Xi Jinping's Red Lines, More Violent Killings in China, and Escalation in Ukraine
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Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute's China Center. I am Miles 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. Hello, welcome to the China Insider. I am Miles Yu. Today we have a very unique situation. My longtime co-host, Philip,

has a family situation, and he is not available for today's podcast. So for the first time in the history of this podcast, I'm going solo. Hopefully, it will work out okay. So as usual, we have three topics for this week. First, we're going to discuss the new four red lines Secretary General Xi Jinping gave to President Biden in Lima, Peru over the weekend.

Secondly, we're going to talk about the sudden surge of violent crimes in China. And thirdly, if we have time, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the new situation in the war in Ukraine. During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, also known as APEC Summit in Lima, Peru, the Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined four red lines to the lame-dark U.S. President Joe Biden.

emphasizing areas where China expects no interference or challenge. Those four red lines as outlined by Xi Jinping to Biden are Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China's political system, and China's development rights. Let me just talk about the last three first because they're relatively easy.

That is democracy and human rights, China's political system, and China's development rights. I think Xi Jinping brought up these three red lines as an indication that the CCP is living in paranoia and insecurity. Because all these three areas are related to the CCP's utmost fear of people's uprising.

In other words, the people inside China, they were fed up with the CCP regime that they want to make a change. And the regime now takes away all basic rights of the people and treats the Chinese people like animals and prisoners without any political rights to decide the shape, form, and leaders of the government, central, provincial, and local. So the CCP is kind of aware of this

fact that the people inside China wants to change the regime but would not want the United States to provide any inspirational assistance or a helping hand to the repressed people inside the dictatorship and it would just allow the fully armed CCP regime to repress the freedom and hope of the Chinese people.

and even massacre if necessary. Just like the regime did 35 years ago in Tiananmen Square, four years ago in Hong Kong, and virtually every day in all big and small matters in all parts of Chinese life. And this is the ultimate fear of the CCP and the only reason Xi Jinping wants Biden to "no". But I must say this is futile because

Those areas were precisely CCP's Achilles' heels. The U.S. does not have to have a regime change plan, but it will force the CCP to stop repressing its people, massacring its people, and putting millions of its citizens in camps and prisons, subjecting one-fifth of the humanity of the world to the most draconian surveillance and censorship systems. So I know this is true because

As many of the listeners know that I served during the Trump's first term and I know from my experience, I can tell you this, the most vitriol reaction toward any U.S. government official was when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on October 30th, 2019, in a speech uttered the ultimate truth, and that is the CCP does not represent the Chinese people.

the government of China would absolutely bananas over this statement. So this is why these areas are very sensitive issue for the Chinese government.

Now, about the development rights, that's a code word for the CCP to continue with the biggest scam of the millennium. That is, the modern world of free trade and free enterprise embraces the biggest planned economy and non-market economy of the world. And allow that non-market model of economic development to replace the global free trade and free enterprise.

market system and this is basically what China wants to do that China will continue its predatory economic policy and it's unfair trade practice and It's all kinds of a violation of a free market principles So those are the three of the four red lines Let me go back to the top of the four red lines that Xi Jinping give to Biden which is a familiar one That is Taiwan

Now, Taiwan, as Xi told President Biden, is a core interest for China, and any support for Taiwan's independence is a direct challenge to China's sovereignty, Xi Jinping said. This frequently dramatized solemnity about the CCP's obsession with Taiwan is completely disingenuous in my opinion.

The Taiwan issue has very little, if anything, to do with maintaining China's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Under the CCP rule, as I've written somewhere else,

the Chinese government has voluntarily ceded what is considered the motherland's sacred territories dozens of times bigger than Taiwan to ideologically aligned and friendly dictator regimes such as the former Soviet Union and former communist Mongolia, North Korea, and military junta in Burma.

In addition, there is no such thing called an independent movement in Taiwan where numerous Taiwanese governments, freely and democratically elected, have repeatedly stated that there is no need for Taiwan to declare independence because Taiwan is already an independent country. Its name is Republic of China in Taiwan. As late as May, the newly elected president of Taiwan,

President William Lai has repeated this statement. So China basically used this so-called independence movement as a red herring, as a phony justification for its use of force to conquer Taiwan. In my view, the real source of the CCP's obsession with taking over Taiwan is to fulfill its communist ideological commitment to ending the communist revolution of 1949.

The CCP, like all communists in the world, has a liberation ideology. Its armed forces, for example, is called the People's Liberation Army. The CCP leadership, from Mao to Xi, has always considered the communist revolution unfinished without subjugating Taiwan.

Its decades-long inability to subsume Taiwan has caused serious doubts the CCP fears about the CCP's claim of omnipotence and invincibility within this captive nation. So to take Taiwan, therefore, is to its core a logical corollary to the CCP's communist DNA of aggression and conquest, exactly the same force

animating the Soviet Union's aggression after World War II, as George Kennan so eloquently stated decades ago. But this added urgency in recent years in Xi Jinping's message to Biden about Taiwan is caused by the CCP's waning persuasiveness in invading Taiwan because few major countries in the world today purely look at the Taiwan issue from the point of view of whether Taiwan should be part of China

or not, but rather from the point of view of tyranny and dictatorship versus freedom and democracy. Taiwan's remarkable transformation into the beacon of freedom, paragon of free enterprise, a model of democracy and global citizenship, has gained tremendous support by a growing number of nations all over the world.

This great triumph of freedom and free enterprise in the Chinese-speaking community in Taiwan has also deeply impacted and inspired the mainland Chinese-speaking population, aspiring to be free from the CCP's draconian rule and bankrupt ideology. All of this has spooked the CCP autocrats, now eager to settle the Taiwan issue once and for all. But

This should never be allowed, not just because the Americans' reputation is at stake, or Taiwanese people's safety and prosperity at stake. But more importantly, Taiwan is China's true desert land.

the beginning of a long chain of aggression to be perpetrated by the CCP that has territorial ambitions over a huge swath of land and maritime domains claimed by most of its neighbors, including Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, and the Philippines. And the list is growing. So finally, the stake is even higher than this.

China's ambition for Taiwan is part of the growing global alliance of aggression and violence based upon complete denial of the neighbor's sovereign rights to exist and to prosper. Russia's war in Ukraine, Iran and Hamas' war on Israel, North Korea's vowed conquest of South Korea, and now

China's attempt to take over Taiwan militarily are all based upon one central logic of aggression, that is, total disregard of the right of its neighbors to exist as sovereign nations of Ukraine, Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan. If this logic of aggression shall prevail, the world order as we know it will perish with unimaginable carnage and disorder.

So all things considered, Xi Jinping's four red lines about Taiwan as told to Biden is not only a phony issue, but also a dangerous and contentious provocation against peace, humanity, freedom, and prosperity. It must be defeated with alacrity. And I also believe that

This is not a message for Biden, who is a lame duck president, as I said earlier, because these four red lines are for the incoming new president, Donald Trump, who has had four years of trying to be cordial with Xi Jinping. But now, President-elect Trump has assembled a national security team that understands the nature and the playbook of the CCP better.

This team includes nominees for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and its National Security Advisor, Representative Mike Walz, who won't need Senate confirmation, by the way. And so all I'm saying is that America is ready, red lines or not. We shall prevail. The second issue I'd like to discuss is the surge of the violent crimes in recent China.

Now, in the last several weeks, we have seen some of the horrific, meaningless and senseless killings of the extreme violence. First of all, on November 16, just a few days ago, there was a stabbing at the Wuxi Vocational College in Jiangsu Province. A 21-year-old former student attacked individuals at the Wuxi Vocational College of Arts and Technology.

and resulting in 8 deaths and 17 injuries. The assailant was reportedly frustrated over academic failures and dissatisfaction with the internship compensation. And then, I think the world must have known by now, on November 11th, a 62-year-old man drove an SUV into a crowd at a sports stadium in Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

killing 35 people and injuring 43 others. The suspect identified as Mr. Fan was reportedly upset over divorce settlement. And then if you go back a little bit further, we have a lot of minor killings and suicidal homicide in virtually every province in China across the nation.

Just like a couple days ago, on November 19, 2024, a small white SUV struck numerous children and several adults at a gate in Yong'an Elementary School in Changde, Hunan Province, injuring multiple individuals, and the cause of the incident remained under investigation. And then you go back a little bit, there was a stabbing incident in October 2024, a man attacked shoppers

In a Shanghai supermarket, three people were killed, 15 injured. The motivation behind the attack is still under investigation. And of course, in Jinan province, in Sichuan province, in Shandong province, you have a lot of knife attacks. So many people were killed. And this is a problem for the regime because there are so many people who are disillusioned.

They didn't find meaning in their life. On top of that, you have this tremendous unemployment people, population. In Guangdong province, actually, for the first time, we see some real statistics. Over 30% of people reported as unemployed. 30%. That's huge. So you have this kind of great social tension and it has something to do with the economic downturn. But also, most importantly, I think there is a

amount of resentment against the way the CCP handle the governance of the nation. Corruption is very, very rampant. I think a lot of people actually have no other resource to feel better and fair treated. So that's why they resort to violent crimes. This is a very big problem. And I think, you know, China is a country, uh,

of a high pressure and that high pressure might actually be exploding at some point at any moment. So finally, I'd like to talk about a little bit about the war in Ukraine. Now, in the last 48 hours, we have seen some dramatic developments. First and foremost, in order to create a pattern to their favor, and I think both Russia and Ukraine

has increased intensify their military operations in various ways for Ukrainians President Biden

has authorized the Ukrainian Armed Forces to use United States supply long-range missiles to attack the interior of Russia. And this is huge. Vladimir Putin said this means that NATO countries are now in open war with Russia. So this is some kind of a very serious warning and we'll all be watchful over the development.

Secondly, Vladimir Putin has formed a global alliance of some sort. North Korea reportedly had about 10,000 to 12,000 commando-style operators in Ukraine for Russia. And now, over the weekend, we are told that the number could dramatically increase to about 100,000 North Korean commandos to be used by Russia in a war against Ukraine. Now,

North Korea has the world's largest special operations force, numbering as high as 200,000. Those are well-trained, well-fed fanatics. So we should not take this new development very lightly. I think there will be a lot of changes about the war in Ukraine because the incoming president

President-elect Donald Trump has a vow he's going to end the war the moment he enters the White House. So I think each side is trying to gain battlefield advantage before January 20th when the inauguration takes place. So those are the three reports I have for you this week, and I look forward to sharing more thoughts with you 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 words. For Chinese listeners, please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time.