On this episode of China Uncensored,
it's Cold War 2: Electric Boogaloo!
But with less dancing and more stealing stuff.
Hi, Welcome to China Uncensored.
I'm your host, Chris Chappell.
A bomb dropped at the Aspen Security Forum last week.
OK, a figurative bomb.
The director of the FBI revealed
that biggest long-term threat to the United States right now
is Russ--just kidding.
"I think China from a counterintelligence perspective,
in many ways represents the broadest,
most challenging,
most significant threat we face as a country...
We have economic espionage investigations in every state,
all fifty states, that trace back to China."
Really?
The FBI has open investigations into Chinese spying
in all 50 states?
Like I totally get California for technology,
or New York for finance,
or Hawaii for the military bases.
But what are Chinese spies going to steal in, like, Iowa?
What's that, Shelley?
OK, corn.
They stole corn.
Look, I don't want to play into stereotypes here,
but shouldn't they be stealing our rice?
What's that, Shelley?
They did steal rice from Kansas.
OK then.
Moving on.
The FBI's not alone in raising an alarm
about Chinese spies in America.
Here's Michael Collins from the CIA.
"By their own terms, and what Xi Jinping himself enunciates,
I would argue that...what they're waging against us
is fundamentally a cold war.
A cold war not like we saw during THE Cold War.
But a cold war by definition.
A country that exploits all avenues of power licit and illicit,
public and private, economic and military,
to undermine the standing of your rival
relative to your own standing
without resorting to conflict."
Ok, I got it.
It's not THE Cold War.
It's A cold war.
But on the plus side,
it kind of validates what I've been saying
on China Uncensored for the past six years.
It almost sounds like the CIA is taking money from me.
That's a terrible idea.
Please don't take my money.
But it's not just US intelligence officials speaking out
about what's going on with the Chinese regime.
US politicians are talking about it, too.
"The biggest issue of our time in my view,
and I think in the view of most of members of this committee,
and I would venture to guess most the members of this panel—
is its China and the risks they pose.
I'm not sure
in the two hundred and forty some odd year history of this nation
we've ever faced a competitor and potential adversary
of this scale, scope, and capacity."
But one thing to remember is that,
even though we're in A cold war,
the good old days of THE Cold War spy versus spy are history.
You know, the simpler times, when an Iron Curtain separated
the Soviet East from the Free West,
and Russian spies had Austrian accents.
"How do you Soviets deal with all the stress?"
"Vodka."
Today, the cold war between the US and China
is much more complex.
"The United States and the Soviet Union
had minimal interaction in the economic and academic spheres,
as the two sides maintained strict barriers to mutual trade
and academic exchanges.
Today, by contrast,
the United States and China are deeply intertwined
in economic, trade, academic, and other realms,
posing unique challenges for the United States
across a range of areas."
A lot of these "cold war" strategies
that CIA official Michael Collins mentioned earlier
were outlined in the 1999 book "Unrestricted Warfare,"
written by two Chinese People's Liberation Army colonels.
They clearly understood the strategic use of lasers,
space planes, and random planets
to strike fear in the hearts of people in the 90s.
But they also had a deep understanding
of how to wage subtle warfare against the US
in ways that were hard to counteract.
For example, by using financial influence
to change Hollywood plotlines to be pro-Beijing.
Like in Transformers 4,
where Hong Kong citizens look to the Chinese government
to rescue them.
"We've got to call the central government for help!"
Or by setting up Confucius Institutes across the US
to teach free Chinese classes—
and in exchange control the conversation
about how China is portrayed.
Always as a benevolent partner,
in case you were wondering.
And yes, they even have Confucius Institutes in Iowa.
And honestly, that stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.
Here's a 30-page report the White House published in June
that lists dozens of ways the Chinese regime
is trying to undermine the US,
by buying, or stealing,
or even using so-called "Chinese law"
to forcibly transfer American technology.
For example, they have laws that force US companies
to "surrender key technologies to Chinese authorities,
such as source code and encryption algorithms"
as a requirement to operate in the Chinese market.
And then, the Chinese regime plans to use this technology
to eventually out-compete US companies in China,
and around the world.
It's a type of economic and ultimately political warfare.
The Chinese Communist Party has been doing this stuff
a long time, of course.
But it seems that in just the past few months,
US officials have been far more vocal about their concerns
than at any time I can recall.
This bill, sponsored by US Senator Marco Rubio,
aims to have more than a dozen congressional committees
share intelligence and produce an unclassified report
on the Chinese Communist Party's
political influence operations in the US.
And it also aims to share intelligence on the Communist Party
with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Taiwan—
which all face similar threats.
Which sounds like a pretty good idea.
At least people are finally starting to realize
what the Chinese Communist Party is doing.
If only there had been a way for people to find out about
these issues years ago, on, for example,
some kind of YouTube channel.
Speaking of which, I'm going to coin the phrase "Cold War 2".
That's right, you heard it first on China Uncensored.
Wait, what's that, Shelley?
"Cold War 2" is the name of a B movie from Hong Kong?
Ugh.
So what do you think?
Leave your comments below.
And before we go, it's time for me to answer a question
from one of our fans who contributes a dollar or more per episode
via the crowdfunding website Patreon.
Wolf Xu aks:
"There is a rationale among many Chinese that
since China is so large and diverse,
implementing American style democracy
on its political system right away
will only bring about chaos,
like what happened in Iraq or Syria,
if not worse.
I'm wondering if you want to comment on that?"
Good question, Wolf.
To understand the rationale that China can't handle democracy,
first look at who the main supporters of that rationale are.
Why...it's Chinese state-run media!
Yes, democracy is not a universal truth,
nor is it a universal way to solve the problem
of governing the country.
Look, the Chinese Communist Party
doesn't want Western style democracy in China,
because it knows that a lot of people
would reject the Party if given the choice.
But would democracy even work in China?
Well, it's worked well in Taiwan,
which is full of Chinese people.
And it's also worked decently in India,
which has a population almost as big as China,
and the people there are on average
less wealthy and have less education.
If over the last 5,000 years,
China could build some of the most glorious civilizations
the world had ever seen,
it can certainly handle a little democracy.
Now I'm not saying American style democracy
is the only path China could take.
But anyone who says Chinese people
aren't capable of having democracy
is either buying into the Communist Party's false agenda,
or just being racist.
Ahem, Jackie Chan.
Thanks for your question Wolf.
And thank all of you for watching.
Once again, I'm Chris Chappell.
See you next time.
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