Who are competing to succeed Xi Jinping?

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ladies Road Talk. Happy Thursday. Happy Friday. The weekend is right ahead of us. OK, today is part three of the trilogy on CCP politics and Xi Jinping's power outage, his downfall, right, start of his downfall. All right. So in the last two live streams, we talked about how the vice chairman of the CMC, Zhang Youxia, is likely the person who's controlling the Chinese PLA. And then in the last live stream, which was Tuesday, we talked about all the signs, all the series of events indicating Xi Jinping might have lost a significant part of his power. Today, we'll talk about, well, who will succeed him? So it's part three. Let's get started. I have three videos that I prepared for you and some slides. Let's get started. Do I have my videos organized? Yes, I do. OK. So, you know, after Xi Jinping came to power, the most significant thing he did within the party was dismantling the succession system established by Deng Xiaoping. At the 19th Party Congress, he amended the party constitution, and later he also changed the national constitution, leading to the establishment of a political system where he could potentially rule for life. However, things start to change after the third plenum in July. There has been a clear indication or there have been indications that he has lost some of his authorities. Like I said, I discussed the power shift in my last two live streams. You can watch them if you haven't. Now, Xi Jinping is forced to have a succession plan. So today, we'll discuss who is most likely to emerge as the next Chinese leader to succeed Xi Jinping. In the past few days, reports suggest that China has now entered a, quote, Li Qiang moment in Zhongnanhai, which is the CCP headquarters or the leadership compound. And also, a former crown prince, Hu Chunhua, has become active again. I should say, people call him the deposed crown prince, someone who has lost favor with the king. So he has been active again. So these signal, their recent activities signal the beginning of a dynastic change in China. So we'll first discuss the likely successor, and then we'll talk about the dark horse candidate, and then we'll compare the two. All right. So, well, actually, I originally want to talk about the role the other Politburo Standing Committee members play, but I don't think we'll have time. So, and I'll just, you know, quickly mention that. I'll quickly talk about Cai Qi at the end, but they're not really that relevant at this point. These two, I think, are the most likely successor. So the first one is the likely successor. And in theory, the next leader should come from the seven-person Politburo Standing Committee. So if Xi Jinping steps down due to health reasons or other catastrophes, actually, I do have a, I'll show you the picture later. So according to CCP's own rule, the second in line in the Politburo Standing Committee is Premier Li Qiao. So he's likely to take over as the next leader. However, let me show his picture. So there he is, but he is known as the weakest premier in the history of the CCP. All of his deputies were appointed by Xi Jinping. His ministers and heads of various commissions and committees were all personally selected by Xi Jinping. So since taking over as the head of the State Council, which is the government body, right, Li Qiao has become Xi Jinping's secretary instead of the head of the government. However, things have changed. Last week, from October 12th to 14th, Li Qiao visited Vietnam. The high-level reception that he received in Vietnam was comparable to the one Xi Jinping received last year during his state visit, including a red carpet and the 21-gun salute. On October 12th, Li Qiao first met with the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Tho Lan, followed by a meeting with the prime minister, Phan Minh Chinh, on the second day. Now, this sequence was special, as typically the premier would first meet with his counterpart, the prime minister, then to be received by the big boss, the party secretary, more as a symbolic courtesy, right? It was more of a courtesy meeting. This arrangement, the fact that Li Qiao was first met with the party secretary, the VCP leader, then the prime minister, almost indicates that he was given the same courtesy and treatment as the CCP party leader. The fact that he was received first by the VCP leader indicates that his status was viewed as the same as Xi Jinping. According to Vietnam News Agency, during the talks, Tho Lan and Li Qiao agreed to maintain high-level exchanges and regular interactions at all levels. They want to promote efficient development of diplomatic channels, as well as advanced cooperation in areas like national defense and security. Both express their intent to enhance the quality and efficiency of economic and trade cooperation. They want to strengthen collaboration between the Belt and Road Initiative from China and Vietnam's Two Corridors, One Belt framework. And they also reached a consensus on the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea. Now, all of the topics that were covered in their meeting suggest that Li Qiao was not just playing a role of a premier. He met with the VCP leader as if he was the CCP leader, addressing topics such as foreign policy, national defense, and territorial disputes. Notably, the two sides also briefed—this is according to their press release—two sides also briefed each other on their respective party and national situations. This is interesting because Tho Lan just visited Beijing in August, less than two months ago, shortly after he rose to be the VCP leader after his predecessor, Yuan Fuchuan, died. So what party and national developments needed to be updated within this short period of time? Was it the power shift within the CCP? And also, if you think about it, China was Tho Lan's first international trip after assuming the leadership role in Vietnam. So the question is, did Li Qiao return the courtesy by first visiting Vietnam after rising to power? Because, you know, I mean, the two leaders just met less than two months ago. Then what's the urgency for Li Qiao to visit Vietnam again, other than, you know, notifying your communist little brother that, you know, we have a new boss? Well, further evidence can be found in another way. Right before Li Qiao's trip to Vietnam from October 9th to the 12th, a VCP delegation led by a Politburo member and executive secretary of Central Committee Secretariat—this is from the Vietnam side, his name is Le Quang Thanh—Le Quang Thanh, I'm trying to pronounce it right. So this Vietnamese official visited Beijing and he was received by Xi Jinping. Now, Xinhua News Agency mentioned Xi Jinping's name in the headline of the news, but the Vietnam News Agency's headline didn't mention Xi Jinping. It just said, Vietnamese Communist Party delegation pays a working visit to China. All right, that's interesting. So up to this point, we know Xi Jinping's leadership. Or the spotlight of his leadership has never been shared with other officials. So Li Qiao's prominent visit to Vietnam suggests that his status is no longer the same as before. So, you know, what does that mean, right? He was the number two in the party. So if his status has been elevated, what could that be? Mr. Du Wen, who I will introduce later, you will see his video, you'll see his face and him talking, he is the former head of a legal council to Hu Chunhua. He said in a recent interview that Li Qiao has always advocated for a large-scale stimulus program rather than targeted policies when it comes to economic rescue ideas. And his, Li's basic economic logic is that only through large-scale stimulus can there be enough money to truly invigorate the economy. And Li believes that targeted policy policies only lead to unfair resource distribution and won't be able to stimulate the economy. So when you put that into perspective, it seems that Li has convinced Xi Jinping to change the previous policy of so-called targeted measures, given the recent stimulus plans that we've seen that have been rolled out in China. So it is said, according to Mr. Du, it's said that right now it is the Li Qiao moment in Zhongnanhai. And what Li Qiao says carries a lot of weight. So let's keep our eyes on Li Qiao because he is very likely to be the successor to Xi Jinping. However, with that said, I want to talk about the next person who I think is more interesting and deserves more attention from us because he is the black horse candidate. And let's see, who is he? Well, he is the former crown prince, Hu Chunhua, former vice premier. His current role is the vice chairman, the second vice chairman of CPPCC. And before that, he was the vice premier under Li Keqiang. Now, he belongs to the Youth League faction or the Hu Jintao faction, or you could say the reformist faction. Hu Jintao was his mentor and Hu Jintao appointed him. So he is Hu Jintao's appointed heir to succeed Xi Jinping after Xi's second term at the 20th Party Congress. However, we know that didn't happen. Not only who didn't succeed Xi Jinping, he was even excluded from the Politburo. His exclusion from the Politburo was so shocking to his mentor, Hu Jintao, that it even sparked the drama at the 20th Party Congress in which Hu was forcefully escorted out by Xi Jinping's bodyguard. Hu Chunhua is known to be extremely low-key since then. He has been putting on his best effort not to offend Xi Jinping. However, he's been active lately. I'll explain how he's active later. But I think he's the black horse who can make a lot of changes in China, in the political scene, within the CCP. And people should pay attention to him. And I think right now he's being underestimated because he's not in the Politburo. But I don't think that matters so much, because I'll give you the historical anecdote in which the underdog, someone who's not—Deng Xiaoping was not even in the Politburo. His rank was not as high as Hua Guofeng, but he overthrew Hua Guofeng. All right, so now his former legal counsel, Mr. Du Wen, who now lives in Belgium, offered some very interesting insight on what had happened before Hu Jintao was removed at the 20th Party Congress. And it all centered around Hu Chunhua, our protagonist. So let me play you a video clip in which Mr. Du, Mr. Hu's former legal counsel, he described, based on his understanding, what had happened before Hu Jintao was removed. So let me play the video, clip number three. I hope this is the right one. OK, hold on. Let me start from the beginning. OK, let's go. OK, so that's, that's the background information. Right. About Hu Chunhua. So let's talk a little bit about who, who this, who Hu Chunhua is. Now, who, who is who? Let me just put his picture on the screen so you know who I'm talking about. He was, according to Mr. Du, he was a young prodigy. He was the top scorer. He ran, he scored, he was number one. He get the high, he got the highest score in the National College entrance exam in his county, in Hubei, and was admitted to Beijing University. He isn't good at public speaking, but is a great thinker and a good writer. And he excels in strategy, strategizing. He has had a political aspiration and desire to succeed in politics from a young age. After graduation from college, according to him, according to Hu himself, all the big central state organizations were eager to recruit him and his school. And the, the, the organization department of the CCP asked him where he wanted to work and they would help him to make it happen. He could have gone to any, any central, you know, SOEs or any agencies that he wanted to work. But his reply was very surprising. He replied that he wanted to go to the most challenging place, to the place where the country and the people needed him the most. So he chose Tibet. And in a private conversation, he later explained why he chose Tibet. He said, with my ordinary background, I have no advantage over others if I go work at a government agency. My classmates from college all went there. There were many, too many of them. But if I go to Tibet, I'd be able to mature politically and move up the ranks quickly. So his decision to go to Tibet actually at the time made it headline news in state media. And here's the, here's a, there's a, there's a picture of him. Oh, here, oh, here. This was Hu Chunhua when he was young, and here was the headline news on Guangming Daily that showed, that said, Hu Chunhua, the graduate, decided to go work in Tibet. Anyways, so that was, that was, that was him. Once in Tibet, however, he, he worked his way up. And Mr. Du, now let me play the second video in which Mr. Du explained how he, his, his career path. So here we go. Let me start from the beginning. No, not this one, sorry. Okay, so this is the video. Okay, here we go. Okay. I found that to be very fascinating because, you know, if you, if you think about, I mean, how Hu has been in his, he has aspired to become a politician since a young age, and he's very focused on that. He even, you know, designed his career to start in the most difficult part of the country. I mean, the most challenging job, and yet he is perceived being mediocre. I think actually that showed his strength because if he had been a super performer within the CCP system, it could be more detrimental. You know, I think he was, I think the fact that he was, he was perceived by Xi Jinping as mediocre actually showed his strength because real superstars, real talented people will not do well in China. You know, they will be the subject of, of jealousy or it will be very, more dangerous for them. So actually I think if you, I think this, this insight that Mr. Du offered actually showed, showed us the strength that Hu Chunhua has displayed, you know, he's, he's actually like how he, he was just, he's very strategic, shall we say. So now this guy decided, you know, the sidelined or the deposed crown prince seems to want to return to limelight. He made a high profile inspection tour of Inner Mongolia in September. Inner Mongolia was one of his, it was his old province. He was the party secretary in, in, in Mongolia. So he went there and the local part, the local media in Inner Mongolia Daily reported on that and all the top leaders of the party, of the government and then the PCCPP paid a courtesy visit to Hu and the use of the term courtesy visit is significant. This visit is layered with multiple sensitivities. First, Hu Chunhua is a formal crown prince promoted by Xi Jinping's, one of Xi Jinping's political enemy, right? He was the, he was the picked heir to Xi Jinping by Hu Jintao and judging by how Hu Jintao was treated at the 20th Party Congress and the sudden death of the other key member of the faction, Li Keqiang, you would think how, how, you know, low key Hu Chunhua must have been in order to survive. And second, as the deposed crown prince returning to visit a place where he once governed, it evoked a sentiment that pretty much says, I'm back. Right? Which is somewhat taboo. You know, why is he send out, send a message to say, I'm back? Third, Hu Chunhua is the second ranked vice chairman of the national committee of the CPPCC. The fact that all top leaders in the province in Inner Mongolia paid him a courtesy visit indicates that they treated him with the same respect reserved only for the top leader, someone like Xi Jinping. And this is another taboo. And there's a fourth layer of abnormal, abnormality, that is, Hu Chunhua returned to Beijing without any consequences. When we consider all these events together, the grand return of a deposed crown prince is similar to the high profile reception of, of the weakest premier received in Vietnam. They're very similar. And then that's not it. On October 8th, the first day people returned from the national holiday, Chinese state media published an article written by Hu Chunhua. The article in five sections explained how to maintain the CCP's leadership over the CPPCC. At the beginning of each major section, it goes something like, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized blah, blah, blah, and followed by an explanation of how to understand the, how to understand and implement Xi Jinping's words. This report also appeared peculiar because Hu Chunhua is only a vice chairman of the CPPCC. He's not the chairman. So judging from the article, it seems like he's speaking on behalf of the CPPCC, which is not the right protocol. So what does it mean for the chairman, who is Wang Huning, right? And secondly, in the article, Hu Chunhua repeatedly references Xi Jinping's words, citing him five times in succession. It seems that he was pledging his loyalty to Xi Jinping. And people are like, why is he so prominently demonstrating his loyalty so publicly? Here's Mr. Du's explanation about who's his former boss's high, high profile activities. And let me play this video clip. I think it's this one. Let me make this bigger so that you can read this better. OK, here we go. This is what Mr. Du said. He hopes that he can restore his leadership, end the life-long regime of the leadership cadres, and restore the regime of the CCP's successor. It should be that after he had an accident, he suddenly had an accident, then he died, or suddenly there was a serious accident, then who will take over the problem? Avoid the problem of the Qing Dynasty not taking over, the collapse of the Communist Party of China. At this time, Hu Chunhua, as a former vice chairman, he had a chance, or a glimmer of hope. So he was too low-key in the past, and now he can't even think of high-profile, what should he do? Just seize every possible opportunity to show himself as much as possible, that is, to make himself existent in politics, so that he does not fall out of the core circle. Although he is already very far away, he is not willing to give up, so he has to keep moving forward, keep showing himself as much as possible. In fact, what Mr. Li Jun just analyzed, is that he wrote this article, his formation problem, he seems to be putting Xi Jinping in the forefront, but in fact he is not. In fact, he is using the way of praising Xi Jinping to improve his sense of political existence. He is pulling himself through Xi Jinping, I feel like this. Okay, so I agree with his analysis, and I think that's very insightful. So now let's talk about, oh by the way, Mr. Du Wen, the man who just spoke that you saw, he was accused of being involved in a public bribery case within the Inner Mongolian government. He was the legal counsel, the chief legal counsel in the government, and Mr. Du said that his case was a complete political persecution case. He said the investigators, he was a lawyer, the investigators who investigated the bribery case were all locked up, and he said some higher up authorities wanted him to implicate Hu Chunhua, who was his boss at the time, for the purpose of bringing Hu down. But Mr. Du said that he's a Christian, and he remained truthful, and he didn't. So therefore he was sentenced to 12 years and 8 months in prison. So he was released from prison in January of 2023, but remained under surveillance, and he and his family fled to Belgium, and that's where he's living now. So his experience shows you how dark CCP politics is, and actually how many people wanted to take down Hu Chunhua before he was the crown prince, or while he was the crown prince within the party. So now let's compare Li Qiangnan and Hu Chunhua. They both have strength and weaknesses. Now Li's strength is that he currently ranks number two in the party. So he is, by definition, the default successor, if they can't find anyone else. However, he doesn't have any elders supporting him, because he doesn't have central government experiences. He came from Shanghai, and he has been a provincial, a regional leader, and he was parachuted into Beijing and became the premier. So he was the first premier that China ever had without any prior central government experience. So his base in Beijing, his connections in Beijing are very limited. Hu Chunhua, on the other hand, has been groomed to be the sixth leader, and his career path spans from local to central government. He was previously vice premier, and plus he has party elders' support, and the biggest supporter is his mentor, Hu Jintao, whose handicap is that he's not even in the Politburo. He's not a Politburo member. So if you want to be a top leader, you have to be at least a Politburo member, ideally a Politburo Standing Committee member. The other difference between them is Li Qiang belongs to the Xi Jinping faction, and he obviously has the support of Xi Jinping, and Xi Jinping will want to pick someone who would listen to him. And Hu Chunhua probably doesn't have Xi Jinping's support, but he has the support of all those who oppose Xi Jinping, and this is also significant. Now whose only handicap is Xi Jinping? If Xi Jinping is nice to him, he has a better chance than Li Qiang to succeed. That's why he published the article to sing praises to Xi Jinping. And people also say history may repeat itself, because after Mao Zedong died, Hua Guofeng was Mao's chosen successor and held all the titles he could get. He was the premier, he was the party, he was the chairman of the CMC, the chairman of the party. He's the only party leader who also held the position of the government, the premier. So he held four titles, the president of China, of course. So he held four titles. He helped Deng Xiaoping to get rid of Madame Mao. But guess what? Deng Xiaoping eventually overthrew him, regardless how many titles. Deng Xiaoping didn't have as many titles, but Deng Xiaoping had support within the party, so he overthrew Hua. So people say that Li Qiang may very well be the interim successor playing a role of transition, but Hu may be the real leader after him if he got enough support. In terms of who has the vision to dismantle the party and lead China into a new direction, I don't know them well enough, but if I must pick one, I would say Hu Chunhua is more capable of doing that. After having persevered for so long and being abused and kicked around all his life, this man may come out with something that he has always wanted to do since childhood, to do something right for China. I don't know. I'm just saying this if I have to pick between the two. I don't think Li Qiang would do much because he will forever be a weak leader operating in Xi Jinping's shadow. So that's all I have. Now let's talk about Cai Qi quickly. Cai Qi must have been dreaming for a long time to be the top leader. And over the past year or more, he has gained more titles to lead various committees than Li Qiang. He's had more power than Li Qiang. As he controls the general office of the party's central committee and the propaganda apparatus, he is unlikely to accept Li Qiang as his superior. So he will engage in an internal competition within the Xi Jinping faction to fight with Li Qiang. But I think in the scheme of things, Li Qiang probably will win because the guy is more well liked and more balanced, who seems to be more capable of saving the economy than Cai Qi. But people say Cai Qi will not accept Li Qiang as his boss, but may accept Hu Chunhua as his leader because Hu has more support and more experience than him. So people generally don't believe that Cai Qi has a chance to be the next leader because he's too close to Xi Jinping, and that has become his biggest liability now. So that's all for tonight. Let's do a survey to see what people think. Who do you think is more likely to be the next leader to succeed Xi Jinping? Is it Li Qiang or Hu Chunhua? I don't offer a third option, just one or two. I mean, if I offer a third option, it's going to be I don't know. I don't have enough information to know, which probably is what the majority of people think. But let's just not include that as an option. I'm just curious to see what you guys think. Who do you think is more likely? Who will win in this competition? Let's see what people will say. Chris, can you post the poll? I will see. Someone said, I vote Tigger. All right, that's all. While you vote, I have some colorful stickers to address, to thank. Sir Humphrey. Hi, Lei. Hi, everyone working, but looking forward to the presentation and questions. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Hope you can join us some other time. Ptolemy of Salamanca. Lei, with the prophecy foretelling the fall of the Red Dynasty looking more likely to be true. Will Xi's successor have only anarchy to lead when they take over? I think Xi's successor, I think if it's Li Qiang, the premier, I don't think it will be any different from Xi Jinping, because he will only operate under Xi Jinping's shadow with some variation, with a slightly different approach to the economy. But overall, he will maintain status quo. And also, he's too weak to institute any major changes. But then for that reason, he's not going to last very long, because the Xi Jinping approach is not going to last long. So if Hu Chunhua, let's say, gets enough support from the people who oppose Xi Jinping, and if he has the courage, if what Mr. Du described is, if he really hasn't lost that aspiration since childhood, to do something for his country, then I think he would make some drastic change. If he still has that spark in his heart, then he should do something for his country. And the number one thing he should do is end the CCP. I mean, he should look at everything that has happened to his colleagues, to his mentor, who was forcefully removed from the stage. And then the only person, and remember, if you watch that video when Hu Jintao was removed from the stage, and then when the camera pan across the stage, everyone sat there with an expressionless face. I think Hu Chunhua was the only one sitting there with his arms folded and with a kind of a disgusted look on his face. I mean, he was the only one who actually had some expression on his face. So I don't know. Either way, the major changes or the regime has to change. The CCP system has to collapse, because it's not sustainable. That's why people say Li would be the transition leader, and who has the potential to be the real leader if he does the right thing. But we'll see. If he doesn't, maybe someone else will. Everyone knows that some major changes are needed in China. They cannot go on like this. All right. I think that's all. That's all the color stickers I got. Okay. Wow, the poll. 50-50. Question. Johnny, is Xi fighting back to stay in power? It doesn't look like it. You know, a few days ago, the PLA held a meeting. It was an important meeting. It required all the top commanders and then the head of all the service branches to attend. It was a theoretic study. They were trying to modernize military theories. It was an important meeting. It was the first time they had such a meeting. Usually, when they have something new, when they wrote out a new initiative, the chairman of the CMC, of the military commission, should attend. Xi Jinping always liked to attend these military all-hands meetings, but he didn't attend. He missed it. He only sent a letter and stayed on the podium with Zhang Youxia and a lieutenant general. The other vice chairman, He Weidong, wasn't even there. This is very unusual. It further confirms the claim that Zhang Youxia is controlling the PLA and the other vice chairman who is disliked within the PLA because he was promoted on such a fast track only because he knew Xi Jinping and only because he was from Fujian. The only reason he was promoted to vice chairman was because of a war in Taiwan. So that was unprecedented. Xi Jinping missed an all-hands PLA leadership meeting. Not only he missed it, his other vice chairman also missed it. Zhang Youxia sat at the podium with another lieutenant general who people think was from the Navy. I think he was on the podium probably because he had to make some presentation or give a technical presentation. That was something. I can talk about that on the weekend, but this weekend. All right. Silas. So how would you assess Xi's position now in aggregate? Is he just superficially in charge? I think so. Like I said in my last program, they haven't found anyone to replace him, and they're afraid by doing so, the regime may collapse. So they may wait until the 21st Party Congress, which will take place in two years. If nothing happens, if his health is good, if nothing happens, they may wait until 2026. No, no, 2027. Five years. 2027. As long as his health is good. But if his health is not good, then one of these crown princes will have to take his place. But they do not want to, and also no one was interested in his job. Like the princelings, I think in one version of the rumors I heard, they asked if General Liu Yuan, the son of Liu Shaoqi, was interested in taking over. And he turned it down. They understand the responsibility unless you really have the vision, and unless you really feel the sense of responsibility, and unless you really want to do something to save your country. Otherwise, it's a very challenging job. And so he said no. So things may go on like this. He's the figurehead. He attends important meetings. But someone else is actually... A lot of the decisions may be made, I think, by people like Li Qiang. But I think there will be internal power struggles. There will be internal power struggle because it doesn't work. There will be power vacuum. You go from one guy who controls everything to this guy going into a semi-retirement mode, and then the rest of the people, the rest of the gang is fighting for power. I think it would just make the regime more fragile and more chaotic. Because everything is built for a centralized, linear direction, command system. And when that's broken, I don't think how the decisions will be made. It will be more chaotic. So nobody wants to own the economy and demographic problems. Funny how it's changed. Nobody wants to own it because it's broken. It cannot be fixed. The only way to fix that is to end the CCP. That's all. And start new. So we'll see what happens. It's going to be more chaotic. All right. That seems to be all. That's all the questions I got. This all sounds like a big game. Who actually will make a decision? It sounds all like a guessing game with internal connections. None of the Chinese people really have a vote. No, they don't have a vote. All of this is operating behind the scenes in a black box, and nothing is transparent. If it's not for China observers like myself, who try to figure out what's going on by turning every stone and studying every line, we don't know what's happening. Because they try to hide all of this from the public. They want to put on a facade that things are status quo. The CCP is still running the show. But you see all these nuances, these subtle differences, and you say, no, something is different. So it is a big game. But this is a dangerous game that they're playing, because the country is already dysfunctional. And this will expedite the process of disintegration. Because like I said, at least you had one commander, you had one linear decision-making, even though it's totally inefficient and counterproductive, but at least you have one. Now you don't even have that one. All right, let's see. Nick Fury, if he steps down, would he be allowed to retire gracefully and in peace? I don't know. It depends on in what fashion will he step down. Because from now until 2027, it's a long time. Given the condition of China's economy, I don't think it will last until 2027. The regime is not going to last until 2027. I just don't think things will be peaceful from now until 2027. So if things are not peaceful, then he won't have a peaceful ending in 2027. So to answer your question, it depends on what will happen from now until 2027. I think China's economy is the biggest threat to the regime. Joseph Tan. Oh, that's not addressed to me. So let's see. O'Brien Cobb. Lei, thanks for another great show. My question is off-topic. Recent China-linked attack named Salt Typhoon Breach of Verizon and AT&T is dangerous. US media is not following story. Your thoughts? This kind of cyber attacks have been going on for a while. And our media is not reporting them. And our government, I think, only until recently has started to pay attention. So I think there should be more people to pay attention to those issues. They should be addressed. Didn't the US arrest a Chinese engineer who worked for Verizon in Florida? And he sent customer data to the Chinese. And I think that person was indicted. So large and small invasions and attacks of various sizes and origins are happening. I really think the internet is so fragile that the next war will not be a physical bomb, will be an internet war in cyberspace. And the internet will, like I always say, will break up into a few intranets. And therefore, it's not an internet anymore. Because the ignorance by our media and our government over those attacks will result in the breakdown of the internet. And when that happens, it will affect a lot of people's lives. People will not be able to take money out of their banks. They will not be able to pay bills. Our life is so dependent on internet. So it will be serious. So they can ignore that for now. But when it strikes, that's why I always suggest people to keep some cash at home. Because the warning we had back a few months ago, remember there was a software update failure that resulted in the shutting down of government agencies and airports and airlines. Things like that will happen. I think will happen. And when it happens, when we don't have internet, some people, it happened in China during the floods. People cannot even go buy food because there was no internet. And you know how Chinese, their life is so digitized. They don't use cash to buy things. They use their cell phone to buy food. So when the internet was shut down, people couldn't buy any food. Even though they went to the store, they saw food. They have no money because their cell phones are down. There was no signal. And when I read that, I'm like, okay, this will happen also in the West. If there's an internet meltdown, then we can't even buy food. So I think people should have some cash handy. Timothy Hall. Well, thank you, Tim. All right. Oh, I have Silas. Thank you. Good night. I like your hair. Okay, good. Good night. All right. That's all. That's all. Well, thank you very much for joining me. Stay tuned until this weekend. All right. I was going to talk about the relations between Russia, North Korea, and China, given what's happening at the borders between North and South Korea. I think it's fascinating to talk about what's actually happening between the three, between China, Russia, and North Korea. I almost decided to talk about that tonight, but I thought it was better for me to finish my trilogy. So I may talk about that this weekend. So stay tuned. If you haven't subscribed, please do so. And I'll see you later. Okay. Bye-bye. Good night. Or good morning. Good day. Bye.