Signs of instability in the Chinese regime.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, where this is Gordon Chang. Well, you can follow him on his Twitter at at Gordon g Chang and know what’s going on in the Far East twenty four hours a day. Well, Gordon. A lot of rumors going around about what’s going around in China. A lot of rumors are going around that there are stings happening.

0:24 You’re the expert, You’re the one who knows. You got your ear close to the ground. Tell you ever said your thoughts?

0:33 Speaker 2 Well, John, Especially for the last two and a half three months, we have been seeing signs of extreme instability in the Chinese regime. So, for instance, it appears that C. Jimpeg has lost substantial influence or maybe even control over the People’s Liberation Army, which is the most powerful faction in the Communist Party. A number of his loyalists have

0:56 been removed, and it appears that his adversary areas have removed them among civilians. They’re also signs that Sijinping has lost influence, although we have less corroboration for that, but clearly, right now something is up in Beijing, because, as a friend of mine says, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and right now in China, there’s a lot.

1:20 Speaker 1 Of smoke understood. Now, what is the whole region? I mean, you know you got Vietnam, you have Korea there, North Korea. Yeah, you have a lot of things, a lot of moving parts.

1:37 Speaker 2 Yes, And that is one of the reasons why things are so dangerous right now, because we don’t know how things will shake out in a crisis, so it’s very difficult to manage. One thing about the Cold War was that everybody knew who was on whose side, and that’s not necessarily true right now in East Asia, especially because

2:00 South Korea is moving very fast into China’s camp, and we are seeing disturbing developments in other countries as well. We don’t know, for instance, if China starts a war whether Russia and North Korea would join in, but they probably would, and that would change the whole dynamics of a conflict in that region. And by the way, that

2:23 would also mean that it looked like the world was on fire, because there would be wars, for instance in Europe, insurgencies in North Africa that look like wars, and the simmering conflict in the Middle East, and as well India and Pakistan.

2:39 Speaker 1 Understood and things are settled down between India and Pakistan.

2:45 Speaker 2 Yeah, they had their four day war in early May and right now though the main sources of the conflict have not gone away. So for instance, there’s no sign that Pakistan has given up sponsoring terrorists who are attacking India.

3:04 And also India in this last war was so upset about the April twenty five that terrorist attack in Kashmir that it actually withdrew at least temporarily from the Indus water treaty that cuts off water into Pakistan and where Pakistan gets much or even most of its water. So this is a disagreement between Islamabad and New Delhi that

3:31 is incredibly serious and has not gone away. Matter of fact, it’s gotten worse.

3:37 Speaker 1 Wow, Sunday morning. When else you want to telling American people? I mean, should they just stand by? They? Should they worry? Or do you think things will just sort themselves out? Now? The people that are in the lead to be the future, are they more peaceful people? Or are they are they more are they looking for? What’s your thoughts?

4:03 Speaker 2 In China? If there were to be a leadership change, I think that the figures who would take over would be much more internally focused. One of the reasons why Sigemping is in such trouble is because of his management of the economy. He’s been blamed for making a bad situation worse, and so I think that you’d find technocrats

4:25 taking over. But we also got to remember that the Chinese military will become much more influential in any sort of post Sigeonping regime, and we don’t know how the generals and admirals will shake out, so it will be a chaotic situation. But if we look at history, we can see that even though China sometimes goes tame, eventually

4:49 we see the reassertion of strongman rule. So even if there is temporary common Bejing, we should be expecting bad events in the future.

5:01 Speaker 1 Understant Gordon Chang. I’ve enjoyed the rest of the weekend, and let’s catch you up again real soon and keep your eyes on things, and I’ll be watching your Twitter at Gordon g Chang and to see if there’s any problems going on. And enjoy the weekend.

5:18 Speaker 2 Thank you so much, John,