YouSaid · the spoken record

Kerry Brown

lines on the record: 41
first: 2022-06-01
most recent: 2022-06-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Going to be easy. Its relations with America are not going to be easy. The temptation to do more activist things on Taiwan may be short of the worst thing, which is military intervention. I mean, you know, this is all well kind of, you know, founded. So I think the logic of the Xi leadership is going to be a nationalistic one. And that is going to be harder and harder for the world outside to kind of really engage with. Now there's two things demographics and climate. These are going to be the moderators. I mean, China's demographic issues are significant and I don't know what it's going to do about that. An aging population, you know, it's not an easy thing to deal with. And the second is climate change and its dramatic impacts will probably be the thing that China really works the world together on. And that may well moderate some of these other more nationalistic issues. So a little.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As you know, predictions about China are hazardous and almost always incorrect. So I'm hoping this is going to be incorrect. I think we're in for a rocky ride because I think it's going to be more nationalistic China.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's always unexpected things, but they would have to be pretty dramatic. And the problem is if that do happen, China's instability, even though people outside might not particularly like the system, is a problem if it's an unstable system. That's as much a problem as if it's stable and strong. In fact, it's more of a problem. So we're kind of caught in a quandary.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Only thing I can imagine, well, I mean, you could have an economic collapse, but then that is kind of scary for all of us, including the outside world, not just China. And I think at the moment that's unlikely. His health maybe is the only other thing. I mean, he's 70 next year. I mean, he kind of looks in rude health, but that might be impacted. Or you can say at the moment, Randa, as you know, it's a few months before this Congress where all this is expected to be announced. And there's no clue at all to any alternatives. And for a risk-averse system, which is highly controlling, that's a bit weird. If there was any likelihood of something needing to change, I think we'd see a few signs of that, as we did 10 years ago. So I think the odds at the moment are that it will be continuation. But, you know.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Time. It's just that we are really great at forgetting, and China is really good at remembering. So until we sort that out and become better remembrance, I think we're going to always have a bit of a problem.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sure he does things written from time to time. I mean, I think that, as you well know, the relationship between Britain and China is an old and well-established one. There are well-established narratives on Hong Kong. They would think about Britain because they would be irritated by whatever Britain does about Hong Kong. And certainly the Hong Kong kind of the offer of, you know, sort of fast-packed citizenship that seemed, I think, 80,000, 90,000 people from Hong Kong come here in the last year, that would be something that Xi Jinping would know about. I think they've tried to create a new narrative, as did we in the past. I think history is too thick and too deep, though. And I think, you know, in a sense, we have to accept that it's not Britain is curious. It's not that we don't have a lot of knowledge about China. We know this country quite well and we've known it well for a long time.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, certainly a Chinese leader is quite accessible to African, Latin American leaders in a way that actually is not true in America or Europe. I mean, you know, they're often complaining about how they don't get the right protocol. In China, they're treated usually in ways that they're very, very happy with. It's interesting, actually. I met kind of talk to someone who had met him, I think, three or four years ago, Xi Jinping, in a formal meeting, and they said, he was quite sort of, you know, not robotic, but, you know, sort of fairly kind of unemotional, except when he started talking about football and in particular Manchester City. And apparently then he came alive. So if any leader is wanting to create a brotherly bond with Mr. Xi, talk football. Apparently, that's the only thing that he really came alive about.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Reports are on a personal level, they definitely get on and they admire each other. And I think, you know, I was in Moscow a few years ago where, you know, Moscow analysts have said, yeah, Mr. She and Mr. Putin think each other are great. And you get a similar kind of language in China about the kind of relationship. But it is a person-to-person relationship. It's not like Russia and China. If you look at them particularly compatible. And I think when you look at the awful invasion by Russia of Ukraine, you see a China which is, I think, in really, really kind of two minds. On the one hand, yet there's friendship. But, you know, you've got to make sure your friends don't completely ruin things for you. And so China has at the moment kept out of this. I don't think it will get much deeper into it unless put into something completely reckless and crazy.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Work, but I think he has managed to control that, and that's a big deal in Chinese politics, because if there's one vulnerability for anyone, it's your family and how you look after them.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This interesting kind of tidbits about Punglio and the wife, who was a very famous singer, I mean, is a very celebrated singer, having family in Taiwan and kind of maybe having sympathies for Buddhism. I mean, all these sort of stories. Xi Mingzu, who, as you say, was at Harvard and who kind of sometimes appears a little bit as his translator, there's rumors about that. One thing that's distinctive about Xi Jinping is that he in his career made it clear his family were not going to operate in the provinces where he operated. Otherwise, how would he have started this big anti-corruption fight against corrupt families? And I think he's been quite careful about keeping a distance from his brothers and I believe his two sisters. And so I think, you know, his family is important because they're an important net.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of a religious cult where it's not that you've got the saviour now, but you've got one of the great apostles. And I think Xi Jinping is that sort of leadership. It's not so much about him, it's about the narrative and the message. And if you could say that it's an autocracy, it's about the domination of that nationalistic message rather than a specific individual and there, you know, what they mean within the system.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's definitely a strong personality cult within the party. They're the ones, you know, the 90, well, so 95 million members of the party, but you're talking about the party elite, they do have to kind of sign up to this, you know, collective, this core leadership with him, as you said at the very beginning, right at the core of that. Chinese society is obviously very complicated now. I mean, it's almost like a techno-autocracy. I think this is a leadership with a lot of technological assets that Mao and others never had, how deep this goes into people's hearts, I don't know. I mean, are people, do they have an allegiance to Xi Jinping as a person as they had an allegiance to Mao Zedong as a person? Or do they have an allegiance to, you know, this nationalist vision of a great country? And he's the sort of person who they think is going to lead them there. You know, it's almost like, you know.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because there's been very little about that in the past. I suppose it makes sense if you think the economics is still important as a process in China and as a political asset. And if there is a very, very big downturn and even a recession, that is a China that no one has seen in many, many years. So that would make leaders nervous. I think, though, that if that were to happen, you would get a big up.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think the fear is that you're going to have very high levels of fatalities because, to be honest, as far as I understand, the Chinese vaccine, which is the only permissible one, is not hugely effective. And a lot of elderly haven't taken it. So I think part of the issue is this is a system that doesn't politically know what would happen if they had a large number of fatalities. I think the second is at the moment these lockdowns are in specific places like Shanghai or Beijing and kind of they are working in those places in bringing the infections down. But I think the economic hit, well, it's starting, but the problem is, you know, how do you kind of justify a total sort of about turn without kind of losing face? The rumors about disagreement and the Kur Chang, perhaps the premier, you know, kind of with other leaders, you know, being critical are intriguing.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“West, they're all over the place, America's tearing itself apart. Europe is a mess. We're not going to go along that route. We're going to be unified once we've got to the sort of top of the plateau, then we can kind of think about what we do after that. I think that gives that a sense of focus and urgency. You're right, though. I mean, the fact that this level of autocracy wasn't really expected, even in China, I don't think, is the big puzzle. And as I say at the end of the book, it's weird, this complicated story of 1.4 billion people, a continental sized economy, place of amazing diversity. And it's all about one man. This is bizarre. This is a very strange, you know, kind of manifestation. It's not the punchline we were expecting.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it's a China that wants to talk to itself with its own language rather than a borrowed language. And I think it's not that it doesn't want to undertake some kind of reforms. I mean, that may happen, but they're definitely not going to be anything that I guess the outside world was expecting. I think there was probably a time, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, when maybe there were members of the elite that were sincerely interested in democratization of a sort. But I think a lot of things have happened much in the outside world that have changed the kind of elite and actually many views in China. I think also, as you know, nationalism is the great kind of fuel of this project, you know, and that justifies the autocracy in a way that, you know, this moment of national renaissance needs sort of focus. You can't, you know, we can't screw it up. We've got to, you know, look at the...”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think that again reinforced this idea that this is a country which is saying we can say with pride now culturally and politically and economically that we are Chinese and we don't need to apologize for that. And actually, you know, the West has lost its way. And that's not our fault. But we're not going to step back. If you are going to screw up all the time, I mean, you see this partly from the great economic crisis from 2008, China looking at the world and thinking, okay, not only are you not great in terms of your political proposals for us? Because look what happened with Russia when that fell apart. But you're no good at capitalism too. And we're going to beat you at that. So I think this captures this unprecedented new period where China will write modernity. You've also spoken about in its own terms and its own way, in its own language.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think it's about these narratives of China willing and being number one and the kind of fact that the party itself was celebrating as it subsequently has, 100th anniversary, the fact that there's a greater sense that China's kind of achieving its modernity on its own terms. And I think also an idea that this is, you know, this is not a dream, although they talk about the China dream. This is tangible. It's happening. You know, Chinese people can see their country being respected, feared globally. They can see, you know, the kind of wealth around them in the cities that the high train, high-speed trains, you know, 35,000 kilometers, I think, at the moment, more than the rest of the world put together. They can kind of really feel this moment of, you know, kind of renaissance or rejuvenation, as it's called.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, it's kind of fairly powerful politics for emotions and the economics is a process to deliver part of that, but it's not about the economy. It's really about identity.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Always trying to get legitimacy from the economy. I think Xi Jinping is a manifestation of a dramatic and historic change, which is it's all about identity. And that's not something he did on his own. I mean, it's been talked about a lot before. Wang Uning, for instance, the great idol of this leadership and previous ones, has written a lot about this. Xi Jinping has answered, I think, three questions for the politics of contemporary China, which are crucial. He has answered the question of who are we as Chinese who are we? He has answered the question of who is our enemy and he's answered the question of what's our vision, who we are, 5,000 years culture, all the rest of it, we're Chinese and we're proud of it. Who's our enemy? The people outside who always wanted to do us down and have been doing that for 150 years and now we're winning. And what's our vision? Great, powerful, strong country restored to its status.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, when he first emerged as national leader after the Congress in November 2012, he made quite a brief speech, not subsequently when he was speaking for three and a half hours or more five years later. Same occasion. On this speech, he mentioned that the party had grown distant from people and had created this antagonistic relationship and that it needed to restore its legitimacy and mandate. And I think that's what he's done with the anti-corruption struggle to make the party more effective political entity, to deal with the fact that it had maxed out on all of the economic opportunities in the previous 10 years and that it had lost its moral authority. I mean, I think the consensus before 2012 was in China it was all about the economic stupid. It's all about the economy stupid. The party is”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Xi Jinping. So it's kind of one of those big what ifs, you know, Xi Jinping had not been had that kind of competition, what would have happened? That didn't happen. Xi Jinping was pretty uncontested as he got the sort of number one position and he's certainly since 2012 not been contested by anyone.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Doors Yilai was an elite leader who had been Minister of Trade, and then he was the party secretary in the huge city of Chongqing. Very innovative and probably as one German politician actually said to me at the time, the only politician in China of his generation who reached people's emotions and spoke in a very kind of direct and quite effective way. But he was felled because of his wife's involvement in the murder of a British businessman Neil Haywood and also for claims of corruption. He had he not been felled probably would have been a very attractive politician for people to look at he was appealing. He was also accused of being very autocratic. His politics is not dissimilar to what subsequently happened. Very populist, very nationalistic, had a very severe crackdown on mafia in Chongqing, which subsequently, of course, happened against all people who were considered corrupt.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And these were the three core contenders. They were regarded that way because they had a lot of provincial experience and leadership experience that meant, okay, they ticked the boxes that you'd need to tick in order to kind of be considered. But also because they had been pushed a bit in Chinese media, how Xi Jinping emerged as the number one in 2007 and then got the top position five years later is still a mystery because there was obviously a big round of consultation, we are told, and that involved party members, it involved previous leaders, it involved colleagues and how it was sort of broken is still not very clear. One thing I think is clear is that it was probably far less seamless than at the time. It seemed. I mean, you remember the big issues about Boy CLI, who was also, you know, a kind of potential contender.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the $1.4 billion question, I suppose, if we're going to have a dollar for every person in China. I think around about 2006, as you probably remember too, there were three names that were figuring a lot. Li Kla Chang, Liu Yunchang and Xi Jinping. And they were kind of all about equal. So by that time, there'd been enough of a clue that all these other leaders that we had been”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“where they interviewed someone who'd known Xi Jinping as a younger man and then when he was just starting out and they said he is someone who is not corruptible by money he has a strong sense of entitlement because of his background that we are the people who need to look after the party to you know we're the kind of you know descendants of the great Yeshua generation But he also said this former friend of Xi Jinping's that he was corruptible probably by power. And I suppose that sort of is interesting. Do we see that today? And we can talk about that a bit later. I mean, certainly Zhang shows someone who has lots and lots of confidence. And I think we have seen that manifested amply since he came to central leadership in 2007.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he talked a lot about the importance of preserving the environment and also about, you know, it's no good just pumping out GDP. We need to have better quality GDP. And that's a little bit before that kind of became government policy in about 2007. But it was never really, as you know, realized. I mean, I think, you know, these are sort of interesting for a very risk-averse sort of political system, to stick your head out like that on two things which are a little bit kind of edgy is interesting along with berating colleagues for all being corrupt apart from him, which is interesting for another reason. I think it showed that he probably had a sense of entitlement. And indeed, I refer to a WikiLeaks, you know, kind of from the American embassy, I believe, in about 2000.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And making them kind of more supported. The things that he wrote in Zhirjang, which I use in my book, are these little kind of chapters, I suppose, little sort of sayings from the party secretary. And that's right, sort of like the analytics, you know, Confucius. They're a bit more verbose, I have to say. And the thing that struck me about that is that he was an environmentalist layer, which is quite interesting if you think at that time, I suppose. Just to spend a little, when you say that, and you do say that.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he was party secretary from 2002 to 2007 of Zhoujiang. And I guess he had not been in that position elsewhere. I mean, in Fujian, where he was for 15 years before then, he'd been governor, and that's more of an administrative position. But party secretary is where the real power is because that's the party position. To be in that position over a province of 44 million people, it is like being kind of the head of state of a kind of significant country elsewhere. And it's per capita GDP is pretty, you know, it's pretty good. It's coast to Shanghai, coastal province, and quite dynamic. Also, I think at that time, Alibaba and companies like that were really starting based in Hangzhou. And it's sort of interesting to think, you know, did he have a kind of role in, you know, kind of inculcating these business?”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I suppose the third, which is helpful, is for people writing about him, is that he did also clearly want to communicate. I mean, he wrote a lot. He did speak quite clearly. Suppose the other thing that I'm really struck by is he was willing to be very unpopular in berating colleagues for their lack of faith and their lack of belief in the party. So this is a colleague that's a little bit difficult to sit beside and someone who has this sort of quite grating confidence, I suppose, but is also someone that is probably pretty impressive and you know where you stand with them. And I think that probably is a bit of the reason for why he was elevated part of the reason is why he was elevated later though there were many people who could have been competing for those positions.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think there are a few things that you can say a characteristic of his politics and his approach to power and that, well, apparent, you know, from the two 1980s when he started to become a provincial leader in Fujian, in the south, east of the country. Firstly, he seems to have always been a true believer. You know, the idea that the Communist Party had this sort of messianic kind of task to leave China to greatness, it seems that's the core of his belief. The second is that he had a clear idea that the party was there to do politics, not to do business. And I think one of the problems as China grew richer was that party officials did get caught in kind of commercial interests. And the richer the country got, the worse Communist Party officials got in terms of corruption. But he clearly took a stand against that.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To kind of be quite thoughtful and well regarded. Beyond that, it's very hard to add people who knew him then, are they telling the truth? Because these days, of course, they can't say that he was an awful human being if they're still in China anyway. There'll be problems. I mean, I think it's impossible to say. I mean, we do know, I mean, just finally, you know, the culture evolution from 1966 to 76, kind of inspired by Mao Zedong, was a very specific moment in Chinese history and everyone has very particular memories of that. And this generation, I think, are the last that really do, you know, this leadership of the elite leadership, you know, they do remember that period and there is a kind of generic quality to what they went through either as victims, which in a sense he was, or as protagonists, which other leaders were, you know, kind of fighting on the more leftist side of politics. So that gives us a narrative to kind of try.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good question. I mean, the fact that they put a lot of effort into this story in accounts in Chinese, which I use in the book, is striking, you know, the idea that he is a man of culture, though, of course, he didn't go to formal schooling until he went to Qinghuai University in, I think, 1974 when the colleges and universities reopened after the culture revolution. I mean, it is clear as part of his persona that he likes to reference, you know, culture. I mean, he goes to Russia and mentions a list of Russian authors he goes to Germany and mentions Goethe. He goes to Britain and makes the mandatory reference to Shakespeare. And so it's clear that he values culture as part of his identity. Did he records that I've found testimony shows yet? He was known to be quite bookish when he was a sentown youth. You know, he was known.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Important for his leadership in ways that Hu Jintao, his predecessor until 2012. There is no story about him. It was never mentioned. And I'm also interested in the fact that the one or two things that Xi Jinping has said about that period, the cultural evolution from 1966-67, are pretty negative, even though he's been called a Marist kind of leader. I came across one account, I think it was called the Son of the Yellow Emperor, that he had written in the late, I think, 1990s, where he said, you know, I can put up with things today because of the bitterness of what I went through them. So it's not entirely straightforward story he's telling. It's not about everything that was glorious, but it is that he has a story that is symbolic and working out the symbolism of that, I think, is very important.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's true. I mean, so you know, this is sort of why he's been described as the peasant emperor. Some have described him, you know, as someone who came from elite background but ended up eating bitterness, as the phrase goes in the countryside. And others, I think it was Lee Kuang Yu, the late Lee Kong Yu of Singapore, called him Asia's Nelson Mandela, which is a bit, you know, flattering, but he's someone who did go through a tough time. I'm interested in what is made of that time today in the hagiography of Xi Jinping. I mean, I think your comments earlier about, you know, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anthony Kero's huge biography, I mean, the problem is we can't really write that sort of stuff about at least since Jiang Zing, you know, kind of Maudson or maybe you could write that sort of stuff, you know, because there's sources, but it's really hard to get access now. But what is clear is that Xi Jinping's story is...”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But he was also someone with a problem. So, you know, Xi Jinping didn't really have a father around for his adolescence and he's just to be clear.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Xi Jongsun. So, Xi Jong Shun was a military leader in the 30s and 40s, early member of the communist movement, and then was a vice premier. After 1949 until 62 led on sort of cultural issues and then was felled for sort of kind of ideological struggles then. I mean, you know, Se Jong Soon is a relatively benign leader today because when he came back in the 1980s, he had a kind of role in the reform and opening up. And he's been a sort of like attached to the or associated with the liberal, you know, kind of part of the party in 1989 and the student uprising. So this is a good father to have. I think we can all see that this is a sort of not like having a very problematic father. I think though for Xi Jinping, I mean, so his father was one of what we call the”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think the confluence of those three factors means Xi Jinping can speak the way he does and act the way he does because China is the way it is now and it gives him the platform to do that.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Suppose I'm a bit prosaic about that. I think China today is a different entity than it was even 15 years ago when the silence, as you rightly said, was baffling us all by his extraordinary kind of technocratic speeches. I think we have to remember that China in 2022, it's going through a bit of sort of a economic problem at the moment, is markedly and materially different to the place that existed a decade or so ago. And I think that context means that as a leader, you can be a different kind of person. I mean, Xi Jinping can talk to the world with the world's second biggest military, the world's second biggest economy. I mean, huge influence over a not so confident West, whereas, of course, previous leaders had to talk with a smaller economy, a smaller military, and also a more”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And as you know, in this sort of political system, Rana people near the top, they have these extraordinary kind of theater of power. And I think that's what I really wanted to convey, that this is a performance of someone who not only has power, but knows it and other people know it too. I think it's very striking about his deportment and his way of speaking and his body language.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I think it was inspired a bit by Winston Lord, who had been one of the people that met Mao Zedong in the early 70s. And I asked him some years ago, you know, what was it like meeting Mao? And although Mao was very, very old and had Parkinson's disease and couldn't really communicate, Lord said this sort of sense of raw power. And I suppose that people, I mean, I have met Xi Jinping briefly once in 2007 when he was in Shanghai as party secretary. And I can't say I had that impression then, but that was when he was being very modest and humble. But I know that people who have talked to him, diplomats and others, have said that there's this sort of sense of, you know, kind of confidence and a sort of stillness around him. People kind of listen to him very intently in this system.”
2022-06-01 · Intelligence Squared · Who is the Real Xi Jinping? With Kerry Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT