 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections and today we're going to talk to Shackley Rafferto. Shackley is an old friend of mine and an old friend of Think Tech. Shackley is a retired chief judge of the Second Circuit, a lawyer, a judge, a world traveler, and a guy who has studied the context and condition of humanity in many, many places. Welcome to the show, Shackley. Thank you, Jay. I'm very happy to be here. Our title today is, Ken, the CCP, the Communist Party of China. Can the CCP survive coronavirus, which is a real question in every day that goes by. It seems like that question is more pertinent. So let's talk about context. You know, China comes from a different place than the U.S. China has made extraordinary strides, but we still have to understand the essential China. Can you give us your thoughts about what that is? Oh, my goodness. Well, ancient civilization. The one thing people do tend to forget, though, is that some of those dynasties of China were not actually the Han Chinese, you know, the last dynasty, the Qing dynasty, were the Manchurians. And that lasted for a long time, several hundred years. And then the Mongolians, I think they called it Yuan dynasty in Kublai Khan and those people from the north. So real China, I think, was the area between the two great rivers, right? The Yangtze and the Yellow River, I think, is what is considered historically Han China. And then it's expanded. And now, of course, claims are included, the Nine Dash Line and South China Sea and Tibet and, you know, Xinjiang, which we all know about now. We know that now. But on top of all of that, communism and the Chinese version of communism and the Chinese version of the relationship of the citizen and the state. It's a hard question, too, if you don't mind. What was the state of that? Well, you know, I've been to China a lot and you don't get into political discussions. I haven't with my Chinese friends. And I think that they do the same thing that the former East Germans did. I have a very good friend who was grew up in East Germany. And I asked her once, how did you deal with this communist, you know, intrusiveness into your life? And she said, we just ignored it, you know, as we stayed away from those people as much as possible. And we went about our daily life and, you know, earned our living and lived our lives. And we had a lot of red tape. If we wanted to travel someplace, that doesn't seem so much anymore in China because there's lots of Chinese travelers. I think there was before we stopped the flights from China, I think there was it was China Eastern and another China Airlines and Hawaiian, which eventually stopped flying to Beijing. And I've flown on the Chinese flights and they're always packed. So Chinese people are traveling all over the world now. And so it's been a kind of arc, hasn't it? I mean, you know, back in the 90s, you know, they were sort of winding up for global expansion, winding up for what I would say was enlightenment, capitalist enlightenment. And they realized that back in the early 2000s, you know, you went to China and you saw you felt you were encouraged by this kind of enlightenment. But it sounds to me anyway, and I would be interested in your thoughts on this, is that somewhere along the line that reached a, you know, reached an arc. And now it's changed. Xi Jinping has changed it. And we have a different kind of enlightenment that we saw that we loved about China 15 years ago, not the same, is it? No, I agree that the member when Xi Jinping came into office, I was under the impression that he was a lawyer. And there was a lot of discussion that it might he might be the one who really liberalizes China and and adopts more democratic ways. And of course, it's gone just the opposite that we expected. And well, it sounded like he was doing an anti corruption at first. It sounded like, you know, maybe it became a sheep and wolves, a rather wolf and sheep's clothing. And then, you know, you began to get the idea that maybe it wasn't just anti anti corruption, it was looking to aggrandize his own power. And step by step, you know, that possibility was was confirmed by his actions. I mean, for example, becoming what amounts to President for life being written into the Chinese Constitution, being compared to Mao Zedong, he's trying to be Mao and yeah, promoting Xi Jinping thought like Chairman Mao did with Little Red Book. And and I understand from things that I see on on the internet, although I didn't notice it too much when I was there, the a lot of I guess there have been big changes in the educational system to promote, you know, support for Marxist Leninist thinking. I don't quite how that fits into the Chinese culture. But but but that's the effort now. And of course, they had the great firewall. So they control all the information that comes through. Although I get the impression quite a few Chinese people, especially young people, have these VPNs that they can use to breach the firewall, which are illegal. Yeah, yeah, it's against the law to use one. So you do it at your own risk. But they they seem to allow it because when they have party Congresses and so on, they they tighten that up. And as I understand it, and and you can't get outside information. But then the overseas the overseas Chinese news outlets that I now I think have to register as agents of foreign governments. They they put things up on YouTube. They they try to control social media, which we're seeing now today, even in these difficult times, maybe especially. But you know, you talked about somebody who, you know, took it, you know, not so seriously back a few years ago, who, you know, could kind of blow off some of the the dark side of communist rule in China. I think that's changed too. Hasn't it? You can't blow it off anymore. You want to blow it off and not take it seriously. You know, you can find yourself in a retraining camp or worse, no? Or as a foreigner, you could be detained. Yeah, that means put in jail. Yes, yes, right. Yeah, rather unpleasant circumstances, I would imagine. Yeah, so this enlightenment has become like skin deep. And his purported attempt to control corruption has turned into a huge big power trip by a guy who is essentially a dictator. And and the people are suffering. And, you know, it's a sad situation where you thought it was enlightenment, but then you find that it's not really enlightenment at all. And it's pretty scary. You know, I for one, you know, I've been there three times. And I don't think I'm going back because I don't like the way this has turned. I don't feel that enlightenment anymore. I enjoyed it when I was there. But I don't think I'd enjoy walking around looking over my shoulder all day in China. Well, and also, you know, with the coronavirus, I think it's going to be a long time before there's a resurgence of foreign tourists travel at least into China. I'm sure they'll still be business travel. But you know, the people like Gordon Chang, for instance, are predicting that that because of the the the threat to the chain of distribution of goods that are manufactured in China by the conduct of the Communist Party and not not telling people about this virus when they knew about it. And actually, as apparently sending delegations overseas government delegations, I guess the people who signed phase one, we're in the we're in the White House. This is according to Gordon Chang. After they already knew that there was an outbreak of this rotavirus in Wuhan. I never said a word. Yeah, yeah, they never said a word. And and I guess that goes back to the structure of the system where where the local, the local people in charge don't want to present bad news up to up the up the party line, unless they're authorized from above view that where it's in a fear society, people just start speaking. And then there's that case of that one young Chinese doctor who did talk. And then it eventually died. And was censured taken down of the police department made to sign some sort of agreement that I guess nondisclosure agreement. And and then recently, I heard that his his supervising position died of coronavirus. Wow. Well, you know, it's really spread. It's really remarkable. And you know, you do have to wonder why it seems so virulent. She virulent. That's a word right off virus, isn't it? So virulent in China, you know, that it's spread so quickly, it spreads so drastically and surreptitiously sometimes and and why people dying in such a high rate. It's all over China as you know, compared to anywhere else, even when you know, you find like in Italy or in Iran, it's going fast. It's going way faster in China. And that brings us to this whole issue about, you know, how Mao has done in terms of being transparent and candid and helpful and informative to his own people from the start, because you know, you know, it's a control situation and in China, CCP controls information, as you mentioned. So you have to assume that he controlled or stopped the flow of information about this from early on. Why would he do that? And did he think he's going to get away with that? Well, it's all about control, as I understand it. You know, they, they don't want to do any they don't want to let anything happen that is might threaten the control of the party. And that's more important than anything. And that's why, you know, they postponed the, I forget the meeting of the Politburo is it that there was supposed to be scheduled, I think in April, they completely have postponed that, obviously to protect themselves. And I think it's fair to say that people in China, in general, government and non government terrified, you know, this whole lockdown of millions, tens of millions of people, this, this idea that you can't even go out of your house. And if you do, you're in trouble, and you'll, you'll be arrested and terrible things will happen to you. This thing about how do you get food, you send out a delegated person in certain hours, and he has to have a certain pass and the database registers him. And he's surveilled just like they do in what Xin, Xinjiang, but the Uyghurs, I mean, all that technology is coming into play. And it's controlling, you know, not only the thoughts of people, but they're they're every movement, they're every moment. This is really, you know, he said, when he was building that surveillance system, and was it Xinjiang, when he was building a system, he says, Well, you know, we're doing this, we're overdoing it because we want to see if it works. And if it if it works, we'll deliver it all over China. So this is his opportunity in a left handed you know, way to test out that system, countrywide. Yeah, yeah, I want a chance now. When one commentator I saw said, said, Well, you know, there was about 5 million people who left Wuhan for for the for the annual vacation. And he said, You know, if they have all these ability to track people down, why haven't they tracked this 5 million people down and tested them? Right. And then done done things. So, you know, I don't think they were paying much attention to the World Health Organization, at least not at the outset, and only politically later. And so, you know, I guess the question I put to you, not not that either of us as a medical expert or a quarantine expert, did you do it right? Or did they make mistakes in the way they handle the original outbreak? The World Health Organization? No, China. Oh, well, I mean, it seems like they should have told people, you know, I mean, as I understand it, the way to stop these kind of viruses from spreading is to is to quarantine and contain it. And they didn't do that. And now, and people have traveled from China all over the world. And, you know, now, now we've got almost 100,000 cases worldwide. Amazing. I just saw something from an interview with a Harvard professor, who has expertise in the field. And he said that his, they use these mathematical models. And he said that from 40 to 70% of the world's population will probably be infected, according to their models. Now, it doesn't mean everybody's going to die. But he said, those who are at risk, the older people with health problems, they're going to die. The older people with health complications run the risk of dying. And that a lot, that's going to be a lot of people, according to their models. It's going to be calling the calling the herd, so to speak. Yeah, and I also saw something earlier today that indicated that there might be two strains of this. One, one is more serious than the other. And the person can actually hitch both or one after the other. Yeah, there's so much we don't know about it. And, you know, I'd like to think that the medical community, the global medical community can get a handle on some of these things. But I, I do not, I do not have the feeling. For example, you mentioned two strains. Well, how do you get two strains? You have one mutate into a second one. And it just happens to be of different characteristics. Well, exactly. If one can mutate into a second one. Why can't the second one mutate into a third one? And so forth. And, you know, you can solve number one and number two, but can you solve number three? So this is the kind of virus that's really deadly on a global scale. And I don't know if any, any researcher in China understood that, but let's examine. Now I don't know the facts too well on this, but let's examine. There was a laboratory. I'm not sure if the laboratory was in Wuhan or Shanghai. Yeah, the level four biological laboratory. Yeah, that was in Wuhan. About 15. I think 15 kilometers from the wet market that was first talked about. What happened there? Well, we don't know. It was apparently the French are very good at building these things. They built one in Canada. And, and then they arranged to cooperate with the Chinese to build theirs in in Wuhan. And the story I heard is that they offered the French offered to construct it on the basis of their expertise. And the Chinese government said, No, we have our own people constructed. And allegedly, there's a lot of corruption in the construction industry there. So who knows what would have happened. I've heard other kind of wild theories. It's not clear. And I saw one thing in paper this morning. That suggested that an American American researcher debunked the thought that that the that the virus actually came from one of the Chinese laboratories. Suffice to say, there's a bit of a discussion now about who was responsible for it, whether it's China or the US, because Xi Jinping has seen fit to adopt and proliferate conspiracy theories saying, Ah, it's really the Americans they're responsible for this. Don't you love how the pot calls the kettle black? Yeah, we followed that. That's just great, great disinformation program. Pretty soon we'll pretty soon we'll have a bunch of people believing in here. We've seen plenty of that. So yeah, it's interesting that it seems to be a full on full tilt, you know, disinformation program against the US now, and it's organized by the government of China, and it's everywhere in the propaganda organs of China. And furthermore, they are putting it on the Chinese are putting it on on social media. So it has a has a world world flow that way. And I guess you're right, some people don't believe that. Well, one wonders what effect it's going to have on the phase one trade agreement. Right. And on and this and this goes to the point and on the relationship between China and the US, the article that we've shared on the subject came out today. And the suggestion was this was not going to help the US trade relationship, or relationship in general, the diplomatic relationship, such as it is little tarnished these days between, you know, China and the US. But that but the operative question for us is how does this affect this disinformation campaign, which assumes that, you know, China is really embarrassed. China made some horrendous mistakes here. China didn't reveal this, not to its own people, not to the world. And China is, you know, here it is, I'm telling you something you already know, China is largely, if not exclusively responsible for releasing this into the community. So the question is, how are the Chinese people going to deal with this? And the context is, the Chinese people have accepted Xi Jinping and previous rulers because because they gave them a good economy, that's in and good health, I suppose, improving health. So but now those things are in serious jeopardy. The Chinese people are terrified. They worry about their families, which are important to them. And so the CCP really depends on the good will of the people. Always been the case in China. Can it survive? Well, you forgot the PLA, they also have the People's Liberation Army, which is the Army of the Communist Party of China. It's not the National Army of China. And they and it seems to me, I think as long as that organization stays loyal to the party, not much as can really change, because they just have too much power. And over the years, when I've had an opportunity to talk to people in China about whether, first off, I asked, is there a government? Or is the Chinese Communist Party the government? And they said, no, we have a government, we have a constitution. It's just that over the top of all of that, the Communist Party runs everything. And I said, well, you know, is it possible then that you could get rid of the Communist Party, the government could run the country, and, you know, you could have a change of government policy without violence. And everybody I talked to said, no, not without violence, which is very sad. Yeah, well, that's been the history in China. If you're not happy with the government, because of the economy or anything else, you turn the government over, but it doesn't go over without violence. It's happened many times in the historical, you know, the book of history of China. So the question is, will the PLA stay loyal and faithful? Because this is something very provocative, because the PLA is not exempt from coronavirus. And the PLA lives in close quarters. If one fellow in the barracks develops the coronavirus, then maybe others. And before you know it, you have an unpredictable situation. Yeah, I agree. And I understand that there have some cases in the prison system in China, which would be a similar situation of barracks living, I guess you might call it. I'm kind of more interested in is the long term knockout effects of the virus on the trade deal, you know, is that going to go through? And what what opportunities are there for a phase two, which they've talked about, nobody, you notice nobody's talking about phase two trade agreement at the moment. Yeah, and they probably aren't going to talk about it until this thing somehow resolves. Yeah, I think I think that's true. And in the meantime, I think American companies are going to relocate. Where to, you know, China has been the manufacturing center for America, and for much of the world. How do you relocate your your your supply line? Where can you get the same manufacturing capability? It doesn't sound too easy for an American company, probably not easy. But if you look, if they're looking at the long run, I mean, be better to have it in North and North America, or South America, you know, at least in our hemisphere, although there's there's lots and lots of other people living in other countries in Asia, Indonesia, for instance, and, and won't even Vietnam. But notice Vietnam closed their borders. Yeah, pretty quickly. Yeah, China's influence on the one belt one road initiative, the Belt Road Initiative, that's got to change. I suggest I'm interested in your thoughts that could stop the Belt Road Initiative in its tracks. No, seems to me. Yeah, I understand there's a million Chinese in working on these various projects in in Africa. And surely there's going to be an outbreak of coronavirus there. And they're, and they're, from what I understand, they're, they're woefully unprepared in their public health systems in the various Africa, you know, I've been to West Africa, several countries in West Africa, and they're, they're pretty third world. And if they had a huge outbreak of something like this, on top of on top of Ebola, you know, and the other things that have caused problems there, regardless of the propaganda campaign that Xi Jinping is undertaking, if, if there's a breakout in Africa, people are going to naturally, I don't know how they can be convinced otherwise, they're going to naturally blame China. And that's going to change the relationship of a lot of countries and projects with China. Yeah, so I think, I think we see, you know, this was one of the discussion with my show with Carl Baker, formerly of the AP CSS and Pacific Forum. You know, that there'll be geopolitical changes outside in the relations of China and other countries, including, maybe especially including the US. But what about what about inside? I mean, people in China terrified people in China must be very, anyone so disappointed, if you will, with the lack of protection they're getting the lack of candor the getting from the government. How, how if at all, you know, can the government fix that? How if at all, can, can that be repaired to the way it was? Or will it be different? I mean, forgetting, you know, forgetting an upheaval, will it be different going forward? Will the whole, the whole mechanism in China, the governmental relationship in China change because of this? And if so, how? It seems to me that that more important or equally important with the coronavirus situation is the financial situation. Right. The level of debt and the things that people like Kyle Bass talk about, the hedge fund guy. And, and, you know, I would think if there's going to be change, it will be because the Communist Party fails to deliver on prosperity. And or the plot prosperity that has been created to the hard work of the Chinese people just collapses because of their mismanagement of things like the coronavirus and the financial condition of the country. Gordon Chang said today that China is importing 20% less oil than it has in the last couple of years, year on year. And that the economy itself is stagnating, that about only about a third of the workforce has gone back to work, even though they've been, they've been encouraged by the government to go back to work in spite of the virus. Of course, of course, most people don't believe their figures anyway. They think that, that they're, that they're way understating everything by at least times 10. Yeah. So that's true. That's true. Then you may, you may have this financial collapse. I mean, Bass makes the point that they can, they can continue to print yuan or RMB internally, but they still need dollars to conduct their foreign trade by oil and things like that. And, and the less business they have with the rest of the world to acquire dollars or euros, maybe the, the more likely it is that, that the economy will collapse eventually. Well, you know, the magic word is change and flexibility. You can't be brittle. I know sometimes, you know, the communist line is, is one of brittleness where you don't listen to people and you just keep on doing what you were doing before. And at least to my last question for you, Shackley, we only have a minute left. I would like to make you the counselor for Xi Jinping. I'd like him to have your ear. Okay. It's this crisis moment in China and for that matter, the world as the world is being infected with coronavirus. What is your advice to him on how to save China, save the relationship with the government and the people, you know, and save the, the image of China for, for the global perspective? I think you would have to do some sort of apology for the manner that's been handled as well as talk about how it's, you know, various successes in handling it and, and I do and maybe liberalize the press a little bit. People have probably received that really well. Yeah. And stop throwing people in jail for talking about it. Well, yeah, I mean, yes, I mean, it's you can only keep your head down from that sort of thing for so long. And then pretty soon, it's somebody in your family that's been picked up, you know what I mean? And then it can, and it'll have knock on effects. But I've, I've communicated with a couple of friends in China since this all started and they, they're living in their apartments in Beijing, you know, and they don't go out just as you described it. Yeah. It's all a matter of time. You can't do that for an indefinite period of time. And by the same token, we can't do this show for an indefinite period of time either. We're out of time, Shackley. Thank you. Thank you for a great discussion. Yeah, thank you. Global Connection. Shackley Rufeno, thank you so much. Aloha. Okay. Take care. Aloha.