거대 권력 장악한 시진핑 ‘집권 3기’ 의미는? [스폐셜 리포트]

A new leader for life. Following in the footsteps of Chairman Mao, one of the most brutal communist leaders the world has seen, is history about to repeat itself with Xi Jinping? In this special report, we look at what Xi Jinping's third term means for China and the world, what America can expect going forward, and if the free world is about to be embroiled in war. Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Chinese leader Xi Jinping securing his third term, breaking from party traditions set by his predecessors. That's following the 20th National Party Congress, China's biggest political event that happens every five years. But as the event wrapped up, different focuses inside and outside China. While videos of former Chinese leader Hu Jintao reluctantly being let out of the Party Congress took Twitter and other social media platforms in the West by storm, in China, those clips were missing. Even searching for Hu's name on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, produced zero results. That gives a glimpse into China's heavily censored social media platforms. And state media inside China reported he was feeling unwell, but did not include the scene. Also coming under scrutiny, the fact that foreign press were able to witness and capture the scene, suggesting the message was for those outside China. China affairs analyst Jason Ma gives some insight. Xi Jinping directed this play for a sole purpose, sending a clear signal that the era represented by former President Hu has completely ended in China, and China will enter a new era of Xi Jinping. But while the world focused on Hu Jintao, what happened inside China? China economic analyst Antonio Graceffo says, first, we have to look at the state of the economy. It's a fact that the Chinese economy right now is in the worst state that it has been in, in many decades. So my feeling is, moving forward, I think we're going to see definitely a more aggressive Xi. He reiterated during his opening speech, during the two-hour speech, he reiterated all the promises that he's made all along during the 10 years. Number one, he'll improve the economy. Number two, he'll stamp out COVID. Number three, he'll stand up to the United States. And number four, he's going to reunify China. It seems to be edgy more towards saying that they'd be willing to use force to take Taiwan. Now, when it comes to following through on Xi Jinping's big claims, Graceffo says what worries him is. Now, he can't actually do anything about the economy. So I'm very concerned that the only thing he can really do after this converse is invade Taiwan. And I'm not saying that he'll do it tomorrow, but I'm saying that that is the only thing that he has complete control over. Before we get to Taiwan and how the international world could get embroiled, let's stick with China's economy for a minute. The real estate bubble is huge, but people do not know how big it is. Most of the mainstream media are underestimating the size of this problem. In addition to all of the direct real estate debt, there is $8 trillion, nearly $8 trillion of local government debt, which was issued against real estate sales. But real estate sales are down by 30% this year. So that alone is enough to tank the banking system. That $8 trillion in local government debt is on top of the real estate crisis, which totals around $350 billion. So we've got $350 billion that are in immediate peril. And then we've got this $8 trillion that everybody keeps forgetting is this local government debt. And it's not on the books of the federal government. It's on the books of the local governments. But at the end of the day, the central government may have to bail them out. So this could completely just take down the Chinese banking system. It could crash out the currency. It could be really catastrophic. That's on the debt aspect. But noting Xi's speech and his doubling down on zero COVID, which is the policy of locking down whole districts anytime one single case of the CCP virus is detected. What does that mean for our economies? Markets weren't keen at the news. Stocks plummeting across the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Chinese Yuan falling to a new low against the dollar. John Pelson, author of China's Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We're Fighting Back, notes when it comes to Xi Jinping's zero COVID policy. The zero COVID is a great example of how what's motivating Xi's actions is not the common good of the people. It all ultimately is about power. When he had the crackdown in Shanghai, I had friends and country saying, do you know why he's doing this? I say, Shanghai, after Hong Kong, Shanghai is the most Western liberal capitalistic city in the country. And this was Xi saying, you have to remember who's boss. He wasn't doing that to Beijing, which was just as troubled as far as COVID goes. But the crackdown went down in the most Western liberal city. And it was a flexing of muscle. And yet there he is again, killing the goose that lays a golden egg. The policy has already taken a massive toll on China's economy, as well as emotionally on the citizens. As for outside the country, China's zero COVID policy has already strained the world's supply chains, as China is often dubbed the world's factory. But with the world's factory grinding to a halt under these lockdowns, where does that put us? We keep looking at this as if it's an economic or commercial struggle and tariffs and trade wars. It's a trade war without the trade part being in it. We have to recognize that even if we don't see this as a war, China does. And that's what matters. We have to deal with it as just a war by other means. And that's going to require sacrifice on our part. And American companies, financial and technological, may not like some of the consequences, but I think it's essential for our national security. Pelson notes the zero COVID policy gives us insight into how he operates. COVID is just one example of the damage he did to his own country, because the value there is more strength and control than success and flourishing economy or society. Given the state of China's economy and the country's status as the world's second largest economy behind the U.S., where is this headed? Xi can't wave a magic wand and improve the economy. You know, the way that they grew before and the way that they rescued themselves from the 2008 financial crisis was that, number one, urbanizing, right? When you move people from the countryside to the city, each person's contribution to GDP quadruples. In other words, a farmer only earns a very small salary. Take that farmer, put him in the city in a factory, and now he's contributing much more to GDP. So by moving hundreds of millions of people out of the countryside into the cities, China was able to jump their GDP, increase it tremendously. Well, they can't do that again. There's just not that many people left in the countryside. Given China's economic woes, what can Xi Jinping do? Only quick thing he can do that she can do to make good on his promises is to invade Taiwan. And the other thing is that if you have a war, and they're already setting up for this. I've already seen it. If you read the party propaganda and you read between the lines, you might be able to guess at what they're planning to do. And they're already preparing. They already started the no food wasted program last year. They mentioned that again this year, don't waste your food. They're already starting to blame their economic problems on the world, on the US. And all they have to do is make a war. And then they can blame every problem on the war. And then it's not Xi Jinping's fault that they have an economic crisis. It would be the fault of that war. And the war is there because America led the other countries astray. As for waging an actual war, Bradley Thayer, founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger China, and co-author of Understanding the China Threat, says he can only do that if his domestic affairs are in order. But what that means is that Xi Jinping will now have established his control over the party. And the dissidents or elements which are opposed to him are really neutered or under his control. He's ensured that he's dominant. And thus the party's control over China is as well. So we should expect a far more active and belligerent Xi Jinping after the 20th Party Congress. As for the domestic affairs part, Xi Jinping stacked his party with his loyalists, essentially surrounding himself with yes-men. Meanwhile, Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, were reshuffled out. Both were pro-reform and opening up China's economy. But it's not just about loyalists. It's also about ideology. Thayer has argued before that for Xi Jinping, that ideological control is twofold. Firstly, maintaining an ideological purity within his own party, as opposed to followers of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, for example, as well as influencing the rest of the world's ideology. Now, as for why the Chinese regime balks at the idea of America's ideology, Thayer notes the CCP. It knows it's illegitimate and it wants to destroy alternatives to it. It knows that the political organization, economic organization, social organization, the West went through women's rights movements, went through civil rights movements. China will never go through that under the Chinese regime. And so the Chinese regime recognizes that it's illegitimate and alternatives. The better future promised by the West is a direct threat to that legitimacy. So it's fearful of the West and it seeks to destroy it. Now, this also applies to Taiwan. Coming up, we hear more from experts on what that emphasis on ideology means for China and the rest of the globe. Will we see a more aggressive Beijing in terms of Taiwan? And what does Xi Jinping's third term mean for US priorities going forward? More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Going back to Xi's speech, there was a strong emphasis on reunifying Taiwan with the mainland. That's communist China's view of the island, even though the communist regime has never ruled Taiwan. But because the Chinese Communist Party sees Taiwan as part of its own territory, it has never ruled out using force to accomplish that goal. Taiwan is also a symbol of a free China and what China can become, which is why it is a threat to the Chinese regime, and they want to destroy it. So Taiwan is a lot like Berlin, West Berlin in the Cold War, where West Berlin was an outpost of freedom. There it says, because of that, Xi Jinping. He's determined to force Taiwan into essentially PRC's control, as he did with Hong Kong, of course. He forced violating the agreement that the PRC had with the British, with the United Kingdom. He forced Hong Kong under the control of the violation of the two systems policy that they had worked out with the British. He brought that under the control, and we should expect that this is his intent with Taiwan. And it may come sooner than we anticipate, not within years or not within this decade, as often is said, but almost immediately, even in 2022 and certainly in 2023, because he'll have his domestic affairs in order, giving him the free hand to act more belligerently in international politics at a time where the Biden administration has not shown the strength that the U.S. needs to demonstrate to deter a conventional invasion of Taiwan. During the reshuffling of party officials, two stood out when it came to Beijing's potential military aggressions. China's new military leader and an official maintaining his seat in the reshuffle, both have experienced monitoring Taiwan. That's also fueled concerns of rising aggression towards Taiwan. But Graceffo says we need to keep in mind the economic turmoil and to expect the unexpected. We absolutely need to double down on not only our surveillance of China, sort of keeping an eye on China, making sure that they're not planning something dramatic, because when times are desperate, that's when a leader will do something traumatic. I know maybe it won't be an invasion of Taiwan. Maybe it'll be an invasion of India. I don't know. Whether or not we'll be embroiled in an international war, what does Xi Jinping's third term mean for the Chinese people? What it means for the Chinese people is that they are fettered by this regime, which abuses their human rights and restricts the ability of the Chinese to have their human rights exercised fully, to have access to information, to have political rights, civil rights, as we know them in the West. And so the Chinese people have to live under this dead hand of the Chinese regime. So that's a glimpse into what the Chinese people can expect under a continued rule of Xi Jinping. As for what it means for international politics? This is a group of gangsters, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, and it means belligerence. It means aggression in the East China Sea against the Japanese and against Taiwan, in the South China Sea, against the Philippines, Vietnam, and other states on the periphery of the South China Sea, against India, Myanmar, as well as South Asia, control of Africa, where the Chinese regime's presence is defined by exploitation of people and the environment wherever the Chinese regime shows up, and South America and Central America as well. And that translates into aggression directly against its neighbors, but also against the liberal international order, the rules and norms that have governed international politics since 1945, when the British and the Americans created them. Given all that, what should the U.S. priorities be going forward? U.S. priorities should first be to prepare for a far more aggressive and assertive China than what we have encountered thus far. China's growth has been alarming, and that has fueled an aspect of aggression in its foreign policies. After the 20th Party Congress, we should expect this to become worse. As for what can be done, he suggests? Having a more robust deterrent posture in the Indo-Pacific, focusing on China's human rights abuses against its own citizens as well as internationally, and also looking at tearing down the Great Firewall so that Chinese citizens can access the internet without any encumbrance from the Chinese regime, that is, using technologies or in cooperation with the United States, the British, and other actors, technologies may be employed that would allow free and fair access for Chinese citizens, that would allow them to access the internet freely. Thayer says it comes down to first knowing it's a winnable fight. Recognize that victory is possible, that the Chinese regime should be confronted. And if it's confronted, it can be defeated. And it can be defeated through ideology, or not through a kinetic means. We don't want it to come to conflict, obviously, kinetic conflict. But in the ideological conflict, which is something that the West should wage aggressively against the Chinese regime, to convey to the world and the Chinese people that the regime is not legitimate, and the Chinese people don't have to suffer under it. More steps that can be taken? As much as the West, the United States, countries around the world, and the Chinese people can do. A united front is absolutely necessary to defeat the Chinese regime. And that's something that can coalesce. Finally, don't believe their lies. Free media is absolutely important. And to be aware of efforts of Chinese propaganda, and efforts to spread that propaganda, and you're not fooled by their efforts to cloak it into a common destiny of mankind, or an image of China, which touts scientific progress, or which touts space exploration, or the purported happiness of the Chinese people, while masking the true nature of the regime, which is a totalitarian dictatorship. One way to guarantee success is by cutting off the cash flow. We in the West are funding the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and other Chinese intelligence services by allowing Chinese entities to raise money in New York. That's simply outrageous and should be ended. We're also recognizing the Thrift Savings Plan. For example, U.S. government retirees participate in the Thrift Savings Plan. The Thrift Savings Plan, through BlackRock and other entities, is providing an avenue actually for U.S. government employees, including the U.S. military service members, to actually invest in certain funds that would be invested in Chinese entities. Ultimately, what it comes down to is? So, an awareness by big tech, Silicon Valley, but also by Wall Street of the true nature of the regime compels the termination of access by the Chinese regime to American finance, or in London as well, to other financial markets. If we don't do that, and the Chinese Communist Party were to become the world's hegemonic power, what would that look like? If China were, heaven forbid, to rule the world, of course, everyone who had a vested interest in that liberal international order for free trade, for free finance, exchange of goods, for political rights and human rights, would find that the Chinese regime has a very different attitude towards that, and their relationship would be defined by, again, exploitation and serving the interests of the Chinese regime. So, it's a future that we argue should never obtain. But as experts point out, not all hope is lost. The pendulum could be swinging in our favor. There are actionable steps that can be taken now to ensure America and our allies remain free. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show, or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocus at ntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.