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The Foreign Affairs Interview
The View From the Front Row of the Trump-Xi Summit: A Conversation With Orville Schell
00:41:25
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- [00:00]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Dan I'm Dan Kurtz Phelan and this is the Foreign affairs interview.
- [00:06]
Orville Schell
I think it is true that what makes Trump so interesting and hard to read and also sometimes hard to deal with is that he himself is a kind of contradiction in which he has these sort of very hawkish tendencies. And on the other hand, he has this sort of mentality of, you know, big leader to big leader. We should be able to make a deal and work things out.
- [00:33]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Orville Shell may be America's greatest chronicler and observer of several decades of US China relations. We were extremely lucky to have him in Beijing this week for the just concluded summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, far from the first encounter between US And Chinese leaders for which Shell has had a front row seat. I spoke to him on Friday, May 15 in the morning New York time and evening Beijing time about how he read the interactions between Xi and Trump, what they did and did not say about the hardest and most dangerous issues in the U. S China relationship and how this could mark an inflection point for the two countries. Orville, great to talk to you on your Friday night Beijing time. Trump started his trip home a few hours ago, but I realize you've had an intense few days.
- [01:27]
Orville Schell
It's been an intense and quite interesting few days. The president took off in Air Force One a couple hours ago and I think the Chinese and I think President Trump were quite pleased with the outcome.
- [01:43]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
You were, of course, on that the last presidential trip to China when Trump went in 2017. As you've watched Trump and Xi this time around, how does their dynamic seem different or the same to you? How have you read the body language and symbolism and rhetoric that you've seen from them?
- [02:01]
Orville Schell
Well, one of the things which was very evident and President Trump kept emphasizing it and that was that he has now, as he says, known and been a friend of Xi Jinping since his first administration. And he likes to and did tout the fact that he is the American president that has known Xi Jinping or the leader of China for longer than anyone else. So he kind of fancies himself I think, on this trip. So becoming an old friend of Xi, someone with some standing and was very effusive in his sort of expressions of respect and appreciation of Xi, which I think was very gratifying to him because as you know, the Chinese government and even Xi Jinping is often sort of uttering this sort of mantra of we need to have mutual respect and understanding. And of course, I think in various previous administrations because of the nature of the political system and rights violations and theft of intellectual property. One could go on. That measure of respect was not really conferred. But I think the way Trump treated Xi was, you know, quite admiring, and I would say very respectfully, if in a somewhat transactional and some might even say somewhat synthetic way. But I think it did work its magic in a certain sense.
- [03:41]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
How did you read the Chinese reception, both the kind of preparations for Trump and then the theatrics, the choreography of the whole thing? What did that tell you about what the Chinese were trying to get out of that and whether that Trump sense of himself as this old friend of Xi Jinping and of China was exactly what they were going for?
- [04:00]
Orville Schell
Well, I think they sense within Trump, unlike the first administration, where, as you recall, the China hawks were much in greater predominance within the administration this time, I think they sensed that there was a certain kind of ambiguity within him that they needed to leverage. And I think it is true that what makes Trump so interesting and hard to read and also sometimes hard to deal with is that he himself is a kind of contradiction in which he has these sort of very hawkish tendencies. And on the other hand, he has this sort of mentality of, you know, big leader to big leader, we should be able to make a deal and work things out. So in the first administration, I think the more hawkish element was evident, and he was a little less comfortable and a little less confident of his ability to sort of play she this time. I think in a certain sense, he and she are quite similar in that both of them do really appreciate, even crave, a sense of their counterpart expressing respect, admiration, and possibly even a little fawning. So both leaders, I think, sort of connected on that level, that they both were questing after the other side's expression of admiration and respect, and each of them got it from the other in spades on this trip, and I think it did smooth things out, and that their hope is that this will be a sort of a turning point, an inflection point. And I think that's an interesting question. And what constitutes an inflection point? Surely not just a little bonhony and a little expression of, you know, mutual interest in win, win, you know, the usual bromides you've been on.
- [06:01]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
How many presidential visits to China at this point do you know off the top of your head going, does it go back to Carter or before or forward even?
- [06:07]
Orville Schell
Yeah, I started when Zheng Xiaping came to extend diplomatic relations with Jimmy Carter, and that was quite an extraordinary trip and then I've been on three or four others since then. An Obama trip. I went on the trip with Clinton in 98, when Jiang Zemin was party general secretary, the last Trump trip. And I went on a Bush senior trip in. It was 1986. And so to watch these kinds of trips evolve has been very interesting, and also to take measure of who it is on each side that is interacting. And what becomes very obvious to me, particularly if you look at the Chinese side, I mean, the leaders from Hubang to Zhao Ziyang to Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now Xi Jinping, they're very different people. And yes, they're all devoted to the party and devoted to the sort of changing of agendas. But we've had a very stern and militant and violent revolutionary period under Mao. Then we had this reform period, which is completely unexpected, when Mao died in 76, and suddenly Deng Xiaoping reappeared in 78 and then 79 and initiated this reform period and had that sort of astounding decade of the 1980s, which, of course, as we all remember, ended, and the tragedy of the Tiananmen demonstrations and massacre in 1989. And yet, when Jiang Zemin, who was appointed by Deng Xiaoping, who had been the party secretary and mayor of Shanghai, came in, reform did return. And the level of sort of friendly interaction with the United States, which came to be known as engagement, did regenerate. And so the 90s was also surprisingly open era, despite the crackdown after 1989. And then came this sort of interlude with Hu Jintao, who's very hard to read. He was sort of almost like a blank slate. But you could see then even the turning towards, you know, China becoming a little bit more full of itself, casting itself around the world, throwing its weight around. And then came Xi. Xi Jinping. And that basically was the end of engagement, because I think Xi Jinping did not support reform, which was the sort of solvent that made the US And China feel comfortable together, because as long as reform was going on, one could imagine we were converging in some manner, not rapidly and not completely, but the trend line seemed encouraging. And when that ended, then engagement ended, and then we got into this sort of much more hostile, antagonistic framework. And so I think that's what they were trying to sort of overcome in some sense in this summit, both because Trump knows we're in the era of choke points, when China has its choke points and levers it can pull against the United States, and one of them is critical minerals and rare earth and many others. And we have a few that we can pull against them, namely microchips and, you know, chip and fab technologies. And so this has created a much more hostile and much more antagonistic sort of interaction where the sort of proclivity of the Chinese Communist Party to see the United States again as what they call a hostile foreign force has sort of come back. So that was the backdrop against which this meeting sort of was set.
- [10:15]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Even with that shift, are there moments that you've thought back to on those earlier visits that either because they were so different or because you see kind of echoes or parallels?
- [10:24]
Orville Schell
Yes, I mean, certainly. Well, I mean, during the 79, 1979 trip, when Deng Xiaoping showed up in Washington, I mean, that was one of the most rapid sort of transformations of political attitude. I think I, I've observed in the United States that suddenly this sort of very anti communist Cold War mentality seemed to evaporate. And, you know, corporate leaders and even politicians were sort of slavishly interested in this strange sort of, you know, reconnection of the US And China. And Deng Xiaoping, who is very short man, not a man of great stature, 5 foot 4, I think, inches, they were suddenly forgot about all the, the Cold War antipathy. And they were all crowding into the White House and the National Gallery to, to genuflect to him, and it was a real love fest. And that sort of was the permission that both sides gave to each other, to their people, to sort of let the Cold War drift off and to try to restore a more friendly and open and constructive relationship. So I think it's those periods that Trump and Xi sort of look back to now and want to reproduce. And then, of course, there was 1972, before 1979, when Nixon and Kissinger did that incredible turnaround with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. So I think those two moments were the moments of great change and really sort of points of inflection. And I think Trump aspires to greatness and to being a great global leader as well as a great MAGA leader at home. And he looks to that and he would like to help reproduce some such moment. But as we can discuss, it's going to be quite difficult despite the atmospherics and the optics, which are very good, I think, at this summit. But they dodged almost every issue that sort of underlies why the US China relationship over these past decades has been so fraught.
- [12:55]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Xi Jinping put forward this kind of new framing of the relationship. That Chinese language, which I believe maybe first came up in the statements ahead of dinner on Thursday, at least publicly, was that the two sides are going to build a constructive China US Relations relationship of strategic stability as the new positioning for China US Relations. I guess the shorthand is constructive strategic stability, which they were using today on Friday. Do you see anything new in this in terms of signals or symbolism, or is this just kind of new tortured boilerplate that replaces the old tortured boilerplate?
- [13:27]
Orville Schell
Well, I think, you know, that is the aspiration, isn't it? And I think it's actually is the aspiration of most American leaders because there is a lot of common interest. But so far we've failed to be able to deploy that common interest. I mean, whether it's world peace, the global marketplace, climate change, pandemics, we have not been able to rise to the occasion. And you have to ask yourself why? And so I think it is the answer to the why question. All of the things which have divided us, set us apart, whether it's political systems, whether it's theft of intellectual property, whether it's dumping industrial policy, you name it. And it was those issues which they didn't have an answer to and they didn't even really address. In the summit, for instance, before the summit really began, Xi Jinping made a statement on Taiwan, which is of course the big homewrecker of every, every Sino US Negotiation. And he said that this is a matter of great importance to China and if it wasn't handled well, it could end in conflict. But the interesting thing was he said it sort of before anything happened and then they didn't seem to return to it. Now we don't have the text of the exact negotiations which behind closed doors, but there was no raising of that. So they kind of kicked that can down the road again. But it is still there. As you know, there's some $25 billion in two packages going through Congress for arms sales to Taiwan. One's been approved and is that the White House just being, you know, final details being roughed out. And there's another one that I think we have to watch very carefully. What's going to happen to those now? Now, it could be that our supply line is so bollocks stuff that we can't get it to Taiwan very soon anyway, even though they paid for the first one. Maybe Trump will just quietly say to Xi, or has said to Xi, listen, you can count on us to slow walk this one. Maybe I have to do the first one, but we're not going to do it in a hurry. And the second one lets you And I keep talking and see what we, we can work out. So there may be things that still are owed that Trump has to pay in order to get a deal on soybeans. They're going to buy billions of dollars of soybeans and 200 Boeing planes, and they're going to set up a board of trade. There are many things that will emerge, I think, in a more concrete form in the days to come, but still there are these issues like Taiwan and economic issues about dumping and balances of trade and things like that, which they don't have answers for. And I think it will be very difficult for them to carry out some major transformation of attitude with these issues sort of lying just beneath the surface and like law of events are pulsing up from time to time and just making it very difficult.
- [16:52]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
There was so much speculation and anxiety in American commentary and also in Chinese commentary before the visit that she would try to press Trump to change the American language on, on Taiwan's independence to say to go from, you know, we do not support Taiwan independence to we oppose Taiwan independence. It seems that the Chinese either decided that that wasn't going to happen or perhaps they tried and didn't get it. But that, that seemed like a, that seemed notable. There was so little to that effect, which suggests the Chinese have kind of lower ambitions there than we thought.
- [17:27]
Orville Schell
I think that that's why she said it up front. He got it off the table kind of, and he got a chance to let the Americans know this is no joke. This is really important to him. And I just read a tweet from Air Force One in which Trump made some expressions about Taiwan not, not, not being so important. And I think you may find him playing down Taiwan, but not doing anything so overt as to say we oppose independence or to change the balance. And Rubio did say that there's not going to be any change in Taiwan policy here in Beijing. Interestingly, Marco Rubio was once a hawk, but here he was coming to China not only as the Secretary of State, the head of the NSC Security Council, AID and head of the archives of Washington, you know, head of everything. And in fact, he has in certain ways been reborn to follow the Trump line now of sort of deal making and acting nice and not expressing his anti communist hawk side. So, but that's still there. I mean, in a certain sense, Rubio is emblematic, I think, of, of the deeply embedded suspiciousness of China and the whole political system, the human rights questions, the, all of that bundle of things. And so, you know, we can't expect that just to evaporate so that a lot of talk about win win and Trump's respect for Xi as he expressed it many, many times, will sort of overcome to transcend some of these other things. They are not going to just evaporate.
- [19:26]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
I was struck also in Trump's comments on Taiwan, I think also in Air Force One that he seemed to get strategic ambiguity right. This was something that Biden struggled with as Biden would come out and say something clear and unambiguous about the American commitment to Taiwan in the event of, of an attack. And Trump, Trump seemed to get it right.
- [19:46]
Orville Schell
In fact, you know, I have to say on this trip, Trump stuck to the script and he didn't sort of wander off into the bog of this normal kind of, you know, just free ranging and just saying stuff. He would do a little embroidery. But at the, at the dinner last night at the banquet, the welcome banquet at the Great hall of the People, he, he actually read this, read the speech and said things that, you know, he wouldn't dream up himself about, you know, the, the longevity of the U. S. China relationship and the historical fund of amity that's been built up and things like that. So I think his expression on strategic ambiguity is, I think he. They've decided that they don't want to have a big fight in Congress and back in the US So they're not going to, not going to at least immediately and overtly give into Xi's demand for some radical new expression. But who knows what they're saying in private. You know, we'll have to see when they get that transcript if we do.
- [21:00]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
There, there did seem to be a kind of all hands effort both publicly and privately to get the message of Trump from people in his own administration and Congress and elsewhere, not to, not to rock the boat here, which seems to have gotten across. It was notable that Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, really took the lead in setting up this trip. And as I read the rhetoric on commercial ties and business ties, I mean, it's of course correct that there wasn't major change in rebalancing the economic relationship or anything like that. But you had these kind of much fanfare around, around purchases of soybeans and agricultural products and Boeing airplanes, you know, it did, it did almost bring to mind the very old rhetoric about the Chinese market and the potential of business ties, whether from, you know, 1940s pre, pre revolution or from the 1990s. It was kind of striking rhetorical return to eras. When we talked about the business potential very different, differently.
- [22:02]
Orville Schell
Yes. And I think that was front and center. And as you know, he rounded up the heads of a lot of tech, mostly tech companies and some finance companies as well. And I mean this was sort of his SWAT team. And of course, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, I think for some reason had said he couldn't come on the trip, but he was summoned urgently at the last moment and flew his private jet to Anchorage and got an Air Force One because I think Trump wanted to sort of bring as much sort of clout as he could, particularly in the tech world, with him to China. And I think the Chinese appreciated that. So Trump felt well armed with some business supporters or at least not critics. And you know, he had Elon Musk and you know, the list. He wasn't just an isolated figure on a summit trip. He was someone with this. It wasn't an enormously large team, but it was very impressive team in terms of the clout that they had and were sitting there at the banquet and they had a private session with Liqiang, you know, the prime minister, et cetera.
- [23:14]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
We'll return to my conversation with Orville Shell after a short break.
- [23:25]
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- [25:00]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
the Chinese focus on Taiwan was in some ways mirrored by the American interest in in getting some Chinese help on on Iran. I think the the hope would be that the Chinese government would put some pressure on Iran to, to get to a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz and all of that. Trump suggested that there was at least some agreement on how the two sides saw the, saw the situation or saw the need for the Strait to be open. Did you pick up anything about progress on Iran, any, any meaningful change here?
- [25:31]
Orville Schell
Well, you know, it's very hard to judge. I mean, Trump had a interview with Hannity. You know, they had all these tents set up at the China World Hotel where each network had a tent and there was Hannity holding court in the tent. And. But he went over to the Great hall of the People interview with Trump and Trump said two or three times in one little sentence that, you know, Xi Jinping has said to him he would do whatever he could to help in the Strait of Hormuz. Well, it's easy to say that, but what does it actually mean? We don't know. But to Trump, that was a very valuable thing to be able to say, that his good friend had promised to help. But, you know, China and Iran have a long relationship and the foreign minister of Iran was just here. And it's hard to know exactly what those suggestions or suggested promises might mean. I don't know. I think so far so good. They laid a good atmospheric sort of platform down where everybody's happy. And Chinese television after Trump left was just all sort of expressing great, great sort of satisfaction at how friendly it had been and how well it had gone. But it doesn't change the reality of the issues, some of which are very, very difficult to solve and long lived and have deep, deep historical roots.
- [27:09]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Unlike, you know, most of your colleagues. This is not, you know, your first time in China or not one of your first trips. You, I imagine, have had conversations with Chinese journalists or Chinese friends who are reacting. Are there interesting differences or reactions you've seen from them that shed light on the kind of Chinese, Chinese intentions or reactions here?
- [27:33]
Orville Schell
Well, I think it's fair to say that, you know, sort of ordinary working class people in China, they pretty much stay out of politics and they're not in a hot, don't have a hostile attitude, I think, towards Xi Jinping. But professional people, educated people, urban people, that's another story. And I think that there is, is a lot of dissatisfaction here with the direction that Xi is, is taking China. And a lot of people are moving abroad. And that's a real index, I think, of the level of disaffection. So even though China seems to be making significant Progress in terms of sort of technical development and rejuvenation and many others. Possibly even the property market is showing a few signs of being stabilized. But there is a lot of dissatisfaction and Xi Jinping knows it. And he's got problems in, in the military. He's, you know, the Central Military Commission now has one other commissioner besides Xi. He's, he's, you know, all the others are being tried for corruption and this, that and the other. Who knows what the real reason is. That, that, that they've been, they've had, as the Chinese have been capped, have their dunce hat put on their head in effect, and they're, they've lost their jobs and they're undergoing investigations. So there are a lot of things lurking beneath the surface, both internally in China and beneath the surface, as I said before, of the US China relationship that this summit neither addressed nor I think would have the power to remedy. And they're bound to keep popping up. So exactly what the long term effect will be, that's another question.
- [29:33]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
There's been lots of reporting and lots of reason to think this reporting is right to the fact that Xi Jinping is in a period of great confidence and some would call it hubris, and he has reason to see China's position in his position in a pretty good light. He'll presumably start a fourth term next year in 2027. Do you think he's overconfident? Do you think he's kind of over reading some of the short term developments and that the risk right now, both for him and for the relationship, is, is hubris rather than, than anything else?
- [30:06]
Orville Schell
You know, how to describe it? Whether it's hubris or just a, I mean, it seems to me we're in a world now where there's a whole group of leaders, I would include Trump, Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, and even at least before the, the recent bombings in Iran. The mullahs, you know, have great pretensions of grandiosity to restore their countries to greatness. And in the case of Russia and China, of course, that is a kind of imperial greatness too, whether they not only flesh out the most expansive borders of what was Russia and what was China, including Tibet, Manchuria, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China Sea, but also to restore it, to soothe their wounded egos that have historically waited for this moment when China would have the wealth and power to throw its weight around and be a big power itself and perhaps even earn the right to do a little bullying, as all great powers have. So I think that's A very powerful impulse. And of course, it does raise the question of, what's China after? Do they want global hegemony? Could they cooperate with the United States ever again? What are they going to do about the EU and Europe? In other words, what's their version of a new world order?
- [31:41]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
I'm fascinated by this idea that this could be an inflection point that you raised earlier. And notwithstanding all the hard issues that could kind of drag us back to where the relationship was several months ago, if it is an inflection point, where do you think we're heading? Right. What comes after the inflection?
- [32:00]
Orville Schell
Well, we'd have to start having some real concessions made by both sides. I don't think that's in the cards. I don't think Xi Jinping is ready to make major concessions. I think he views such concessions as hallmarks of weakness. I mean, we'd have to have some kind of a conclusion to the extravagant claims in the South China Sea and maybe some expression of. I mean, remember what Mao Zedong said about Taiwan when Nixon and Kissinger were there? He said, it's okay if we can't solve this for 100 years. So in other words, he wasn't going to make it a condition of. Of gaining. Of allowing the other sort of forms of cooperation to be impeded. And then when Deng Xiaoping went to Japan in 79 on his way to Washington, he was asked about Taiwan, and he said, listen, let's leave this for smarter generations to solve, to come. That's a very good formula, but I don't think Xi Jinping is capable of going to a formula like that because it would make him look weak, having sort of professed with such militants that Taiwan is ours. It's a sensitive issue, and if we can't get it peacefully, we'll get it through conquest or through embargo or whatever. So I just don't see him. He could surprise us, but he doesn't seem to have that gene, which codes for giving a little to get a little, which is the essence of diplomacy. Trump is not exactly a master at this either. I think Biden could have done it, but when China was sort of on the. On a roll and becoming more and more wealthy and powerful and influential and successful both at home and bells and road and bricks and all of these things, they weren't in any mood to say, okay, how can we get along better? What do we have to give in order to get something?
- [34:08]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
It's notable to me that China now seems to be okay with the Idea of putting guardrails on competition, really accepting that the relationship will be competitive, but you need to, to. To contain it in certain ways. There was a time when you would hear from Chinese analysts that it was not in. In China's interest to have guardrails. Abraham Competition because it would just allow the US to, to contain China, allow the US to be more aggressive in some sense, because new things wouldn't escalate. That does seem to be a meaningful change. And whether that's a major historical inflection point, who knows? But that does seem to be a positive development. It didn't start with this trip, but this trip, I think, reinforced it.
- [34:46]
Orville Schell
Yes, I think there is a greater tolerance. They used to loathe the word competition, but now I think they're coming to accept it much more, more readily. But, you know, what hasn't gone away is, of course, their industrial policy. And what hasn't gone away is the recognition. And I think they, they sort of learned this from us, actually, that everybody needs to sort of weaponize their supply chains and needs to find choke points that we're in. In this era of choke points, what leverage do you have? Not just diplomatically, but economically? So tragically, I think this great global proposition which we all sort of merrily sailed into, whether it was win, win, everybody profits by the global marketplace. Nobody cared where stuff came from, what kind of government they had, what the geopolitics were, if you could get it cheap, fast and didn't have to maintain big inventories. And China's strategy remains the following. Become as autarkic and independent of choke points from Europe and the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, et cetera, but cultivate as much dependence in those countries as you possibly can because it's a lever. And so I think that's one reason they welcomed all these American entrepreneurs there today who are all, you know, champing at the bit to get back into China. But if they do, that gives China immense leverage, just as they have over Germany. Now, Germany made a lot of money in the auto industry in China, and now they're getting squeezed out by the new BYDs and, you know, various other EVs and battery industry and one thing and another, or BASF, a big German, the biggest chemical company in the world that's going to get squeezed out. So they were doing fine, but the problem is that it made an encumbrance on Germany, who had to trim their jibs in order to keep these companies able to keep making money in China. And it sort of distorted the geopolitical landscape. So once you're dependent on China, you're making money there. They sort of have a lever on you. And this is a very calculated strategy that I think Xi Jinping is masterfully confected. Let me.
- [37:24]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
To end. Try to end on a less wonky note than we normally would. You've written so beautifully over the years about the kind of place for humanism and national spirit, as you put it, in China's rise. You've kind of been skeptical that the CCP is really a party that can allow this to develop in the way that is necessary for the rise to continue. As you've been back this time, as you've read the rhetoric and symbolism of this visit, how do you see that developing? Do you see interesting changes in the national spirit, as you put it? Do you see it being constrained and repressed? How do you read that at this moment?
- [38:06]
Orville Schell
I think what made China so interesting in the 80s, 90s, 90s and even early 2000s was that it was both technologically and in a business sense, vibrant, and things were happening. But also it was a very interesting intellectual climate, a cultural climate, and publishing and music and art and philosophy, academia, think tanks. There's a lot of independent thinking, and it made it very. And that's where humanism sort of had an opportunity. But remember that humanism, in the sort of Marxist, Leninist playbook is. Is a kind of a. The Chinese used to call it spiritual pollution because it is a universal value. And the Chinese to this day do not accept the notion that there are universal values like human rights. Every human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights in that kind of language. So I think the humanistic aspect is precisely in some way what Xi Jinping is missing. And it is sort of tragedy because China has had such a traditionally rich culture of humanistic thinking, whether it's religion or philosophy or art, music, you name it. And that's sort of been defoliated, I think, from the proposition of Chinese greatness. And in a way, I think you could say the same with the United States under Trump. This isn't his highest priority when we look at the Kennedy Center. So you have these two guys who are very transactional, and what's important to them is trade and money and deals and calming things down so that part of the transaction. Go on, can go on. They're not so interested in other things. For instance, there was some talk that Trump would raise the question of Jimmy Lai, who's. Who's in life for 20 years, a publisher in Hong Kong and I think he did raise it. But I was watching television yesterday and when CNN brought up the question of Jimmy Lai and what had happened, the screen went blank. And I suspect that's probably what happened with if, if Trump raised it. I mean, there's a small chance, and this is the way I would have done it if Xi Jinping would relent on some humanistic issue like that, that you let a political prisoner who was unjustifiably arrested, you let him go. Maybe after Trump gets home one day quietly, Jimmy Lai shows up in England and, and Trump says, well, thank you, Mr. Xi, you know, for your, your, your demonstration of your humanism. I mean, possible, not sure, so likely because humanism is a kind of a corrosive force to the whole notion of sort of Leninist one party rule. And, and, and the party comes first. And you don't want people distracted by things that, that sort of defile their, their primary commitment and loyalty to that, to that goal.
- [41:39]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Well, Orville, a huge thank you for doing this conversation and for being there. We're all extremely lucky to have you on the trip and in Beijing to help us interpret the signs and close read the rhetoric and everything else. So we will look forward to reading and hearing more once you're back and have processed everything. But for now, thanks so much for doing this late in the evening in Beijing.
- [42:00]
Orville Schell
Well, Dan, great pleasure and I look forward to more of these conversations.
- [42:12]
Dan Kurtz-Phelan
Thank you for listening. You can find the articles that we discussed on today's show@foreign affairs.com this episode of the Foreign Affairs Interview was produced by Rose Kohler and Kanish Tharoor. Our audio engineer is Christopher Cook. Original music is by Robin Hilton. Special thanks as well to Arina Hogan. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like what you heard, please take a minute to to rate and review it. We release a new show every Thursday. Thanks again for tuning in.
- [43:01]
Podcast Announcer
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