From the subtitles:
We know that the Trump administration is in a trade war with us, so why can't we fix the Trump administration? Why between 1992 and 2016 did China and the U.S. use to be able to settle all kinds of issues? No matter what kind of crises we encountered, be it the Yinhe incident, the bombing of the embassy, or the crashing of the plane, things were solved in no time, like (a couple) do with their quarrels starting at the bedhead but ending at the bed end. We fixed everything in two months. What is the reason? I'm going to throw out something maybe a little bit explosive here. It's just because we have people at the top. At the top of America's core inner circle of power & influence. We have our old friends.As we don't have much time, so I won't go into details here. I'll only tell a little story. Mayor Zhang just told some stories. It worked very well. So I'll also tell a story. Oops, it's a shame that htis story ... We are doing a live braodcast on the whole internet today, and it's said that a million people are watching it, so I have to contorl how much I can tell. I can't betray others. Let's put it this way, in 2015, before the last visit of the General Secretary Zi to the United States, we know, that all our systems in the United States needed to work at warming things up, right?
So now of our party's sytems, the way that sytem could help to warm things up in the U.S. was public opinion. (So it was arranged that) the first edition of the English version of Xi Jinping's new book, "Xi Jinping" The Governance of China" would be released in the U.S. Before he visited the U.S. we wold hold a book release event to help him build up the momentum. Who shold do it? Just like today, they found out, (they said to me), Di Dongsheng, you have a way with foreigners and are better at fooling them, right? Because they had seen how I fooled foreigners, and they thought it was very good, so they said, "You act as the host and guest speaker", so it's very similar to our event today where I'm both the host and a guest speaker.
So the venue for this event was already decided by the leader. He said it was next week next Thursday, 3:30 p.m. Go to the most important "Politics and Prose" bookstore in the United States on 2650 Connecticut Avenue in Washington? It seems like the number. That is a professional bookstore. So we needed to go over thee for the book launch, and we needed to hurry up to communicate with the store. We all know that the East and West work in different ways. You asked me to secure that venue on such a short notice, it was tough.
It turned out that the bookstore owner was very spoiled, he said sorry, we can not host you. Then I asked, I said, you tell me, which author booked this session? What did I mean by that? There's nothing that dollars can't handle, right? If I can't do it with one stack of dollars, I'll do it with two. Of course, that's my way of handling things. But also, the bookstore owner ws very spoiled and said, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you which author has booked this time slot we have our principles." So he was very spoiled. He really put on airs with me.
So I asked around and found out that he was a Democrat before and was once a journalist in Asia. He was very unhappy with out party, so he purposely chose not to cooperate. Then I thought that we had lost the chance, at least we needed to change the time and place, right? So I turned this issue over to the leaders, let the leadership solve it. I was only a guest to help, right?
On Thursday morning, the vice department head of that department who was also the real keynote speaker of that day, called me and said Little Di, let's go ahead with our original plan, at the same time and place, as we planned. After lunch I reshed to the bookstore, only to find that the leadership was there earlier than I. The reason why today we were able to follow our original plan, to execute it smoothly is because of this outstanding person. Then he introduced an old lady to me. She has a big nose. I could tell that she is Jewish by the first glimpse. She handed me a business card, saying, my name is so-and-so. I won't betray her name here. She said, my name is so-and-so, nice to meet you. Attention! She speaks very fluent Mandarin with Beijing dialect. I was very surprised. I said, "Oh my, you speak Chinese even better than I do. I can never get rid of my Jiangsu accent.
Upon hearing that I flattered her, she was very pleased with herself. She said, Let me tell you not only do I speak Chinese, but I also have Chinese citizenship. Do you understand this? Do you have foreign citizenship? If you have foreign citizenship, you can't have Chinese citizenship, right? This old lady wouldn't give up her dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship for Chinese citizenship right? So I immediately understood that she was an old friend of us Chinese people. She then said another sentence that impressed me very much. She said, I not only have Chinese citizenship but also have Beijing Hukou (registered permanent residence). I have a Siheyuan (quadrangle dwellings) on Chang'an Street in the Dongcheng district. When you come back to Beijing, come and have tea with me. If you need anything here this year, don't forget to call me. What did that mean? She could fix anything here.
Then I saw the owner of the bookstore, who was very proud of himself before, with an unhappy face, asking his employees to arrange tables and chairs. He was very reluctant as he was forced to do this. I said, "How did you fix him? We tried to communicate with hi, but failed." He was very spoiled." The old lady smiled and wryly said, "I resoned with him." Do you know where that sentence comes from? It's a classicline in the famous American Mafia movie "The Godfather". That guy cut of the head of a horse and stuffed it into someone's blanket. Of coure, the old lady was not in the Mafia, but who was she? Why did she live in China for 30 years? Why can she speak fluent Beijing dialect? And we just said, Wall Street. She is from a famous, leading global financial institution on Wall Street. She is the president of the Asia region of a top level financial institution. Of course, it would be politically incorrect for me to go on. Do you understand what I mean. If you do, put your hands together?
Okay, so in fact, that is to say, to put it bluntly, for the past 30 years, 40 years, we have been utilizing the core power of the United States. As I said before, since the 1970s, Wall Street had a very strong influence on the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States. So we had a channel to rely on. But the problem is that after 2008, the status of Wall Street has declined and more importantly, after 2016, Wall Street can't fix Trump. Why? It's very awkward. Trump had a previous soft default issue with Wall Street, so there was a conflict between them but I won't go into details, I may not have enough time.
So during the US-China trade war, the (Wall Street) tried to help and I know that, my friends on the US side told me that they tried to help but they couldn't do much. But now we're seeing Biden was elected, the traditional elite, the political elite, the establishment they're very close to Wall Street, so you see that, right? Trump has been saying that Biden's son has some sort of global foundation. Have you noticed that? Who helped him (Biden's son) build the foundations? Got it? There are a lot of details in all these. Then, so, as such a time we use an appropriate way to expres some goodwill. This is my personal understanding based on my limited professional background. If we understand this matter from the perspective of the international political economy I think there is a tactical and political value in it.
