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Simon Marks reacts as Donald Trump greets President Xi to the White House on Thursday for a lavish state summit, including a military flyover and a state dinner with tech moguls.
It will be the year's second meeting of the leaders of the two biggest economies, but Xi's first visit to Washington in more than a decade.
Trump greeted Xi on arrival on Wednesday evening, the first time a US president has welcomed a foreign leader at Joint Base Andrews in 11 years.
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0:00
Well, I've learned in the last few minutes that I have been mispronouncing President Xi of China's name
0:06
I've been calling him President Xi and I've been making stupid jokes related to my name about it
0:11
but now I can no longer do that. Simon Marks has educated me, LBC's Washington correspondent
0:17
The reason we're talking about President Xi is he's just arrived in Washington for a visit
0:22
He's being hosted by Donald Trump of the White House. He is, and it's an extraordinary moment, this, Sheila, because at the moment, as you can see there
0:29
President Xi, I'm just holding my laptop up so Sheila can see it. Thank you
0:33
President Xi is on his feet making his opening comments to President Trump and the assembled dignitaries at the White House
0:41
President Trump has just spoken. We'll run a clip of him in just a second. The only way you can watch this is on the White House YouTube channel, which is what we're looking at
0:53
or on one of the propaganda television networks in the United States that support President Trump
0:58
I'm wondering why I couldn't see it on my YouTube screens. Because there is not a single American broadcast or cable news network of note and merit
1:07
that is carrying these comments. CNN, Fox News, MSNOW, ABC, CBS, NBC, none of them agreeing to carry this
1:17
because that camera is controlled by the White House. Once again today, there is no TV network pool
1:24
and members of the pool, those five networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox
1:30
say they will not carry pictures that they have no control editorially over
1:36
And this comes hours after a judge last night, a Trump-appointed judge
1:43
just Timothy Kelly, issued a temporary restraining order ordering the White House to restore the access cards of 78 journalists
1:53
working for CNN, Politico and MS Now, all of whom were banned by President Trump
1:57
from the complex last Friday. So they all showed up for work
2:02
because the temporary restraining order was supposed to come into immediate effect
2:06
And they found that not only were they not able to access the complex
2:11
but on this occasion, their credentials were taken away by the Secret Service staff
2:17
that man the entrance where you go in as a member of the reporting team at the White House
2:24
so they no longer even have their credentials. So this is Donald Trump doubling down on the one hand
2:29
but on the other hand today paying the price as this event at the White House continues to unfold
2:36
without the American public being able to find it on the nation's largest, most powerful
2:43
and most storied news channels. And the thing is about control, you know, at the moment it's quite a..
2:50
Not boring, but it's a very, you know, uneventful series of pictures, isn't it
2:54
It's just them sitting in a room and she speaking and the president spoken. But should that change, should something happen
3:01
the White House would have the right to just black out everything. Completely. They control this camera
3:06
And that's the point, isn't it? Absolutely. They either control this camera or they are using possibly one of the propaganda networks because they made this rapid attempt on Monday to call around various channels saying would you agree to be part of a pool And many channels I know said no we wouldn
3:21
But there are some, Real America's Voice, for example, which is a pro-Trump propaganda outlet that has volunteered
3:27
So I can't tell you exactly who's providing that camera. But certainly, if it's not controlled directly by the White House
3:33
it's controlled by people that absolutely support the White House. And our colleague Roxanna was just pointing out that on the YouTube channel, they've turned the comments off, which is also an extraordinary moment
3:48
Because several years ago in the earlier era of YouTube, YouTube, which was Google owned, still is, would set up an annual interview with the President of the United States
3:59
And for several years, I was one of the people that was brought in by Google and YouTube to produce that interview
4:06
And I remember that when we first started doing them in one year, many of the comments that were appearing on this stream as we went out live were targeting Barack Obama with all sorts of vile criticism and racist criticism
4:23
And there was a vigorous discussion about whether we should keep that comments channel open or whether we should close it off
4:29
And the White House said you can't close it off. It's part of the public record of this presidency
4:35
Yeah, at that point. And then successive presidents also. So the fact that they've turned those comments off is all redolent of the desire of President Trump absolutely to control all imagery, all messaging and all comments now surrounding his presidency
4:54
Well, let's hear what he's been saying. Absolutely. During this visit, we will also discuss pressing issues concerning security, technology and superintelligence, SI
5:04
The decisions we make in these areas today can promote peace and prosperity for decades and decades to come
5:13
If we focus on our common interests, I'm confident there is much we can achieve throughout history
5:21
The pursuit of those common interests has connected our people across the vast oceans
5:26
those big, tremendous distances and many differences, and even made us allies in World
5:34
War II. Look at the greatness that we had together fighting in World War II. Brave American pilots
5:41
volunteered to come to China and fight for the very survival of the legendary country and that
5:48
legendary Flying Tigers group. They were just unbelievable. And it was the United States
5:54
Marines encounter with Chinese people that inspired the Marines to adopt a Chinese phrase
6:01
they still use today, gung ho. The Marines use it as an expression of great enthusiasm
6:08
but in Chinese, it literally means working together. I did not know that
6:14
I did not know that. It's a complicated relationship, this, isn't it? Because some of the moves we've seen
6:22
And we'll hear something from President Sene in a moment. But some of the moves we seen from Donald Trump around the world have been about strategic strength haven they and power He knows that America isn going to be the only superpower probably isn
6:38
Is it still the only superpower? Probably not. I think the Chinese and others might push back at that notion, yeah
6:44
But the kind of covenant is changing, isn't it? And it's complicated, that relationship
6:51
Well, Donald Trump loves the fact that he's flanking presidency today. I mean, Donald Trump wants to be seen as one of the big strong men on the world stage alongside Vladimir Putin, who is invited now to the G20 summit in Florida at the end of this year
7:06
Big challenge there for Andy Burnham and other G20 leaders if Vladimir Putin shows up
7:11
When is that? December, middle of December, just shortly before Christmas. President Xi at the White House today and they are absolutely pushing the boat out
7:19
There was a flypast, military flypast at Andrews Air Force Base last night, right after presidency arrived and disembarked from his presidential jet
7:28
There's going to be an enormous array of pomp and circumstance on display today
7:33
He wants to impress the Chinese president with America's gravitas, its ability at least to match what the Chinese offered him when Donald Trump visited Beijing a few weeks ago
7:45
But behind all of that, there is tremendous competitive tension in the relationship between these two countries over trade, particularly questions still about what's going to happen with regard to Taiwan
7:59
Is President Trump vaguely committed to defending Taiwan in the event that President Xi decides to try and bring it back, restore it to the mainland
8:08
and also, of course, huge questions about AI and the governance of it
8:13
given everything else you've been talking about this hour, hugely important part of this conversation
8:18
Well, let's hear a little of what President Xi Jinping was saying in the last minute or two
8:23
We should cooperate with sincerity. The interests of China and the United States are deeply intertwined
8:31
and there is plenty of room for us to work together. China-U.S. cooperation may not solve every problem in the world
8:40
but without our cooperation, it would be hard to solve many of the world's problems
8:47
China keeps its door wide open, welcomes American companies wanting to invest and do business there
8:56
We hope Chinese companies are treated fairly here in the United States
9:02
Working together, we can lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of issues
9:09
Both China and the United States are leading nations in artificial intelligence
9:14
We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good
9:21
and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people
9:29
So that is very interesting what he said there at the end about AI First of all he not calling it as President Trump is now referring to it super intelligence SI They still calling it AI as we all are as well But what he saying there is it got to remain always under human control Now we know that within the last 10 days or so the Treasury Secretary Scott Percent
9:52
agreed with his opposite number that the US and China were going to establish a formal dialogue
9:58
over AI, some kind of ongoing channel of communication. We don't know whether it's going to rise to the level of the kind of old Washington
10:06
Moscow hotline, you know, or a side agreement or what it's going to be. Non-proliferation
10:12
But the fact that the Treasury Secretary agreed to do that at a time when President Trump was saying
10:20
there's nothing to worry about. All you need is a super intelligent president. You don't need to worry
10:24
You can't have AI, even at this level that we know it is
10:28
without international agreement. And without regulation. Of course not. Absolutely. I mean, there's huge questions, for example
10:34
about what are you going to do to safeguard nuclear capability, nuclear arsenals from AI accidentally or engaging through subterfuge
10:44
And the hallucination that Will Guyot was talking about 20 minutes ago or so
10:49
that could, in theory, have sparked a nuclear response from another nation towards China
10:54
Indeed, and we've already seen in the Iran conflict, AI has been used by the US military to provide targeting information
11:00
And there are still questions that are unanswered by the Pentagon about whether some of that information may have led to that very early stage attack on the school
11:08
in Minab on the first or second day of the conflict. So the fact that President Xi there
11:14
in those opening comments, is stipulating to China being agreeable to the concept of AI
11:21
always being under human control, I think is important because the two countries are
11:28
in huge competition over who's going to win the battle for AI. And the fear of some Americans
11:35
is that China is more likely to win it because it has easier access to a greater degree of power
11:42
supplies through the coal-fired power plants it's been building, plus its rapid development
11:47
of renewables than the United States is going to have as it gets mired in discussions about
11:55
planning for data centres and all of those kinds of things. It's fascinating China, isn't it, that
11:59
it's had this modern industrial revolution at high, high, high speed compared to the one we had 200
12:05
years ago. But it's also having that technological revolution at high speed as well, isn't it
12:10
alongside it? Yeah, absolutely. There's a fantastic book, I just read it while I was away last week
12:15
called Breakneck by Dan Wong, that explains the pace at which China has outstripped the United
12:23
States in terms of development. I haven't got the numbers in front of me. But dwarfing, whether
12:28
it's data centres or clean energy or power plants, whatever it happens to be, miles of highway
12:37
super fast railway. The Chinese have built scores of high speed railway at a time when the United
12:44
States can't even get a mile completed between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I think it's really
12:48
nice of President C to speak about AI just as we are as well. I'm sure he had us in mind when he
12:56
did it. Thank you. Big Simon Marks and Sheila Bogartick man are here
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