Miles Yu discusses how the Chinese Communist Party publicly threatened to use the death penalty against separatists who support and advocate for an independent Taiwan, and how Xi Jinping emphasized loyalty at a People’s Liberation Army meeting to ensure that “the party controls the gun.” He also covers Vladimir Putin and Kim Jun Un’s defense pact, which they signed in Pyongyang to keep Xi on his toes in his own backyard.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute's China Center, hosted by Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute's China Center. I am Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center. Join me each week along with my colleague, Shane Leary, for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat, and their implications to the US and beyond.
Phil Hegseth:
It's Wednesday, June 26th and we've got three topics for Miles. The first being that the CCP last week threatened to use the death penalty against separatists who support and advocate for an independent Taiwan to include individuals who live in Taiwan in the latest move from the CCP to declare their jurisdiction and rule over the island nation. Secondly, Xi Jinping held a military meeting with the PLA last week and above all, emphasized the need for the military's “political loyalty”. Miles gives the historical context and modern consequences of Xi's hysterical death grip on military leadership. And finally, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un met at a summit last week in Pyongyang, which resulted in the countries among other things, agreeing to a mutual defense pact if one were to face invasion, Miles reacts to the new partnership and what it means for Xi Jinping when dictatorial neighbors team up along his borders. Miles, it's good to see you.
Miles Yu:
Good to see you.
Phil Hegseth:
We're a little bit delayed. Apologies for our listeners for being a day late, but I understand you were traveling around Europe, your favorite place. Could you give us a little update as to the purpose behind the trip?
Miles Yu:
Yeah, although everybody is considering what will happen to America's policy, particularly foreign policy toward Europe and toward China after the November election this year. So I got invited by some friends, and so I visited the U.K. I interacted with some of the UK officials and also a lot of just non-government groups, see a lot of friends. And also I went to Czech Republic, interacted with their intellectuals and their policy makers and their government officials, had wonderful time discussing some of the major issues of vital to their interest and to American's interest. And also I went to Germany and I delivered two lectures to a wonderful audience at the University of Munich. Munich is a nice city, and it is a little hot because everybody was involved in soccer. Football they call it. There's the European championships going on. But amongst all the excitement, and I had a wonderful time.
Phil Hegseth:
And everyone you met was a fan of the show.
Miles Yu:
Not everyone, but everyone who cares about China I talked to, they actually told me how much they love the show. They gave me some constructive recommendations. I really appreciate that. That shows that our program is gaining more recognition not only with the American domestic audience, but also international audience as well.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the goal. We're both a little jet-lagged, but we'll jump right in. So for topic number one, the CCP last week publicly threatened to use the death penalty against separatists who support and advocate for an independent Taiwan. Could you just break this down for me first exactly how they made the threat and are they claiming jurisdiction and judicial precedent inside Taiwan?
Miles Yu:
Oh yeah. I mean, they always pretend that the PRC has a jurisdiction over Taiwan, which is basically, it's false. This is basically a reinforcement of the 2005 anti-cessation law passed in China. It's basically the escalation of lawfare against Taiwanese people. The full name of the documents, which is enacted by several ministries and all the Taiwan-related government agencies, is called Guidelines for Punishing Die Hard Taiwan Independence Separatists. Now, if you read this document carefully, there's several very important sort of misconceptions, very clever. They said Punishing “Diehard” Taiwan Independence Separatist. Diehard, that means that very small group of people are for independence, which is falsehood number one. Falsehood number two is punishing. Punishing means you basically imply you have authority, you punish somebody, and that's because somebody did something wrong. It's like a parent punishes a child. Diehard implies a tiny clique.
But the reality is that over 90% of people in Taiwan, poll after poll after poll, are for the status quo. Well, what is status quo? Status quo is independence, right? So everybody enjoys their independent way of life. They are democratic and have a free style of living and their self-governance. The PRC government has exercised zero jurisdiction, not just the legal jurisdiction, but also administrative authority over one square inch of Taiwan. So I mean, that's just reality, right? This is something that, people pay attention to it, but it's just that they try to psychologically intimidate people in Taiwan, and throw out a death penalty and all this draconian measures of what China called the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. I have some other questions, but is there any even small group of people inside mainland China that they could actually use this, have jurisdiction over and use this law against and would, or is it all just a small (inaudible)?
Miles Yu:
A small mean anti-cessation law was primarily aimed at Taiwan, but also it could apply to people in Tibet, people in Xinjiang, and particularly people in Hong Kong, and even in Mongolia and the area, what now is called Northeast, but the in tradition is called Manchuria. There are a lot of areas, applications. The contemporary Chinese political sovereign map basically consists of the map of conquest by the Manchu dynasty, the last dynasty of China in the 18th century, minus of course outer Mongolia, which now is independent country that China actually recognized because it was also a fellow communist country. It's called the People's Republic of Mongolia. Mongolia was the first Soviet satellite state which was established by the Soviets in 1924. The Taiwanese government, in theory, would not recognize Outer Mongolia as an independent country. In theory, the Republic of China, as claimed by Taiwan, still would include this huge area that would include Mongolia. The PRC, basically the Chinese Communist Party, recognized that. Now the 18th century Chinese map of conquest consists of many, many ethnic minorities, what we call it right now. That would include the Uyghur region Xinjiang, which literally means the new frontier, new territory, and then Tibet, and several other regions. China wants to restore the past imperial glory. This is basically what it is.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. So back to the Taiwan angle of this. There's been a clear ratcheting up of tension and escalation from the CCP, this included, towards Taiwan since the election of President Lai Ching-te. Is this specifically for any of his politics or is this testing out the new guy? What's the significance behind the timing here and his response?
Miles Yu:
Well, first of all, they say Lai Ching-te has some kind of breakthrough in promoting independence calls, which is nonsense. If you look at everything that Lai has said has done since his election, the first speech after the election result came out, he said, I'm not going to call for referendum. I'm not going to declare independence in Taiwan. He is not necessarily doing anything that is out of the ordinary. He said in his inauguration speech, yes, that the People's Republic of China and Republic of China, Taiwan, do not belong to each other, but he's not the first one who said that. Even the KMT president, Ma Ying-jeou, said before, and his predecessor before, President Tsai Ing-wen, during her entire eight years of presidency, she repeatedly said this thing. So obviously there's nothing wrong. China just wants to pick a fight. It does not like this Taiwanese Democratic elected presidency period, no matter who won.
That's one thing. Now, President Lai’s response to this new so-called guideline punishment is actually very, very interesting. He said no. He correctly stated that China's recent announcement of this Punishing Diehard Independent Separatist is just a red herring because by virtue of that declaration, all of Taiwan, DPP, KMT, TPP, are now considered independent separatist because none agrees to be united with the CCP. And so, it's not really small clique. It's just all of Taiwan. China basically declared the entire Taiwan population as a pro-independent separatist, most importantly, President Lai's response is very, very firm. And he said, without any hesitation that China has no right and jurisdiction over Taiwan. Period. That is his direct response. But now you asked me a question which is very, very salient, and I think it's very important. That is, what really is behind China's motive to do this? I think it has something to do with the total different understanding of the concept of independence.
There are several aspects about this concept, independence. Number one, is there independence already in Taiwan? The answer is very clear. Yes, Taiwan has enjoyed independence ever since the 1950s, independent administration. And then since 1990s, there is an independence of a lifestyle, as democratic lifestyle was freedom, and Taiwan and China were completely different countries. And right now, people in Taiwan who openly identify themselves as Chinese are in the single digits. So most people identify them as Taiwanese because they are different kind of lifestyle. So there is an independence in reality, that's a reality. Now, what China means actually is something very different. It's like the 1776 movement that is the Declaration of Independence. China does not want Taiwan to declare independence. President Lai and his predecessor has said very clearly that we're not going to declare independence because there's no such need to do so.
Taiwan is already an independent country, independent sovereign country, and its name is Republic of China in Taiwan. That is why the whole Chinese hysteria about Taiwanese independence is basically a red herring. China has not responded to that. Now, there is a third aspect of that, which I think really is what really prompted China at this particular time. You ask me about timing, why they rule out these historical and disparate guidelines for punishing diehard Taiwanese independent separatists. That is the third aspect of the issue about independence, the dynamic of international reaction to the issue of Taiwan is changing quickly, and not to China’s liking. That is while most countries still do not like the declaration of Taiwan independence, but more and more countries are treating Taiwan as an independent country in reality, fully recognizing the reality of Taiwan's independence. This is what scares China. Taiwan's growing power in global trade, technology, and civic governance is also very significant. Taiwan is not a passive player in global politics. Taiwan is very active. Look at Taiwan's semiconductor industry. It's dominant in the world. Listen to this, Taiwan is a very tiny country of 23 million, right? China's population is hundreds of times bigger than Taiwan. Also, the territory is big. But see, Taiwan's, GDP per capita is the highest in East Asia. At some point, you start (inaudible) Taiwan and supporting Japan and South Korea. That's a remarkable achievement, right?
Phil Hegseth:
The best statement you could have.
Miles Yu:
That's right. And also, while China is the third largest trading partner of the United States behind Mexico and Canada. Taiwan, a tiny country of 23 million, is the number eight largest trading partner of United States. The economic relationship is also very significant. There are over 200 countries in the world. Taiwan is number eight largest trading partner with the United States. Taiwan has the best educated population, and it has the most transparent democratic election system. All of China is becoming more and more stifling and totalitarian. So Taiwan is very popular. That's why if the international community tends to recognize the reality of Taiwanese independence, that's really what scares the China Communist Party. That's why they throw this red hearing and throw all the threats, death penalty, diehard. It's just not really true. It's not very realistic. Chinese communist government never learned the lesson that a high-pressure threat against Taiwanese people has never worked. They should stop doing this and show sincerity to recognize reality and just have a very nice conversation and dialogue with Taiwanese government. President Lai has been consistently urging the Chinese to stop their dialogue mechanism. They don't want to do it.
Phil Hegseth:
For obvious reasons. While speaking of falling back on your totalitarianism, Xi Jinping held a military meeting with a PLA last week and above all things, he spent his time emphasizing the need for armed forces, the armed forces political loyalty. But this isn't a real shock, as you mentioned, but why does he need to emphasize or reemphasize this right now? Is he worried about something or is this just shoring up support before an invasion? What's behind this?
Miles Yu:
People's Liberation Army is a purely Marxist-Leninist communist Party. It is not the national defense force. Its job is not to defend the nation. Primarily, its job is to secure, ensure the political security of the party. The People's Liberation Army is not the national army, it's the party army. So it's very much like the SS for the Nazi regime, right? This is basically the important. Now, how do you ensure that PLA is totally loyal to the party? There are two very important aspects of that. Number one, you establish a political commissar system. In other words, in the Peoples Liberation Army, which is the largest in the world right now with a 2.3 million active-duty personnel. So that's the world's largest army. But the supremacy within the command structure of the PLA does not lie with the professionally capable military commanders, it lies in their political commissures, whose job is to guarantee political loyalty to the party and to Xi himself.
Now, that principle in the Chinese parliament is called “the party commands the gun.” The landmark event that established this principle took place in 1929. In 1929, after the defeat of the Chinese communist uprising ordered by the Comintern in Moscow. Mao grouped his defeated troops together in this little village in Fujian province called the Gutian, and had a conference. The Gutian spirit established Mao as the top political commissary of the Red Army, and that is when the supremacy of political commissure inside the Chinese Communist Party's military was established and has been there ever since. That's why Xi Jinping, when he came to power in 2012, his first emphasis was to reinforce that principle, of the party commands the gun. Absolutely. That's why the conference that you talk about at the beginning of the segment was the political work conference of the Central Military Commission.
CMC is a communist party, the highest command authority, which is chaired by Xi himself by the party secretary in the normal case. So the first meaningful political work conference held by Xi Jinping took place in 2014. Do you know where it was taking place? Well, it took place in Gutian conference site in Gutian Village, in Fujian province. Xi Jinping was a party chief. He was the party Viceroy in Fujian province. He knew that place. He took this PLA's top political commissar to that place to make sure this is very symbolic. Now talk about symbolism. This conference, which took place last week, about CMC’s political work took place in another place, which is also like the holy land of the Communist Party, Yan’an is a little village in Northern Shaanxi province. That's a place where the Chinese communist party consolidated its power and stayed there for 12 years. Between 1935 and 1947, the Chinese Communist Party transformed itself, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was born and strengthened in that period. Now, this is also was the period when Mao establishes the absolute authority, not only over the army, the Red Army, but also over the party, and most importantly, gains recognition by Joseph Stalin.
So that process took him 12 years. The whole process, the so-called the Yan’an Spirit, consists of two things. Number one is the idea of unification of thoughts. That is, everybody has to rally around one thought, one leader, the so-called “Mao Tse-tung Thought.” It's basically the establishment of personality cult and the totalitarianization of Mao-thought. This is how it was established over there. And so that's basically the perfect implementation of Leninist democratic centralism. It's highly centralized, right? Democracy is just a facade. That's why in Yan’an, you have to really have to get rid of all these disagreements. Everybody has to agree to one thought under Mao. It's basically an indoctrination campaign. That's why it's called a Yan’an Rectification. Rectification Yan’an, and people went through this very rigorous and very brutal indoctrination process. Everybody emerged from Yan’an completely transformed. Everybody loves Mao. And that's why.
Now there was also another thing in the Yan’an area during the 12 years, it was actually a horror show. It's a reign of terror because in order to eliminate heretic thoughts among all the rank and file, you have to really identify so-called “impurities” of the people's thoughts. You have to physically eliminate them. That's why so many people put to trial labeled as traitors, as spies for the enemies, KMTs, Americans. You have to really, really get rid of a lot of people physically. So Yan’an was also a big jailhouse. In the name of (inaudible) for example, a lot of people were killed. So that's why Yan’an is holy land of purges. So this is the place where Xi Jinping took his CMC political work conference to there last week. He took the whole bunch of people over there, number one to emphasize the absolute supremacy of the unification of thoughts under him. He's a supreme leader. Number two, he also threatens these guys, if you don't behave, this will be the place where you can meet your demise. And that's where you go to see Marx, as communists say. So that's why they're going to do this. Basically is known for two things. One is establishment of a personality cult. Secondly, massive purges.
Phil Hegseth:
I was just going to say every six months on the show, it feels like we’re talking about
Miles Yu:
Massive purges of PLA senior officials. Now let me just, I have a list here.
Phil Hegseth:
In the smallest font I've ever seen.
Miles Yu:
I'm going to read. Thank God this is not a video show.
Phil Hegseth:
Well, there's been a lot of them.
Miles Yu:
He basically purged virtually every senior military leader when he took power. (inaudible) wanted just the people who served in his predecessor’s regime, right? Hu Jintao, two highest ranking officials, military officials, General Xu Caihou徐才厚, who's the top political commissar for the entire PLA for 10 years. And he's the top professional military guy, General Guo Boxiong 郭伯雄for 12 years. These two guys were the vice chair of the CMC, which is a very, very powerful highest command authority, (inaudible) who has died during the purge. General Guo Boxiong 郭伯雄 is now serving a life term. So that's the highest one. Now, the next level is the CMC member level. He purged everybody, including the previous CMC member commission, and also current one, and the three of them, very important, General Zhang Yang张阳, who was the CMC top political commissar, the most important position in the Chinese Communist Party system, military, Xi Jinping purged him.
The guy committed suicide, he killed himself. If he killed himself, that’s the ultimate evidence of your betrayal to the party. And then the next one is General Fang Fenghui 房峰辉, was very peculiar. And he was handpicked by Xi Jinping himself. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the entire PLA. He was with Xi Jinping to visit the Pentagon and came here in one of the first trips to meet with President Trump. He went back two months later, this guy's purged. This guy basically is serving long-term in jail. And of course, most recently is the General Li Shangfu 李尚福. Li Shangfu was handpicked by Xi Jinping as his defense minister, a member of the CMC. The guy suddenly disappeared. He disappeared in Chinese political parlance. He was disappeared. And he's now gone, right? So he's purged now. That's basically at the CMC member level.
And there was also theater commander level. China has five theory commanders. Those are the most important people. They’re going to fight for Xi Jinping’s war. He purges almost a whole bunch of them, and there are five of them. That's very important. The Air Force Chief Top Air Commissar for the Air Force General Tian Xiusi 田修思is gone. He's purged. And then you got this commander of the People's Armed Police, the most important tool of repression of the Chinese people, over a million strong. He's a commandant of the PAP. And this guy is Wang Jie Ping 王解平. He's purged gone, he's under Xi Jinping, gone. And then you have Zou Yangning 邹运宁. Zou Yangning was the general in charge of the Chinese Rocket Force, the strategic force in charge of all the missiles, the nukes. He was purged.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah, we covered him on the show.
Miles Yu:
Well, that's the next one. That's the next one. So he's the second commander of the P-L-A-R-F. His successor is the one we talked covering before. This guy called, his name is Li Yuchao 李玉超, General Li Yuchao was summarily basically dismissed and purged, right? He's the third commander of the Chinese Rocket Force. And then of course you also have this, the President of China's People's Liberation Army’s National Defense University. This is a general by the name of General Wang Xibing 王喜斌. He's gone. You name all these things. I have a list of hundreds of them over here. They're all purged. That's why Xi Jinping lives in hysteria, total madness. That's why he had to take these people Yan’an to say, hey, listen, you got to be with me, or you'll be dead. And they also indicate something else, that the profound disenchantment within the rank and file of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Nobody likes him. Yeah, it's not a sign of strength. He took people to Yan’an to enforce the idea of his supremacy and also to threaten people within the rank and file. I don't know how such an army could win any modern war. Anyway, that's just my observation.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. Well, something else happened last week that added to, I'm sure, his hysteria, which is that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un had a summit in Pyongyang, and during it, amongst other things, Kim pledged support for Russia in the Ukrainian war. They signed a defense pact of sorts in case of any kind of invasion. So what's behind this? What are the regional implications of this? Is this a boxing out of China? Is this really just adding to his hysteria? Or is this just a partnership of convenience for the moment? How is this going to change the Russia-China relationship, and really that regional relationship?
Miles Yu:
The way I see is Putin and Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, they are three maniacs. They all have very, very ambitious goals. No, I mean the relationship is pretty much like if you’ve study history, you studied like a Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin, that's basically it. I mean, they share something in common. They also don't like each other. The issue is one wants to up the other, right? This is basically the logic of dictators, you have to understand that. While Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, they share their anti-west ideology. They also have a clash of ambitions. Xi Jinping is obviously now is in a very good position because the Chinese economy is very big and it has money. It commands a very powerful economic industrial base, with which they can support all these rogue countries like Russia, like Iran, like North Korea. But Putin and Kim Jong-un, they never like to be the willing-subservient to Xi Jinping. They want to play some kind of balance, even though they may not have any other choice, but they'll try to do some kind of little cranky things to show their defiance. So this is actually considered one of them, Xi Jinping, I don't think he's comfortable to see that North Korea and Russia now have a mutual defense arrangement. That could mean that (inaudible)
Phil Hegseth:
That’s a legitimate development.
Miles Yu:
If North Korea is under attack by a third country, that could be United States, but it could also be China, at some point, Russia is going to jump in. He's not very happy about that because the relationship with Russia has to be exclusive. Xi Jinping might have a strong sense that Putin and Kim Jong-un, maybe are a little bit promiscuous, maybe there's some hanky-panky between the two going on against me at some point, right? That's why he's not very comfortable with that. That's why if you look at the Chinese foreign ministry statement, it’s very ambiguous.
Now, I think my view could be also reinforced by what Vladimir Putin did next after the visit to Pyongyang. He visited Hanoi. He visited Vietnam. Why? Vietnam obviously is China’s adversary, its original adversary. Putin always valued the traditional friendship between Vietnam and Moscow. He wanted to go there to show, listen, I'm not only nice to China, I'm also nice to China's adversaries in Vietnam. Vietnam and Russia have a very strong military cooperation. Vietnamese weapons of offense are still, Russia-made, Russian design. That's why every time China buys weapons of significance from Russia, Russia always makes sure to sell the same kind of weapons. China's adversaries and Russia's traditional friends, particularly Vietnam and India.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah, we just talked about that last week with India.
Miles Yu:
That's right. So I mean, India and Russia have a very extensive military cooperation. India and Russia are developing this very powerful missile system called the BrahMos, which is not bad. By virtue of doing this, Vladimir Putin seems to send to China a signal that, listen, I love you, but I also want to love somebody else. He wanted to play in balance diplomacy. He doesn't want to be exclusively trapped into the Moscow-Beijing duality.
Phil Hegseth:
Right. I love to be here in person with you. You're an encyclopedia of little historical facts, which is fantastic. But also that sheet of generals that you just had was so long and such tiny fonts, which shows two things. One, your depth of research, but also Xi Jinping's deep, deep hysteria and totalitarians that we covered here well and cover every week. So it's good to be with you again, and we'll see you next week.
Miles Yu:
Thank very much. Don't press me too much because I might become dictator or something. Thank you for listening to this episode of China Insider. I'd like to thank my colleague Shane Leary, for taking part in this undertaking every week. I'd also like to thank our executive producer, Philip Hegseth, who works tirelessly and professionally behind the scenes for every episode. To make sure we deliver the best quality podcast to you, the listeners, if you enjoy the show, please spread the word. For our Chinese listeners, please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time