Western media obsesses over US politics, like Trump's every move.
They largely ignore major events in other countries, like China's National Congress.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Welcome to The Rest is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And Rory, I think partly because most of our media hasn't bothered with it, we should talk about the China, the National Congress that they've just had, and China more generally, because I think it's been some fascinating stuff coming out of China. We want to talk about Russia, and I think you've got some things to say about the kind of Russia-Ukraine situation. But in the context of the sort of broader politics there, I think we should talk about Syria and the violence that's erupted in the coastal areas of Syria. And we have to talk just for a little bit of light relief about what the hell is going on inside reform. Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe. I don't suppose Rupert Lowe is a household name in most of the countries where we have listeners, but we'll try to educate them as to what's going on. So let's start with China. The reason why I wanted to talk about China is we're in this world where we all sort of tell each other the whole time there are really only two superpowers in the world, the United States And China. And the United States, we cover and we discuss, as included, every aspect of everything that's happening inside Donald Trump's White House. So when we talked to Michael Wolff on leaving this week, we're even talking about the woman, the name of the woman who sort of walks alongside him, carrying his bags and, you know, knocking The dandruff off his suit and all that sort of stuff. And yet China has just had this, what they call the two sessions, which is the National Congress and also the big advisory body outside. And it's as if it didn't happen. I've actually been the last few days asking people if they're aware of anything that's big that's been going on in China in the last few days, and nobody knows. And then the other game I'm playing is, I won't do it on you, Rory, because it's too cruel. I say, name the seven members of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee, who are probably the seven most powerful people in China. Okay, now Xi Jinping, we all know him. But the rest of it, I guess most of our listeners won't know. So is that a consequence of us not, is it a language thing? Is it the fact that Trump just literally does flood the zone with shit? And we kind of, as Peter Hyman says, we go around poking at the turds and deciding how much to talk about this one before he drops the next one? Or is it that we maybe haven't fully caught up with just how important China is now in terms of our lives as much as their own? (Time 0:01:33)
China's Opacity
China's opaque, centralized system makes it difficult for journalists to report on.
Despite economic challenges, China projects significant growth and increased defense spending.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
It's a lot of those things, isn't it?
Rory Stewart
And you're completely right. I mean, let's start with how right you are.
Alastair Campbell
Yes, why not? That's always a good place to start.
Rory Stewart
Given that China is definitely the second largest economy in the world, and in some calculations, already the largest economy in the world, and it's the only country in the world that Remotely has the opportunity to balance the US, it's astonishing that we have so little reporting on it. One issue, of course, is that it's a much more centralised authoritarian system, much more controlled Xi Jinping-led system. And it's opaque, even for very, very good foreign journalists. It's quite difficult getting into the depths of what's happening. It's much more like the sort of criminology of the 1980s, where you're endlessly finding, you know, some small clue for something that's said in the people's daily.
Alastair Campbell
But that's why this two event is so important, because the media are allowed to attend it.
Rory Stewart
You're also absolutely right that often what's said in these big congresses and in Xi Jinping's main speeches turn out to be much closer to what's going to happen than you can believe. I mean, let's take one example of that to confirm your point. China laid out an industrial strategy 10 years ago. And what it said is our industrial strategy is we're going to try to dominate effectively the world of renewable energy, batteries, electric vehicles. We're going to shift towards more tech. We're going to focus on chips. We're going to do AI and we're going to do quantum computing. And 10 years later, broadly speaking, they've done that. There are still some challenges we can get into on chips and AI. There is a sense that it's a government that indicates where it's going and what it wants to do. Again, the Belt and Road Initiative wasn't a sort of secret plan, very, very formal plan that they laid out. So what did you take away, though, from your observations to the Congress or what you could pick up from it?
Alastair Campbell
The first thing is how hard it is, if you're not there, actually to find out what's going on. And I don't think that's just because of the China command and control, complete control of the media, etc. I think it is because a lot of Western media just doesn't find it interesting enough, even bother to try to find out what's going on. The point you just made, I think, is the right one. What is so interesting about it, if you do read their speeches, and I'll come on to Wang Yi, the foreign minister, who did this amazing press conference with lots of different sort of Things that he said that really were genuinely quite interesting. But there's one thing I read in one of the, I think it might have been a Chatham House analysis of something, but this was from an earlier Congress, and it talks about this. For Xi, the achievement of the China dream would be a two-step process. From 2021 to 2035, China would seek to transform itself into a great modern socialist country through economic development. Then from 2035 to 2049, China would continue a path of national rejuvenation to become what Xi describes as a global leader in terms of comprehensive national strength and international Influence. So here we are following the Trump presidency. The kind of time span is from tweet to tweet or from tantrum to tantrum. And here you have the Chinese Communist Party literally setting out a strategy that takes you to 2049. And as you say, although they've got economic problems and Li Qiang, the prime minister, when he set out the economic report, because they also do an economic report, you know, it's Not like our budget, but it is an economic report where they set out military spending, future welfare spending, and so forth, is that the way to understand how they work is to try to get Inside this longer term mindset. And that's why I think we're missing a trick in both in terms of understanding how they operate, instead of which what you have is essentially the Americans just seeing them as this enemy And everything being in that context, as opposed to, well, what are they actually trying to do and how do we fit into that?
Rory Stewart
One of the themes we'll get to with Russia, but it's true of China too, is this thing that Owen Matthews, who's a Russian analyst, calls the kind of Schrodinger cat problem, which is these Places are described both at one hand as these sort of extraordinary, powerful giants, and simultaneously as these sort of very weak minnows. And the narrative sort of shifts between the two. But in China, of course, the narrative for the last couple of years, particularly since COVID, has been that China's peaked and that particularly the collapse of the property sector, Which was nearly a quarter of the Chinese economy. And you may have seen these incredible images of cities with footprints larger than London, completely empty, property companies going bankrupt, a lot of people's assets tied up In mortgages that have gone underwater. So property, tech, again, Xi Jinping moved against people like Jack Ma and these amazing Chinese tech companies, Alibar, Tencent, et cetera. And that dampened the tech sector. And then he began locking up quite a lot of people in the finance sector. And it remains a more oppressive regime even than Russia in terms of state control. So, the story was, if you combine that with the population of China dropping, and for the first time, the population of China dropped by 10 million last year, people begin to say, well, Maybe China's bubbles burst. (Time 0:03:49)
China's Industrial Strategy
China's government-led industrial strategy has yielded successes, like dominating renewable energy.
Their approach involves subsidies and competition, leading to globally competitive products.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
And this has been a story that we've heard really for 25 years. There was a very famous book written in 2001, which said China was over. It's a book by Gordon Chang, where he said, you know, it can't really work, authoritarian states, state-owned enterprises. So here are a couple of things, though, to put in the other direction. So on the one hand, yes, there's big economic problems. There's a lot of youth unemployment, a lot of people at home, a lot of restaurants have shut if you go to Shanghai or Beijing. On the other hand, as you've just pointed out in this People's Congress, China is projecting growth rates of 4.5%, 5%, double the amount that would be pretty good in the United States. Its real growth rate and its nominal growth rate is likely to be significantly higher than the US, maybe a third higher, maybe twice as high. And defence spending 7% rise. And defence spending 7% rise. So what's the other side of the story? And I guess the other side of the story are a couple of things. One is that some of the movements that China made against these tech giants maybe don't look so foolish. Now you see the domination of people like Musk and Bezos in the United States. Why did they do it? Well, basically, because these companies were becoming semi-monopolies. And not necessarily for good liberal reasons, but because the Chinese Communist Party didn't want to lose power, they did not want Jack Ma taking over all of e-commerce and the entire Banking system and basically bullying the Chinese government. So having sat on them, shut them down, moved them out of politics, there's now a little bit of move from the Chinese government to re-embrace tech. And there have been some pretty considerable successes. So DeepSeek, this amazing AI model, which is challenging, chat GBT, generating stuff cheaper, quicker, even if some of it is nicked, which is the allegation, is an example of that. It's also possible that their industrial strategy, although very wasteful, so they obviously, it's very opaque. We don't know how much money they spent on it, how they subsidised it. But it's a pretty amazing economic model. So look at the electric vehicles. What they did is they began by spraying subsidies at nearly 2,000 companies. But there's an odd combination of kind of subsidies, and then the law of the jungle takes over. And then these 2,000 companies fought it out, and two or three of them have emerged as incredible global electric vehicle leaders producing vehicles that are third cheaper than American Or European equivalents, and just as good. (Time 0:09:07)
China's Criticism of the US
China criticizes the US for its hypocritical approach to trade and international relations.
Wang Yi, the foreign minister, warned against prioritizing self-interest and power.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Just while briefly on the cars, I'm sure we all share the grief and the pain of Elon Musk as he watches the share price of Tesla plummet and discovers that maybe projecting yourself as A kind of hard right, uber fan of Donald Trump isn't good for business. But we'll see. You said there about the law of the jungle. That was a phrase that actually appeared in this press conference, Wang Yi. And the only reason I know this, by the way, and here's another thing, National Public Radio. That's where I found this account. Okay. That's the one that Trump and Musk want to shut down because it does really boring things like think there might be more than one side to a story. So anyway, just to go through some of the headlines, the headlines they put on it was that he talked about Trump's two tier hypocritical approach to China. On the one hand, tariffs. On the other hand, we want to have closer relations. And that was the sort of headline. But just to go through some of the things he said, he talked about American relations with America, which he said were bad and getting worse. Tariffs, really, really bad idea. But if they happen, we will fight back very, very hard. Fentanyl, why are we getting the blame for your problem? I sent you this quote, Roy, because I just thought it was, and I said to you, who do you think said this? And you would give me all sorts of different names. But the answer was Wang Yi, who said this, imagine if every country prioritised itself above all else and placed blind faith in power and status. This world would regress to the law of the jungle, where smaller and weaker nations would bear the brunt of instability and the international order and rules-based system would face Severe disruption. I mean, you could imagine Reagan saying that. You could imagine most current European leaders saying that about Trump. So what this is about is they're sort of watching the instability and they're watching the sense of chaos. And as ever with the Chinese, they're thinking, how do we exploit this and how do we turn this to our advantage? And then he went on, he talked about China being an anchor of stability in an uncertain world. And this is almost like they're saying, you can't trust America for stability at the moment. So you've got to look to us. And I thought it was a really interesting Congress. The theme of the thing was confidence. And they do do economic presentations where they sugarcoat it to some extent, but they talked about some of the economic problems, youth unemployment and the problem that they had. They actually talked about these huge job fairs where young people are trying to get work. The reason why I find them so interesting is because, and I know it's a dictatorship, so it's easier for them, but they really do have a sense of long-term strategy. (Time 0:11:26)
China-Russia Alliance
China and Russia describe each other as allies, which is concerning for Europe.
China may be waiting for the US to self-destruct before making any decisive moves, like on Taiwan.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Taiwan is very interesting. There's big problems within the Chinese military, huge corruption scandals, their competence is being called into question. And there is a strong argument at the moment for Xi Jinping that he doesn't need to move against Taiwan now, and that the smart money in China is on waiting for Trump to self-destruct, That they can just sort of sit back, as it were, with the popcorn and watch the movie of the United States and Europe ripping themselves to pieces before they have to make any decisive Moves or take any risk. On Ukraine, there was a very interesting question from somebody last week on whether China could step in as the peace guarantor in Ukraine. But I think China, again, is very reluctant to do that. They haven't engaged in a military conflict since 1978. They don't have the full confidence yet in their foreign service and their military to do that kind of security guarantee. And then I think there's your final point, which is even as things collapse with the US, very, very difficult to trust China. I mean, the massive uptick, not just in espionage and funding for universities that we've talked about, but uptick in Chinese cyber attacks. You've talked about the size of these tens of thousands of people now sitting in Chinese cyber attack facilities, something we discussed in a podcast earlier, and their alliance with Russia. I mean, that's probably the most important thing that we've sort of touched on today is your point that in this Congress, they're describing Russia as a stable status quo power, when In fact, we in Europe would see it as an extremely destabilizing power, undercutting global norms and laws. So, I mean, I think in a way, China missed a chance by getting so strongly behind Russia, keeping the Russian economy going in that way. They missed a strategic opportunity, which India missed as well, to align strongly with Europe. And they would have been a much stronger position, both India and China, to say, okay, Trump's gone off in a crazy direction, we'll make an EU-China or an EU-India alliance if those countries Had been firmer and clearer in allying with Europe against Russia. But (Time 0:19:20)
Defending Against Information Warfare
Learn from Sweden and Finland in countering Russian information warfare.
Invest in political warfare and information warfare to defend against attacks.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Russia, you've been looking at Russia. Yes, absolutely. So I've been talking to Peter Pomerantsev, whose book, Nothing's True, Everything's Possible, you've praised in the podcast in the past.
Alastair Campbell
I praise it every time I talk about Russia.
Rory Stewart
Talking to Owen Matthews, who's another very longstanding Russia analyst, very interesting things happening as they try to struggle to work out what to do with this new world with Trump or delight in it. Essentially, what's happening is that as America seems neutral or even pro-Russian, the target is shifting to Europe. One of the things that we will now see is a very, very coordinated hybrid social media campaign run by the Russian intelligence services to do all they can to divide Europe, talk up far-right Parties in Europe, create scandals in Europe, undermine Europe's commitment to defending Ukraine. It'll be an absolute barrage, not just of information warfare, but of personal attacks, trying to discredit journalists, discredit politicians, use Western politicians who Russia's Close to to undermine them. And we do not begin to understand what's coming. And Peter Pomerantsev is saying that we need to begin to learn from the Swedes and the Finns. Some of this defense budget, this enormous defence budget that Starmus announced, needs to go into political warfare, in other words, information warfare. (Time 0:23:02)
Trump and Russia's Playbook
Trump's actions align with Russia's playbook, even sharing pro-Gaza propaganda.
Russia's approach has evolved from managed democracy to a more totalitarian state.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
So what I find most terrifying about what's going on, and I think we're doing well not to be talking too much about Trump, because I think people are sick to death of him. But just one point about Trump in this context is that I think what most people are finding so difficult to handle at the moment is this sense that even if he is not a kind of fully fledged Russian operative, if he were, he's pretty much operating according to their playbook.
Rory Stewart
That's pretty terrifying. There's nothing that he could do at the moment, which wouldn't be exactly what they wanted. I mean, I was thinking about this, that if you wanted to design the most cunning KGB SVR campaign to discredit the American president, that short clip, which he shared on Truth Social Of Gaza with dancing girls and gold statues of Trump, would be the most perfect propaganda way of discrediting Trump. And he's sharing it himself. TV show. Broadly speaking, Russia's been through three transitions under Putin. (Time 0:25:54)
Putin's Transition
Putin's Russia transitioned from managed democracy to hybrid regime, then to a totalitarian state.
Initially, extreme rhetoric was strategic, but eventually, Putin started believing it, leading to the Ukraine invasion.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
The Putin that you first met when your friend Tony Blair was saying, I think this is someone we can do business with. So the late 90s, early 2000 Putin.
Alastair Campbell
Now, let me just correct you. That was Thatcher on Gorbachev. What Tony actually said, I think this guy's going to be okay.
Rory Stewart
That was what politely could be called the managed democracy phase. And that was a really interesting moment where from the late 19s into the early 2000s, they had this sort of carnival of very, very extreme parties, statements played out on TV, played Out in the newspapers, where basically Putin sailed through the middle with oligarchs funding lots of mini parties with more mad positions than him in order to undermine the communists. And that was a reality TV moment. Then there was the shift to the kind of hybrid regime. And then finally, the shift to the sort of more totalitarian state that we see now. But it's still weird. I mean, it's not 1984. It's not that you can't say anything. If you're a Russian economist, you can go to academic conferences and you can say that we're too reliant on China strategically. There are these telegram channels where the different Russian security services fight each other. So the FSB, the SVR, the GRU, and the presidential administration will have their own telegram channels. There are some things they're not allowed to say, right? They're not allowed to attack fundamentally the war or attack fundamentally Putin, but they can generally have a go with each other. And you saw a bit of this with the Purgotian attacking the central command. But what ultimately happened, and I guess this is where your Trump analogy becomes interesting, is that what began as spectacle, what began as sort of reality TV, what began as kind Of provocative nationalist talking points, finally, people began believing their own rhetoric, the mask kind of stuck. And the big example of this was that when the first noises came at the end of 21, beginning of 22, particularly from the CIA saying, we think that Putin is actually going to invade Ukraine. We can actually see mobile crematoriums moving up to the front line. Almost every real Russian expert, including many, many people in Ukraine, said it's not going to happen. He's always saying stuff like this. He's always saying he's going to invade Ukraine. Don't worry, this is just part of the reality TV. This is part of the show. And then it turned out that in the end, he believed his own rhetoric. (Time 0:26:59)
Violence in Syria
Attacks from Alawite community against Syria's new government sparked violence.
This led to retaliatory attacks, escalating the conflict and threatening the country's unity.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Let's talk about Syria. So just a sort of quick update on this, because this is, if you want an example of where the modern world of social media and fake news and mad stories and personal attacks take off, you Cannot find a better example than Syria. The amount of confusion around what's actually been happening in Syria is unbelievable. So as far as anyone can piece it together, and people are beginning to try to put it together now. So we're recording on Tuesday. Last Thursday, there were attacks from the Alawite community against the new government. And the Alawites matter because Assad's regime was at its core, very dominated by Alawites. He came from an Alawite family. The Alawites are a traditionally persecuted fringe Muslim religion, which was not always recognized by Orthodox Muslims as being Muslim at all because it has various secretly satanic Rituals and were treated as second-class citizens under the Ottoman Empire. Over the last 50 years, since the Assad regime has been in place, they have been considered by the regime as their core loyalists. So they staffed the intelligence services, the senior ranks, the military. A loss of the brutality and torture over the last 15 years has been conducted by these people. And this regime, of course, collapsed. Collapsed a few weeks ago, as this very surprising sweep to victory of Ahmad al-Shara, who we interviewed together in Damascus, former al-Qaeda commander in Syria, took the country And the regime collapsed. At which point, these senior members of the regime, the Alawites, retreated mostly back to their own traditional community places in Latakia and in the mountains along the coast. And there was a big question. And the big question is very, very similar to denazification or debathification in Iraq, which is the questions that we actually asked him at the time, which is, what do you do? Let's say somebody was a general in Bashar al-Assad's forces. Let's say he was running torture cells. Let's say he was called to the intelligence service. Do you make them sign up for an amnesty, pay them a salary, bring them back into the modern forces, in which case, a lot of your own supporters say, you have got to be kidding. These people have got to be brought to justice. They have blood on their hands. Or do you say these people cannot be brought in, can't be trusted, leave them on the margins, in which case you have heavily armed former regime elements starting an insurgency? And fast forward, basically the story was that on Thursday, there were attacks against government forces. Some people say up to 40 coordinated attacks against army barracks and hospitals. The government responded, but as the government responded, other people got involved, freelancers, militias, combinations of people coming down from Idlib, individual Syrians Coming in on motorbikes, some people connected to the Syrian National Army in Turkey, and they conducted horrifying attacks against Al-White villages in which at least hundreds, Maybe as many as a thousand people were killed, including civilians, including in some cases, women and children. So we have a situation where suddenly the whole regime, which has been in a very sensitive position, as we said when we did our interview, the odds are against Ahmad al-Shara because He's having to deal with the Alamites and the former regime, he's having to deal with Kurds, he's having to deal with ISIS, he's having to deal with Israel, he's having to deal with Turkey. All this stuff seemed as though it was coming completely unbuckled just at the moment he was trying to get sanctions lifted. And of course, the social media campaign has been, we always told you so, this man is an extreme Al-Qaeda terrorist, and he has instructed his Takfiri jihadists to massacre minority Communities. (Time 0:37:30)
Challenges for Al-Shara
Al-Shara, Syria's new leader, faces challenges uniting the country and dealing with external pressures.
Israel, Iran, and other actors are undermining his regime, opposing sanctions relief.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
And in particular, there was a huge emphasis from people like Marco Rubio on the killing of Christians, although there's very little evidence that hundreds of Christians were killed. In fact, the Syrian observatories yesterday were suggesting that the number of Christians killed may have been three.
Alastair Campbell
What you're essentially saying is that something truly terrible has taken place, that some of the government forces who are loyal to the current administration have been involved In some of that, but that actually the overall picture is much, much more complicated. Is that your kind of basic point?
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's facing, Ahmed El-Shahar is facing two problems. He's facing the problem with what to do with the Alawite community and the former regime elements, but he's also facing the problem of what does he do with his own people and his own allies. Groups, but there is all these other armed factions. And he's trying to bring them into the army. And one of his big challenges, there are tens of thousands of armed Kurdish fighters that he's trying to incorporate into the military. Now, ultimately, this is all his fault, in the sense that he is the head of state, right? He should be controlling these people. But when we were interviewing him, we were saying, you know, how are you going to be able to balance your vision of Syria, which he says is of a moderate, multi-ethnic or multi-sectarian Syria, against the fact that you have these very extreme supporters who are pushing for another vision? Can you control them? How do you navigate all those things? And I think that's what's coming apart. And at the bottom of it is money. Because if he had money, and he doesn't have money because of US sanctions, but if he had money, he would have the money to pay the salaries of the Alawites. So the former regime elements might be less liable to go into rebellion. He could pay his own people. He could get oil going. He could get civil service salaries going. He could deal with the fact there is serious poverty and economic crisis now unfolding in Syria. He can't do any of that, despite the fact that Qataris have offered to pay the cash for salaries. The Turks have offered to bring in barges for electricity. The Saudis have offered to bring in oil. But none of them can do it, neither Qataris, the Saudis, nor the Turks, because of American secondary sanctions. Trump is stopping this.
Alastair Campbell
And also he said, if I go into some detail through this interview that Al-Shara did yesterday, because it's an interesting example of sort of leadership communication, if you want To put it like that. But one of the points I was going to make, but I'll make it now because it speaks directly to what you've just said. He essentially says that they've had pretty much no contact from the since the fall of Assad and since he's been there. It's a very interesting thing. So when we interviewed him, as you recall, he was quite nervous and quite diffident at times. Sometimes he had to sort of slightly struggle to hear. But as we said afterwards, saying a lot of the right things because he was trying to speak to, you know, beyond Syria to a Western audience. And he's done something similar on the back of this. So he's done an interview with Reuters, which is apparently the first interview that he's done with one of the big global news agencies. And the headline, New Syrian Leader says killings of Alawites threaten unity and vows justice. Now that is, that is again, saying the right thing. Okay. And he goes on to say the mass killings of members of ousted Assad's military set were a threat to his mission to unite the country. He promised to punish those responsibly, including his own allies, if necessary. Quote, Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course. We fought to defend the oppressed. We won't accept that any blood be shed unjustly or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us. Now, of course, the risk with that, from his perspective, is it plays into the narrative that this is all about revenge attacks upon the Alibis. And as you were saying, that may be partly what's involved, but it's not the whole story. But just on what you saw when we were there, what do you make of that as a response to what's going on? You call in Reuters, you do an interview, you try and land a very clear message that you want to be for the whole country, not just for your own supporters. Is that enough or should he be doing more?
Rory Stewart
Well, it's definitely a good thing. He's also rung one of the Alawite mothers, mothers of the victims, to apologise personally. He set up a formal investigation commission to go in and look at what's happening. But boy, is he in a difficult situation, partly because of his neighbors. So Iran was what propped up Bashar al-Assad's regime with Hezbollah. Obviously, Hezbollah was destroyed by Israel and the attacks in Lebanon, and that collapsed the regime. And as Iran retreated, all the oil that Iran used to provide has stopped flowing. Iran now has a direct interest in undermining the Syrian regime and causing chaos there. Israel appears to have concluded that its interests are best served by a failed state in Syria and seem to be doing all they can to undermine and destroy Ahmad al-Sharah's regime because They consider him to be an al-Qaeda terrorist, they consider that he hasn't changed, and they think he'll eventually be a threat to Israel. So you've seen Israel conducting continual bombardments against military positions in Syria, so much so that I can hardly believe they have any targets left to hit. They've also seized bits of Syrian territory. They've announced that they will take the Druze into their occupied bits of territory. They're positioning themselves as champions of minorities, which is a very odd position for Israel to take given their other positions in the Middle East. But they're saying they're now speaking up for Alawites, speaking up for Druze, speaking up for Christians. And they are absolutely leading the campaign in Washington to say on no account can sanctions be lifted. (Time 0:41:33)
Social Media Attacks
Campbell and Stewart's interview with al-Shara has drawn criticism and accusations of supporting terrorism.
Social media attacks, often originating from accounts linked to various geopolitical actors, highlight the polarization surrounding the Syrian conflict.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
They want Ahmad al-Shahra's government bankrupt, without any cash, collapsing, and they want to fragment that country.
Alastair Campbell
And it's really interesting. The fact that we did an interview, and this goes back to your points about how the way social media operates, the way polarisation has happened. So, for example, the Telegraph yesterday, their picture to illustrate the 1,300 deaths, whatever it is, was a picture of you and me with al-Shara. It was one of the best pieces of guilt by association I've ever seen in my life. And we've been receiving both – I've passed on some of them to you. I haven't passed on them all because we've just been inundated. But people who are sending us accounts of massacre, videos of some of the killings that are taking place. And some of it is from people and organizations you sort of feel like you can trust because you know their reputation. But others of it, it reads clearly, it reads well, but you don't 100% know. And then on the other side, we had this, I forwarded you a message I got from Netanyahu's office, essentially saying, pointing out that the foreign minister of Israel had said, this All underlines why your interview with al-Shara was very ill judged and very badly timed. So somehow that was a sort of dot painting the picture towards what's going on now. I still defend the interview on the grounds that if somebody goes from being a terrorist to finding himself now as the recognised leader of Syria, then it is, to my mind, a bit crazy not To want to talk to people like that. And that doesn't just go for us doing a podcast. Even more it goes for people who are running the big governments of the world. It's extraordinary.
Rory Stewart
Above all, we would be perfectly willing to interview Steve Bannon, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, anybody else who wants to come on our show. The fact that we interview somebody, that's our job as forms of journalists, which is to give voice and let people hear from other people. But I think we provided a very, very fair balanced summary on his al-Qaeda links, on his past. There was nothing naive about it. And most of the stuff that's happening on social media is really, really interesting because what you can see, and look, this is not about being self-centered about the attacks on us, Although it's been pretty amazing. Thousands of attacks on us accusing us of supporting Al-Qaeda against massacring Christians and this and the other. But look at where those attacks are coming from. They're coming, some of them from UAE-based accounts. And the Emirates is very, very angry that they feel that they've been left out. They tried to back Bashar al-Assad at the end and feel very unbalanced about what's happening. Attacks from Russia, obviously, because Russia was a back of Bashar. Attacks from Iran, obviously. But increasing attacks from people close to Israel who are using this as a way of saying, well, you criticize what's happening in Gaza, but why are you not criticizing these attacks Against Christians and minorities? And then, of course, the right in Europe and Britain. That's why the Telegraph will pick it up. And Musk has again been spreading incredible fake news. He has been spreading this idea that, you know, the idea that hundreds of Christians have been massacred in deliberate attempts by tech theories, which as far as anyone can see, simply Isn't true. But Musk just promotes this through his thing. And I talked in some detail, somebody that we've name checked before on the show, who does some really impressive work on this called Amil Khan. And Amil Khan maps these social media networks and their strategies, and he has this idea about seeders and spreaders. So the seeders is somebody like Elon Musk that puts the story out, and then the spreaders are real accounts, and then an enormous amount of bots and non-authentic accounts who retweet And put forward these things. He's done it in real detail on things like Sudan, where he's shown the incredible difference between the way that Egyptians do social media campaigns and the way that UAE and Russia Supporting the other side does it. Their use of AI content, their use of video, which is incredibly popular, their so-called citizens' journalists who turn up on the ground and film things the way that software is used To identify how to propagate it. And this just connects back, I guess, to what we were saying before the break. We need to brace for what's about to happen in Europe. And the Russians have got used to it over 10, 15 years. Hillary Clinton has got used to this. George Soros has got used to coordinated attacks which have come at him from Russia first, but then increasingly from Israel, Hungary, etc. But you and I are just beginning to touch the edge of this. In some ways, it's quite flattering. It implies that they want to discredit and destroy us. But what's happening is basically beta testing. So they want to find what is the right attack line. So with you, it might be Iraq war David Kelly. With me, it will be MI6 officer running a corrupt NGO. Why don't you say anything about Pakistani grooming gangs? And now on to warmonger in Ukraine, supporting Al-Qaeda and killing Christians in the Middle East. But this is them navigating their way around increasingly multinationally with very, very interesting use of bots and quite cheap. The Iranians are supposed to spend only $12 million a year destabilizing Iraq in this fashion. And I don't think we're beginning to be ready for it.
Alastair Campbell
Yeah, I had an exchange yesterday with Carol Cadwalader, who the journalist who exposed a lot of the kind of Russian activity in relation to Brexit, and got a lot of grief from all the Kind of reform and right wing media people for her troubles. And I did a tweet saying, I've always thought that the kind of Trump is a Russian asset was a bit for the conspiracy theorists, but it's hard now not to think that maybe there might be something In it. And basically, Carol, who I like and respect a lot, and she replied, kind of, where have you been? You know, this is essentially what we've been saying, and this is what Brexit was about. Now, you know, it is true. We have never, ever, because the lack of will within the last government, we've never got to the bottom. And literally, as I'm sitting here by my phone, I was just sort of looking for Cowell Street. I couldn't find it. Pop up with somebody saying, somebody called spaceology. Not sure why Alistair had so many doubts about Russian interference. It's a picture of Lord Lebedev. So, you know, where you're right, and this goes back to this place that I told you about that I'm not allowed to talk about. We are pretty, I think we're a long way behind the game compared to what our traditional enemies are doing. And (Time 0:47:36)
Finding Reliable Information
Rely on credible sources like Darin Khalifa and Charles Lister for Syria analysis.
Avoid misinformation spread through social media and unverified videos.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Pretty terrifying.
Rory Stewart
Well, final shout out for real serious serial analysis. Don't please look at Twitter and believe weird videos being shared on Facebook. Two people I'd like to make a real call out for who I think are extraordinary. Darin Khalifa, who works for the amazing International Crisis Group, does the most beautiful, sensitive, thoughtful reporting and knows the region really, really well. And is particularly interested on Turkey and what will happen in Syria if Syria doesn't manage to balance its relationships with the region. Will it end up with Turkey getting involved in fights with the Kurds and seizing bits of territory? And secondly, Charles Lister, who has done amazing work on covering the whole story from the beginning and really understanding the roots of Afdhman al-Shara and where they're going. (Time 0:54:51)
