Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 23, 2021


Ep 443 ｜ Our Biggest Geopolitical Threat & What to Do About It ｜ Guest： Melissa Chen


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

168.78435

Word Count

7,523

Sentence Count

336

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

30


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am with Melissa Chin of Spectator USA. I've had
00:00:16.680 her on the podcast before. Today we are going to talk about the threat of China, how we
00:00:22.540 got here to the place to where China has influenced our culture, influenced our media, influenced
00:00:28.000 the way we think in our economics and our technological development so much, and how we can possibly
00:00:33.820 get out of their influence, which, as you will learn through this conversation, is so important.
00:00:40.840 And so she's got a lot of insight to give us on this. I'm excited for you to hear it.
00:00:44.380 Without further ado, here is Melissa Chin.
00:00:51.240 Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?
00:00:55.720 Okay. My name is Melissa Chin, and I'm the New York editor of Spectator USA. I'm also the managing
00:01:03.280 director of an organization called Ideas Beyond Borders. And what we do is we translate books
00:01:08.960 into Arabic, digitize them, and make them available for free.
00:01:12.540 Wow. And you talk a lot about, well, you talk about a lot of different subjects, and you're
00:01:17.340 a really great follow for that reason. One area that I want to focus on today is China,
00:01:23.580 our relationship with China, kind of in general, and also specifically, how you foresee the Biden
00:01:30.480 administration kind of dealing with this hostile regime. First, can you kind of tell us your
00:01:37.160 expertise in this area?
00:01:40.080 So I've always been interested in the China issue, because I think this is the geopolitical
00:01:45.880 relationship that is really going to reshape the 21st century.
00:01:49.540 I came to the United States when I was about 17. I immigrated here for college, and I love
00:01:55.340 the values of the United States, especially the First Amendment. So I was pretty disappointed when
00:02:02.380 I started seeing in college, maybe about like, when I was in grad school about 2015, how the country
00:02:08.020 was changing. And it reminded me of what it's like being back home in Singapore, where there were
00:02:12.380 certain, you know, kind of avenues of speech where you weren't allowed to discuss. And, you know, kind of
00:02:19.520 being Chinese, I knew also how important Confucian values were to shaping society. And I felt, okay, this is a
00:02:27.560 topic that I need to be a little bit more vocal about. Because I don't think the American, at least back
00:02:33.260 then, the Americans weren't really like, we were talking about this issue.
00:02:36.920 Right. And can you expound just for people who don't know Confucian values, what you mean by that?
00:02:42.380 Um, it's, it's, so Confucius was a philosopher, whose philosophy really underpins a lot of Chinese
00:02:49.820 culture. It's very much focused on hierarchy of on duty. And, and it's, it's a very, it's, it's
00:02:58.580 focuses also on a lot of discipline, values, discipline, and of the group over the individual.
00:03:04.760 Mm hmm. Okay, yes. And so, um, these were very important to, um, to society and to the
00:03:12.760 principles that were in Singapore, in, in China, and you kind of saw that infiltrating in American
00:03:19.200 institutions and that, that disturbed you?
00:03:22.920 Well, it's, um, more likely that, you know, there were certain aspects of culture that was
00:03:28.960 very, was increasingly getting very repressive. Um, we were justifying actions by sort of this
00:03:35.720 idea about social harmony. Um, and you know, about when I was in school at the time, it wasn't that
00:03:42.640 bad, but I continued to work in a very academic environment. And I saw that on campus, you had
00:03:49.860 students that were clamoring for repression of speech. These were, you know, the people that
00:03:54.820 were going to graduate and go into our newsrooms, go into tech companies, HR departments everywhere.
00:04:00.920 And, and they had this idea that, that speech needed to be clamped down upon. It was equivalent
00:04:06.800 to violence somehow. And so that was very disturbing to me because I, I saw what that does to, you know,
00:04:12.540 how that chills culture basically.
00:04:15.140 And how do you think that happened? I mean, we had this dream, Ronald Reagan, who I really like
00:04:20.880 and admire. He had a vision in the eighties. And even when he wrote in the nineties, that if we kind
00:04:26.880 of exported capitalism into China, that they would become this freedom loving society and they would
00:04:33.780 become maybe even more like the United States. Well, that didn't really happen. They took on
00:04:37.840 capitalism and they kind of exported communism and more totalitarian ideas into places like the United
00:04:44.520 States to where, like you said, we've kind of become familiar with and comfortable with. Some people
00:04:49.460 have, especially in academia, the repression of speech and the repression of so-called dangerous
00:04:54.540 ideas. How, how do you think we allowed that to happen over the past few decades?
00:05:00.380 So I think it really began, you know, with, um, Milton Friedman, his idea was that political
00:05:06.500 freedoms were a necessary condition to lead to economic freedom was necessary to lead to political
00:05:12.980 freedoms. And this was consensus, not just in economics, but also in terms of politics and our
00:05:18.520 foreign policy for, I don't know, ever since Richard Nixon went to China, this idea that,
00:05:24.540 you know, if we just trade it with China, if we just engage with them economically, um, that
00:05:29.360 automatically just by default, the Chinese would clamor for more freedoms and they would want
00:05:35.360 political rights. Um, and then we also thought, I think that's another of, you know, in terms of
00:05:41.320 hubris, um, is that we thought that if China got the internet, um, Bill Clinton famously said,
00:05:47.620 China censoring the internet is going to be like nailing jello to the wall. He actually said this
00:05:52.780 and he kind of laughed and so did the audience. And of course, you know, fast forward later,
00:05:59.120 it's, it's obvious now that they did actually figure out how to nail jello to the wall. Um,
00:06:03.840 the Chinese internet is completely censored and, and walled off. They built this great firewall.
00:06:08.540 And so if you were right now, you know, growing up in Beijing and you launched your web browser,
00:06:13.940 it looks very different. You can't go to Wikipedia, you can't go to Google, Twitter, any of these,
00:06:19.700 you know, social media platforms that you and I can, can just, you know, load up and just like talk
00:06:26.000 to people that have dissenting views or even just read articles from, from different sources,
00:06:31.260 like the New York times itself. Um, and so you can see that, you know, this, this calculation was,
00:06:37.440 was one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes. I think the United States made since about 1930.
00:06:44.620 Um, and, but there was good reason to think that China would open up. I don't think that that was
00:06:49.500 a bad calculation, but I think we missed a lot of signs along the way that it wasn't going as planned.
00:06:56.680 And many of our elites were very happy to reap the economic benefits from that trade.
00:07:02.280 A lot of our jobs were shipped overseas and, you know, middle-class was hollowed out. Um, and,
00:07:07.760 and here we are with an economically empowered China and they are as authoritarian as ever.
00:07:14.420 They've figured out how to fuse capitalism with authoritarianism and in a very new way,
00:07:19.140 they call this socialism with Chinese characteristics.
00:07:21.720 Hmm. You know, something that disturbs me is, um, the softness and even strange affection that a lot
00:07:31.180 of the elites seem to have. And not just the elites because of the economic benefits that we have been
00:07:36.760 able to reap, like you said, getting cheap products that aren't made in the United States. But also I
00:07:42.700 think that there is a section of progressivism that is actually okay with China or doesn't want to
00:07:49.740 criticize China, maybe for a variety of reasons. I think one of them is the intersectional reason
00:07:54.820 that we have to just focus on America being bad, the Western world being bad, whiteness being bad.
00:08:00.460 And we can't possibly criticize the Chinese regime because in the world of critical race theory,
00:08:06.360 we have to see everyone that's non-Western and non-white as, um, a part of the oppressed class.
00:08:12.860 I think that's blinding a lot of people to the brutal reality of the regime and what people are
00:08:20.940 suffering under the CCP. Would you agree?
00:08:24.080 I totally agree with that. I mean, I I've said often that, that, you know, woke ideology, which
00:08:29.960 encompasses critical race and intersectionality, um, has made it very difficult to view certain
00:08:35.540 global events. Right. So one of the articles I wrote was about Hong Kong because you had the people
00:08:41.160 of Hong Kong, you know, protesting one in seven Hong Kongers were out on the streets protesting and
00:08:46.740 clamoring for democracy and, you know, they were pushing back against China and, you know, it was
00:08:53.300 very, they were waving, for example, the Union Jack, they were singing the Star Spangled Banner, they were
00:08:57.940 waving the American flag and, and, you know, people that kind of view the world through critical race
00:09:04.120 are looking at this and saying, how can a former, you know, colony, British colony be raising the flag
00:09:09.900 of their, of their former colonial master. It didn't compute, like, cause, you know, in, in terms
00:09:15.980 of this ideology, you should be wanting to decolonize everything and they don't, they, it's very difficult
00:09:21.120 for people to see that, okay, maybe certain ideas like freedom and democracy are something that is,
00:09:27.480 you know, that comes from the West and that people in some countries may actually want something like
00:09:33.860 that. And it almost causes this, like, era 404 doesn't compute. And, and so I, I wrote a piece
00:09:41.280 about this talking about how it's so limiting to look at global issues like that. And in fact,
00:09:47.140 these issues should challenge this view that should really challenge this view that, you know, just
00:09:52.400 because a country is or a culture is not white, doesn't mean that, that, you know, they can't,
00:10:01.900 that, that you can't criticize it or that, you know, they, they can be flawed. I mean,
00:10:06.840 China is not, is being imperialistic. They're imposing, you know, people that really don't
00:10:12.980 like imperialism should be fighting China because they are imposing a Chinese way of life onto many
00:10:20.320 regions right now. So it's not just Hong Kong. They're also doing it in Xinjiang, for example,
00:10:24.500 which is where the Uyghur Muslims are living.
00:10:26.540 Yeah. Oh, there are so many questions that I want to ask you based on that. One thing that I was
00:10:30.780 thinking about the way that I think intersectionalists and some people on the left
00:10:34.940 did try to fit what was happening in Hong Kong into their very myopic worldview was to say, well,
00:10:43.380 actually, uh, what the people in Hong Kong are resisting, it's the same thing as what, you know,
00:10:49.860 people in Portland and Seattle are doing. They try to compare, you know, the Black Lives Matter
00:10:54.980 and Tifa rioters to the demonstrators in Hong Kong. Can you talk about why that's just not
00:11:01.360 a good comparison? I would say they're the opposite, but what would you say?
00:11:05.220 They're the total opposite. I mean, firstly, that is actually a Chinese Communist Party
00:11:10.140 line. They very much love it when people conflate the two. And in fact, they were eager to blast that
00:11:20.040 kind of meme and message, um, that linking the Hong Kong protesters to what Antifa was doing,
00:11:26.620 um, especially when Antifa was going after federal buildings and, and the Hong Kong protesters were
00:11:30.720 occupying the legislative council. Now, obviously the premise of both, um, kinds of unrest, uh, very
00:11:38.760 different, um, in the United States, we are a democracy. You can actually elect your leaders.
00:11:44.040 And so you have these instruments of democracy that you can use to affect change. I mean,
00:11:50.080 we just changed our president. Is that not proof enough that we live in a world where,
00:11:54.680 where, you know, you can actually exercise nonviolent or non-civil unrest kind of means
00:12:01.060 to affect change. Now in Hong Kong, they don't even have a chance to elect their leaders. They were
00:12:07.320 protesting a broad and very sweeping national security law that would allow anybody with
00:12:13.620 seditious thoughts to essentially be arrested, um, you know, jailed in, in China. And, and we all
00:12:19.920 know also that the Chinese legal system is, is basically a kangaroo court. Um, it's, it's not
00:12:25.900 transparent. There's no separation of powers, um, in the Chinese government, unlike in the U S
00:12:31.280 government where executive and judicial and legislative are separated in China, they are all
00:12:36.780 fused and, and you have no recourse once you're arrested. So they were really fighting for,
00:12:43.060 for their lives in a way, in a very real way, real way. It's, it was about freedom and, you know,
00:12:49.580 in Portland, they, they could just not elect the mayor if they didn't like what the mayor was doing.
00:12:55.740 You know, why were they burning buildings? It just didn't make sense at all.
00:13:00.700 And doing so in a lot of cases with almost total impunity and not just that, but also approval in
00:13:08.020 some cases by the powers that be, or at least just kind of, um, looking, nodding along, nodding along,
00:13:15.680 right. Or not naming, um, not naming the, the groups specifically and just saying, you know,
00:13:22.420 we're against violence, but we won't actually say who is doing the violence. Now, some people
00:13:27.940 listening might not actually know what happened in Hong Kong. And I want to use this as a kind of
00:13:34.020 transition into the, um, the oppression that the CCP is, uh, is exacting over its people. Um,
00:13:44.480 but first, can you talk about why, why Hong Kongers were dissenting? Why were they demonstrating
00:13:51.180 what happened to the formerly British colony?
00:13:54.340 So there was a treaty, um, that basically guaranteed Hong Kong after the British, uh, the British
00:14:02.580 actually handed over the territory to China, um, in 1997, there was a treaty that would guarantee
00:14:09.420 Hong Kong to be autonomous for at least the next 50 years. So till, uh, 2047, um, China, you know,
00:14:17.140 was, was very happy to actually let Hong Kong exist under this one country, two systems. So officially
00:14:24.160 this is China, but Hong Kong retains the, you know, the institutions and, and the, the sort
00:14:30.880 of more democratic, uh, institutions that remain, that was a vestige from, from the British colonial
00:14:36.880 past. Um, and also in terms of culture, Hong Kong was, you know, for, for a good part of like the
00:14:42.900 eighties and nineties, I mean, you're probably, I mean, you were probably too young, but, but there
00:14:47.080 were, uh, it was, it was kind of the center, the cultural center of Asia movies were produced
00:14:51.680 there. It was a center for publishing because it had this climate that was completely, that
00:14:57.280 was very free, um, in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. So, you know,
00:15:02.540 instead of allowing this, uh, to, to go on this one country, two systems model, um, the
00:15:09.360 Chinese communist party reneged on its treaty, essentially. Um, they started clamoring down
00:15:14.740 on Hong Kong, slowly stripping Hong Kong one by one of, of their freedoms and autonomy that
00:15:20.220 was guaranteed by the treaty. Um, so the, the thing that kind of, so the protests, pro-democracy
00:15:25.880 protests have actually been going on since 2014. Um, and again, this is because of the,
00:15:30.980 you know, little things that have been chipping away at the freedoms one by one, but the thing
00:15:34.340 that really set everything off last year, uh, or the year before it was actually this extradition
00:15:40.060 law. China basically imposed an extradition law onto Hong Kong saying that, um, anyone that's
00:15:45.780 found guilty of, uh, whatever sedition or whatever crime, uh, can be extradited, uh, back to the
00:15:51.460 mainland for, for trial. And this was very alarming to a lot of activists, um, to a lot
00:15:56.860 of artists, people that are critical of, of the Chinese government and want to retain
00:16:00.940 their right to criticize even just policies of the Chinese government, which really should
00:16:06.740 be up for criticism. Um, and, and then they blanketed, you know, this new, this security
00:16:13.540 law that was even more sweeping, broadened the definition of what sedition was, what
00:16:17.840 incitement was. Um, and they started, um, arresting people that were in the sort of
00:16:23.960 democracy, the opposition parties in Hong Kong. So they just completely overreached. Um, and,
00:16:30.460 and that's why people were, were so angry and they were on the streets. They wanted to fight
00:16:35.360 for their, you know, own right to vote in the parties. They wanted to fight to abolish the,
00:16:41.740 the security law and they wanted the world to notice and to stand with them. Um, and
00:16:46.040 yeah, that's what the Hong Kong protests were really about.
00:16:49.320 And did the world stand with them? I mean, I know there were conservative Americans and
00:16:53.640 probably progressive Americans too, who, who did at least in our voices. But I mean, what
00:16:59.900 about the UN? What about other world powers? Did anyone come to their aid?
00:17:05.400 Um, not so much. The global institutions were, were pretty quiet on, I mean, I think he did
00:17:11.620 have like human rights watch definitely release statements. Um, but in terms of actual policy,
00:17:17.400 right, I think the UK and the US was thinking about this, but the UK definitely, um, opened
00:17:22.920 the country up and saying that, okay, if you have a Hong Kong passport, you're going to have
00:17:26.360 a pathway to citizenship. You're allowed to, to, you know, travel to, to the UK and at least
00:17:32.380 try to, to immigrate. Um, but for the most part, I mean, look at what happened when we had
00:17:38.620 a sitting manager of an NBA team basically espouse his support or, for, you know, the Hong Kongers
00:17:46.160 who are fighting for their freedoms. Look what happened to him. He, well, he doesn't even manage
00:17:50.360 that team anymore, but he was completely, you know, he, he was, he had to grovel and apologize
00:17:56.320 for, for what was a very benign, um, statement of support on Twitter.
00:18:01.060 Wow. That's, can you talk about just in case people just don't know, or they just don't
00:18:08.420 fully understand the depths of evil of the CCP? Um, and we're talking not just internationally,
00:18:14.720 but with their own people. Can you talk about some of the things that they're doing, for
00:18:18.420 example, like with the weaker Muslims?
00:18:22.220 Yeah. Um, my gosh, the, this is one of those cases that is just so tragic because it's happening
00:18:28.140 right, right in front of our eyes. Um, the Uyghur population is, is basically a Turkic, um,
00:18:34.460 Muslim minority that lives in Northwestern China in a region called Xinjiang. And, um, they have
00:18:42.040 been sort of surveilled, um, their freedoms have been curtailed. They're, you know, some, some
00:18:52.120 weaker Muslims are actually put into these modern day re-education camps that look very reminiscent
00:19:00.500 of, of, you know, camps past in Auschwitz. And, you know, they, they don't have any, um,
00:19:09.040 there's no due process. So if you got, if you got swept up by the state security apparatus,
00:19:14.300 you basically get whisked away. Um, your family never knows when they'll see you again and all in
00:19:20.200 the name of, you know, fighting extremism, fighting terrorism, um, and separatism because,
00:19:27.400 you know, the Chinese government ultimately is worried that, that this minority group wants to,
00:19:33.180 to separate and be autonomous from China. And that is no go for the Chinese government. And so based on,
00:19:39.560 you know, just their characteristics, now they're actually using genetic data as well to identify
00:19:44.600 who's weaker. Um, they are, they are imprisoning them upfront. So, you know, with, with just nothing
00:19:51.480 other than no information other than, um, just what, who they are and, and what they believe.
00:19:57.900 And so they're also trying to, um, sinusize their habits. They force these Muslims to basically
00:20:05.960 shave their beards. They can't eat pork. And when they get, when they get sent to these re-education
00:20:11.120 camps, they have to sing praises of the Chinese communist party. They have to sing these patriotic
00:20:16.580 songs. It's, you know, make pledges. It's kind of, it's very, very creepy, um, because it's so
00:20:23.720 totalitarian in terms of how they're subjugating these people. And, um, you know, satellite images,
00:20:29.960 some, some reporters have done amazing work. One of the things about China is that journalists,
00:20:35.040 especially foreign journalists don't have freedom of movement in the country. So if you're a foreign
00:20:39.380 journalist and you try to go to Xinjiang to even have eyes on the ground and report on this,
00:20:43.980 you will probably not be allowed to, um, you know, actually last year during COVID China kicked out
00:20:49.580 the New York times, the Washington posts, um, all these Beijing bureaus that were there. So we don't
00:20:55.500 even have offices in China anymore. They're not allowed to operate there. And, um, and journalists
00:21:01.880 have been expelled for, for just their honest reporting on what was going on in Xinjiang. Um, so it's,
00:21:08.360 it's, and, you know, they're also doing a forced sterilization of, of, um, the Uyghur Muslim women
00:21:13.940 and, and recently Pompeo, Secretary Pompeo actually, you know, designated what was happening there as
00:21:21.080 a genocide. And, um, actually to Biden's Secretary of State's credit, Antony Blinken, he actually agreed
00:21:28.620 that it was a genocide. Yeah. Forced sterilizations is what I've seen reported. Forced abortions and just
00:21:35.800 some of the testimonies of women that have actually been able to speak, who have somehow escaped or
00:21:43.320 who have just been able to, um, give testimony to what's happened. What's happened really for a lot
00:21:48.880 longer than I think the United States has known, um, are these forced late term abortions. And there
00:21:54.360 was this propaganda tweet that went up not too long ago as we're recording this that said, you know,
00:21:59.220 the Chinese Communist Party is, um, they're doing such wonders and such favors for the Uyghur Muslim
00:22:04.300 people to make sure that these women, um, you know, they're modernized and they're, um, they're not
00:22:10.380 forced to have, you know, eight children. We are being so kind, um, by performing these forced
00:22:15.660 abortions and forced sterilization, um, uh, forced sterilization procedures. We're basically liberating
00:22:23.260 women because of that. I'm not sure that people understand the willingness and, um, the brazenness
00:22:31.940 of the Chinese Communist Party to just flat out lie about everything. And it's, it really amazes me how
00:22:39.400 we're not more angry at China, not just for that, but how they've lied about the coronavirus,
00:22:45.780 how they've infiltrated the WHO with their lies. I don't know. I don't know if it's naivete by
00:22:51.620 Americans or if it's just apathy or if it's that critical race theory coming in, but it really blows
00:22:57.420 my mind. I think coronavirus has woken a lot of Americans up to, uh, China's actions because,
00:23:06.500 um, you know, how they dealt with COVID, how they've tried to spin the narrative after they got caught
00:23:11.700 out for, um, basically letting this spread, um, and not alerting the world about it. And, you know,
00:23:18.540 just kind of hampering the WHO investigations that one year later, more than a year later,
00:23:24.860 finally a team made it there. And even though a team made it there, they were not allowed to,
00:23:30.020 um, examine one hypothesis that seems, you know, not at all to be ruled out, which is the lab leak
00:23:37.940 hypothesis. And so you can see that, you know, China is really trying to control this narrative.
00:23:45.180 And, um, I, I think the American people also have woken up because of that realization in the few
00:23:50.720 months after COVID really like lockdowns kind of happened, China was hoovering up the world supply
00:23:55.880 of PPE. Um, and then, you know, it kind of became pretty apparent that a lot of our supply chains
00:24:03.280 were located inside a geopolitical adversary. And, and that became a bit of a shock because, well,
00:24:10.340 what happens when you need to be militarily ready, um, and all your supply chains are there. So
00:24:14.800 I think in the last year, the public opinion has actually kind of shifted on China and Gallup showed
00:24:22.240 that like, I think 80% of Americans now view the country unfavorably. Um, so I think we're in a,
00:24:28.040 you know, we're in a situation where there is bipartisan consensus that China cannot be seen
00:24:35.260 anymore as just a competitor. It is a geopolitical rival. It is a threat. And, and, you know, we have to
00:24:42.420 see it more in that context. And I think a lot of people also don't know, even though I am glad to
00:24:58.660 hear that the majority of the country do see China, uh, does see China rightly, um, what they're doing
00:25:04.540 in Africa, what they're doing in South America, you know, catching these poor countries and debt
00:25:09.320 traps by saying, you know, we're going to create these railways or something like in Ethiopia,
00:25:12.920 and you'll be able to pay us back with all the money that you're making. The railways don't work.
00:25:17.920 The construction doesn't end or whatever it is. Um, the, these things don't function that they build in
00:25:23.840 these countries. And then they've caught these countries in a debt trap. Or I have a friend who
00:25:29.480 is from Zimbabwe and, um, there, there are places in Zimbabwe where you can, um, you can get oil,
00:25:37.640 you can dig for oil. Um, and rather than the people in Zimbabwe being able to do that themselves,
00:25:44.060 the Zimbabwean government has said, no, we're going to reserve this area for China. Um, and so I think
00:25:49.960 people also don't realize just how, like you said, imperialistic and colonizing this regime is. And
00:25:58.520 it's just interesting that people who are against imperialism and colonization, um, they tend to not
00:26:03.860 have quite as much to say when the Chinese government does it.
00:26:08.680 Exactly. And actually it's even more insidious than that, because when these countries cannot
00:26:12.620 pay up for this debt, like this actually happened in Sri Lanka, they have to give up their ports.
00:26:18.640 They have to give up strategic assets to China. That's part of the contract. And then that becomes
00:26:23.000 a way China is basically controlling important entry points that are strategic in an event of some sort of
00:26:29.900 military operation, for example. And so this is, it's, it's, it's very dangerous.
00:26:36.220 Yeah, it is. And obviously China going into these agreements knows how it's going to end. It concludes
00:26:42.400 exactly how they want it to conclude. They know that these poor countries are not going to be able
00:26:47.140 to pay them back. I don't even think we understand, um, the, the depths of evil and oppression,
00:26:52.980 unfortunately, that they are executing, um, not just on their own people, but around the world.
00:26:58.720 One thing that I do want to talk to you about that we talked about before we started recording was
00:27:02.680 other kinds of religious persecution in China, not just towards the Uyghur Muslims, but also towards
00:27:07.980 Christians. And in particular, this rewriting, um, of the Bible to fit more communistic standards.
00:27:14.300 Can you talk about that? Um, yeah, so actually this was published in the National Review last year.
00:27:20.380 And, uh, it, it, it came to the attention of, of the author, um, that there was in fact, uh, a rewrite
00:27:27.560 of, of, of the Christian Bible. So, you know, in the last few years, Christianity has been really,
00:27:34.040 um, suppressed in China. So, you know, church, uh, crosses have been torn down from churches,
00:27:41.040 pastors have been arrested for no reason. Um, and, and the Xi Jinping himself, uh, has been reported to
00:27:50.740 be afraid of, of the rising influence of Christianity in China. I think the projection
00:27:55.800 is that by 2030, China, China will have more Christians in the country than anywhere around
00:28:00.620 else around the world. Um, and the thing about the communist country is that they, they're very
00:28:07.280 afraid of, of, of religion kind of supplanting the state. And so that's why they keep religion under,
00:28:13.860 under such a strong thumb. And it's not just Christianity, obviously it's the Buddhists. I mean,
00:28:18.860 as the Tibetans, they've been subjugated for a long time, uh, Falun Gong, which is also a Taoist
00:28:24.280 blend and Buddhist blend of, of, um, you know, this, a spiritual group, uh, they, who, they've been
00:28:31.440 subjected reportedly to, um, organ harvesting, for example. But yeah, in the case of Christian,
00:28:37.000 Christianity in particular, it's, it's a big threat because there's just so many, it's, it's,
00:28:41.300 it's a lot in terms of numbers. Um, the Catholics on, on, on one hand have a bit of a easier time.
00:28:47.780 And that's because I think two years ago, the Pope actually, you know, agreed to let China be the
00:28:54.680 one that oversees the appointing of the bishops. But, you know, Christianity tends to be, Protestantism
00:28:59.640 at least is, is more decentralized. And so it's been targeted, uh, a bit more heavily by, by, by the,
00:29:07.000 by the CCP. Um, and so this rewrite of the Bible was actually really, it's so creepy. Um, it was
00:29:15.440 actually a story. One of the, one of the, one example of the rewrite, um, is actually the story
00:29:20.860 in, I think it was in the Gospel of John, where there was an adulteress and, and he, the adulteress
00:29:26.760 was about to be stoned. And Jesus tells the crowd, you know, let, let he who is without sin cast the
00:29:32.440 first stone, um, pointing out to, you know, to the crowd about hypocrisy and about the importance
00:29:38.700 of forgiveness. Eventually the crowd disperses and the woman, you know, doesn't get stoned.
00:29:44.480 In the Chinese Communist Party rewrites of the Bible, this section, um, Jesus Christ lets the
00:29:50.960 crowd disperse, but he takes a rock and he actually bashes the woman's head.
00:29:56.760 So he kills her himself. Um, and if you, you know, the reasoning for, for this kind of a
00:30:03.340 rewrite is the moral that the story tells that is in line with advancing the CCP's goal. And
00:30:09.960 the CCP's goal is to say that the law of the land cannot be subverted. Um, that religion,
00:30:17.260 Jesus Christ is religious figure had to conform to the law of the land because the law is the
00:30:21.680 law. And it is so disturbing. Um, yeah, if you look it up, National Review did a really good,
00:30:27.460 uh, write up about, about this, the CCP version of the Bible. Um, that's the kind of, you know,
00:30:34.740 it tells you so much too about what the country fears. Um, and, and I think it's a very stark
00:30:42.100 reminder of, of the kind of, uh, you know, lengths at which they're willing to go to,
00:30:48.480 to either supplant, co-opt or repress religion.
00:30:52.700 Yes. And you talked about this so well and so thoroughly that the real enemy, I think it seems
00:30:59.500 that China sees is an ideological enemy. It's not just a military enemy. It's not just about
00:31:05.620 technology, but it's primarily ideology. And to me that, I mean, that seems to be their motivation
00:31:11.680 for infiltrating so many institutions in the United States and for so effectively putting,
00:31:17.800 um, or pushing their propaganda in the United States that unfortunately we see a lot of people
00:31:22.660 repeating without even really realizing it. And certainly as a Protestant Christian myself,
00:31:27.880 I can see why the CCP would see Protestants as a threat. If you look at the history of Protestantism,
00:31:34.940 it has been resistance to tyranny. The, the America probably would not have been founded without
00:31:41.540 the Protestant Reformation. The ideas of the constitution and the declaration of independence
00:31:46.220 are, are built on that. Um, and so I, I can see why I can see why they, they see it as a threat.
00:31:55.000 And I think Christians here should be, uh, more aware of what they are trying to do on an ideological
00:32:02.680 value system level, even more than we are looking at what they're actually doing militarily or what
00:32:09.340 they're doing with our technology. Um, and just kind of be aware of the perversion that they're
00:32:14.540 trying to be able to push on our faith in the name of kind of claiming minds and claiming belief
00:32:19.980 systems. Um, do you think, or do you have hope, I guess, for how the United States is going to
00:32:27.460 confront the threat of China here and abroad under the Biden administration?
00:32:35.800 You know, I, I think what you said about the ideology part is actually spot on. It's something
00:32:40.960 that I think I've been trying to get people to understand that that's actually, you know,
00:32:44.740 they always say culture is downstream of politics. Well, ideology is downstream of culture. And if we
00:32:49.880 don't get that piece, right, we're, you know, and think that we're still in the position where,
00:32:54.280 where China can be engaged with, um, and, and, you know, we can use, I don't know, we, to, to get
00:33:00.080 concessions, to get them to cooperate on say climate change, we're going to concede and appease.
00:33:05.540 Um, you know, it's been demonstrated for the last deck, last few decades that, that, that kind of
00:33:12.780 engagement, appeasement tactic just hasn't worked at all. And, and that's also because that we, you know,
00:33:18.800 we, we didn't really focus on ideological differences between China and the United States
00:33:24.920 and how those ideological difference actually clash. And so if you have room for only one kind
00:33:32.140 of world order, um, which I think that's what the cases that we're looking at here, because they're
00:33:38.700 antagonistic, um, in the sense that they're mutually exclusive. Like if the American world order
00:33:44.940 is going to be the predominant one, the Chinese one cannot be at the same time, um, then, then we
00:33:52.140 really have to push back on what's happening on every front. And, you know, you spoke about the
00:33:59.840 influence operations of infiltrating these institutions. Um, we're talking about on the
00:34:05.980 economic front, um, you know, the theft, corporate espionage, intellectual property theft, um,
00:34:13.840 then the digital front, we're looking at AI, we're looking at, um, sort of big tech issues, um, 5G,
00:34:20.420 for example. And, um, and then you have more like covert influence, influence operations, like
00:34:26.920 the Confucius Institutes, um, you know, kind of cultural exchange kind of, uh, institutions here.
00:34:35.040 And, um, and things like the Belt and Road, which is really the Belt and Road initiative,
00:34:39.180 the debt trap diplomacy is an attempt to, to influence, um, other countries and, and sort
00:34:45.660 of buy their acquiescence, right. Um, things like the thousand talents program, which, you
00:34:51.960 know, China uses to recruit American, um, academics to set up shop in China and, and, and sort of
00:34:59.360 share their research, research that by the way, like the American taxpayers are funding. So essentially
00:35:06.700 you are funding, you know, their, the development of China, um, technologies. Um, so it's, it's been
00:35:14.520 happening on all these fronts. And, and I think, I think the knowledge firstly, like that this is
00:35:23.160 happening has only really started to percolate upwards in the last year or so to the American public.
00:35:29.360 More and more cases, the DOJ has launched this thing called the China Initiative. Um, and the DOJ
00:35:34.920 has been like prosecuting more cases. I think the FBI said that they open, um, out of, out of,
00:35:40.740 out of the, the cases that are currently open in terms of, uh, counterintelligence cases,
00:35:45.420 about 50% are against, uh, Chinese nationals or people that are spying on behalf of, of the
00:35:52.700 Chinese government. So there is growing awareness. Now the question is how are we going to push back,
00:35:58.520 right? Like at the end of the day, we want to avoid a hot war at all costs. Um, but I think the
00:36:04.780 primary way is we're going to finally have to impose costs on China for very bad behavior. We need to
00:36:11.340 disincentivize, um, the kind of behavior that, that really we've let China just run away with for the
00:36:19.160 longest time that has, that has just never, they've not faced any costs for the things that are, you know,
00:36:25.320 for unleashing the coronavirus, for example, they have not faced any costs for reneging on the treaty
00:36:30.880 with, uh, uh, Britain on Hong Kong. So we need to ramp all these, uh, costs up and that's in part
00:36:38.820 what Trump's trade tariffs was supposed to do was to punish them for, you know, for basically taking
00:36:44.820 advantage of the United States in terms of, uh, trade for the longest time and having this like
00:36:48.800 huge imbalance in our trade deficit. Um, but that's the kind of action that we need to do for
00:36:53.580 every action that the Chinese government has been, um, taking a little inch on, you know,
00:36:59.400 militarizing the South China sea. We need to push back. We need to impose a cost on them for doing
00:37:03.900 that. So they know that this is just unacceptable.
00:37:06.480 I think part of our responsibility here is to connect the dots for people that, um, if this
00:37:23.400 truly is primarily an ideological battle, um, and they are pushing forward on that front. And like you
00:37:31.740 said so well that the American world order in the Chinese world order are mutually exclusive. If
00:37:38.920 the Chinese world order is the dominant one, then this idea of equality and inherent rights and free
00:37:45.700 speech and religious liberty, those are all gone. Those are not values that China has. And, and China
00:37:51.860 has, uh, has, has no priority, no desire whatsoever to say, okay, well, once we are officially in charge of
00:37:59.280 everything and everyone will still allow you to have some of your value systems, we'll still allow
00:38:04.040 you to have some of your belief systems. They're not interested in that. They're interested in world
00:38:09.040 domination. The way that America kind of affectionately and maybe naively said, you know
00:38:13.900 what, we're going to kind of give some of our values to China and hope for the best for their people.
00:38:20.060 The feeling is not mutual there. Like they don't have any sort of compassion or generosity or
00:38:26.420 understanding towards other ways of life in other kinds of cultures and other kinds of people or
00:38:31.220 belief systems or other ideas of rights. They just won't allow it. Right. And, and how they are
00:38:39.140 treating their, you know, internally their people domestically is a very good harbinger of, of how
00:38:46.000 they're going to act when, or if they, they have control of a wider swath of the world population.
00:38:51.640 And so it really behooves us to take that as, as a sign and, and act on principle rather than,
00:38:58.400 you know, let them fester. And, and by the way, they're going to be, they're actually perfecting
00:39:02.760 this techno surveillance state, um, the panopticon, they're perfecting that on the Uyghurs and you
00:39:09.120 know, they're going to deploy it on a, on a much larger scale. I mean, they already have this
00:39:12.760 rudimentary, actually it's not even rudimentary, it's pretty sophisticated, um, social credit system
00:39:17.540 that the entire country is subject to. Um, they've co-opted technology and digital technology and
00:39:23.120 all encompassing kind of, um, apps that, you know, determine whether or not you can buy a ticket
00:39:30.460 to travel, whether or not you can make a doctor's appointment. I mean, essentially what they're going
00:39:36.320 for all the way, like, you know, from denying political rights, denying speech, it's, it's really
00:39:41.280 even thought control because once you have a social credit system set up, you can essentially
00:39:47.020 just control what people think by, by, you know, imposing costs, um, in terms of participation
00:39:53.600 in society, which, which, you know, is necessary for life. So it's, it's very disturbing because
00:39:59.500 if they're successful at this and they gain more influence and they do become a willpower,
00:40:05.560 um, there's almost no question that that's, that's really going to be the world that we live in.
00:40:11.400 And Americans, I think for the most part, we almost can't understand that because our limiting
00:40:15.660 principles are different. We think, okay, at some point, um, everyone has the same basic
00:40:21.520 understanding of evil, the same basic understanding of right and wrong. Everyone knows when too far
00:40:27.480 is too far, but that's, it's just not true. It's just not true. They don't have any kind of limiting
00:40:32.980 principle. You can bet that if there is some kind of development that actually allows real mind
00:40:38.920 control, if there is actually a technological advancement that allows that China is not going
00:40:44.120 to think, you know, that's too far. The brain is a frontier that we just, we're just not going to
00:40:49.320 allow because we want people to have freedom of thought. That kind of idea is just, it's, it's not
00:40:54.940 accepted by the CCP. I think one thing, and I know we've got to wrap up, but one thing that I just
00:41:01.120 see us damaging or see damaging us so much here and weakening us so much is the kind of curriculum
00:41:07.240 that we are teaching our kids and teaching in academia that, that encourages a hatred and a
00:41:14.000 resentment and a loathing of the United States so that people think, well, we're no better than the
00:41:19.260 CCP. Why, why should we fight for our principles? Why should we care about the constitution or inherent
00:41:25.320 rights? All of these things are systemically racist. They're oppressive. They're wrong.
00:41:30.140 And America is just as bad as any evil regime, even worse. That kind of idea, I don't know if
00:41:36.480 it's directly from the CCP, but the CCP loves it. That's exactly. They benefit from it. Yes. That's
00:41:42.780 exactly what they want us to think. I just, I see that as almost the biggest domestic threat that we
00:41:48.260 have, that if you have people that hate themselves, hate their fellow countrymen, hate their country and
00:41:53.620 founding principles, why, why would anyone stand up against the totalitarian values of, you know,
00:42:02.380 a regime like the CCP? Right. No, you're, you're exactly right. So, um, do you have any kind of
00:42:08.660 encouragement for people or any just final advice in our everyday lives? Um, how we can make ourselves
00:42:15.700 aware of what's going on, how we can kind of push back against some of the threats that we're seeing.
00:42:20.460 Most people listening probably aren't, aren't part of the FBI. Um, and they don't have that kind of
00:42:25.280 access. Is there anything that we can do in our own lives practically? Yeah, I think, um, for example,
00:42:31.680 you know, being aware of, of products, I think, you know, made in China, for example, it's so difficult
00:42:37.800 to actually boycott something like that. Everything is made in China. Um, but, but more awareness about
00:42:43.660 what is, what isn't, you know, I think decoupling as far as possible will go a long way because it
00:42:50.760 will allow us to respond in a way that, that is based on principle and also pressure companies that
00:42:56.340 are, you know, basically trading in principle and ethics for market access. So, you know, you're
00:43:03.220 looking at media companies, your, your Hollywood companies, um, that are rewriting scripts to, to
00:43:08.020 tailor to the Chinese, uh, communist parties narratives. They don't want any reference to
00:43:12.780 Tibet, for example. And so, you know, they change characters that are Tibetan monks in their,
00:43:17.140 in their movie scripts. Um, you know, be aware of, of what institutions, uh, the Chinese government
00:43:24.160 has infiltrated, you know, watch out for that boycott that personally. Um, and, and, you know,
00:43:30.540 if you have a representative, a local representative, you know, write to them and make sure that they're
00:43:36.640 aware of, of, of such issues and, and that, you know, Chinese investment, for example, should
00:43:41.700 be viewed very skeptically. Um, so I would say that's probably the best thing we can do and,
00:43:46.100 and just keep, you know, keep reading the news about this stuff. It's, it's very important because
00:43:51.560 this is going to define the next, the next century. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And where can
00:43:56.840 they, where can they follow you and how can they read all of your stuff and all of your insight into
00:44:01.320 what's going on in China? Um, you, so my beat is China that that's kind of what I focus on writing
00:44:07.860 for spectator USA. So you can find it on, on the spectator USA website. Um, but also you can just
00:44:12.880 follow me on Twitter. It's, um, at sign miss M S Mel M E L Chen C H E N. Awesome. Well, thank you so
00:44:20.020 much, Melissa, for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you for talking about such an important thing.
00:44:24.440 I'm really glad that more, you know, more people are really trying to, to, to, to air,
00:44:29.940 air all this stuff out and, and inform the American people. Definitely. Well, thank you.