What do the fall of Venezuela’s Maduro regime and the war with Iran mean for China?
On this episode of The Truth with Lisa Boothe, Lisa is joined by China expert and bestselling author Gordon Chang to break down the geopolitical ripple effects of Operation Epic Fury and President Trump’s foreign policy moves.
Chang explains how China has relied on Iran and Venezuela as strategic proxies, why Chinese weapons and defense systems have failed against U.S. and Israeli forces, and how losing discounted oil from those regimes could hit China’s struggling economy.
They also dive into the biggest question: Does this make China more or less likely to invade Taiwan? Chang analyzes Xi Jinping’s political vulnerabilities, the turmoil inside China’s military leadership, and the growing risk of conflict with the United States.
Plus, they discuss China’s surveillance state, potential internal unrest, and why this moment could be a turning point in the global balance of power.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth. Well, we get
to the heart of the issues that matter to you. Today,
we're talking China with Gordon Chang. He is the author
of multiple books on China. But with majority's removal and
Iran's leadership and military decimated in Operation Epic Fury, how
does this.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
All impact China.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I know that China uses countries like Venezuela and Iran
as proxies, so what's the impact on China.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Also, Iran and Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Have both been armed with Chinese radar and aarrat defense
systems that have proven essentially useless against the United States
and Israeli attacks. So does that make China more likely
or less likely to try to take Taiwan? Also, China
has been dependent on crude from Venezuela and Iran at
discounted prices because of the sanctions. How does that impact
(00:52):
China's economy. We're going to dig into all this, you know,
taking on sort of a different angle to the Venezuela
and Iran situations from the prism of China. Stay tuned
for Gordon Chang. Well, Gordon, it's always great to have
you on the show. Appreciate you making time for us,
(01:13):
so thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, thank you, Lisa, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So we've seen a lot of development throughout the old
President Trump's been very active. We've seen it since we've
last had you on the show. President Trump has captured
Maduro in Venezuela and we've also gone to war in
Iran as well. When you look at those actions, how
much of that is to counter China welco us through
(01:40):
the China angle to those two specific actions.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Both Venezuela and Iran were Chinese proxies. I'm sure that
the Venezuelans and the Iranians student view it that way,
but the Chinese certainly did. And both of those regimes
were able to maintain themselves because of Beijing. So, for instance,
when you look at Iran, China was taking about ninety
percent of Iran's exports of crude oil eighty seven point
(02:07):
two percent last year. But also China was giving diplomatic support,
propaganda support to Tehran, weapons support. When you look at
the Iranian drones, they've got computer chips in them. Those
computer chips are probably Chinese made or were sent into
Iran through Chinese intermediaries. In other words, China was buying
(02:29):
those on the black market and sending them to the Iranians.
Iran's nuclear weapons program is largely a Chinese program, and
Iran's terrorist proxies, Hamas and the Huthi militia all have
large quantities of Chinese weapons. You put that all together
and it's clear that c. Jimping was using Iran to
(02:49):
disrupt the world. And you can make the same argument
with Venezuela because the support there was also extensive. The
Chavez and the Maduro regimes were in place because Beijing
was supporting them with money and of course with weapons
and diplomatic and began to support.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And so what is China get out of that?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Tell Us expand upon a little bit more about how
China uses these proxies and why China uses them.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I think that Siegimping, who revers Mao Zadung, the founder
of the People's Republic, took two pages out of Mao's
peasant movement playbook. One of them was Mao prevailed in
the Chinese Civil War in nineteen forty nine by quote
encircling the cities from the countryside, a famous phrase now
(03:38):
in Communist Party, Lingo and basically Sijiping was using Iran
and Venezuela to surround the United States, which they considered
to be the city. The other page from Mao's playbook
was the promotion of chaos, and clearly Iran was creating
chaos in the Middle East. Venezuela was eating chaos at
(04:00):
our southern border. If you remember during the Biden administration,
those caravans that were traveling up through Central America and
Mexico into the United States. A lot of part of
that was not organic, that was organized by Venezuela with
Venezuelan money and subtle support. So clearly we have Caracas
(04:22):
and Tron being used by Beijing. So that's why I
think that you can call those two regimes proxies of China,
or at least you could now no longer.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, you had mentioned that Iran and its proxies
have been dependent on Chinese software, Chinese weaponry. You know,
you look at just how easy it seems to be
to decimate Auran in short order, as well as its
proxies with the United States and Israel. What message does
(04:57):
it'send China that the outside of the drones has had
a really easy time sort of decapitating Iran's military.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There are a number of messages there. One of them,
of course, is the superb performance of the US military.
But more important, it tells the Chinese that the United
States is willing to use force to achieve its goals,
and those goals also help peace and order in the world.
So I think it has an important message for siegent Ping.
(05:30):
I mean, he looks at the United States and even
certainly Biden and even Trump. Up through last year, CG
Ping looked at American presidents as things to be pushed around.
He pushed around Biden, He even pushed around Trump last year.
And I'm not saying that the Chinese view of the
(05:50):
United States is right, but they thought the United States
was in terminal decline, and that made China very very aggressive.
You come to January three of this year, your President
Trump extracts Maduro and his wife from Caracas, and I
think the Chinese then start to look at the United
States and President Trump in a very different light. And
(06:11):
I think they're worried right now about our president. That's
a good thing, because when the Chinese are worried about US,
it means they are cautious, and when they're cautious, they
tend not to do things that are adverse to our
interests or the interests of the international community writ large.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You know, do you think there's any part because I've
been kind of thinking through this question on my head,
which you kind of just answered it in terms of
does this all make China less likely or more likely
to try to take Taiwan? Because, on the one hand,
in the United States is bogged down right now, right
from a manpower perspective, as well as you know, going
through our stockpiles both in being involved in what's going
(06:53):
on in Ukraine and Europe, as well as you know
Venezuela now and then are on potentially Cuba. You know,
So does China look at that and say, hey, look
they're distracted. Now is the time? Or you know what
I mean, Like, I guess kind of what what do
you think the thought processed in China is right now?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That's a critical question, and I think they look at
it from a number of different perspectives. First of all,
they do look at the United States as being tied
down around the world, and you know, in a theoretical sense,
I do believe that they see that this is an
opportunity to, for instance, take Taiwan, but it almost doesn't matter.
And the reason is that the Chinese military right now
(07:35):
is not capable of starting hostilities by invading the main
island of Taiwan. So whatever the Chinese think about us,
they know that they are not ready. The Chinese military
has been decimated with Siejimping's purges. So, for instance, on
January twenty fourth, the Ministry of National Defense announced the
(07:55):
investigation of two generals. One of them was General John
Yao Chao, who is then the number one uniformed officer
in the Chinese military, the first vice chairman of the
Communist Party's Central Military Commission. The Central Military Commission of
the Party controls the Chinese military, and right now, because
of the purges, this seven member group only has two
(08:19):
sitting members that Si Jianping himself, who of course is
not a military officer, and a political commissar. There are
no operational officers left on the Chinese Central Military Commission,
so the chain of command has been severed. It's been
severed for the first time in the history of the
People's Republic. And there are a lot of other reasons
(08:41):
why I believe that the Chinese are not ready to
take Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
This is not to say that the Chinese military won't
start a war. I mean they could easily blunder into
a war, and I think the chance of that is
extremely high for a number of reasons. But in terms
of the Chinese waking up one day and saying we're
invading the main island to Taiwan, that's just not likely
for at least some time. And by the way, the
(09:09):
people in Taiwan and the government in Taiwan are cheering
on the United States in Iran because they know what's
at stake and they realize that a successful American outcome
in Iran means that they in Taiwan are a lot safer.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Got to take a quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
More. On the other side, you mentioned there are a
number of reasons they might blunder into trying to take Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
What would those be?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Cijmping, I think believes that a high degree of tension
is in his personal interest now and that's why we
have been seeing belligerent Chinese conduct from an arc from
India to South Korea in the north. And I think
that Cgmping believes that this high degree of tension helps him,
(09:56):
not because if it starts a war, he doesn't think
it's going to rally the Chinese people. The Chinese people
right now do not want war. But I think that
he believes that a high degree of tension is in
his interest because it will prevent other senior Communist Party
figures from challenging or deposing him. You got to think
about his mentality, and this goes back to the time
(10:19):
that he took power in twenty twelve, when he became
the Communist Party's General Secretary, in other words, the ruler
of China. He inherited a consensual political system where no
supreme Chinese leader got either too much credit or too
much blame, because every decision of consequence was shared across
(10:41):
the top of the political system, in other words, across
the polup Buro Standing Committee and sometimes even across the
wider polup Bureau itself. But Sigimping, who grabbed power from
everybody else, ended up with total accountability. Now this is
great if you're cgmping in twenty seventeen, where everything is
going Chinese way, China's way, and you're getting all the
credit for it. But it's not so great. In twenty
(11:03):
twenty six, when things are definitely not going your way,
Sigmping is being blamed for policies and correctly being blamed
because his policies are accelerating China's problems. The other thing, Lisa,
is that in twenty twelve, when he became General Secretary,
he inherited a system where if you got drummed out
(11:24):
of the leadership, you got a nice house. But Sigemping
raised the cost of losing political struggles by jailing his opponents,
stripping them of their assets, and going hard after their families.
So Sigimping's mentality is, look, I'm being blamed for everything,
and I could lose everything. I think that he can
just decide to roll the dice, which means China cannot
(11:44):
de escalate, it cannot act constructively if one of these
incidents that China's provoking goes wrong. That's why I think
China can blunder into a war.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
What do you think the probability is that this happens
during the Trump administration, so we're.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Talking about two years. I think it's a little bit
better than fifty to fifty. I think President Trump can
stare down Siegemping, but it's going to be a very
close run thing. So I'm really very worried about what
Siegimping might do. You know, you get a desperate China
who knows what these guys are going to do. And
(12:21):
you got to remember that China right now can't solve
its own problems. It has an economy which is failing,
and the only realistic way for China to save its
economy is to export more, which means they need the
United States to keep barriers down. They need the rest
of the world to do that. So Sigemping has placed
(12:41):
his fate in the hands of President Trump and other
leaders around the world. This is not a good situation
for China right now, and I think that that makes
Sigimping very insecure.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
How strong is China's military because what we're saying with
Iran at least, and we saw this during the Twelve
Day War, and then you know now that Iran is
sort of a paper tiger.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Is China.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, that's we only will know once we see them
in action. I think they're not nearly as good as
people say. I think that if you're talking about the
first week of a war. They probably pretty good. They've
got all sorts of plans, they're just executing them. But
when they get counterpunched, and that inevitably happens, then I
(13:32):
think that they don't do very well. And the reason
is that this is a communist military. Communist militaries have
two reporting lines, a military reporting line and a political
reporting line. Remember the only other member on the Central
Military Commission, he's a political commissar. He's really powerful because he,
(13:52):
you know, the political reporting line runs through him. Two
lines of communication and authority in a military just doesn't
work at all, and it doesn't work in any organization
for that matter. So for that reason alone, I think
that China is less capable than it appears with its weapons.
It's got some really good weapons, some weapons that we
(14:12):
don't have, and that's our fault. But the question is
can China use them effectively? Because tactics are as important
as weapons, as we've seen in Iran, for instance. So
when you put all that, and one other thing is
that a lot of the weapons are not nearly as
good as advertised, as we've heard from Bloomberg and other reporting,
(14:32):
you put all that together, I actually think that China's
military is really good in intimidating others to back down,
but when it comes to a fight, I just don't
think that they're up to it. Remember their rumors are
that General John Yashaut, the guy who was the guy
who's an investigation was announced on the twenty fourth of January.
(14:52):
He was telling CJM. Pin, We're not ready to go
to war. And I think that General Jong, who was
one of the few senior officers who had any wartime experience,
and his wartime experience goes back to nineteen seventy nine
when China invaded Vietnam in that failed attempt to punish
the Vietnamese. General John was right. The Chinese military is
(15:15):
not ready to go to war.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
You mentioned China's economy struggling.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You know, China has been somewhat dependent on discounted crude
from Venezuela and Iran, So how has that impacted China
financially On the energy front, this is.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Not going to be a good story for China, and
we saw that in the first days after the US
attack on Iran that gasoline spiked eleven point zero percent,
and diesel, which is more important for the Chinese economy,
shored a thirteen point five percent, and those numbers are
only going to go up. Now. China will cap prices,
(15:54):
but it really has only two avenues of significance. One
of them is tapping its strategic petroleum reserve, which we
don't know exactly how much is in it, but some
people say nine hundred million barrels, some people say one
point two billion barrels. At most, it's one hundred and
forty days of cover of imports. The other thing they
(16:15):
can do is buy from Russia, but the Russians are
going to jack up the price, and that means, go
to your point, China's not going to get discounted crude anymore,
and they're going to have to pay in hard currency,
which they don't like doing. They'd rather pay in the REMMB,
their own currency. I mean, this is not a mortal shock,
(16:35):
but considering everything else that's going on, it really hurts
China at a crucial time.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, what is the likelihood we've seen and are on,
you know, mass protests break out across the nation. We've
seen protests recently in Cuba when as electricity was down
and also economic hardship felt in both countries. What's the
likelihood of Chinese protests could they go anywhere? You know,
(17:03):
how do you see that potentially unfolding?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
China runs the most sophisticated set of and coercive set
of social controls outside of North Korea. The North Koreans
are really good at this. The Chinese are second best,
and so they were able to control the Chinese people
almost all the time. But we have seen periods where
(17:27):
the Chinese people explode. The last time we saw this
was October twenty twenty two, when the workers at an
iPhone factory and Jung Joe in central China just got
sick and tired of the COVID controls. They exploded. They
scrambled over the fences, They left people around the plant
(17:48):
at great risks of themselves helped the workers flee as
they scrambled, you know, across fields and down roads. This
was fascinating because it triggered other protests throughout China, just
on COVID controls, on everything else. So in Shanghai in
the following month, people were in the streets chanting down
with siege and being down with the Communist Party, which
(18:09):
means the sentiment was revolutionary. But these protests continued in
China until about January of twenty twenty three when they
sort of petered out. But we saw just all segments
of society just express their extreme displeasure at the party.
Party was able to put this back into the box.
(18:30):
But this tells us that the Chinese people are folliable.
And this is something that we know because in many
traffic accidents in China they end up in fistfights because
there's just so much repressed anger in society. So yes,
China is able to control people for long periods of
time until it can't and then you know, we don't
(18:51):
know where this is going. But we've got to remember
the Chinese people right now are very unhappy. It gloomy.
The one thing that works in the regime's favor is
that they are so depressed and when people don't have help,
they generally don't protest, but they are getting desperate and
that is a factor on that sparks protest and they
are angry and the regime could lose its grip.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Also, Apple restricted some air drop features in China during
those anti government protests in twenty twenty two, which they
were using to help circumvent the government or China What Chinese.
You know, people were walk us through for the controls
that China has a large part of that is AI driven,
correct kind.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Of increasingly, so they've got for through.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Their way, you know, their their means of control.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
They're not at last count, which was last year or so,
like seven hundred million surveillance cameras. They use one point
I forget three points one point three stikes whatever, cell
phones for surveillance. They have social credit system. You know,
we've got credit, We've got credit reports on every American,
(20:00):
but their credit reports are not just credit, they are
political social behavior. So they've got they're putting together their
nationwide social credit system. The Communist Party has what they
call the neighborhood grannies, you know, generally older people who
watch people coming in and out of their little communities.
(20:20):
So it is a and the Communist Party itself is
more than one hundred million people. So it is a
total surveillance society, and it is AI technology driven. They
are very good at that, they are pioneering it. The
only country that comes closer surveillance is North Korea, which
uses different types of surveillance mechanisms than China. Less technology driven,
(20:45):
more person people driven But the point is this is
the total control society, and we should stop talking about
China as authoritarian, as a lot of people say, it's
at least semi totalitarian. Lisa and I think even total
to and would not be inappropriate for describing the Chinese
state these days.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Quick breaks stay with us.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
If you like what you're hearing, please share in social
media or send it to your family and friends. You know,
as we move toward AI and a more technologically driven
society or you know, like centralized baking and things like that,
how concerned are you that, like we could follow in
those footsteps in terms of giving me the government ability
(21:28):
to track us and control us.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, the US government has marvelous, they would say, the
ability to surveil us, and we stee not only in
the United States, but you know Britain where all these
surveillance cameras we find all these criminals. Like the guy
who killed the United Healthcare CEO. He's found in Altoona, Pennsylvania,
because the guy got just tracked as he fled New
(21:52):
York City. So yeah, it is in our society. The
difference though, between America and China is that our government
is democratically elected that means if people don't want the surveillance,
they can stop it. Now government has sort of a
momentum of its own, but we can stop it if
we decide that that's what we want. Now the American
(22:15):
people have you know, there's been a lot of discussion
in our society about the proper surveillance and it's not
as intrusive as China is because we are a democratic society.
But yeah, I worry about that and it is something
that is a discussion we are going to continue to have,
especially as technology gives the government more and more means
(22:36):
to control. This is now coming down to this idea
of a central bank digital currency, which is one of
the means that China is now starting to employ to
control the Chinese people. That is something that we're going
to have to confront. Unfortunately we don't have it now.
But this is basically a surveillance issue.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And before we go, is there anything I've missed in
my questioning to you that you want to convey to
the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I think that this is a crucial time. C Gmpin
always talks about going to war. It's a constant theme
that he has and one of his favorite phrases is
dare to fight. We Americans tend to think we're at peace,
and because of that, although we are a far stronger
society than China, we can lose our country because we're
(23:24):
not understanding the situation we're in. This is a crucial
time and we need the President of the United States
to talk to the American people in realistic tones about
how dangerous the world is right now. Remember, we just
found the second of China's biological weapons facilities on American soil.
(23:47):
That was on January thirty one when Las Vegas Swat
and federal agents descended upon that home in Las Vegas
and found over a thousand vials of a reddish substance
or substances that was making people deathly well. This is
after December twenty twenty two where authorities in California found
(24:07):
that the secret Chinese biological weapons lab that had more
almost one thousand mice that have been genetically engineered to
spread disease and at least twenty pathogens, some of them
for deadly diseases like ebola. So the Chinese are really
moving on our society and we're not protecting ourselves. So
(24:29):
we need to start thinking about the world in much
more realistic tones, because if we don't, then we will
be unprepared for what very well could happen.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Not much of that's because of open borders under Biden.
We know a lot of Chinese nationals made their way
to the United States during those four years.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yes, there are Chinese agents, operatives, and soldiers in our country,
and there's more. They were there before Biden, but there
are more of them because of the open border. If
you go back to the early the first after Biden
was elected the Chinese there was an unprecedented surge of
Chinese migrants in our country, but most of them were
(25:12):
family groups, in other words, people who were desperate to
live in a free society. Towards the end of the
Biden era, US Border patrol noticed that there was a
stark change in the composition of Chinese migrants that towards
the end, about two thirds and at some border crossings
eighty five percent of the Chinese migrants were single males
(25:33):
of military age, traveling without family members, some pretending not
to speak English. Border patrol knew that some of them
had links to the Chinese military, and many of these
guys were coming across in packs of four to fifteen,
and some of these packs of Chinese males, they were
actually decked out in an identical kit. So yeah, we've
(25:56):
got to be really concerned that they're now more of
them here. And it's not just the Chinese, it's the Iranians.
Remember that September eleventh, twenty twenty three deal that Biden
had with Iran. Well, part of that deal, he gave
five Iranian operatives clemency, which was in exchange for releasing Americans.
(26:17):
But and so I can sort of accept that, But
what I can't accept is that he gave three of
those five Iranian operatives, he released them into the United
States at a time when Irani other Iranian operatives were
trying to kill President Trump, trying to kill Mike Pompeio,
former Secretary of State, and we're trying to kill other
(26:39):
Trump senior officials. So we know these guys are here,
and unfortunately ICE and federal authorities have just been overwhelmed.
So we got to get these guys out of our
country because they are here to kill us.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think if they're you know, doing
these biolabs with all these dangerous pathogens, that's the objective,
Gordon Chang. Always interesting to hear your perspective. Oay, scary
but important warnings for us to heed. And I hope
that the Trump administration and our government, I hope they're
paying attention.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So Gordon Chang, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Sir, well, thank you, Lisa, and stay safe.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
That was Gordon Chang. Appreciate him for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also want
to thank my producer, John Casside for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Until next time.
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth. Well, we get
to the heart of the issues that matter to you. Today,
we're talking China with Gordon Chang. He is the author
of multiple books on China. But with majority's removal and
Iran's leadership and military decimated in Operation Epic Fury, how
does this.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
All impact China.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I know that China uses countries like Venezuela and Iran
as proxies, so what's the impact on China.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Also, Iran and Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Have both been armed with Chinese radar and aarrat defense
systems that have proven essentially useless against the United States
and Israeli attacks. So does that make China more likely
or less likely to try to take Taiwan? Also, China
has been dependent on crude from Venezuela and Iran at
discounted prices because of the sanctions. How does that impact
(00:52):
China's economy. We're going to dig into all this, you know,
taking on sort of a different angle to the Venezuela
and Iran situations from the prism of China. Stay tuned
for Gordon Chang. Well, Gordon, it's always great to have
you on the show. Appreciate you making time for us,
(01:13):
so thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, thank you, Lisa, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So we've seen a lot of development throughout the old
President Trump's been very active. We've seen it since we've
last had you on the show. President Trump has captured
Maduro in Venezuela and we've also gone to war in
Iran as well. When you look at those actions, how
much of that is to counter China welco us through
(01:40):
the China angle to those two specific actions.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Both Venezuela and Iran were Chinese proxies. I'm sure that
the Venezuelans and the Iranians student view it that way,
but the Chinese certainly did. And both of those regimes
were able to maintain themselves because of Beijing. So, for instance,
when you look at Iran, China was taking about ninety
percent of Iran's exports of crude oil eighty seven point
(02:07):
two percent last year. But also China was giving diplomatic support,
propaganda support to Tehran, weapons support. When you look at
the Iranian drones, they've got computer chips in them. Those
computer chips are probably Chinese made or were sent into
Iran through Chinese intermediaries. In other words, China was buying
(02:29):
those on the black market and sending them to the Iranians.
Iran's nuclear weapons program is largely a Chinese program, and
Iran's terrorist proxies, Hamas and the Huthi militia all have
large quantities of Chinese weapons. You put that all together
and it's clear that c. Jimping was using Iran to
(02:49):
disrupt the world. And you can make the same argument
with Venezuela because the support there was also extensive. The
Chavez and the Maduro regimes were in place because Beijing
was supporting them with money and of course with weapons
and diplomatic and began to support.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And so what is China get out of that?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Tell Us expand upon a little bit more about how
China uses these proxies and why China uses them.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I think that Siegimping, who revers Mao Zadung, the founder
of the People's Republic, took two pages out of Mao's
peasant movement playbook. One of them was Mao prevailed in
the Chinese Civil War in nineteen forty nine by quote
encircling the cities from the countryside, a famous phrase now
(03:38):
in Communist Party, Lingo and basically Sijiping was using Iran
and Venezuela to surround the United States, which they considered
to be the city. The other page from Mao's playbook
was the promotion of chaos, and clearly Iran was creating
chaos in the Middle East. Venezuela was eating chaos at
(04:00):
our southern border. If you remember during the Biden administration,
those caravans that were traveling up through Central America and
Mexico into the United States. A lot of part of
that was not organic, that was organized by Venezuela with
Venezuelan money and subtle support. So clearly we have Caracas
(04:22):
and Tron being used by Beijing. So that's why I
think that you can call those two regimes proxies of China,
or at least you could now no longer.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, you had mentioned that Iran and its proxies
have been dependent on Chinese software, Chinese weaponry. You know,
you look at just how easy it seems to be
to decimate Auran in short order, as well as its
proxies with the United States and Israel. What message does
(04:57):
it'send China that the outside of the drones has had
a really easy time sort of decapitating Iran's military.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There are a number of messages there. One of them,
of course, is the superb performance of the US military.
But more important, it tells the Chinese that the United
States is willing to use force to achieve its goals,
and those goals also help peace and order in the world.
So I think it has an important message for siegent Ping.
(05:30):
I mean, he looks at the United States and even
certainly Biden and even Trump. Up through last year, CG
Ping looked at American presidents as things to be pushed around.
He pushed around Biden, He even pushed around Trump last year.
And I'm not saying that the Chinese view of the
(05:50):
United States is right, but they thought the United States
was in terminal decline, and that made China very very aggressive.
You come to January three of this year, your President
Trump extracts Maduro and his wife from Caracas, and I
think the Chinese then start to look at the United
States and President Trump in a very different light. And
(06:11):
I think they're worried right now about our president. That's
a good thing, because when the Chinese are worried about US,
it means they are cautious, and when they're cautious, they
tend not to do things that are adverse to our
interests or the interests of the international community writ large.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You know, do you think there's any part because I've
been kind of thinking through this question on my head,
which you kind of just answered it in terms of
does this all make China less likely or more likely
to try to take Taiwan? Because, on the one hand,
in the United States is bogged down right now, right
from a manpower perspective, as well as you know, going
through our stockpiles both in being involved in what's going
(06:53):
on in Ukraine and Europe, as well as you know
Venezuela now and then are on potentially Cuba. You know,
So does China look at that and say, hey, look
they're distracted. Now is the time? Or you know what
I mean, Like, I guess kind of what what do
you think the thought processed in China is right now?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That's a critical question, and I think they look at
it from a number of different perspectives. First of all,
they do look at the United States as being tied
down around the world, and you know, in a theoretical sense,
I do believe that they see that this is an
opportunity to, for instance, take Taiwan, but it almost doesn't matter.
And the reason is that the Chinese military right now
(07:35):
is not capable of starting hostilities by invading the main
island of Taiwan. So whatever the Chinese think about us,
they know that they are not ready. The Chinese military
has been decimated with Siejimping's purges. So, for instance, on
January twenty fourth, the Ministry of National Defense announced the
(07:55):
investigation of two generals. One of them was General John
Yao Chao, who is then the number one uniformed officer
in the Chinese military, the first vice chairman of the
Communist Party's Central Military Commission. The Central Military Commission of
the Party controls the Chinese military, and right now, because
of the purges, this seven member group only has two
(08:19):
sitting members that Si Jianping himself, who of course is
not a military officer, and a political commissar. There are
no operational officers left on the Chinese Central Military Commission,
so the chain of command has been severed. It's been
severed for the first time in the history of the
People's Republic. And there are a lot of other reasons
(08:41):
why I believe that the Chinese are not ready to
take Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Now.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
This is not to say that the Chinese military won't
start a war. I mean they could easily blunder into
a war, and I think the chance of that is
extremely high for a number of reasons. But in terms
of the Chinese waking up one day and saying we're
invading the main island to Taiwan, that's just not likely
for at least some time. And by the way, the
(09:09):
people in Taiwan and the government in Taiwan are cheering
on the United States in Iran because they know what's
at stake and they realize that a successful American outcome
in Iran means that they in Taiwan are a lot safer.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Got to take a quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
More. On the other side, you mentioned there are a
number of reasons they might blunder into trying to take Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
What would those be?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Cijmping, I think believes that a high degree of tension
is in his personal interest now and that's why we
have been seeing belligerent Chinese conduct from an arc from
India to South Korea in the north. And I think
that Cgmping believes that this high degree of tension helps him,
(09:56):
not because if it starts a war, he doesn't think
it's going to rally the Chinese people. The Chinese people
right now do not want war. But I think that
he believes that a high degree of tension is in
his interest because it will prevent other senior Communist Party
figures from challenging or deposing him. You got to think
about his mentality, and this goes back to the time
(10:19):
that he took power in twenty twelve, when he became
the Communist Party's General Secretary, in other words, the ruler
of China. He inherited a consensual political system where no
supreme Chinese leader got either too much credit or too
much blame, because every decision of consequence was shared across
(10:41):
the top of the political system, in other words, across
the polup Buro Standing Committee and sometimes even across the
wider polup Bureau itself. But Sigimping, who grabbed power from
everybody else, ended up with total accountability. Now this is
great if you're cgmping in twenty seventeen, where everything is
going Chinese way, China's way, and you're getting all the
credit for it. But it's not so great. In twenty
(11:03):
twenty six, when things are definitely not going your way,
Sigmping is being blamed for policies and correctly being blamed
because his policies are accelerating China's problems. The other thing, Lisa,
is that in twenty twelve, when he became General Secretary,
he inherited a system where if you got drummed out
(11:24):
of the leadership, you got a nice house. But Sigemping
raised the cost of losing political struggles by jailing his opponents,
stripping them of their assets, and going hard after their families.
So Sigimping's mentality is, look, I'm being blamed for everything,
and I could lose everything. I think that he can
just decide to roll the dice, which means China cannot
(11:44):
de escalate, it cannot act constructively if one of these
incidents that China's provoking goes wrong. That's why I think
China can blunder into a war.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
What do you think the probability is that this happens
during the Trump administration, so we're.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Talking about two years. I think it's a little bit
better than fifty to fifty. I think President Trump can
stare down Siegemping, but it's going to be a very
close run thing. So I'm really very worried about what
Siegimping might do. You know, you get a desperate China
who knows what these guys are going to do. And
(12:21):
you got to remember that China right now can't solve
its own problems. It has an economy which is failing,
and the only realistic way for China to save its
economy is to export more, which means they need the
United States to keep barriers down. They need the rest
of the world to do that. So Sigemping has placed
(12:41):
his fate in the hands of President Trump and other
leaders around the world. This is not a good situation
for China right now, and I think that that makes
Sigimping very insecure.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
How strong is China's military because what we're saying with
Iran at least, and we saw this during the Twelve
Day War, and then you know now that Iran is
sort of a paper tiger.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Is China.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, that's we only will know once we see them
in action. I think they're not nearly as good as
people say. I think that if you're talking about the
first week of a war. They probably pretty good. They've
got all sorts of plans, they're just executing them. But
when they get counterpunched, and that inevitably happens, then I
(13:32):
think that they don't do very well. And the reason
is that this is a communist military. Communist militaries have
two reporting lines, a military reporting line and a political
reporting line. Remember the only other member on the Central
Military Commission, he's a political commissar. He's really powerful because he,
(13:52):
you know, the political reporting line runs through him. Two
lines of communication and authority in a military just doesn't
work at all, and it doesn't work in any organization
for that matter. So for that reason alone, I think
that China is less capable than it appears with its weapons.
It's got some really good weapons, some weapons that we
(14:12):
don't have, and that's our fault. But the question is
can China use them effectively? Because tactics are as important
as weapons, as we've seen in Iran, for instance. So
when you put all that, and one other thing is
that a lot of the weapons are not nearly as
good as advertised, as we've heard from Bloomberg and other reporting,
(14:32):
you put all that together, I actually think that China's
military is really good in intimidating others to back down,
but when it comes to a fight, I just don't
think that they're up to it. Remember their rumors are
that General John Yashaut, the guy who was the guy
who's an investigation was announced on the twenty fourth of January.
(14:52):
He was telling CJM. Pin, We're not ready to go
to war. And I think that General Jong, who was
one of the few senior officers who had any wartime experience,
and his wartime experience goes back to nineteen seventy nine
when China invaded Vietnam in that failed attempt to punish
the Vietnamese. General John was right. The Chinese military is
(15:15):
not ready to go to war.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
You mentioned China's economy struggling.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
You know, China has been somewhat dependent on discounted crude
from Venezuela and Iran, So how has that impacted China
financially On the energy front, this is.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Not going to be a good story for China, and
we saw that in the first days after the US
attack on Iran that gasoline spiked eleven point zero percent,
and diesel, which is more important for the Chinese economy,
shored a thirteen point five percent, and those numbers are
only going to go up. Now. China will cap prices,
(15:54):
but it really has only two avenues of significance. One
of them is tapping its strategic petroleum reserve, which we
don't know exactly how much is in it, but some
people say nine hundred million barrels, some people say one
point two billion barrels. At most, it's one hundred and
forty days of cover of imports. The other thing they
(16:15):
can do is buy from Russia, but the Russians are
going to jack up the price, and that means, go
to your point, China's not going to get discounted crude anymore,
and they're going to have to pay in hard currency,
which they don't like doing. They'd rather pay in the REMMB,
their own currency. I mean, this is not a mortal shock,
(16:35):
but considering everything else that's going on, it really hurts
China at a crucial time.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, what is the likelihood we've seen and are on,
you know, mass protests break out across the nation. We've
seen protests recently in Cuba when as electricity was down
and also economic hardship felt in both countries. What's the
likelihood of Chinese protests could they go anywhere? You know,
(17:03):
how do you see that potentially unfolding?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
China runs the most sophisticated set of and coercive set
of social controls outside of North Korea. The North Koreans
are really good at this. The Chinese are second best,
and so they were able to control the Chinese people
almost all the time. But we have seen periods where
(17:27):
the Chinese people explode. The last time we saw this
was October twenty twenty two, when the workers at an
iPhone factory and Jung Joe in central China just got
sick and tired of the COVID controls. They exploded. They
scrambled over the fences, They left people around the plant
(17:48):
at great risks of themselves helped the workers flee as
they scrambled, you know, across fields and down roads. This
was fascinating because it triggered other protests throughout China, just
on COVID controls, on everything else. So in Shanghai in
the following month, people were in the streets chanting down
with siege and being down with the Communist Party, which
(18:09):
means the sentiment was revolutionary. But these protests continued in
China until about January of twenty twenty three when they
sort of petered out. But we saw just all segments
of society just express their extreme displeasure at the party.
Party was able to put this back into the box.
(18:30):
But this tells us that the Chinese people are folliable.
And this is something that we know because in many
traffic accidents in China they end up in fistfights because
there's just so much repressed anger in society. So yes,
China is able to control people for long periods of
time until it can't and then you know, we don't
(18:51):
know where this is going. But we've got to remember
the Chinese people right now are very unhappy. It gloomy.
The one thing that works in the regime's favor is
that they are so depressed and when people don't have help,
they generally don't protest, but they are getting desperate and
that is a factor on that sparks protest and they
are angry and the regime could lose its grip.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Also, Apple restricted some air drop features in China during
those anti government protests in twenty twenty two, which they
were using to help circumvent the government or China What Chinese.
You know, people were walk us through for the controls
that China has a large part of that is AI driven,
correct kind.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Of increasingly, so they've got for through.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Their way, you know, their their means of control.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
They're not at last count, which was last year or so,
like seven hundred million surveillance cameras. They use one point
I forget three points one point three stikes whatever, cell
phones for surveillance. They have social credit system. You know,
we've got credit, We've got credit reports on every American,
(20:00):
but their credit reports are not just credit, they are
political social behavior. So they've got they're putting together their
nationwide social credit system. The Communist Party has what they
call the neighborhood grannies, you know, generally older people who
watch people coming in and out of their little communities.
(20:20):
So it is a and the Communist Party itself is
more than one hundred million people. So it is a
total surveillance society, and it is AI technology driven. They
are very good at that, they are pioneering it. The
only country that comes closer surveillance is North Korea, which
uses different types of surveillance mechanisms than China. Less technology driven,
(20:45):
more person people driven But the point is this is
the total control society, and we should stop talking about
China as authoritarian, as a lot of people say, it's
at least semi totalitarian. Lisa and I think even total
to and would not be inappropriate for describing the Chinese
state these days.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Quick breaks stay with us.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
If you like what you're hearing, please share in social
media or send it to your family and friends. You know,
as we move toward AI and a more technologically driven
society or you know, like centralized baking and things like that,
how concerned are you that, like we could follow in
those footsteps in terms of giving me the government ability
(21:28):
to track us and control us.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, the US government has marvelous, they would say, the
ability to surveil us, and we stee not only in
the United States, but you know Britain where all these
surveillance cameras we find all these criminals. Like the guy
who killed the United Healthcare CEO. He's found in Altoona, Pennsylvania,
because the guy got just tracked as he fled New
(21:52):
York City. So yeah, it is in our society. The
difference though, between America and China is that our government
is democratically elected that means if people don't want the surveillance,
they can stop it. Now government has sort of a
momentum of its own, but we can stop it if
we decide that that's what we want. Now the American
(22:15):
people have you know, there's been a lot of discussion
in our society about the proper surveillance and it's not
as intrusive as China is because we are a democratic society.
But yeah, I worry about that and it is something
that is a discussion we are going to continue to have,
especially as technology gives the government more and more means
(22:36):
to control. This is now coming down to this idea
of a central bank digital currency, which is one of
the means that China is now starting to employ to
control the Chinese people. That is something that we're going
to have to confront. Unfortunately we don't have it now.
But this is basically a surveillance issue.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And before we go, is there anything I've missed in
my questioning to you that you want to convey to
the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I think that this is a crucial time. C Gmpin
always talks about going to war. It's a constant theme
that he has and one of his favorite phrases is
dare to fight. We Americans tend to think we're at peace,
and because of that, although we are a far stronger
society than China, we can lose our country because we're
(23:24):
not understanding the situation we're in. This is a crucial
time and we need the President of the United States
to talk to the American people in realistic tones about
how dangerous the world is right now. Remember, we just
found the second of China's biological weapons facilities on American soil.
(23:47):
That was on January thirty one when Las Vegas Swat
and federal agents descended upon that home in Las Vegas
and found over a thousand vials of a reddish substance
or substances that was making people deathly well. This is
after December twenty twenty two where authorities in California found
(24:07):
that the secret Chinese biological weapons lab that had more
almost one thousand mice that have been genetically engineered to
spread disease and at least twenty pathogens, some of them
for deadly diseases like ebola. So the Chinese are really
moving on our society and we're not protecting ourselves. So
(24:29):
we need to start thinking about the world in much
more realistic tones, because if we don't, then we will
be unprepared for what very well could happen.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Not much of that's because of open borders under Biden.
We know a lot of Chinese nationals made their way
to the United States during those four years.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yes, there are Chinese agents, operatives, and soldiers in our country,
and there's more. They were there before Biden, but there
are more of them because of the open border. If
you go back to the early the first after Biden
was elected the Chinese there was an unprecedented surge of
Chinese migrants in our country, but most of them were
(25:12):
family groups, in other words, people who were desperate to
live in a free society. Towards the end of the
Biden era, US Border patrol noticed that there was a
stark change in the composition of Chinese migrants that towards
the end, about two thirds and at some border crossings
eighty five percent of the Chinese migrants were single males
(25:33):
of military age, traveling without family members, some pretending not
to speak English. Border patrol knew that some of them
had links to the Chinese military, and many of these
guys were coming across in packs of four to fifteen,
and some of these packs of Chinese males, they were
actually decked out in an identical kit. So yeah, we've
(25:56):
got to be really concerned that they're now more of
them here. And it's not just the Chinese, it's the Iranians.
Remember that September eleventh, twenty twenty three deal that Biden
had with Iran. Well, part of that deal, he gave
five Iranian operatives clemency, which was in exchange for releasing Americans.
(26:17):
But and so I can sort of accept that, But
what I can't accept is that he gave three of
those five Iranian operatives, he released them into the United
States at a time when Irani other Iranian operatives were
trying to kill President Trump, trying to kill Mike Pompeio,
former Secretary of State, and we're trying to kill other
(26:39):
Trump senior officials. So we know these guys are here,
and unfortunately ICE and federal authorities have just been overwhelmed.
So we got to get these guys out of our
country because they are here to kill us.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think if they're you know, doing
these biolabs with all these dangerous pathogens, that's the objective,
Gordon Chang. Always interesting to hear your perspective. Oay, scary
but important warnings for us to heed. And I hope
that the Trump administration and our government, I hope they're
paying attention.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
So Gordon Chang, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Sir, well, thank you, Lisa, and stay safe.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
That was Gordon Chang. Appreciate him for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also want
to thank my producer, John Casside for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Until next time.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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