China and Taiwan's Rival National Days, CCP Feigns Peace Offering to Taiwan, and China's Goals in Middle East
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Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute's China Center. I'm Myles Yu, Senior Fellow and Director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat, and their implications to the U.S. and beyond. It's Tuesday, October 8th. I'm Phil Hegseth alongside Hudson Institute's Myles Yu.

Today, we start with two national holidays: October 1st and October 10th. The first being China's National Day, marking 75 years of CCP rule over mainland China, and the 10th serving as Taiwan's National Day. For two countries so geographically close and so historically tied, to share national days so close and historically tied creates an obvious political rivalry. Miles lays out for us how this national day rivalry manifests itself in the region.

Second, we stay with Taiwan and analyze President Lai's recent refusal of a quote-unquote peace agreement with China, deciding instead to publicly push a desire for peace through strength and self-defense. And last, with the one-year anniversary of the October 7th terror attacks in Israel, Miles reflects on China's role and goals in the Middle East. All right, Miles, we are here. How are you?

Very good, Phil. Class to be here with you again. For everybody's context, we had some technical difficulties this morning, and then we realized it stemmed from equipment made in China. And so that was our explanation for the late start. But we're ready to go now. So thanks for getting through that, Miles. We start today with China and Taiwan's rival national day. So China's is on...

October 1st, Taiwan's is on October 10th. They are right next to each other on the calendar. This has got to cause some frustration and maybe some political rivalry there.

Miles, can you give us the context for these holidays, what they mean, how they celebrate them? But let's just start with kind of the historical context and why they're important. Somebody should read a book about the politics and history of the National Day rivalry between China and Taiwan. Both countries call it the Guoqing, which means National Celebration Day. As you say, October 1st is for mainland China and October 10th for Taiwan, commonly known as Double Ten.

For decades, since 1949, this kind of rivalry of celebration is about one thing. That is, who has the legitimacy to represent what we call China? Of course, that's changed quite a bit because since 1970s,

Mainland China was given the international recognition of representing China, but then comes to the question of Taiwan. So Taiwan's official name is Republic of China in Taiwan. It still has China in its name. So celebration of

of the national days in both countries now carry very different meaning. So that's what it's all about. What meanings do those days carry in each place? So we can start with mainland China and the CCP. What does it mean for them, the national day, this year marking 75 years?

Sorry, Mainland China October 1st is basically the normally is the main occasion for the Chinese Communist Party to show off the invincibility of the party and the power of the party. Usually it is accompanied with a huge military parade.

long period of holiday. And essentially what it is, is for China, the National Day is an orgy of communist triumphalism. It's a vainglorious display of arms, nukes, and ICBMs to legitimize the regime. Very much like what's going on in North Korea and all other communist regimes. So this is basically what the National Day means for

mainland China. For Taiwan, basically right now since 1970, it's a main occasion for pronouncement of a main national policy by the Taiwanese government. The reason is simple, that normally, particularly during the presidential election year, like this year for example, in January you had a presidential election, you got a new president, and however, the inauguration would not take place until

almost like four months later, more than four months later, on May 20th, usually. So, and May 20th, of course, is a time for the newly elected president to pronounce the new policies, but then they don't normally do that as much. So the main policy announcement

would take place on Double Ten, on the Taiwanese National Day. So that's why everybody is looking forward to the National Day celebration and how the newly elected president would basically describe his priorities of policy. This year is slightly different because the Taiwanese government right now is relatively low-key. President Lai, however, did show up

at a indoor rally to celebrate the National Day. He made a brief spontaneous remark, but it was explosive as actually very funny because he said, "Hey, listen, the Republic of China in Taiwan was born 113 years ago. PRC was born only 75 years ago. So we're older. So there's no way for people in Taiwan to call mainland China

which was born several decades later as a motherland, so because he's younger. So that remark really caused a firestorm, and China has no way to respond to that, because logical is commonsensical. But there's no major policy pronouncement, and he already made his policy very, very clear.

Gotcha. And on the other side of it, what did Xi Jinping come out and say, especially on this day, in regard to Taiwan as well? Give us some insight there. This year, there's no major parade because China is in kind of a difficult situation, almost the moment of crisis because of economic crisis.

downturn and it's a political instability. Xi Jinping is a perjurer in chief. He got rid of so many of his enemies. So he's really living in paranoia of some sort. Normally, you celebrate big time on the fifth or the tenth anniversary of something. That's why every time in China, say 1954,

1959, right? Those are 10th and 5th anniversaries, the big video. 1959 was very interesting because you got Khrushchev, you got Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung, all those communist dictators and comrades show up in Beijing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of PRC. Now, during the Cultural Revolution that lasted from 1966 to 1976, and the celebration of National Day, it was absolutely sort of a...

Crazy, it was an orgy of the extreme and so it is a showcase of Mao's power to reach the zenith of madness. This year's celebration, however, is slightly different because it has a very strong economic tone to it. China's non-market economy had a major problem of consumer confidence. So people basically do not want to spend money.

So the party, in order to solve this problem, in the last 25 years, have come up with the idea of prolonging the national holiday, the national holiday, from one day in the past to essentially seven days. Officially, it's three to four official holidays, but then coupled with the weekend. So you got seven days. Since 1999, it's called the Golden Week.

The main purpose to promote domestic consumption and by way of domestic tourism. I mean, government brought all these promotional deals and urged people to go out to spend money. And the money people spend is literally staggering. Let me just share some statistics with you. In 1999, the year this new golden week, seven-day prolonged holiday started,

Domestic travelers in China was about 28 million. In 2007, eight years later, it's 120 million. Jeez. 2015, it was 526 million travelers that year. So the most interesting thing is it reached the peak in 2017. The domestic travelers during this week reached 705 million.

It dropped a little bit next year, but it's still really, really high. It's second highest. In 2020, domestic travelers during this golden week in October reached 637 million. Now, this is very interesting. This is also very shocking because, as you recall, 2020 is at the peak of COVID. Right, right. Nationwide, you had a pandemic going on.

Yet the government promoted tourism. You had 637 million travelers all across the country generating about $68.6 billion in the middle of COVID. Chinese government, by the way, had never published the death toll of COVID inside China. So based upon these statistics, you might imagine that the death toll

during that year must be staggering because there's so many people going around carrying viruses from one human being to another. Now, there's also another issue. If you have so many people going out travel and go to the tourist sites, you got really a miracle of stupidity in China. That is during this week, every public park, every tourist park is grossly over capacity.

You go to Great Wall of China, which is all-time favorite. You have people. You couldn't barely move. So Great Wall of China literally become a great human sardine walk. So that really created several sort of unintended consequences. That is, people who are relatively well-off, they just don't go there and join the great human sardine wave. So they go abroad. So top tourist destination is

during this Golden Week, normally it's Japan, South Korea and Thailand. And of course the shopkeepers in those countries were really, really welcoming these Chinese tourists. On the other hand, the Chinese tourists basically were the mobs. They just ransacked the shelves and created some kind of cultural shock of some sort to those various countries.

You know, it wasn't as grandiose as maybe we would have thought, but Xi did come out and make some remarks. And so what did he speak about most? Could you give us some insight into that? Okay, so he had this huge banquet in the Great Hall of the People. We usually call it the G-Hop. So in the Great Hall of the People, his main event,

focus is to sort of covet the loyalty of the retired senior CCP leaders.

Because those retired CCP leaders could be a major focus of challenge to his rule. These guys have a lot of subordinates. They're old people. So if you want to register your displeasure with Xi Jinping, and you go to those guys of prominence who served in the government before. So that's why he got all those people he liked.

to show up and parade them one by one. On the other hand, you look at these guys, every one of them has a long face. No one shows any sign of smile. They look very serious, probably scared, if not disdain. And of course, what's interesting is that there are many people who were sort of marginalized by him, who have not been yet purged.

didn't show up, like a former prime minister and then former ministerial officials. And so, I mean, none of them showed up. One of the most interesting absence, which is kind of conspicuous, is the guy who dealt with the United States the most. That is a premier, a vice premier of China, Liu He, who was the chief negotiator with the American government on trade.

His rumor to be purged. So just honing in on Xi's specific remarks, he came out during his speech and according to VOA News in reference to China's desire for reunification with Taiwan. And he said it is an irreversible trend, a matter of justice.

And it is in accordance with the popular will. No one can stop the march of history. How seriously should we take these statements, Miles? Is this more of the same? Is this new or is he blowing smoke? It's basically hot air gobbledygook. I mean, he's been saying this all along. Every single speech, he must say this kind of stuff. On the other hand, people in Taiwan don't take it seriously because the wolf cry has been going on for a long time.

Yeah. Well, and that leads perfectly into our second topic, which is Taiwanese President Lai's rejection of the idea of signing a peace agreement with China. And that's, give us the full picture here, Myles, of what this peace agreement was and what President Lai had to say about it. Well, President Lai basically said, this is a no-brainer. No.

No soup for you because clearly this is China's peace offensive aimed to influence American election.

Because how so well both campaigns to say, you know, we're gonna create a world peace. We're gonna solve this Problem, and we're gonna force all sides to sit down and talk peace right run a protein and the lens you talk peace China and Taiwan you sit down talk peace. So China saw this opportunity and Launches a peace offensive through its praxis and also lobbyist they try to influence the

American campaigns both side particularly on the GOP side. This is why They want to tell the Americans. Hey, listen, we want the peace is Taiwan that is anti-peace So they cast PRC as a pro-peace Taiwan as anti-peace so because PRC has noticed

the campaign's pledge to settle Taiwan crisis. This is basically an interesting phenomenon because it created a no-win situation for President Lai in Taiwan. If he signed the peace deal, PRC will insist on one China policy, one China principle rather, and they insisted on Taiwan as part of China, which definitely would subjugate Taiwan as part of China, and that basically means surrender and annexation. So it's unacceptable.

If rejecting it, PRC will say, "Ah, you see, it's Taiwan, that's his peace." So that's why President Lai rejected China's peace offer because it was not really a peace offer of genuine intention to solve the issue peacefully. Also, it's because of history. Peace agreements the Chinese government has signed is basically nothing but a sham. China has signed peace agreement with the Tibetans.

They have signed the peace agreement with the British on Hong Kong, solemnly signed it and registered at the UN as an international treaty. They have signed a peace agreement with Vietnam. They have signed a peace agreement with the Soviets. They have signed an agreement of security guarantee with Ukraine.

None of them has been fulfilled by the PRC. So I'm gonna make a major statement here. That is PRC has never honored its international agreements with anybody. You can't find a case that is outside of this pattern, as a matter of fact. For the United States,

To pressure Taiwan to sign a peace agreement with China is also a very clever strategy that would force the United States to abandon its solemn pledge for several decades.

The U.S.-China, U.S.-Taiwan relationship are guided by a couple of very fundamental documents. Two of them, actually one is the Taiwan Relations Act. Another one is the so-called Six Assurances, which was established since the Reagan administration. Now, the Six Assurances is very important. If China pressure Taiwan to sign peace agreements through the United States government,

That would violate at least two of the six assurances, which is foundational in U.S.-Taiwan relationship and U.S.-China relationship. The six assurances. Number three, it says, I quote, U.S. will not play mediation role between Taipei and Beijing, unquote. Oh, interesting. And number six, which is very important, of the six assurances is,

I quote, "U.S. will not exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with the PRC." End of quote. This is a very, very pernicious tactic to force the United States to break a long pledge. If U.S. government press Taiwan to sign a peace agreement, that would fundamentally shatter

allies' confidence in the United States leadership globally. So what should the US do? Hypothetically, you have a direct line to either party, either candidate campaign. What is your message for how the US acts and exerts itself in this kind of situation? The Chinese government is notorious for deploying its proxies, its lobbyists, to influence American government policies. And this is even worse because this election season,

This is blatant election interference by a regime that is hostile to the United States. So the most important thing we have to do is the U.S. should absolutely cleanse of PRC's election interference by rooting out any channels of PRC communications with both campaigns. That is a must do. How about the larger issue? China is poised to invade Taiwan any given moment.

Sign a peace deal with that country means that you capitulate. No more, no less. You drop your guard, right? Now you have a reason to drop your guard. China is saying, you know what? Peace or not, we're going to invade you.

We're going to conquer you. That's it. Finally, our last topic today. Yesterday was October 7th. It was the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas. We've covered this kind of before, but just in reflection, what is China's strategy in the Middle East? They have involved themselves in this conflict. But just taking a minute on the anniversary to step back and say, what is China's role and goals in this region right now?

Well, let's just talk about the tragedy event that occurred a year ago, yesterday. China has never condemned Hamas for its crime against Israelis and peaceful, innocent Israelis. And also many Americans, too, who lost their lives in that tragic event.

Whenever Israelis launch a counter-strike against a terrorist, Hamas, China then jump in and say, "Oh, you know what? We're against all forms of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism," meaning that Israeli's counter-strike is considered a terrorist act. So China's always, always doing this kind of thing.

China, yes, is not necessarily anti-Israel. China is anti-U.S. because the Middle Eastern policy of China has one purpose. That is to use Middle Eastern chaos to completely discredit American leadership role, American's role as a global leader.

So that's what they do. That's why they jump in to broker a rapprochement between Hamas and the Palestinian authorities under Abbas because China wants to replace the United States as the most influential, most consequential leader in the region.

So the whole aim at the discredit, you know, I say is to kick the US influence out of that area. Right to your point there. How are you going to influence the region if the only reapproachment that you're talking about is just on the Palestinian side? I mean, Israel wasn't at the table. They're not hosting Israel for these things. So how do they view Israel in their region as a player as well? They view Israel as a potential partner in economic development.

trade, and particularly technological transfer. So they're working really hard on Israelis because Israelis play a leading role in some of these fronts. On the other hand, they view Israel as a staunch ally of the West. So from that point of view, they want Israel to be subjugated. They want Israel to be subjugated

entangled in this constant non-stop crisis. So if the Middle East is in chaos, it's China's disadvantage because that would be a major distraction for the United States, which has shifted its focus on China in the Indo-Pacific region. So that's basically China's grand strategy. Now,

Operationally, you cannot say China is not really involved at all because even though China has never openly admitted, but Israeli IDF soldiers did find large caches of Chinese-made weapons in the Hamas holdouts in Gaza and elsewhere. So you did have this Chinese causal relationship with the leadership of the Hamas.

And most importantly, China did and has been bankrolling Iran and Iran's war machine with a $400 billion infusion of Chinese money. That was a deal signed in the spring of 2020.

So Iran is the ultimate culprit of the Middle Eastern chaos. So China is behind that. So from this point of view, I don't know China's just using rhetoric to discredit the United States' influence in the Middle East. China actually is heavily involved operationally.

Would you say Iran is their biggest partner in the Middle East, or is that among a smaller list? Oh, definitely. China is backing Iran 100%. I mean, China was dying to sign a strategic partnership, a huge deal with Iran. But that sort of a pipe dream was disrupted during the Trump administration because we get rid of the JCPOA and prevent China from doing business openly

with the Iranian regime. So they did covertly and we caught them with the Huawei case. That's why the chief financial officer of Huawei, Ms. Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada. She was supposed to be indicted to the United States, which caused a lot of friction between the U.S. and China because Huawei was doing secret covert business with the Iranian regime in violation of U.S. sanction policies. But then,

When Biden was elected six weeks after President Biden came to the White House,

And JCPOA was gone. And then China signed this $400 billion deal with the Iranian regime. That's $400 billion. That's a lot of money. So with which the Iranians could do a lot of damage to peace and stability, not just in the Middle East, but maybe globally. Yeah. I don't think a lot of that money is making it to Iranian civilians. I think it's fueling things like

Hezbollah, Hamas, its proxies in the region. Yes, that's a such a- Which means that China is indirectly, it could be argued, responsible for some of the chaos in the region and giving it financial viability. Phil, you just made such a brilliant point. That is the distinction between Iranian regime and Iranian people. The leader-

that is very very keen on this, making this point, was Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. On the anniversary of the October 7th atrocities against Israelis, Prime Minister Netanyahu made this amazingly powerful video

just for the Iranian people, telling them that your government has betrayed you, your government has put you in danger, your government has no interest in you except its own regime's longevity. And that powerful talk actually is something that the United States government leaders should do to the people of China. Oh, that's an interesting point. Yeah.

Because the Chinese regime and Chinese people are completely different things. And I think more and more people in China understand that. Look at the wars China is crying to fight. I mean, they don't care how many millions, hundreds of millions of Chinese people's lives might be lost. And they just want to prolong its own regime at the expense of Chinese people's well-being.

Well said. And I'll close with one last question. So we're on the anniversary. This conflict doesn't seem like it's slowing down. I mean, if anything, Israel's opened a second front with Lebanon or in Lebanon with Hezbollah. How do you see China's influence going forward in the Middle East? Do you see it continuing to ramp up involvement, continuing to fuel financially chaos? What do you see their ambitions becoming?

going forward? Oh, China definitely is going to continue its policy and bankrolling all those disruptive forces to break the militant peace and stability. It's in China's national interest, as I said before. On the other hand, Israelis are surrounded by enemies who want to destroy Israel. So Israel right now, as we speak today, is fighting

for its own survival on seven fronts. So the world should stand by Israelis and give them support. Otherwise,

Israel as a nation might have a problem to even exist and the right to exist is precisely what Israelis want to do and once the neighbors recognize more and more people more and more countries surrounding Israel used to be really hostile to Israel refused to recognize Israel's right to resist but because of the Abraham's Accords brokered by the Trump administration continue on by the Biden administration and more and more significant countries in the Middle East recognize

acknowledged Israel's right to exist. That's a very historical new beginning. Good note to end on. Thank you, Miles, as always, for your insight and your time. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. I look forward to being with you again next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of China Insider. I'd also like to thank our executive producer, Philip Hexeth.

who works tirelessly and professionally behind the scenes for every episode to make sure we deliver the best quality podcast to you, the listeners. If you enjoy the show, please spread the word. For Chinese listeners, please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time.