← Duologue with Leslie Heaney
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:05]
A
Hello, this is Leslie, and you're listening to the interview with Leslie Heaney. US China relations has been an issue that's been of great interest to me, and I'm so honored that Gordon G. Chang agreed to come on the podcast. He's a journalist, lawyer, political commentator, and a real expert on China US Relations. Chang spent over two decades living in China working as an international lawyer for Baker McKenzie and Paul Weiss. He has appeared on virtually every news channel as a commentator. Cnn, fox, msnbc, cnbc. He's a journalist who's written articles for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the list goes on. And he's offered briefings on China to the CIA, National Intelligence Council, State Department, Department of Defense, U.S. house Foreign Affairs Committee. So it's a real, real honor to have someone with his background and experience talking to me about China. Chiang has been described by the New Yorker as a longtime uber hawk on China. His thesis on US China relations is outlined in his latest book, which we talk extensively about. The book is called Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. You can tell by the title of the book that he has a very hawkish and alarming perspective about China and their intentions towards both the US and the world. But it's a perspective that I think is important for all of us as Americans to hear. So with that, here is Gordon G. Chang. Gordon, I'm just so honored to have you here this morning. I thoroughly enjoyed your book, and I must confess, you know, it was very alarming to me as an American, and I think it should be alarming to all Americans. So I'm so grateful to you for writing it and for getting this important information and message out. Would you describe what you mean by Plan Red?
- [02:15]
B
Yeah. China has a plan to destroy America. And most Americans think, well, we can cooperate with China in areas where we have common interests. But the Chinese regime believes it is in an existential struggle with the United States, and it believes that not because of anything that we say or do, but because of who we are. An insecure regime in Beijing is worried about the inspirational impact of our values and form of governance on the Chinese people. So the party believes it will never be secure as long as we exist. And therefore, that means there's only going to be one survivor. It's either going to be the People's Republic of China or the United States of America, not both. And that means our elites, our policymakers, our leaders do not understand China's fundamental assault on our republic.
- [03:10]
A
You compared sort of this time period to the 1930s. Right. Where the US and Western allies are kind of observing China and not really, I think, interpreting a lot of their actions, both diplomatically and strategically around the world as a threat or as Beijing kind of confronting us. Will you speak a little bit more about that comparison that you made?
- [03:33]
B
Yeah. The parallels between our time and the second half of the 1930s are extremely disturbing. You go back to 1936. Hitler is threatening to remilitarize the Rhineland. Britain and France had the power to stop him, but didn't. They issued warnings. They just failed to follow up on them. And also they failed when it came to threats to absorb Austria. And then after the 1938 Munich Pact, which obviously was just misguided, they allowed Hitler to violate it. And so you get to August of 1939, and Britain and France are warning Berlin that they will go to war if the Third Reich invades Poland. And nobody in the German leadership believes the British and the French because they had failed to follow up on their warnings, starting with the remilitarization of the Rhineland. So the sequence of events is on September 1, 1939, Hitler invades Poland. Britain and France then declare war on Germany. And the Germans are surprised. And there's a story which is perhaps true, where Hitler turns to Ribbetrov and says, what now? The point being that when you issue hollow warnings, they lead to war. Well, the reason why this history is relevant is because for decades we have been issuing warnings to China and we've been failing to follow up on them. And we've been failing to follow up on them because we've always hoped that China would eventually see it to be in its interest to support the existing international system. But that hope, I think, was unrealistic for various reasons. And so now we're in a situation where the Chinese don't believe us. And they don't believe us because we have taught them not to believe us.
- [05:33]
A
Right.
- [05:33]
B
So we are the British and the French of our time.
- [05:37]
A
You talked a little bit about in the book, too. One of the examples was about, you know, that the spy balloon incident. Right. And how, how our country reacted to that. There seemed to be little consequence to that. Do you want to talk a little bit about that incident? And I think the example that it might have set for China and I guess to follow up on what you just said, it was sort of a kind of a non event for our reaction to it.
- [06:01]
B
Yeah. The spy balloon incident of January and February of last year is instructive because it shows the failure of the Pentagon and it shows the failure of the Biden administration. The Pentagon said afterwards that it had been tracking that balloon as it was crossing the Pacific, but it did not warn the inform the President of the United states until like 2 and a half or 2 and 3 quarters day after that balloon entered territorial American airspace in Alaska. And that is a failure on the part of NORAD and the Pentagon senior leadership. And then Biden makes a decision which is again mistaken because he could have shot it down over essentially uninhabited territory and he chose not to do it. So that balloon then surveilled Maelstrom FE Warren and Minot Air Force bases where we have all of our land based intercontinental Minuteman III missiles. That's our entire land triad. Part of the triad. Then it flew close to Omaha, Nebraska, which is Offutt Air Force Base, the home of US Strategic Command which controls all of our nuclear weapons. And then it flew close by Whiteman Air Force Base in the middle of Missouri where we have all of our B2 strategic bombers. So obviously they are gathered. They were gathering information about a possible strike on our nuclear facilities. And yet we had a reaction where the President United States tried to minimize it. Remember he said it was that silly balloon. And then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, shortly before his retirement, told the American people that that balloon did not transmit information back to China. There are two things wrong with that statement. Later we learned from NBC News that the balloon did indeed transmit back to China. And also it didn't have to transmit back to China for China to gain invaluable information about our readiness because they could see our reaction or lack of reaction to that rather large object floating over our country. So they gathered so much information, even if Millie was right, which he's not. And so this was a failure across the board and China noticed that. And that leads to a breakdown in deterrence.
- [08:32]
A
But why would we not have shot it down? I mean, once we were watching this, right, we see what it's doing, we know it's taking pictures, it starts in Alaska, then it comes down to sort of more mainland US territory. Was it at that point they were concerned about the risk of people on the ground or is it just they were too, the US government was too concerned about being sort of directly or being perceived perhaps by the Chinese as hostile in destroying the balloon?
- [08:59]
B
Yeah, I wish I knew the answer to that question. Yeah, President Biden actually said, well, he did not want to risk people and property on the ground, but he had time. Even after he learned about it, he could have shot it down over essentially uninhabited territory. And certainly the military, if they had informed him earlier, they could have shot it down over Alaska or Canada, where they would not have even gotten bears because the bears were hibernating. So this. This was a complete failure. And if the President were exercising his obligation, he would have fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though he was close to retirement, and he would have fired his Secretary of Defense. They failed the American people. There's no excuse for what they did. And to establish accountability, he should have made sure that they left. This is just, I guess, symptomatic of the Biden administration where nobody gets fired. But the point is, this one had consequences.
- [10:07]
A
You know, it's you. You sort of set the stage in the book that, you know, China is basically trying in currently, in certain ways, to sort of destabilize the world order. Right. Because having the United States distracted by responding to different crises around the world, then keeps us less focused on being ready to respond to China should there be a more direct threat. So you claim that xi, back in 2022, kind of, and I love how you use this, you describe this, has lit a match on three continents, right? One in Europe and Ukraine. Supporting that, or through Russia, insurgencies in Africa, and then their support of Iran and the Middle East. Will you talk a little bit more about that?
- [10:50]
B
Xi Jinping's tactic is chaos. And this goes back because he reveres Mao Zedong and his heroes. Actually talked about this in 1966 in a letter to John Ching, his wife, Mao wrote, quote, great chaos achieves great order under heaven. And by great order, Mao was referring to worldwide Chinese rule. And that is what Xi Jinping has been trying to promote throughout this century. That the notion that Chinese rulers not only had the mandate of heaven to rule what they call Tianxia, or all under heaven, but that heaven actually compelled them to rule the entire world. Well, Xi Jinping's view is that the United States stands in the way of China's ambitions. So it needs to distract the United States, something that Mao did, by supporting insurgencies. And as you mentioned, Xi has been promoting these proxy wars, been fighting proxy wars. Ukraine, North Africa, Israel. And now it looks like Xi Jinping is looking to start a war in Eastern South Asia. So if he's successful in that endeavor, then we've got World War 3, because that means we've got war everywhere. And that just changes the world in ways which we're not prepared to even think about, because we have a policy elite that believes that Xi Jinping is no more than a competitor. Remember, President Biden won't even call them an adversary, and he certainly won't call them what the Chinese call us, which is an enemy. So we're at risk here because we do not understand what China is doing.
- [12:27]
A
I want to get back to the comment that you just made about a war sort of bubbling up in Southeast Asia. Are you referring to Taiwan?
- [12:35]
B
Well, first of all, in South Asia, you have China with troops in Indian controlled territory. And yes, it's true that Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia agreed to a disengagement proposal, which is good, but nonetheless, China claims large portions of India as China. But in East Asia, we have China pressuring not only Taiwan, but also Japan, the Philippines, and even Indonesia, which is far away from China's borders. So this is a China that is looking to start a war someplace. Yes, they would like to take over other countries without fighting. But Xi Jinping has made. You know, I can't say that Xi Jinping has made the decision to go to war, but I can say it's 100% that he's made the decision to risk war because he's risking war in various places on his periphery. And he's also risking war with the United States because he is pressuring allies like Japan and the Philippines, which have mutual defense treaties with us.
- [13:45]
A
In what way are they. Are they pressuring Japan and Indonesia with.
- [13:50]
B
Japan, China flew a plane through Japanese territorial airspace, which in this case could very well be considered an act of war. Chinese vessels routinely enter Japan's territorial waters in ways that are not considered to be innocent passages. In other words, violations of Japan's territorial sovereignty. And also with regard to Indonesia, although about five years ago, China said it no longer had claims to the Natuna Islands. Nonetheless, we've had Chinese vessels repeatedly in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone in activities that are incompatible and inconsistent with its obligations under the UN Treaty, which is the Convention on the Law of the Sea. So it's not just Taiwan people talk about all the time, but it's also other countries, which shows you, I think it's strategic incoherence, China making all of these enemies at the same time without accomplishing something, when there's a lot of argument and a lot of discussion about what China is in fact doing. But there are very disturbing sides. Just one other point. When Putin invaded Ukraine, you could see that the methods that he employed really were in furtherance of a goal that he had, which was annexation of Ukraine. Yeah, he's been failing to do that, but you can see that his plans were rational. What Xi Jinping is doing, the tactics he's employing are not sufficient to annex the territory of his victims, but they are hostile enough to create among his countries on his periphery. But they're banding together to contain China, and they're bringing in the United States, which shows you that, as I mentioned, this incoherence, that the tactics that Xi Jinping is employing cannot reasonably be expected to accomplish his goals. That is extremely concerning.
- [15:54]
A
Also, along those same lines, he's building artificial islands in the South China Sea. Right. Which is sending a message to all of those neighboring countries that he's, you know, is he using those islands as a. As a potential, you know, launching location for. For a base or for any kind of military equipment?
- [16:14]
B
Yeah. What he's doing is he wants to control the South China Sea. And he's got. He's reclaimed seven features in the Spratlys, which is the archipelago in the southern portion of the South China Sea. And on three of those, he's made. He's built major military bases, which, by the way, is a complete violation of the promises he made in 2015 to President Obama when Xi Jinping was in the White House. And what he wants to do is be able to have so much military, so many military assets that he is able to intimidate others to giving up their territory. And, of course, those bases, he's using them now primarily against the Philippines because we've seen these very provocative acts against the Philippines on islands, reefs, and shoals that are part of the Philippines, but which China claims.
- [17:05]
A
Is there any UN response to that?
- [17:08]
B
There's no UN response. There's a 2016 arbitral award which interpreted provisions of the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea. But that's not really a UN matter. Of course the United States has responded, but we've responded inadequately. And we can see that because China has continued its provocations against the Philippines and against Japan. And these are continuing.
- [17:37]
A
You mentioned earlier, the perspective, or our diplomatic approach or our approach to China as elites kind of having this perspective that China will act in China's best interests, that they're not our enemy, that they're just. That they'll be rational in how they interact with us and interact with the world. And I think in your book, you talked a bit about how the US coming out of the Cold War, at least this is my impression of what you were saying, is that we sort of adopted the same strategy with Beijing that we used with Moscow. If we just have this example of democracy between rock and roll and Hollywood and all these great influences and with the Chinese people, just like with the Russian people, that eventually this will fall, right? And this will sort of this very strict Communist approach will melt through diplomatic relations and sort of soft cultural relations. But your point is that. Absolutely, that approach will never work with China, and that's kind of how we're interacting with them now.
- [18:40]
B
After the Cold War, we just sort of assumed that that was the end of history, as political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously wrote. And that means that the world's ideological evolution ended in democracy and free markets. And we thought that China, because it was obviously benefiting from the international system, would see it in its interest to support it. But that's not the way that the Communist Party acted. It saw that as it gained strength, that it could overthrow that system, which is what the Communist Party is trying to do. So we made a fundamental mistake. Now any country can make a mistake. Our fault, which we compounded our initial error, was not to pivot and just realize we had made that mistake and changed our policies accordingly. So we made the grandest wager in history, and it's a wager that we could very well lose. And if we lose it, we lose our country. So this could be the last mistake that America has that will ever make. We have to understand what's at stake. This is not just competition between two countries. This is. You know, you'd hear John Mearsheimer and David Lambton and others say, oh, you know, we're just two large countries. We're just competing with each other. Well, no, we're not. We're defending the international system that it's been in place since 1648 with a piece of Westphalia. And the Chinese are trying to overthrow that system and to replace it with worldwide Chinese rule. And just to add a footnote to this, since 2017, Chinese officials have been talking about the moon and Mars in sovereign Chinese territory. That's right. A part of the People's Republic of China. So there's no room in. In China's conception of the world. There's no room for the United States. We have to understand that this is an existential struggle, that either we survive or we do not. Those are the only two choices that China is giving us.
- [20:45]
A
I feel like we're a bit asleep at the wheel, or we're just not really looking at what their intentions are with some of their initiatives. You know, the belt and road Program that China rolled out. We, we spend a lot of time in. And they had loaned, and I think they've done this throughout Africa. They've done it through Central America and South America. They loaned and the Caribbean too, from what I understand, Antigua money to build an airport. Antigua couldn't pay back the debt on the airport in the time that it was that they were supposed to. And so the deal was, well, that's fine, Antigua, why don't you go ahead and give us 2,000 acres on the island as an exchange. And that 2,000 acres has become sovereign Chinese territory. It's like they agreed to treat it like it's an embassy so the antigens cannot go on to inspect it. It's actually in this mangrove protected area that they're building a ton of things on. No one knows exactly what. And here I'm sitting there thinking, gosh, this is within striking distance of the US and it's 2,000 acres that no one's inspecting. And why is the US government not talking about this? And it's happening all over Africa. I was in Senegal a year and a half ago. They're building a road straight through Africa. They built the new airport there in Dakar. So here they are with this sort of, you could see it sort of like soft economic influence over these countries. But they literally have tentacles all over the world with this program.
- [22:16]
B
Yes, Belton road, announced in 2013, which was supposed to initially just connect the east coast of China with Europe, is now expanded across the world and actually into space. You know, if you look at it as an economic matter, it's a drain on China because China is building the infrastructure that the private sector wouldn't touch. Private sector wouldn't touch it because it's uneconomic. So it's a burden. But as you point out, China is using the debt to obtain geopolitical goals. So for instance, to give you another example, in Freeport in the Bahamas, there's a Chinese funded container port which is far too large to be economically successful. The idea was that because of the enlargement of the Panama Canal, that there would need to be feeder container ports around the region. I never thought that made sense, but it certainly doesn't make sense with the problems at the Panama Canal now. But China has a container port. That container port is 87 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. And that means we could have a Chinese naval base 87 miles east of Palm Beach. So yes, the stakes are enormous here. We should not be helping countries bail themselves out because that's basically A bailout of China. That's the last thing we should be doing. China overextended itself and we should make sure that China bears the costs of that overextension.
- [23:45]
A
But, you know, some of these countries, and I've talked to members of the government in Antigua and I talked to them about this particular project and they said, you know, China's helping us build roads, they're helping us build our airport. You know, you, meaning the US And Great Britain hasn't done anything for us in a long, long time. And so they're looking at that relationship and that diplomatic relationship with China as them being kind of partners, which is scary, I think, for us to have, you know, those, quote, countries sort of seeing China as an ally so close to our shores.
- [24:18]
B
Oh, absolutely. The geopolitical ramifications of Belt and Road are really frightening. I agree.
- [24:25]
A
You also talked about, you know, Xi's kind of war plan and how they are sort of waging a, a cold war or a soft war with the US now through things like TikTok and other political warfare. Will you talk more about, about that? Their kind of, their current efforts at kind of infiltrating or attacking, I guess, the U.S. yeah.
- [24:46]
B
TikTok, which is Chinese owned, has perhaps the world's most sophisticated curation algorithm. That's the algorithm that determines what users see and what they don't see. And it's very good because it's addictive, because it does show you what you want and it doesn't show you what you don't care to see. Now, we know that in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China used TikTok to promote Russian disinformation about the war. They did the same thing with Hamas. Of the videos On Hamas, on TikTok, 96.5% of them support the terrorist group. And that's by no accident. So we saw China in 2020 use TikTok to help Joe Biden over President Trump in the general election. We see hints of that this election cycle as well, where the videos on the site are overwhelmingly anti Trump. So really this is a national security threat. And in addition to that, China has violated every promise that's made about data security with regard to TikTok, because all of that data is pipelined to Beijing where it is available to the regime. So we should ban TikTok or force ownership to an American who controls the algorithm. This is just elemental. I mean, we can't have our apps in China, so why can China have its apps in the United States? This is not a First Amendment issue, as TikTok likes to frame it, because we're not trying to ban content, we are trying to go after conduct. And that means that if we can't do that, it shows China that we are a fundamentally weak government in society. If we can't deal with the known threat, then we will lose our country.
- [26:40]
A
Right. Because it's. So I think it's playing upon the divisions. Right. That are existing, you know, in the US Today, among our own people.
- [26:48]
B
Yes.
- [26:49]
A
But I feel like those TikTok hearings, it was. There was bipartisan support. I don't know where that. Where it is now with the banning of TikTok or somehow restricting it.
- [27:02]
B
President Biden signed legislation to force a sale to a US owner. TikTok is in the courts with its First Amendment claims, and so that has not been resolved. But here we are, long after we know about what TikTok has been doing, and it's still operating. And TikTok feels confident that it will be able to continue operating in the US Just one footnote to all this, which shows you where we're at, that is, in the last months of the Trump administration, the President was trying to force a sale of TikTok to an American owner. And then it was Oracle. That sale floundered. Not overpriced, but control of the algorithm. That shows you what China is really wanting out of this. The ability to propagate its narratives into the United States through an app which has 170 million American users.
- [28:00]
A
Right. And back to your original premise. Like the whole concept behind that is to destabilize. Right. Our society.
- [28:08]
B
Yes. And if you looked at China's efforts during this election cycle at the presidential level, it's not so much to favor one candidate over another, although there are hints that they do want the vice President to win. The most important thing that Beijing has been doing this election cycle is disrupting the United States and trying to create division by using fake posters and bots to talk about divisive issues down ballot. China is actually involved directly in trying to help certain candidates and hurt others. But in general, what it's been trying to do with the presidential election is just divide us.
- [28:48]
A
Yeah. And you talk also about other ways that they've been kind of waging war on us as we sleep. Covid being one and then fentanyl being another.
- [29:00]
B
Well, fentanyl, just the more recent example. When Xi Jinping was in Woodside, California, in the middle of November of last year, he promised to significantly reduce the flow of fentanyl precursors and toe presses across the Pacific. But that was the same Xi Jinping who made essentially the same promise to President Trump in 2018 and to President Obama in 2016. And Xi has violated all three promises. And the reason is that that's an integral part of his plan to weaken America. We know that in a total surveillance state, these fentanyl producers and gangs could not operate without the knowledge and approval of the Communist Party. But we don't have to speculate, because we also know that Chinese diplomats give coverage of the fentanyl producers and gangs. Some of them are actually even state owned. Every container that leaves China is inspected by Chinese officials. And the fentanyl gangs, they launder their proceeds through the Chinese state banking system. And going back to TikTok, Chinese owned TikTok is promoting illicit drug use in the United States. So this is a plan to kill Americans, which means that the 70 to 75,000Americans that die each year from doses of illicit Chinese fentanyl are murdered. And we need to treat those as murders rather than trying to cooperate with the Chinese regime, which has no intention of adhering to its promises.
- [30:29]
A
You also talked about, I think it's the second largest growing migrant group being group groups of Chinese coming across our southern borders. And you mentioned there are a group of them that are looking just to have a better life and enter the U.S. but there are also those that are members of the People's Liberation Army. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [30:50]
B
Yeah. The composition of Chinese migrants across our southern border has changed over the last couple years. In the past, it was, as you mentioned, family groups, obviously people who are desperate to live in a free society. But now at least two thirds, and in some border crossings, 80 to 85% of the Chinese migrants are single males of military age traveling without family members, many of them pretending not to speak English, coming across in packs of 5 to 15. We know that as this is occurring, there are increasing incursions of our military bases by Chinese nationals. So for instance, at the end of September, a Chinese national with a Canadian passport tried to gain entry into a nuclear weapons site in the continental United States. And so this is obviously great concern. Just to give you an example of how serious this is, it's not just our southern border, it's also our northern border.
- [31:50]
A
Yeah.
- [31:50]
B
In February, U.S. border Patrol apprehended three Chinese migrants trying to sneak into Maine. What was really concerning was that there was a fourth Chinese national on the main side, on our side of the border, obviously there by prearrangement, trying to help them get in. Now, if you want to come into the US because you want to live in a free society, you want to surrender to border patrol and put yourself in the system to get a debit card from New York and hotel stays. If you're trying to evade detection coming across the border, you're coming across for a nefarious purpose. We don't know exactly what the motives were with those Chinese nationals in Maine, but they could not have been up to any good.
- [32:33]
A
So what under our current system, were they then, Are they then detained pending a hearing, or are they. The new policy, I think, is that there's a release until the hearing. Is that right? So have we kept track of those four people? I guess is what I'm getting at.
- [32:48]
B
Okay. On these four, I believe that they must be in detention because I don't think they made an asylum claim. You know, if a person, Chinese or not, comes into the US and makes an asylum claim, they get a. Eventually they get a hearing date and they're put. Processed into the system. Almost all of these asylum claims are false and fake because they're not really coming in for asylum. I mean, if you're coming in from Canada, how can you have a real sense of fear of prosecution? Because you're coming in from a free society. And the same thing is true with Mexico, unless you're fearing the Mexican authorities. If you're coming in from Mexico, you're coming in from a relatively free society. So you can't have a valid asylum claim if that's what you're doing. And so clearly what this is is an attempt to erase our borders. And we know that this has been a project of the Venezuelan government and other enemies of the United States.
- [33:54]
A
You're building this argument, right? How they're kind of infiltrating our society, trying to create divisions among us. They're engaging and supporting different wars and insurgencies around the world. But it's your belief that they intentionally intend to, or they eventually, excuse me, intend to engage in a hot war with the U.S. yeah, of course.
- [34:17]
B
That they would like to avoid fighting, but yes, they're willing to do that. And we know that in the Philippines because with all these hostile acts against the Philippines, the Biden State department has issued 12 written warnings that the US is prepared to use force against China to discharge our obligations pursuant to our 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines. Also, President Biden has given three oral warnings specifically saying that we would be using force to defend our ally. And the Chinese just continue pressing the Philippines, which means they're willing to kill Americans. They're willing to take that risk that they will end up in a war and kill Americans. This is pursuant to and part of the Xi Jinping's plan. In May 2019, People's Daily, which is the most authoritative publication in China, declared a, quote, unquote, people's War on us. That's a phrase which has great meaning to the Communist Party. And if we were in any doubt what it meant. Last year, PLA Daily, which is an official website of the Chinese military, defined People's War as, quote, total war. So the Chinese have been very clear as to what they're doing. We as Americans though, think we have a God given right to ignore what our enemies say about us. We ignored Osama Bin Laden until he killed 2,977Americans on one day. And then we started to pay attention to what he had been saying for decades. Unfortunately, China is much more powerful than Al Qaeda ever could have been. So we face an existential threat and we're not paying attention to it.
- [35:59]
A
That's interesting. When you were making the comparison between the late 1930s and our time now saying that the Germans were surprised that Britain and France declared war on them with their invasion in Poland, it seems like with us continuing to issue threats in response to Chinese actions, but not actually following through on those threats, it kind of stands to reason that they too would be shocked by us actually responding. But eventually we may be put in a position where we have to respond with force.
- [36:32]
B
Yes, and that is the reason why hollow threats lead to wars. Look, the Chinese are aggressors, but we have permitted them to be aggressors. And history is going to blame us for not using power when we could have to maintain peace and stability in East Asia. So this is on us.
- [36:53]
A
Well, let's talk about that. Because you lay out in your book, you discuss the threat, which is so well explained, but you offer some recommendations about what we can do. What the United States should be doing now to address this threat. Severing ties with China diplomatically. Trade. Will you talk a little bit about more? What do you think the US Needs to do now?
- [37:17]
B
Well, I think that we should sever trade, investment, technical cooperation. China is using the proceeds of all of that to build its military to kill Americans. So this is strategically wrong and it's morally wrong. And China really needs us right now. And so we could actually have a great effect on China. Xi Jinping has turned his back on consumption as the basis of the Chinese economy. So he is relying on exports to rescue his dire situation, which means he needs access to our market, which means that he has put his fate in our hands and we should exercise American power to protect Americans. That's just a very simple proposition. The other thing we need to do is we need to close China's four consulates in the US because they've been engaged in activities that violate our laws and certainly violate our sovereignty. We should close their secret Chinese police stations, which the New York Post and the Daily Caller believe. There's seven to nine more of them. We should be looking for other Chinese secret biological weapons labs like the one they maintained in Reedley, California. We closed that one down, but I'm sure that was not the only one in our country. So we need to go after all of this. And Chinese banks, they've been laundering proceeds for the fentanyl gangs and for criminal activity in general. The Chinese have become the number one money launderers in the world, and they do that through New York City, where every dollar clears. We can declare them under the Patriot act to be primary of primary money laundering concern and deny them access to dollars. We need to do that because we didn't allow Pablo Escobar to launder money through New York. So why are we allowing our Chinese enemy to do that? And with that rather large embassy that China maintains in Washington D.C. we should just strip it down to the Ambassador and his personal staff. We do not need Chinese spies and others roaming around our country. So yes, we need to cut those links. And yes, that is dangerous. But the point is, after so many decades of misguided China policy, we have put ourselves into a position where every path going forward is dangerous. And the most dangerous one of all, I believe, is continuing with the policies that have created this situation in the first place.
- [39:47]
A
So today is November 4th. Tomorrow is election day. No matter who ends up being elected as president, what would you advise them to be their first step in trying to deal with China today?
- [39:59]
B
The most basic step is that the President of the United States needs to address the American people and say that we are on the edge of conflict with China. Xi Jinping talks about war all the time. He's preparing a society for war. He is stockpiling grain and other commodities. He's trying to sanction proof his regime. He's engaged in the fastest military buildup since the Second World War. He's firing military officers who are opposed to going into battle. He's mobilizing China's civilians for war. President of the United States needs to talk to us, the American people. Biden actually had a very candid conversation with Democratic Party donors in Salt Lake City, Utah, in August of last year, but he's not had that conversation with the United States. His number one constitutional duty is to protect us from foreign attack. He's completely failed to do that.
- [40:54]
A
So the first you think is just communicating with the American people about what we're facing. And I think the first step to that, I think, would be to encourage people to read your book. Because having had that personal experience in Antigua, where we spend a lot of time and seeing how that played out and asking just questions of the Antiguan government, like, wait a second, they have 2,000 acres and you're not allowed to go on and spec what they're doing there. It sort of got my wheels turning about just how extensive this issue is and that they obviously have plans that are. That go beyond trade and that we need to be more proactive and open our eyes a bit about how we're handling our relations with them. And to your point, our approach so far has not been effective because they just keep pushing their tentacles out further into different parts of the world in preparation for something.
- [41:46]
B
Yes, well, clearly they are. And they've got a plan, they're implementing it, and we're just oblivious.
- [41:56]
A
Well, Gordon, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about this very, very important issue. As I said, I was reading your book and so grateful to you for writing it, for opening my eyes, and I hope that your book will do the same for everybody that is listening. And this episode will as well.
- [42:13]
B
Well, I'm so grateful for this conversation, so thank you.
- [42:17]
A
Thank you so much. That brings us to the end of this episode of the interview. A huge thank you again to Gordon G. Chang for joining, and as always, thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We release a new episode every Wednesday, so until then, this is Leslie and thank you for joining the interview.