Why leaders visit Beijing despite US-China tensions (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Global News Podcast on YouTube, where we go behind the headlines to look at one story and why it matters. Today, the contest between the United States and China to be number one global superpower. As Western leader after Western leader heads to Beijing to court Xi Jinping, what balance should they try to strike between doing deals and human rights? I'm joined from Beijing by our China correspondent, Laura Bicker. Laura, the first visit from a UK Prime Minister in eight years. Canada's Mark Carney has just been Finland's leader, has just left. Friedrich Merz of Germany is going. What is it that China has that they want? And is it worth annoying Donald Trump to get it?

[00:00:45] Speaker 2: This is the factory of the world. It is the biggest manufacturer in the world. Just give you a few examples. If you're looking at the future of our planet, China is the lead in renewables. It produces everything from around 60% to 80% of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, electric batteries. China makes more robots than anywhere else in the world. China has and processes more rare earths than anywhere else in the world, about 90% of rare earths, for instance. And these are the kind of extracts, these minerals that are needed to make anything from an electric vehicle to your smartphone, to Bluetooth speakers. So when it comes to the future technology, when it comes to the things that we've kind of got used to, China really is key. And that is one of the reasons why so many countries are flocking here. And China is saying to all of these countries, look, I'm here, I will offer you a deal, we'll sit down and negotiate. I think the other thing, China doesn't see alliances in the same way perhaps that the West does. It doesn't demand a fealty. It doesn't demand you adopt its ideology. In many ways, it sees it as very transactional. This to China is a business deal. It is using trade to gain power, to gain influence in this great power competition that it's in with Washington.

[00:02:06] Speaker 1: Does China keep to its side of the deal?

[00:02:11] Speaker 2: So there are major pitfalls. So I've talked about the possibilities. Here are the pitfalls. There are certain issues when it comes to China. If you, for instance, tread on their red lines, as we've seen, perhaps from South Korea, we've seen from Australia that criticised China over COVID. When we've seen, I mean, South Korea put a kind of sad weapons system in its country, a US weapons system in its country, which China criticised. Japan recently has insinuated that if there's an issue in Taiwan, if China invades Taiwan, that Japan would get involved. It is now being retaliated against in the means of trade. China is using trade as a weapon when countries do or say something it did not like. Canada is a perfect example of this. Canada locked up a business executive, a Chinese business executive, that the US wanted for questioning. When it came to the retaliation, China locked up two Canadian citizens in really severe circumstances. And then the relationship went into a decade of a deep freeze. It is now a major thaw, and we've seen in the last couple of weeks Mark Carney come here. But Mark Carney was very clear when he came here. He said, look, I do want to bring up human rights, but also I want to make sure that when I'm dealing with China, there are guardrails. And this is the key thing for many people who are coming to do business here. They call it guardrails because there is an area within which the two sides can sit down and negotiate. They know that outside of those areas that things could be tricky. But when you put those guardrails in place, then many countries feel a little safer to do business.

[00:03:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll come back to human rights in a moment, if I may, because it is absolutely central to this. But are countries to a degree having to choose between the United States and China? When Mark Carney went to China, Donald Trump slapped tariffs on him straight afterwards, 100% tariffs.

[00:04:10] Speaker 2: Well, those tariffs haven't been put in place just yet. He has threatened Canada with 100% tariffs. And I think when it comes to Canada, they may just wonder if that threat will follow through. But yeah, it might be a case. If you are doing business with China, whether that be Canada, whether it be the United Kingdom, are you risking the wrath of Washington? China is not asking any of its business partners, any of those that it's inviting into the Great Hall of the People. It's not asking them to choose between China or the United States. Donald Trump, however, does seem to have an issue with some of this. But his issues with Mark Carney might be more than just Mark Carney coming to Canada and doing a deal, because it was the way that Mr. Carney framed all of this. Before his big speech in Davos, where he received a resounding applause, where he talked about a New World Order, that speech was rehearsed here in Beijing. He gave it to reporters during a 40 minute press conference after he'd met Xi Jinping. He talked about the need to come here to China to try to find a way to do business in what he described as a New World Order. So as you can see, it was that that perhaps irritated Donald Trump. We'll have to see if further leaders coming to do business will also irritate him. But at the moment, China is not asking countries to choose. But it may well be that in the future, that is something that Washington is considering.

[00:05:42] Speaker 1: What does China want out of this? Is it just about trade? Or does China have its eye on the global crown to be the top superpower?

[00:05:55] Speaker 2: So if you ask China, and if you ask officials here, and if you sit down with academics, they say no, no, no, we have no global ambitions to become the lead superpower. That we want a multipolar world with China, you know, as part of it. They want to work with countries. That is the official answer that they will give you. But I think it is becoming clear that China has global ambitions. We've seen it with their major military parades, where they have a show of strength. We've seen it as President Xi travels the world, making deals with countries. We see it as President Xi extends his country's influence in the form of what is known as their Belt and Road Initiative, where they are handing out huge loans to developing economies to build railways and infrastructure projects. China's influence is reaching right across the world. It has more than 100 trade partners. It trades now with more countries than the United States. And it's using that trade as a means of kind of elevating its standing in the world. And I think that is where we're seeing this kind of power competition between Washington and Beijing. And I think the next perhaps decade will see how far China can go, because China is doing so much in future technologies, whether it's AI, whether it's robots, whether it's renewables. And these are key. This is a plan that President Xi had to push forward what he calls his new productive forces. So in the past, China's manufacturing prowess, whether it be your t-shirts, your electronics, your TVs, that was what China shipped to the world. China is now in many ways owning the future, not just with its kind of chokehold on many of the things that we need to build the items in our future, by which I mean rare earths, but also it's producing these goods. And whether that is your robots, or whether that is your electric vehicles, China feels that it's taking a step ahead. So we'll have to see how that global balance of power kind of goes over the next five years.

[00:08:06] Speaker 1: But what about the issues of human rights? There have been accusations against China that it uses effectively slave labour, the Uyghur people, to produce some of those goods. Will Keir Starmer raise the issue of Jimmy Lai, the British dual citizen in Hong Kong, who published a newspaper? He's been locked up. And if Keir Starmer and other Western leaders do raise these issues, do they spoil their chances of doing an economic deal?

[00:08:39] Speaker 2: So I think these issues are a huge irritant. It's like stepping on a nerve for China, and they will certainly push back. They'll push back about allegations on human rights, they will push back on speculation that China is spying on the United Kingdom. These are things that the Chinese ambassador to the UK has announced today, that when it comes to these two nations, they do not see eye to eye on many issues. And I think that is clear. But I think what is also clear is that they can do a deal, and they can come to negotiations on trade. I do think Sir Keir Starmer has to bring it up. And it has been brought up by Mark Carney and others who've come here too. China simply pushes back, brushes it off and moves on. This is a dominant Beijing now that knows that people are coming here because they have something to offer. And yes, they may face criticism. But China is now able to get into a position where it can brush it off and step over that and know that the world still needs it. And when it comes to China's goods, that is where China really sees its power developing. And they may hope that when people here come here for business deals, that's what they go away and remember, rather than remember its record on human rights. And as someone who lives and works here, you see two sides to China. You see a China where if you want to live within certain parameters drawn by the Chinese government, if you live within that, you have quite a nice life. You have high speed trains that can transport you from one side of the country to the other. It's such a safe country, I could go for a run at three in the morning, I could put a bag full of money in the centre of a coffee shop, and it would still be there later. People are friendly, the food is nice. It is, you know, to all intents and purposes, a lovely place to live. But if you want to question the leader, if you want to discuss politics, if you want to do anything that is outside the parameters of the party that the party doesn't like, if you step on those red lines, that is when it becomes a problem. And that includes journalism. I mean, for instance, myself and my team, if we're out and about, we can get anything from a policeman coming to ask us to see our press card, to three hours of being held somewhere and questioned and asked what we're doing.

[00:11:13] Speaker 1: Laura, thank you. Our China correspondent, Laura Bicker. There's plenty more on this and many other topics in the Global News Podcast. Subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You can also subscribe to us here on YouTube. And if you have a story that you think we should be covering, do leave us a message in the comments below.