- Xi Jinping has more control than he did five years ago.

So you look at what he's done in the South China Sea, you look at what they're doing around Taiwan, I would say that he's been actually quite aggressive.

(soft music) - Hello, and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are talking about China.

Its domestic priorities, its global ambitions, and whether the Trump administration's move to step back from international commitments is opening new doors for Beijing.

So far, the Year of the Snake has been off to a reasonable start for China.

AI startup DeepSeek unveiled a ChatGPT rival for a fraction of the cost.

Its diplomats have cast Beijing as a steadfast global partner, while the United States ramps up criticism of its own European allies.

Make no mistake, China's economy is still struggling.

But at the recent two sessions meetings, China's annual legislative conference where the Communist Party lays out its agenda for the coming year, party leaders projected their own confidence that GDP growth was on track and that China's global rise would continue in 2025.

So, what's next for the People's Republic?

China recently said it was ready for any type of war with the United States, but is that really true?

Will Beijing benefit from US retrenchment and increasing global uncertainty, or will its domestic issues hold it back?

I'm breaking it all down with Bill Bishop, a China analyst and writer of the "Sinocism Newsletter," a top source for daily news out of Beijing.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

- You leave me no choice, President Xi.

I am deploying to China the most destructive and annoying weapon in the history of our beautiful country.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Narrator 1] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Narrator 1] And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO."

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and ... (bright music) (soft music) - What exactly is President Trump's position on China?

As a candidate, he made his feelings known.

- China, china, china.

China's killing us.

China's massive theft of American jobs.

You didn't even know China was a problem until I came along.

- And then, at times, it feels like Trump is even tougher on America's allies.

- The EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly.

- Than its adversaries.

- We look forward to doing very well with China and getting along with China.

- His views towards the People's Republic have been, well, hard to pin down.

In his first term, President Trump invited Xi Jinping to Mar-a-Lago, serving him the most beautiful slice of chocolate cake you've ever seen.

But that didn't stop him from launching a trade war the next year.

So, what's happening now in Trump 2.0?

(phone rings and buzzes) After a pre-inauguration call, Beijing optimistically declared the two superpowers could become partners and friends.

Trump himself often calls Xi a brilliant guy and praises their great relationship.

He reversed his position on the TikTok ban, issued lower tariffs on China than on Canada and Mexico, and dodged Taiwan questions.

Yet Trump constantly complains that China takes advantage of the US.

He's limited Chinese investment in American technology and critical infrastructure, citing national security.

And his administration says it's pulling back from Europe to focus on the Pacific.

And Trump's warming relations with Russia are not just about Ukraine, they're also about China moving toward Moscow to try to isolate Beijing, Nixon's Cold War playbook in reverse.

Ultimately, Trump sees the world more in terms of spheres of influence where great powers carve out territories and dictate terms at their will.

On one hand, that could mean bad news for Taiwan, but on the other, the US will likely be more aggressive in pushing China out of its own backyard.

Trump is telling allies close to home they need to break from the PRC, criticizing China's factories in Mexico and activity in the Panama Canal.

He's also stacked his cabinet with China hawks, like National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is actually sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party.

- The Communist Party of China is the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.

- So, where does the relationship go from here?

Trump could cut a deal with Beijing, but he also appears much more willing to double down on tariffs and ramp up US military activity in the Pacific.

How the Trump administration navigates the relationship will have massive implications, and not just for trade, but for AI, for climate, for nuclear proliferation, and the balance of global power.

China and the United States are the world's two biggest powers.

And the stakes, they couldn't be higher.

Here to help us understand Beijing's perspective, internal priorities, and where the US-China relationship goes from here, Bill Bishop, writer of the "Sinocism Newsletter" and one of America's top China analysts.

Bill Bishop, welcome to "GZERO World."

- Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- Thank you, man.

So much I wanna talk to you about today.

I wanna start big picture with, do you think that the control that Xi Jinping has over the Chinese system, economic system, political system, military system, are there any signs that that might be less consolidated than it was five years ago?

- My view is that, at least from the top-down perspective, Xi Jinping has more control than he did five years ago.

I think that you certainly, you've always heard grumbling in China, we still hear lots of grumbling, but when you look at the way he's gone through personnel appointments, restructured security services, the PLA, I think it's very hard to conclude that he is in a weaker position than he was, say, five years ago.

- So he's calling all the shots.

He's been through extraordinary changes both domestically and internationally.

How would you rate him now in terms of his effectiveness as the leader of 1.4 billion Chinese people?

- I think that when you look at the state of the economy, I think you will find a lot of people who think he's really not done a good job with the economy.

Obviously, we've had a significant downturn over the last several years.

We had COVID, which the response actually was good for a while and then it went bad during the last year or so of COVID.

But I think you could certainly say, as his analysis of how the world is developing and what the Chinese economy needs, I think that the jury is still out because he has, and his team have, really, I think, they're undertaking a pretty significant restructuring of the PRC economy away from real estate investment, away from some of the real profligate spending, and they're trying to build it into more of a high-tech economy.

And at the same time, and that's a project that takes quite some time, and it's gonna have a lot of bumps.

But I think when you're sitting in Beijing, I think at least from Xi's perspective, and you look out at how the world is developing, I think you can make a pretty good case that you're on the right path.

I'm not sure that maybe a lot of people in China would agree with that.

Not that they necessarily have a say.

But I am more in the camp that he has been pushing forward on some very, very difficult reforms in ways that he and his team believe makes sense for how they've diagnosed both the issues within the PRC system, but also the general trend of global development.

And that, of course, I think, has you know, there's a Marxist worldview behind that.

- Would you say that he has been overly cautious or overly strong in terms of his willingness to take big and necessary decisions over the past few years?

If you had to err on one side, where do you think it would be and why?

- So the answer, actually, to that question is, I will hedge and say yes, I think he's been on some of the economic policies, he's actually been overly cautious where I think they need to do more in terms of certain types of fiscal reform, fiscal support to get the economy out of what appears to be an accelerating deflationary cycle.

But in terms of some of his foreign policy efforts, you look at what he's done in the South China Sea, you look at what they're doing around Taiwan, I would say that he's been actually quite aggressive and quite forceful.

- Aggressive.

And effectively so from the perspective of China's interests, or not really?

- I think so.

I mean, he has changed the facts on the ground in the South China Sea.

He, I think, is moving towards changing the status quo around Taiwan.

And so far, there's been, you know, rhetorical pushback.

There's been very little actual, I think, material or effective substantive pushback.

And so it's not clear what costs he's really incurred from some of their foreign policy moves.

I think from their perspective, there's reason to be confident because they've actually been able to do a lot of things without too much blowback.

- Now, I thought it was interesting, Bill, that you said the record that Xi has stands pretty well from China's long-term interest, but a lot of Chinese people don't necessarily agree with it.

A lot of mistrust that the China of 2025 can continue to perform for the average Chinese citizen the way that it has for the past decades.

Where do you see the principle tensions internally for the Chinese populace right now?

- So that's a great question, and I think one of the tensions is, Xi and the leadership have this vision of a national project where, you know, they have set goals of where they wanna take the country.

It is going to involve sacrifices.

And, you know, their generation went through a lot of sacrifices.

You know, they grew up poor, they lived through the Cultural Revolution, they lived through the beginning of reform and opening and all its successes and generation of prosperity.

But I think from the top down, they believe that there are necessary adjustments that need to be made in the entire economic structure of China and the social structure, and that, you know, people are just going to have to deal with it.

And what you see is that, unlike, say, here or in other developed economies, you know, the Chinese system is able to build up an entire sort of parallel system of security infrastructure where they're able to, I think, maintain the system while there is more economic pain and dislocation than you would see in other developing and developed economies.

- So when you look at the Jack Ma rehabilitation, I was surprised by that.

Doesn't happen very often.

Jack Ma, of course, the billionaire founder of Alibaba who suddenly disappeared when he fell out of favor.

It's hard to come back from that.

Is that because he's so important for the Chinese economy to become successful?

Or has he been sufficiently lobotomized that it shows the great strength of Xi?

- I think, you know, you got to remember Jack Ma's a Communist Party member.

He was effectively removed from Alibaba and sort of put into the, you know, sort of silence for some period of time.

He did whatever he needed to do to stay in good graces.

You know, he didn't do a tell-all book.

He didn't go on podcasts, he didn't complain about Xi.

I think the reappearance of Jack Ma in February at this symposium for private entrepreneurs, you know, it's an indication, though, I think of the overshooting in some of the policies, the realization that, yes, there are, you know, as we're doing this economic restructuring, we may have gone too far, for example, in cracking down on private entrepreneurs.

And so now the Party needs the private business people to, they need them to get things going again.

And so they're in another period of a very tight embrace, saying, "We love you again.

"You're our people.

"We're gonna be nice to you."

We've seen this in cycles before, and I think one of the challenges for the leadership and for the economy is that the savvy private business people, you know, they understand the history and they know that, you know, yes, this is a moment where there might be a lot of wealth created and they can do a lot for China.

But I don't think there's a lot of people who believe that the Communist Party has fundamentally, sort of changed its view of private business, which is they're there to be harnessed and managed and controlled, and we'll be nicer when we need them and then when we feel like we don't really need them, we'll be a little tougher, like we were, you know, several years ago.

But it certainly was a meaningful rehabilitation that I think was a very important and clear signal that we are entering into a phase of more support and more embrace of private businesses in China.

- Were you surprised by it?

- So yes, I was surprised that he appeared at that meeting.

He had started reappearing on social media and showing up back at Alibaba companies.

But the fact that he was-- - But this was with Xi Jinping.

He was right there.

- With Xi Jinping.

No, that was a very significant, a signal from the top of the leadership that they are in a new phase in terms of support for private enterprise, because they understand very much, too, when you look at the relationship with the US and the technological, the export controls, what they call the technological blockade, they understand that as much as they're pushing, you know, they restructure the entire science technologies bureaucracy in China, they're dumping massive amounts of money into research and development at the foundational level to break through the chip export controls, et cetera.

But they understand that they need these... You know, some of these people, like Jack Ma, they're not just the best entrepreneurs in China, they're some of the best entrepreneurs in the world.

They need these people to be supported and be on board to help them make these breakthroughs that they, the leadership, believes it needs to make.

- So, you know, when I think long-term, I mean, China as an economy is, you know, not as big as the United States.

China's only a middle-income economy.

It's not a high-income economy.

And yet if you look at the technologies that matter for the future of the planet, China's number one or number two in, like, so many of them, right?

And in many ways, they dominate over the United States.

I mean, do you think, if we look ahead 10 years, is this an environment where almost no matter what the US policies are, you see China as being just an increasingly dominant global position, or not at all, and why?

- So I think at this point, the trajectory would support the argument that they will be in an increasingly dominant position technologically in many areas.

When you look at where they are on things like renewable energy and related technologies, you know, a lot of that came from this Made in China 2025 plan that they put out 10 years ago, and they've actually hit most of their benchmarks.

It's a real success from an industrial, sort of, policy planning perspective.

You know, when you look out over the next 10 years, you know, they are continuing with their planning cycle and, you know, and they're dumping, investing much more money now into foundational science technology research.

You know, you look then, what are we doing here in D.C.?

We're, you know, two months or so into the, not even two months into the Trump administration, certainly looks like we're gutting a lot of the foundational science technology research.

We are, you know, potentially making America a much less attractive place for global talents.

And so, you know, back to your question, I think when you look at, if you're Xi Jinping or the people around him, and you look at the trends, you know, I think you would actually feel like, you know, we've got a big problem in chips and we're working really hard on that.

But in all these other areas, the forces are actually lining up fairly well in our favor.

- So, do you think...

I mean, you mentioned the new administration.

Of course, I was gonna get there.

You've got two rounds of 10% tariffs now on China, which certainly the Chinese don't welcome.

The bilateral relationship has clearly gotten worse, and yet so much of what the United States is doing right now, both economically as well as geopolitically, seems to be affording a lot more space for China to do what it wants.

Do you think that this is largely welcomed by the Chinese leadership right now?

Do you think they get that, or they'd just rather have more stability?

- I think it's too early to tell.

I think, though, that you have both challenges and opportunities.

The challenges are on the bilateral relationship and whether or not the US is able to sort of build a, kinda of a new sort of freeish trade block that excludes China and puts tariffs on Chinese-origin goods, not just coming to the US but Chinese-origin goods globally.

I think that would cause them a lot of problems.

But in terms of general geopolitics, you know, the first seven weeks or so of the Trump administration, I think from Beijing's perspective, Trump has just created more space and opportunity.

I mean, one of the big goals of the Chinese over the last several years has been to prise the US and the EU apart, maybe not have the EU become, sort of lean much more towards China, but at least lean away from the US.

And certainly Ukraine over the last couple weeks, I think, you know, you see some European leaders and EU leaders talking about how the US is also, you know, sort of, almost like an enemy.

- [Ian] An adversary, absolutely.

- So that is a huge win for Beijing.

- And, I mean, the US saying, you know, throwing the UN under the bus or leaving the Paris Climate Accord, the WHO, I mean, all these things, China is set up to be the most important actor if the Americans are not in the game.

- And they are taking advantage of that.

And they are, you know, the foreign minister, Wang, he gave a press conference over the weekend.

Among his messaging was really how, you know, China is a force for stability, China is a force for multilateralism, China is the protector of the global order.

And they've been saying this for a while, and, you know, you can poke holes and argue with each of those points.

But the actions of the Trump Administration so far, I think to many countries around the world, you know, people say, "Hey, you know what, "Wang Yi sounds like he's making sense."

- Now, I mean, the Chinese, of course, for the Global South, and there's been a lot of challenges with their strategy.

Do you think, I mean, if you look at the Global South today, on balance, do you think the Chinese or the United States are succeeding to a greater degree in alignment and in economic outcomes?

- So I think in alignment, the Chinese are succeeding more than the US.

I mean, I think you can see that from the reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the various votes, say, at the UN, where, in reality, most of the world didn't side with the US in some of the UN resolutions.

I think also when you look at things, like the gutting of USAID, and I think Marco Rubio today tweeted that they're shutting 83% of the programs-- - [Ian] Well over, yes, indeed.

- You know, those were, some of those were incredibly effective, important parts of American soft power in the Global South.

And, you know, whether or not the Chinese step in to replace them all, and I don't think they will, I don't think they want to, and they may not have the capacity, in a lot of countries, I think it'll just be seen as the US retreating and the US... And so, again, it's not a sort of, "Oh, the US did this and so China wins," but it's more of a, "We are," we being the US, "are continuing to create more space "for the Chinese side to make progress "if they're smart and skillful."

You know, the US government, I think it will be seen as retreating from lots of places in the new administration especially.

- What's the one thing that Xi Jinping in this environment should be doing that matters that he isn't?

If you were advising him, what would you say?

- I would say on the foreign policy side, this is a moment where he potentially could step up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna be the peacemaker in Ukraine," and really push Putin to come to the table and do it in a way that would improve the PRC's relationship with Europe and with the EU at a moment when, you know, like we discussed earlier, the EU is really looking, wondering, you know, "Can we rely on the US anymore?"

And it would be remarkably ironic given all the Chinese support for Russia over the last several years, but it would be, the Chinese would be able to turn that into, I think, a massive... You know, it'd be great to have the war end, but it would also be a massive win globally, and especially in the Global South, for the Chinese to step in and say, "Hey look, we ultimately..." You know, the US... Their line has always been, "The US is fanning the flames, giving weapons, "they're the cause of the war."

Xi Jinping can step in and say, "Okay, I'm gonna be the peacemaker.

"We're gonna host the peace summit somewhere in China "and have this war end."

And I think that, you know, the Chinese, they're smart.

And we are in such a fluid moment with Ukraine, I would not be surprised if we see a renewed effort on the Chinese side to try and pull something like that off in the next bit of time.

- It's interesting, because, of course, Trump sort of called for it a couple times, both in a post as well as in a speech, and Xi didn't pick it up.

And then the Saudis, of course, called Trump directly and said, "Ah, you don't need the Chinese, "so I can do this for you."

And they've actually inserted themselves, so interesting point, Bill.

- Well, and that's an interesting point, too.

When, you know, I've made these points, I've said "if", because one of the things that has helped, sort of, the US position relative to China over the years is that the Chinese haven't always done what would look like to be, actually, the smart and skillful thing.

- Bill Bishop, thanks so much for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

(gentle music) - Speaking of China and global power struggle, sometimes the best way to make sense of what world leaders really wanna see is to see them as puppets, literally.

It's time for "Puppet Regime."

- Well, if you want a trade war, we'll raise tariffs even higher, Mr. President.

- You leave me no choice, President Xi.

I am deploying to China the most destructive and annoying weapon in the history of our beautiful country.

Fire up Air Force Three, boys.

It's time.

(airplane whirs) - Prepare to be DOGE'd.

(chainsaw whirs) (upbeat music) Um, so, what are, like, five useful things you did last week?

- Well, first of all, I was alive last week.

- (chuckles) Alive.

That's actually a lot better than most of our federal workers.

- And I renewed the ban on Winnie-the-Pooh.

- (chuckles) It's like, what gender even is that bear?

- And I cracked down on fentanyl exports.

- Okay, so just don't touch the ketamine.

- And I ran a hideously bloated communist bureaucracy.

- So that's something we probably gotta cut.

- No, we don't.

- Yes, you do.

- No, we don't.

- Yes, you do.

- No, we don't.

(Elon puppet whistles) - What the hell was that?

(Elon puppet whistles) Fine, then we'll also cut the Tesla factory in Shanghai.

- Okay, so on second thought, I really like communist bureaucracies.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you yourself are a great power who can go toe to toe with Xi Jinping and the United States, hey, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Narrator 1] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Narrator 1] And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO."

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... (bright music) (cheerful music)