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Amanpour

President Obama to Meet Xi Jinping in California; Challenging Hollande's Rule in the Streets of Paris

Aired May 29, 2013 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

There may officially be only one superpower today, but another is rapidly advancing. The United States and China jockey for position at the pinnacle of the world in what might just be called a race to the top.

So how will the first tete-a-tete go between their leaders, the two most powerful men on Earth, U.S. President Barack Obama and China's leader, Xi Jinping, will meet just over a week from now in an informal setting at the aptly named Sunnylands Estate just outside Los Angeles.

China is anxious and angry about Obama's much touted pivot to Asia and about what China perceives to be the U.S. siding with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The United States, for its part, has a laundry list of concerns, everything from alleged Chinese hacking of even its most sensitive military secrets to its influence over North Korea and Pyongyang's nuclear saber-rattling.

President Xi says the U.S.-China relationship is at a crucial juncture and he says that he wants to forge, quote, "a new type of great power relationship."

So what exactly will that look like? We need to know because this may just be the most important relationship in the world today. And in a moment, I will dig deeper with Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a long-time adviser to China's leaders.

But first, a look at the other stories we're covering tonight.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Wedding bells in France and a first for same- sex marriage there, sealed with a kiss.

And when Hollywood meets Beijing, starry-eyed young actors answer the call.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be a actress, be a star.

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AMANPOUR: We'll get to those dreams in a bit. But first, Robert Lawrence Kuhn has tremendous insight into China's leaders. He's a long- time adviser to the Chinese government; he's met President Xi several times and he's the author of the book, "How China's Leaders Think."

That is a big title.

You join me now and welcome to the studio.

ROBERT LAWRENCE KUHN, CHINESE LEADERSHIP ADVISER: Well, it's important for the world to understand how they think. Whether you agree or not, one needs to really know from their point of view what their positions are.

AMANPOUR: So as we approach this summit or whatever it might be called, which is going to be in Los Angeles next week, what is it that President Xi wants out of this? What does he mean, a new great power relationship?

First of all, this is the first meeting that he'll have as president with the United States, the greatest power in the world. And as we look to the 21st century, these are the two powers that will dominate the world and be responsible, not just for the peace but hopefully the prosperity.

So in this first meeting he must set the agenda for the next 10 years, because he'll be in power for 10 years. Now it's important to understand before he had this meeting, he had to go through a long period of showing his support for Chinese nationalism, which is extremely important in China. It's important for the reforms that they want to make, for the stability of the country, for a whole series of things.

So he goes in there as a strong nationalist. So therefore I expect we'll see the real Xi Jinping, which is the one we saw in the United States a year ago February, when he came here for a very successful visit.

AMANPOUR: But what is the real Xi Jinping and what is this great power relationship that he wants to forge with the U.S. now?

KUHN: Chinese leaders have studied the relationship between great powers in history from the Peloponnesian Wars to the conflict between England and Germany when Germany arose. And their concern that there's a natural tension in human sociology for these tensions and wars to occur.

So they're trying to figure out ways how this time it won't happen, that the two are locked together economically as well as politically for the benefit of all countries. Xi is very sophisticated; he's run three major geographical areas with populations of 55 million in Zhejiang province and 35 million in Fujian and the city of Shanghai.

The GDPs are larger than 20-25 countries in the world. These are massive -- so there's great sophistication. And so he has waited for the time to meet Obama until he has solidified his power, until he's ready to have a very affable relationship and can look for the future as equals. It's not China coming to the U.S. as supplicant. It's truly equals going forward.

AMANPOUR: So I listed a few of the concerns on the table. What do you think he will be looking at first, because we know for sure that President Obama is going to bring up the hacking. They believe they have strong evidence that the Chinese military have been hacking and a whole number of Chinese official organs.

KUHN: This is a serious problem. And the Chinese leadership -- I know; I was there three weeks ago -- are concerned about American reactions to it. On the one hand, Xi has been outspoken in his support of the military. He has talked, as has his predecessors, about informational warfare being critical.

So these are things that all governments do. But it is the American charge that China has gone beyond the rules of this game in the international great game that they play, and that will be discussed. And that has to be discussed.

But from China's point of view, they look upon this pivot to Asia as a significant attempt to constrain China. They look at the periphery. They look at South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, India; they look at this arc around China that America is, as they say, trying to contain China.

And this has tremendous effects on Chinese nationalism in terms of the people. I was just with, three weeks ago, one of the major leaders of the country in foreign affairs. And he said specifically three years ago when America made the pivot to Asia, it changed the attitude of all of our neighbors, almost blaming America for all of their problems.

Now we know that that is not true. Now maybe America took advantage of it. But there -- one must understand the different perceptions in both countries. And that's, I think, very important for each to understand the core interests of the other side.

AMANPOUR: Well, to that point, we mentioned North Korea. And we've seen over the last several weeks there was a spasm of nuclear saber- rattling and the like from the new North Korean leadership, Kim Jong-un.

What is it that Xi believes now to be in the best interest of China and particularly with this pivot to Asia regarding North Korea?

We read that he apparently says, according to a very influential Chinese media organ, that it is more important for the Korean Peninsula to be denuclearized than it is to be stable. In other words stability of the Korean Peninsula, which was the lifelong Chinese mantra, which is it?

KUHN: Well, first of all, one must understand why China has the North Korean policy that they do. And it has to do with the narrative of the Communist Party and standing up in the world, the Korean War, the buffer zone between the West and American troops, and China. There's a long history there. But North Korea's being debated within China in academic circles -- that's great news.

And Xi Jinping in the Boao(ph) Forum, where I was two months ago, specifically said countries will not be allowed for their own purposes to disrupt the stability, especially on China's doorstep.

So I think we see a new power in the Chinese leadership, led by Xi Jinping, to damp down and put pressure on North Korea but they're going to want some payback for that.

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AMANPOUR: What would payback be?

KUHN: There's going -- there's -- he is going to be very insistent on the relationship between the islands that they call the Diaoyu and Japan's Senkaku Islands --

AMANPOUR: Disputed islands in the East China Sea.

KUHN: He has staked a great deal of his reputation and his nationalism on those islands, on Chinese sovereignty and territoriality. Now these problems won't be solved. There's a phrase in China. These are problems left over from history. But he cannot afford to look weak on that. And he needs -- he will be informing Obama that from his point of view, that's one of their core interests.

AMANPOUR: But do you believe that they've subtly or not-so-subtly changed from wanting North Korea to be denuclearized or the peninsula to be denuclearized?

KUHN: I don't think we can say that's a change. I mean, I can go back in talking to leaders for the last 10 years, including President Jiang Zemin, about North Korea, president Jiang asked me at a dinner, interrupted and said, "What do the American people think about North Korea?" We were talking about something else, and I said, "Mr. President, they think it's your fault."

And he sort of stood up and said, you know, that's what George Bush told me and that's not right because there's an independent country. So I mean, there's a long history there that we really do need to understand.

But Xi Jinping is determined to do two things. One is to have a high road of Chinese nationalism with pride and patriotism. He told me these words in 2006 when I was sitting there.

So when I hear people criticize him today, oh, these are things he just needs to say publicly, I know for a fact -- I've heard it with my own ears seven years ago that he was saying the same things . This is deeply within his Chinese soul, if you will, his family from his background, his career, his life, that he feels these things deeply.

So when he talks about North Korea, he's doing what he thinks is in the best interest of the Chinese people.

AMANPOUR: What do you think he meant in a speech a few weeks ago, when he warned about Western values?

What was that all about? And doesn't that fly in the face of what we're saying?

KUHN: To understand everything about China, one must understand the domestic politics. Here's the thing: the Chinese leadership have set two major goals. One, full urbanization by around 2020, which is the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party, 2021. Full modernization by mid- century ,roughly 100 years after the formation of China. That's their goal.

The big problem today is what? It's social imbalance, it's huge disparities between rich and poor, inland-coastal, urban-rural. How do you improve that? You have to raise workers' wages. You raise workers' wages, you can't have -- you can't be the low-cost manufacturer any more. So you must reform the economy. To reform the economy, you must have dramatic reform.

When you have dramatic reform, you have interest groups that are going to fight you and going to resist. And the charge will be you're following Western models, bowing down to Western ideals.

So Xi has to counteract that ahead of time. Offense is the best strategy. Offense is the best defense. Inoculate against this attack. And so what he does is now he is the strong national. So he can -- nobody can attack Xi Jinping on being a weak nationalist.

So when institutes economic reforms, which are critical for the overall strategy of the country, he can be secure in that process. That's the lens that we have to understand Chinese policy with.

AMANPOUR: And lastly, Sunnylands itself, this is very unusual; the Chinese are usually involved in very elaborate set pieces, the talks with the U.S. presidents are very, very formal. This is going to be away from the public eye, in California, in, as we said, an informal setting.

What's that all about?

KUHN: I think that's very clever. It sets it away from the formality of Washington; it dampens the expectations for formal agreements on this and that, which nobody every believes anyway. They're all set in advance. But it creates the opportunity for a personal rapport between the two leaders.

Remember, this is Xi's first summit with an American president in his 10-year reign. And it needs to be in that personal, formal way. And in that setting, he's terrific. When he walks in a room, I mean, it's the same person whether it's a janitor or a president. And you really sense that. You sense the sincerity; you sense a deep sophistication and an understanding of the world.

And it's someone that you can really feel you can have a rapport with. I think that's critical for the future.

AMANPOUR: We're really going to be looking at this summit. Thank you very much for joining us.

Major differences remain, of course, to be resolved between China and the U.S. as we've just been discussing, whether human rights, intellectual property rights, just to name a few. And after a break, we'll explore another new relationship, the first same-sex wedding in France, a happy ending after months of angry protests, when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. And just hours ago, a wedding in the southern French town of Montpelier made history.

Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau are now the first gay couple to be legally married in France, even as a new same-sex marriage law provokes fierce opposition in this quintessentially liberal western European democracy. France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage and the couple sees the new law as a question of basic civil rights, as indeed they told CNN just before their wedding.

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VINCENT AUTIN, GAY PARTNER (through translator): When French children are born into this world, they are born with the same rights as everyone else. But from the moment you said you were a homosexual, society deprives you of some of those rights just because you are a homosexual. Today the French republic has given these rights back to us.

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AMANPOUR: But this social question has stirred up a fierce political battle. Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets this weekend in the biggest demonstration seen in Paris in a generation. Gay marriage has become a rallying call for the opposition to President Hollande, whose poll numbers have already taken a steep drop as he struggles to turn around France's stagnant economy.

Natalie Nougayrede is editor of France's center left daily newspaper, "Le Monde," and she joins me now from Paris.

Thank you so much and welcome to the program.

NATALIE NOUGAYREDE, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "LE MONDE": Hi, Christiane, thanks for having me.

AMANPOUR: You know, we're coming to you and we're doing this because as outsiders, of all the countries in the world, it's hard to grapple with the fact that France is taking this incredible stand against a sexual matter. We know France as very liberal on all sex matters.

NOUGAYREDE: Yes, I know; it can appear like a paradox . But I think what you have to understand is in a way how polarized politically divided France is right now. Sarkozy, President Sarkozy was voted out of office last year; President Hollande arrived. So it's a political turn to left- wing government.

And one of his promises was indeed to legalize gay marriage. And it turns out a stark, a pretty strong percentage of French population has felt that this was something that went against traditional family values and that their voice needed to be heard. And they have gone out in the streets in a major way.

AMANPOUR: So would you say -- obviously we saw over the weekend these incredible protests. Is that part of it done now that the law has been passed and this marriage has taken place?

And do you think it is just an excuse to jump onto the anti-Hollande bandwagon?

NOUGAYREDE: Well, there's certainly -- I mean, part of this whole story is -- may be in a way closing right now because, indeed, the first gay same-sex marriage has happened; last Sunday, we had a major demonstration.

This was like some kind of final round, I would say, because the law has been voted. It was voted on the 23rd of April. There were big demonstrations in the month leading up to the vote of this law.

And, indeed, what's happened is that behind this grassroots family orientated (sic) protest that, by the way, was supported by part of the Catholic Church and hierarchy here, behind all of this, you have seen, indeed, an attempt by right-wing parties to sort of recuperate, to make use of this movement because they themselves are, in a way, in dire straits.

They are dealing with probably and unfortunately a rising ultra-right wing tendency in France. it's -- what's happening in France is the traditional parties are seeing their base eroded. And this is under the effect of the economic crisis that's going on.

And so traditional parties like, indeed, this right-wing party that has supported the demonstrations against gay marriage are looking to enlarge their base, enlarge their support. And this whole protest movement has become a big sort of opportunity for them. And they've tried to make use of that.

AMANPOUR: Let me just broad it out, since you have, I want to broaden it out because you obviously look at your other European neighbors. And this far right phenomenon is happening in many countries, whether it's Greece, whether it's Hungary, wherever it might be.

How dangerous is that? Or do you believe it's simply tied to the dire economic straits at the moment?

NOUGAYREDE: I think there are several dimensions to this, and certainly the economic and the social conditions, circumstances in France and elsewhere in Europe, you know, youth unemployment is extremely high in Europe right now. It's reached very worrying levels. This obviously creates anguish and a form of protest within families.

I mean, if your child is unemployed, this is sort of spread out to the middle classes in many countries. It's happening in France. And what happens is that people are protesting by turning away from the traditional parties, the sort of central left and central right wide parties that formed the core of the political scene basically since the Second World War in Europe and at least in France.

And they are moving towards more radical, more populistic (sic) movements. And this is a worrying tendency. I think it's fed by the economic crisis; it's fed by the difficulty that traditional parties are finding to sort of renew their language, create more confidence.

And I think we will -- we risk seeing the outcome of this in next year's European elections with a push from probably left- and right-wing radical parties.

AMANPOUR: Let me just get back to France quickly on this issue particularly.

If it's not gay marriage that is the sort of social explosion, is it about gay parenting? I understand that is particularly troublesome to a sector of the French population.

NOUGAYREDE: Yes, indeed. When you look at the polls, people -- and they were majority of right-wing parties, right-wing families, people who came out and demonstrated against gay marriage would often name adoption by gay couples as their sticking point, the problem that they have with that.

They feel that children should be brought up in traditional families. And they feel very strongly about that.

The thing is that also you have to take into account that in France, traditional family structures have really evolved over the last decades. Today in France many children are born out of wedlock, out of marriage situations. I think it's around 56 percent of children who are born outside a marriage. And so I think there's a clash between two views.

One is family, religious values, have to be defended in a very harsh way because some of the demonstrations became radical and violent, not a majority of them, but some parts of the demonstrators were violent over the last months.

And you have the opposite view, which says we have to modernize. Society has moved on. We need to defend rights and also gay rights. And it's -- I think there's an evolution there and as we -- as the evolution happens, it's very divisive.

Natalie Nougayrede, thank you so much for joining me, editor in chief of the major French newspaper, "Le Monde."

And when we come back, we'll have a final thought about China.

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AMANPOUR: Finally tonight, earlier we spoke of how China's new president is looking to forge a new relationship with the United States. Now imagine a world where Hollywood, that all-American institution, is sending out its casting calls to China.

For the first time a Hollywood studio, Paramount Pictures, is joining forces with the state-owned China Movie Channel. CNN's Ivan Watson takes us behind the scenes for a closer look.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This photo opportunity here -- this is the beginning of an audition process for what will be a new reality TV show here in China airing this summer. And there's a lot more to this than meets the eye because the contestants will be auditioning for one of four parts in an upcoming installment of a Hollywood movie series, "The Transformers."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody have a Transformer in their heart.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) this movie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Four roles. You can choose which one you like and have an interview.

WATSON: Producers are looking for four character archetypes, a sexy female actress, a martial arts action star, a cute Lolita type character and a computer geek.

Which one do you want to be?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sexy lady.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be a Chinese star like (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) actor for this film.

WATSON: Why do you think "Transformers" is looking for Chinese actors?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there's a market in China. There's a lot of people and it's very popular.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be a actress, be a star.

WATSON: The producers clearly have a couple of goals here. First and foremost, they're following a clear trend in Hollywood these days, where they're trying to tap into lucrative Chinese movie-going markets.

And secondly, by reaching out to performing arts universities, like this one in Beijing, they're recognizing that there is an almost universal aspiration among many young people, also here in China: that everybody wants to be a star -- Ivan Watson, CNN, Beijing.

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AMANPOUR: And that'll do it for us tonight. Meantime, always contact us at our website, amanpour.com. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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