[Quest:] It's a crucial week for relations between the United States and China. A number of world leaders are preparing to visit the US, of course. It's also the United Nations. Few are more anticipated in Washington than the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. President Xi will first stop over in Seattle. When he's there, he'll be meeting with executives from top US tech firms. Now, that's going to be fascinating meetings, because they're eager to gain access to China's one billion consumers, but at the same time, Western businesses are also very concerned at what they see as cyber security issues from China. And it's this dichotomy, on the one hand, as well as warming up to China despite Beijing's heavy-handed approach to regulation and censorship. So, this is how many major companies are actually adapting and responding to the visit of President Xi. Start off with Rupert Murdoch. Now, Rupert Murdoch has been introducing himself to a Chinese audience. He's launched a Weibo account, and Weibo is the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. Murdoch quickly hit 45,000 followers. He's posted that he's met President Xi, talked about opening up China to foreign media. "Leaving great Beijing airport, remind you of abandoned, third-rate US infrastructure hopeless planning and wrong priorities." "Wonderful Chinese food in Beijing, now back to boring diet in New York." "Leaving for New York to be with my two beautiful Chinese daughters." Amongst the others, of course, Warner Brothers, owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner, Warner itself has been busy and has inked a deal designed to make Chinese language movies. It's going to partner with Chinese Media Capital, and the chairman of Warner Brothers says he hopes that the partnership "will enhance the cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world," so says the CMC chairman. If that wasn't enough you've got Murdoch, you've got Warner Brothers, you've also got politicians. George Osborne, the British finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, he has been to Beijing and says Britain and China are on the verge of a golden decade of cooperation. And to do that, he's announced plans to build the West's first Chinese-designed nuclear plant and then, crucially, he is going to guarantee give a government guarantee on the financing of it. Let's put all this together and talk to Ian Bremmer, who joins me. Good evening, sir.
[Ian Bremmer, President And Founder, Eurasia Group:] Richard.
[Quest:] How are you?
[Bremmer:] Very well.
[Quest:] You're the president and the founder of the Eurasia Group, but you know that.
[Bremmer:] I do.
[Quest:] So. Xi comes here, to the United States
[Bremmer:] Yes.
[Quest:] and there are these everybody's trying to get their nose into the trough of business on it.
[Bremmer:] It's true. And yet, the industrial espionage against the United States and its companies, the cyber attacks against the US are only growing. The US is talking about sanctions against China, and American firms are saying, actually, we want to do as much as possible with the Chinese individually. That the fact in China, you can't do that. In China, the companies are aligned with the government. The United States, not true. It actually means China has an easier time with strategy.
[Quest:] Right. China has an easier time with strategy, but then what does this what's the strategy for the West, particularly if you've got people like George Osborne going there to get a nuclear reactor and to guarantee the financing of it?
[Bremmer:] What West? There's no West. There's the United States and there's Britain and there's Britain and there's Germany, and everybody's sort of trying to cut their own deal. It's every Western country for itself, and the United States government. Remember, the Chinese announced the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. We said we weren't going to join it because it wouldn't have Western standards. We told our allies, don't join it, and the Brits and the Germans and the French and everyone else lined up
[Quest:] Except?
[Bremmer:] Except Japan and the United States. They all signed up. Doesn't help us any. So, there's no West. Our allies aren't engaging with us. Our companies aren't engaging with us. Puts the US government in a very challenging position to really respond to what we see as encroachments on US national security.
[Quest:] Right, but, well, if that's right, then surely the US companies may be selling classic marks, they may be selling the rope that's going to hang them.
[Bremmer:] Indeed. But the average American CEO lasts less than five years. The average American shareholder's interested in the next quarterly returns. The Chinese government's very aware of that. I mean, you look at a company like Apple, they're making tremendous money in China right now, it's the most explosive market
[Quest:] And yet, they announced, of course, that they've discovered you joke about that, but they've announced that they've discovered malware in some of their iPhone software that's coming from China. Shocking.
[Bremmer:] Because, of course, over the long term, the Chinese government wants to ensure that they're the ones that are actually filtering a Chinese internet, they're the ones that are seeing what Chinese consumers are going to buy.
[Quest:] Right. But do you believe that this cyber security issues is taken up at the highest level in this summit, or is it glossed over?
[Bremmer:] No, no, no. It's going to be taken up, and I actually think there will be an announcement, there'll be a deal. I think that you'll see the Americans and the Chinese, both of whom want to show we have good relations, and they'll say, you know what? We're not going to engage in integrity attacks against each other's critical infrastructure. It's going to sound like Obama and Xi will both say, look, we're taking it seriously, we're really engaging. And the reality is, it's not going to stop the Chinese for one second in terms of continuing to grab intellectual property in industrial espionage against American firms. American firms will continue to say we want to be in the Chinese market, we can tolerate this until we can't. So, we are kicking the can down the road. It's going to be a larger problem, as we'll see.
[Quest:] Thank you, sir.
[Bremmer:] My pleasure, Richard.
[Quest:] Very busy day.
[Bremmer:] Good to see you.
[Quest:] Very busy day. Thank you. And we need some breaking news to tell, thank you. Some news just into
[Cnn:] Scott Walker, the governor of the US state of Wisconsin, has decided to drop out of the race for the Republican nomination to be president. Now, we're expecting a press conference from Walker in about 90 minutes from now. He'll confirm he is no longer running for the Republican nomination, or he'll probably put it I think they put it more in terms of they're suspending their campaign. It's all to do with where the money goes. Anyway, Scott Walker is out of the race, and we will or he will be out of the race, we I'm getting ahead of myself, there. But I'll buy you a cup of coffee if that if the announcement's anything different than that. When we come back, the chief executive of General Electric is calling on the Indian prime minister to make it easier to do business in his country. We'll be talking about that after the break. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.