In this episode of Head to Head, Mehdi Hasan challenges Charles Liu, Senior Fellow at Peking University, seasoned Chinese entrepreneur and informal adviser to the Chinese government, on Xi Jinping’s record in power so far, the government’s crackdown on the Uighur Muslim minority, and what role for China if it becomes the 21st century’s military and economic superpower.
With the presidential term limit abolished in 2018, critics say that Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be paving the way to being able to stay in power for life, but Charles Liu, founder of Hao Capital, disputes this. Separately, despite lower-than-predicted growth, China is still growing substantially and is set to become the world’s biggest economy.
But the economic boom has been paired with an increase in state surveillance and crackdowns on dissent, as well as the repression of the Muslim Uighur minority. So at what cost has China’s economic miracle come? And what’s the future for civil liberties of the Chinese people?
In recent years China has also increased its military spending while some Chinese officials have been ratcheting up their militaristic rhetoric, raising fears of direct military confrontation with the United States.
On this Head to Head episode filmed at the Oxford Union, we challenge Charles Liu on all these topics, ask him whether the Chinese economy has hit a wall, and whether China’s neighbours should dismiss their fears as his country builds up its military and extends its global reach.
We are joined by a panel of three experts:
Andreas Fulda – China Specialist at Asia Research Institute and Assistant Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham.
Victor Gao – Vice President of the Beijing based Center for China and Globalization and former interpreter for the late President Deng Xiaoping.
Steve Tsang – Professor and Director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.
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Head to Head is Al Jazeera’s forum for ideas, a gladiatorial contest tackling big issues such as faith, nationalism, democracy and foreign intervention, in front of an opinionated audience at the Oxford Union.
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The disrespect that Liu faced was unreasonable. The matter of the fact is that when people see things as a threat, they tend to lose all sense of reasoning furthermore, they are blinded by their emotion and belief. China has some bad attribute and I won’t dispute that fact, but many out there who are so easily pointing their fingers at China’s flaws also fail to recognise the country’s brilliance. A good example would be that China is the leading emission of CO2. But what westerners fail to see is that China is also the leading country in manufactured goods which is at 27%. With that China knows that they will be scrutinised for the pollution it creates from its production. Hence, The country has made advances and actions on reducing pollution. Although China is the leading polluter of the world, per percentage of production China actually releases the least pollution to the atmosphere. That is a fact that western people fail to see due to their very clouded minds that their emotions are allowed to control.
It looks like a bunch of bots responding to this. China has established spy nests all over the US. China claims it owns the South China Sea and then claims that any countries ships that enter the South China Sea are trespassing on China sovereign territory. China’s miracle is built on technology and intellectual property stolen from the US, billions of dollars worth every year. China’s GDP and economic growth numbers have been faked for years and may be as low as 1/2 the numbers they claim. Just listening to this conversation, you understand that Chinese main export is lies.
I am from India.The growth of China is fast, astonishing and great. Congratulations to the chinese people.
Thank you, my good brother from India. May your country prosper
The host is rude and constantly interrupts the guests
USA, uk, eu are NOT democratic. Fake and Disney fable. China is FAR more democratic. Democracy… where the people get what they want and need.. NOT VOTING IN BEAUTY CONTESTS.
Now in UK and the west, FREE SPEACH IS SHUT DOWN ! So many many examples where people are cancelled …. Incl farage.
Uighur fairytale is nonsense. Ask 20 plus Muslim leaders
I cannot honor Chinese regime until that country becomes a democratic nation. They can paint this logical and attempt to become respected but they are a communist country therefore the people are oppressed.
‘What does population have to do with military spending?’
Well, why does America, comprising 5% of the world, vastly dominate the world using their military? Should the 95% just sit there and take it?
‘Most people polled would prefer America over China.’
Public opinion is fickle and easily manufactured. Most people polled also thought Iraq had WMDs.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is abundantly clear that the Xinjiang narrative was mostly propaganda, and whatever crimes committed were only done in a brief period that already mostly ended in 2019.
‘Inequality is a major issue; you can’t just dismiss it’.
Said by a guy who just dismissed 700+ million Chinese people being lifted out of abject poverty and 1.4 billion Chinese people as a whole living far better lives than their parents and grandparents did.
Also, when did Mrs Liu and Gao “dismiss” inequality? They had just spent minutes detailing China’s anticorruption campaign.
Insufferable head-bobbler in the background. You are an audience member, not a distinguished panellist. Don’t try to steal the spotlight.
I am a Singaporean and I find the host repugnant. When the pro China speakers speak, he interjects and interrupts time and time again. When the anti CCP speakers speak, he keeps absolutely quiet. It is difficult enough arguing with native speakers in the English language. Can you argue with Chinese in Mandarin at that kind of speed?
5:20 😂😂😂
显然从主持人到嘉宾，包括听众都不是来了解真相的，他们是来参加审判的
And I found it even more amusing when Gaza is suffering from actual genocide, and this Uyghur lady speaks perfect English is also very interesting.
hats off to Mr Liu. And the host is so rude and arrogant.
这个主持人就是典型的西方媒体主持人。不断插话，打断别人的论述，讲不过就马上转移话题。拿谣言当事实。我真的万分佩服两个中国专家，可以心和气和的对着这个傻逼主持人说话。冲着前面的开篇statement就想点踩。赞是给两位专家的。
当一个海外新疆人说他她跟国内亲人失去联系时，第一，你怎么证明他们没撤谎，第二，你怎么证明他们的家人不是“极端主义者”？4年前的采访。现在西方都不提新疆教育营了。耐克又开始用新疆棉花了。呵呵。压根就不要理这些牛鬼蛇神。四年后中国经济政治依然没崩溃。
With so much advantage taken by the Western capitalist countries over the third world, all they are trying to do is maintain their advantages by justifying the brutal origin of capitalism through being a moral judge to all those who are striving to threaten their position in the global melon-cutting system.
The host sponsored thoughts are scattered, he is hopping from one theory to the next. Overrated fellow this one.
我已经习惯了西方这群虚伪的强盗了，毁灭吧
These world leaders are so cruel to its people. we dont want war end human rights violations end racism!
Your loud voice doesn’t define your righteousness, your consistent actions of intervening interrupting only show your rudeness and unconfidence.
I agree with Mr Gao’s answer. We Chinese never say Long live Xi. Instead, we often say “Long live Chairman Mao”. The Uyghur Genocide story is a great lie made by the West politicians and media.
整个节目都充斥着这个主持人对中国政府的偏见，自我感觉良好和睿智 实质上是一种无知的体现
Qatar的媒体嘛，Qatar其实就是美国在中东的附庸国，除了极少数的像巴以冲突这种触及Qatar的根本利益之外的话题Qatar都是会完全协助美国propaganda的，当然了随着中国逐渐加大在中东贸易力度后这些格局都会逐渐转变的，这期节目是4年前了，去年中国和Qatar签了人类历史上最大的石油购买协议，自那以来Qatar就没再做过类似这期节目的反华东西了。
Seems like the program creator has planted a few “Uyghurs” to ask questions to put the inverviewee on the spot. This is a very cunninng tactic. On the spot, you are verify whether these are real Uyghurs. Secondly, you are not able to verify whether what they asked is real or just some scripted story. Thirdly, you don’t know under what circumstance these so called “oppressed” people has left China (you don’t know whehter they have broken any laws). The interviewee was forced to provide an answer questions without being able knowing the background and not knowing whether these are real. Today, after 4 years, we have the hindsight to see that most of those accusations are not as simple as what it appeared on the surface. But this program has achieved its goal of riding on the anti-China wave and reap the profit of gaining viewership.
其实不用解释，人民支持，国家发展，等到我们发展得更好，就没人会质疑了。少说多做，不要跟他们浪费时间，他们听不进去
White people are so belittling
White people are such bullies
非常愚蠢的主持！
The host cited 1 million people once and once again, but it is purely a fabricated story from Pompeo, and he just dreamed of that and had the story, shame on you the host and the US propagandist
为正义出声
This host is always so rude, thinking he knows everything. Did he rely on apocalypse to confirm the absurd number of one million?
The sheer hypocrisy of claiming Socialism and communism succeeding When the only reason there’s any wealth in your country is cause of capitalism, combined with a lot of fried thievery and hypocritical people in power that are beyond corrupt. Did you happen to state that 50 years ago and 90% of people were literate there because of communism? Of course not
The host is so rude… He keeps interrupting the speakers all the time i couldnt finnish watching it.
China’s determination to keep improving itself which shows that China is fed up with the wars, chaos, sanction, and hardships that the western colonialism brought to the rest of the world in the past hundreds of year. Wise choice. Well done, China.
If you believe in something, whether it’s true or not, and it doesn’t affect your life, it’s fine that you believe it, because it doesn’t affect you except emotionally anyway. If someone believes in something and rushes to force everyone to admit it without conclusive evidence（not like-minded actors） to prove it, then his motivation may not be to find out whether it is true or not, or he doesn’t even care if it’s true or not at the very beginning…
Get your facts right. Deng was never president.
Today, 11/03/2023, look at Gaza. Real murder is going on.
Charles Liu is very smart. 4 years later, liu is correct. The host is all lies
This is funny, Al Jaz is known to challenge the truth from the west all the time, and this show used material from the west as basis for discussion! What gives?
Americans are shameless to raise the issue of Xinjiang while supporting thr real genocide in Gaza.
The West propaganda and narrative are very dirty.
Most of the questions asked were so bias. Especially the one who asked by those ” audiences “, they kept saying they can’t contact their families. Did they say what they have done? If they are so suppressed, how they left the country in the first place? Did they know, there are more mosque in China than any other countries in the world. If these people kept criticizing China, why can’t they compare China to other countries? China is still a developing country, but majority of the people have live with a high standard of living. And majority of the people are feel free to travel around the world.
It is interesting to see this video after Israel invaded Gaza and literally killed over thousands of innocent civilians. Human rights? What a joke?
If they care so much about chinese. Come to visit and interview us. If they really care so much about people in xinjiang, go visiting there, it is all free to visit. But pls dont financially support 100media in hongkong and hire them to make anti china news or stories. USA, you are so evil
This host is annoying to say the least. Some British have this attitude as if they own the universe. That looks and sounds increasingly stupid and laughable every year.
when the time come in the future, Taiwan will voluntarily come home.
xinjiang xinjiang xinjiang！ if you cares so much then just come and see. So tired of explain, so tired of these fake actors calls themselves as ‘xinjiang refugees’ with fluent English………..🤭
“The damage is not great, but the insulting is super high.” Well done, Charles.
For some reason, I found that guy called Mehdi whose questions are full of bias in this interview…. Another narrow-mind, prejudicial guy….Sad.
Here is a thing if there is a claim of 1 million uighurs being locked up by Chinese government and the source of that information was coming from US State Department then why in Uighurs Tribunals report it clearly stated that neither of Blinken or Pompeo or the US department under them are able to come in to provide the evidence. When the host said about satellite image, here is a thing with satellite image, in 2014 when the US claimed to have satellite image pin pointing to Russian in downing the Malaysian Airline plane but almost 9 years after the claim we yet to see the evidence been shown. This British guy Fulda talked about racial tolerance and how did US arm force treated those who went over to fight them in Afghanistan, they killed them just like they did to Talibans. Talking about no tolerating islamic religions Xinjiang has more mosques, yes 25000 mosques in Xinjiang than US and Canada.
Why does somebody want to entitle himself a “former interpreter of somebody” and you call him that all the time? Disgusting is it?
This is not a discussion, this is a trial. Mehdi played the role of judge and prosecutor at the same time.
Mehdi never truly let people speak. He likes to interrupt whenever Liu is trying to explain an issue, I mean come on you are accusing ppl so just let ppl explain it out! Do your job professionally, be neutral and do not mislead the audience in this kind of forum.
How much would it cost to put one million people in detention.
When Mr. Liu said he did not believe there were 1 million Uyghurs being locked up, he was disregarded because he could not give a different number. But based on his knowledge and experience in China, like all Chinese people, he certainly has credibility to challenge this number. the media that throw out the 1 million number didn’t differentiate the amount of people detained for their terrorism belief or conduct, and many more Uyghurs , 1 million or not, were reeducated during the same period of time, so that they can catch up with the rest of China in this fast transforming society. Since so many people were involved, I have no doubt that some people were not treated fairly, but the reality is far from 1 million Uyghurs being locked up
For the past 40 years, Chinese government’s top priority is growth, in the process, the inequality grew with market growing, it’s inevitable, it’s happening all over the world, in the case, China is not exceptional. However, when Chinese government realised the problem, they started addressing it, that resulted capital escaping China. You can’t blame Chinese government for increasing inequality and addressing increasing inequality at the same time.
PM Wen Jiabao is well respected in China. Most of all countries’ leaders’ families are wealthy, if not all of them. I don’t see how different they got their wealth than Chinese leaders’ families did – businessmen seek their influence, give them investment opportunities that common people don’t usually get. Most of them are not considered or called out as corrupted. The NYT article titled “Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader” is very bias to indicate PM Wen was corrupted, even though in the article, it says “The Times found no indication that Wen Jiabao used his political clout to influence the diamond companies his relatives invested in”. The biggest problem of western media is double standard
充滿偏見與傲慢態度的主持人～向劉先生致敬🫡
If you truly care about human rights you can tell Liu is a stooge the Chinese govt sent. It’s a sign of disrespect.
你又是谁派来的狗？
Speaking is a lie, where are 1 million Uyghurs being imprisoned????
Im from Taiwan
What Mr.Liu said about Taiwan’s current situation is precise.
Most of us wants a functioning govenerment that solve the problems
in stead of “independent politics”bullshit.
China has become a modernized advanced country over the past 30 years
and we’re still stuck in the debate of calling ourself “Republic of China” or “Taiwan”.
Somehow, during election season, a large group of people always seem to lose their memory and forget who deceived them last time. 😢
This is the drawback of Western democracy, which leads to shortsightedness among voters@@evolution686us
The worst host ever.
It is truly infuriating to have a German man telling a non-white group of people that putting people into education camps (which they survived, but some could have had horrible conditions during their time there – which, of course, is bad) is ‘indefensible’. It’s like, man, your people had EXTERMINATION camps, where EVERYONE had terrible conditions, and died by the millions. Right now, the US has camps into which it puts non-white people and separates them from their kids (who also die from conditions there), the EU border guards literally drown people running from desperation – but, no, let’s all pretend this is only the ”yellow people” problem. Infuriating! And I say this as a white man myself!
Also, they criticize China for having billionaires (something they don’t seem to mind in the West), yet now, 4 years later, when China has cracked down on billionaires, they are complaining that they should leave the poor billionaires alone. Well – which is it? Either criticize consistently or don’t – can’t have it both ways.
What’s the human cost of Western modernization? Slave trade, opium trade, imperialist wars, colonialist occupations, and genocide of indigenous people, wipe out the American indigenous civilizations. What’s the human cost for the NATO to bomb and kill Gadafi? What’s the human cost of the democratic movement of the Arab Spring? The world refugee crisis comes from the Western regime changes and color revolutions that created the failed states. Since the former Soviets implemented Western democracy, there have been the Kosov War, the Georgian War, the Armenian War, and the Ukraine War.
the stupid host shd ask how many red indian was killed by usa, how many black ppl was kill during kkk, and nowadays how many baclk ppl killes by white police and the killer just walked away, how many country and ppl killed when usa invaded all those country, go goole
42:56
WOW, just let LIU finish his words plz .what a so call democracy
这位巴勒斯坦裔的主持人最近因为以巴冲突被停职了。我只能说，当你不把其他发展中国家当人的时候，你会发现，昂撒政府也没有把你当人。
This host is extremely biased and subjective, very rudely to interrupt the answers of his guest. He tried with his best effort to show how skilful he is in debating. He forgets his row. Smart or stupid? We are crystal clear .
The host knows nothing.
Stop interrupting the guest’s answers!
看了评论区放心了，网友们还是比较清醒的
How many space need to host 1 million people. There are plenty of city in the world not even near to 1 million people.
The problem of inequality is same here in the west. Can you talk why there are economic pyramid in all those who own wall street.
China is right about islam and it knows how to solve the problem cry about it.
Totally agreed! The anchor sucks! I would love to hear Liu speak and not the presenter keep cutting him off! Kudos to Liu with his courage
You can’t discuss someone who supports their argument only by lies. The lying scheme is telling a “personal story” that cannot be verified whatsoever, then generalizing it to the whole population of whatever they want to refer.
can we take a moment to appreciate how well mannered the two Chinese gentlemen are? Softspoken and never interrupts
这个主持人很没礼貌，很不专业！！！不断打断受访者讲话，不让人说完话，让人反感 ！！！
Liu, Gao, Tsang三位中国受访者很优秀！
Which country is perfect?
you can see how mehdi hassan respects Mr Liu between lines
Mr. Liu did excellent job. As a Chinese, we are so proud of him. Hopefully more and more people from Taiwan don’t only think of themselves, but also think of all the Chinese people………….赞👍🏻
I am often moved by the statements made by Taiwanese people claiming to be Chinese，Thank you, my Taiwanese compatriots
The host (westerners are very prejudice.) is very rude
Honestly I want hear from a fellow Indian friends about their society, since in my perspective India has a huge population that love their country and you have a long term history over thousands of years. But still with what called democracy in my perspective doesn’t eliminate the hierarchy and the poverty. As far as I know that majority of Indians of truly escaping from their current situation is move to another country with years of hard works etc. What’s your perspective of how your economic can grow better and what’s your ideal political system works?
Are you Westerners so ridiculous?
It’s so funny those western host are all look alike: RUDE and ARROGANT.
Free Palestine ! Free Palestine! Free Palestine!🇵🇸
🎉🎉🎉我们华人要是不强大西方就会把我们华人给灭族了中华民国强壮万岁
Clown
We should have some fake news from the refungees or crimes in the west country too. Therefore, all the west hypocritical politician will be facing the same problem as china.
West countries wish China to follow their rules and do not even believe that there are fake news and true news since they just believe the proves from minorities.
This video has not aged well with what’s happening in Gaza and the Western response there.
Not to say Mehdi isn’t a good interviewer – he’s always harsh and blunt with whomever is sitting in front of him – including Western politicians.
Mr Liu handled it alright, definitely better than the Israelis.
this host have a evil mind.
Couldn’t they find a normal host? The others were too gentle and polite while facing this dumb
I’m a Chinese, I totally cannot understand why the people are engaged in politics in the west forget who robbed China and who invaded China in the recent 100 years. How can they say China’s neighbors fear China? China invaded Tailand? Invaded Vietnam? Invaded Philippines? But whose enemies are all over the world now, why those guys cannot challenage, at least say No? so ridiculous…
China used 40 years from a really poor country to the current situation, why those guys don’t care the difficulites and the hardships behind it? China has its own problems indeed, but it does not mean China can be arbitrarily accused and framed.
The host is full of bias😪😪😪😪
China “expert” hahahahahahohohohohohohohahahahahohoho….a white guy a China ‘expert” OMG I swaer you cant make this up.
Look how many times Mehdi interrupted the Chinese representatives vs those from the west. If you are going to invite them, let them speak. Shame on Mehdi.
It is so obvious this whole interview is a set up, the host and audiences(some) are against China, as always western media = demonize China. Charles and Victor did brilliantly by answering the questions professionally and avoided those distort statements. Some of the audiences claimed they were separated with their family, who knows maybe just maybe one of their brothers or sisters are a threat of national security?
Mehdi is rude, condescending and childish in his demeanour. He came to the interview with so much bias. As he child, he must have received a great number of slaps on the face.
4:25 Cause if there is anything to be learned by 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, it’s that Americans cower when attacked…
I remember listening to a comedic satire of W Bush after 9/11, and one of the lines was “…we Americans are so thirsty for blood, that we shoot at each other every day. We *relish* the opportunity for new targets of our aggression.”