What do American businesses want from China?

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. How much closer will the U.S. economy be to China? And how much will the Trump administration follow through on its pledge to help American companies and help American industry fend off the threat from Chinese investment? Making the world safe for business and, incidentally, the Trump Organization.

0:51It's Thursday, May 14th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, Trump's been called a lot of things. Transactional is maybe his most prosaic label. And that's something Chinese leaders get. You know, they do find Trump unpredictable. But Trump may very well be the only or maybe even the last president that China feels it can work with because it understands Trump. We'll also get a glimpse of the Chinese version of this American life coming up in a few minutes. But first, the president is representing American interests in China. But if you look at who's traveling with him, you could maybe more accurately say he's representing the interests of American businesses.

1:41Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook, and NVIDIA's Jensen Huang were among the CEOs listening in as President Trump met with President Xi Jinping of China. The Trump family has its own financial interests in Asia. That's something that Joe Miller has been reporting on for the Financial Times. He told Robin Young that one of the things Trump is eager to announce from his trip to China is a trillion-dollar investment pledge. There is obviously an element to this that is focused on agriculture, on tourism. There's been a lot of emphasis in recent months on cooperation over law enforcement and a general desire on both sides, at least amongst lower ranking officials, to lower the temperature when it comes to the ongoing trade war.

2:33She and Trump had warm words for each other, but behind closed doors, as we understand it, things have been a little bit more robust. But we do know that the business leaders that have accompanied Trump on this trip, including Elon Musk and Apple's Tim Cook, etc., have been meeting with Chinese officials. And those meetings, they say, went well. And that Xi Jinping told these executives that China will open its door to American businesses wider and wider. That's the readout from that meeting. And that is really what the Trump administration and America's largest businesses were hoping to hear on this trip.

3:17Well, but you know, there's wariness on the part of many Americans in a lot of the sectors like agriculture. We're going to get to that in a second. But I want to ask you first getting to that. You've also been writing about President Trump's son, Eric, who leads the family business, the Trump Organization. He and his wife, Lara, a Fox News host, have been right by the two presidents front and center. The White House has said Eric is only there on a trip to support his dad. But you've written that he's joining his father while a U.S. company linked to him explores a deal with a Chinese chipmaker.

3:46So what's the U.S. company linked to Eric? How is the Trump's crypto company, it would be, involved with that U.S. company and what's this Chinese company? Yeah, Eric is one of the more striking additions to the trip. He's accompanied his father, as you say, on this state visit. And he has said that he doesn't have any business interests in China and that he is not taking any business meetings while on the trip. But we have reported that a company that's been previously linked to him, it's a Las Vegas-based fintech and crypto company called Alt 5 Sigma, which has close financial links to a company called World Liberty Financial, which listeners may know is a crypto business that is linked to the Trump family.

4:33Well, those two companies, sorry, the company Alt 5 Sigma, this fintech, which has links to the Trump family, last month signed a so-called memorandum of understanding with a company called, a Chinese company called Nano Labs. And this is to build data centers and various other things in the US. And negotiations, they said, were ongoing for 90 days. So they're happening as we speak. And crucially, Nano is a Chinese company that US lawmakers, Republican US lawmakers last year warned has close links to the Chinese Communist Party. So we have to say, the White House has responded to what looks to many people like a conflict of interest.

5:15You know, Eric Trump being involved with this company that wants to get involved with this Chinese company that U.S. lawmakers say supports the Communist Party. The White House has said it is not. He is not in any business position in China. But as we said, there are Americans who are wary of the whole trip. And Treasury Secretary Scott Vessant said today on CNBC that the U.S. and China are working on an investment board, which would keep an eye on Chinese investments, acknowledging, you know, this wariness. What are you watching, especially with, you know, we have a dozen tech stars there, but we also have, you know, farmers in the U.S.

5:56saying, we don't want China buying land here. It might cause a food shortage someday, just briefly. Yes, absolutely. I mean, people watching the U.S.-China relationship over the last year and a half could be getting whiplash by now because we hear from the administration that China is in a threat to the US economy and that Chinese companies are a threat to the US economy. And at the same time, we're now talking about trade deals, about exporting chips to China, et cetera, et cetera. So I think what people will be watching for is to see where this really lands out beyond the rhetoric. How much closer will the US economy be to China?

6:32And how much will the Trump administration follow through on its pledge to help American companies and help American industry fend off the threat from Chinese investment. We're going to be watching. Joe Miller covers tech and financial policy for the Financial Times in Washington. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, Trump's businesses are unique in their connection to the most powerful office in the land, of course, but they are not unusual in their desire to strengthen ties with China. Lots of industries depend on Chinese manufacturers, markets, or both. We're going to take one more short break.

7:10And when we return, Scott Tong speaks with NPR's new China correspondent about why, for all the rhetoric about China or the U.S. competing or decoupling from one another, the two countries are still deeply codependent. Stick around.

7:33This message comes from Schwab. At Schwab, you can get everything from self-directed investing to full-service wealth management, all in one place. No matter your investing goal, life stage, amount to invest, or know-how, you can invest your way with Schwab. This message comes from Rosetta Stone and their newest language learning experience, Rosetta Stone Sapphire. Get unlimited access to all 25 Rosetta Stone languages and Sapphire learning tools. Visit rosettastone.com slash NPR and receive 20 % off. I'm Scott Tong, reporting from Beijing and the summit between Presidents Xi and Trump. They appeared at two iconic sites today, the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square and later the Temple of Heaven.

8:18As expected, there was no big breakthrough on day one, but the two countries each issued official readouts of today's talks. And joining me at NPR's Beijing Bureau is the Bureau Chief, Jennifer Pack. Jennifer, so good to see you. Good to be here with you. Let me ask about the summit in Taiwan. You know, I spoke last week in the States to a retired U.S. admiral, and he was just back from Taiwan. And he said, Taiwan does not want to be on the menu, right? That was his word. It does not want to be talked about at this summit because it fears it's going to be traded away by the American side. And we should say, of course, Beijing has long claimed that Taiwan is part of China, just to frame this.

8:56Absolutely. I mean, it was in the readout on the Chinese side and President Xi made it unequivocal. He said that the Taiwan issue is very important to the stability of U.S.-China relations. And so what China is really looking for is any kind of shift in the U.S. stance on Taiwan. It could be in terms of words saying that it opposes independence instead of saying it doesn't support it. It could also be in terms of reducing sales of military weapons to Taiwan. So there's a lot of reading into whether President Xi's readout had changed or shifted in tone. But we spoke to a Taiwanese affairs expert here in China, Xinjiang, and he said that actually it's not so different and also not so important what China's saying.

9:44It's way more important what President Trump says. Jennifer, here in China on state media, they're using one word a lot, the word stability, to describe this relationship. as these adjectives in front of us. So there's this word salad, but the idea is this should be a relationship of stability. So from Beijing's perspective, stability to do what? To steel itself against the next hit from the U.S. So there was this China expert, Jonathan Zinn, at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. And he says what Beijing is really looking for is that they're trying to buy time and space to get relief from U.S.

10:24pressure because right now its economy is quite weak. So it wants stability or relief from, for example, tariffs because China's economy is really reliant on exports. It wants relief in terms of, say, the Iran war or geopolitical instability. So the Iran war is wreaking havoc on Chinese supply chains. It also means stability in its own backyard with Taiwan. That's the ultimate goal. Well, we're here in China where, of course, it has been trying to develop its own version of its technology, its own semiconductors, its own weapons. You know, there's this fashionable term for many analysts who say there's this decoupling going on.

11:05You know, China wants China first. United States wants America first with its own technology. At this point, from what you see, is this decoupling a realistic thing? Absolutely not. Not even in terms of trade. Like, President Trump had increased the tariffs, hoping that manufacturing was going to come back. What it has succeeded in doing is pushing some parts of the supply chain out of China, but it hasn't returned to the U.S. And in fact, on China's side, they will say, look, we don't need the American market. We could sell to other markets. But the fact is, nobody buys as much as Americans do and at such a high price point.

11:41So there's no way that the Middle East, South America can replace America's market. So what you're seeing is a lot of Chinese manufacturers or people who used to manufacture in China, they moved to Southeast Asia. And guess what? They're assembling there, but they're using Chinese machinery, raw materials from China, and then selling it to the U.S. You're seeing trade from the U.S. between Southeast Asia and the U.S. going up. And at the summit, of course, two things that we expect to come up is the U.S. side wanting to make sure they still have access to critical, they call them rare earths from China.

12:14China wants to make sure it has some access to these high-end chips from the United States. So, I mean, it's going to come up directly at this meeting, yeah? Absolutely. President Trump has brought Boeing and it has brought a lot of agricultural experts to come, also high-tech firms. NVIDIA is here. So China says, you know, if Trump wants to rebalance this trade relationship, there's a very simple way. Sell us your high-end, top-notch chips so we can run our AI. and also sell us the jet engines, which we can't produce yet. And, you know, from America's side, they want to continue to be at the forefront of AI.

12:51Guess what? You need critical minerals. So, you know, as the game show says, let's possibly make a deal here. Which brings me to my last question. First of all, there was pomp and pageantry. Yeah, I mean, what did we see today? So we saw military salute, 21-gun salute. We saw children holding American and Chinese flags and flowers and jumping up and down, kind of cheering for Trump as he's walking down this red carpet. So he was loving it, right? He was interacting with the children. And yeah, it's all about pomp, but it's really about face. It's a reflection of how much China values this relationship at this point.

13:28As we said, they can't decouple, so they understand we have to work together. And so China has been trying to point to the commonalities between the two countries rather than differences. You know, they do find Trump unpredictable. But I spoke to an analyst, Shen Ding Li, who is an independent scholar based in Shanghai, and he studies international relations. And he said, look, Trump may very well be the only or maybe even the last president that China feels it can work with because it understands Trump. Trump wants, you know, face. It wants deals. And China feels it can work with that because these are very practical things, rather than being lectured on human rights or other ideological things.

14:08Jennifer Pak, NPRS Bureau Chief here in Beijing. Again, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. After the break, we'll get a unique perspective on China from a podcaster who is able to get Chinese people to tell frank, honest stories that might be embarrassing or shameful, even in a culture where private things tend to stay that way. Scott Tong introduces us to a Chinese show modeled after This American Life. It's called Gu Shi FM, or Story FM, and it's pretty interesting. So as a certain podcasting legend might say, stay with us.

14:51You know how you don't say certain things in polite company? Well, China, and I've been here a lot, can seem like polite company, the whole place. Nobody overshares, no one embarrasses themselves, all in moderation, Confucius said that. And then a year ago, I stumbled onto this Chinese podcast.

15:17The podcast is called Story FM. Three times a week, it tells first-person dramatic tales of marriages dissolving, attempted suicide, being kidnapped by the Taliban, addiction, peeping toms, nothing is off limits. Well, almost nothing, and we'll get into that.

15:40This man worked at a Foxconn factory, which makes iPhones. Years ago, news reports said a number of workers there took their own lives. As soon as we arrived, they buzzed our hair down to a crew cut. After getting the crew cut, I wanted to run away. Why did I want to run away? Because there were just too many rules. You weren't allowed to talk while eating. If one of them caught you talking, they would walk over with a notebook, jot down the number on your ID tag, and then, come the weekend, you wouldn't be allowed to go out for recreation. Another episode is about a former youth ping pong champion.

16:15She made China's national team, but hated it.

16:22Looking back at that situation now, I realize I was playing more to meet their expectations. I was excited to go from a small town to a big city, not because I could make it to the provincial team or play, but simply because I could go to a bigger place. My only concept of table tennis back then was that losing meant getting hit, being punished, being beaten, specifically by my mom. Now, if the audio format sounds vaguely familiar to you public radio nerds out there, yeah, it is modeled after This American Life. WBEZ Chicago. Today's show, 24 hours at the Golden Apple. This American Life, I'm Ira Glass.

17:03Stay tuned. Story FM was founded nine years ago by a man named Ko Ai-je, a coal miner's son. His journey began as a librarian. He was a huge reader. and then he became a journalist for a Chinese magazine and later a Swedish broadcaster in Beijing. Hello, Ai-je. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Hey, where are we? We are at our office. Ko Ai-je meets me at his Beijing workplace. It's on the downstairs level of a public library. So on brand. How did you start listening to podcasts? I still remember in 2007, I bought the first iPod. It's an iPod shuffle. It doesn't even have a screen. I found this function podcast.

17:51Very few Chinese podcasts, but I found plenty of English ones. Like plenty of money, like This American Life, Snap Judgment. To be sure, Story FM is not a copy and paste of This American Life. It is almost all individuals telling first-person stories, not much narration. The team is on a tiny budget, so there's not much money to travel. Still, Ko says he gets inspiration and ideas from public radio shows in the States. Are there any particular episodes you still remember listening to that are your favorites or your inspirations? Yeah. This American Life, they go to a restaurant called Golden Apple Restaurant.

18:35I think it's in Chicago. The Golden Apple Diner. Here's This American Life host, Ira Glass, in that episode. In this very diner, the Golden Apple in Chicago on Lincoln Avenue, and I looked around the restaurant. At the table next to me, my family was taking their teenage daughter out to an awkward last breakfast where she shipped out with the military. There were dressed up people who'd come in from the church across the street and young couples who'd stumbled in with the paper and were working on the crossword together. And I thought, if only somebody could interview every person at every table in this restaurant.

19:09That would be amazing. Story FM then made a very Chinese version, spending 24 hours at a cheap beer hall in China's Rust Belt in the frigid north. The area saw mass layoffs in the 90s, and the economy has been limping along since then. So who dines at the beer hall now? Occasionally, some young people living nearby would come in to order a late-night snack and leave in a hurry. Just before closing time, two young men came in, one fat and one thin. The fat one ordered a noodle dish to go. The thin one stood at his side, expressionless. He ordered nothing. He wasn't wearing makeup, but his good looks were clearly enhanced.

19:53Listen closely, and Story FM has an introspection, a humanity, a funny bone. Many characters live on the margins of a society that values conformism. Now, China is not a land of free speech. And yet StoryFM features episodes on Taiwan, on sexual bondage, on transgender confessions. So how does it survive the censors? Chinese podcaster and consultant Yang Yi says StoryFM as a podcast is not regulated as a broadcast or as a news provider. In China, the government sees the Gu ShuiFM, the podcast, or maybe the whole podcast, as a user-generated content. So it's quite different from the products or content, you know, provided by a news or media outlet.

20:39And StoryFM, even though it has 5 million listeners, has a small audience for China, especially compared to, say, social media. Maybe for TikTok, for Douyin, the original TikTok, there is more than maybe the half a billion, you know, users around the country. But for podcasts, probably just 10 % of the whole population listen to. So I think maybe from some authorities' view, the podcast is quite niche thing. Niche and authentic. But how does StoryFM host Ko Aizhe convince people to talk about things that are shameful? I think it's important to let them trust me, because the majority of our audience, they know we don't judge.

21:25Whatever choices you made, whatever experience you experienced, we can include. There's more to that conversation at hereandnow.org. And lots more tomorrow from Scott Tong in Beijing. So click that follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast right now.

21:48Here and Now Anytime comes from NPR and WDUR Boston Today's stories were produced by Karen Miller-Metzen, Hafsa Qureshi and Wilder Fleming Our editors were Todd Munt and Michael Scotto Technical direction from Caleb Green and Matt Reed Our theme music was by Mike Mischetto Max Liebman and me, Chris Bentley Our digital producers are Alison Hagen and Grace Griffin and the executive producer of Here and Now is Alan Price Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.