February 1, 2025 • 44 mins
President Trump is back in office and already talking tough on China. This comes after his first term ended on bad terms with the foreign superpower. So what happens this time around? Jesse Kelly investigates alongside Natalie Winters, Peter St. Onge & Stephen Yates.
I'm Right with Jesse Kelly on The First TV | 1-31-25
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, so let's talk about China, shall we. That's what
the entire special is going to be about China. And
this can be one of those things that normal people,
people like you, you don't really know what to do
about it, and it seems like such a big issue
that it's beyond us. This is we're talking nation state stuff.
(00:31):
But here's one of the things we all need to do.
We have to acknowledge first and foremost, there is a
competition and we must win it. And maybe when it
comes to the United States versus China, maybe you're of
the mind because I hear this a lot of I
don't care. Why do we even bother? Why are we
(00:52):
even well listen, Just like all warfare, whether it be
kinetic or otherwise, only one vote matters. China has decided
that we are in competition. China has made that decision.
What you think about it doesn't mean anything at all.
What I think about it doesn't mean anything at all.
I cannot want that competition. But China has written down
(01:17):
we are competing with America and we intend to supplant
them as the number one country on the planet. And
we have to acknowledge what that means. We don't know
what a world like that is like because we've never
lived in it. But what I do know is you
have the communist Chinese making decisions and we can't rebuff them.
(01:41):
Means a completely different way of life for everyone who
lives on Earth. If they become number one, it's a major,
major problem. And so let's look at some of the
things they've done here. We mean, look, but let's just
talk about COVID alone. I mean, the China Special could
be eighteen hours long. But let's look at what they
did during COVID. China realized very quickly they had a problem,
(02:05):
had some sort of a virus, some sort of a disease.
China immediately immediately moves to shut down domestic air travel.
You're not allowed to just fly from Beijing to Shanghai. No, no, no,
we're shutting down air travel. But China allowed after they
shut down domestic air travel, they allowed international travel. In fact,
(02:26):
it seems like they encouraged it to places like the
United States of America. That's fairly overt, is it not.
It's extremely overt. We have what they've done when it
comes to technological theft. You know, this is something people
have harped about for a long time. It's kind of
in the weeds, kind of detail wise. But what is that. Well,
(02:49):
companies and inventors, they have copyright, they have ownership over
ideas and technology. China doesn't care about that at all.
They'll just simply grab your newest phone, your newest piece
of military technology, whatever it may be. They'll take it
over there, they'll reverse engineer it, and they'll just lay
claim to it, and they'll thumb their nose at anybody
who raises a stink about that. So it's not just
(03:11):
that they're competing. This is a country that's forceful about competing,
and they don't care about your morality or my morality,
or the rules. They don't care, and they understand, let's
just acknowledge this. They understand that when a democrat, whenever
we have a democrat in office, they can take that
(03:32):
ball that they've been slowly moving up up the field.
They can really accelerate things. Exactly how much information did
they get from that spy balloon? Marco Rubio talked about it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think what's embedded here is a clear message. It's
not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the
State of the Union address leading up to Blencoln's visit
to China, the Chinese knew that this was going to
be spotted.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
They knew that we were going to have to react
to it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Fluid over military installations and sensitive sites right across the middle.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, look at the flight path of this thing.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It's a diagonal shot right through the middle of the
continental United States. And the message embedded in this to
the world is we can fly a balloon over airspace
of the United States of America and they won't be
able to do anything about.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It to stop us.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They calculated this carefully with a message embedded in it.
And I think that's the part we can't forget here.
It's not just the balloon, it's the message they're trying
to send the world that we can do whatever we
want in America can't stop us.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
China's purposeful about it. And that brings us to an
uncomfortable question, one that makes us squirm in our chair.
Why was that balloon allowed to do what it did.
They knew about the balloon when it was over Alaska.
They didn't shoot down the balloon until it got to
(04:54):
the Atlantic Ocean. They allowed our government allowed a Chinese
spy balloon to traverse the entire United States of America
without shooting it down. Why exactly how many of our
politicians are compromised by the communist Chinese. They're famous for
buying threatening loyalty from people around the world. I mean,
(05:14):
did you hear Angus King during the Pete Hegseth confirmation
hearing really concerned about Pete's focus on China.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Mister, I was very disturbed in your opening statement where
you talked about the priorities that you have. We will
work with our partners and allies to deter aggression the
Indo Pacific from the communist Chinese. There's not a single
mention in this statement about Ukraine or Russia. Is this
code for we're going to abandon Ukraine?
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Senator the president this is that's a presidential level policy decision.
He's made it very clear that he would like to
see a end to that conflict. We know who the
aggressor is, we know who the good guy is. We'd
like to see it as advantageous for the Ukrainians as possible,
but that war needs come.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
You talk a lot of about the terms of China.
I would submit that Jijingping is watching what we do
very carefully. If we abandon Ukraine, that would be the
strongest single possible to Jijingping that he can take Taiwan
without significant resistance from this country.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Very interesting how many of them run cover for China.
So we have a great special for you tonight. We're
going to talk to Natalie Winters about this next. You
has some fascinating insight into how China operates, and we
will talk.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
To her just the moment.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
And then there's this theory widely debunked, this paper from
two Chinese.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Researchers that says it is plausible that the virus leaked
accidentally from one of two labs near the Wuhan seafood market.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Coronavirus was man made in a lab in Wuhan, China.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And yet this week, Donald Trump is still pushing the
debunked buncum despite his own intelligence community's findings that is
simply not true.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
The Wuhan lab.
Speaker 8 (07:08):
We know that it's been debunked that this virus was
man made or modified or anything like that.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
Those same agencies now have been tapped with investigating one
of Trump World's most favorite conspiracy theories. Tom Cotton, one
of Donald Trump's staunchest allies in the Senate, suggested that
the virus might have originated in a high security biochemical
lab in China's diseases in the nineteen eighties. I remember
when the far left trafficked in rumors about HIV han't
(07:34):
been invented in CIA labs. The far right has now
found its own virus conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yes, the far right joining me now. Investigative reporter co
hosts of The War Room Natalie Winters Natalie Okay, so
CIA admitting that COVID came from a Chinese lab. Okay,
we got all that. But one thing I've found fascinating
this entire time is why cover it up at all?
What difference does it make to me an American if
(08:04):
it came from a bowl of bat soup? Where it
came from a lab in Wuhan, but very clearly the
system wanted me to believe it was the bowl of
bat soup.
Speaker 9 (08:12):
Why, Yeah, it's certainly an achilles heel, And I think
that how you answer that question, there's sort of an
interesting whether you want to call it a limited hangout
or sort of a reframe in terms of the idea
of who was responsible for covering up the true origins
of COVID nineteen, because right now everyone in the mainstream
media class is quick to say, well, it was the
Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 10 (08:33):
It was right, it was the World Health Organization.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
But in reality their Western counterparts, Western elites are equally
to blame, if not, I would argue almost more so.
Right Western media outlets were as bad, if not worse
than Chinese state run communist propaganda outlets in terms of
covering up like that montage that you just played. And
I think you know the question is right, sort of
Quibona Writing benefits from running cover for the Chinese Communist Party,
(08:59):
and you're talking talking about the corporations who've been in
business with them for so long.
Speaker 10 (09:03):
Politicians whose career.
Speaker 9 (09:05):
Rises have been inextricably linked to that of the Chinese
Communist Party. They've been on the receiving ends of campaign
cash and of weird blackmail schemes, look no further.
Speaker 10 (09:14):
Than Hunter Biden.
Speaker 9 (09:15):
But that's because I think the unfortunate truth to go
very I guess meta here is that the entire world
economic kind of system and order that we run on
rests upon the Chinese Communist party staying in power.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
And the original sin of.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
That economic model is that the Chinese people are essentially
slave laborers. And if you were to give the Chinese
Communist Party, I think a nice reflection in the mirror
of what they did with COVID nineteen, what they've subjected
their own people to, let alone the whole world. Not
only would you see, I think internal discontent and strive
like you saw, I think a little whimper of at
least before the Western press came in and quashed it,
(09:51):
at least domestically in China. But these corporations, these people
would be forced to answer for their decades of collaborationist
sentiment and just straight up collaboration with the enemy that
I think it's never been clearer than what they did
with COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Explain to me the media perspective as it pertains to China.
It's not difficult to figure out why some filthy chicom
would want to cover up that it came from a lab.
It's not difficult to figure out why a ceo who
set up his factory and you know Shanghai, would want
to say it came from a bull of bats soup.
But the anchor at CNN, he's got five viewers, Why
(10:30):
wouldn't he just come out and say what we really
all kind of knew to begin with? What does it
bother him?
Speaker 9 (10:36):
Well, the chapter and verse answer to your question is
that the Chinese Communist Party has been running sophisticated, very
targeted media infiltration and warfare campaigns against Western journalists for.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
A very very long time.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
They have something called the United Front Work Department, which
is a multi billion dollar political warfare operation that emanates
out of Beijing. It's closely run by the Chinese Communist
Party and it's sort of the apparatus, the element that
they use to target not just Western journalists, but academics
and think tankers and politicians and of course their kin
and their next of kin.
Speaker 10 (11:09):
And in the case of media, they obviously.
Speaker 9 (11:11):
Know that controlling public opinion is very very important, especially
at home, but also even more importantly abroad here in
the United States.
Speaker 10 (11:19):
So they have a.
Speaker 9 (11:19):
Myriad of tactics that they use, but one of their
preferred tactics is basically paying Western journalists to come overseas
so to go and visit China on subsidized trips. So
the Chinese Communist Party or groups that are very innocuously
named like the Chinese United States Exchange Foundation, will subsidize
these trips. They tour not just military facilities, they tour wuahwe.
(11:42):
They basically get propaganda to the max from legitimate to
facto elements of dajuur elements of the Chinese Communist Party.
But I had broke this story two three years ago
through the Foreign Agent Registration Act filings, And the most
interesting part is that not only did they admit to
seeking out journalists that they thought would provide them quote
(12:04):
favorable coverage, but that upon return they had to quote
disseminate positive messages about the Chinese Communist Party and their
sort of rise in this neoliberal world order. And this
isn't just some niche journalists that they were picking. It
was the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, people like
Matthew Iglesias, a lot of these you know, bigwig lefty
(12:26):
journalists types who were involved in this very explicit pay
for play journalism type scheme. That's actual foreign interference and
foreign collusion.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
If you want to.
Speaker 9 (12:36):
Take the left, I guess do some cultural appropriation, but
that's sort of I think just one anecdote. But that's
why you see the coverage that you do, because it's
full scale political warfare.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm so jealous. I mean, the Chin comms hate me,
so I'm never going to be able to go over there,
But I want to go to the I want to
see the Great Wall of China and I can't ever
go into that country all be arrested, but that would
be freaking sweet. Okay, So Trump as it relates to
China did not exactly end on a positive note with
that country. Everyone knows he's always talking about China. Where
are they now?
Speaker 9 (13:09):
Well, like President Trump was very clairvoyant, he actually sanctioned
and basically put into oblivion a lot of these United
Front Work Department groups that were targeting local level officials, governors,
state level officials. They were making a hardcore press when
it came to agricultural officials across this country too. Look,
I think when President Trump invited Shijinping for I think
(13:33):
scholars and people who pay attention or to the inauguration,
for people who pay attention to Chinese history, they are
very obsessed with the concept of right, the Thucinides trap,
the idea that the Chinese communist Party is sort of
on the ascent and.
Speaker 10 (13:46):
Will replace the United States not in a.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Multipolar world order, but in a new unipolar world order
where they become.
Speaker 10 (13:52):
The new global hedgemon.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
And they love the idea of sort of foreign countries
having to be supplicants and coming and sort of lack
of a better word, cow taling to Chinese Communist Party leaders,
to Chinese Communist Party run businesses. So I think it
was sort of an epatrol when President Trump did invite
Chijinping to the inauguration, and I think you've sort of
seen that legacy continue. But much like I think that
(14:14):
montage that you just played showing how they framed the
origins of COVID as you know, the racist and you know,
nativist elements of the far right like myself and yourself included,
we're wrong on COVID. I think this whole framing now
of the tariffs, the trade war and all that is
something that's sort of.
Speaker 10 (14:30):
Akin to that. What do I mean by that?
Speaker 9 (14:33):
The trade war has been waged against the United States
by the Chinese Communist Party since they're ascension into the
World Trade Organization, right, they have been crippling our economy,
our various industries with intellectual property theft, you name it,
a myriad of economic warfare tactics that's codified into their
military doctrine. We're finally now just punching back, and I
think you can tell that the tariffs are something that
(14:55):
really really freaked them out, because they've been sort of
melting down about them. I hope President Trump sticks to
his guns and actually institutes them, but I think that
people should really pay attention to the way that the
mainstream media covers it, because anybody who uses the term
trade war and thinks that Donald Trump is the aggressor
when it comes to China is so willfully mistaken, not
(15:15):
just on the lived economic reality of Americans, but just
basic financial and economic metrics that you can see how
the Chinese Communist Party has been abusing this country and
our economy for so long.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Natalie, the h one B visas got into the news recently,
and of course we were told that we must have
all these people here because us stupid Americans have the
goll to play sports and talk to girls. But of
course it's just a system that is used to abuse
the American worker. The Chinese have been doing this, haven't
they of.
Speaker 9 (15:49):
Course, I think you left out that we're too busy
having sleepovers as well.
Speaker 10 (15:53):
No no sleepovers the count So the H one B
issue is interesting.
Speaker 9 (16:00):
I think if you put it through the lens, you know,
it's so easy for us to like think of big
Pharma lobbyists, right, or Big Tobac or whoever, the way
that they lie to us only to boost profits of
a certain industry.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Right.
Speaker 10 (16:12):
That's sort of the mo of the whole lobbying apparatus.
Speaker 9 (16:15):
The H one B debacle is quite literally no different
than Peiser lobbyists or Madernal lobbyists wanting to get vaccine
mandates implemented so they can have better profit margins.
Speaker 10 (16:25):
What do I mean by that?
Speaker 9 (16:27):
The data to create the narrative that Americans need to
import people who come from what backwards third world countries
where they're willfully underperforming and less skilled than the average
American worker, that the reason why we need to import
them is because a there's the best in the brightest.
I'm sure everyone's heard that lovely alliterative phrase, and that
(16:49):
we have a shortage of workers here, so we need
to therefore bring in the best and the brightest. Those
two sort of compounding factors that create this lie that
then necessitates the mass importation of H one bv soholders
is rooted and completely bs and bogus science. Even the
Government Accountability Office when they actually went into the National
Science Foundation the original report that was sort of the
(17:11):
footnote for any time anyone would ever make these claims.
Speaker 10 (17:13):
They even admit it that the data was never there.
It looks like they more or less made it up.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
The overwhelming majority of h M B VSA holders that
they're importing and talking like upwards of eighty percent make
less than the average salary of a tech worker because
over eighty percent of them are actually in the bottom
one percent in terms of skills. They're not the best
and brightest category of the top of the hum B stuff,
which anyways would be the one B visa category, which
(17:38):
is its kind of own category to begin with. So
the H and B stuff, like I'm sure people have
seen the screenshots online, they're not glamorous jobs. They're not
people who are necessarily making this country better. They like to,
you know, talent statistics saying that every HMB that you
bring in creates x or amount of jobs for American citizens.
It's not true and on the opposite side of the coin,
(17:59):
when you look at the numbers of Americans not just
who are unemployed, but particularly Americans with STEM degrees who
will never work in STEM. You're talking about one in
two American STEM graduates.
Speaker 10 (18:09):
Who, despite graduating from.
Speaker 9 (18:11):
An accredited United States based institution and actually can speak English,
on like half of these H one b people will
never work in STEM because their job is going to
be outsourced to someone from likely India or China. And
by the way, Jesse, just to I think, really make
this whole debate even more just absurd.
Speaker 10 (18:28):
The same people who are telling us that we need.
Speaker 9 (18:31):
To import the quote best and brightest so we can
be competitive with the Chinese Communist Party are advocating for
a visa program where the second largest beneficiary and recipient
of importing people from a certain country under this visa
category the.
Speaker 10 (18:46):
H one V is none other than China.
Speaker 9 (18:48):
A country that, what per Article seven of their National
Intelligence Law, stipulates that any Chinese citizen can be weaponized
against the United States at any moment, for any purpose
and at any time. Gee, I wonder why the United
States is getting hacked so much and my intellectual property
theft is off the charts because we're quite literally importing
the enemy into our country just so we can suppress
(19:09):
wages of Americans and make these evil America hating corporations
better profit margins.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Seems bad. That's why I never graduated in stem Other
than I had to drop math, I just knew there
was no point in it, so I just dropped out. Natalie,
Thank you, appreciate you. As always, we have not done yet.
It'll be bad.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
If we stay on the road we're on right now.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
In less than ten years, virtually everything that matters to
us in life will depend on whether China will allow
us to have it or not. Everything from the blood
pressure medicine we take to what movies we get to watch,
and everything in between, we will depend on Ford. They
have come to dominate the critical mental industry supplies.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Throughout the world. Everywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They've now established critical mineral rights. Even those who want
to see more electric cars, no matter where you make them,
those batteries are almost entirely dependent on the ability of
the Chinese and the willingness of the Chinese Communist Party
to produce it and export it to you. So if
we don't change course, we are going to live in
the world where much of what matters to us on
a daily basis, from our security to our health, will
(20:27):
be dependent on whether the Chinese allows us to have
it or not.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
That's an unacceptable outcome.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That is, of all the confirmation nonsense we've seen, that
may be the most eye popping and ominous little fifteen
thirty second cut that I've seen so far. Joining me
now is someone who knows quite a bit about China, economies,
everything else, economists, Peter saint Ange. By the way, go
to a profsaintonge dot com if you want to consume
(20:57):
his stuff, which I most definitely do. That's why on him. Okay, Peter,
First of all, what does that mean? How did we
end up on the If Marco Rubio was correct, and
I'm assuming he is, and we're on a course to
have everything run through China, let's start at the beginning.
How do we get on such a course? When did
this happen?
Speaker 11 (21:16):
Yeah, well, there was a time when America was the
dominant manufacturer in the world. Europe would sit around and
complain about how you know there will come a day
when we will make nothing in Europe anymore. Everything can
be made in America and we threw it away. The
way that I summit is that we shot ourselves in
the foot and we put ourselves in a position where
(21:37):
now we have to rent the wheelchair from China and
we're pissed off about it.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
So the solution of that, of course, is stop shooting
yourself in the foot.
Speaker 11 (21:45):
So that means reduce regulations, the Green mandates, the.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
DEI, the social policy.
Speaker 11 (21:53):
A lot of the regulations just corrupt industries just buy it. Basically,
large operators by it to try to shut out the little.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
Little guy. The end resultants on small.
Speaker 11 (22:03):
Companies and the big companies they get the burdens too,
they got to face all those regulations, but they just
move the production over to China. So you go from
a world where things are made in America the world
where things might even still be made by American companies,
but they're making it all in China.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Peter, why take anything to China when they have so
much control of the market. You know, So if I'm
making an apple products or something like that, this is
a pretty good example and I decide I would rather
move my factory to China because of all the laws
and regulations here in America. Well, why would I move
into a communist country where they control everything? What do
I get from that?
Speaker 11 (22:44):
Yeah, well that's what's changing a lot now. So these
sort of dirty secret here. The way that China got
a lot of companies to move there instead of some
other poor country like Mexico is that they used access
to their market as the carrot. So if you bem
W wanted to sell your cars in China, you had
to produce your cars in China. Now, ironically, that's exactly
(23:06):
what Donald Trump is proposing to do in America. And
guess what it works. If you have a large market.
It doesn't work. If you're a small country. If you're
like Honduras and you try to produce your own steel,
good luck, that's not going to work. But if you're
a large country in the US is about a quarter
of the entire world economy, all right, so we are
(23:26):
even bigger than China.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
If you're a big market, yes, that works. You can
lean on companies.
Speaker 11 (23:31):
You can tell, say, Toyota, if you guys want to
sell cars in America, you don't want tariffs on it,
you don't want harassment and on the customs. Then you
have to produce it here that absolutely worked for China,
worked in Korea, worked in Japan.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Donald Trump wants to.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Do it here. Okay, Peter, talk to me about this
Chinese economy. As you pointed out, we're still larger than them.
That gap is closing from what I understand. But how
is their economy? Because I where all my life. You
open up the newspaper one day and you'll find out
that this is some Chinese juggernaut that's going to overtake
(24:07):
us in fifteen minutes. And the next day you find
out it's hanging by a thread and they're about to
have some huge what is it?
Speaker 11 (24:16):
Yeah, So I think that the fundamentals in China are
better than ours in many ways. When I was a kid,
people used to dismiss Japan. They said, ah, Asians don't
invent anything, they just copy stuff bs all right, if
you look at pattents, you look at you know, the
creative arts places like Japan and career knocking our stocks off.
(24:37):
It's not that there's some fundamental flaw in Asia and
China especially. It's been very very smart about the educational system.
It focuses on you know, math, reading, logic, A lot
of it is is industrial skills. So you have you know,
votech schools where kids actually start working in factories and
then they work their way up towards you know, design,
(24:58):
and towards higher and higher and work. So China is,
I think, on the fundamentals that are very very much
on the ball.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
They're very rational about.
Speaker 11 (25:06):
Regulation, they understand the difficulties of manufacturing, and the government
tends to partner with companies and try to fix problems
and sort of sort of hunting them down. Having said,
China's problem at the moment is that the current leadership
is very very suspicious of markets.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So President She sort of idolizes mout Setangue. He thinks
that it was a mistake to.
Speaker 11 (25:30):
Open up the economy so much that it has allowed
private businesses to start mustling in and taking power from
the Communist party. So She himself he has almost had
the growth rate in China. He's actually done worse. Recently,
China's flirting with actual recession. And so during most of
(25:50):
my lifetime China had been catching up. Since President She
came in, it's actually flattened out or in some ways,
the US is actual growing ahead of the China.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
So if you know she's relatively young.
Speaker 11 (26:04):
He's probably gonna be in power for another ten fifteen years.
Given how it works in China, he has wiped out
any sort of rivals. So the next ten or fifteen
years in China may actually be slow to declining. They
may start to look at sort of a Japanese style
lost decade.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Economically. What's the Russia Chinese relationship because traditionally the way
of thinking is Russia has the resources, doesn't have the people.
China has the people, not the resources. So they come
to some sort of an agreement. What's going on with that?
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Yeah, I think, yeah, that's exactly right. That sort of
captures it.
Speaker 11 (26:40):
Traditionally, Russia is aware that it would take very very
few Chinese to essentially steal the entire eastern two thirds
of the country. You know, Russia's population is about one
hundred and forty million. Almost all of those people live
in the western European part of the country. There's almost
nobody in the entire eastern part. So Russia has always
been very, very suspicious of Chinese immigration, of Chinese influence
(27:03):
in the East. What I think is sort of a
sad tragedy of what happened with the Ukraine War is
that the sanctions, the sort of Western aggressiveness towards Russia
has pushed it into the point where it is now
an economic colony of China. It's completely reliant on China.
The Chinese, of course, they're no dummies. They're taking advantage
(27:25):
of the Russians as much as possible to try to
grab resources and to grab control over Russia. And even
after that war ends, I think that the Chinese are
going to keep that control. And you know where we
go from here is that China is doing everything it
can to turn Russia into an economic colony.
Speaker 6 (27:45):
They themselves have to be a little bit careful.
Speaker 11 (27:47):
They don't want to cross the sanctions line and kid
sanctions thrown towards them. That was their concern under Biden.
Trump of course, is much more aggressive and much more
willing to do that. So I think China is trying
to be careful. But fundamentally I think that the longest
sort of effect of the Ukraine War is going to
be turning Russia into a colony of China.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tell me about bricks. It's a conversation you and I
have had before. This alternate currency, the dollars, the world's
reserve currency, and then Brazil, Russia, India, China and so
on and so forth have gotten together and decided they're
going to kind of try to come up with an
alternative to that. Does Trump getting elected kneecap that effort,
ramp up that effort? Where is all that?
Speaker 6 (28:33):
Yeah, I think both of us have been watching bricks
for a while.
Speaker 11 (28:37):
And it's interesting because that's probably the most serious threat
to the US dollar in terms of another currency.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Now.
Speaker 11 (28:44):
The real threat to the US dollars, of course, is
gold or some other commodity money as the dollar falls apart.
But Bricks was really the most serious currency competitor. And
to be honest, I think that Bricks has taken the
wind out of its own sales.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
They came out this year and pivoted.
Speaker 11 (29:04):
From as a sort of gold back, stronger competitive a
dollar to instead looking at this sort of goofy basket
of currencies where you throw in all of these frankly
pretty lousy currencies. You know, Brazil's got a hyperinflationary pass,
Russia as well. The Chinese currency is completely controlled by
the government. So this point, I think in the near
(29:26):
term Bricks is actually probably not a threat at all.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Russia is obviously very distracted with its war.
Speaker 11 (29:33):
China's distracted with its own economic problems at this point
as well, as it's going to have to dance for
Trump or it's going to get into trouble. So I
don't think anything's going to come out of bricks at
this point in terms of what's next for the dollar.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
I think there's actually a lot of sort of moving
parts there.
Speaker 11 (29:49):
So on the one hand, Trump had threatened that any
country that goes too deep into the Bricks alliance, he's
gonna I think he threatened fifty one hundred percent sanctioned.
It was basically existential, that's economic war. But on the
other hand, Trump and JD. Vance both talked about wanting
a weaker dollar. The reason they want that is to
make US exports cheaper. I'm not a huge fan of
(30:12):
that because it also bankrupts the American people. So I
would rather that we, you know, fix the taxes, fix
the regulations, perhaps use strategic tariffs where you have bad
faith partners like China, rather than sort of selling off
the family jewels just to just to increase exports.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
But Trump's got kind of a complex.
Speaker 11 (30:31):
Relationship here where he's been very very hyper aggressive against
bricks as a threat to the US dollar. But at
the same time he's also welcomed the idea of a
weeker dollar.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Peter as always outstanding. Thank you, my friend. All right,
still not done with China quite yet.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Hang on.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
The way our system works, the way our bureaucratic system works,
where the speed of weapons procurement works.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
We're always a decade.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
Behind and fighting the last war, whereas China there we
have a we have you know what Rompsfeldt say, you
go to the war of the army, you have we
have the army China's building an army specifically dedicated to
defeating the United States of America.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
That is, that is their strategic outset.
Speaker 12 (31:30):
Take hypersonic missiles.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
So if our whole, if our whole.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Power projection platform is aircraft carriers and the ability to
project power that way strategically around the globe. And yeah,
we have a nuclear triad and all of that, but
a big part of it. And if you know, fifteen
hypersonic missiles can take out our ten aircraft carriers in
the first twenty minutes of a conflict, what does that
look like.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Oh, that's one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard,
and I have heard that before from people who would
know figured. Steve Yates is about as good a person
you can ask about these things as anyone around joining
me now, national security expert with the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Yates. Okay, Stephen,
I have heard this before, that we have a carrier
(32:13):
based navy and carry based military. You could make the
argument and that China is attempting to or has already succeeded,
depending on who you're talking to, come up with something
that will simply erase these things and sweep them off
the chessboard. What's going on?
Speaker 13 (32:29):
Well, now, Secretary of Defense Hecseth was absolutely correct. We've
had this back and forth in Congress and in the
media for a very very long time. There's several annual
reports that commissions put out, that committees on the Hill
put out that have always noted that China's military capabilities
were as as Pete Hexseth stated, aimed at defeating the
(32:53):
United States, and that they were using comprehensive national power
to do that, and that their manufactur shuring supply chains.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
We're racing far ahead.
Speaker 13 (33:02):
Of our previous estimates and doing so in the United States,
as Secretary of Hegxith was noting has been just tragically
slow to come up with what's our concept of warfare
in this new era? But then our manufacturing supply chints
have been woefully slow, corrupted.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
I would argue, and inadequate to the cause. Okay, that's
a lot. Let's focus on us right now. Why are
we so slow in coming up with this? Is this
just a change in administrations? You know, not that I
want to be a dirty communist in like China, but
the having that consistency does help maintaining one form policy vision?
Speaker 12 (33:44):
Is it?
Speaker 6 (33:45):
That is?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
What is it? Why have we been slow?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Why?
Speaker 13 (33:48):
I would argue that there is a part of this
that's strategic, and that's the part that changes an administration
can sometimes help where you have to get out of
the mindset of winning the last last war and get
dialed into what are the current challenges facing us? And
we have new tools and so this administration has a
unique opportunity with incredibly different people from tech and manufacturing
(34:12):
and investment backgrounds that should, under the right circumstances, with
the right OMN be able to revolutionize our supply chains
and deploy tech assisted new forms of warfare that should
make things harder for China, so we get past that
carrier based approach that we've had basically since World War
Two and onward.
Speaker 12 (34:32):
So that's one piece.
Speaker 13 (34:33):
The manufacturing part though, that's where the swamp thing has
been the problem, where there's huge vested interests that constantly
deliver things late and over budget. We have allies that
have already paid and they're waiting years after targets to
receive deterrent that would help avoid Americans having to intervene.
And then there's the disservice to ourselves falling behind on
(34:55):
the number of ships and planes and other things that
we should have for our own national interests.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Stephen, People who pay attention to the budget and spending
when they hear people say what you just said, which
is true, that we're falling behind on planes and ships
and things like that, they look at the budget and
they asked the question I'm about to ask you, how
can that possibly be? How can we not have the
most state of the ships in the world right now
(35:22):
given the ridiculous military budget we have. If it's not
going to the ships, where's it going.
Speaker 13 (35:29):
Well, I think it comes down to corruption. Inefficiency, and bureaucracy,
which may all be three ways of saying the same thing,
but that ultimately I think has been the Achilles heel
of the sole remaining superpower. It's why I think that
we have a generational opportunity that we need to seize
because if we miss it, I think that the Republic
(35:51):
is at risk. In this DOJE effort, it's got to
focus on redoing these manufacturing supply chain, specific in the
Pentagon and the Beltway bandits who have fueled those supply
chains for decades. That's where Elon Musk showed he was
able to outmatch NASA's bureaucracy and putting important technology into space.
(36:14):
We need to mirror that kind of effort inside government.
They'll meet with resistance, but that's where the pit bull
and chief needs to come in and the richest man
in the world and others need to weigh in to
carve out this new opportunity.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let's go back to China's that's really what we're talking
about here. Tell me about these missiles, these hypersonic missiles.
Do we have countermeasures? What else is China doing that
concerns you?
Speaker 13 (36:40):
Well, In short, China's doing everything and it's kind of
a joke, but it's a very serious situation. They are
investing in everything human intelligence to cyber capabilities to space assets.
They're investing in things that would defeat our core capabilities.
They've gone very, very far ahead in bio warfare and
(37:04):
chemical warfare. They don't really have the ethical restraints and
accountability restraints that we have in our systems, and.
Speaker 12 (37:11):
So they've been pushing ahead in everything.
Speaker 13 (37:15):
And they've also compromised our homeland security in any number
of ways, from the border to all kinds of entities
that are psychologically damaging to our youth. Another discussion on
social media apps perhaps, but they have had a comprehensive
approach and they don't really see a pushback coming from
(37:37):
the United States until perhaps now. This is where President
Trump has the opportunity to reset this narrative of America
on decline and China on the rise, and somehow that's inevitable.
I think China's got some problems, and if Trump gets
America back on the right footing in defense and otherwise,
we have this golden age he's talked about, that will
(37:59):
have to recount what China's calculus is.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
What problems do they have right now, Stevens, it's easy
when you look at the length and breadth of everything
they're doing that it seems to just think, oh my gosh,
it is you know, the rising sun, if you will
pardon the pun. But they do have major problems too.
Speaker 13 (38:16):
What are they they do And one of the things
that we can't kind of bank our lives on, but
it's been a reality in every other conflict is they
have a very large military order of battle when it's
on paper, but it is profoundly untested against peer or
better enemy combatants. And when you look at what the
(38:38):
Iraqi National Guard was going into the First Gulf War
and later, and when you look at what Russia's prohibitive
military capability was going into Ukraine, these big powers, I
think have to be somewhat humble about what reality is
when they have to grind into actual combat. And so
there's that reality that comes into play. And China is
(39:01):
not known for quality control. They are known for manufacturing
at speed and volume and if things break, so be it,
and their people are expendable. Well, their people might not
like that, and they might not be as sustainable in
conflict as they think going into it. The people might
not be on board with sacrificing so much if they
(39:21):
aren't convinced that it was absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
These big powers like China and Russia, they stumble walking
into things like Ukraine. What is it that makes them
stumble is that the logistics? Do they not have the
people they think? Does their equipment just suck? You can
certainly see that being a problem for China. What is
it that makes them stumble?
Speaker 13 (39:44):
Well, I think one of it is one part of
it is a reality that you know very well. It's
a lot easier to hit back, to attack, to try
to break something, to thwart something, than it is to invade,
occupy and.
Speaker 12 (39:58):
Hold a different territory.
Speaker 13 (40:00):
And that doesn't matter whether that is over air, sea,
or land. It is just a fundamental reality. If you
have people and material that's positioned in a way to resist,
and there is a resiliency to that supply, it's tough.
And so I think when you look at what when
(40:21):
Russia went into Ukraine, you had Granny with a gun
willing to use it. That made some difference, but you
also just had this reality that could take some of
that territory and there near abroad. But they met with
a resistance that has sustained for years. Ukraine still paid
a dear price. If China moved against Taiwan, that would
be a price that no one really wants to have
(40:44):
to pay. But China is untested in trying to see
how much they would really be willing to pay if
they met with resistance and if Japan, Taiwan, the United
States and others were serious about capabilities that degraded China
in its own territory.
Speaker 12 (41:00):
And I think alter is the calculus.
Speaker 13 (41:01):
I think we have frankly been fighting with hands tied
behind our backs with theories of the past, and that
has enabled China to get I think a little bit
too much Hubris.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Finally, Steven, let's talk about Japan really quickly. Ever since
World War Two, obviously there have been limits on what
they're allowed to do. But what are they? I know
they're not China. What are they? What are their capabilities?
I know they're a valuable ally in all this.
Speaker 13 (41:27):
Well, they are very good at manufacturing, they are very
I think good at quality control, and contrast to China,
they have had, as you ellude, some constraints that have
been placed upon them, some that they've put on themselves
to be committed to just pure self defense.
Speaker 12 (41:47):
But former Prime Minister.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Shinzo Abe, the late Prime Minister, he began to change
their way of thinking about defense and recognizing that they
needed to have sort of active self defense, which is
euphemism for we're going to be able to be a
more normal country and punch beyond our territorial waters and
airspace when needed. And I think it's a good thing
(42:11):
for the United States and the world to have a
responsible stakeholder like Japan, which they may be a lethargic economy,
but they're still very big and they're a significant country,
and they have significant capabilities. They also have historic ties
to places like Taiwan that are underappreciated, and that's why
I think China has to be very careful. It's not
(42:31):
just the United States that might have a national interest
in engaging Japan, and others may too, and so that's
what makes us less of a cake walk.
Speaker 12 (42:38):
We can't bank on that.
Speaker 13 (42:40):
No one should take it easier lightly, but I think China,
if they're sober about this, should be more cautious than
they've been.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Here's hoping. Steven, Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
All right, Well, if you're back, it is important to
(43:12):
acknowledge that China is rapidly approaching status as being a
near peer economically, militarily. They are gaining on us, and
unlike other countries that have done that in the past,
or at least flirted with that, they are a dead
set on overtaking us. They write it down, they acknowledge it.
(43:33):
And so what does that mean for us? It doesn't
mean we have to panic, run around screaming the sky
is falling, hiding under our desks, but it does mean
we have to be equally as purposeful looking back at them,
trying to win because we clearly are in a competition.
They have made that decision, and we must win because
losing means very, very ugly things. So we keep marching forward,
(43:56):
all right, do it again,
Okay, so let's talk about China, shall we. That's what
the entire special is going to be about China. And
this can be one of those things that normal people,
people like you, you don't really know what to do
about it, and it seems like such a big issue
that it's beyond us. This is we're talking nation state stuff.
(00:31):
But here's one of the things we all need to do.
We have to acknowledge first and foremost, there is a
competition and we must win it. And maybe when it
comes to the United States versus China, maybe you're of
the mind because I hear this a lot of I
don't care. Why do we even bother? Why are we
(00:52):
even well listen, Just like all warfare, whether it be
kinetic or otherwise, only one vote matters. China has decided
that we are in competition. China has made that decision.
What you think about it doesn't mean anything at all.
What I think about it doesn't mean anything at all.
I cannot want that competition. But China has written down
(01:17):
we are competing with America and we intend to supplant
them as the number one country on the planet. And
we have to acknowledge what that means. We don't know
what a world like that is like because we've never
lived in it. But what I do know is you
have the communist Chinese making decisions and we can't rebuff them.
(01:41):
Means a completely different way of life for everyone who
lives on Earth. If they become number one, it's a major,
major problem. And so let's look at some of the
things they've done here. We mean, look, but let's just
talk about COVID alone. I mean, the China Special could
be eighteen hours long. But let's look at what they
did during COVID. China realized very quickly they had a problem,
(02:05):
had some sort of a virus, some sort of a disease.
China immediately immediately moves to shut down domestic air travel.
You're not allowed to just fly from Beijing to Shanghai. No, no, no,
we're shutting down air travel. But China allowed after they
shut down domestic air travel, they allowed international travel. In fact,
(02:26):
it seems like they encouraged it to places like the
United States of America. That's fairly overt, is it not.
It's extremely overt. We have what they've done when it
comes to technological theft. You know, this is something people
have harped about for a long time. It's kind of
in the weeds, kind of detail wise. But what is that. Well,
(02:49):
companies and inventors, they have copyright, they have ownership over
ideas and technology. China doesn't care about that at all.
They'll just simply grab your newest phone, your newest piece
of military technology, whatever it may be. They'll take it
over there, they'll reverse engineer it, and they'll just lay
claim to it, and they'll thumb their nose at anybody
who raises a stink about that. So it's not just
(03:11):
that they're competing. This is a country that's forceful about competing,
and they don't care about your morality or my morality,
or the rules. They don't care, and they understand, let's
just acknowledge this. They understand that when a democrat, whenever
we have a democrat in office, they can take that
(03:32):
ball that they've been slowly moving up up the field.
They can really accelerate things. Exactly how much information did
they get from that spy balloon? Marco Rubio talked about it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I think what's embedded here is a clear message. It's
not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the
State of the Union address leading up to Blencoln's visit
to China, the Chinese knew that this was going to
be spotted.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
They knew that we were going to have to react
to it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Fluid over military installations and sensitive sites right across the middle.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I mean, look at the flight path of this thing.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It's a diagonal shot right through the middle of the
continental United States. And the message embedded in this to
the world is we can fly a balloon over airspace
of the United States of America and they won't be
able to do anything about.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It to stop us.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They calculated this carefully with a message embedded in it.
And I think that's the part we can't forget here.
It's not just the balloon, it's the message they're trying
to send the world that we can do whatever we
want in America can't stop us.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
China's purposeful about it. And that brings us to an
uncomfortable question, one that makes us squirm in our chair.
Why was that balloon allowed to do what it did.
They knew about the balloon when it was over Alaska.
They didn't shoot down the balloon until it got to
(04:54):
the Atlantic Ocean. They allowed our government allowed a Chinese
spy balloon to traverse the entire United States of America
without shooting it down. Why exactly how many of our
politicians are compromised by the communist Chinese. They're famous for
buying threatening loyalty from people around the world. I mean,
(05:14):
did you hear Angus King during the Pete Hegseth confirmation
hearing really concerned about Pete's focus on China.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Mister, I was very disturbed in your opening statement where
you talked about the priorities that you have. We will
work with our partners and allies to deter aggression the
Indo Pacific from the communist Chinese. There's not a single
mention in this statement about Ukraine or Russia. Is this
code for we're going to abandon Ukraine?
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Senator the president this is that's a presidential level policy decision.
He's made it very clear that he would like to
see a end to that conflict. We know who the
aggressor is, we know who the good guy is. We'd
like to see it as advantageous for the Ukrainians as possible,
but that war needs come.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
You talk a lot of about the terms of China.
I would submit that Jijingping is watching what we do
very carefully. If we abandon Ukraine, that would be the
strongest single possible to Jijingping that he can take Taiwan
without significant resistance from this country.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Very interesting how many of them run cover for China.
So we have a great special for you tonight. We're
going to talk to Natalie Winters about this next. You
has some fascinating insight into how China operates, and we
will talk.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
To her just the moment.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
And then there's this theory widely debunked, this paper from
two Chinese.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Researchers that says it is plausible that the virus leaked
accidentally from one of two labs near the Wuhan seafood market.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Coronavirus was man made in a lab in Wuhan, China.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And yet this week, Donald Trump is still pushing the
debunked buncum despite his own intelligence community's findings that is
simply not true.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
The Wuhan lab.
Speaker 8 (07:08):
We know that it's been debunked that this virus was
man made or modified or anything like that.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
Those same agencies now have been tapped with investigating one
of Trump World's most favorite conspiracy theories. Tom Cotton, one
of Donald Trump's staunchest allies in the Senate, suggested that
the virus might have originated in a high security biochemical
lab in China's diseases in the nineteen eighties. I remember
when the far left trafficked in rumors about HIV han't
(07:34):
been invented in CIA labs. The far right has now
found its own virus conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yes, the far right joining me now. Investigative reporter co
hosts of The War Room Natalie Winters Natalie Okay, so
CIA admitting that COVID came from a Chinese lab. Okay,
we got all that. But one thing I've found fascinating
this entire time is why cover it up at all?
What difference does it make to me an American if
(08:04):
it came from a bowl of bat soup? Where it
came from a lab in Wuhan, but very clearly the
system wanted me to believe it was the bowl of
bat soup.
Speaker 9 (08:12):
Why, Yeah, it's certainly an achilles heel, And I think
that how you answer that question, there's sort of an
interesting whether you want to call it a limited hangout
or sort of a reframe in terms of the idea
of who was responsible for covering up the true origins
of COVID nineteen, because right now everyone in the mainstream
media class is quick to say, well, it was the
Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 10 (08:33):
It was right, it was the World Health Organization.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
But in reality their Western counterparts, Western elites are equally
to blame, if not, I would argue almost more so.
Right Western media outlets were as bad, if not worse
than Chinese state run communist propaganda outlets in terms of
covering up like that montage that you just played. And
I think you know the question is right, sort of
Quibona Writing benefits from running cover for the Chinese Communist Party,
(08:59):
and you're talking talking about the corporations who've been in
business with them for so long.
Speaker 10 (09:03):
Politicians whose career.
Speaker 9 (09:05):
Rises have been inextricably linked to that of the Chinese
Communist Party. They've been on the receiving ends of campaign
cash and of weird blackmail schemes, look no further.
Speaker 10 (09:14):
Than Hunter Biden.
Speaker 9 (09:15):
But that's because I think the unfortunate truth to go
very I guess meta here is that the entire world
economic kind of system and order that we run on
rests upon the Chinese Communist party staying in power.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
And the original sin of.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
That economic model is that the Chinese people are essentially
slave laborers. And if you were to give the Chinese
Communist Party, I think a nice reflection in the mirror
of what they did with COVID nineteen, what they've subjected
their own people to, let alone the whole world. Not
only would you see, I think internal discontent and strive
like you saw, I think a little whimper of at
least before the Western press came in and quashed it,
(09:51):
at least domestically in China. But these corporations, these people
would be forced to answer for their decades of collaborationist
sentiment and just straight up collaboration with the enemy that
I think it's never been clearer than what they did
with COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Explain to me the media perspective as it pertains to China.
It's not difficult to figure out why some filthy chicom
would want to cover up that it came from a lab.
It's not difficult to figure out why a ceo who
set up his factory and you know Shanghai, would want
to say it came from a bull of bats soup.
But the anchor at CNN, he's got five viewers, Why
(10:30):
wouldn't he just come out and say what we really
all kind of knew to begin with? What does it
bother him?
Speaker 9 (10:36):
Well, the chapter and verse answer to your question is
that the Chinese Communist Party has been running sophisticated, very
targeted media infiltration and warfare campaigns against Western journalists for.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
A very very long time.
Speaker 9 (10:48):
They have something called the United Front Work Department, which
is a multi billion dollar political warfare operation that emanates
out of Beijing. It's closely run by the Chinese Communist
Party and it's sort of the apparatus, the element that
they use to target not just Western journalists, but academics
and think tankers and politicians and of course their kin
and their next of kin.
Speaker 10 (11:09):
And in the case of media, they obviously.
Speaker 9 (11:11):
Know that controlling public opinion is very very important, especially
at home, but also even more importantly abroad here in
the United States.
Speaker 10 (11:19):
So they have a.
Speaker 9 (11:19):
Myriad of tactics that they use, but one of their
preferred tactics is basically paying Western journalists to come overseas
so to go and visit China on subsidized trips. So
the Chinese Communist Party or groups that are very innocuously
named like the Chinese United States Exchange Foundation, will subsidize
these trips. They tour not just military facilities, they tour wuahwe.
(11:42):
They basically get propaganda to the max from legitimate to
facto elements of dajuur elements of the Chinese Communist Party.
But I had broke this story two three years ago
through the Foreign Agent Registration Act filings, And the most
interesting part is that not only did they admit to
seeking out journalists that they thought would provide them quote
(12:04):
favorable coverage, but that upon return they had to quote
disseminate positive messages about the Chinese Communist Party and their
sort of rise in this neoliberal world order. And this
isn't just some niche journalists that they were picking. It
was the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, people like
Matthew Iglesias, a lot of these you know, bigwig lefty
(12:26):
journalists types who were involved in this very explicit pay
for play journalism type scheme. That's actual foreign interference and
foreign collusion.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
If you want to.
Speaker 9 (12:36):
Take the left, I guess do some cultural appropriation, but
that's sort of I think just one anecdote. But that's
why you see the coverage that you do, because it's
full scale political warfare.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm so jealous. I mean, the Chin comms hate me,
so I'm never going to be able to go over there,
But I want to go to the I want to
see the Great Wall of China and I can't ever
go into that country all be arrested, but that would
be freaking sweet. Okay, So Trump as it relates to
China did not exactly end on a positive note with
that country. Everyone knows he's always talking about China. Where
are they now?
Speaker 9 (13:09):
Well, like President Trump was very clairvoyant, he actually sanctioned
and basically put into oblivion a lot of these United
Front Work Department groups that were targeting local level officials, governors,
state level officials. They were making a hardcore press when
it came to agricultural officials across this country too. Look,
I think when President Trump invited Shijinping for I think
(13:33):
scholars and people who pay attention or to the inauguration,
for people who pay attention to Chinese history, they are
very obsessed with the concept of right, the Thucinides trap,
the idea that the Chinese communist Party is sort of
on the ascent and.
Speaker 10 (13:46):
Will replace the United States not in a.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Multipolar world order, but in a new unipolar world order
where they become.
Speaker 10 (13:52):
The new global hedgemon.
Speaker 9 (13:53):
And they love the idea of sort of foreign countries
having to be supplicants and coming and sort of lack
of a better word, cow taling to Chinese Communist Party leaders,
to Chinese Communist Party run businesses. So I think it
was sort of an epatrol when President Trump did invite
Chijinping to the inauguration, and I think you've sort of
seen that legacy continue. But much like I think that
(14:14):
montage that you just played showing how they framed the
origins of COVID as you know, the racist and you know,
nativist elements of the far right like myself and yourself included,
we're wrong on COVID. I think this whole framing now
of the tariffs, the trade war and all that is
something that's sort of.
Speaker 10 (14:30):
Akin to that. What do I mean by that?
Speaker 9 (14:33):
The trade war has been waged against the United States
by the Chinese Communist Party since they're ascension into the
World Trade Organization, right, they have been crippling our economy,
our various industries with intellectual property theft, you name it,
a myriad of economic warfare tactics that's codified into their
military doctrine. We're finally now just punching back, and I
think you can tell that the tariffs are something that
(14:55):
really really freaked them out, because they've been sort of
melting down about them. I hope President Trump sticks to
his guns and actually institutes them, but I think that
people should really pay attention to the way that the
mainstream media covers it, because anybody who uses the term
trade war and thinks that Donald Trump is the aggressor
when it comes to China is so willfully mistaken, not
(15:15):
just on the lived economic reality of Americans, but just
basic financial and economic metrics that you can see how
the Chinese Communist Party has been abusing this country and
our economy for so long.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Natalie, the h one B visas got into the news recently,
and of course we were told that we must have
all these people here because us stupid Americans have the
goll to play sports and talk to girls. But of
course it's just a system that is used to abuse
the American worker. The Chinese have been doing this, haven't
they of.
Speaker 9 (15:49):
Course, I think you left out that we're too busy
having sleepovers as well.
Speaker 10 (15:53):
No no sleepovers the count So the H one B
issue is interesting.
Speaker 9 (16:00):
I think if you put it through the lens, you know,
it's so easy for us to like think of big
Pharma lobbyists, right, or Big Tobac or whoever, the way
that they lie to us only to boost profits of
a certain industry.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Right.
Speaker 10 (16:12):
That's sort of the mo of the whole lobbying apparatus.
Speaker 9 (16:15):
The H one B debacle is quite literally no different
than Peiser lobbyists or Madernal lobbyists wanting to get vaccine
mandates implemented so they can have better profit margins.
Speaker 10 (16:25):
What do I mean by that?
Speaker 9 (16:27):
The data to create the narrative that Americans need to
import people who come from what backwards third world countries
where they're willfully underperforming and less skilled than the average
American worker, that the reason why we need to import
them is because a there's the best in the brightest.
I'm sure everyone's heard that lovely alliterative phrase, and that
(16:49):
we have a shortage of workers here, so we need
to therefore bring in the best and the brightest. Those
two sort of compounding factors that create this lie that
then necessitates the mass importation of H one bv soholders
is rooted and completely bs and bogus science. Even the
Government Accountability Office when they actually went into the National
Science Foundation the original report that was sort of the
(17:11):
footnote for any time anyone would ever make these claims.
Speaker 10 (17:13):
They even admit it that the data was never there.
It looks like they more or less made it up.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
The overwhelming majority of h M B VSA holders that
they're importing and talking like upwards of eighty percent make
less than the average salary of a tech worker because
over eighty percent of them are actually in the bottom
one percent in terms of skills. They're not the best
and brightest category of the top of the hum B stuff,
which anyways would be the one B visa category, which
(17:38):
is its kind of own category to begin with. So
the H and B stuff, like I'm sure people have
seen the screenshots online, they're not glamorous jobs. They're not
people who are necessarily making this country better. They like to,
you know, talent statistics saying that every HMB that you
bring in creates x or amount of jobs for American citizens.
It's not true and on the opposite side of the coin,
(17:59):
when you look at the numbers of Americans not just
who are unemployed, but particularly Americans with STEM degrees who
will never work in STEM. You're talking about one in
two American STEM graduates.
Speaker 10 (18:09):
Who, despite graduating from.
Speaker 9 (18:11):
An accredited United States based institution and actually can speak English,
on like half of these H one b people will
never work in STEM because their job is going to
be outsourced to someone from likely India or China. And
by the way, Jesse, just to I think, really make
this whole debate even more just absurd.
Speaker 10 (18:28):
The same people who are telling us that we need.
Speaker 9 (18:31):
To import the quote best and brightest so we can
be competitive with the Chinese Communist Party are advocating for
a visa program where the second largest beneficiary and recipient
of importing people from a certain country under this visa
category the.
Speaker 10 (18:46):
H one V is none other than China.
Speaker 9 (18:48):
A country that, what per Article seven of their National
Intelligence Law, stipulates that any Chinese citizen can be weaponized
against the United States at any moment, for any purpose
and at any time. Gee, I wonder why the United
States is getting hacked so much and my intellectual property
theft is off the charts because we're quite literally importing
the enemy into our country just so we can suppress
(19:09):
wages of Americans and make these evil America hating corporations
better profit margins.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Seems bad. That's why I never graduated in stem Other
than I had to drop math, I just knew there
was no point in it, so I just dropped out. Natalie,
Thank you, appreciate you. As always, we have not done yet.
It'll be bad.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
If we stay on the road we're on right now.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
In less than ten years, virtually everything that matters to
us in life will depend on whether China will allow
us to have it or not. Everything from the blood
pressure medicine we take to what movies we get to watch,
and everything in between, we will depend on Ford. They
have come to dominate the critical mental industry supplies.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Throughout the world. Everywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They've now established critical mineral rights. Even those who want
to see more electric cars, no matter where you make them,
those batteries are almost entirely dependent on the ability of
the Chinese and the willingness of the Chinese Communist Party
to produce it and export it to you. So if
we don't change course, we are going to live in
the world where much of what matters to us on
a daily basis, from our security to our health, will
(20:27):
be dependent on whether the Chinese allows us to have
it or not.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
That's an unacceptable outcome.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That is, of all the confirmation nonsense we've seen, that
may be the most eye popping and ominous little fifteen
thirty second cut that I've seen so far. Joining me
now is someone who knows quite a bit about China, economies,
everything else, economists, Peter saint Ange. By the way, go
to a profsaintonge dot com if you want to consume
(20:57):
his stuff, which I most definitely do. That's why on him. Okay, Peter,
First of all, what does that mean? How did we
end up on the If Marco Rubio was correct, and
I'm assuming he is, and we're on a course to
have everything run through China, let's start at the beginning.
How do we get on such a course? When did
this happen?
Speaker 11 (21:16):
Yeah, well, there was a time when America was the
dominant manufacturer in the world. Europe would sit around and
complain about how you know there will come a day
when we will make nothing in Europe anymore. Everything can
be made in America and we threw it away. The
way that I summit is that we shot ourselves in
the foot and we put ourselves in a position where
(21:37):
now we have to rent the wheelchair from China and
we're pissed off about it.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
So the solution of that, of course, is stop shooting
yourself in the foot.
Speaker 11 (21:45):
So that means reduce regulations, the Green mandates, the.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
DEI, the social policy.
Speaker 11 (21:53):
A lot of the regulations just corrupt industries just buy it. Basically,
large operators by it to try to shut out the little.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
Little guy. The end resultants on small.
Speaker 11 (22:03):
Companies and the big companies they get the burdens too,
they got to face all those regulations, but they just
move the production over to China. So you go from
a world where things are made in America the world
where things might even still be made by American companies,
but they're making it all in China.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Peter, why take anything to China when they have so
much control of the market. You know, So if I'm
making an apple products or something like that, this is
a pretty good example and I decide I would rather
move my factory to China because of all the laws
and regulations here in America. Well, why would I move
into a communist country where they control everything? What do
I get from that?
Speaker 11 (22:44):
Yeah, well that's what's changing a lot now. So these
sort of dirty secret here. The way that China got
a lot of companies to move there instead of some
other poor country like Mexico is that they used access
to their market as the carrot. So if you bem
W wanted to sell your cars in China, you had
to produce your cars in China. Now, ironically, that's exactly
(23:06):
what Donald Trump is proposing to do in America. And
guess what it works. If you have a large market.
It doesn't work. If you're a small country. If you're
like Honduras and you try to produce your own steel,
good luck, that's not going to work. But if you're
a large country in the US is about a quarter
of the entire world economy, all right, so we are
(23:26):
even bigger than China.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
If you're a big market, yes, that works. You can
lean on companies.
Speaker 11 (23:31):
You can tell, say, Toyota, if you guys want to
sell cars in America, you don't want tariffs on it,
you don't want harassment and on the customs. Then you
have to produce it here that absolutely worked for China,
worked in Korea, worked in Japan.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Donald Trump wants to.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Do it here. Okay, Peter, talk to me about this
Chinese economy. As you pointed out, we're still larger than them.
That gap is closing from what I understand. But how
is their economy? Because I where all my life. You
open up the newspaper one day and you'll find out
that this is some Chinese juggernaut that's going to overtake
(24:07):
us in fifteen minutes. And the next day you find
out it's hanging by a thread and they're about to
have some huge what is it?
Speaker 11 (24:16):
Yeah, So I think that the fundamentals in China are
better than ours in many ways. When I was a kid,
people used to dismiss Japan. They said, ah, Asians don't
invent anything, they just copy stuff bs all right, if
you look at pattents, you look at you know, the
creative arts places like Japan and career knocking our stocks off.
(24:37):
It's not that there's some fundamental flaw in Asia and
China especially. It's been very very smart about the educational system.
It focuses on you know, math, reading, logic, A lot
of it is is industrial skills. So you have you know,
votech schools where kids actually start working in factories and
then they work their way up towards you know, design,
(24:58):
and towards higher and higher and work. So China is,
I think, on the fundamentals that are very very much
on the ball.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
They're very rational about.
Speaker 11 (25:06):
Regulation, they understand the difficulties of manufacturing, and the government
tends to partner with companies and try to fix problems
and sort of sort of hunting them down. Having said,
China's problem at the moment is that the current leadership
is very very suspicious of markets.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So President She sort of idolizes mout Setangue. He thinks
that it was a mistake to.
Speaker 11 (25:30):
Open up the economy so much that it has allowed
private businesses to start mustling in and taking power from
the Communist party. So She himself he has almost had
the growth rate in China. He's actually done worse. Recently,
China's flirting with actual recession. And so during most of
(25:50):
my lifetime China had been catching up. Since President She
came in, it's actually flattened out or in some ways,
the US is actual growing ahead of the China.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
So if you know she's relatively young.
Speaker 11 (26:04):
He's probably gonna be in power for another ten fifteen years.
Given how it works in China, he has wiped out
any sort of rivals. So the next ten or fifteen
years in China may actually be slow to declining. They
may start to look at sort of a Japanese style
lost decade.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Economically. What's the Russia Chinese relationship because traditionally the way
of thinking is Russia has the resources, doesn't have the people.
China has the people, not the resources. So they come
to some sort of an agreement. What's going on with that?
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Yeah, I think, yeah, that's exactly right. That sort of
captures it.
Speaker 11 (26:40):
Traditionally, Russia is aware that it would take very very
few Chinese to essentially steal the entire eastern two thirds
of the country. You know, Russia's population is about one
hundred and forty million. Almost all of those people live
in the western European part of the country. There's almost
nobody in the entire eastern part. So Russia has always
been very, very suspicious of Chinese immigration, of Chinese influence
(27:03):
in the East. What I think is sort of a
sad tragedy of what happened with the Ukraine War is
that the sanctions, the sort of Western aggressiveness towards Russia
has pushed it into the point where it is now
an economic colony of China. It's completely reliant on China.
The Chinese, of course, they're no dummies. They're taking advantage
(27:25):
of the Russians as much as possible to try to
grab resources and to grab control over Russia. And even
after that war ends, I think that the Chinese are
going to keep that control. And you know where we
go from here is that China is doing everything it
can to turn Russia into an economic colony.
Speaker 6 (27:45):
They themselves have to be a little bit careful.
Speaker 11 (27:47):
They don't want to cross the sanctions line and kid
sanctions thrown towards them. That was their concern under Biden.
Trump of course, is much more aggressive and much more
willing to do that. So I think China is trying
to be careful. But fundamentally I think that the longest
sort of effect of the Ukraine War is going to
be turning Russia into a colony of China.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tell me about bricks. It's a conversation you and I
have had before. This alternate currency, the dollars, the world's
reserve currency, and then Brazil, Russia, India, China and so
on and so forth have gotten together and decided they're
going to kind of try to come up with an
alternative to that. Does Trump getting elected kneecap that effort,
ramp up that effort? Where is all that?
Speaker 6 (28:33):
Yeah, I think both of us have been watching bricks
for a while.
Speaker 11 (28:37):
And it's interesting because that's probably the most serious threat
to the US dollar in terms of another currency.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Now.
Speaker 11 (28:44):
The real threat to the US dollars, of course, is
gold or some other commodity money as the dollar falls apart.
But Bricks was really the most serious currency competitor. And
to be honest, I think that Bricks has taken the
wind out of its own sales.
Speaker 6 (28:58):
They came out this year and pivoted.
Speaker 11 (29:04):
From as a sort of gold back, stronger competitive a
dollar to instead looking at this sort of goofy basket
of currencies where you throw in all of these frankly
pretty lousy currencies. You know, Brazil's got a hyperinflationary pass,
Russia as well. The Chinese currency is completely controlled by
the government. So this point, I think in the near
(29:26):
term Bricks is actually probably not a threat at all.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Russia is obviously very distracted with its war.
Speaker 11 (29:33):
China's distracted with its own economic problems at this point
as well, as it's going to have to dance for
Trump or it's going to get into trouble. So I
don't think anything's going to come out of bricks at
this point in terms of what's next for the dollar.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
I think there's actually a lot of sort of moving
parts there.
Speaker 11 (29:49):
So on the one hand, Trump had threatened that any
country that goes too deep into the Bricks alliance, he's
gonna I think he threatened fifty one hundred percent sanctioned.
It was basically existential, that's economic war. But on the
other hand, Trump and JD. Vance both talked about wanting
a weaker dollar. The reason they want that is to
make US exports cheaper. I'm not a huge fan of
(30:12):
that because it also bankrupts the American people. So I
would rather that we, you know, fix the taxes, fix
the regulations, perhaps use strategic tariffs where you have bad
faith partners like China, rather than sort of selling off
the family jewels just to just to increase exports.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
But Trump's got kind of a complex.
Speaker 11 (30:31):
Relationship here where he's been very very hyper aggressive against
bricks as a threat to the US dollar. But at
the same time he's also welcomed the idea of a
weeker dollar.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Peter as always outstanding. Thank you, my friend. All right,
still not done with China quite yet.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Hang on.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
The way our system works, the way our bureaucratic system works,
where the speed of weapons procurement works.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
We're always a decade.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
Behind and fighting the last war, whereas China there we
have a we have you know what Rompsfeldt say, you
go to the war of the army, you have we
have the army China's building an army specifically dedicated to
defeating the United States of America.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
That is, that is their strategic outset.
Speaker 12 (31:30):
Take hypersonic missiles.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
So if our whole, if our whole.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Power projection platform is aircraft carriers and the ability to
project power that way strategically around the globe. And yeah,
we have a nuclear triad and all of that, but
a big part of it. And if you know, fifteen
hypersonic missiles can take out our ten aircraft carriers in
the first twenty minutes of a conflict, what does that
look like.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Oh, that's one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard,
and I have heard that before from people who would
know figured. Steve Yates is about as good a person
you can ask about these things as anyone around joining
me now, national security expert with the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Yates. Okay, Stephen,
I have heard this before, that we have a carrier
(32:13):
based navy and carry based military. You could make the
argument and that China is attempting to or has already succeeded,
depending on who you're talking to, come up with something
that will simply erase these things and sweep them off
the chessboard. What's going on?
Speaker 13 (32:29):
Well, now, Secretary of Defense Hecseth was absolutely correct. We've
had this back and forth in Congress and in the
media for a very very long time. There's several annual
reports that commissions put out, that committees on the Hill
put out that have always noted that China's military capabilities
were as as Pete Hexseth stated, aimed at defeating the
(32:53):
United States, and that they were using comprehensive national power
to do that, and that their manufactur shuring supply chains.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
We're racing far ahead.
Speaker 13 (33:02):
Of our previous estimates and doing so in the United States,
as Secretary of Hegxith was noting has been just tragically
slow to come up with what's our concept of warfare
in this new era? But then our manufacturing supply chints
have been woefully slow, corrupted.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
I would argue, and inadequate to the cause. Okay, that's
a lot. Let's focus on us right now. Why are
we so slow in coming up with this? Is this
just a change in administrations? You know, not that I
want to be a dirty communist in like China, but
the having that consistency does help maintaining one form policy vision?
Speaker 12 (33:44):
Is it?
Speaker 6 (33:45):
That is?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
What is it? Why have we been slow?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Why?
Speaker 13 (33:48):
I would argue that there is a part of this
that's strategic, and that's the part that changes an administration
can sometimes help where you have to get out of
the mindset of winning the last last war and get
dialed into what are the current challenges facing us? And
we have new tools and so this administration has a
unique opportunity with incredibly different people from tech and manufacturing
(34:12):
and investment backgrounds that should, under the right circumstances, with
the right OMN be able to revolutionize our supply chains
and deploy tech assisted new forms of warfare that should
make things harder for China, so we get past that
carrier based approach that we've had basically since World War
Two and onward.
Speaker 12 (34:32):
So that's one piece.
Speaker 13 (34:33):
The manufacturing part though, that's where the swamp thing has
been the problem, where there's huge vested interests that constantly
deliver things late and over budget. We have allies that
have already paid and they're waiting years after targets to
receive deterrent that would help avoid Americans having to intervene.
And then there's the disservice to ourselves falling behind on
(34:55):
the number of ships and planes and other things that
we should have for our own national interests.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Stephen, People who pay attention to the budget and spending
when they hear people say what you just said, which
is true, that we're falling behind on planes and ships
and things like that, they look at the budget and
they asked the question I'm about to ask you, how
can that possibly be? How can we not have the
most state of the ships in the world right now
(35:22):
given the ridiculous military budget we have. If it's not
going to the ships, where's it going.
Speaker 13 (35:29):
Well, I think it comes down to corruption. Inefficiency, and bureaucracy,
which may all be three ways of saying the same thing,
but that ultimately I think has been the Achilles heel
of the sole remaining superpower. It's why I think that
we have a generational opportunity that we need to seize
because if we miss it, I think that the Republic
(35:51):
is at risk. In this DOJE effort, it's got to
focus on redoing these manufacturing supply chain, specific in the
Pentagon and the Beltway bandits who have fueled those supply
chains for decades. That's where Elon Musk showed he was
able to outmatch NASA's bureaucracy and putting important technology into space.
(36:14):
We need to mirror that kind of effort inside government.
They'll meet with resistance, but that's where the pit bull
and chief needs to come in and the richest man
in the world and others need to weigh in to
carve out this new opportunity.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let's go back to China's that's really what we're talking
about here. Tell me about these missiles, these hypersonic missiles.
Do we have countermeasures? What else is China doing that
concerns you?
Speaker 13 (36:40):
Well, In short, China's doing everything and it's kind of
a joke, but it's a very serious situation. They are
investing in everything human intelligence to cyber capabilities to space assets.
They're investing in things that would defeat our core capabilities.
They've gone very, very far ahead in bio warfare and
(37:04):
chemical warfare. They don't really have the ethical restraints and
accountability restraints that we have in our systems, and.
Speaker 12 (37:11):
So they've been pushing ahead in everything.
Speaker 13 (37:15):
And they've also compromised our homeland security in any number
of ways, from the border to all kinds of entities
that are psychologically damaging to our youth. Another discussion on
social media apps perhaps, but they have had a comprehensive
approach and they don't really see a pushback coming from
(37:37):
the United States until perhaps now. This is where President
Trump has the opportunity to reset this narrative of America
on decline and China on the rise, and somehow that's inevitable.
I think China's got some problems, and if Trump gets
America back on the right footing in defense and otherwise,
we have this golden age he's talked about, that will
(37:59):
have to recount what China's calculus is.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
What problems do they have right now, Stevens, it's easy
when you look at the length and breadth of everything
they're doing that it seems to just think, oh my gosh,
it is you know, the rising sun, if you will
pardon the pun. But they do have major problems too.
Speaker 13 (38:16):
What are they they do And one of the things
that we can't kind of bank our lives on, but
it's been a reality in every other conflict is they
have a very large military order of battle when it's
on paper, but it is profoundly untested against peer or
better enemy combatants. And when you look at what the
(38:38):
Iraqi National Guard was going into the First Gulf War
and later, and when you look at what Russia's prohibitive
military capability was going into Ukraine, these big powers, I
think have to be somewhat humble about what reality is
when they have to grind into actual combat. And so
there's that reality that comes into play. And China is
(39:01):
not known for quality control. They are known for manufacturing
at speed and volume and if things break, so be it,
and their people are expendable. Well, their people might not
like that, and they might not be as sustainable in
conflict as they think going into it. The people might
not be on board with sacrificing so much if they
(39:21):
aren't convinced that it was absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
These big powers like China and Russia, they stumble walking
into things like Ukraine. What is it that makes them
stumble is that the logistics? Do they not have the
people they think? Does their equipment just suck? You can
certainly see that being a problem for China. What is
it that makes them stumble?
Speaker 13 (39:44):
Well, I think one of it is one part of
it is a reality that you know very well. It's
a lot easier to hit back, to attack, to try
to break something, to thwart something, than it is to invade,
occupy and.
Speaker 12 (39:58):
Hold a different territory.
Speaker 13 (40:00):
And that doesn't matter whether that is over air, sea,
or land. It is just a fundamental reality. If you
have people and material that's positioned in a way to resist,
and there is a resiliency to that supply, it's tough.
And so I think when you look at what when
(40:21):
Russia went into Ukraine, you had Granny with a gun
willing to use it. That made some difference, but you
also just had this reality that could take some of
that territory and there near abroad. But they met with
a resistance that has sustained for years. Ukraine still paid
a dear price. If China moved against Taiwan, that would
be a price that no one really wants to have
(40:44):
to pay. But China is untested in trying to see
how much they would really be willing to pay if
they met with resistance and if Japan, Taiwan, the United
States and others were serious about capabilities that degraded China
in its own territory.
Speaker 12 (41:00):
And I think alter is the calculus.
Speaker 13 (41:01):
I think we have frankly been fighting with hands tied
behind our backs with theories of the past, and that
has enabled China to get I think a little bit
too much Hubris.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Finally, Steven, let's talk about Japan really quickly. Ever since
World War Two, obviously there have been limits on what
they're allowed to do. But what are they? I know
they're not China. What are they? What are their capabilities?
I know they're a valuable ally in all this.
Speaker 13 (41:27):
Well, they are very good at manufacturing, they are very
I think good at quality control, and contrast to China,
they have had, as you ellude, some constraints that have
been placed upon them, some that they've put on themselves
to be committed to just pure self defense.
Speaker 12 (41:47):
But former Prime Minister.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Shinzo Abe, the late Prime Minister, he began to change
their way of thinking about defense and recognizing that they
needed to have sort of active self defense, which is
euphemism for we're going to be able to be a
more normal country and punch beyond our territorial waters and
airspace when needed. And I think it's a good thing
(42:11):
for the United States and the world to have a
responsible stakeholder like Japan, which they may be a lethargic economy,
but they're still very big and they're a significant country,
and they have significant capabilities. They also have historic ties
to places like Taiwan that are underappreciated, and that's why
I think China has to be very careful. It's not
(42:31):
just the United States that might have a national interest
in engaging Japan, and others may too, and so that's
what makes us less of a cake walk.
Speaker 12 (42:38):
We can't bank on that.
Speaker 13 (42:40):
No one should take it easier lightly, but I think China,
if they're sober about this, should be more cautious than
they've been.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Here's hoping. Steven, Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
All right, Well, if you're back, it is important to
(43:12):
acknowledge that China is rapidly approaching status as being a
near peer economically, militarily. They are gaining on us, and
unlike other countries that have done that in the past,
or at least flirted with that, they are a dead
set on overtaking us. They write it down, they acknowledge it.
(43:33):
And so what does that mean for us? It doesn't
mean we have to panic, run around screaming the sky
is falling, hiding under our desks, but it does mean
we have to be equally as purposeful looking back at them,
trying to win because we clearly are in a competition.
They have made that decision, and we must win because
losing means very, very ugly things. So we keep marching forward,
(43:56):
all right, do it again,
Host
Jesse Kelly
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