Taiwan arms sales, Board of Trade, and Chinamaxxing

0:01NPR.

0:11Arms sales to Taiwan, a new board of trade. These were discussed when President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. This wasn't an earth-shattering summit, though. The buzzword from Xi Jinping was stability. That said, coinciding with the talks, we did see a handful of Chinese companies approved by the U.S. to buy some of NVIDIA's high-tech chips. That's according to Reuters. There were also suggestions that China would now buy billions worth of U.S. agricultural goods.

0:40Sierra Juarez:There was a lot of anticipation ahead of this meeting. Trump was flanked by an entourage of American business leaders, including Elon Musk and Apple's Tim Cook. And, you know, all this got me thinking about one word. China-maxing. This is The Indicator for Planet Money. I'm Adrienne Ma, here with Waylon Wong and Darian Woods. Today on the show are three takeaways from the Trump-Xi meeting. We'll cover why Taiwan was such a high priority for President Xi, learn about the Board of Trade, and mind the depths of TikTok to explain what Chinamaxing's all about. This message comes from MSNOW. AI is moving fast.

1:20What's real? What's hype? And where is it all headed? On Why Is This Happening, Chris Hayes talks with the leading experts to make sense of it. The AI Endgame, a special series from MS Now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are talking about President Trump's China visit. Darian, you go first. So I'd like to talk about what Chinese President Xi Jinping said was his top priority. It was billions of dollars worth of American arms sales to Taiwan. Ooh, yeah, this is always a very contentious issue. So, a bit of rapid-fire history here to understand why. For thousands of years, Taiwan was largely indigenous.

2:00But from the late 1600s, it was under Chinese control for more than 200 years.

2:06Sierra Juarez:And so it sounds like those 200-plus years of Chinese rule are why the Chinese Communist Party considers Taiwan a part of China. Exactly. But here's the unusual thing. For most of the 20th century, the ruling party in Taiwan said that they ruled China. They had been in charge in mainland China, but they fled to Taiwan after the communist revolution in 1949. They're basically saying, we're just taking a breather. We're planning our attack on the Chinese Communist Party. Temporarily embarrassed rulers. Indeed. But that taking back of mainland China never happened. It's been this kind of weird stalemate.

2:44Today, Taiwan is focused on its own sovereignty, but China still believes Taiwan belongs to them. And remind us where the U.S. has been in all of this. Like most countries, the U.S. has been doing this delicate dance between mainland China and Taiwan. It's been appeasing the Chinese Communist Party by saying that the U.S. doesn't recognize Taiwan as a real country. Then in 1982, President Reagan reassured Taiwan and the commitment was the U.S. would not negotiate with China over its arms sales to Taiwan. Wait a minute. That's just what happened, though, isn't it? The opposite of this commitment you just described.

3:20It does seem that way. A few months ago, Xi Jinping talked to Trump about$11 billion worth of American arms sales to Taiwan. She said that the US should treat the arms sales with extreme caution. Those were his words. Since then, there's been a delay in getting a new arms sales package to Taiwan. And on the surface, at least, this looks like this is a negotiation with China. And that would be a breach of that 1982 commitment. Speaking of dealmaking, I am here to talk about something called the Board of Trade. That is Board B-O-A-R-D, by the way, not B-O-R-E-D. You're not expressing your fatigue after the news cycle.

4:04No, I love the news. And trade is obviously a huge topic. And this board is something the administration is proposing as a new way for China and the U.S. to manage bilateral trade. Jameson Greer is the U.S. trade representative, and he said on social media a couple weeks ago that this new board of trade could focus on non-sensitive goods. Non-sensitive. So I'm imagining things that aren't related to AI technology or semiconductor chips and things like that. Yeah, those are the third rails of trade, the touchiest subjects, and the U.S. tightly controls exports of those kinds of products. But there could be tens of billions of dollars worth of non-sensitive stuff that the U.S.

4:46and China could potentially lower tariffs on.

4:49Sierra Juarez:So non-sensitive? I am imagining things like, I don't know, bedding and shoes, maybe labubus. Yeah, this is the stuff high-level trade negotiations are made up. Free the labubus! And it's worth pointing out that the U.S. and China used to have an official mechanism for these kinds of bilateral economic talks. It was called the Strategic Economic Dialogue. Former presidents George W. Bush and Hu Jintao started it, and it fell apart during Trump's first term. So if this new board of trade gets off the ground, it could be a fresh start to this relationship, or at least this aspect of this relationship.

5:28Okay.

5:29Sierra Juarez:I would like to take a turn at looking at the public's attitudes towards everything going on here. Some interesting indicators for you. China seems to be coming up in the world's esteem. According to a global poll conducted by Gallup, 36 % of people surveyed approve of China's leadership, while only 31 % approve of U.S. leadership. And that is the first time in several years that that's happened, that China has kind of outshone the U.S. It's almost like stable international diplomacy has results. I guess. I mean... Although no one's winning any popularity contest. You're still sub-50 for both.

6:08Sierra Juarez:I think the trend line is important here, right? And for another data point for you, if you look at how Americans feel about China generally, 27 % of Americans surveyed in a recent Pew Research survey said they had a favorable view of China. And while 27 % may sound low, that is actually double what it was just three years ago. Three years ago was kind of in the thick of the pandemic, right? So I can't imagine China was coming out too high on public opinion surveys. But I think what the trend shows is that Americans, even amid all of this geopolitical tension, are warming up to China a bit. And this is most annoyingly demonstrated in an internet trend that has been dubbed China maxing.

6:48Oh, another thing we're maxing these days?

6:50Sierra Juarez:Why do we have to max everything? That's true. What if we moderate, mod something? China moderating. So there's a recent NPR story that says China maxing has been making its way around social media, particularly among younger Gen Z Americans. And basically what it means is embracing fashion or lifestyle habits that are perceived by some as particularly Chinese-y. Now that you're Chinese, you need to stop walking around your house barefoot. Okay, because Chinese people, we don't do that. We wear tuxie around the house. So that could mean wearing house slippers or adopting Chinese skincare routines or even drinking hot water.

7:29Oh, I've been drinking hot water. Well, I'm also Chinese, so I'm inherently China Maxing all the time. But I have never seen my mother drink water that is colder than room temperature. And as I move into my old lady era, this is also what I do in the wintertime. I drink a lot of hot water.

7:47Sierra Juarez:Also, as part of this Chinamaxing trend, there's been a sort of running joke online where people who are not Chinese Americans say that they're in a very Chinese time in their life. And this is supposed to be, you know, like tongue in cheek humor. So like many of you, I've recently been informed that I am Chinese. So I just wanted to give a quick ni hao to all of my fellow new Chinese people out there. I don't quite get it, but maybe with full context it will become apparent. I think you have a way to go before you're fully China-maxed, Darian. For all the jokiness of this, there also seems to be like a very earnest section of this trend for people who are, you know, some commentators would say expressing an insecurity about American identity, right?

8:34Sierra Juarez:They are Americans, but they see the U.S. as an increasingly dysfunctional place, while on social media, at least, China seems to have its act together as a country. Because we wear slippers indoors? Exactly. I mean, some would say that China maxing is like a necessary counterbalance to, you know, all of the negative portrayals of China, either in the news or in pop culture. Other people are more critical. You know, they think it's kind of frivolous and even offensive. But I think any way you slice it, this definitely seems like a soft power win for China. And I've noticed with the administration that very positive when they were going away to China for this visit.

9:17Trump's been very positive about Xi Jinping on social media. And I don't know. I think the administration is doing a bit of China maxing. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Maggie Luthor. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Geeking Canon edits the show, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

9:42This message comes from MS Now. AI is moving fast. What's real? What's hype? And where is it all headed? On Why Is This Happening, Chris Hayes talks with the leading experts to make sense of it. The AI Endgame, a special series from MS Now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.