(wind whistling)
(dramatic music)
- The Chinese Communist Party presents
the central threat of our times.
(light dramatic music)
- [Reporter] Why do you keep
calling this the Chinese virus?
- It comes from China.
That's why.
It comes from China.
- [Nick] A new era of confrontation.
- If these two turn out to be adversaries,
I cannot imagine anything
major in the world
would be able to be solved.
- [Nick] Tensions over
trains, trade and technology.
- Make no mistake about, it
China's current technological
thrusts poses an unprecedented challenge
to the United States.
- [Nick] Our economic future is at stake.
(speaking foreign language)
Ground Zero for, a deadly outbreak.
- World Wars, depressions, 9/11.
This falls in that category.
- [Nick] But still, the fastest growth
in world history.
- In no other country than China,
have you had such a
great amount of change,
in such a short amount of time.
- [Nick] The most important
relationship in the world,
and the strongest Chinese
leader in half a century.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] If China wants to become
a big strong country,
it will need Xi Jinping.
(people yelling in foreign language)
- He want total control.
We believe in democracy.
But they believe in suppression.
(dramatic music)
- [Nick] Tonight, China's
Power and Prosperity.
(dramatic music)
- [Announcer] This
program was made possible
by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
(triumphant music)
- [Nick] In Beijing's
Great Hall of the People,
the people clap in unison for one man.
Xi Jinping, Communist
Party General Secretary,
Commander in Chief, President
of the People's Republic
of China says he's
making China great again.
(audience applauding)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The Chinese
nation has achieved
a tremendous transformation:
it has stood up, grown rich,
and is becoming strong.
It offers Chinese wisdom
and a Chinese approach
to solving the problems facing mankind.
- Not since Mao Zedong, Communist
China's founding father,
has a Chinese leader suggested so clearly
the world could emulate China.
(audience applauding)
Not since Mao has China had a leader
as powerful as Xi Jinping.
Last year we traveled to China twice
and reported from 8 countries,
to try and understand today's
China and its relationship with the U.S.
We wanted to return but
the pandemic grounded us
and changed the world.
And in this global crisis,
the two governments are
decreasing collaboration and
accelerating confrontation.
(speaking foreign language)
In March Xi Jinping flew to Wuhan,
the epicenter of COVID-19,
to declare success.
(crowd applauding)
He congratulated healthcare
workers and the public
for winning the quote "People's
war" against COVID-19;
another phrase borrowed from Mao.
From January to March
the government restricted
the movement of more than
760 million citizens.
Thousands of neighborhoods, locked down.
State planners mobilized,
and built two hospitals
in less than two weeks.
- We have the confidence that
we will eventually control
the outbreak and win the battle,
because we have very strong
leadership under President Xi Jinping.
- [Nick] Even Xi Jinping admitted COVID-19
tested that leadership.
And the virus that has killed
hundreds of thousands worldwide,
brought U.S.-China tensions
to their worst point in half a century.
- China didn't share all
of the information it had.
Instead, it covered up how
dangerous the disease is.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Pompeo is
used to making up lies
as excuses for his own misbehavior.
- I call it the plague from China.
(audience laughing)
The plague.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The international
community generally
disagrees with this selfish
behavior that avoids its
responsibilities and undermines
international cooperation.
- [Nick] For Xi Jinping,
the state media narrative
is that he provides his people
protection, and prosperity.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I sincerely
hope that our folks here
live a good life, a safe and sound life.
I hope no one will be
left behind in building
a moderately prosperous society.
I wish you all happiness and health.
(crowd cheering)
(crowd applauding)
- [Nick] As soon as travel
restrictions were lifted,
he checked in with shop owners, workers,
even young students.
Xi calls himself the
country's core leader,
the same phrase that Mao used.
Xi's travels recreate
Mao's countryside visits,
and they celebrate Mao
as a hero who birthed
Communist China 70 years ago,
ignoring the millions who
feared Mao as a tyrant.
(speaking foreign language)
At the Communist Party's National School,
Mao stands sentry, and the
message is tightly controlled.
Professor Han Qungxiang wrote the book,
literally on Xi Jinping thought.
The government put him
forward for us to interview.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The country's
development needs Xi Jinping,
and people's happiness needs Xi Jinping.
If China wants to become
a big strong country,
it will need Xi Jinping.
- We have a phrase the American dream,
and the American dream is
about personal prosperity.
It seems like what Xi
Jinping is talking about
is a collective dream.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The history of
China has proved over and over
that only when the country is
strong, the nation revived,
then all of the people
can enjoy a happy life.
(tank artillery banging)
- [Nick] It's not just happiness.
Xi's national revival
calls for China to quote
"stand tall in the East."
He has dramatically
modernized China's army,
navy and air force, and opened up China's
first overseas base, in
Djibouti in east Africa.
(chanting in foreign language)
And most controversially:
China claims almost all
of the South China Sea and
has militarized tiny islands,
flouting U.S. objections
and international law.
(Leng Feng roaring)
Xi's China flaunts its
strength to the world
and the Chinese public.
(players cheering)
As seen in China's highest
grossing film of all time.
"Wolf Warrior II" star and
director Wu Jing plays Leng Feng,
a former soldier who becomes a rogue hero,
launching a seeming suicide
mission against the bad guys
and teaming up with fellow
Chinese, to win the day.
(tank crashing)
- Pass me the flag.
- [Nick] In Xi's China, the good guys
are the Chinese military.
(rocket booming)
- [Man] Sir, why are we
helping these (beeping) idiots?
- The bad guy?
- Welcome to Africa, son.
- [Nick] Is a violence-loving,
colonialist American.
(man groaning)
- People like you will always
be inferior to people like me.
(Leng Feng grunting)
(fist thudding)
- That's history.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] In Chinese modern history,
China has been bullied for a long time.
When we are rich, our
country can protect us.
When we feel like we are in danger,
we will be protected by our country.
Not like before.
- [Nick] During coronavirus,
Foreign Ministry spokesman
Zhao Lijian was dubbed Wolf Warrior,
for his aggressive style
of criticizing the West.
(gunshot banging)
(people screaming)
Especially during the
protests and civil unrest
that followed George Floyd's death.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The whole world has watched
as things unravel in the U.S.
American politicians had better
get their own house in order.
- [Nick] As Wolf Warrior
Diplomacy projects
the Communist party externally,
Xi Jingping's China increases
the party's primacy, internally.
(speaking foreign language)
Hong Cheng works for the
medical and high-tech company
Tidal Star and leads the
company's Party Committee.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Today we're
going to study an article.
Please open the app "Study
Xi, Strengthen China."
- [Nick] This is Tidal Star's Party Room,
where Xi Jinping Thought
is written on the wall,
and employees are fed a
daily diet of Xi Jinping
and Communist Party
thought on their phones.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] This app has
rich content and timely updates.
It not only leads our company
in long-term development,
it also provides guidance
to our daily works.
- Is the role of the Communist
Party growing in China,
including in private
companies like this one?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The party
committee was started in 2009.
Since it was established we've achieved
many positive results:
uniting our employees,
gathering our strength,
and promoting our company's development.
- [Nick] But thousands of
miles away, in Hong Kong,
submitting to Xi Jinping
Thought is unthinkable.
This was the scene last year.
This is one of Hong
Kong's main thoroughfares,
and protestors have
completely taken it over.
And they use umbrellas
not only for the sun,
but also because it's the symbol
of the democracy movement
here, and they say that
the freedoms that this city
has enjoyed, are being eroded.
(yelling in foreign language)
- When Xi Jinping began
to be even more aggressive
in suppression, he is
trying to you know build up
his own Chinese Dream, which
is a total control of people.
- [Nick] Lee Cheuk-Yan is a
former Hong Kong legislator.
- The people of Hong Kong are, the young,
especially younger generation,
are very much worried,
that China is trying to
destroy Hong Kong as it is.
And our identity, our
culture, our rule of law,
our aspirational democracy, our freedom,
everything will be lost in the future.
- [Nick] When you guys
think of your identity,
do you identify yourselves as both
Chinese and from Hong Kong?
Or just Hong Kong?
- Just Hong Kong.
- Just Hong Kong.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Nick] Hong Kong's
Generation Z wanted freedom
so much, they wrote their
own national anthem,
with its own music video that went viral.
(singing in foreign language)
"The time has come to wage
a revolution," they sing.
"Freedom and liberty belong to this land."
- [Protestor] If we give up,
we're just telling to China
that Hong Kong people is the
same as the Mainland China.
We are not going to let this happen.
Hong Kong is not China.
- [Nick] But Xi Jinping
used COVID-19 to accelerate
steps that could make Hong
Kong, another Chinese city.
In May, The National People's Congress;
Beijing's rubber stamp legislature,
endorsed a pathway that
could effectively end
Hong Kong's British rule of law.
The vote was 2,878 to one.
(audience applauding)
To understand the impact,
we set up another interview
with Lee Cheuk-Yan.
- And when people speak
out, you are arrested
and charged with subversion.
When you go out on the street,
you are being followed.
To change Hong Kong from the rule of law,
that we are so proud of, as I've said,
to become rule by law
and then rule of fear.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] Lee helped organize
a recent demonstration,
and has been arrested twice,
charged with inciting an
unauthorized assembly.
- Democracy in China now!
- [Crowd] Democracy in China now.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] Beijing's second
highest ranking official said
the legislation would maintain
security and stability.
What the Communist Party says,
is that everything they do,
including the national security law,
is about the stability
of the Communist Party.
And if the stability of the
Party were to be eroded,
then there would be chaos.
- That's the myth by the
Chinese Communist Party
to control the people.
Xi Jinping does not care
how the world look at him.
He had one world perspective
is that, you know,
that China should be in
the center of the world.
He want to be that sort of dictator.
He feels that he can sort of, you know,
command his own power
and conquer the world
or make the world submit to his will.
(horns honking)
- [Nick] Inside mainland China,
few critics are willing to
echo that language in public.
Last year we met one
exception in the only place
he felt comfortable: our hotel room.
Historian Zhang Lifan wouldn't
use Xi Jinping's name.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Because the
Communist Party of China
is unchecked, corruption is
widespread within the system.
So if he wants to get rid of opponents,
he can easily do so by finding
evidence of their corruption.
Therefore, he was able to
purge many political opponents
with an unstoppable force.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] As many as
2,000,000 Party members
have been investigated for corruption.
Lawyers who have represented activists,
have been disbarred.
Journalists who write critically,
have been thrown into prison.
Xi has replaced collective leadership
with centralized authority.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The current
leader has changed everything.
He first canceled the term limit
of the country's presidency
and then re-raised the idea
that the party leads everything.
As a result, some of the achievements
of the political reforms of
the 1980s no longer exist.
- [Nick] Xi's reversing those reforms,
launched by his powerful
predecessor Deng Xiopiang,
is a topic even Xi's allies avoid.
- Deng talked about
there shouldn't excessive
concentration or leadership by one person.
Xi has removed term limits.
Why has he done that?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] This is not a problem yet.
Not the right time to talk about it.
- Why are the needs of
the country so great
that Xi Jinping needs more time?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] It's not the
time to answer this question.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] And then he says
to our off-camera minder.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] He just wants power longer
to get more control.
(light dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I'm afraid.
In front of me is the virus,
and behind me is the legal
and administrative power of China.
But as long as I live in this city,
I will continue to report.
(speaking foreign language)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Maybe
they won't go after me.
It's possible.
But I can't stay silent.
If they don't come after me,
they will come after you.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Today, I'm
going to say something blunt:
mother (beeping), I'm
not even afraid of death.
You think I'm afraid
of the Communist Party?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] In January, citizen journalist
Chen Qiushi traveled to
Wuhan, where COVID-19 began,
to expose, what the government hid.
(speaking foreign language)
For two weeks Chen documented problems
in hospitals that were overwhelmed.
(speaking foreign language)
Fang Bin was a Wuhan
businessman when he filmed
body bags in Wuhan, left in a van.
Another of Fang's videos
was just 12 seconds long.
(speaking foreign language)
A scroll of paper with the
words, "All citizens resist"
and "Power back to the people."
The same day, he was arrested,
and hasn't been seen since.
Chen also disappeared,
and hasn't been seen
since this last video.
(speaking foreign language)
- Chinese people now
reached an understanding
that this government failed them.
This disaster, by large, is
manmade, and the authority,
both the local authority
and the central authority,
bear a big responsibility
for what's happening.
- [Nick] Xiao Qiang is the editor in chief
of the U.S. based China Digital Times,
a news site that highlights content
suppressed by China's state censors.
- By containing the coverage,
by providing the censorship,
and denial, and information
withhold, and the propaganda,
it destroyed the public
trust that's very much needed
at the time to fighting with the epidemic.
- [Nick] The U.S. accuses
China of a pattern
of deception beginning in December,
when Wuhan's Central
Hospital doctors realized
the illnesses they were
treating were not routine.
- They shared the information with
their relatives, their friends.
They were asked to shut up.
- [Nick] Yanzhong Huang is the Council
on Foreign Relations' senior
fellow for Global Health.
We spoke to him via Zoom.
- Some health care workers
already got infected
and that was a smoking
gun evidence suggesting
human to human transmission.
- [Nick] Dr. Ai Fen was
Wuhan Central Hospital's
director of emergency medicine.
On December 30th, she told
her medical school classmates
she'd been treating a new
coronavirus contagious to humans,
and sent patient samples to labs.
The scientists investigated the genome,
and the doctors sounded
the alarm about COVID-19.
But then the doctors and
scientists were silenced.
On New Year's Day, the
National Health Commission
put a gag order on the
scientists researching the virus.
And authorities detained Dr. Li Wenliang
and seven other doctors,
accusing them of spreading
rumors causing adverse social impact.
And the lab that posted the first genome
of the virus was temporarily shut.
Dr. Ai said she went home
terrified, and told her husband,
"If something goes wrong,
you can raise our child."
- It's been 128 days since
Chinese doctor Ai Fen
shared information on the
internet about a patient
with a SARS-like virus.
China could have prevented the deaths
of hundreds of thousands
of people worldwide.
- [Nick] And while local
authorities suppressed
information about COVID-19,
they hosted this, a banquet,
with no social distancing,
for 40,000 people.
Weeks later, Xi Jinping
gave the green light,
and local and national Chinese
authorities quickly admitted
that COVID-19 was dangerous
and spread between humans.
That's when Wuhan writer
Fong Fong started a diary.
She wrote the new information
was "completely at odds with
what we had seen and heard earlier,"
and "the virus roamed the
city like an evil spirit.
Appearing whenever and
wherever it pleases."
She wrote the initial
suppression of information
"transformed Wuhan into a city of blood
and tears filled with endless misery.
To my dear internet censors:
You had better let the people
of Wuhan speak out and
express what they wanna say!"
(woman screaming)
(screaming in foreign language)
Instead, weeks of cover-up and inaction,
turned into a draconian police state.
(screaming in foreign language)
Authorities punished people
for not wearing masks,
and dragged families out of their homes
into forced quarantines.
Local authorities, hoping to
prove their loyalty to the top,
felt empowered to crack down.
Is that a problem
particular to Xi Jinping?
- It was always there in
a hierarchical, political,
authoritarian, political, structural way.
But I think since 2012, we
found that these political power
has been rapidly centralized.
- [Nick] After Dr. Li
died, public outcry against
the state crescendoed.
"Farewell Li Wenliang"
written here in snow.
When a senior official visited Wuhan,
residents shouted out
of their windows, quote,
"Everything is fake."
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] In response the
government doubled down
and turned to disinformation.
On March the 12th so-called
Wolf Warrior diplomat,
Zhao Lijian, wrote on Twitter,
"It might be the U.S. Army
who brought the epidemic to Wuhan."
- After Dr. Li Wenliang's
death, you know there was this
mass mourning and anger.
There was this strong pressure,
a demand for a meaningful
change on the political front.
If you look at the outcome of
this disinformation effort,
it does actually distracted
the domestic attention
from making change on the political front.
(light music)
- [Nick] China then turned to deflection.
Zou Yue is a leading
anchor at Chinese State TV.
- President Trump and his
team were not helpful.
Their problem is a lack
of serious commitment.
- [Nick] Chinese media
blunted domestic criticism
and showcased worldwide donations
to hard hit countries like Italy.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] This saved many lives
and it has been absolutely necessary.
For your help, thank you.
- [Nick] The U.S. called
China's mask diplomacy,
an effort to mask culpability.
- Good morning, everyone.
They were the first country
to know about the risk
to the world from this virus,
and they repeatedly delayed
sharing that information with the globe.
China now making small sales
of product around the world
and claiming that they are now
the white hat in what has taken place.
- [Nick] Both sides portrayed
the confrontation as ideological.
- The central government
in China plays the role
of a champion, guide, coordinator,
supervisor and guarantor of last resort.
So, when I saw Governor
Cuomo of New York begging
the federal government to
step in to get ventilators-
- What am I going to
do with 400 ventilators
when I need 30,000?
- I thought wow, what a difference
different systems can make.
- What do autocracies do
in the face of crisis?
They become more aggressive,
they deny people their
rights, they lie more.
In the end they do enormous
harm to the people of their
own nation and put the
rest of the world at risk.
- [Nick] But when New
York Governor Andrew Cuomo
got supplies, he didn't
get them from Washington.
- The Chinese government is
going to facilitate a donation
of 1,000 ventilators that
will come into JFK today.
- [Nick] China produces 50% of
the world's medical supplies,
and that's now increasing.
- I think the pandemic
highlighted the U.S.
and Western countries
vulnerability to China.
We have to recognize that
China may use that as a weapon
against us in the potential trade war.
(boat horn blowing)
(upbeat music)
- [Nick] That trade war
started long before COVID-19.
This is Shenzhen, China's silicon valley.
Across Shenzhen's SEG
e-Market's 10 floors,
thousands of businesses sell
locally and internationally.
If you have a product that's
labeled made in China,
chances are it comes from here.
Over decades, China built
a manufacturing base,
not only for electronics, but
all industries that provide
cheap and reliable labor
to American businesses.
(machines whirring)
Shanghai General Sports produces more
than 3,000,000 bikes every
year, 80% for the U.S.,
and it's a family business.
Meet CEO Lei Ge whose father
was the company's founder.
- We work with our partners
in the States as a family.
That's why we can become so close.
- [Nick] A phase one trade
deal signed in January
cut some U.S. tariffs in
exchange for Chinese purchases,
but not the tariffs on
Shanghai General Sports.
Nor did it answer the U.S.'s
fundamental concerns about trade.
Here's another family
business we visited last year,
Shanghai General Sports' chief customer,
Kent Bikes CEO Arnold Kamler.
- My grandparents came over
to the United States in 1907
and immediately opened a bicycle store.
I joined the company in 1972,
and so my family has been
in the bicycle business and nothing else
for more than 110 years now.
- Is there a point of
saying, hey, wait a minute,
China is doing things that
are unfair to our businesses
and pushing back on Chinese practices?
- Look I applaud President Trump
for making a point of this.
I just don't agree with the
manner that it's being handled.
A factory in China for
many years could lose 10%
on their cost and still with
the money they're getting back
from the government still make a profit.
So that's, that's pretty serious cheating.
(upbeat music)
- [Nick] The U.S. says that cheating
started as cheap copycats.
SportsCams, not GoPros.
New Baiahne, not New Balance.
Wu-Mart, not Wal-Mart.
And then the U.S. says it
expanded to industrial theft.
Designs of nuclear power plants,
navigation satellite technology,
billion dollar American jets.
(jet engines roaring)
The U.S. says in just a few decades,
theft helped China make
its military world-class,
and its companies technology leaders.
- That kind of technological advancement
doesn't happen organically.
- [Nick] Jake Parker is the Vice President
of the U.S.-China Business Council,
which advocates for American
businesses in China.
- China's system is set up
in such a way that the state
has access to information that companies
would consider to be trade secrets.
President Trump has raised
issues that have been an irritant
in the relationship for
a very, very long time.
That have not been adequately
addressed by the Chinese side.
And frankly, those issues go to the core
of how China's economic system operates.
(upbeat music)
- [Nick] The Chinese government protects
key industries from foreign competition.
Especially artificial intelligence.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] We hope
our products can replace
human labor in industries
in factory environments.
(robots whirring)
- [Nick] EX Robot is working
on human-like AI robots.
(speaking foreign language)
They can mimic facial
expressions, respond to questions-
(speaking foreign language)
Even host a TV show.
EX Robot president Yang Dongyue.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Their main
function is to communicate
with people, so a good
appearance is a must.
If the robot is very good-looking,
like a pretty lady or a handsome man,
people will feel more pleasant
when talking with them.
(upbeat music)
- [Nick] China is racing
to become the global center
for AI by 2030, and is
spending $150 billion to do so.
The U.S. says companies
like EX Robot are hiding
how much government aid they receive.
But these companies are growing rapidly
and drive China's
unprecedented economic boom.
(gentle classical music)
Their pacing is precise.
Their spacing is seamless
and their pours are perfect.
This is China's first butler academy.
Their future employers will be
members of China's new rich.
(wine splashing)
In communist China, billionaires are built
faster than anywhere else.
There are now more
billionaires in Beijing,
than in New York, working in technology,
real estate, and pharmaceuticals.
- In no other country other
than China have you had such
a great amount of change in
such a short amount of time.
- [Nick] Sara Jane Ho knows
all about the privilege
and pressure of being rich in China.
- Average price here
is probably 1,000 U.S.
It's not too expensive at all.
- [Nick] She's been dubbed China's
"Millennial Martha Stewart,"
and founded the country's
first finishing school.
- Sometimes I let friends
come and observe our classes
and they say, wow you know your students
are so sophisticated, they don't look like
people who need etiquette.
Well you know what, Princess
Diana went to finishing school.
Did she go because she was
spitting on the street?
No.
- We can cook a warm pasta.
- It's not 'cause she was rude.
It's 'cause she went to be
a better version of herself.
There was a part of Chinese
history there was no education.
You couldn't go to school,
college, et cetera.
But now Chinese are traveling
abroad, emigrating abroad,
sending their children abroad.
And so as a result, starting
I'd say five years ago,
there was a great need
for Chinese to understand
an international code; how
to be a citizen of the world.
Mm, it tastes so good.
- [Nick] Xi Jinping has
recently cracked down
on this conspicuous consumption.
But the country's growth
created a new class and fast.
(speaking foreign language)
- The affluent right now in China.
They're all new money.
There's no old money in China
because of historical reasons.
A lot of people were very poor,
I mean everybody was very
poor, up until the 90s.
(chanting in foreign language)
- [Nick] Accumulating
wealth in communist China
was once considered counter-revolutionary.
Mao Zedong came to power in 1949
vowing to eliminate class and capitalism.
(drums pounding)
(speaking foreign language)
Mao pursued his utopian
vision of communism.
Affluent families lost their wealth
and many lost their lives.
Tens of millions died from famine,
and almost 90% of the population
lived in extreme poverty.
That changed in the late 70s and 80s,
when Deng Xiaoping loosened state control
over China's economy and
permitted private enterprise.
China grew faster than
any country ever has,
into the world's second largest economy.
But all of that is now in jeopardy.
- China out with GDP
data overnight showing
the first contraction of
the economy since it began
publishing the data back in 1992.
- [Nick] The economic
plunge caused by coronavirus
not only threatens the
country's economic gains,
but also Xi Jinping's plan to
eradicate poverty this year.
The World Bank says 24% or
300 million people live below
the poverty line of $5.50 a day.
And one of Xi's key stimulus programs,
to help lift rural Chinese out of poverty
and to expand China's
influence around the world
is the Belt and Road Initiative.
(train whirring)
The Belt and Road Initiative
is one of Xi Jinping's signature policies.
And when Xi Jinping calls world leaders
to the Belt and Road Forum
in Beijing, they show up.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Connectivity
is the main focus
of China's opening up.
(light music)
- [Nick] 2,000 years ago
the ancient Silk Road helped
China spread goods, ideas and
culture all the way to Europe.
Today, China aspires to
recreate a Maritime Silk Road
of ports and an economic
belt of roads, pipelines,
and railways across 70 countries,
including a network of
railroads in Indonesia.
(birds chirping)
(gentle music)
Today, Indonesia welcomes
Belt and Road investment.
Outside Bandung, the commuter
train is old and slow.
But now, cutting through
the hills that lead
to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta,
there's a tunnel for a high-speed train.
And the engineers and managers who lead
this $6,000,000,000 project, are Chinese.
- This benefit us very much, you know.
Because we are going to have also
like a new cities, you know, suburb.
So then we can spread
out people to the area.
- [Dan] With new industry, new
employment, new production?
- Yes, yes indeed.
- [Nick] Indonesian Minister
Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan
dreams of traveling like the Chinese.
- I experienced that
when I was in Beijing.
I went from Beijing only one
hour by speed train, you know.
Very comfortable.
- [Nick] Like the train we
rode last year from Hong Kong
to the city of Shenzhen
on the Chinese mainland.
- [Announcer] We will soon
arrive in Shenzhen-Bei.
- Welcome to China!
In 20 years, China has
gone from no high-speed
rail to the longest
high-speed rail network
in the world thanks to
state owned enterprises.
The rails, the electricity,
the telecommunications
all produced by enterprises
owned mainly by the state.
And then there's majority
state owned Baosteel.
Baosteel is so big, it has its own ports;
4 of them, outside Shanghai.
Huang Weiliang directs
Baosteel's Strategic Planning.
How important is Belt and Road
Initiative to the company?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] For the steel industry,
the Belt and Road Initiative
involves some key projects
like ports, railroads, bridges,
stadiums, and power grids.
These will generate direct
demand for steel products.
- [Nick] Xiao Weiming leads the office
in the Chinese ministry that oversees BRI.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] We encourage
Chinese companies to go
out of China to enhance
their production capability.
In return we can use the
increased government revenue
to improve the income
level of some poor areas.
This is important.
- [Nick] But the Belt and
Road Initiative doesn't
only expand Chinese infrastructure.
- Well, China is a big power now.
And big powers normally want
to expand their influence.
(audience applauding)
- [Nick] Mahatir Mohamad served
as Malaysian Prime
Minister from 1981 to 2003,
and again until earlier
this year, at the age of 92.
When he came to power,
Mahatir froze BRI projects.
- Everything is imported,
mostly from China.
Workers were from China.
All the parts and the
materials were from China.
That means that Malaysia
doesn't get any benefit at all.
- [Nick] Belt and Road projects can come
at a steep price.
Sri Lanka, privatized a
port when it couldn't afford
debt payments to a Chinese bank.
To build Belt and Road
railroad with Chinese loans,
Kenya agreed to apply Chinese
law inside the country.
And to pay for South
America's largest dam,
Ecuador is selling 80% of
its most valuable asset,
oil, to China at a discount.
- These transactions aren't fair.
- [Nick] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
and the Trump Administration
have aggressively confronted
the Belt and Road Initiative
and accused the program
of being corrupt, and reducing
countries' sovereignty.
- They're showing up with
money in brown paper bags.
They're putting debt on nations
that they can't possibly repay,
so that they'll ultimately
be able to exert political influence.
- What's your response to that criticism?
That the Belt Road Initiative
contracts are debt traps
and aren't transparent.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Chinese companies
won the bidding and other
foreign companies did not
win, and the reason is simple.
Foreign companies and workers are not
as hard-working as the Chinese.
- But don't those Chinese
companies get advantages
not because they're just hard workers,
but because they are funded
and many of these loans
are backed by the Chinese state?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I cannot say it's
the Chinese government's support.
China's financial institutions
will provide financing only
if they deem the projects are profitable.
We do not make investments blindly.
We Chinese are not stupid.
- [Nick] The U.S. is
trying to increase its own
investments in important
countries, to counter China.
But it's having to play catch up.
- The Chinese very aggressive.
If you look on the last 30 years,
the Chinese economy so efficient,
moving forward also with the technology.
American technology is
very good, you know.
But the last five years,
I think the Chinese
technology is much better.
- [Nick] In China, the
technological champion is Huawei.
- This is our new P30 Pro.
- [Nick] The company
is a 100 billion dollar
phone and technology juggernaut.
Can you describe the vision
of this company as you see it?
- We want, you know, bring
the communication to every
continent and to every family,
to every house, to every people.
- This is our, we are
the first one with 5G.
- [Nick] Last September Huawei launched
the world's first chip with integrated 5G,
or 5th generation phone technology.
5G will dramatically speed up phones,
is designed to connect
everything around us,
will transmit huge
amounts of data instantly,
and transform entire cities.
- We're now walking on the floor
that touches everything in your city.
- [Nick] Last July, Chief
Digital Information Officer
Edwin Diender showed me what
Huawei calls, Safe City.
A database of every citizens' face,
every car, every license plate.
Tracking everyone by their cell phones.
And artificial intelligence
that combines all
their surveillance into one package.
- A couple of years ago
all these different systems
were different systems,
and disconnected systems.
So, the first thing
that has changed is that
all these things are
being able to integrated
and combined with artificial intelligence.
- [Nick] Huawei and other
Chinese telecom giants
are building 5G and smart cities
in more than 65 countries.
PBS NewsHour teams
reported from 3 continents,
and heard praise from police,
and criticism from human rights advocates,
that Chinese technology
facilitates political repression.
- There will be no letup in this campaign
- [Nick] Filipino President
Rodrigo Duterte has launched
what he calls a war on drugs.
He turned to China for help.
In 2016, Duterte traveled
to Beijing to secure
Chinese government loans
that allowed the Philippines
to buy a Chinese safe city.
- In terms of the benefit of this project
to the country, it's immeasurable.
- [Nick] Jonathan Malaya is
the Philippines' Department
of Interior and Local
Government's under secretary.
- If we are to ensure
the safety and security
of our countrymen we must
use every tool available.
- [Nick] But the government's opponents
call the war on drugs an
extrajudicial, murderous crackdown
that's killed tens of thousands.
And those Chinese tools can
enhance government suppression.
- Basically, what a Safe
Cities program is all about,
is increased electronic and
technological surveillance.
- [Nick] The Philippines House
political affairs officer
Francisco Ashley Acedillo calls Huawei
a front for the Chinese Communist Party.
- An Intelligence and security
law passed recently by China,
which requires all, everyone in China,
both public and private, to
assist intelligence agencies
and authorities in intelligence gathering.
- [Nick] And a new government
10,000 miles to the west,
Ecuador, found those
Chinese intelligence tools
were used against its own citizens.
Former President Rafael Correa
built a national network
of surveillance called ECU-911,
with Chinese technology and
Chinese government loans.
The current Ecuadorian
government says ECU-911's
surveillance was built with
a backdoor to Ecuador's
intelligence agency that
targeted its political opponents.
(speaking foreign language)
Like Retired Colonel Mario Pazmino.
A single Chinese produced camera,
looks right into his living room.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] We were living
in an era of government
terrorism in which
technological tricks are used
to curtail people's freedom of expression.
They choose Chinese companies
because China had already
developed a monitoring system.
Their gift is a Trojan horse,
designed to control everything in society.
- A White House official
talking to me called this
authoritarianism in a box.
What's your response to that?
- What do you want me to say?
I think it's also liberation in a box.
I think it's also city management
and being very efficient
in daily operations in a box.
- So, can this be used for surveillance,
is it being used for surveillance?
- Well, what you're
looking at is an element
of intelligent video surveillance,
which is common technology
that's available worldwide.
Like every technology, it
can be used in certain ways.
- [Nick] Does that concern
you that some of these
countries might be using this for-
- Personally yes, of course.
I'm a person just like
everybody else is a person.
I have my own concerns
and my own views and yes,
of course, that is a concern.
- [Nick] Huawei's considered such a threat
the U.S. military banned the company.
And the Trump Administration
blocked U.S. companies
from selling technology to Huawei.
- The U.S. is trying to block Huawei,
but is that really having any impact?
- There's no major impact.
All our major customers
choose still stay with Huawei.
I think that is the fact.
(light dramatic music)
- [Nick] Nowhere is Chinese technology
more pervasive than in China.
During the COVID-19
outbreak, Wuhan shut down.
On China's biggest holiday,
previously bustling city
streets, stood quiet.
(wind whistling)
(light dramatic music)
In April, the government
lifted restrictions.
(speaking foreign language)
But movement is tightly
controlled by technology.
To enter a supermarket,
residents have to show
a green code on their phone.
The codes appear inside popular apps.
Users enter their own health information,
and the government tracks where
everyone goes via cell phone.
Green means you're healthy.
Yellow means contact
with an infected person
in the last 2 weeks.
Red means confirmed positive
or showing symptoms.
All of this information is
shared with local police.
Residents don't seem to mind.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I believe
the people who have yellow
or red codes are either in
hospitals or quarantined at home.
They are definitely not
running around outside.
Those who are able to come
out all hold a green code.
I feel safe.
- [Nick] The Chinese
government says technology
keeps citizens safe,
and makes China modern.
- China is quite unique because it's been
a rapidly developing country.
So we have very uneven distribution.
Technology helps to bridge those gaps.
- [Nick] Jessica Tan is
the Co-CEO of Ping An,
whose building towers over Shenzhen.
(gong ringing)
Ping An boomed financially
into the world's
second largest insurance company.
But it's celebrating by turning
old insurance into new tech.
- [Man] Micro-Expression
Recognition-Based-
- [Nick] One Ping An
software determines whether
loan applicants are lying
about their identity
by examining more than
90 distinct expressions.
- Sometimes when you are nervous there
are these microexpressions
that people would do.
- [Man] The system
identifies abnormal emotions.
- Verifying the person
who they are supposed
to be is quite accurate.
I think it's now already
better than the human eye.
- [Nick] And when 1.4
billion sets of human eyes
are all entering data into their phones,
that's big data and new data.
- Only about 35, 40% of them may have ever
borrowed from a bank before.
Right, so, then the rest of
them who hasn't borrowed before,
you don't really have
a good credit record.
It's actually zero credit record.
(horns honking)
- [Nick] Ping An assessed its customers,
by developing a social credit score,
based on all the data from users phones.
Like Ping An, the
government is now converting
people's data into social credit scores.
In Shenzhen, cameras
watch this intersection.
If people jaywalk, they're publicly shamed
when their faces are
displayed on this screen,
and their credit scores are docked.
Do you think that because
that camera is there,
more people cross legally?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Of course,
they are afraid to be seen
doing something inappropriate,
so they will change their behavior.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] If you jaywalk,
it reduces your credit score.
For example, if you cross the red light,
your score would be
reduced by two to three.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] The credit score
system is so important,
there's even a Communist party-produced
National Credit Magazine.
Wu Xiaoyan is the editor in chief.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] This system
has become an effective
measure in our social governance.
For example, on the bus,
people with regular scores
will pay regular price,
and people with good scores
only pay 80% of that.
- When I look in this magazine
I see an honor list in red,
and then in black, a black list.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Those on
the red list are people
who have trustworthy behavior.
Those on the black list are people
whose behaviors are not trustworthy.
- Does it work?
Does rewarding people who
act well and punishing people
who act badly make more people act well?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Of course it works.
(speaking foreign language)
- Okay, sure.
- Something about that
question made her uncomfortable.
She and her staff walked
out of the interview,
and the newsroom.
But our microphones were still rolling,
and recorded their conversation
about my questions.
- [Translator] Don't talk
about the government.
Talk about companies, businesses.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] We need to be calm,
we cannot refuse to be interviewed.
- [Translator] Not too rigid or serious.
- [Nick] 10 minutes
later, she did come back
to finish the interview.
(speaking foreign language)
- Everything okay?
She said everything was okay,
but the government's critics
say everything is not okay,
because they say China's Big
Data is becoming Big Brother.
Are you, as a constant critic
of the government, under surveillance?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Of course.
We can feel this
surveillance all the time.
The Chinese authorities
use a network of cameras
throughout cities, facial
recognition systems,
as well as various mobile phone
apps to monitor individuals.
Surveillance is indeed omnipresent.
- [Nick] That surveillance happens
automatically and instantaneously.
Every day, Chinese citizens send more
than 45 billion messages on WeChat,
the country's most
popular messaging service.
If you type in something sensitive,
like a reference to the
Tiananmen Square Massacre
in Mandarin, the recipient
never receives it.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] Sometimes,
my wife and I suddenly
can't contact each other.
I noticed that whenever
foreign media reporters
were trying to set up interviews with me,
the police would always
show up downstairs.
- [Nick] And the Chinese government used
that unblinking surveillance
to target a specific Muslim
minority who's moved from Xinjiang, China
to Turkey's largest city, Istanbul.
(somber music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I never
imagined this could happen
in the 21st century: Innocent
people subjected to cuffs
on their hands, shackles, and
black hoods over their heads.
- [Nick] Gulbahar Jalilova lives alone
in a small apartment.
The injuries she suffered
in Chinese detention
three years ago have healed.
But she hasn't gotten over the memories.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I saw
them, 14-year-old girls
to 80-year-old women.
They take them for interrogation.
They would come back and their bodies
were bruised, their heads swollen.
After three months, they put a black hood
over my head and took me away.
- [Nick] Abdusalam
Muhemet and every Uyghur
we spoke to live in self-imposed
exile because they're too
scared of the Chinese
government to go home.
Can you describe for us what
that detention center was like?
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] They
brought everyone in there
because they called us suspicious.
There is unimaginable oppression inside.
Every day they'd toss us
a little bread and water
so that we didn't die, and
every day they would interrogate
15 or 20 of us with unbearable brutality.
We are a people who
have lost their freedom.
We became their target
because we'd studied religion,
and because we had
influence in our society.
They locked us up in jail.
Then after taking us to a camp,
they'd tell us we hadn't
done anything wrong,
that they were just educating us.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] The Chinese say
they are re-educating Uyghurs
by teaching them Mandarin
Chinese and vocational skills.
This is Chinese state media video.
The detainees we interviewed,
and international researchers,
say it's staged and scripted,
a facade that hides
what's really happening.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The 10 hours
of class they would teach us
one day were exactly
the same as the 10 hours
they would teach us the next.
The Chinese were trying
to change our minds,
our faith, our beliefs.
It was a plot to force us
to renounce our religion.
- [Nick] And then there are
reports of forced labor.
International researchers
found the Chinese government
coerced hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs
to become laborers in factories.
Many of these factories make
goods for Western companies.
(speaking foreign language)
(explosion booming)
The Chinese call Muslim Uyghurs
extremists and terrorists.
In 2009, Uyghurs in
Xinjiang's capital rioted.
Uyghur militants affiliated with Al Qaeda
took credit for this 2013
attack in Tiananmen Square
that killed 2 people and China
blames male and female Uyghur
militants in southern China
for this 2014 knife assault
that killed more than 30.
Those attacks are claimed by Uyghurs
who call Xinjiang East Turkestan,
which self declared independence
in the early 20th century.
China says it's administered
Xinjiang since 60BC.
And Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Hua Chunying,
says China is fighting separatists.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] The problem
in Xinjiang is the issue
of counter-terrorism and de-extremism,
not religious and human rights issues.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] But In Xinjiang
and a neighboring province,
residents say China has launched
a campaign against Islam.
The government has partially
or completely destroyed
at least a dozen mosques.
And Uyghurs say the Chinese
aren't only targeting their religion.
In Istanbul, Uyghurs describe
how China criminalized
Uyghur language and all Uyghur culture.
The U.S. has called that
campaign cultural genocide.
(singing in foreign language)
China has even banned Uyghur music.
Yusup Sulayman sings about
a culture that's been lost,
and a people who've been silenced.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] They're
disappearing our famous artists,
composers, and songwriters
before anyone else.
They're disappearing our intellectuals.
They've burned what they wanted to burn,
and scrubbed what they wanted to scrub.
- [Nick] In Xinjiang's
capital, a huge statue
of Chairman Mao looms over the city.
In multiple interviews across China,
we heard the same thing:
China is fighting terrorism and fake news.
Su Ge is a former
ambassador and former head
of one of the Chinese foreign
ministry's think-tanks.
- China and the United
States, I think that we feel
the same about the extremists.
We also have this danger of terrorism.
The best way to eradicate radicalism
is to provide education,
to provide development.
- There have been cases of imprisonment,
that are on a mass scale,
not just of terrorists
or suspected terrorists,
but actually entire
families and entire cities.
- Well, to us, that's
just somebody's trying
to to write a story about it-
- [Nick] You mean you
think they're fiction?
- Yeah.
You ask them, how many
policemen have been injured
and just by terrorists?
- [Nick] But Gulbahar
Jalilova is not a terrorist.
And she can't forget
those still in detention.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] I see
them all in front of me,
as if I were still in the camp myself.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Nick] After she was
released, she wrote down all
the names of the women in her cell.
(speaking foreign language)
The prisoners in one of thousands
of cells across Xinjiang, China.
(speaking foreign language)
So what's the future of
U.S.-China relations?
Where do we go from here?
Most likely, even less collaboration,
and more confrontation.
(light dramatic music)
China watchers call this the worst moment
in U.S.-China relations since relations
were restored in the 1970s.
Tensions that already
existed, are accelerating.
Confrontations over technology, trade,
and the South China Sea.
The information war over COVID-19.
And China is center stage
in the U.S. election.
On the Shanghai boardwalk,
long before social distancing,
I heard the hope, China and
the U.S. could cooperate,
and the fear of what could be at stake.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Translator] If China
and America can try
to understand each other,
then that would be best,
ultimately allow us to avoid a
fight to the death mentality.
- [Nick] These two countries,
whose relationship will
help determine so much of our
future are drifting apart.
(light dramatic music)
(dramatic music)
- [Announcer] This program
was made possible by
contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
