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Jeffrey Wasserstrom

lines on the record: 203
first: 2025-04-24
most recent: 2025-04-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So maybe this is another case where the Chinese Communist Party, leaders in the Chinese Communist Party, they do know about history and they care about history. And one history they know is the Chinese Communist Party was almost destroyed in 1927. I mean, it was, if you were taking odds on what are the chances that this ragtag sort of group that's being pursued by Shanghai-Shek to try to determine Over time, they somehow managed to ride it out and eventually come to power. There's an awareness of the ways in which the seemingly impossible can happen. It doesn't mean it will. I mean, this is why I think, and one of the really kind of tragic or heart-rending things is you can have situations in which Movements that seem to be pursuing an impossible end result, they achieve that result.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Taiwan was a right wing dictatorship under sort of a version of martial law for decades. And at each stage, it would seem that people struggling to change it were on a quixotic, impossible kind of mission or South Korea was in a similar situation. And then in the late 1980s, you start to have those things unravel. And it's partly because of a kind of Steady resistance is partly because something in the world changes, but there's often a combination of those things. So I'm interested in that whole, we know that what happened in Hong Kong in the short run didn't work. And I don't see a way in which the national security law is reversed or anything like that. Don't mean that. Completely impossible effort, even though we know the result in that case was. Have this failure”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And she's talking about taking a longer view of some struggles that seem, that achieve things after the point when people might have imagined that they had run into dead ends. And she's talking about keeping your eye on the gains that happen even incrementally and the ways in which the need to take a longer-term perspective on some of these things. And I think. It's a strange thing because there's also often an impatience in movements of people wanting kind of immediate results. But as a historian looking at situations, I've mentioned sort of Eastern Europe and Central Europe.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it doesn't mean that it will work. It doesn't mean that it will work. But I think history has enough examples of things that you thought, I mean, this is, you know, it explains why certain figures are so inspirational for generations of activists that, you know, people read, there's a reason why people talk about Vaklav Havel. Whereas if Vaklov Havel had died in 1988, People would have said, oh, maybe he was, maybe he was a great writer. But his political project, he didn't live to see come. But then he lives to 89 and becomes against all expectations. So Rebecca Solniff, she's got a new book, No Straight Road Takes You There, Essays for Uneven Terrain.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can seem irrational to try to do something after the last three times people have tried to do it have failed. But then occasionally history shows that the third time or the fifth time or the 20th time actually does succeed. There's enough countervailing. In Eastern Europe, you would say like in 1956 there was a rising. It was crushed. In 68 there were risings crushed Poland 1981 martial law imposed. In 1989, what were East German protesters thinking when they poured out onto the streets? And then it happened. But this time it wasn't. So I think there's a way in which Social movements are fundamentally unpredictable. And there are just times when against all seeming odds, something that seemed like it would be there forever just no longer is.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The 1989 ones. In Hong Kong, there were the 2012 and 2014 ones that laid the groundwork for 2019. Some of the times it was the same activists out on the streets again. But sometimes it was a younger generation who said, yeah, okay, but that failed. So what can we do differently? And we see this in cases in the US and we see it around the world of this kind of the percolating of things that happen sometimes in conversations that continue, that happen. And sometimes, you know, Failures can seem like dead ends, but over a long period of time, we see them as succeeding.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So protests, one of the things that Some of the most impressive books I've been reading about other places have been emphasizing is that protests are often preceded by other protests that may seem like dead ends but actually provide people with the kind of skills and scripts and repertoires to then carry out things on a larger scale after that. So you often get captivated by a moment that seems to come out of nowhere, but it often doesn't. It's been, the ground has been laid by, it can be by an earlier generation that passes on the stories about it, or it can be just a few years before. And sometimes a new generation will say, look at what they did. That was exciting, but we want to put our mark on things by a generation. So in there were these 1986 protests that sort of fizzled out that helped lay the groundwork.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some type had the reputation, misunderstood reputation as being one that where people didn't care that much about politics. They just focused on living a good life. But there was a sense that they wouldn't have that possibility if you had a police. And the police used to be really highly respected in Hong Kong, but it lost that.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the protesters did do some of those things, but they tended to attack. Violence was often against property. And when there were occasionally violence against people, people within the movement would apologize or try to distance themselves from that. Meanwhile, the government was never apologizing or distancing itself from the police. And that created a dynamic where you had these enormous numbers of people who were previously on the fence about things turning up for these protests and leading to them being giant. Even people, and this was a city that”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If people feel that the sort of protesters have the moral high ground in one way or another, and what tipped it that way in Hong Kong, I think, was really that the police were using really strong arm methods and the government was never apologizing or never saying we need to investigate that. And I think what really kept the protest going was they became a referendum on the right to protest itself. And what I think the government hoped and what Beijing certainly hoped was that some of the protesters would start doing militant actions, violent actions that would alienate the populace from the protests.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just enormous. I mean, yeah, there were some very daring protests around that period, the Hong Kong ones. And the year after that, there were protests in other places, but protests in Belarus, where, again, there was a very taking big risks. And people, but if people have a feeling that it's a kind of last moment. So, yeah, these were giant. And the protests kept growing. And I think they kept growing in part, and this happens why protests grow. It's always hard to figure out. But in the case of Tiana Mena, in the case of Hong Kong 2019,”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, because what I'm the reason why I kind of make that claim because there were a million to two million people in the biggest protests. And this is a 7.5 million people. So if you think about what that means, it's”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I mentioned the Hong Kong booksellers who were spirited over the border, and one of them was still in prison for having published things in Hong Kong that it was supposed to be okay to publish in Hong Kong, but not on the mainland. And yet they ended up being choice. So yeah, there was a clear sense that if They didn't protest, then would they be able to protest later?”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This idea that okay we've really got to take a last stand to defend the rule of law and a kind of degree of separation of powers, that doesn't sound like a clearly obvious thing for slogans, but it is something that I think we've realized in this country and in other countries as well is something that can really be definitive about where things are going politically.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Surprising what the issue was. The issue was an extradition law. Would have people potentially who committed crimes in Hong Kong being tried for them if the mainland wanted them on the mainland. Now, the difference, the really different court systems. Hong Kong never had democracy under the British, but it did have a stronger rule of law and more independent courts, courts that sometimes decided things that went the other way than what the government wanted And the mainland doesn't have that kind of court system 98, 99% conviction rate. In Hong Kong, if you're arrested even before 2020, if you're arrested even under a kind of politically related charge, you were out on bail and giving interviews with the press on the mainland. That didn't happen. So I think in 2019, even having lost the battle over voting.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're caring more of a burden of what we're going to live with. So in 2019, also the protests, I mean, some of the things that were being chipped away at by Beijing in 2012, there was an effort to impose mainland-style patriotic education. Seeing like, well, who cares how civics is taught? But actually, that has a lot to do with the larger kind of political story. The protesters that year, young people, stood up and actually got the government to blink. The local authorities backed down on that, bringing in mainland style education. 2014, the protest was to try to get full voting rights for the chief executive. The government didn't blink on that. That was something where they held the line. It was a big, colorful, exciting protest. But in the end, it hit a dead end. 2019, there are even bigger protests, and at first it seemed...”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These are things with Hong Kong, with climate change, with Thailand, the place that I've been working on lately. One of the slogans in 2020 when there was a push for democracy was let it end with this generation, which again expressed this kind of sense of Gradual solutions are fine, but”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“2047, it will all be gone. Or maybe it'll even be gone in 10 years. Then you're talking about living most of your life in a Hong Kong that isn't the Hong Kong you really love. Whereas if you were 80, you were like, why not, why can't there be patient? And people in between had all kinds of other things. This is one thing that leads to often kind of logically there's a rationality toward younger people being more militant about certain kinds of things. I think we see the same thing with climate change, with climate activism. You're talking about whatever projection is of when things are going to get worse further down. The younger you are, the more of your life is going to live in that scenario. And there's a logic for more of that kind of impatience. There's also a sense of frustration with an older generation not having done enough to sort of resolve issues.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this process sped up dramatically after the 2019 protest. And there was just partly with a distraction of COVID and the distraction of the world. There was this imposition of this national security law that basically did away with the differences. And you had some people The city of an older generation saying, like, why couldn't they have just been more patient? Why did these protests force the hand of the people in power? But I think that age has a lot to do with it, that if there was this kind of gradual erosion or there was going to be this process of doing away with the things that made Hong Kong really special and that people loved passionately about it, including this sort of freer press are just freer associational life and things like that. If you were 17 in 2019 and people were saying bye.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I'm particularly interested in youth movements. One of the things about, I think, generation is such an important factor. I mean, people know that generation is important, but somehow Sometimes people think that if you divide people up into economic groups, you divide people up into a racial or ethnic class, that that group, that that somehow is more tangible. But I think with things like the Hong Kong protest, that there was a process of What was seen as mainletization of Beijing just moving to make the things that were really distinct about Hong Kong less distinctive and minimizing the differences?”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you could say that that then is a stepping stone toward Taiwan. Or you could say that that in the South China Sea islands build up. Might be enough for him to put his stamp on having been the kind of leader who expanded Beijing's reach. He probably wants both. I mean, you know, he probably, to the extent he would like Taiwan to become part of the People's Republic of China, which has never been. But the hope was it could happen through a kind of more gradual absorption and people in Taiwan being willing to think of that. And yet, in part because of what's happened to places like Hong Kong, there's a fiercer, a stronger sense of Taiwan identity now than there was at an earlier point. And less parties that are more willing to try to negotiate some kind of”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Explodes, the Dalai Lama goes into exile. The Dalai Lama, who before that had thought maybe he and Mao could work. Together, that didn't work. Hong Kong, a new version of the experiment happens and it becomes clear in the 2010s that it's not really workable, that the center is less patient, needs Hong Kong less. The Hong Kong people feel it's more of a sort of now or never period to push back. You could say that Deng Xiaoping oversaw the deal that got Hong Kong and Macau to become part of the People's Republic of China. He could point to that, even though he died right before 1990, during 1997. But he had achieved that kind of deal. Xi Jinping could argue, you could argue he finished the deal of making Hong Kong fully a part of the People's Republic of China, doing away with this degree of difference.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One way to think of Chinese leaders since Mao is that Mao and those after him wanted to make China bigger territorially than it had been to try to reclaim land. Under Tibet, which had been not part of China, became part of the People's Republic of China. Mao offered something a little bit like One Country, two systems to it. Isabel Hilton, who writes wonderfully about Tibet, has talked about the parallels with the Hong Kong system. And some Hong Kong activists saw parallels as well. Tibet was supposed to go its own way as part of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. And then by 1959, The center got restless, tried to interfere more. Local people pushed back against it. And a workable, what seemed like it might work out somehow against all odds.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Academic freedom and things like that. In Beijing universities surpassed Hong Kong ones. So by the 2010s, when you started to have these protests in Hong Kong, pushing back against what was called mainlandization and sort of clamping down. Hong Kong protesters in 2014 put up a banner at the time when Beijing was holding the line against Hong Kong people wanted to have real elections to choose the chief executive rather than a kind of one where there were elections, but only people who Beijing approved of basically could run. Hong Kong activists put up a banner saying, Hey, Taiwan, look at Hong Kong. Taiwan, beware. Hong Kong's today could be Taiwan's tomorrow. So basically, spinning the one country, two systems argument and saying, yeah, Taiwan, you should watch what happens here.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could have endangered those things. Also, at that point, the PRC was dependent, heavily dependent on economics in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong economy. Also, just something, because I'm a university person, in 1997, when Hong Kong became part of the People's Republic of China, then Hong Kong universities were the only universities in the PRC that were considered totally world-class. Hong Kong University and Chinese University of Hong Kong were highly rated institutions. And at that point, Peking University, Beijing, Beida, and Tsinghua were not yet considered world-class institutions because they didn't have the kind of academic freedom and humanities that was at that point needed to be higher ratings. Over time, that difference started to go away because global ratings of universities stopped caring as much about.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the idea was Beijing said, hey, people in Taiwan, watch what happens to Hong Kong after 1997 and think about it as a model for what could happen with you, saying like, watch how smoothly it will go. Over time, people in Hong Kong started saying, well, wait, Beijing keeps sort of nibbling away at, chipping away at these things that make us separate. And especially after 2008. Especially, I mean, there were reasons why Beijing went especially light on Hong Kong early after 1997. They wanted to join Beijing, wanted to join WTO, they wanted to host the Olympics, a big move against Hong Kong then”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a tension from the beginning over what that other system, what was going to be the part that was going to be separate. And clearly everybody agreed we need to have a different economic system. It had capitalism. So people agreed on that. But there was tension from the start of, well, what about legal? What about cultural and other things? And things were written into this deal, which would be overtime. Hong Kong people would govern Hong Kong. But Beijing thought they would govern Hong Kong, but it would be a Hong Kong person who Beijing played a role in choosing. But the reason why Taiwan is relevant to all this is in 1984, as they were discussing this, the Chinese Communist Party said, and we'll come up with this arrangement. And people in Taiwan should pay attention to it because it could provide a model for what could happen with them being absorbed into the People's Republic of China.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Living in a very different way than people lived under a Communist Party rule. There was a different kind of rule of law. There wasn't democracy, but there was some degree of input in governance. The colonial authority and the most powerful person in Hong Kong was appointed by London after 1997. the most powerful person would probably have to be somebody who could work with Beijing but In this negotiation, something was come up with called One Country, Two Systems. And Hong Kong would become part of the People's Republic of China in diplomatic terms. It wouldn't have its own military, but it would have its own system for 50 years was the idea from 1997 till 2047.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And because of that, the Chinese representative of the UN insisted that Hong Kong was not a colony and Macau was not a colony because then they would have to be decolonized and go to independent. But so anyway. There was an understanding that something would have to happen in 1997, and London wanted some protection for the people in Hong Kong who they knew were”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The deal was about transferring sovereignty of all of Hong Kong, all these parts to the People's Republic of China. And I carefully say transfer sovereignty, not give it back to the People's Republic of China, because it never belonged to the People's Republic of China. It was part of the Qing Empire, which was a different country, a different state that then, anyway. But this needed to be transferred. And the deal that was struck was that the London side wanted to do something to protect what was going to happen to the people there. And remember, this is not what usually happens to colonies. Colonies usually go from being part of an empire to being some degree of self-governed.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hong Kong Island became a British colony at the end of the First Opium War, the 1840s, and then Kowloon Peninsula near there became a British colony in the 1860 after the Second Opium War. But then there was a large amount of territory of what we now think of as Hong Kong called the New Territories that became under British control in 1898, but was not a colony. It was a 99-year lease. So 1997 was this kind of expiration date for the lease of this large amount of territory of what we now think of as Hong Kong. It's a large amount of territory that the rest of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, depend on for energy, water, and food. So it would have been very hard to just give those parts, transfer those parts to the People's Republic of China. So a deal needed to be struck of what would happen. Happened in 1997. And”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll frame it in a way that I think does lead into talking about Hong Kong because I think these are connected issues. In 1984, when the year, not the book this time, that's when a deal was struck basically between London and Beijing over what would happen to Hong Kong. So Hong Kong.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Military action against Taiwan would be increased by a sense of desperation, a sense of losing popularity or a sense of not having a good story to tell about why he and the party deserves to lead. So then there's a kind of way of playing to the national sentiments of some part of the population. Then in a sense it's hopeful that I think in some ways right now Xi Jinping is not looking desperate in the eyes of the world. If he can focus on potentially Being seen more positively in other parts of the world by seeming like a kind of force for stability seen as somebody who's supporting rather than challenging some elements of the global order, that might Lessen the chances of a rash action toward Taiwan that would be a kind of desperation move. The complicated thing here is That if he gives in”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you see a hopeful possibility for resolution, for de-escalation here? It's a hard time to figure out what you can, to sort of hopeful angles. I mean, I guess. What's hard to even balance these things out? So, one of the things that I've thought about when you talk about rising chances of war, that often Taiwan comes to mind with China. And one of the things that I've thought of is that for For Xi Jinping, that”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I worry that there is a real pride here that the center of humiliation has deeply saturated. The populace, the Communist Party, this idea where they're just not going to back down. And that, I think, will cause tremendous pain in the short term for the United States, I think for China and the world because it completely transforms the supply chain of everything. There is a global nature. There is a multilateral nature of all the economic partnerships that are formed throughout the 21st century. And this kind of protectionist nationalistic kind of ideology goes in the face of all of that. And it's going to create a huge amount of pain, like for regular Americans. Also, I worry that this increase, if not decreases the chance of a global war or conflict of different kinds.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're the Chinese Communist Party and you're saying we get a disproportionate amount of blame for whatever happens in the world, then if there were things you could point to in the foreign media or from foreign governments, then that helps you. So, I think there is a setup here where certainly for Xi Jinping, I think the desire to not be seen weak is crucial. Sometimes I wonder how much these leaders operate on pure ego because politically and on a human level, they don't want to come off as losers. A standoff. Versus coming to an economic win-win for both nations.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How much of that is there? Like you said, the century of humiliation, both for Xi Jinping and the Chinese populace, like willingness to go through some short term pain to not be humiliated. The story that's been intensively told about the past is something that provides the possibility for this to matter a lot, that it's something that's just so, it's so much a part of the legitimating story of the Chinese Communist Party. And then you have to look at are there things that are happening that aid the Chinese Communist Party's story. So the rise of What can seem like or is anti Chinese sentiment within the United States can feed that propaganda story? And so certainly, you know, during COVID, there was a way that”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Europe's view about the United States is changing right now. These are all kinds of variables that are outside of simply Washington and Beijing as being the two actors. And sometimes Beijing can't control what's happening outside. And sometimes Washington can't And so I guess this is simply saying that when you're watching and you're trying to keep the eye on the ball, it matters a lot what India's relationship to China and the United States is. So all of these are happening there. So I think that's it, that it's both tremendously important what's going on between China and the United States, but it's important to remember that they're not the only players in this dynamic. Also on top of this, How much cultural will is there to sort of not surrender to bullying?”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that happened. And then in 2001, there was a spy plane incident that happened. And so there was a lot of discussion that Next decade was going to see US, China tensions being the major force in the world. 9 11 happened. It was a dramatic reset for the trajectory that the U.S. and China were on, which is these are two totally different things. The Sino-Soviet split and 9-11. But in both cases, no matter how careful you were at parsing, what was likely to be the next five years for U.S.-China relations get dramatically changed by something that happened that wasn't the US and China. And in the current situation in the trade war, I know that it will be very important that China can increase, try to increase sales of consumer products to Europe. This is something that”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What changed things dramatically for that wasn't so much even a change in, I mean, yes, Nixon was the one who went to China, but what made it possible for Nixon to go to China was that the Sino-Soviet split happened, that actually it was tensions between China and the Soviet Union that altered equations for the United States and China. And another, I happen to be in China in 1999 when NATO bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and three Chinese citizens died. And there was tremendous discontent about that, anger about that within China. And there were some rare protests that the government allowed to happen. But students were worked up about it and there were protests outside the American embassy and the British embassy.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aggressive force there. It's also a part of the world where there have been times when China has been that. So there is a way of positioning vis- ⁇-vis other parts of the world that is crucial part of this. That I think, I guess I'm circling around it, but there's a tendency in discussions of U.S.-China relations to think about it in terms of a bilateral discussion or dispute, even though time and again. We realize that. Other than the United States are key variables in these things. So the US and China being at odds in the Mao era,”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think one persistent, there's a lot to unpack there of a historian too. I mean, I think that the reference to being bullied by a foreign power is something that comes up periodically and plays to this kind of notion of the hundred years of national humiliation that's been talked about by generations now of Chinese leaders to talk about that period from the 1840s to the 1940s. There were a group of foreign powers who were involved in bullying China in one way or another. And you can selectively pick one or another. So there is a way in which this can be. And if Xi Jinping gives that kind of speech in Southeast Asia, he's speaking to a place where there is knowledge of times of the past when the United States was...”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has much as there's tension between the two capitals, there's a way that things are going in a way that benefits Xi Jinping and can seem good. That doesn't explain what their personal relationship is and how they actually see each other when they're in the room together.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when there are discussions, when there's praise for him and his showing toughness, that also works well. So I think the argument among at least some China specialists is to say the Chinese Communist Party likes predictability in Xi Jinping seems to like predictability in particular. Donald Trump clearly isn't a predictable figure. So there might be a way in which this is unsettling But I think the other part of it is the Chinese Communist Party wants under Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping wants to Gain more allies around the world to be seen with more respect around the world. And at the moment is in a position where He can present himself as an orderly, thoughtful, gradualist figure. In some ways, I think”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a degree to which I think there's some confusion about a couple things. I mean, one is when there's a sense that That Trump is sort of uniquely tough on the Chinese Communist Party, he has periodically said things about praising Xi Jinping as a leader, even sort of having praising Xi Jinping's strength and things. So I think for in some ways for the personality cult of Xi Jinping, some of this is kind of useful because the story that the Chinese Communist Party, they need to tell a story about why they deserve to keep ruling and one of their stories is that because the world is a dangerous place and there's not a lot of respect, enough respect for China. So when there's very tough talk about China coming out of the White House, that's useful. And then the other part is about Xi Jinping being just the right person to have the helm.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“General criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party as authoritarian structure or place that doesn't deserve to rule in kind of very general terms. I don't think that's something that they then pick you up at the border and say, oh, no, we can't let that person in. Because people are let in. And it's not rational. It's not irrational process. There are people who've been denied visas. It seems pretty inexplicable. There are things that now I think the rules are changing very quickly all over the world for kinds of what's safe to say and do.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out of Thailand into the mainland. And the reason why he was on the radar of the Communist Party was because the publishing house in Hong Kong that he was connected to was publishing works about the top tier of the Chinese Communist Party and contradicting the kind of vision of them as a certain kind of moral exemplars. And that's different from writing things about China has a bad human rights record or something like that in ways like I did. These were books that were expos ⁇ s or sort of some of them kind of gossipy and lightly sourced, some of them much more serious, but they were about something that the Communist Party leadership wants to make a no-go zone. And I thought sometimes that Xi Jinping seems to have Leis Majesty envy. I don't think it's kind of...”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's certainly gotten harder for journalists to operate in China that there was a way in which now Journalists will look back to the early 2000s, and it was really quite extraordinary what they could do. Well, you have a lot of listeners. I mean, I think there isn't that watching of what an academic writes about the Chinese Communist Party. But there are certain things that clearly are kind of tightly policed. And one is discussions of the private life of Chinese leaders and their families and issues of kind of really following money trails for corruption and things like that. So there was the case of the Hong Kong booksellers who were kidnapped and one of them is still in a Chinese prison. He would be a good example of this Guiminhai, the kind of person who was vulnerable. He was born in China. He was actually a Swedish, he is a Swedish citizen. And he was spirited.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How can we claim to be civilized when we've destroyed one of the great creations of civilization? So that kind of made him a kind of long-term friend to the Chinese nation. Mark Twain has had a pretty good reputation because he was a critic of American imperialism. But anyway, I think if you do get to talk to Xi Jinping, talk to him about Ernest Hemingway and Victor Hugo, and I'll be curious to see if those were the ones who really resonated.”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Side dem, that would be. Interestingly, he doesn't mention Orwell as one of his favorite British authors as much. He says he likes Victor Hugo a lot. And that became a little tricky because do you hear the people sing from Les Miserabla became one of the really one of the protest songs in Hong Kong? And how do you get in this position where you and actually Victor Hugo is a rare Western author who's had a pretty steadily positive image in China even under periods of criticism of all Western authors problematic because Victor Hugo famously wrote a statement denouncing the European destruction of the old summer palace in Beijing in 1860, the end of the Second Opium War? He said,”
2025-04-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #466 – Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China, Xi Jinping, Trade War, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mao · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source