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Wei Fong Zhang
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Welcome to Newts World podcast on the iHeart podcast network. A couple big things going on. In addition of course to the President going to China. The Senate did finally confirm the new chair for the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. It was a 54 to 45 vote. It's very interesting. Democratic Senator John Fetterman once again crossed to vote with the Republicans. Now give you a sense of how Powell's position had eroded. Powell, the current Fed chairman, got 80 votes both times he was confirmed because back then it wasn't a big issue. But the Democrats have decided that they're not going to go along with Trump appointees. And so the only Democrat who voted yes was John Fetterman. And as a result Bush got approved by 54 45. So you know, from his perspective, he's still approved. He is a former Morgan Stanley banker. He used to serve on the Fed's governing board from 2006 to 2011. But ironically, and I don't understand this. Trump chose Powell over him in 2017, which I suspect Trump would now say was a major mistake. Bush will be the wealthiest federal chairman in modern times and it shows a fortune of about $100 million, which is separate from his wife's fortune. He's married to Jane Lauder, who is the heiress to Estee Lauder, which is a multi billion dollar worldwide company. Powell, in a break from tradition, apparently is going to stay on the board. Normally when you step down as chairman, you leave, but I think partly because Powell's in a argument with Trump, he doesn't want to be seen as getting out of way. So we'll see how that works out. And it certainly makes Taylor Washer's problem a little bit harder. The other thing was very interesting that The Senate voted 99 to 0 to advance a resolution that would withhold their pay. Senator John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana, had proposed to withhold members pay during government shutdowns, which I frankly think is a good idea. They unanimously passed the steps necessary to bring it up. And I think that would have been interesting during the 43 day government shutdown if members had suddenly not gotten their paychecks. It would bring home to them what's happening to all the other government workers. So it's interesting now they withhold it. They eventually, I believe, get it. But Kennedy said he would really like to bar them from leaving Washington during a shutdown. I personally think that's a good idea. I think if the government shuts down because they can't agree, they ought to stay seven days a week until they get it done, I think the senator's not likely to agree to that. Coming up, I'm joined by Wei Fong Zhang, senior advisor for the Office for Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis at the America First Policy Institute. And we're going to discuss President Trump's meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
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Wei Fong Zhang
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Call 888-D dish or visit dish.com today. I'm really pleased to welcome back my guest, Huy Fong Zhang, senior advisor for the Office of of Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis at the America First Policy Institute.
Wei Fong Zhang
Well, thanks for having me again, Mr.
Newt Gingrich
Speaker, during the maternal healthcare event, which I watched while I was on the set of Outnumbered at fox. Typically, Trump, you know, you start over here with all these people that talk about maternal health care and then it just rolls and goes wherever he wants to go. But he talked about his relationship with President Xi, saying that they had a great relationship. How would you describe the relationship between President Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping?
Wei Fong Zhang
Well, one might say that even President Trump said that on the surface level. So I know now he's talking to Xi in Beijing now and the last time it happened was 2017 when he first took office. In both cases, meetings were very pleasant on the surface, but what we need to look out for is actually what actions both sides take afterwards. I think President Trump might be taking a very Chinese way of approaching that because the Chinese leaders, they always have very pleasant meetings with people. It doesn't mean anything.
Newt Gingrich
My experience when I was speaker, I visited several times, was you always had this very disciplined front. They knew exactly what they were going to say. I was fascinated because in the times I would go, I would start with a lower ranking person, he would interview me, they would take notes there, then had to be a long enough block for them to get those notes to the next person. So as you gradually went up in rank, they all had the advantage of the previous conversations, and they knew sort of what I was focused on, and so they could make sure they had exactly the right answers, almost all of which were rote. There was not a great deal of, I think, reward for winging it on your own. Was there symbolically, any meaning to the fact that when President Trump arrived at the airport that he was greeted by Vice President Han Zheng rather than by Xi Jinping?
Wei Fong Zhang
I've seen it go both ways. Doesn't seem to be any. Not necessarily that taking a lower tier of reception necessarily, because they might think of that as like appetizer, with the main show being the president would receive President Trump formally later occasion. It seems overall, the reception level is quite similar to 2017, and probably the highest level they would go anyway. And I think what it suggests is that this is a Chinese way of setting the stage and projecting confidence, not necessarily that they will think the US Is a great power, hence we need to put up all these pleasantries.
Newt Gingrich
You know, back in 17, he was greeted by Yang Jiqi, who was a senior official, but not as high a rank as the vice president, but one
Wei Fong Zhang
might say Yang Jishi, though it was probably as powerful as the vice president of China. In fact, the vice president was never really trusted by Xi Jinping anyway.
Newt Gingrich
So there's no big signal here at this point. Now, they had a band, they had 300 young people singing a welcoming message and waving American and Chinese flags. I mean, it seemed to me that the Chinese, who were very good at this and think about it a great deal, were at least communicating symbolically that they're glad Trump is there.
Wei Fong Zhang
Right. And I think there might be their strategy to elevate issues they really want to talk about. Obviously, Xi Jinping. Taiwan is an issue top of mind for Xi Jinping. So when he set the grand stage, it helps him to elevate the importance of Taiwan when he raised it with President Trump. You know, don't mess with Taiwan. See, we have this grand reception for you. And then, you know, Taiwan is really important to us. I think it might serve that kind of purposes in terms of projecting confidence in issues key to the Chinese Communist Party.
Newt Gingrich
This president is a little bit unusual in that very often you learn what he's doing by something he puts on truth social. So recently he wrote, I will be asking President Xi, a leader of extraordinary distinction, to open up China so that these brilliant people can Work their magic and help bring the People's Republic to an even higher level. Part of the Trump technique when he wants you to do something is flattery. But a leader of extraordinary distinction is a pretty strong positive.
Wei Fong Zhang
Well, yeah, so maybe that indicates, maybe President Trump knew that China and President Xi was watching this tooth social too. So there's a different level of calculations that we need to. To be aware of. And maybe that's because what we want them to do, the stuff we want them to do, is more important to us. Hence you pay more in lip services.
Newt Gingrich
I think you could make an argument that leading a billion 400 million people. The fact is that President Xi has been an extraordinarily powerful leader. Some people argue that he may be more powerful even than Deng Xiaompeng, in which case you'd have to go back to Mao to get to the level of impact that Xi has acquired. How do you weigh internally in China the relative impact of Xi's presidency?
Wei Fong Zhang
This is a very interesting question, Mr. Speaker, because we need to make a distinction between two concepts. One is how much control he's imposing on the economy, on the society, versus how much authority he really has. And I think sometimes the two are the opposites. Meaning it might be because he's exerting a lot of control. He tries to control the economy because he's feeling insecure. We have seen episodes of those through the years, including the COVID anti lockdown protests across the country. In China too, a lot of people were raising banners and slogans to basically show discontent to his rule. And if you look back to his time in office for coming up to 15 years now, he really didn't have much achievement to write home about compared to previous presidents, including, including those with the speaker you have interacted with. We have Deng Xiaoping who opened up the economy to the world. You have Jiang Zemin who kind of took back Hong Kong and Macau, held the Olympics in Beijing. All these were great achievements in the Chinese people's eyes. There's really not much to talk about when it comes to the last 15 years under Xi Jinping. I think my interpretation is that he needed to exert power and control because he really needs it. He's losing it. He's feel insecure of his power.
Newt Gingrich
Yeah, I noticed two or three weeks ago that they sentenced two former defense ministers to death, but then suspended the sentence for two years. What's that all about?
Wei Fong Zhang
It's very hard to figure out what the inside baseball is. I think the insecurity also comes from the military because the military branch oftentimes have a lot of say. And so there's rumors about, you know, coup d', etat. You know, I don't know to what extent that's true. And that might be part of the retribution and bargaining.
Newt Gingrich
Xi, in a sense really does represent the party and is trying to get control of the military as well as other aspects of Chinese life. And the military has been sort of remarkably good at staying aloof and being its own world, including a fair amount of corruption apparently. Now, given the current economic challenges and the fact that the one child policies coming home with a vengeance as Chinese population declines and the number of young people available to go into the workforce declines, how seriously do you think Xi Jinping thinks that he needs some kind of closer relationship with the US Economically?
Wei Fong Zhang
Oh, he needs it desperately. We can tell from now, every five years, the way the Chinese economy works is every five years they come up with a five year plan where they laid out all the challenges they're facing and then would come up with their own plans to try to central plan the thing out for a few cycles now. So basically his entire time in office for Xi Jinping, every five years they were iterating how bad, how negative the international environment has been for China, which really means that they're getting shut out by the US To a large extent, thanks to President Trump's policy going back to eight years ago. I think a lot of Western partners, also, because of the US policy, they're coming around to realize that China has been changing the rule of the game since they joined the wto. China has been taking advantage of the global economy since they joined the wto. And so we see more and more hardline policy toward China, which becomes a huge challenge to an export oriented economy for China. And that's extremely important because now that the one child policy, like you said, is coming back to bite them. I was actually born the year one child policy in China in the early 80s was first implemented in my province. So think about people at my age, right? They will have a set of four grandparents, one child to take care of. And in any big city it's unimaginable to sustain a lifestyle, not to mention to have more than one child.
Newt Gingrich
Well, it's pretty clear now, I think that the Chinese population is going to be dramatically smaller. Although that's also true in South Korea, it's true in Japan. I mean, there's a here in Switzerland, where I'm talking to you from, they just had the number of people over 60 just passed the number of people under 20, you see this happening almost on a worldwide basis. Here are some of the people that Trump has taken with him on this trip. Tim Cook of Apple, Larry Fink of blackrock, Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Brian Sykes of Cargill, Jane Fraser of Citi, Jim Anderson of Coherent, Larry Culp of GE Aerospace, Dave Solomon of Goldman Sachs, Jacob Tayson of the Lumina, Michael Neeback of MasterCard, Dina Powell McCormick of Meta, Sanjay Marotti of Micron, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Cristiano Aman of Qualcomm, Elon Musk and Ryan McInerney. Ibiza. That is an amazing amount of economic power showing up in Beijing. What do you make of that?
Wei Fong Zhang
Well, I think last time around 2017, President Trump also brought a slew of top executives with him too. I found the list also very interesting in a different way that it really shows the tension or the sectors where the tensions are these days. Semiconductor, AI and other big techs. I don't remember big tech being that much featured last time in 2017. Obviously a lot of these companies, they want access to the Chinese market for good reason because China has been shutting big tech out of the Chinese market for years. Right? We don't even need to talk about, you know, iPhones imported to China or Nvidia chips. They need look at the Internet, you know, all the top websites, they're not accessible from inside China. I don't know whether Mr. Speaker, you'll show his censored in China, but I know all the top newspapers are all censored in China. We talk about digital trade. Everything is shut out. And so that's not fair. That's the unfair game of global economy China has been trying to play. And it's for all reasons I think we should fight back. Then let's hope that all these companies can get access to China, make money, reinvest in innovation. I think for example, like Nvidia chips, the sales to China is very important for their investment in research and development.
Newt Gingrich
Supposedly Xi Jinping said that the United States and China should be partners rather than rivals. If he said it, do you think he actually means it?
Wei Fong Zhang
Not really. I think rivalry is a fact. Right. So think about China's accession to WTO around 2000. The initial pretense, I guess or excuse reasons was that China wanted to be integrated into the global economy. But as soon as they got integrated, they started to change rules, right? To play rules unfairly. The same is true for the World Bank. The same is true for the United Nations. World Health Organization, every international institution where China has gone in is no longer the same as what it used to be. It is rivalry. And the cooperation, I think is how China calls taking advantage of other countries.
Newt Gingrich
When we come back, we're going to discuss whether a Trump Xi grand bargain on Iran is possible. That's next. They had a kind of a joint announcement that Iran should never get a nuclear weapon and that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open and international. And also that they're going to try to wean China into buying American oil and other oil and buying less from Iran. If true, that's a pretty big breakthrough. I mean, what's your reaction?
Wei Fong Zhang
I think the saying too part of the reason might be that open waterways in the Middle east, in Iran is also key to China as well, because China is a big purchaser of crude oil. So there's some common ground here to be found. And I'm glad it seems like early indication suggests that they found some, at least. Now the bigger question I think everybody has in mind is what did the US Give away in order to have that cooperation from China? I honestly hope not that much. I think it's fortuitous that the issue of Taiwan really will come to the forefront next year. Probably not this year. I think there's a lot of significance into 2027 as a key year for Xi Jinping because that's when his third five year term would come to an end, which would mean that he would need to secure more power and legitimacy to extend that to a fourth term because people in China are getting fed up like, when will he be gone? And he needs reason to stay on. So Taiwan would be a key policy question. I hope that the US doesn't give ground on Taiwan when it comes to that year, even though we now secure some cooperation with China on Iran.
Newt Gingrich
I'm like you. When you suddenly hear that Xi Jinping has agreed on no nuclear weapons in Iran and the Strait has to remain international, you kind of wonder what he gets back for that or whether in fact he just thinks it's in China's interest, first, not to have a whole lot more nuclear proliferation and second, to be able to access all the oil produced in the Persian Gulf and not just Iranian oil. But I was very surprised that on the first day they had that announcement. That's the sort of thing which normally we would sort of close out the event. It did strike me that it was more positive than you might have expected in the opening round. What's your feeling?
Wei Fong Zhang
Well, I think that's good to see that China is agreeing to at least these two key points on Iran. Positive opening I don't think means that much though. If you think about 2017, the whole meeting was very positive too. But think about how the US China relations became after the 2017 visit is actually the opposite. Right. We didn't think about Huawei, for example, in 2017 during President Trump's visit to China. You know, Huawei TikTok and all these tough line China policy coming up from the White House, you know, afterwards indicates that, you know, a good meeting doesn't really mean a lot. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to sustain very positive for a very long time.
Newt Gingrich
Apparently Trump said on Fox Business that he wrote a letter to Xi asking him not to send arms to Iran and that Xi wrote him back saying he really wasn't doing that. But apparently the New York Times and others have reported that the Chinese may have been, for example, transferring shoulder fired missiles that are capable of shooting down low flying aircraft. It does seem that there's a certain cheerful willingness on the part of the Chinese officials to just claim, not tell the truth.
Wei Fong Zhang
That's very typical. Right? It has been. The Ukraine war is the same. They are supporting Russia in various ways that are below the surface. And they never admit it. They never admitted that they tweaked all these international rules. Right. When they joined all these international organizations. I don't think the Chinese leaders at least being truthful is something we could hope for.
Newt Gingrich
Apparently the Iranian foreign minister actually said that Iran was receiving military cooperation from both China and Russia, which would sort of contradict Xi's position. Don't we have a similar dishonesty about the degree to which they provide the chemicals for drugs that come to the United States?
Wei Fong Zhang
Absolutely. And I mean, there's all sorts of dishonesty during the COVID era too, right? Like the intransparency about outbreaks, all these investigations that we had to go through to find out even just a little step closer to truth. The discontent about non transparency in China is just so widespread and so long held. If you think about the media landscape, China publishes newspapers too, and which is the area I've studied for years. Those newspapers are not the same as US Newspapers or any newspapers in any free country. And they're all lies. But I think that the key thing is we need to see through that. You know, they tell lies all the time. Are they telling lies differently? Are they telling lies in a way that shows any trend that are worth monitoring or worth taking notes I think that's a second level of reading that we need to have. Go beyond the surface level.
Newt Gingrich
Yeah. Because I think at a surface level, they're always going to try to be smooth and reassuring. And then the question is, what's reality?
Wei Fong Zhang
Right. Like we talked about Taiwan. Right. The way the Chinese have tried to reframe the Taiwan problem is indicative, can be seen from even the phrase they use, because we call it one China policy. Right. We recognize that there's only one China. We're not specifying who's really the one China, but China sort of tweaked that into like one China. Principle in their interpretation is that, you know, there's only one China and that's the People's Republic of China. No, that's not what we said. You know, that's not what we agreed on.
Newt Gingrich
When they took over Hong Kong, you probably know the phrase better than I do. They had some phrase like one country, but two systems.
Wei Fong Zhang
Two systems, yeah. Which have now become one system. That's right ahead of schedule.
Newt Gingrich
They have always seen Taiwan as the 19th province. From their perspective in Beijing, this is a internal matter between a part of China and the rest of China, which I think actually was also Chiang Kai Shek's position that he went to to Taiwan but was determined to try to get back to controlling the whole country. Coming up, we're going to discuss Taiwan and the future of U. S. China relations. How serious do you think it is that China might actually attempt an overt invasion?
Wei Fong Zhang
Great question. To answer the question, we need to go back to the legitimacy, quote unquote legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, because in a country like China where there's no election. Right. But it doesn't mean that the dictator can do whatever he wants, because to some extent you would need public support or at least obedience to execute your policy. Where is that authority coming from? Which is why for every single Chinese leader, they pay a huge amount of attention to talking about achievements every five years, they plan the next five years, but they review all the great things we have done in the past five years because that's how they could say here, you need to listen to me. And going back to earlier, we talked about there are a lot more achievements by previous Chinese leaders on other issues. Before Xi Jinping opening up the economy, obviously, Mao Zedong was the founder of the People's Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping had this great achievement of opening up to the Western world, and Xi Jinping really had nothing so far, nothing if not creating economic troubles and pandemic during his watch, the China's relationship with the US the largest economy in the world, has deteriorated to what it is today. And we talked about this in previous interviews too. I always thought Taiwan is really key to now CCP's legitimacy because they have lost Hong Kong, basically. They took Hong Kong back in a way that's very embarrassing in the West's eye. They have lost Hong Kong, basically. But now Hong Kong is no longer an example where they can talk about to Taiwan. See you in one country, two system. You can come back just like Hong Kong. No, Hong Kong is no longer a free society. After losing Hong Kong, really, China has nothing to talk about when it comes to one country, two systems being a possible model for what they call reuniting with Taiwan. And so how. I think Xi Jinping really wants to take back Taiwan because that might be his last chance of having a big achievement. But how forcefully, how long will it take? Will it become a drag on the military, the resources, the economy? I think he has a strong desire, but if we assess it in the longer time frame, I think time is on our side. Meaning the longer it takes for Taiwan to become the key issue, to become a conflict, the harder it is for CCP to actually forcefully take back Taiwan. The economy is not going well. China is confronting a host of domestic problems. One, child policy, Social Security, national debt, especially at the government debt. At the local level, they have very diverse economic environment. All of that would be an obstacle for actually successfully taking back Taiwan.
Newt Gingrich
They can't make a positive case. If you're Taiwanese and you look at the life in communist China and you look at how your country has prospered and they produce, I think, 70% of the world's chips, which is a very high value added. You know, it's been very intelligently run to maximize their value, which I think also means that virtually the entire world would react very negatively to an overt invasion because it would threaten all of them.
Wei Fong Zhang
Absolutely. We have seen that. Like you said, Mr. Speaker, Japan, South Korea, they all have been turning more and more negative toward how China is dealing with Taiwan. Think about the main age cohort of the people who are now in Taiwan, maybe my age, maybe a little bit older, but none of them were spoiled in the old days. They have no memory whatsoever about what used to be the Republic of China, which is what Chiang Kai shed wanted to take back Mainland. They have been living in a society where it totally feels like just simply a different country than China and a
Newt Gingrich
dramatically more open country.
Wei Fong Zhang
Absolutely. You have the advances in the semiconductor industry people can actually vote for their leaders. Everything is better than mainland China.
Newt Gingrich
Correct me if I got this wrong, but I remember when I would talk to Jean Geemen about this, they sort of grudgingly accept the principle that Nixon and Kissinger created that they couldn't conquer Taiwan, but Taiwan also couldn't declare independence. So there's sort of a line there. Do you think that's still their line?
Wei Fong Zhang
I think that's maybe what they agree to, to have the agreement with the U.S. my understanding is this is how the, the one China policy is about from our perspective is as long as no one unilaterally initiated a conflict, including Taiwan too, don't declare independence. The US has never been warned to the idea of Taiwan unilaterally declaring independence. Why bother? You're already independent. Don't say it, don't promote it. It's Chinese. And so as long as no one really initiates that, we say just one China and then we leave it with that. But China, they send planes, warplanes across the median line all the time ships. Their posture is they are unilaterally trying to initiate a takeover.
Newt Gingrich
As you look at all this and you're clearly remarkably knowledgeable about what's going on, what do you think is the biggest mistake Washington could make in dealing with China over the next few years?
Wei Fong Zhang
I think the biggest mistake Washington could make is to make concessions in terms of further giving away the rules of the game that we believe in. It's one thing to have more trade with China, which as an economist I'm for trade too, including for access to the Chinese market by a lot of American firms. But we should not do it in a way that helps the CCP or make a post World War II liberal international order, further twist it to benefit a non democracy. And it's one thing to say we allow some export of chips, semiconductor chips to China, right? But it's obviously another if all that is going into the Chinese military, going into training AI models that censor people's free speech, which we are seeing every day from Chinese models particularly. So all these I think is anti liberal, anti democracy developments that we should not directly or indirectly finance.
Newt Gingrich
I spent two days this week looking at artificial intelligence and the very sobering developments that have occurred recently where we're beginning to see systems that are self inventing for the very first time. We apparently had an artificial intelligence system reach out on its own with no instructions and build another artificial intelligence almost like a one in a neighborhood. There is some serious thought that the President is going to propose some kind of serious joint effort by the US And China to think through and deal with systems that could be truly disruptive. Henry Kissinger, very late in his career, co authored a book called Genesis. And he said he thought that the development of artificial intelligence is the largest single event in the history of the human race and that we have no understanding of how dangerous it is. But what's your sense about whether or not you could actually work something out with the President of China and have some kind of joint effort at a very high level to deal with thinking through the nature of the kind of artificial intelligence that we're beginning to see come down the road?
Wei Fong Zhang
There are plenty of common grounds to be had here. Obviously, AI is orders of magnitude more important in terms of impact compared to if we look at the birth of Internet. But if we look back 20 some years ago, when Internet was first a new thing, there's just a lot of unsettled issues too, like international standards, about all sorts of protocols, how different developers across different countries can collaborate in an environment that's secure. Obviously, there's common grounds to be had there. I would not happen is that government entities imposing rules on what technologies that we don't really understand a lot about yet, how that technologies are going to evolve. I think setting guardrails is good, but I'm sure if China comes in to play in this collaboration, they would take it with a command control approach. I hope that doesn't become the joint approach by China and the US Though.
Newt Gingrich
It's a balancing act because you actually don't know enough to know what you'd be stopping. And so if you look at some of the breakthroughs that are coming down the road, it's just amazing. I want to thank you for joining me. I want to mention that you're at the America First Policy Institute. Our listeners should know that the America First Policy Institute is probably the most dynamic developer of new policies for the Trump administration of any particular organization that I know of in the country. And your being there is a real asset both to them and to the country. So people can learn more about what you're doing by visiting americafirstpolicy.com it couldn't be more timely to have this conversation, and I'm very grateful that you would take time to kind of educate me.
Wei Fong Zhang
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for having me again. And thank you for plugging the FBI. It's our honor to be fighting the good fight for freedom.
Newt Gingrich
Now I'm pleased to introduce a new segment to Newt's World, where I answer listeners questions. If you'd like to ask a question, please email me@newtinglitch360.com Kate from Washington, D.C. asks, during President Trump's visit to Beijing, President Xi said, quote, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand. She asks, what is my view of his comment? And then she says, and do you think President Xi will accept President Trump's invitation to visit the United States in September? I think that's very possible that Xi will come over in September, which will certainly boost Trump going into the election campaign. If you think about it, Xi said basically there's no reason China can't be big and America be big, which is different than saying that China should dominate. And frankly, when you're dealing with a country with a 5,000-year-old history and a billion 400 million people, they ought to be a great country. We don't wanna suppress them. We just don't want them to try to compete with us and try to impose on us their policies and their dictatorship. I suspect that Xi is trying to find a way to cooperate with us enough to help their economy and to avoid any kind of major war. I look forward to hearing from people with these kind of questions. And remember, you can ask a question, just email me@ Newtngrage360.com thank you to my guest, Wei Fong Zhang. Newtuild is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnzi Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. Special thanks to team at Gingrich360. If you've been enjoying Newt's world, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Join me on substack@gingrich360.net I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld Foreign.
Wei Fong Zhang
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Newt's World – Episode 978: Trump and Xi in China (May 15, 2026)
Host: Newt Gingrich
Guest: Wei Fong Zhang, Senior Advisor, America First Policy Institute
This episode explores President Trump’s 2026 trip to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Host Newt Gingrich (former Speaker of the U.S. House) and guest Wei Fong Zhang (senior policy advisor and China expert) analyze the symbolism, substance, and strategic calculations of U.S.-China relations in a shifting global environment. Key topics include the nature of the Trump-Xi relationship, economic tensions, the Taiwan issue, grand bargains on Iran, technological rivalry (notably AI), and the future direction of bilateral ties.
Wei Fong Zhang and Newt Gingrich paint a nuanced picture of U.S.-China relations—deeply competitive beneath the surface-level cordiality. While symbolism and grand gestures abound, each side maneuvers for advantage, shaped by economic dependency, demographic change, geopolitical rivalry, and the emergence of new forms of risk (notably AI). Ultimately, the episode warns of the pitfalls of naivete, urges vigilance on the rules underpinning international order, and suggests that, at least for now, time and internal complexity temper Xi’s ability to realize his ambitions.
[36:21] Newt discusses Xi’s phrase: “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand.”
For a deeper dive into U.S.-China strategy and policy, listeners are pointed to the America First Policy Institute and Gingrich360’s ongoing commentary.