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China’s influence is growing as the world moves towards a more multipolar order. But what does Beijing want from this changing global landscape, and how does it see its relationship with the US, Donald Trump and countries like Malaysia? On this episode of #ConsiderThis, Melisa Idris speaks with Professor Victor Gao, Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization, who was a keynote speaker at the Penang Peace Dialogue 2026 in Georgetown, Penang. They discuss China’s relationship with the US under Donald Trump, Malaysia’s approach to both powers, and China’s role in the evolving global order. They also examine the growing debate over China’s manufacturing dominance and exports, and the argument that a new “China Shock” could threaten industries and accelerate deindustrialisation elsewhere.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:14where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. I'm here
00:19at Jen Hotel Georgetown in Penang for the Penang Peace Dialogue 2026 where my next guest is one
00:27of the keynote speakers today, Professor Victor Gao who's Vice President of the Center for China and
00:33Globalization. He formerly served as the English language interpreter for the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
00:41So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Thank you very much for
00:45having me.
00:45It's good to chat to you, Professor Gao. If you don't mind, I would like to start with the big
00:50picture and the premise of the Penang Peace Dialogue. So you're here speaking about a
00:56multi-polar world. Can I ask you to maybe give us a sense of what you think China actually wants
01:04in this new international order? What does China want it to look like? First of all, the world we
01:13are living in through, or the world order of that, was established back in 1945 after the defeat of
01:21Nazi Germany in Europe and Japanese fascism in Asia-Pacific region. And it was meant to be
01:28multipolar rather than unipolarity. Why? Because if you look at the composition of the United Nations
01:35Security Council with five permanent member states, each with a veto power. Therefore, the world order
01:43founded back in 1945 was multipolar rather than unipolar. That's a very important point. Now,
01:50somewhere between 1945 all the way to now, 2026, something happened. I do not need to go into details,
01:59but now there is one single country which believes it is the unipolar of the world and it wants to
02:06impose
02:07its view or its version of the truth on the rest of the world, which is completely unacceptable. And it
02:14will also not work because I think the people in the world, up to about 200 countries of the world,
02:21want to maintain their own sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, rather than being pushed
02:28around without observing the international laws. Therefore, I think what China wants to do is to
02:36make sure that the world order will remain multipolar rather than unipolar and all countries, big or small,
02:44strong or weak, should be treated as equal. No one should be allowed to bully around, you know, to be
02:51the bully
02:51on the block, for example. And that probably will be a better world, a world where people will be
02:59allowed to be treated as an equal and to thrive on equal terms. Do you think that the U.S.
03:08understands
03:08this, that this is China's vision, for instance? Do you think that Washington may have a misconception
03:15that China wants to replace American primacy with Chinese primacy?
03:21Well, while I have the highest respect for the American people, I think the United States,
03:26as a government, is suffering from two nightmares. They worry that China will surpass the United
03:33States. That's the first nightmare. China is way ahead of the United States in many ways,
03:38in terms of the size of the economy. China is about 135 percent that of the United States. If we
03:45use
03:46position power parity, in terms of the manufacturing capacity, China is way ahead of the United States.
03:53China now accounts for about one-third of the global total in manufacturing. In terms of the power
03:59generation, China produces more than 2.5 times as much power as the United States. Now, in terms of shipbuilding,
04:08if I may use that as an example, China's shipbuilding capacity is 253 times as much as that of the
04:20United
04:20States. So, for the United States to worry that China may get ahead of the United States is completely
04:27not decent and not a scientific worry to start with. Now, the second nightmare is even worse. The United
04:34States worries that once China really gets ahead of the United States, China may impose its political
04:41system, its ideology, its way of life, its values of the United States. Now, this is completely
04:48berserk. Why? Because China treats all the countries in the world, big or small, strong and weak as
04:56equals, including the United States. So, whether in the past when China was weaker or at present when
05:03China is larger than the United States of the economy, if we use purchasing power parity, or, for example,
05:09in the future, when, according to Elon Musk, by the middle of the century, the size of the Chinese
05:15economy will be twice as big as the United States. China will always treat the United States as an equal
05:23rather than, for example, try to impose the Chinese version of the truth onto the United States. Now,
05:29the second thing, which is even worse, is what I say. The United States is suffering from the Tonya-Harding
05:36syndrome. You may remember Tonya-Harding. Oh, the ice skater. The ice skater, the national champion.
05:41Okay. Yes, but Tonya-Harding was worried that Nancy Kerrigan will be the next champion. So,
05:48she and her husband and some of the associates whacked
05:54Nancy Kerrigan's kneecap, putting her off commission, preventing her from competition. But
06:00eventually, when the dust settles, Tonya-Harding was banned from skating for her life. Now, the way
06:08why I think the United States is suffering from the Tonya-Harding syndrome, which I coined, is because
06:15they really want to whack China's kneecap, to put China out of competition in multiple ways. Right now,
06:23there are thousands of Chinese companies on the blacklist by the United States, and the United States
06:29whacked the kneecap of companies like Zhongxin Communication, Huawei, you name it, more than
06:35several hundred companies have been whacked at their kneecap. But China refuses to be put out of
06:41commission. China wants to continue its economic development, continue to defend free trade, and
06:48defend peace in the world. So, I think the better way is what I call inevitability of peace between China
06:56and
06:56the United States. Is the Tonya-Harding syndrome
07:04specific to the Trump administration? It's more than Trump administration. It started probably more
07:10than 10 years ago, before Trump. And do you think it will continue after Trump?
07:15Well, it will continue until they will realize that it's completely futile to whack the Chinese
07:22kneecap. I told many of the Americans, and I know many of them, that it's not worthwhile to
07:27whack the kneecaps of the Chinese nation, because we have more than 1.4 billion people, meaning there
07:34are 1.4 billion pairs of kneecaps. So, if you keep whacking 1 million a year, for example, holy cow,
07:42when you finish, let's say, 100 million pairs of kneecaps in China to be whacked,
07:47China will be stronger and more resilient. So, I think the better way is to treat China as an equal,
07:54and get along with China, and acknowledging that China will never be another United States,
08:01and, hopefully, the United States will never be another China. So, the difference between China
08:07and the United States will make both China and the United States stronger and more resourceful,
08:13rather than, for example, suffering from the Tonya-Harding syndrome. And I'm really worried that the
08:19Americans are suffering from that Tonya-Harding syndrome. So, wake up, you know, wake up and free
08:26yourself from the Tonya-Harding syndrome. Right. Well, President Xi Jinping is going to be visiting
08:32President Donald Trump in Washington, I think, in September 24th. When you look at these types of
08:41personal relationships between the two leaders, do you think that might help stabilise U.S.-China
08:48relationships, the relationship between the U.S. and China, or are the differences too deep,
08:55too structural? Well, personal relations between the two heads of state is absolutely important,
09:02but it's necessary but not sufficient. Not sufficient. Not sufficient, but eventually what
09:07will matter is what President Xi Jinping has been calling people-to-people relations, friendship, etc.,
09:14but also the economic realities between the two countries. You may recall President Trump made a
09:20state visit to China, May the 13th to May the 15th. I was interviewed by CNN Live at 2.12
09:30in the
09:31afternoon of May the 15th before Trump reached Air Force One, but soon after Trump reached Air Force One
09:40and after Air Force One took off from Beijing, he forwarded my interview with CNN Live to his own
09:50social media and mainly including three points. The first point was I was asked by CNN to rate his
09:59visit to China, and I say out of 10, I will rate it 9.99. Apparently Trump was happy about
10:06that,
10:06otherwise he would not have forwarded it. Why did you rate it so highly? Well, because first of all,
10:12it's not a perfect score because I need to leave something for President Trump. But that's such a small
10:18margin, right? Yes, exactly, very small margin so that he will keep working close with the Chinese.
10:24What impressed you about his visit? Well, now I can say his visit made several huge achievements. First
10:32of all, he restored that time-tested tradition of each sitting U.S. President, since President Reagan,
10:41to make a state visit to China while in office, until that tradition was broken by former President
10:48Biden. President Biden didn't make a state visit to China during four years of office in the White
10:56House. So I was very grateful that President Trump restored that tradition. Secondly, one European
11:04leaders declared after the state visit that they were surprised to realize that President Trump actually
11:11has manners. But they say President Trump has manner while he is in China, and they believe President
11:18Trump doesn't have manner while he will be in Europe. So you will see that the personal relations
11:26between President Xi Jinping and President Trump is very important. It serves to stabilize the relations,
11:33and also while President Trump 1.0 launched the anti-China tariff war. And then on April 2, 2025,
11:45the U.S. government launched the reciprocal tariff, not only against China, but against almost all the
11:51other countries in the world. Eventually, the reciprocal tariff war was declared by the Supreme Court of the
11:58United States as illegal and unconstitutional, meaning China has all along been on the right
12:05side of history. When China defends free trade, China is not only defending it for its own purposes,
12:12but for mankind as a whole, including, ironically, the American people. So I told as many American
12:18people I know that when China defends free trade, China is helping you because China defends
12:24your rights. And how did they respond to that? Well, they were a little bit amused by this because
12:29President Trump said that most of the tariffs he collected from China, from the rest of the world,
12:35were paid by China and other countries. The reality is that up to more than 90 percent of the tariffs
12:43collected by the U.S. government were paid by the American consumers or the importers. So that's the harsh
12:50reality. I think everyone needs to tell the decent, dignified, good-hearted American people the reality.
12:57When the U.S. government charged a huge amount of tariffs, you pay the tariffs. It causes the increase
13:05in the living standards, it causes inflation, and it doesn't solve any of the problems the United States
13:11is faced with. So engaging in free trade, defending free trade, is the much better recipe for solving
13:19whatever problems there are in the United States. Since we're talking about trade, I have to ask you
13:24about the issue that I think some commentators in the media are referring to the China shock 2.0.
13:31So we're talking about the enormous manufacturing capacity of China and the exports now that are
13:37threatening some of the industries in other countries. Some are calling it the China overcapacity
13:44problem. How do you view this issue? I simply cannot agree with the concept of China's
13:51overcapacity. I would call it China's super efficiency. Why?
13:57Super efficiency. Yeah, efficiency because if you compare China versus Japan, China versus Germany or
14:03EU as a whole, in particular if you compare China versus the United States and the rest of the world,
14:09it's not overcapacity that really counts. It's China's super efficiency in terms of power generation,
14:17which is absolutely important. Without power, there will be no power. Meaning without electricity,
14:23there will be no power, number one. If you look at Germany, they are forfeiting their energy security.
14:29They cut off from the affordable piped gas from Russia, they gave up nuclear power generation,
14:37they gave up coal. Now they need to depend on the imported LNG, mostly from the United States,
14:43very exorbitantly priced. Normally, minimum, twice as expensive as piped gas, sometimes four times as
14:51more expensive than piped gas, and sometimes in emergency cases, up to about 10 times more expensive. So with
15:01such highly unaffordable pricing, not for one day or one week, but for let's say 10 years or 20 years,
15:09it will really erode whatever basis you have for the manufacturing excellence in Germany. So it's not
15:17overcapacity on China's side, but your disregard of your own energy security.
15:23Professor Gao, both can be true at the same time. There can be inefficiency or a disregard for power
15:31security, but also China can be super efficient, but also have access capacity. China's extraordinary
15:40export capacity has been wonderful for China, 1.2 trillion in trade surplus, which is a record. But at what
15:50point does that super efficiency, does that extraordinary export competitiveness become a
15:57problem for the rest of the world? So it's not just Germany. We need to do our homework. When you
16:03look
16:03at China's export to the rest of the world, only roughly about one-third of the Chinese export
16:10is produced by the Chinese local producers. One-third? One-third, meaning two-thirds of the Chinese
16:16exports were or are produced by non-local Chinese producers, including another one-third by American
16:26companies operating in China, and another one-third by companies from Europe, from Japan, South Korea,
16:35from China's Taiwan province, from ASEAN countries. So the Chinese export could be divided into one-third
16:41one-third for the local Chinese companies, one-third for the American companies in China, another one-third
16:47from all the other countries, including China's Taiwan province. So when you talk about China's export,
16:57it's not 100% Chinese export. It's global export maximizing using the Chinese efficiency in terms of
17:06connectivity, finance, for example, and well-trained workers and professionals, as well as more important
17:13than any other thing, the pro-business environment. So this is what makes China more competitive,
17:22and why China is so super efficient, for example. And this is where I would urge all the other countries,
17:30countries, Germany, Japan, for example, to really do their homework, to make sure that they are not blaming
17:37China for so-called overcapacity. They need to acknowledge that China is having the highest efficiency in the
17:46world. And then as a result, maybe China produces more than any other country. And it's completely unfair
17:55to call for boycotting Chinese exports, because the reality is that if you boycott Chinese exports,
18:02you boycott American exports out of China, you boycott European countries' exports out of China,
18:08Japanese China's Taiwan provincial exports out of China. So let's really do our homework to realize
18:17what China is doing, why China is so super competitive, super efficient, and why as a result, China produces
18:27more than any other country. Do you accept that some countries may resort to protecting their domestic
18:38manufacturers or their local economy to counteract or to safeguard against the super efficiency of China?
18:46China. I believe in free trade. Protectionism is not part of free trade. And protectionism eventually
18:52backfires. It makes cost in your own country or in your own market higher, and it erodes the living
19:01standards of the people in your country. So eventually, protectionism actually is like a poison against the
19:08fundamental interest of your own country. The Americans, the Canadians, the Germans, for example, etc.,
19:15of all the developing countries. The thing that will really work a miracle is always free trade. And to be
19:23excellent in free trade, you need to have several preconditions. First of all, energy security. Line up your
19:31energy security. Secondly, create the best and the most pro-business environment of all things. Cut out all the red
19:40tapes, bureaucracy, etc. Thirdly, train your people. You know, both blue-collar workers as well as white-collar
19:49workers, professionals of all kinds, etc. And then educate them. Give them the best education they need,
19:55so that the workforce will be well suited to not only the ordinary level of lower-level manufacturing jobs,
20:05but the highest level of manufacturing jobs you can think about. That's why, for example, Tesla car
20:12business almost folded until they were saved when they opened their largest
20:21car manufacturing facilities in Shanghai. Can you believe it? There will be no more Tesla car business
20:28business unless they were saved in Shanghai. Why? Because the local government in Shanghai gave
20:35them the best arrangement in terms of the land, local financing, for example. More importantly than
20:43any other thing, the highest quality local Chinese workers and technicians and the professionals.
20:49So, Elon Musk said what he achieved in Shanghai could not be done anywhere in the United States or in
20:57their German flood. It could only be done in China. Now, if you apply this kind of
21:06objectivity and pragmatism to look at China, then you will realize the better conclusion that is embracing
21:15China to leverage off on the high and super efficiency in China for your own benefit.
21:22Okay, so for countries like Malaysia, how do we make sure that we're benefiting from this?
21:28Of course, Malaysia is such an important ASEAN country and for hundreds, if not for thousands of years
21:35in our exchange, there was never violence or war, aggression, occupation by China of any part of
21:44Malaysia. So we got along very well for hundreds, if not for a couple of thousands of years. Now,
21:51Malaysia has a lot of natural endowments that China doesn't have and the two economies are highly
22:00complementary to each other. So I would say if Malaysia can really leverage off on China's super
22:07lead in, for example, EV cars, new technologies, new powers, new sources of power, financial connectivity,
22:18technological connectivity and China's push into space, China's push into deep oceans, you name it.
22:28And also, more importantly, China's leading position together with the United States in their different
22:34ways of course, in this AI revolution. Then I think the uplifting of the Malaysian economy will be huge,
22:42because you are not only talking about creating more jobs for the Malaysian people, but also uplifting
22:49in terms of the technological excellence and also saving more time and resources in pushing deeper into
22:58this AI revolution. AI is coming. It will change everything we know about human beings up to now.
23:05The sooner you get along with AI, the better. And never find yourself on the wrong side of the AI
23:12divide, which I coined. So don't be on the wrong side of the AI divide. What is the wrong side
23:18of the AI divide?
23:19Well, the American way of developing AI is closed source, is building up AI dominance, for example,
23:26is preventing other countries from playing a meaningful role in the AI revolution. They overcharge
23:33you and then they take over all your data, all your data, etc. So if you really innovate and create
23:42new ideas, they know earlier than you do, can you believe it? And they may actually take advantage of
23:49that without your knowing that. The Chinese way of developing AI is open source. It's lowering the
23:57costs and the barriers and is encouraging participation on equal terms in this AI revolution. It will
24:04enable more countries, more companies, more individuals to better use AI without suffering
24:11higher cost and without losing all your proprietary technology. So I think this choice between the
24:19American of AI intended for AI dominance based on closed source AI development paradigm versus the
24:28Chinese way of AI, open source, encouraging cooperation, enabling you to play a more meaningful role
24:37will minimize the AI divide rather than maximize the AI divide, will make it more affordable for you
24:44rather than overcharging you.
24:46So when you lay it out in terms of two choices, the US versus China, countries like Malaysia who say
24:53they
24:53want to be non-aligned, who they say they don't want to choose, but in terms of picking even a
24:59choice of
25:00technology will inevitably choose sides. Is that how Beijing sees it?
25:04No, absolutely. I think the way America is developing AI is really betting everything on
25:11this AI revolution and absorbing money from everywhere in the world, trying to build up
25:16AI dominance, which is bad. China does not allow any country in the world to build up AI dominance,
25:23because if any country builds up AI dominance, they will reshape everything you know.
25:29Islam will no longer be Islam according to their version. They may impose their version of the truth
25:36on to everyone in the world. So what they are doing is to achieve what I call Geo AI.
25:44Geo AI. So they want to use AI as a weapon to create Geo AI so that those that they
25:52find as their
25:54friends or the partners will join the AI in their way, they want to overcharge them, they want to take
26:00over all their proprietary knowledge or your database or your client list, for example. They know
26:06everything that you want to protect as your private information. And then on top of that, you overpay for
26:14enabling them to understand what you are as a person, as a culture, for example. Then they will rewrite your
26:20history, for example. Then imagine if I said, you know, AI for good versus AI for evil. Sometimes the weapon
26:30organize AI already, militarize AI, they use AI, and all the data they can generate or regenerate for
26:39their purpose of defeating you or destroying you or your culture. That's what I call AI for evil. For
26:47example, if Jeffrey Epstein is still alive and comes up with his own version of AI, it will be AI
26:55for evil.
26:56So we need to be fully aware that AI could be used for evil purposes or if AI
27:04is being fed with evil, it will turn out as AI for evil. So this is the moment of truth.
27:12We need to
27:12promote AI for good. We need to be firmly opposed to AI for evil.
27:18Well, we could have a whole other episode just talking about that. But for now,
27:22I want to thank you for your time. Thank you so much for having me. That's all the time we
27:26have
27:26for you on this episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening. Thank you so
27:30much for watching. Good night.
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