Episode 71: All the Tea on China
Guest: Dr. Sarah Baurle Danzman
Full show notes at https://hoosleft.us/
Find Sarah at https://www.sarahbauerledanzman.com/
Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from the unapologetic perspective of the social democratic left. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers, and I’m recording from Bloomington.
So between my December interview with documentary filmmaker Jen Senko, and last week’s episode with data privacy and thought reform scholar Dustin Steinhagen, I’ve been thinking a lot about psychological manipulation, media influence, propaganda, and censorship. In both of those conversations, we talked about private economic interests using what are essentially mind control techniques to influence consumers, voters, and society at large. These tactics are being used on us, without our explicit consent, at all times, in what is supposed to be a “free” country. When corporations and wealthy individuals do this, it’s just “free speech,” but if the government does the same thing, it’s censorship.
And this makes me think of China, where free speech is not guaranteed and media is heavily censored in the name of social harmony. There, psychological manipulation comes from the state, not private interests. Is it okay in either case? Is one better or worse than the other?
I admit to being terribly ignorant about China, only knowing that concern over the Asian superpower’s continued growth is maybe the ONE thing Democrats and Republicans agree on. Both the first Trump and Biden administrations leveed tariffs and placed export controls China, with Trump threatening an even wider trade war in his second term. He unilaterally slapped a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports earlier this month, with Xi Jinping responding in kind. Hawks in both major US parties recommend active measures to counter China, like restricting Chinese access to advanced semiconductors, banning Huawei and other Chinese telecom firms from US networks, and preventing Chinese ownership of American farmland.
The last one was championed by now-Indiana Governor Mike Braun, who sponsored a bill in the Senate doing just that. Now, as recently as 2019, his predecessor, Eric Holcomb, traveled to China on business, 21 Chinese firms operated in the state - employing some 2,500 Hoosiers, and 23 Indiana municipalities had sister-city relationships with Chinese communities. However, particularly in the wake of COVID, the US-China relationship has soured and, here in Indiana, last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary disproportionally focused on who was toughest on China. Braun attacked fellow far-right conservative Republican Eric Doden as a “pro-China RINO,” accusing the Christian nationalist pastor’s son and fellow multimillionaire of “supporting Communist China,” despite the fact Braun’s auto parts distribution business has been importing goods from China for years and leases land to a Chinese parts manufacturer.
So, with all this, I don’t know if China is an existential geopolitical threat, an indispensable business partner, or a useful boogeyman to keep Americans fearful. Fortunately, I didn’t need to look far to find an expert to help us figure out what’s really going on. Paraphrasing from her personal website,
Sarah Baurle Danzman is a political scientist and associate professor at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University - Bloomington. She is also the director of the Tobias Center for Innovation in International Development at IU, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her first book, Merging Interests: When Domestic Firms Influence FDI Policy was released by Cambridge University Press in 2019, and examined how access and cost of financing influenced domestic firms' policy preferences over foreign investment regulation from the 1970s to 2010s. She is currently working on another book, provisionally titled Securitized Political Economy, stemming from her experience working at the State Department. It examines the policy preferences and influence strategies of globally-oriented businesses in the context of increased geopolitical tension.
In this conversation, we’ll talk about the shifting US–China relationship and its impact on everyday Hoosiers, the economic interdependence between the two countries, direct investment, and manufacturing. We’ll get into globalization and supply chain vulnerabilities; trade, diplomacy, trust, and leverage; and the transition to a green economy. Finally, we’ll compare and contrast the two economic and political systems, look at the importance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and discuss social media, data privacy, and national security.
But, before we get to the interview, I’d like to take a minute to thank you all for your support - for liking and sharing on social media, for forwarding our articles and podcast episodes, for commenting, leaving reviews, and providing feedback - and especially for the financial support paid subscriptions provide. Your contributions have helped me make meaningful connections with fascinating people from across Indiana, and beyond. We are building a network of Hoosiers dedicated to making this state, and its government, work for all of us, not just the elite few. I would like to dedicate my full time to you, this community, and Indiana’s future; but I need your financial support to do so. All I’m asking is $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help me write more, research more, organize more, and keep improving HoosLeft.
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Now, here is my interview with Dr. Sarah Baurle Danzman.
Cited in the Interview
Pros/Cons of US-China Relationship: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/contentious-us-china-trade-relationship
Indiana-China Economic Ties: https://www.uschina.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/uscbc_st_2024_in.pdf
Indiana Has Highest Percent of Manufacturing Jobs: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/a-look-at-manufacturing-jobs-on-national-manufacturing-day.htm
Indiana-China Used to Tout Economic Ties: https://www.indymidtownmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/China-IEDC.pdf
Xi Reverses China’s Turn Toward Openness: https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/china-back-authoritarianism
State Capitalism Challenges Market Capitalism: https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2012/181520.htm
COVID Impacted Supply Chains: https://www.ey.com/en_us/insights/supply-chain/how-covid-19-impacted-supply-chains-and-what-comes-next
How Fukushima Made Toyota Rethink Its Supply Chain: https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/toyota-semiconductor-shortage-earthquake-inventory-ihs-gartner-forecast-2022/600193/
Great Texas Freeze a Largely Self-Inflicted Disaster: https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/12/27/2021-texas-power-grid-failure/
“Golden Arches” Theory of Peace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace
China’s Economic Coercion Tactics: https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115789/documents/HHRG-118-RU00-20230510-SD118.pdf
The China Threat As Viewed by GOP Congress: https://homeland.house.gov/2025/02/12/threat-snapshot-ccp-espionage-repression-on-us-soil-is-growing/
Trump Uses Tariffs to Negotiate Foreign Policy: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/2025/02/01/trump-s-tariff-gamble-trade-war-or-negotiation-tactic
China Not Actually Communist: https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/is-china-a-communist-country/
Labor Unions in China: https://clb.org.hk/en/content/workers%E2%80%99-rights-and-labour-relations-china
What is State Capture? https://www.state-capture.org/
Pros and Cons of Centrally-Planned Economy: https://plutuseducation.com/blog/centrally-planned-economy
Famines Don’t Happen in Democracies: https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/amartya-sen-said-no-democracy-with-free-press-has-had-major-famines/534152/
Quarterly Earnings Reports and Short-Term Thinking: https://www.fastcompany.com/91270513/the-dangers-of-quarterly-goals-is-short-term-thinking-undermining-your-business
The “Exorbitant Privilege” of Dollar Centrality: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-changing-role-of-the-us-dollar
Explaining the BRICS Bloc: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-brics-group-and-why-it-expanding
Authoritarianism Risky to Investors: https://www.pionline.com/investing/autocracies-such-china-russia-pose-potential-portfolio-risk
Importance of Auto Industry to Advanced Economies: https://medcraveonline.com/IRATJ/the-role-of-the-automobile-industry-in-the-economy-of-developed-countries.html
China Dominates EV Market: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ev-electric-cars-charging-china-us-competition/
West Pushing Back on Chinese EVs: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/09/major-economies-are-taking-aim-at-china-s-ev-industry-here-s-what-to-know/
What “Win-Win” Means in the Chinese Context: http://www.cnfocus.com/winwin-and-its-historical-and-cultural-contexts/
“It’s All Neofeudalism”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism-capitalism-ukraine-interview
Once again, that was Dr. Sarah Baurle Danzman, professor at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University - Bloomington, and the director of the Tobias Center for Innovation in International Development.
“State capture describes the seizure of political, legal, and economic levers of a nation by an unaccountable elite. It takes place wherever public institutions, government officials, and the justice system fail to safeguard a nation’s democracy, rule of law, and resources. When state capture takes hold, the machinery of the state starts to favor specific groups rather than the public interest. State capture does not exist in national vacuums – it is typically enabled by transnational networks, and its proceeds are routinely laundered through the global financial system. Wherever it occurs, state capture leads to endemic corruption, poverty and socio-economic disparity, human rights abuses, media censorship, resource depletion, and environmental degradation.”
And THAT is the precipice on which we stand here in the United States of America, where 50 years of neoliberalism - privatization, deregulation, and austerity - have left one multibillionaire, the transnational organized crime syndicate of which he is a major node, and his even wealthier centi-billionaire technofascist benefactors, in charge of the entire federal apparatus with an impotent, compliant Congress and a corrupt, packed judiciary providing few, if any, checks and balances on executive power. Such is the logical end result of unrestrained, laissez-faire, free-market capitalism.
One can see why other world governments would want to restrict the power of concentrated private wealth in their countries. This is not at all to say that China does it the right way, but there are reasons for their policies beyond, “ooh they’re scary evil communists.”
Because, although they use that name, China’s economic system is not communist. This from IE Insights,
“China aspired to a system close to this characterization from 1949, in the era of Mao Zedong. Under his leadership, agricultural activity was collectivized, the State appropriated the country’s land, and practically the entire industrial sector passed into the hands of the State.
However, as a result of profound reforms agreed in late 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China began to create ample space for private enterprise, individual initiative, and foreign investment.
[…] Despite this openness to market forces and private enterprise, the Chinese state continues to own important segments in banking, energy, transportation, and other sectors. In general, direct state participation in production is much more significant than in the United States, although similar to that which was characteristic of Western Europe before 1980.”
That is to say, China has a mixed economy. Just as the the United States and Europe have mixed economies. Here in the US, most - and if it was up to the Trumps and Musks and Brauns of this country, it would be all - of the economy is privatized. In Europe, there is a greater degree of state ownership in important sectors like healthcare, energy, and transportation. In China, more still. It’s all an argument over where to draw the line. I, for one, think a pre-1980 Western European model strikes a pretty good balance.
So, why do more Americans than ever feel threatened by China? I believe it is because the corporations that own most of our media, and the elected officials they buy bribe support, see “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” - and any form of regulation or common ownership - as an impediment to the perpetual growth capitalism demands. These are the thought leaders that shape US public opinion and they need you to hate the very idea of collectivism, to value rugged individualism to your own detriment.
Again, I’m not here to apologize for the Communist Party of China. They torture and imprison democracy activists, repress ethnic and religious minorities, increasingly menace their East Asian neighbors, and provide material support for their belligerent Russian allies. Though I don’t think it’s the least bit controversial to state that, when it comes to overzealous foreign expansionism, economic intimidation, and abetting genocide, our own record is far worse. We should absolutely take China to task when they stifle dissent, fail to respect their neighbors’ sovereignty, and violate human rights - but we cannot credibly criticize their worst abuses without cleaning up our own.
I am one of those people that see many parallels between our current moment and the 1930’s - the depression, confusion, and chaos building up to World War II. Then, a Germany humiliated by defeat in the First World War succumbed a far-right authoritarian nationalist strongman who pledged to usher the country into a new golden age. Now, a Russia humiliated by losing the Cold War has succumbed to a far-right authoritarian nationalist strongman who pledges to usher the motherland into a new golden age. Then, as now, a transnational authoritarian crime syndicate with an impressive propaganda network spread its tentacles to all parts of the globe, including an eager and vocal minority in the United States. Then, as now, the major fascist power (then Germany, now Russia) allied with the major nominally-communist power (then the USSR, now China) against the kinda democratic, but also kinda imperialist, Western powers. The details do not all align, but the broad strokes are there.
Of course, in the 1930’s, FDR’s popular New Deal reforms kept the burgeoning American fascist movement from gaining the electoral support and state power they now, unfortunately, enjoy. Anyway, then, as now, things looked pretty damn bleak.
The last great war took a major turn when the Nazis, having rampaged across Western Europe and driven the British to near their breaking point, turned their sights eastward on their Soviet allies. Lets hope it doesn’t take a couple years of world war and an unexpected sneak betrayal to drive a wedge in the current Russo-Chinese relationship.
At the end of World War II, the Americans and the Soviets came out on top. Allied during the war, the two superpowers came to represent opposite poles in a global competition for ideological, economic, and military supremacy that would last two full generations.
The next two generations will usher the world into the 22nd century, if there is anything left to usher. Navigating the threat of nuclear annihilation required rational, responsible leadership by the major powers. Navigating the threat of climate annihilation will require rational, responsible leadership by the major powers.
States run by mafiosos and oligarchs - Russian, Chinese, or American - cannot provide that kind of leadership. Only real, global democracy can solve global problems of such scale. And, here’s an idea that’s sure to make latent white supremacists squirm: 60% of the world’s population is Asian. The Chinese Communist Party ain’t it. The BJP in India ain’t it. But, the future of global democracy must - by sheer force of numbers - be Asian.
In the meantime - and let me reiterate this again, I am no fan of the CCP - the average Hoosier, the average American, is not under threat from China. It is true - their human rights record is not great (neither is ours); their reputation as a neighborhood bully is spotty (ours is far worse); and they have a history of economic coercion (let me introduce you to the World Bank and IMF) - but when your local politician brings up China, it’s usually as a boogeyman or a distraction from their own shitty behavior. Of all the potential threats to your way of life, the Chinese Communist Party is pretty damn far down the list. When it comes to dismantling systems of American power abroad, destabilizing the pillars of society at home, and decimating our rights and freedoms, the call is coming from inside the house.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Or holler at me on social media - on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at hoosleft and on most other social media sites at scottrog78. You can also email me at scott@hoosleft.us.
Thanks again to my guest, Dr. Sarah Baurle Danzman, who would certainly strike a tougher pose against China than I- her website is sarahbaurledanzman.com and the link is in the show notes - lots of good research over there. And thank you for listening. If you can, head over to HoosLeft.US and help support this project with a paid subscription. Again, hit me up on social media with your feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns. Please forward the show to a friend and have them to forward it to another friend. Let’s keep building this project - and truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
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