The Charlie Kirk Show - Feeding the Chinese Dragon with Chris Fenton

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00:00:08.000 Hey, everybody. 0.75

00:00:08.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, I have an exclusive conversation with Chris Fenton, who is the author of Feeding the Dragon, who is able to expose America's insidious relationship with the Chinese Communist Party through sports, through Hollywood, and other multimedia. 0.75

00:00:22.000 It is a very informative and important conversation, especially if you are using Disney and other companies that are in bed with the Chinese Communist Party. 0.59

00:00:31.000 Email us as always at freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:50.000 We are working our tail off, delivering you the news and the facts that you need.

00:00:53.000 Chris Fenton is here, everybody.

00:00:55.000 Buckle up.

00:00:56.000 Here we go.

00:00:57.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:59.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:01.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:04.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:07.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:08.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:09.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:16.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:18.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:27.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:29.000 Hey, everybody.

00:01:30.000 Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:32.000 I am joined by Chris Fenton.

00:01:34.000 Chris is a very important person on the political landscape right now.

00:01:39.000 I don't even want to call it a political landscape, just on the cultural landscape.

00:01:42.000 And he has a phenomenal book called Feeding the Dragon.

00:01:45.000 And Chris has a very unique set of, he has a very unique life experience to be able to talk about China's infiltration in Hollywood, NBA, and American business.

00:01:56.000 Chris, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:58.000 Hey, it's a pleasure to be on.

00:01:59.000 I'm humbled.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Well, thank you.

00:02:01.000 So you wrote this book, Feeding the Dragon.

00:02:03.000 Can you just first just give us a big picture of in American business, how infiltrated the Chinese Communist Party is, and especially in Hollywood?

00:02:14.000 There's a lot of young parents that listen to our podcast that probably subscribe to Disney Plus, that might be thinking of watching Mulan sometime soon.

00:02:24.000 How entrenched is the Chinese Communist Party in American business and the American way of life?

00:02:30.000 Well, the amazing thing is, when I embarked on writing my memoir about the last 20 years, I never really even considered how integrated they are into everyday business between the two superpowers. 0.93

00:02:44.000 It wasn't really until the Darryl Maury tweet, the Houston Rockets GM back in October, where I woke up to my complicity in it.

00:02:53.000 So it's sort of a fascinating journey that I had because the idea of writing the book was just to tell this really colorful story of the chaos and the craziness of trying to get cultural and commercial exchange done between the two countries.

00:03:11.000 And primarily, I was focused in the music business, in the NBA, and various sports businesses.

00:03:18.000 And then obviously we moved into the movie business, where at the end of the main part of the story, I talk about our journey with Iron Man 3.

00:03:28.000 Now, looking back post-Daryl Maury, and as I look through my memoir and the writings of it, it's obvious all the different pandering and kow-towing we were doing even back then.

00:03:40.000 I mean, the story takes place between the years 2000 and 2014.

00:03:45.000 And then I rope it into a congressional delegation trip with three House members that I brought over in late August of last year, where we met with Kerry Lamb and protesters in Hong Kong and then went up and met with the MPC and the CCP.

00:04:01.000 And when you look back with the fog of the war taken away from you after seeing this Daryl Maury tweet and how it woke up the American public, you start looking at it all differently.

00:04:12.000 I don't know if you ever saw the Sixth Sense movie, but obviously as you're watching that movie, you're seeing one version of a story.

00:04:19.000 And then at the very end, there's that twist, and then you have to rethink it all in your head.

00:04:24.000 So to answer your question, it's very integrated in today's capitalism between the two countries.

00:04:30.000 Can you remind our listeners what the Daryl Maury tweet was and why that was such a telling moment for yourself and for others?

00:04:39.000 Yeah.

00:04:39.000 So in early October, I actually had gotten back.

00:04:43.000 And what's interesting is that my agent told me because I was embarking on a story about the integration and the journey of capitalism between the two countries, particularly in the Hollywood business, that I would have a really hard time finding a publisher that Lean left to pick up the book.

00:05:03.000 And he was 100% right.

00:05:05.000 And that was because a lot of that publishing side was trying to protect what was obviously going on between Hollywood and China.

00:05:15.000 When Daryl Maury tweeted out his support for the Hong Kong protesters, I saw that tweet in the colored lens that I had prior to the tweet, which was, oh my gosh, I said to a soccer dad on the sidelines as we were watching our kids play soccer, I said, that tweet is going to really hurt the NBA in China.

00:05:37.000 And the dad said, well, why is that?

00:05:38.000 And I said, I don't even know who this Daryl Maury guy is, but he's supporting Hong Kong protesters.

00:05:43.000 And he's the GM of the Houston Rockets, which is the biggest branded team in the China market because of Yao Ming and his playing days there.

00:05:52.000 And what was interesting is that was the only thing I thought of.

00:05:55.000 And I was 100% accurate on that forecast.

00:05:58.000 It really decimated the NBA's business in China.

00:06:01.000 What I didn't see happening was all the fumbling and bumbling of responses by other NBA personnel and various people around the NBA business in regards to whether they supported Daryl Maury's freedom of speech and First Amendment rights, or whether they weren't on board with him and they wanted to distance themselves.

00:06:24.000 It was all kinds of craziness that was going on with a very misdirected and misguided various forms of responses to it.

00:06:32.000 And the American public woke up to that and they said, wait, what is the NBA doing here?

00:06:37.000 Like, this is obvious.

00:06:38.000 Daryl Maury said something we all believe in, but why are they now backtracking and retreating from this?

00:06:43.000 This makes no sense.

00:06:45.000 And that's when journalists finally started picking up what had been going on for a long time between the NBA and China.

00:06:52.000 And now we're seeing today with Mulan and Disney the same effect happening with Hollywood.

00:06:57.000 Hollywood. 0.55

00:06:58.000 So essentially, and I've said this before, the Chinese Communist Party is almost, they have the final stamp of approval on so much of the social type of content that is produced from Hollywood and from the National Basketball Association. 0.74

00:07:15.000 You call this the trillion-dollar dilemma.

00:07:18.000 Is it really that big of an issue for the biggest business, especially Hollywood and the National Basketball Association, a trillion-dollar dilemma?

00:07:27.000 If you look at the amount of trade going on between the two countries and the amount of growth that our corporations are essentially riding on in regards to what their stock market values are, you can add all that up and it's billions and billions of dollars and well surpasses the trillion dollar mark.

00:07:46.000 So it's major, major business.

00:07:49.000 So the idea of decoupling fully from China is a major hit to American corporations and one that has to be really thought about before we really embark on going full blown in that direction.

00:08:01.000 But the fact of the matter is, there's lots of, there are lots of issues in regards to how corporations do business in China.

00:08:10.000 That's a real issue that we need to address because there's all kinds of pandering and kowtowing to that CCP that's control and narrative to their 1.4 billion people.

00:08:23.000 And that is a real problem.

00:08:25.000 We can get into sort of the macro of how the Ministry of Propaganda works on the way down.

00:08:31.000 Yeah, can you walk us?

00:08:32.000 Yeah, can you walk us through that, please?

00:08:34.000 Yeah.

00:08:35.000 So you have the Chinese Communist Party, right?

00:08:37.000 There's 92 million people involved with the Chinese Communist Party.

00:08:41.000 There's 1.4 billion people total in China.

00:08:45.000 Their goal, the CCP, is to maintain power.

00:08:48.000 How do they maintain power?

00:08:50.000 Well, the best way to do that is to keep people just happy enough that they don't revolt.

00:08:55.000 They don't want another Tiananmen Square incident.

00:08:57.000 And the reason I say just happy enough is because there's not enough resources on earth to make them all happy.

00:09:03.000 So they have to give them all of what they need and some of what they want, and then also provide this messaging that they can aspire to to get more of what they want if they keep working in regards to the group mentality of communism.

00:09:18.000 So under the CCP or under the standing committee of the CCP, which obviously Xi Jinping runs, there's seven party members there.

00:09:28.000 And then below that is obviously the party itself, the Politburo, which meets several times a year.

00:09:34.000 And then the main force that we talk about in regards to controlling narrative is the Ministry of Propaganda.

00:09:42.000 And their goal is to do pretty much the most important thing, which is to keep people just happy enough.

00:09:49.000 So if the Communist Party can't provide all the middle-class jobs for 1.4 billion people, which they can't, they brought about 600 million into the middle class, then they have to control a narrative that keeps envy away from the rest and keeps the people that are not a part of that middle class or higher feeling like the government's doing everything they need in order to make them feel comfortable with what their leadership is.

00:10:15.000 So that's where the issue is.

00:10:17.000 Disney has to placate the Ministry of Propaganda in order to get huge business done there.

00:10:23.000 So does Apple.

00:10:24.000 So does Starbucks.

00:10:25.000 And that's where the problem lies.

00:10:28.000 That's a very good take.

00:10:31.000 And it's very helpful, I should say, because I haven't actually heard someone break it down like that. 0.91

00:10:35.000 So American business is sacrificing our Western values just to try to make profits in China. 0.77

00:10:41.000 Can you walk us through this Mulan example?

00:10:44.000 What is going on with Mulan right now?

00:10:45.000 I know a lot of young families are watching it.

00:10:48.000 Wasn't it filmed, or at least there was a credit to the city where the concentration camps are?

00:10:53.000 What's going on with Mulan?

00:10:55.000 Yeah, so Mulan is a really interesting example and one where I was in initial meetings for back in 2015 when the project first got started.

00:11:05.000 And what's interesting about Mulan is Disney said, hey, look, we have this great Western IP that we develop in the movies and it works in China.

00:11:14.000 It's actually helped us pave the way to open up this Shanghai theme park, which they opened in 2016.

00:11:21.000 The idea behind Mulan was what if we take Chinese IP and we create it in this huge Hollywood tentpole movie type of way and bring it to the Chinese to further ingratiate us and our company into that nation.

00:11:37.000 So Mulan was exactly that.

00:11:39.000 And the idea was, here's this great mythology.

00:11:43.000 Let's create a lot of things that allow the Ministry of Propaganda to be able to promote that are objectives that the CCP has that are being taken care of.

00:11:54.000 For instance, if you're shooting a movie like Mulan, you want to incorporate on the ground Chinese resources.

00:12:01.000 You want to create skill set exchanges between best-in-class people in Hollywood with the fledgling film industry there in China.

00:12:10.000 Why?

00:12:11.000 Because the more people you bring up to speed with experienced skill sets, the more people you can bring into the middle class, right?

00:12:19.000 And the more you can showcase backdrops of China and showcase artists in China, like different actors and different players in the background, and also bring in below-the line crew, the more that generates that narrative that the Ministry of Propaganda wants, which is, hey, we're creating middle-class jobs.

00:12:40.000 We're creating skill sets to bring more people into the middle class.

00:12:44.000 We're showcasing China as this magnificent backdrop and something that's really special for the world to know about.

00:12:51.000 And we're utilizing various other resources and infrastructure that China has that's also allowing more money to be spent on the ground in that nation.

00:13:02.000 So it's all about satisfying that Ministry of Propaganda directive, which ultimately is about keeping 1.4 billion people just happy enough that they don't revolt.

00:13:13.000 Now, what is the controversy around the movie, though?

00:13:15.000 Some people are saying to boycott Mulan.

00:13:17.000 What is the reason for that?

00:13:19.000 Right.

00:13:19.000 Well, there's a couple reasons.

00:13:21.000 One is there's the boycott Mulan sort of initiative that took place around the Hong Kong protest starting a year ago and moving all the way until now, even though the protesters have been pretty much shut down by the encroachment of China.

00:13:37.000 But two of the main, the two main stars of the movie came out in support of the CCP and the way they were policing and cracking down on the rights of the protesters in Hong Kong.

00:13:50.000 So that was number one.

00:13:52.000 So the Hong Kong freedom movement really started pushing that boycott Mulan message, and they were trying to get the globe to actually follow it too, especially democracies around the world, like the West.

00:14:06.000 And Darrell Maury was one of those people that started to follow that movement.

00:14:11.000 The second controversy is where they shot some of the movie.

00:14:16.000 Now, it's debatable how much they actually shot there, but there was a lot of below-the-line activity in regards to location scouts, getting what they call plate shots, which are background shots of various scenes that they might shoot, say, in New Zealand or somewhere else.

00:14:32.000 So there was a lot of activity on the ground in China, and it happened to be in Xinjiang province. 0.98

00:14:37.000 And the problem with Xinjiang province, as we know, is there's a major Uyghur issue that is quite atrocious. 0.63

00:14:46.000 And the players that were involved from the government standpoint in regards to supporting what was going on in that movie on the ground there were also the same members and the same entities that are also involved with the atrocities in regards to the Uyghurs. 0.74

00:15:01.000 And that was where the problem was.

00:15:02.000 And even worse, Disney actually credited those entities, those agencies in the billing block of the end credits of the movie.

00:15:12.000 So do the elites of the film industry, do they just not care about Western values?

00:15:16.000 Is it just in pursuit of maximizing profits? 0.93

00:15:19.000 I mean, it is so egregious what the Chinese Communist Party is doing and has done in Hong Kong. 0.93

00:15:25.000 One million Muslims in concentration camps, the virus alone that has infected the entire globe and how they lied about and covered it up. 0.92

00:15:32.000 They've stole our intellectual property. 1.00

00:15:34.000 They have destroyed our industrial base.

00:15:36.000 They're building islands in the South China Sea Belt Road Initiative.

00:15:39.000 I could go on. 0.84

00:15:41.000 What is the priority of these American companies that continually just panders to these evil people in China? 0.95

00:15:50.000 Well, I mean, you talked about it on one of your last episodes, the corporations versus America episode. 0.93

00:15:57.000 And my feeling is, is that capitalism has always come first in this world of globalism that we embarked on, say, 40 years ago.

00:16:06.000 Capitalism was what drove me.

00:16:09.000 It drove my mission in regards to opening that market any way possible as I could as a cog in the wheel and the system that I was a part of.

00:16:19.000 And I think it's still very much impressed upon all C-suite executives and all the people that work in Hollywood, all the people that work in the sports industry, all the people that work in the tech industry, all the people that work at Starbucks, et cetera, is open that market at all costs, sell our products and services there.

00:16:39.000 That's great for investors.

00:16:40.000 That's great for shareholders.

00:16:42.000 That's great for globalism.

00:16:44.000 What I'm pushing for now is a very simple plan.

00:16:48.000 It's to put patriotism ahead of capitalism, which, by the way, is what we've had for most of our history in this country.

00:16:56.000 So I don't understand why it's so difficult to grasp on to such a simple idea moving forward.

00:17:02.000 I am a capitalist.

00:17:04.000 I believe in free markets, but I also believe in all the opportunity that this country has provided us, right?

00:17:11.000 And we need to protect that.

00:17:12.000 We need to protect what's special about it and protect our principles and values and our national security interests. 1.00

00:17:17.000 And quite frankly, our rights, like the First Amendment right and various others that are encroached upon by the Chinese, that needs to come first. 1.00

00:17:25.000 And then after that, yes, I'm all for capitalism. 1.00

00:17:28.000 Like we should sell products and services into that country.

00:17:31.000 We shouldn't decouple.

00:17:33.000 Quite frankly, we helped build them to where they are today.

00:17:36.000 So let's take advantage of it.

00:17:37.000 Let's get our money out of this thing now, but let's do it behind patriotism.

00:17:43.000 That's the priority.

00:17:44.000 And that's how we fix it.

00:17:45.000 I mean, it's as simple thing as make America great again to death panels, to whatever the different, you know, sort of slogans are for movements, Black Lives Matter.

00:17:56.000 Patriotism before capitalism is pretty simple.

00:17:59.000 It's a simple concept.

00:18:00.000 And I can't imagine anybody in this country would feel like, oh, I don't want to support something like that. 0.94

00:18:06.000 So have you seen in the last couple of decades of working in China, have they become more Western the more we trade with them? 0.77

00:18:12.000 Or have you almost seen them become less Western?

00:18:15.000 Okay, so that's a great question.

00:18:17.000 Now, I mean, that almost goes into the Hong Kong theory of why'd we do a 50-year deal or why did the UK do a 50-year deal to turn over Hong Kong to China?

00:18:26.000 Well, the idea was over 50 years, China would become more like the West and Hong Kong would maintain essentially the same way it had always been.

00:18:34.000 Obviously, we found that wasn't the case, and they went in there 23 years into a 50-year deal and sort of took it over.

00:18:41.000 The same thing is sort of what we're seeing now in regards to this soft power influence of Western culture, Western products, the ability to sort of win over China to become a democracy.

00:18:54.000 Now, I will say, having been in China a lot, the Chinese people, a lot of them I love.

00:19:00.000 I think they're fantastic people.

00:19:02.000 I still have great friends there.

00:19:04.000 And a lot of them really are, you know, there's an aspirational quality of American products and services.

00:19:12.000 They want to be a lot like us, and they actually have been won over by time.

00:19:17.000 The CCP, on the other hand, which runs the country, has not.

00:19:22.000 So the question is, if we completely decouple, we give up on this idea of winning over that country into the world of democracy at some point down the road.

00:19:33.000 Now, granted, I think it's a very, very long shot that we can do it, but it is possible.

00:19:39.000 And the reason it's possible is not because we're ever going to win over the CCP.

00:19:43.000 It's because we can win over enough of the 1.3.1 billion people there that will aspire so much to be a part of democracy that they will no longer be just happy enough.

00:19:57.000 And there will be another revolution.

00:20:00.000 So I guess my fear, though, is because of American tech companies and the new social credit system, will their totalitarianism coupled with technology actually make that less possible than it might have been 50 years ago?

00:20:15.000 What makes it really difficult, and it's a great question.

00:20:18.000 What makes it really difficult is that you have one narrative, one party line there.

00:20:23.000 Yes, there's a certain amount of people that VPNs and can get around firewall and get information various other ways.

00:20:31.000 But the majority of people, the vast majority of people hear one story, one party line.

00:20:36.000 It's as if you had MSNBC and CNN and Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and everybody else all on the same page saying the same thing every day.

00:20:46.000 It would happen to us here.

00:20:48.000 We would all believe the same stuff.

00:20:50.000 But instead, we have different opinions and people can make up their own minds.

00:20:53.000 There they can't.

00:20:55.000 So it is a real difficult problem in regards to overcoming that power of narrative, that power of messaging, because they're so good at flipping a switch away from some attention on something that threatens their leadership onto something that creates a nationalistic fever, right?

00:21:14.000 A perfect example is in 2012, when the Uyghur stuff first started, there were massive stabbings at bus stops.

00:21:24.000 There was a car that drove through Tiananmen Square and killed a bunch of people. 0.73

00:21:29.000 There was a lot of terrorist activity, and it was creating a bit of a boiling moment.

00:21:33.000 And immediately, the Ministry of Propaganda flipped the nationalistic switch and started a quasi-war against Japan around these rocky islands in the South China Sea.

00:21:45.000 And amazing, everybody just pushed all their attention towards I hate Japan rather than, wow, look at all this uprising that's going on around me.

00:21:54.000 Maybe there's something there to it. 0.67

00:21:56.000 So that's the problem.

00:21:58.000 Well, yeah, and I fear, though, also because they're instituting this social credit score, they're instituting mass artificial intelligence and technology.

00:22:06.000 This actually might be the first time that totalitarianism can be made easier because it doesn't have to be deployed by human beings.

00:22:12.000 That's my fear.

00:22:13.000 And also, I see the CCP becoming so militant to the West, and they're using our capital flows to do that.

00:22:21.000 And so my fear is that if we continue trade as normal with them, they're just going to continue these multi-trillion dollar flows of trade in their favor to build the largest navy, which they now have, to hack our cyber grid, infiltrate our institutions of higher learning and the universities.

00:22:40.000 And so it's a very difficult challenge for us in the West because half of our country, quite honestly, doesn't really care.

00:22:47.000 They don't.

00:22:49.000 They think America is a much bigger evil than China, and that's the Democrat Party.

00:22:53.000 They think that America is the ultimate evil and that China is going to help us take down America and our image are happy to partner with anyone in that name.

00:22:59.000 And then the other half, I would say the Republican conservatives, most of the Republicans and leadership are bought completely by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which should be called the U.S. Chamber of crony capitalism via China, or crony corporatism, I should say. 0.78

00:23:13.000 And so I guess my concern is if we don't have, it's been incredible to me, the best way I can say this, is how little Chinese backlash there has been in our country, Chinese Communist Party backlash, just from this virus.

00:23:27.000 I mean, there's some people that are angry here and there, but it's so obvious what this country has done to us. 0.84

00:23:33.000 And do you think that, do you think there's a collision point coming between the CCP and the U.S.?

00:23:38.000 Or do you just think, how do you see this playing out absent any sort of dramatic action?

00:23:44.000 Yeah, well, that's a very complicated question with a lot of layers to it.

00:23:48.000 I mean, if you want to simplify it, it comes down to the buck.

00:23:52.000 I mean, that's really what it comes down to. 0.80

00:23:54.000 And as long as capitalism is running rampant in this country and that's what the first priority is of all Americans, it's going to be very difficult to tackle the China challenge.

00:24:04.000 I am definitely not saying that we should just keep trade the way it is.

00:24:09.000 I mean, there's a lot of really big problems that need to be completely changed.

00:24:14.000 For instance, why are they still considered a developing nation?

00:24:17.000 They should be a developed nation.

00:24:19.000 That would put them at least on some sort of a level playing field with us, number one.

00:24:23.000 It's ridiculous we haven't changed that.

00:24:25.000 Number two is why do they have access to our capital markets, like you say, in the way that no one else does?

00:24:32.000 They hide behind state secrets laws, which allow them to not have the same standards of accounting practices that we require of every other company around the world to have access to our public exchanges.

00:24:44.000 It's ridiculous that we haven't changed that.

00:24:46.000 We also allow them forced JV privileges, where if we want to sell products and services in that country, they say, great, we'll give you access, but you got to let us own 51% of it, and you need to build it on your dime.

00:25:01.000 That's ridiculous.

00:25:02.000 On top of it, they're still using, I mean, granted, we did this at the beginning of our Industrial Revolution where we had protectionist policies and various other pro-America trade policies that allowed us an advantage against the European Union or the Europeans when we were trying to get caught up to speed with them.

00:25:19.000 But they didn't put up with it very long.

00:25:21.000 Once we got caught up, they said, okay, we're changing.

00:25:24.000 We're rebalancing this. 0.98

00:25:26.000 We should take the same tactic with China right now. 0.97

00:25:29.000 I mean, the fact that we allow tariffs the way they do, where a car costs three times what it would here, or the fact that they have quotas, even in the Hollywood system, of how many movies are allowed in that market, completely outside of the free market capitalistic system we're used to and the way we allow them into access to our country, it's ridiculous. 0.72

00:25:50.000 Even on the journalism front, something that both you and I touch upon quite a bit, they're allowed full access to our platforms, our social media platforms, whether it's Facebook or Snapchat or Twitter.

00:26:03.000 Over there, our journalists aren't allowed access to any of those platforms.

00:26:07.000 In fact, most of the stuff that we report in that market, we can't even report in the market.

00:26:13.000 So there are a lot of things we need to change.

00:26:15.000 I am not saying for the same, you know, keep trade the same way.

00:26:19.000 I'm just saying there are advantages not to fully decouple, and there's advantages for us to rebalance this and start getting our money out of that country. 0.91

00:26:28.000 What's been really disappointing for me to see is people like LeBron James and the elites in our country just go out of their way to complement the Chinese Communist Party. 0.93

00:26:38.000 And I think that you're probably right that it is a, it is, it is a desire to just maximize their own earnings. 0.84

00:26:47.000 And I think that it would probably be a mistake to look beyond that.

00:26:50.000 However, someone like LeBron James, he really doesn't say very much.

00:26:54.000 He doesn't really say nice things about our country anyway.

00:26:56.000 So for him, it's a perfect harmony, right?

00:26:58.000 It's I get to insult America and make a bunch of money while doing it. 0.82

00:27:01.000 And then the National Basketball Association puts BLM on their court. 0.54

00:27:06.000 Meanwhile, they're piping this into the Chinese mainland where a million Muslims are in concentration camps and they oppress the rights of citizens there.

00:27:15.000 So, can you just talk a little bit more about your book and what you think? 0.99

00:27:21.000 It faces Hollywood, faces the NBA American business.

00:27:24.000 Can you give us any optimistic news on this front?

00:27:26.000 Have you seen any sort of changes, any sort of business decisions that are moving in the right direction?

00:27:34.000 Once again, a layered question.

00:27:36.000 Let me try to tackle that.

00:27:37.000 So, number one is the book.

00:27:39.000 I know you have a lot of young listeners and viewers.

00:27:43.000 One thing about the book is that I don't look at myself as any sort of esteemed expert.

00:27:48.000 I fell into the business between the U.S. and China like Michael Keaton did in that old movie, Gung-Ho.

00:27:55.000 It just happened.

00:27:56.000 I got fired from a company because I didn't get along with my boss. 0.97

00:28:00.000 And the only client that followed me out the door was this weird Chinese company back in 2000. 0.98

00:28:05.000 So I took a swing and it turned into what it turned into.

00:28:09.000 And the great thing about the book for anybody that's in college or looking to figure out where they're going to go in life, by the way, I'm sorry, but Mulan is causing my phone to ring too much.

00:28:21.000 No worries.

00:28:22.000 But if anybody's thinking, oh, to become an expert or to do what Chris Fenton's doing, you must have some master plan when you're a young kid.

00:28:30.000 No, that's not the case.

00:28:31.000 Only Charlie Kirk had that.

00:28:33.000 Most people fell into what they do and they just live life and they follow the opportunities.

00:28:39.000 And that's one of the parts of the book that I really like and I think are great for young readers.

00:28:44.000 The number two thing is there's no partisan aspect to it.

00:28:48.000 The reason for that is if we're going to address the challenge of China, it needs to be a red and blue, teamed up unity, unified effort. 0.79

00:28:59.000 They're one party, they're one message. 0.86

00:29:02.000 In this particular situation, we need to have both Democrats and Republicans and everybody else on board with the fact that we have a common enemy and we got to face this challenge together.

00:29:13.000 Part of where I see the hope that you asked for is that a unified approach is key to address any of these issues.

00:29:25.000 LeBron James, for instance, I get why there's so much hypocrisy involved with his response towards China, but I also get the fact that he has lots of money riding on China, whereas Senator Marco Rubio doesn't.

00:29:39.000 So it's easy to call out LeBron and say, hey, do the right thing.

00:29:43.000 But he loses a lot more in that process than, say, a single senator, who, by the way, is calling out an issue that should be called out too. 0.97

00:29:51.000 Where I see the hope is that China is like an adolescent. 0.97

00:29:56.000 It's like a teenager. 1.00

00:29:58.000 They had a curfew at 10 o'clock.

00:30:00.000 And over time, they pushed that curfew back to 2 a.m.

00:30:04.000 And after Daryl Maury, I suddenly am realizing, wait a minute, why is the curfew 2 a.m.?

00:30:10.000 And I think a lot of Americans are starting to realize that.

00:30:13.000 And the beauty of teenagers is that if parents or the adults in the room, America, decide, hey, enough is enough.

00:30:22.000 We're going to push back, teenagers retreat.

00:30:25.000 So, two reasons why I see hope.

00:30:28.000 One is they had a China, the CCP had an initiative called Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, where they were pretty much forcing countries to take on Belt and Road initiatives and also forced them to take this new narrative of the COVID virus and the fact that maybe it was generated in the U.S. or they had nothing to do with it.

00:30:49.000 They are actually the ones that tried to find the solution and look at how great they are.

00:30:53.000 They pushed that on a lot of countries in Europe.

00:30:56.000 Those countries pushed back.

00:30:57.000 They pushed it on us.

00:30:58.000 We pushed back.

00:30:59.000 They pushed it on Australia.

00:31:01.000 Australia pushed back.

00:31:03.000 Where is Wolf Warrior diplomacy right now?

00:31:05.000 It's non-existent.

00:31:07.000 It hasn't been around for two months.

00:31:09.000 That's because we pushed back in a unified front with various other nations.

00:31:14.000 The same thing can be said.

00:31:16.000 And we'll go back to LeBron James and the BLM movement and the civil rights movement here.

00:31:21.000 If it was just basketball, it was just the NBA pushing that narrative of we need better civil rights, we need policing to be much fairer and more balanced, et cetera, it might have fallen on deaf ears.

00:31:35.000 But what happened with the NBA is they were able to pull in all the other sports league.

00:31:38.000 And it actually took a nice movement that took place over the last two weeks to sort of push this agenda even further because there was a unified front on a domestic issue.

00:31:50.000 So let's take that to the international issue of China.

00:31:54.000 If the NBA wants to stand behind Daryl Maury and his First Amendment rights, they should stand behind it.

00:32:02.000 And the rest of the sports leagues and the rest of the celebrities in those sports leagues and all the different players from the Nikes and the Under Armers should stand behind Daryl Maury's free speech rights and say if you retaliate against China, retaliates against the NBA, China, then you're not getting any of our product, any of our service, any of our sports content.

00:32:23.000 We are pulling it out.

00:32:25.000 Hollywood, the same way.

00:32:26.000 You want to have the Taiwanese and Japanese flag on the jacket of Tom Cruise in the latest Top Gun movie.

00:32:34.000 Paramount, you have that right.

00:32:36.000 And we're going to stand behind you as Hollywood and stand behind you as Hollywood's partners like IMAX and Activision and Hasbro.

00:32:44.000 And if they retaliate against you, then we're going to stop sending our products, services, and content in there.

00:32:50.000 That type of unified front can make a change.

00:32:53.000 If it's just one lone wolf after another, it will just be sacrificial lamb, sort of whack-a-mole type of process.

00:33:00.000 So that's where it needs to be.

00:33:02.000 I guess my concern, though, is that's not happening and it should be.

00:33:05.000 And that's, yeah.

00:33:08.000 Okay.

00:33:08.000 So why it's not happening?

00:33:10.000 No, no, it's not happening because, I mean, these companies, quite honestly, don't care about our country, but that's a separate issue.

00:33:16.000 No, no, no.

00:33:17.000 But here, but I'm going to take it one step further.

00:33:21.000 It's conversations like these.

00:33:22.000 You have 2 million Twitter followers.

00:33:25.000 Like this conversation is going to hit 2 million followers.

00:33:29.000 And those followers are going to retweet it to their followers.

00:33:32.000 And every time we talk about this, the populace of the United States of America is going to put pressure on our business leaders and our political leaders.

00:33:41.000 We're already seeing it on the political leaders, especially on the right.

00:33:44.000 And we're starting to see it on the left, too.

00:33:46.000 I mean, Isaac Stonefish and Sonny Bunch at Washington Post have brought this to light in the left side of the aisle, which, by the way, the left should be all over this.

00:33:56.000 This is about freedom of expression.

00:33:57.000 It's a specific issue for them.

00:33:59.000 Yeah, human rights, freedom of expression, labor class, middle class, et cetera.

00:34:03.000 I mean, there's so many different things that are important to both sides of the aisle.

00:34:07.000 So it's conversations like this that are going to apply the pressure to get the ostrich head out of the sand.

00:34:13.000 And that is crucial.

00:34:15.000 That's so crucial.

00:34:16.000 And it's part of the reason why I wanted to get on this show because I knew you had a very strong young base, a base that quite frankly has to live in a U.S.-China world a lot longer than I do at the age of 49. 0.90

00:34:32.000 And it's super important that the movement of pressure on our leaders is just as strong with the young people in this country as it is with the old.

00:34:42.000 And quite frankly, it's going to come from the young because the more pressure we put on what we're doing with China, the more opportunities are going to be created here in the United States of America for the next generation to enjoy. 0.85

00:34:54.000 I agree.

00:34:55.000 Well, Chris, the book is, thank you again for coming, The Feeding the Dragon.

00:34:58.000 I encourage everyone to check it out.

00:35:00.000 The U.S.-China relationship is something that needs to really be addressed.

00:35:04.000 And, you know, I agree these conversations can make a very big impact and a very big difference, but it is incumbent on free citizens to stand up against totalitarianism wherever it rears its head.

00:35:16.000 Yeah, I really appreciate it.

00:35:17.000 And thank you for plugging the book.

00:35:20.000 And I'm excited about your young readers and your younger audience taking a look at this.

00:35:25.000 And of course, parents too, because this is something that's facing all generations, but the younger generations in particular.

00:35:33.000 And then my Twitter is the dragon feeder.

00:35:35.000 And we have a very good dialogue going back and forth on there.

00:35:38.000 So anyway, just keep patriotism before capitalism and we'll figure this out.

00:35:44.000 Thank you, Chris, so much.

00:35:45.000 And please, everyone, go check out the book.

00:35:47.000 Talk to you soon.

00:35:47.000 Thank you.

00:35:48.000 Bye.

00:35:52.000 Thank you guys so much for listening.

00:35:53.000 Please consider getting involved with Turning PointUSA.

00:35:56.000 Go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com.

00:35:59.000 Turningpoint USA is fighting on high school and college campuses across the country for freedom, for liberty, for American exceptionalism, and for a strong America for our generation.

00:36:08.000 Go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com.

00:36:11.000 Email us as always at freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:16.000 If you guys want to win a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, type Charlie Kirk Show into your podcast provider, hit subscribe, give us a five-star review, screenshot it, and email us, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:28.000 Thank you guys so much for listening.

00:36:30.000 God bless.

00:36:31.000 Talk to you soon.

The Charlie Kirk Show - September 10, 2020

Feeding the Chinese Dragon with Chris Fenton

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