Does China Have a Succession Plan || Peter Zeihan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8PYq2UFQNU
Language: en | ASR: large-v3-turbo @ 0a363e9161cbc7ed1431c9597a8ceaf0c4f78fcf

[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.900] Speaker 1: Hey y 'all, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado. If you've ever wondered what it's
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[00:00:42.540 --> 00:00:47.160] Speaker 1: the links attached to this communication, and we'll see you soon. Hey everybody, Peter Zine
[00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:50.740] Speaker 1: here coming to you from Colorado. Today we're taking a question from the Patreon page,
[00:00:50.760 --> 00:00:56.980] Speaker 1: specifically at the recent summit between U .S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Chairman
[00:00:56.980 --> 00:00:57.520] Speaker 1: Xi Jinping,
[00:00:58.820 --> 00:00:58.920] UNKNOWN: uh,
[00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:04.460] Speaker 1: Xi didn't look that good. How bad is he, and what's the secession plan in China? It's like,
[00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:08.440] Speaker 1: well, let's start with the first part there. Uh, yeah, he looked bad. Um, he was in the
[00:01:08.440 --> 00:01:12.180] Speaker 1: White House, you know, for quite some time, but over two -thirds of the time he was there,
[00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:17.340] Speaker 1: he was in a separate room with just his wife, basically recovering. Of course, none of that
[00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:21.740] Speaker 1: made it into Chinese media. Everyone just talked about how Xi outsmarted and outlasted
[00:01:21.740 --> 00:01:26.420] Speaker 1: Trump in every possible way because that's what propaganda looks like. Anyway, of the hours
[00:01:26.420 --> 00:01:31.060] Speaker 1: that he was at the White House, they had very little contact. I mean, there was the dinner,
[00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:36.080] Speaker 1: there was the tour, and then there were a couple of short meetings. And honestly, that was
[00:01:36.080 --> 00:01:41.540] Speaker 1: it. Not a lot was discussed because there wasn't a lot of time to discuss it. And the deals
[00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:45.580] Speaker 1: that came out on the other side were pretty milquetoast. And then he was hustled back onto
[00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:51.220] Speaker 1: his plane and flown home. I think he might have gone via Canada. Anyway, he didn't have a
[00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:55.280] Speaker 1: particularly robust social schedule, and whether you want to view that as a repudiation of
[00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:59.400] Speaker 1: Trump, which is fair, or you can review it as the fact that he's physically just not up to
[00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:04.520] Speaker 1: it, which is also fair. Remember, this guy's 80, so to think that he's in there for the
[00:02:04.520 --> 00:02:09.900] Speaker 1: long haul is probably a stretch. Anyway, the problem we're going to have in China is that
[00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:15.700] Speaker 1: there's nobody to take over. China's a big place, bigger than the United States. Lots of
[00:02:15.700 --> 00:02:19.600] Speaker 1: people, lots of different geographic sub -regions, and lots of barriers between them. So
[00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:25.460] Speaker 1: historically speaking, China's kind of fallen into two categories. Either it hyper
[00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:30.840] Speaker 1: -centralizes like it is now to the point that the bureaucracy is damaged beyond repair, the
[00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:35.800] Speaker 1: military stops functioning, and eventually this over -centralization leads to a broad
[00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:41.260] Speaker 1: political, economic, and social breakdown, which we're headed for, or the regions grab as
[00:02:41.260 --> 00:02:47.980] Speaker 1: much autonomy as they can swallow and basically start functioning like independent states.
[00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:53.860] Speaker 1: And eventually you get a widespread civil war where the center tries to reassert control or
[00:02:53.860 --> 00:02:57.800] Speaker 1: the regions go to war with one another. It's another viable option for where we're headed.
[00:02:58.380 --> 00:03:03.080] Speaker 1: The difference this time is because China is so dependent on the rest of the world for the
[00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:06.300] Speaker 1: inputs for, say, its food supply, but also its manufacturing system, also to keep the
[00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:12.980] Speaker 1: lights on, we'd be facing a de -industrialization breakdown at the same time. The only way
[00:03:12.980 --> 00:03:17.960] Speaker 1: you might, might, might, might be able to hold that off is to have a strong ruler, somebody
[00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:23.460] Speaker 1: kind of like Xi, who can hold the system together. Here's the problem. Ever since he came
[00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:28.860] Speaker 1: in 14 years ago now, Xi has gone after those people, put them in prison, executed them,
[00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:33.160] Speaker 1: exiled them, intimidated them to silence. And so whether you're looking at the educational
[00:03:33.160 --> 00:03:40.060] Speaker 1: system or the media or the business community or the military or the state apparatus, all
[00:03:40.060 --> 00:03:45.780] Speaker 1: of it has had its teeth ripped out to the point that all it can do is offer milquetoast
[00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:51.860] Speaker 1: praise of their great leader. So if Xi were to keel over tomorrow, there simply isn't an
[00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:57.160] Speaker 1: institution, much less a personality, who could potentially step forward and take over his
[00:03:57.160 --> 00:04:03.420] Speaker 1: role. And even if there was, so much competence has been deliberately bled out of the
[00:04:03.420 --> 00:04:07.940] Speaker 1: system that whoever this person is probably wouldn't be able to rule competently anyway.
[00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:11.500] Speaker 1: Think of China as a ball that's been tossed up and it's at that moment at the high. We're
[00:04:11.500 --> 00:04:14.940] Speaker 1: just kind of rotating and everyone's kind of looking around like, oh shit. Historically
[00:04:14.940 --> 00:04:20.040] Speaker 1: speaking, when China loses a ruler who's of the centralized type, it's a generation of
[00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:26.680] Speaker 1: freefall and a civil war and a famine before the system starts to stitch itself back
[00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:32.620] Speaker 1: together. you're doing that today and in backdrop where Chinese industrial dependency and
[00:04:32.620 --> 00:04:37.840] Speaker 1: agricultural dependency is so huge that the population adjustment conservatively will be
[00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:43.340] Speaker 1: half the population that assumes it can recover on the other side of this. So the
[00:04:43.340 --> 00:04:49.380] Speaker 1: leadership issue is just one more problem the Chinese have that they have to deal with over
[00:04:49.380 --> 00:04:50.700] Speaker 1: the next 20 to 30 years.
[00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:58.660] Speaker 1: the best case scenario is that Xi becomes the new Yeltsin or
[00:04:58.660 --> 00:05:05.660] Speaker 1: Brezhnev and remains just alive enough that he can be propped up in a chair and
[00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:12.520] Speaker 1: wave to the crowd every once in a while while everything slowly disintegrates around him.
[00:05:13.460 --> 00:05:18.700] Speaker 1: The problem, of course, is that information control in China is very, very tight. And if we
[00:05:18.700 --> 00:05:23.960] Speaker 1: can't get reliable population numbers or GDP numbers, we sure as shit can't get an accurate
[00:05:23.960 --> 00:05:30.660] Speaker 1: read on Xi's health. So all of this is reading between the lines and looking at historical
[00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:33.820] Speaker 1: examples, and not one of them looks positive.