 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Okay, we're back, we're live, we're ruminating with Ray. Ruminating with Ray. You like that? Ray Tsuchiyama. He's an informed citizen and he's also CEO of Tsuchiyama and Associates here on Think Tech Global on a given Monday. And we're talking about Xi Jinping today. Xi Jinping is not all sweetness and light. You agree, Ray? Well, he's brought back a concept, I think, that the last few Chinese leaders were focusing on economy, really. And when you talk to people from years back in China, they would say, oh, economy first, politics second. And those are cold words, so we have to delay democracy. We have to delay opposition parties. We have to delay even voting for your mayor of a small town. I mean, here in the US or in Japan or EU countries or even India, you get to elect whom you want to represent you as a leader in your town or village or in the federal government, but not China. There's still only one Communist Party that seems to be even coalescing, even firmer in his grip on the society. Well, the success of the leadership in China is a direct function on their success. I mean, the power of leadership is direct function. If they're successful, if the economy is successful, they'll stay in office. And the old notion is that in China, you reserve the right to upend the government if it's impoverishing you, if the economy is not working. And it's working. I mean, it's a remarkable success. Historically, that's called a mandate at heaven. You're absolutely right. And if you had the mandate at heaven, the emperor was what the godlike, the society worked. And people will tell you, China is a big country with many people, the most populous country, and has all kinds of issues trying to hold it together as a country. Yeah. Well, so, I mean, if you had an election right now today in China, I mean, a popular election, it doesn't work that way, you know, but what happens is a guy at the bottom vote for one tier, and that tier votes for the next tier, and so forth. So the guys at the bottom have very little to do with direct election of anybody. But they know, they, it's all kind of a game, but, you know, if you did have a direct election right now today in China, he would win hands down. He's a popular guy. And it goes back to the economy. I mean, the economy for the last 10 years, I mean, at a, you know, like a developmental rate, 6%, 8%, even as much as 10% in some ways. And this year would be a low year, maybe only 6% to 7%. Yeah. Wow. Countries in the EU would die for that kind of growth. Wow, the US is down in about two and change. That's right. Japan is barely 1% or less. India is doing quite well, maybe 6% to 7% this year. But the bulk of the EU countries are barely between 1% to 3% at most. You're correct. And China is the engine of economic growth in many ways for the entire globe. Yes, I agree. And so, you know, he would win and he is in his own way popular. But what's really interesting is that while all this popularity, call it sweetness and light, takes place, and while the economy is going gangbusters, relatively speaking, civil rights in China are actually rolling back. You know, and I refer to a very powerful speech given at the China seminar by Richard Hornick only two weeks ago, and which is playing now in large part on OC16, on our ThinkTech on OC16 show, through this week. And it was a chakaroo for me because I was under the assumption that with all the sweetness and light in the economy, there was also sweetness and light in the way the government was treating the people, not. This is very rollback time in China, where before you had academic freedom, where before you had hope into the future for the civil rights and the engagement of the citizen with the government, it's not like that anymore. Now, they're not complaining, most of them, because it's successful in the economy. But in fact, they're losing their right to speak. They're losing what he called a speech was something about mind control, China controlling minds. First thing that happens a few years ago is all of a sudden academic freedom goes away. And if you want to speak against the government in the privacy of your class, before you can say anything you want in your class, it was a sort of sanctified territory, now you say anything and somebody is recording you, the university is recording your remarks. Pretty scary. And these students are encouraged to report you. To the authorities, and then what happens is you lose your job, you lose whatever perks and benefits you might have. And you have to follow his line, Xi Jinping is making himself Mao. He built himself into the Constitution now, that Xi Jinping thought is sanctified thought in the Constitution. This is new, nobody's had this benefit since Mao. Xi Jinping, who was a remarkable leader in China and put more people out of poverty than anyone in the history of the world, according to Richard Hornick, he didn't do that. But now Xi Jinping is ascending the Mao throne, and at the same time, it's beyond rooting out corruption, it's rooting out independent thought. And it's not only the universities, we were comparing those before, it's like in your daily life. It's what you read, what you say in any context, what the government watches you, what the government finds about your habits and where you go, what you do, everything, the government knows everything. This is out of George Orwell's 1984, really, and that affects your ability to get goods and services. For example, and Richard talked about this, there's a brand new speed train, right? It's beautiful, it costs a lot of money, it goes between Beijing and Shanghai, I think, at high speeds, it's an example of high technology, and the best in China, anyone can offer in a way of speed trains in the world, if you have a low quotient in terms of government faithfulness, you can't get on the train. This is really scary. So we're separating citizens for those who believe and follow the party line and those who don't, it's really scary. This diminishes free speech, big time. So that's a great concern. You had to watch the show, it's on OC16 now this week, it'll be over, but it will upload it to YouTube after a while, you can see what it was saying. It was a shocker root of me because I had no idea that this was going on. And what this means is that while he's successful with the economy, he's also taking over and making himself a leader for the millennia. I mean, it was supposed to be five years now, it looks like he's going to wangle another five years out of that. The Politburo is going along with him on everything, including his own deification. My goodness gracious, dictatorships seem to be rising in this world today, Ray. Well, I think I would say that China for decades under the Communist Party has been scared of its own people. And that's why I think it's taking an extreme through CJPigna right now that with access to information that it becomes even more imperative to control the populace, to control the citizenry in how they think because once you have access to information, then you may think of organizing your opposition party or having more strength to really declare war on environmental issues that China has neglected or the rights of minorities in China, ethnic minorities, and of course, a large issue that hasn't really been played up that in the Constitution officially is atheism, no formal religion, but there are many people in China who are not turning to Christianity and of course, Buddhism, Taoism and other religions and of course, Tibetans are very, very linked to their own Buddhist religion and the Dalai Lama. These are all anti-communist parties when you think about it because you have allegiance to a church, a god, even to the pope, which is very scary. So I think those are initiatives to really crack down on information, still Facebook, Google, many informational networks are banned in China. There are ways to get around. People talk about this and laugh about this all the time, but still I think it's a concerted effort to really rein in free thinking. Yeah. Well, it's a virtual private networks is an interesting example of that. I remember back in my travel time to China, everybody had them, there were people selling them and buying them. VPNs, right. VPN and you'd have a dish and you could look outside of the closed system, internet system in China and it was a joke, everybody treated it as a joke, but it's not joke anymore and somebody was recently put in jail for five years for selling one of those things and you can say, well, that's just one case, well, it's more than one case. What it means is sending a message to 1.4 billion Chinese citizens shouldn't do that, go to jail. So I think things are changing around things we thought were jokes, the Chinese government, the Chinese police and intelligence agencies, oh, that's just them, they can do anything about it, we make fun of them. For example, it was in August of 1989 with Tiananmen Square and so now this big thing goes on the internet, instead of tanks in that forbidden picture, now it's a cartoon character making fun, that was taken off the net almost immediately. You cannot search for certain words or phrases, Tiananmen Square for example in China, it will come back and they will start looking for you because you have started to Google something or search for something that is anti-Chinese state. Anything that smacks of anti-Chinese state, this joke with the three ducks was Winnie the Pooh I think and so all of a sudden Winnie the Pooh went on the forbidden list and now you can't search for Winnie the Pooh on the internet, really? All these things, it's controlling the Chinese mind, that's what Richard was talking about. Incidentally, he's going to be on the show sometime in a few weeks. Remember, China is a country that has grievances and it plays up these grievances from the Opium War 1840s to the destruction of the Samma Palace for the British in the 1880s and the Boxer Rebellion of course, all the Japanese invasions of the 1930s and what they perceive as the almost imminent attack on China through Korea by American UN forces in 1950. All of this is their paranoid in a way that in some ways the whole world ganks up on them through history but at the same time I think- Back when it was true wasn't it? Well, you're right. At the early 20th century. It was the pillaging of China when China really lost its statehood and that the empire really was shrinking and had to give up rights to port cities like Hong Kong and Tianjin and others who went through the French or British or American and Japanese and so they're definitely afraid of other states coming and carving up China to make the sick man of Asia again. But at the same time, there are citizens that I talk to my Chinese friends all the time and some of them say, although the government talks about being the anti-Japanese movement from time to time that they kind of bring it up, we really envy Japan. I said, well, how do you envy Japan? They said, well, Japan is a country where it's very high-tech but it's a democracy and they also retain their tradition and history. Ah, good point. Yes. Interesting point. And they are- You don't have to do brainwash. No, no. They are very- In Japanese they're quite proud of being Japanese. They do not are not overly religious but yet they go to shrines and temples and can marry and vote any way they want to. And they're devoted to the country. They're very patriotic and they're not war-like to other countries and have a great economy and also they've cleaned up Tokyo, I mean, 30 years ago it was a mess, lots of pollution and so forth. As Beijing is today, all the factories have moved out to the countryside or overseas and so people enjoy a high standard of living and it's a very orderly, clean country. And that's what the Chinese have to encounter every day when they look at vegetables. Is it contaminated? Is the meat okay? Is the air pollution okay to go out in the street today? All these things figure in their daily lives. Yeah. Well, let's talk about one road for a minute. You know, I remember, we had a lawyer exchange program, one of the lawyers from Beijing was a fairly young woman, she was around 30, and what does she do? Well, she represented all of Chinese industry, CITIC, CITIC, Chinese Business Development Agency in the state, in the government there. She represented all the CITIC deals in Africa, I said what? All the CITIC deals in Africa? Well, CITIC, I mean, well, that's what her job was. Now she was related to a general, so I guess that's okay to be expected. But the fact is that they're in Africa big time, and that was 10 years ago. They're in every country and they're making deals with every country and they're doing what I guess they see as soft power, the Kennedy School kind of soft power. But in fact, I think it's a little harder than soft power, look at the South China Sea. I mean, it's manifest destiny. With us, manifest destiny was reaching the West Coast, you know, or maybe fighting the Spanish-American war in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. But for them, it's crossing the world, it's going global. And I find that very interesting that the one belt, one road, you know, business in Africa, influence in Africa, investment, and the investment becomes a kind of political influence investment. They're everywhere doing that. Southeast Asia is easy, but, you know, all across the world they're doing that. And a lot of this is happening under Xi Jinping. So he's really doing gangbusters in terms of advancing China's diplomatic interests, its investment interests, its business, its trade interests. He's really, he's becoming a global figure. China is becoming a global leader right now. And when we get back from this break, I want to talk to you about the juxtaposition of that and your favorite 45th president and see how that works, Ray, we'll be right back. This is the best part. Okay, we're back, we're live with Ray Tushiyama, you know, we're sort of ruminating, Ray's ruminations, you know, about China and Xi Jinping and about how, you know, there are multiple things happening with China, multiple threats. But if you're going to look historically, there was a time when China really went out into the world. In the 15th century, there was an admiral, her from China went to the east coast of Africa. They're still digging up pottery that he brought to that area. So they had great ships that went out. And then they came back and became very isolated. And when there was a delegation from England to the imperial court, the emperor said that we have no need for any goods from England. We have everything under the celestial kingdom. I mean, the Chinese made things for themselves and had no need. And of course, that would lead to opium exports of opium into China and opium wars under England. And so, and going back to Africa, it's an interesting use of what I see as a 16th century practice called mercantilism. Flag follows trade. Traders come in, but they're Chinese state enterprises. They're connected to the government. And then comes all kinds of other kind of infrastructure, kinds of projects like railroads, roads. These are all built by Chinese enterprises. And also, unfortunately, the wave of manufacturing goods, cheap goods, you know, like plastic buckets, utensils, plates that come and destroy the indigenous manufacturing base in the smaller countries in Africa. And also, they're always connected to education. There's a lot of Confucius institutes. And they're teaching Chinese in African countries and sending African students to study computers and economics. In China. They're in China and all kinds of business in China, and they come back, and they're bilingual or trilingual. They speak English. And they're friendly to China. And Swahili and Mandarin. So we don't have that interchange. And that's a program. We're meeting this country. That's right. The U.S., if we were really smart about ourselves, we'd admit more students from Africa. Unfortunately, it's not on the list right now. But they would be really great business and government leaders back in countries like Nigeria or Cameroon or Kenya or Namibia, you know, and really be friends of the U.S. But on the other hand, you have to also understand that China, like the U, always wants to point out, it's an ally of the U.S. because it sees anti-Muslim as being a detourist terrorist. And indeed, they're persecuting the Uighurs in Western China right now. And so they don't call them anything else than terrorists. And so they're very much aligned with the U.S. administration aims of countering terrorism. And this is, yes, why doesn't the U.S. help and support us in suppressing this Islamic terrorism in China, too? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I find it very interesting. I mean, this is a complex thing, because on the one hand, he's controlling all the minds. He's folding in. He's saying, don't disagree with the government policy. And when in doubt, you fold in. You don't look outside, sort of like Trump. At the same time, though, he's got a very non-Trumpian look at the world because he's doing soft power all over the place, Southeast Asia and Africa and South America, if I didn't mention. And he's building that railroad right into the heart of Europe. He's trying to gain influence everywhere. And that's looking out. And so the whole thing is, he's trying to get influence. And it's mercantile, mercantilism, it's also diplomatic influence. He's becoming, while we watch, a world leader. And the U.S. is becoming, while we watch, a world isolationist. So at the end of the day, when you extend those out, what does it mean to him and what does it mean to us? Who comes out ahead on that, right? Good question. And the Chinese always look at long cycles. We look at only four years. They're looking at 50, 100 years out and seeing the history and how they are part of the world order. And you're correct that there's a vacuum today that China is stepping in and saying that we will provide security for you. We will protect you against your other enemies by becoming, and so little countries, Just play ball with us. Little countries like Cambodia, that is not part of the South China Seas, are becoming our Chinese allies against the Philippines and Vietnam, right? Pakistan has been a long time Chinese ally because, of course, India has always had issues with China over the border. So the enemy is going to be a friend in many ways. And the Soviet Union, or ex-Soviet Union now, Russia really has fallen apart and doesn't have the military presence anymore in the Far East. China is stepping up, and so it is able to be a counterweight in that region. And of course, the Central Asian states have always tilted toward Russia, but now China, with the road going right through that area to European markets, can say, why don't you be part of our co-prosperity sphere in a way, you know, harking back to Japan. Irresistible, aren't you? That's right. And we will give you and be part of that logistics, and your industries will come out and you'll be getting higher paying jobs and so forth. And Russia will not be able to help you because they're not as economically rich as we are. So again, these are playoffs in each country in the region, really. And the Philippines has gone tilting toward China now. And Taiwan is in a very quandary-like state to really give up and say, United States is not going to protect us. So we are going to be part of China. But still, that has spawned an anti-Chinese backlash in Taiwan. And there are growing independent people, independent people within Taiwan also. So I don't think it is to China's interest to really push Taiwan at this point. Yeah, to say nothing of Hong Kong. The umbrella movement is history. We talked to Michael Davis a couple of weeks ago, and we'll talk to him again. He was a professor at Hong Kong University. He talked about the umbrella movement. And now the Chinese have a long plan, as you say, and little by little they're going to take over Hong Kong. They aren't taking over Hong Kong. So what you find is there's a building somewhere in Beijing where there's a lot of people working on extending Chinese influence everywhere in the world. And that, I think, includes the mind control part that applies to the universities and the population in general living in China. One interesting thing is in this country, there are the Confucius Institutes in a lot of schools. And so in Canada, but recently, Canada got offended with that. I'm not sure what happened. And they dismissed all of the Confucius Institutes. I guess they thought it was somehow threatening to them. And maybe if it's threatening to them, maybe it's threatening to us. We don't seem to care about any of that. And one of the things you mentioned to me in the break here was the notion that is very interesting, was the notion that the Chinese students who are here are watched just the way they would be watched in China. And there's a quotient on them, too, whether they're following the party line, speaking against China and all that. And I'm really thinking the whole thing is global. You see, that's the paradox. I think conventional wisdom thinking says more people from China, young people, bright people, go to the West, Japan, U.S., and Europe, and come back. And democracy will bloom and blossom in China. See? That's the conventional thinking that has not occurred in the last 20 years. But of course, some of them have stayed in the U.S. and that's great. They're contributing to Silicon Valley, to New York Minas, a lot of great minds have really been part of our economic revival in many ways. But others have returned to China and tried to fit it back in. And so there cannot be pro-democracy or pro-villain party in China. They have to go back to the standard party line. So they have not transformed China as we thought would happen. Yeah. And all this, I have to mention that article again, it was something about, it was in The Guardian, I think yesterday, it was the decline of democracy in this country. It's not just Trump. It's been happening, but Trump is accelerating it. And the result is that our democratic institutions and notions are diminishing while we watch. Democracy itself is changing into something not nearly what it was. And I say to myself, gee, that comports with what Ray is saying about the, potentially aspirational emergence of democracy in China. Democracy is not as appealing to many places as it used to be. Democracy is not as thriving as it used to be. Democracy is changing to something that isn't what we thought used to be democracy. And it's happening in both places and maybe other, it's happening certainly in Russia too, isn't it? Yeah. You know, you can. And of course it depends on history that China was very late to modernize. When you have modernization, urban centers and coffee shops and universities, that's where democracy really comes up. And so even Karl Marx thought that Russia would be the last place to have communism because it was full of serfs and peasants that he believed that it would grow in Western Europe. And of course, China is late to modernize and of course, and it's really becoming nationalistic. And there's one country that has gone through this before is Germany. And it modernized very late, later than England and France, and also was an independent country as, you know, in the 1880s it finally came together as one country. So it's very late. And it didn't have the democratic institutions as other European countries like England, France and others. And England and France went through tumultuous revolutions and Paris commune and many, many you know, divisions, but they became stronger, I think, institutional-wise. Chinese institutions are barely since 1949. It's very recent that they've actually had, you know, country-wide police, you know, schools, you know, all kinds of communes. The government didn't come to villages until very recently in the last 20 years. So it's been a struggle for the central government really to incalculate a identity as Chinese. So I think you have to look at the other way of seeing, you know, how to bring the country together. We see it as, you know, one-party rule. They see it as a way to really bring stability and, you know, economic uplifting to the people where they came from nothing in 49 out of a war with the Japanese for 20 years. So when we see Xi Jinping doing mind control on the students and the faculty and the universities and the public in general, making them stay in the box, his thought box that we wanted to call the Xi Jinping thought, you know, we get concerned because we think that's pulling away from where we wanted to see them go in terms of, you know, our brand of democracy. On the other hand, it still works, even though it may not be what we want and maybe actually chilling to a lot of people. And then you look at this country and you find that the White House is at war with the press. You find out the First Amendment isn't what it was. You find out that people are having trouble registering to vote. Jerry Mandarin is changing the way the elections work. Citizens United is changing the way funding of candidates works. There's a lot of things that are undermining our democracy. And look right now, Congress is dysfunctional. You know, that could not happen in China. It could not happen in China, but it happens here. So you say, well, okay, they may be losing ground in China in terms of the First Amendment. But we aren't in great shape either. That's what I say. What do you say? We just have to work at it as a people. Consensus and democracy and voting are very messy things. India is example. They're a democracy. But they're a standard living and so forth compared to China. China has taken off. And India finally has things that are better. Not as quick, though. It's going to take a much longer time. It's very messy. And they have politicians who used to be movie stars and so forth, and we see it's not the perfect place also. So you're right. But on the other hand, if you ask an average person, Mr. Wang of Shanghai or whatever, are things better than they were 10 years ago, the answer is yes. Education, infrastructure, government services, pensions, healthcare, all are better than it was 10, 15 years ago. How about here? Let's leave that one hanging. That's a big one. That's another discussion altogether. Statehood. This is a life after statehood theme on the topic. It always comes back to that. Race to Chiama. Thank you so much. Thank you. Aloha. Thank you very much. Thank you. Aloha.