Victor Gao
Based on Wikipedia: Victor Gao
The Translator Who Became Beijing's Most Provocative Voice
In June 2025, a Chinese commentator named Victor Gao made a suggestion that sent shockwaves through diplomatic circles: China's border with India, he proposed, should be redrawn at the Ganges River. This would place Delhi—the capital of India, a nation of over a billion people—inside Chinese territorial claims. The internet quickly dubbed this extraordinary assertion the "Victor Gao Line."
This was not an isolated provocation. Just a month earlier, Gao had advocated for the kidnapping of Taiwan's president as part of a military annexation plan. And these statements came from someone who once served as a personal translator for Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader who opened China to the world.
Who is Victor Gao, and how did a former diplomat recommended to Yale by Henry Kissinger himself become one of the most inflammatory voices in Chinese state-adjacent media?
From Rural China to the Halls of Power
Victor Zhikai Gao was born in 1962 and grew up in rural China during one of the country's most turbulent decades. The Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, had shuttered universities across the nation. Young people were sent to the countryside for "re-education" through manual labor. Higher education essentially ceased to exist.
Then came 1977.
Deng Xiaoping, newly restored to power after years of political exile, made a decision that would transform China: he reopened the universities and reinstated the gaokao, China's notoriously difficult college entrance examination. The gaokao is not like the SAT or ACT in the United States. It is a grueling, multi-day ordeal that determines the entire trajectory of a young Chinese person's life. Millions take it each year; the competition is fierce beyond anything comparable in Western education systems.
Gao was still in high school when the gaokao returned. He hadn't even graduated. But somehow, he convinced local authorities to let him take the exam anyway—a remarkable display of persuasion for someone so young in a society where bureaucratic rules were rarely bent. He passed, and entered Soochow University to study English.
The Making of an Elite
Gao's educational trajectory reads like a checklist of elite credentials. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from Soochow University in 1981, then a master's in English from Beijing University of Foreign Studies in 1983. But what happened next set him apart from other promising young scholars.
At just twenty-one years old, Gao became a translator for Deng Xiaoping.
This was no ordinary job. Deng was reshaping China through his policy of "reform and opening up"—a dramatic reversal of Maoist isolation that would eventually make China the world's second-largest economy. Every word Deng spoke to foreign leaders, every nuance in sensitive negotiations, passed through his translators. Gao held this position from 1983 to 1988, during some of the most consequential years of modern Chinese history.
Simultaneously, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. He was, by any measure, a rising star in China's foreign policy establishment.
Then came 1989.
The year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The precise circumstances of Gao's departure from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remain unclear, but the timing is notable. What is clear is what happened next: Henry Kissinger—the former United States Secretary of State, architect of Nixon's opening to China, and one of the most influential figures in American foreign policy—personally recommended Gao to Yale University.
An American Education
Kissinger's recommendation opened doors that few Chinese citizens could access in the early 1990s. Gao earned a master's degree in political science from Yale in 1990, then stayed to complete a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1993. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1994.
Consider what this means. Gao received legal training at one of America's most prestigious law schools, the alma mater of Supreme Court justices and presidents. He passed the bar exam in New York, one of the more challenging jurisdictions. He understood American law, American institutions, and American society from the inside.
After law school, Gao moved into finance and policy. He worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, one of Wall Street's most storied firms. He served as a policy adviser to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission during the sensitive period of 1999-2000, just after Hong Kong's handover from British to Chinese rule.
By any conventional measure, Gao had become exactly the kind of cosmopolitan, Western-educated professional that reformers hoped would bridge the gap between China and the world.
The Turn
Something changed.
Today, Gao serves as vice president of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank. He holds a chair professorship at Soochow University, his undergraduate alma mater. He is a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang—a name that requires some explanation.
The Kuomintang, or KMT, was the Nationalist party that fought against the Communists in China's civil war and ultimately fled to Taiwan in 1949. But the "Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang" is something entirely different: one of China's eight "democratic parties" that exist under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party. These are not opposition parties in any meaningful sense. They are permitted to exist precisely because they do not oppose the Communist Party.
It is from these positions that Gao has become something Foreign Policy magazine once described as "a reputable interlocutor in U.S.-China relations." Note the past tense: "was once treated as."
The Voice of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy
In recent years, Gao has become a regular presence on international television, particularly Australian programs, where he delivers statements that range from provocative to bizarre.
In 2014, he condemned Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests—the "Umbrella Movement" that saw thousands occupy city streets demanding genuine democratic elections—as illegal and provocative. When China imposed its National Security Law on Hong Kong in 2020, effectively ending the territory's political freedoms, Gao voiced his support.
But his comments on the AUKUS agreement in 2021 attracted international attention of a different kind.
AUKUS is a security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, announced in September 2021. Its centerpiece is a plan to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines—not nuclear-armed submarines, but vessels propelled by nuclear reactors. This is an important distinction. Nuclear-powered submarines can travel farther and stay submerged longer than diesel-electric boats, but they don't necessarily carry nuclear weapons.
Gao dismissed this distinction entirely.
"Armed with nuclear submarines, Australia itself will be a target for possible nuclear attacks in the future," he declared, calling Australians "brainless." When an interviewer on 60 Minutes Australia pointed out that the submarines would be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed, Gao was undeterred.
"The tubes in the submarine can be armed with both nuclear warheads and conventional warheads," he insisted. "In the heat of a battle or in the heat of a war, do you think Australia will allow inspections? The safe approach is to target Australia as a nuclear-armed country."
This logic is striking. By this reasoning, any country that operates vessels capable of launching missiles should be treated as a nuclear power and targeted accordingly—regardless of whether those missiles actually carry nuclear warheads.
Taiwan and the Limits of Rhetoric
On the question of Taiwan, Gao has been consistently, almost startlingly, direct. He supports "any means possible" to achieve what Beijing calls "reunification"—the incorporation of Taiwan into the People's Republic of China.
Taiwan's status is one of the most dangerous flashpoints in international relations. The island has been governed separately from mainland China since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces fled there after losing the civil war. Today, Taiwan is a vibrant democracy with its own elected government, military, currency, and passport. It functions as an independent country in every practical sense, though most nations—including the United States—do not formally recognize it as such, to avoid antagonizing Beijing.
In October 2021, Gao made a claim that Foreign Policy magazine characterized as a call for ethnic cleansing. He asserted that Taiwanese people of Japanese descent were responsible for supporting Taiwanese independence, and suggested that after a PRC takeover, they should either demonstrate support for reunification in writing or emigrate.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, and many Taiwanese have some Japanese ancestry. Singling out this group and demanding written loyalty oaths or exile carries dark historical echoes.
In August 2022, Gao declared that "the Chinese military's mission is to liberate Taiwan."
Then, in July 2025, he went further still. Gao advocated for what he called a "second Xi'an Incident"—a reference to a 1936 episode when Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by his own generals to force him into an alliance with the Communists against Japan. Gao's proposal: kidnap Taiwan's president as part of a military annexation plan.
This was, to be clear, a public call for the abduction of a democratically elected head of state, broadcast on international media.
COVID-19 and Conspiracy Theories
Gao has also promoted conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and its origins remain a subject of intense scientific and political debate. Some researchers believe it spread from animals to humans at a wet market; others suspect it may have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studied coronaviruses.
Gao rejects any investigation into Chinese origins as "a conspiracy." He claims the virus "existed earlier than the outbreak of Wuhan in other parts of the world, including, most logically, in the United States, centering on Fort Detrick."
Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army base in Maryland that houses laboratories studying dangerous pathogens. It has been the subject of conspiracy theories promoted by Chinese state media suggesting that COVID-19 was actually created there and somehow released in China. These claims have no credible scientific support.
The Peng Shuai Interview
Perhaps Gao's most disturbing public statement came in February 2022, during another appearance on 60 Minutes Australia. The topic was Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis player and former doubles world number one who had accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China and member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, of sexual assault.
Peng had posted her accusation on Weibo, China's Twitter-equivalent, in November 2021. The post was deleted within thirty minutes. Peng then disappeared from public view for weeks, prompting international concern about her safety. The Women's Tennis Association suspended all tournaments in China over the matter—an extraordinary step for a major sports organization to take against a lucrative market.
When asked about the case, Gao offered a defense that stunned observers. Peng Shuai could not have been raped, he argued, because of "her physical athleticism as a professional athlete." She could "defend herself in front of whatever man or person in China."
The implication—that a professional athlete cannot be sexually assaulted because of her physical fitness—defies basic understanding of how sexual assault works and why it is a crime.
Scotland, NATO, and Ukraine
Gao's commentary extends beyond Asia-Pacific affairs to European politics, sometimes in unexpected ways.
He opposes Scottish independence. More precisely, he criticized the United Kingdom for allowing the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to happen at all. Scotland voted to remain part of the UK in that referendum, 55% to 45%, but the mere fact that the vote was permitted seems to trouble Gao. One can imagine why: if self-determination is a legitimate principle in Scotland, questions arise about Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
On Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, Gao has consistently blamed NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western military alliance formed after World War II to counter Soviet power. He argues that NATO's eastward expansion after the Cold War and potential missile defense deployments provoked Russia into attacking Ukraine.
This is a position shared by some Western analysts, though critics note that it grants Russia a veto over the sovereign decisions of its neighbors about which alliances to join. Gao has also warned that Ukraine joining NATO would "trigger armageddon."
In a curious twist, Gao has used the Scotland example to illustrate his point about NATO expansion. According to the South China Morning Post, "He said the same scenario could occur between England and Scotland, if a country like Russia wanted to deploy nuclear weapons on Scottish territory."
The India Provocations
In 2025, Gao turned his attention to South Asia, with results that were alternately constructive and inflammatory.
Following the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict and India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty—a 1960 agreement governing how the two nuclear-armed neighbors share the waters of the Indus River system—Gao commented on the importance of upholding international river treaties. He warned against using water as a geopolitical weapon and encouraged cooperation between China, India, and Pakistan over the Brahmaputra and Indus rivers.
This was relatively measured, even statesmanlike.
Then came June 2025.
Gao suggested that China's border with India should be drawn at the Ganges River. He framed this as a rebuttal to the McMahon Line, a border drawn by British colonial official Henry McMahon in 1914 as part of the Simla Accord, which China has never accepted.
The McMahon Line runs along the crest of the Himalayas, placing the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh—which China claims as "South Tibet"—within India. Disputes over this border led to a brief but bloody war between India and China in 1962, and tensions continue to this day.
But the Ganges River is not in the Himalayas. It flows through the heart of northern India, through some of the most densely populated regions on Earth. Drawing China's border there would mean claiming Delhi, the Taj Mahal, and the entire Indo-Gangetic plain—home to hundreds of millions of people.
The statement was so extreme that it prompted immediate reactions online and in diplomatic circles. The "Victor Gao Line" became a shorthand for maximalist territorial claims that no country could take seriously as a negotiating position.
Official or Freelance?
A central question hangs over Gao's public statements: does he speak for the Chinese government, or only for himself?
He holds no official government position. The Center for China and Globalization, where he serves as vice president, is a think tank, not a government ministry. His academic posts are real but do not convey policy authority.
Yet he appears regularly on international television, seemingly with the blessing of Chinese authorities. He was, after all, a translator for Deng Xiaoping and a member of the Foreign Ministry. His statements often align with—or push beyond—official Chinese positions.
This ambiguity may be the point. Countries sometimes use unofficial voices to float ideas that would be too provocative for diplomats to state directly. If the reaction is negative, the government can disavow the statements. If there is no pushback, the ground has been prepared for more aggressive positions later.
Or perhaps Gao simply enjoys the attention. A man who convinced local authorities to let him take the gaokao before graduating high school has demonstrated a lifelong talent for self-promotion.
The Trajectory of a Career
Victor Gao's career traces an arc that illuminates broader changes in China's relationship with the world.
In the 1980s, he was part of the opening—a young translator helping Deng Xiaoping communicate with foreign leaders, then studying law at Yale with Kissinger's endorsement. He represented the cosmopolitan, internationally-minded China that reformers hoped would emerge.
In the 1990s and 2000s, he worked in international finance and regulatory policy, the kind of technocratic work that builds the infrastructure for global economic integration.
Then, sometime in the 2010s, his public persona shifted. The Yale-trained lawyer began appearing on television to defend crackdowns on Hong Kong democracy activists, dismiss sexual assault allegations against Communist Party officials, and issue nuclear threats against Australia.
Was this always his view, held quietly during his Western education and finance career? Did he change his mind as China grew more powerful and more confident in challenging Western narratives? Is he simply saying what he believes Beijing wants to hear?
Only Gao knows the answer. What is clear is that the "reputable interlocutor in U.S.-China relations" that Foreign Policy once described now occupies a very different role: the sharp edge of Chinese nationalist rhetoric, saying things that even official spokespeople might hesitate to utter.
The Problem of Provocation
There is a risk in paying too much attention to provocateurs. Outrageous statements can attract coverage that amplifies fringe positions, making them seem more significant than they are. Perhaps Gao's nuclear threats and ethnic cleansing proposals and demands for kidnapping democratically elected leaders are simply the ramblings of a man who has discovered that saying shocking things on television keeps him relevant.
But there is also a risk in dismissing such statements too quickly.
Gao is not a random blogger or anonymous social media account. He is a former translator for one of the most important Chinese leaders of the twentieth century. He was recommended to Yale by Henry Kissinger. He serves as vice president of a Beijing-based think tank and holds an academic chair at a Chinese university.
When he suggests kidnapping Taiwan's president, or drawing China's border at the Ganges, or ethnically cleansing Taiwanese of Japanese descent, these statements enter the discourse—even if they are later disavowed. They shift the Overton window, the range of ideas considered acceptable to discuss in public. They make less extreme positions seem moderate by comparison.
And in a world where miscalculation between nuclear-armed powers could prove catastrophic, even rhetorical provocations carry weight.
A Man of His Time
Victor Gao is, in many ways, a product of modern China's contradictions. He benefited from Deng Xiaoping's reforms, which opened the country to Western education and ideas. He took full advantage of those opportunities, studying at Yale and working on Wall Street. He speaks fluent English and knows American institutions intimately.
Yet he now uses that fluency to attack the very international order that enabled his rise. He dismisses the distinction between nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines while surely understanding it perfectly well. He denies the possibility of sexual assault against an athlete in terms that would be recognized as absurd in any American courtroom.
Perhaps this is simply the evolution of a man who sees which way the wind is blowing in Beijing and adjusts accordingly. Perhaps it reflects genuine ideological conviction. Perhaps it is performance, a role played for cameras and audiences.
Whatever the explanation, Victor Gao has become something remarkable: a Yale Law graduate who calls for kidnapping, a former diplomat who threatens nuclear war, a cosmopolitan who demands ethnic loyalty oaths. He is a reminder that education and exposure do not automatically produce moderation, and that the bridges built between China and the West during the reform era can carry traffic in both directions.