Is Trump on a collision course with China?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tensions between Washington and Beijing threaten the global economy, but could it escalate into a more serious conflict?
Nick is joined by former spy Nigel Inkster, now a senior advisor on China and Cybersecurity at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, to discuss whether it risks becoming a new Cold War (2:25).
They also talk about what Chinese President Xi Jinping wants (8:31), his desire to achieve “reunification” with Taiwan (16:32) and whether the UK might have to choose between the US and China (28:47).
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The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson who are both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
This episode was made by Lewis Vickers with Izzy Rowley. Digital production was by Izzy Rowley. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | What will it mean for the price of an iPhone or Nike trainers? |
| 0:10.7 | Who should be allowed to control our blast furnaces and make the steel our economy so badly needs? |
| 0:16.6 | Should we allow them to access our medical data? |
| 0:21.4 | Every day, there is a new argument about our relationship with China. |
| 0:26.1 | But I wonder if this is one of those moments when we're failing to see the wood for the trees. |
| 0:33.0 | I've been thinking this ever since I spoke on last week's episode of the Today podcast to Carla Sands, |
| 0:39.6 | who was an economic advisor to Donald Trump. We were talking about the purpose of Trump's tariffs, |
| 0:47.9 | but all she really wanted to talk about was, you guessed it, China. If you have an adversary that talks so belligerently |
| 0:58.2 | and backs it up with actions, you have to pay attention and you have to prepare for war to avoid war. |
| 1:04.5 | Not the shooting kind. Not now. Not yet at least, but many of Trump's allies and cheerleaders are talking about a full-scale, no-holds-barred trade war between the world's biggest economies, in which they'll insist that their allies like us in the UK have to take sides, have to choose. |
| 1:25.8 | And that war talk is being heard in Beijing. Just listen to |
| 1:31.2 | Victor Gao, vice president of a think tank in the Chinese capital, a center for China and |
| 1:37.2 | globalization, speaking on Wednesday's today program. The United States constantly threatens |
| 1:43.0 | war against China, the tariff war, the trade war, |
| 1:47.6 | and they are also talking about the Cold War, the Proxy War and the Hot War. So that is our |
| 1:54.1 | question on this week's today podcast. Is this the start of a new Cold War with China? |
| 2:16.3 | Hello, it's Nick in the Today Podcast studio. Amol is away, enjoying some time with his four |
| 2:22.4 | apprentice members of the pod squad. I am joined in his place on the sofa in the podcast studio by |
| 2:28.8 | Nigel Inkster, who used to be deputy chief of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, |
| 2:34.9 | having served in Beijing and in Hong Kong. |
| 2:38.3 | He's now a senior advisor on China and cybersecurity |
... |
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