Martin Smith: It is, of course, about the rise of Xi Jinping. And eight years ago, he collides with Donald Trump. But we go back in his life all the way to his childhood and his growing up during what we call a tortured time in Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution and the jailing of his father for being disloyal to Mao and his own humiliations at the hands of Mao's government. So, we go all the way back and look at those things that formed, shaped, made him into the man that he is today.
Patrick Center: What do we learn about Xi Jinping and his childhood and what we are now experiencing today with him as a person, but also as more of a national philosophy and a worldview?
Martin Smith: You know, it's really interesting because his father was a compatriot, along with Mao, during the 22-year revolution against the US-backed dictatorship. And it was only after Mao took over that Mao turned on Xi's father. When Xi was young his father went off to work in a factory and then was incarcerated for eight years. And then Xi himself, Xi Jinping himself as a young boy, was subjected to what they call struggle sessions, where you're put on display in front of thousands of people and humiliated for not being sufficiently committed to Mao and his visions of government. And so, after the struggle sessions, he was then sent to the countryside where he worked from age 15 until 22 doing hard labor. Really didn't have a formal education. But what he did in this process is that he saw that the only way to advance, or at least it was his conclusion, that the only way to be successful in this system was to embrace Mao, to embrace the Communist Party. And so, he becomes, as some people say, redder than red. And to this day, he's a true Maoist. I think he's as Orville Schell, who's the Dean of China experts in the U.S. says, he drank the Kool-Aid of the Cultural Revolution and ever since he has, I think, really sincerely embraced the idea that the way you get ahead, and he doesn't mean it cynically, but that honestly he believes that the best way forward is to embrace the Communist Party and Mao's vision of China.
Patrick Center: So, if he's redder than red, what does this mean for the rest of the world?
Martin Smith: Well, it puts him in opposition to capitalist democracies such as the U.S. and those in Western Europe. He's made friends with Vladimir Putin and others. What it means is that we have somebody who is highly competitive economically, militarily, with the U.S., who has a very stark and different view and a hostile view really of the United States. So, the problem is that we're facing a hostile competitor. For years, there was an effort by the United States to engage with China. After Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping comes to power and he institutes a lot of reforms and opens up China to capitalism in many respects. When Xi comes to power in 2012, he pretty much throws all that out the window. So, it's a problem. We really would prefer to be competitors, but on a friendly basis.
Patrick Center: Is that possible to restore those relationships between the United States and China, or are we past that point when it comes to a country that's flexing its muscles militarily and is one of the world's wealthiest countries?
Martin Smith: Yeah, I think that it is possible, but not under Xi Jinping. And the problem is that in 2018, Xi Jinping rewrote the constitution, allowing him to remain president for life. He serves five-year terms, but he has no limit to how many times he can run. And so, under Xi Jinping, I don't think you're going to get back to an era of openness and the kind of diplomatic warming that took place under Deng Xiaoping and the successors. So, it doesn't look good for now.
Patrick Center: Not good for now, but as we move into 2025 and we will have a new president, former president Donald Trump back in office. So, we have a little bit of history with the Trump administration and China, and now Donald Trump coming back into power. How do you see this playing out using the past and then moving into the present?
Martin Smith: Well, I'm reluctant to predict what's going to happen under the new administration. There are so many moving parts to this, but the first time Trump was in office, he launched a trade war, and it was a great souring of the relationship between China and the U.S. Trump is now promising to impose tariffs that are much greater than those he imposed the first time around. So again, that doesn't pretend well. It's hard to know, however, we are mutually dependent market wise. They need our market. We need their production. So, whether Trump really can press forward with the kind of 60% tariffs on Chinese goods is hard to predict. I mean, there's talk of Elon Musk, who has tremendous amounts of investments in his Tesla factory in Shanghai, being something of a buffer between the two who can bridge the gap but we have to wait and see.
Patrick Center: What would you like viewers to pay most attention to when they watch this tonight?
Martin Smith: I think there's a tremendous amount of detail that defines Xi Jinping, where he came from and how he evolved over time. And I hope they get to know him better. I don't think most people understand what China's been through and what Xi Jinping himself has been forged by. So, I think there's a lot of very new and fresh information here. And we had an excellent archival team putting together, you know, digging hard through hundreds of sources to find never before seen footage of inside China. I think I'd like the viewer to feel they can come away with this, having an understanding of who this guy is and where we're headed.
Patrick Center: Tonight at 10 o'clock on WGVU Public Television, Frontline premieres China, the U.S.& the Rise of Xi Jinping, award-winning correspondent Martin Smith. Thank you so much for your time.
Martin Smith: Thank you very much.