brain power. We lost that one individual, one family, stable, responsible, productive achievers in the United States economy. And now, you know, you multiply that times how many thousands or hundreds with thousands or millions, and you get a result. And the result is that we are losing brain power. Brain drain, call it. You know, that's what we're talking about, the international brain drain. And we created ourselves. We are creating, right now, on a racial, if not racist basis. And China is getting the benefit, and other places, too, getting the benefit of that. So what you have is the flow of intellectual pursuit from one country to another. Which one do you think makes out in that trade? Which one do you think makes it better suited for the future? Which one will have the better economy in 10 years? I mean, that's the ridiculous wrong turn here. That in 10 years or 20, we will not have that talent. And we will not be as well suited to run a country and an economy and do the right thing. And we will be second class. You know, I mean, I don't know what other conclusion you can come to, Russell. Yes, we're doing business with China right now. Walmart, you know, buys and sells some 90% of its stuff in and from and with China. But over time, you know, that's not going to be the case. We're going to be second class in that trade, in that economy. And I hope you'll still talk to me after you become a Chinese citizen. I hope you'll still say hi and get on our think tech show. Jay, I guess if I go back to the U.S., I can now apply to be a job in a factory. Wouldn't that be great? Give up your law practice, become a factory worker. We can make shoes and umbrellas for the world. Maybe that's what we want to do. And I say that because, you know, I think the whole perception of the U.S. is this, the world has changed around you. You know, and China is like this, I have a saying that goes like this, with the herd of 1.3 billion people moving, you feel the wind no matter what. You feel the wind. You always feel the wind. And so if they're moving in one direction, they've got to be doing something right and pay attention to it. And so I say that because even getting back to locally in Hawaii, I think even Hawaii, Donald Trump is good for Hawaii because he is allowing Hawaii to choose its destiny. We know that you can't depend on the old game, federal funding, pork barrel legislation. Use your destiny. Do we choose to be a labor economy or do we choose to be a knowledge economy? Okay, if we choose to be a knowledge economy where all the action and the money is, how do we get there? Well, we need to build capacity. We need knowledge. We need education. Bringing all these Chinese students that didn't go to MIT. There's tons of smart technical people. Get them into UH. Our kids in UH will learn to be multicultural, global, and they will go up the curve faster. I'm convinced a lot of these Chinese students are much more up the curve when you talk about math, science, bring that. Then you can attract federal money for applied research. Then these Chinese students will give the brain power to attract global foreign direct investment to Hawaii. I think you've got it, Russell. Aside from Xi Jinping benefiting by this isolation policy, somehow Hawaii is also benefiting by it because we understand diversity and we understand diversity, hopefully, in economics. I'd like to believe more of that in the future. So anyway, it's a very interesting track. It's a very interesting thread to watch. It's one road, wrong turn. We'll have to watch it on both sides. We'll have to watch it on Xi Jinping's side and on Donald Trump's side. We'll have to keep on talking. Thank you so much, Russell, for this enlightening conversation. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you, Jay, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.