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00:01:27.000What does China have to do with Russia?
00:01:29.000Well, one of the theories that we floated on this show is that Russia feels empowered and emboldened to do aggressive action, such as invading Ukraine, when they have China in their back pocket.
00:01:46.000Is the Russia-China alliance something as strong as now we're seeing a new super alliance of dictators that want to go against the West?
00:01:54.000Someone who knows China better than anybody else, knows the CCP and the geopolitics surrounding it, is my friend Gordon Chang, who's just terrific.
00:02:02.000Gordon, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:02:17.000Well, first of all, Charlie, not only has Beijing refused to denounce the invasion of Ukraine, it actually refuses to call it an invasion, which shows you how close China and Russia are.
00:02:29.000When Vladimir Putin went to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics, February 4, they had that meeting, Putin and Xi Jinping.
00:02:38.000What happened is they issued that very long communique that announced the no-limits partnership.
00:02:44.000But even more important, they announced $117.5 billion in new, new oil and gas deals.
00:02:54.000And just a few days ago, Charlie, Russia announced the sale of 100 million metric tons of coal to China.
00:03:01.000This means Beijing is actually financing Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
00:03:06.000And we see China supporting Russia in other ways.
00:03:10.000This is, as you say, a super partnership of really bad actors.
00:03:15.000This is perhaps the end of the Cold War, post-Cold War period.
00:03:21.000This really looks like the beginning of a general period of conflict.
00:03:26.000So we buy all this cheap plastic from China after we deindustrialize our country.
00:03:32.000And then China takes those U.S. dollars that we trade to them to then go buy energy from Russia that they need because China really has no access to energy even close to what we have or Russia has.
00:03:46.000And then Russia takes that money to go invade Ukraine to finance the terror of a sovereign country.
00:03:56.000So let me ask you, Gordon, with this new super alliance that has been formed, you know, one of the things that President Trump never got credit for was keeping China and Russia kind of in their own corner.
00:04:05.000He made sure they never got too close together.
00:04:07.000He made sure that the partnership was never really sealed.
00:04:11.000He had the famous Xi Jinping summit at Mar-a-Lago.
00:04:14.000He met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
00:04:17.000He did everything he possibly could to try to disrupt the cementing of that relationship.
00:04:23.000Is this now going to be the new 21st century Axis?
00:04:26.000Is Russia-China going to merge into kind of you do your ethnostate, we'll do our ethnostate, and the West is the enemy?
00:04:37.000China and Russia see their interests coincide, and they identify the same adversary, which is us.
00:04:44.000And that is driving Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin together.
00:04:47.000During the Trump years, as you point out, President Trump accomplished what the current National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has been trying to do, which is, as they say in the White House, quote unquote, park Russia.
00:05:01.000In other words, to get Russia to stay to one side.
00:05:06.000And what we are seeing is that the Biden administration has undone all the good work of the Trump administration when it comes to China and Russia.
00:05:15.000And it's no coincidence that Vladimir Putin has decided to go after Ukraine in the Biden administration, not in the Trump years.
00:05:25.000And so I want to ask you, Gordon, about this story, which only further kind of proves the point.
00:05:31.000So Joe Biden had this brilliant idea to go share with China the intelligence we had about Russia's military buildup, hoping that China would somehow tell Russia to back off.
00:05:43.000Not that we were going to do it, but somehow relying on China.
00:05:46.000The New York Times reports that then Chinese officials rebuffed the United States and then shared the information with Moscow.
00:06:35.000But, you know, Biden should have known that the Chinese were going to do that.
00:06:39.000To me, it's incomprehensible that they would actually share anything with China that was not supposed to go to Moscow.
00:06:47.000So people are now contemplating what should our actions be to respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:06:55.000Our country's war worry, myself included.
00:06:58.000I don't think U.S. troops need to get in the way of this.
00:07:00.000But now that this new super alliance is formed, and that's one of the big takeaways I hope our listeners really internalize from this, what is the proper course of action here, Gordon?
00:07:10.000Because what you're telling me is China is basically they're backing up Russia.
00:07:15.000Putin feels empowered and emboldened because he has a new ally, not new, but strengthened ally.
00:07:26.000Yeah, I can tell you, if we were back two weeks ago, a lot of reasons why China would not invade Taiwan.
00:07:34.000But right now, all the assumptions of that world with two weeks ago are now gone because we don't know what's going on.
00:07:42.000Vladimir Putin has changed the world probably irrevocably, and he's changed it in such a way that we can't assume anything anymore.
00:07:51.000So yeah, Xi Jinping has looked at the meek response of President Biden to Ukraine, and he's probably thinking, well, I could do something.
00:07:59.000It could be Taiwan, could be Japan, could be the Philippines, could be India, could be Nepal, could be Bhutan, anywhere along China's southern and eastern peripheries.
00:08:10.000We probably will see some sort of provocative, belligerent action again by China.
00:08:16.000And this is thanks to the Biden administration's not being able. to deter Russia.
00:08:22.000We're such a stronger country than Russia.
00:08:24.000We're stronger than China and Russia together, but we can't deter them when you have incompetent leadership in the Oval Office.
00:08:33.000Incompetent, corrupt, and also captured by the environmentalists that don't want us to be energy supreme or superior.
00:08:39.000You wrote the book, The Coming Collapse of China.
00:08:42.000With these latest developments, where does the collapse of China stand now?
00:08:47.000Actually, China right now has a very dangerous situation.
00:08:50.000It's got a debt crisis it can't solve.
00:08:53.000The stagnant economy, worsening food shortages, and COVID outbreaks it can't control.
00:08:59.000It's really in trouble, and that makes it even more dangerous, Charlie, because Chinese leaders see a closing window of opportunity.
00:09:24.000For 50 years, American Home Shield has protected household budgets from the unexpected, like a dryer that won't dry or an AC that's lost its cool.
00:09:32.000In fact, they help cover the cost to repair or replace over 20 home systems and appliances when they wear out, no matter how old they are.
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00:09:45.000Service fees, limitations, and exclusions apply.
00:10:33.000So you rarely get to see the reshuffling of the world order in real time, but it's here.
00:10:37.000And Russia has made a decision to go into the arms of China.
00:10:40.000We never should have allowed that to happen.
00:10:42.000We should have kept Russia neutral and built a coalition against China.
00:10:47.000China has everything that Russia needed, which is dollar bills that we gave them because we buy a bunch of plastic garbage from China.
00:10:54.000It's the new axis that has been created.
00:10:57.000And we went from peace in the Middle East under Trump and having Israel and UAE agree on many different things to now new axis where people do whatever they want.
00:11:08.000And this is now getting quickly out of control.
00:11:11.000Iran is going to just basically do whatever they want.
00:11:14.000Iran is going to enrich uranium up to 20%, even after a nuclear deal.
00:11:18.000Iran will continue to enrich uranium from 20% purity, even after sanctions on it are lifted.
00:11:23.000A 2015 nuclear deal with world powers is revived.
00:11:27.000And the Iranian news agency quoted the country's nuclear chief on Friday.
00:11:32.000Quote, uranium enrichment continues with a maximum ceiling of 60%, which led Westerners to Russia negotiations.
00:11:39.000And it will continue with the lifting of sanctions by both 20% and 5%.
00:11:44.000So they're going to do whatever they want.
00:11:47.000When America is weak and we do not have a president, bad actors will do whatever they want.
00:12:00.000A leader doesn't sleep in while war is happening.
00:12:04.000Biden had the opportunity to be a peacemaker here, and he very well could have flown to Minsk and said, I demand a meeting right now with Putin and with Zelensky, or else there will be consequences.
00:12:19.000You think Trump would sit idly by while Putin is invading?
00:12:30.000Jam-Pack, two hours coming up, and here is a Fox News alert live look at Ukraine's capital as U.S. officials are warning that city could fall in hours to days as Putin's forces breach the city limits.
00:12:45.000The Ukrainian people need help at this hour.
00:12:48.000They don't have a month to wait to see if sanctions will affect the behavior of Russian President Putin.
00:12:53.000There are people dying in the streets of this country today.
00:12:56.000And if there aren't heavier sanctions imposed on the Russians, and if this country doesn't receive more defensive weapons, it will completely fall into the hands of Russian President Putin, and it will be occupied by Russian forces.
00:13:09.000And Biden has said, let's just let these sanctions put them in and see how they work out.
00:13:13.000He could fly into the region right now, fly into Minsk, fly into wherever, fly into Budapest, flying to Warsaw, and demand a meeting, and all of a sudden change the entire geopolitics of all this.
00:13:26.000The pursuit of peace is always an admirable venture, always.
00:13:32.000And America has an opportunity to be a peacemaker of what's happening right now in Ukraine and Russia.
00:13:38.000And it doesn't seem like we're even entertaining that.
00:13:41.000No, instead, Hillary Clinton says we should just counter-attack Russia.
00:14:22.000This statement that he gave last night that the threat that he gave, the West will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.
00:14:41.000If the truckers have taught us anything, it's that we are infinitely more powerful when we stick together.
00:14:46.000The same goes for supporting businesses that we believe in this country and your right to live free.
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00:15:57.000Keith, what's going on in Ukraine that we might be missing that you are hearing from your sources through the Intel community?
00:16:04.000Well, Charlie, what's going on in Ukraine right now is a very well-executed plan by Putin to take that country.
00:16:13.000And while he's doing that, at the same time, he has had people in the country before Russia ever invaded it.
00:16:23.000I believe there are probably Speznets there, GRU, FSB, their intelligence services.
00:16:28.000And they've been recruiting a lot of people, including teenagers in the major cities that they have been paying to protest and riot to kind of soften the city before they get there.
00:16:42.000So tell us about Chernobyl and tell us about some of the other activity that is happening in Ukraine and something that we might be missing as far as the incursion here.
00:16:53.000Well, there's been some very interesting activity in Chernobyl.
00:16:57.000I've talked to a few people I know that have been on the ground there.
00:17:02.000And they're seeing a lot of movement in and out of Chernobyl, which is normally like a tomb or a sarcophagus.
00:17:31.000You have a lot of nuclear material that you don't want anyone running around with.
00:17:39.000So I think that at least someone needs to ask the question, not only here in this country, but on the international stage and ask Russia what they're doing.
00:17:49.000Yeah, so what are you hearing from your sources and seeing on the ground?
00:18:36.000If you understand that, you understand Putin's personality and his personality is he doesn't want to be his fears to be taken advantage of.
00:18:43.000He feels like when they gave up Ukraine, he was taken advantage of.
00:18:47.000So then fast forward, 2014, Obama's president, Putin says he's going to go there and he goes there and he takes Crimea.
00:18:59.000President Biden comes back in and he goes ahead and reinvades the country.
00:19:03.000He wrote a 5,000-word paper talking about how he was going to do this.
00:19:07.000And I think one of the biggest mistakes that we made as a country and NATO made on foreign policy is we gave Putin the fig leaf to invade Ukraine.
00:19:34.000And the mere fact that the Biden administration implied that Zelensky and Ukraine could possibly be a member of NATO gave President Putin the fig leaf in the world's eyes to go ahead and invade.
00:19:57.000I just got that report right before I came on air.
00:20:00.000And so they're doing everything they can to take Ukraine.
00:20:04.000They have the fig leaf with the international community.
00:20:07.000And now you have India talking about supporting Russia to help them around the sanctions.
00:20:12.000And we are not doing anything as a nation to stop Russia as far as sanctions that would be effective as far as opening our natural resources here, which could cut off a huge economic supply to Russia because they really don't have the ability to wage a prolonged incursion.
00:20:31.000So how much fight do you think the Ukrainians have in them?
00:20:34.000How long do you think this conflict will last?
00:20:36.000Because if it's not just kind of a, if it takes a week or two weeks or three weeks to take over Kiev, they're saying it could happen in days, but then what?
00:20:43.000What if there are millions of Ukrainians in the woods and in the rural parts of Ukraine that aren't going to live under this?
00:20:50.000This potentially could get very messy.
00:20:52.000It could if we look at it from the optics of how we fought in Afghanistan, how we were handcuffed in Afghanistan.
00:21:00.000If they take over Ukraine, I think they'll take it over fairly quickly.
00:21:29.000They don't have much to fight with because back when we had the opportunity to arm them in 2014, the Obama administration, the Obidin, that's a Freudian slip, would not give them lethal aid.
00:21:44.000And then when President Trump was in, there was no reason to.
00:21:48.000And now you have the situation where we could have armed them and we could have given them the support that they needed.
00:21:54.000So I don't know if they have the ability to wage a prolonged incursion.
00:21:58.000They might if Russia shows great restraint, if Russia just has a large military industrial complex that wants to build bases and pass out contracts and make money.
00:22:09.000But since I don't think they have the financial resources for that in their country, they're going to have to move quickly, move fast, replace the government, and move on.
00:22:21.000And we're in a unique position right now in our nation because our allies don't trust us and our enemies don't fear us.
00:22:29.000And so you have India helping Russia or at least helping them financially potentially by helping them skirt sanctions, which would have never happened before.
00:22:39.000But then, of course, we left Afghanistan abruptly, put Pakistan in charge, and India and Pakistan are not exactly friends.
00:22:48.000I wanted to ask you, Keith, is how much did the Afghanistan debacle, the way that we handled that withdrawal, play into what we're seeing right now in Ukraine?
00:22:56.000Charlie, the Afghanistan debacle laid the foundation for the complete implosion of not only the Biden administration's foreign policy, but it also opened the door for a lot of countries to become aggressive and to recognize that we have a real problem in our own country.
00:23:18.000Basically, we supported the Afghans for almost two decades, and then we left them high and dry, but we left $80 plus billion dollars of lethal aid there.
00:23:31.000You have Siraj Hakani as their defense minister, who is a proxy for the ISIS directorate.
00:23:37.000And the Indians, India knows this, and they see what happened.
00:23:42.000So one of our best allies with over a billion people watched us walk away from an ally and leave lethal aid that the country that they are actually fighting in Kashmir, they got that lethal aid.
00:24:05.000When your allies don't trust you and your enemies don't fear you, that sets the stage for people to get their inner Maduro on or their inner Mussolini on.
00:24:16.000And you see tyrants move or you see large nation states take territory because they know that right now America is a paper tiger, unless, of course, you were involved in January 6th, and then you got to be very careful.
00:24:31.000But we seem to be so focused on clamping down on free speech and misinformation by their definition in our nation.
00:24:42.000And there are very real world consequences to this.
00:24:45.000And we're seeing this play out right now in Ukraine.
00:25:00.000And so I suppose we're watching this kind of new axis created between Russia and China.
00:25:04.000Is that the new state of affairs globally?
00:25:07.000It's the new state of affairs, Charlie, if and only if we have inaction as far as real policy that we could push right now.
00:25:18.000If the United States suddenly pivots, opens up our energy sector, opens up drilling, opens up fracking, opens up the production of oil and liquefied natural gas, increases our export to Europe, we could use this moment to immediately reduce Russia's ability to expand their power by shutting them down economically.
00:25:45.000We could have done this back with the Kurds opening up the Ambar, the Ambar fields and running a pipeline from Kurdistan into Europe would have hurt Russia too.
00:25:53.000But Russia's always been two steps ahead of us on the chessboard.
00:25:57.000But this would be a time to do something they wouldn't expect, like take the foot off the energy sector in America, open that up.
00:26:05.000And then we also need to clean up some of these foreign policies that we currently have around the world.
00:26:15.000The second, I don't believe right now in leadership we have it in the DOD and in this administration to do the necessary changes that could help that.
00:26:26.000Keith, always a pleasure to have you on.
00:26:27.000Thank you for your clarity and your wisdom.
00:26:50.000I am invested personally and also through the Charlie Kirk show to try to do everything we possibly can to try and push back against these Democrats and their lies.
00:27:00.000You can get a signed picture by President Trump himself.
00:27:20.000Join me in standing up for President Trump and canceling the radical left.
00:27:23.000Look, here's what we're really doing, though.
00:27:25.000We're building a grassroots army to push back to try to win the Senate race in Georgia, try to win the Senate race in Arizona.
00:27:30.000This is paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
00:27:33.000And I could tell you this, we have got to retire Chuck Schumer.
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00:27:44.000Take out your phone right now, free of charge, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y 55404.
00:27:53.000I'm watching video after video of Ukrainian citizens get in line and try to figure out what a firearm is.
00:28:01.000I'm actually here at Big Daddy Unlimited Guns here in Gainesville, Florida, a great Second Amendment supply company.
00:28:09.000And as you watch these Ukrainian citizens, I'm laughing because they really have no idea how to handle a firearm.
00:28:16.000It really makes you appreciate the wisdom of the founding fathers and to take a step backwards and to say, wait a second, if Ukraine had a robust Second Amendment, would Putin invade?
00:28:37.000Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had widespread gun ownership and a skilled citizenry that knew how to use those guns?
00:28:47.000If the 45 million people of Ukraine were able to own weapons and had a gun culture similar to America, would Putin feel emboldened to invade that country?
00:28:57.000Ukraine does not have a Second Amendment like we do in America, highly controlled firearms.
00:29:02.000We could look into the specifics of it, but they do not have widespread gun ownership.
00:29:07.000There are cars and trucks arriving full of weapons for citizens, and they're pulling out these guns and they're trying to figure out how to use them.
00:29:15.000I was just thinking, man, if a hypothetical, if Mexico or Canada decided to try to invade America, there'd be millions of people that would immediately have lots of weapons at their home and they would know how to use them.
00:29:29.000So it's one thing to have the willingness to fight.
00:29:31.000A lot of Ukrainians right now have the willingness to fight Vladimir Putin, but they don't have the capacity to fight.
00:29:38.000And the second amendment has so many different implications.
00:29:42.000It's helpful for self-defense, but it was really built to be able to protect freedom and liberty against usurpatious and tyrannical governments.
00:29:49.000Now, the Ukrainian government is super corrupt.
00:29:51.000It's not like they're the greatest country ever.
00:30:13.000However, it reminds me of this quote by Isoroku Yamamoto, who was one of the most famous generals of the Imperial Project of Japan.
00:30:23.000He said, quote, you cannot invade the mainland of the United States.
00:30:27.000There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.
00:30:31.000Isoroko Yamamoto was a Japanese Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and was the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet of World War II until his death.
00:30:39.000And so I think this is a question, which is, if America really wanted to help Ukraine, why didn't we try to have widespread gun ownership in Ukraine?
00:30:49.000I don't know if that would have helped anything.
00:30:51.000Putin might have just rolled his eyes and be like, yeah, okay, whatever peasant, you have a gun, I don't care.
00:30:54.000Or maybe it might have made a difference.
00:30:55.000We know it did with Japan's own writings.
00:30:59.000If Ukraine would have at least been allowed to have widespread gun ownership, but again, remember the people who were running the Ukrainian desk?
00:31:05.000It was people like John Kerry and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton who don't believe in anyone to be able to own weapons except their own armed guards.
00:31:14.000So now Ukraine has a pretty weak military compared to Russia.
00:31:18.000They're doing everything they possibly can to hold the line.
00:31:20.000They're trying to train people how to use weapons.
00:31:25.000And but remember, it was a citizen-led revolution that helped topple the Soviet Union.
00:31:30.000And it makes you think that the principle of the Second Amendment very well could have been a fundamental point of keeping Ukraine sovereign and protect the citizens.
00:31:41.000Be very thankful we have a Second Amendment, everybody.
00:31:45.000It is something that is a bulwark and a hedge and a firewall against any form of tyranny.
00:31:52.000If people are not able to defend themselves, if you do not have the capacity or the technology to be able to defend what you love personally, not just civilizationally, then you're inherently less free.
00:32:03.000You are then held hostage to the person who has the guns.
00:32:09.000Ukraine could have converted their entire citizenry into a standing army.
00:32:14.000And it makes you think: why didn't you give people the liberty, the freedom to do that previously?
00:32:18.000If they were so worried about Putin invading for the last 20 years, which is all we're told, oh, yeah, Ukraine was worried, why didn't they allow the people of Ukraine to have a Second Amendment?
00:32:26.000Oh, maybe because the government of Ukraine was also super corrupt and they didn't want the people to own guns because they wanted to control those people.
00:32:34.000They really wanted to protect against Putin.
00:32:36.000They should have trusted their citizens with freedom and liberty.
00:32:39.000But they didn't because the government of Ukraine was corrupt and they didn't want them to own weapons either because they might have been displaced or toppled.