This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. My colleague and mentor Gregory Copley, defense and foreign affairs, China. Much in the news, the People's Republic of China, the trade wars, the tariff standoff,

the royal global markets, the anxiety, the unpredictability, all the big banks revising their

expectation for the year.

Based upon, well, in one instance, the imperturbable and non-transparent People's Republic of China,

Xi Jinping, and his leadership class, standing toe to toe with Donald Trump, calling the remarks by the White House jokes,

traveling to Vietnam, Cambodia, to reassure partners that there's no reason to pay attention

to that bully America. We're your big brother. All of that is part of the understanding that China is

not only the rising power, but a peer of the United States of America and what is to be done.

Gregory, a very good evening to you.

The myth of the PRC strongman.

Where did it come from?

What do we do about it?

Good evening to you.

Good evening, John.

Well, largely it came from the propaganda machinery which developed during the Cold War and originating largely with the Soviet Union,

with their international section or the old common turn, which started to build up this whole myth of the inevitability of communism and so on,

which was Delta Savage blow, of course, in 1990 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the PRC, the Communist Party of China, in any event, really have continued this thrust

by largely controlling the media in many ways, and including the Western media,

a lot of which is bought off in various fashions,

not necessarily with cash on the table, but with favours and the like.

But the whole premise of that is one which is an artificial creation,

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