up . >> thanks for a terrific conversation. >> ask for a terrific book. buy it for friends, buy itfor yourself . >> you're watching tv on c-span2. for a complete schedule visit booktv.org and you can also follow along behind the scenes on social media at book tv on twitter,instagram and facebook . >> open to our session here on china. this is probably among the most anguished panelists that we will have at this conference on the most important subject which is the people's republic of china and the communist party of china. it's a look at the problems there and i'd like to first introduce our panelists including myself. doctor michael pillsbury is a

senior fellow and director of the chinese energy at the huston institution. hudson institute. he's a distinguished defense and policy advisor, a former high-ranking government official andauthor of numerous books and reports on china . i can tell you definitively that might has really changed the us military's thinking. back a number of years ago he was sent to china to collect chinese military writings and he was the first american official who revealed that what the chinese were telling themselves militarily behind the scenes was quite different than what they were saying in public about how they wanted to be friends with the world and it really had a tremendous impact on understanding the militaries view of the people's republic ofchina . his book is a landmark book.

his most recent book is the hundred year marathon, china's secret strategy to replace america as a global superpower. this book is really a fascinating look and is probably one of the only places in public where you'll find information about chinese defectors, people from within the chinese communist party system will reveal what's going on there. before mike speaks i want to introduce general robert spalding tired of the us air force. he's a senior fellow at the hudson institute and he too is a distinguished china expert. he is, he spent time as a bomber pilot and also has been inside of china as a defense attachc being chased and tracking down the inside story of china. his most recent book is called stealth war: how china took over while america's elites slept. a little bit about myself.

as was mentioned i'm national security correspondent for the washington times, author of eight books and my most recent book is called seating the sky, inside communist china's drive for global supremacy and it's a follow-up to a book i wrote back in 2020 years ago called the china threat and as a resultof that , i've gained quite a reputation. back in 2006, the chinese news agency described me as the number one anti-china expert in the world to which i respond i very much pro-china, pro-chinese people but very much opposed to the communist party systemin china . with that let's begin with our first panelist doctor michael pillsbury. >> thank you bill. i thought i'd begin by revealing a new publication that's going to come out in about two weeks from the hudson institute.

you'll be able to get it online. it's called a guide to the trump administrations china policy statements. and it has a link to every one of about 200 statements or interviews or tweets by president trump and the top members of his team. the reason i put this together is i believe there's been a lot of misunderstanding and the left has also attacked president trump's china policy in many ways to distort what he's done and what his team has said and done over the last tree and a half years. as we begin the next days of the election campaign, i think we're going to hear more of this bill and rob. more attacks on the president either that he's been too soft on china and the biden team has already run several commercials where they imply president trump is soft on china and then vice president

joe biden comes on and says if i've been president i would have demanded xi jinping tell us what happened in wuhan with the virus and i'll sort of save you against president trump. i believe the president's policy towards china, i call it the three c's. ethan clear, coherent and comprehensive so i believe if you go through the documents which are organized according to subject matter although i've done a special section just for the president to and his obvious interviews. i believe you'll agree with me and i'll give you some examples to make sure you understand the range of debate among conservatives on china is actually very wide. it's not altogether clear where we're going with china policy over the last three days or what's going to happen in the next two decades. i'll give you one example. a conservative reporter wrote a book about jesus in beijing

. came out about 10 years ago. the forecast christianity will take over china and the leading largest nation in the world with christians will be china. totally wrong. he misunderstood some trends. it's a nice effort, it's a positive thoughts , wouldn't it be nice . completely false. another book is called the coming collapse of china . ice resident pence address this and the collapse of china was the number one book on china. the coming collapse of china. very popular author, i like him every much, his name is gordon chang. i said gordon, don't predict the year china will collapse in your book. leave some flexibility. no, it's going to be 2012 and he put 2012 in the book.

book came out in 2001. vice president pence sent since 2001 china's gdp, china's economic strength has grown by how much? 10 times. was there a coming collapse? no so in 2012 foreign policy magazine asks gordon give us an article, when is china going tocollapse? the feeling china was going to collapse is important because it means it's not going to be a problem very long so gordon wrote the article . he said it will collapse, i would have said maybe general spalding i don't know could have said 2050 or who knows. gordon wrote again 2013. one more year. this point of view infects a lot of thinking about china. so looking at the trump administrations statements you begin to get an idea of what the president is saying.

number one he said at least 10 times, i won't repeat it 10 times but i want to make sure everybody knows he's either tweeted or said this point 10 times. if hillary clinton had won the election china would be her passing us now. that's extremely important. the president and his team see china is coming close to us. the rake rate of economic growth, their military growth and other indicators are not to be trifled with and thought of as this is an easy challenge. i also want to mention my own book. i made mistakes throughout my career. i thought i was one of the original handoff huggers. i thought china would align with us not only against the soviet union but help us in the world as a whole. president nixon thought that and build in a recently

declassified memorandum president nixon tells chairman mao and the premier, we need you to bear more of the burden of global governance. we need china to have more armaments so we can have less . that's 1972. see how this thinking has consequences over the years? i very much believe that myself . so when you turn back to the trump administrations statements, one of the points they're making is the scale of the challenge. this is not panama or even venezuela. this is not a small country where dealing with. nuclear weapons, a serious navy most important of all a growth rate averaging more than 10 percent for 35 years and now looks like, nobody has an exact number, it looks like technology that was one part of that rapid growth. but there were two other parts that are very important

forwhat we do next . number one, was american capital. we seem to have been the largest investor in china for 30 years. and no one seems to know how to undo that area there's not even an exact number, some people think it's several trillion bill. several trillion us dollars invested in china. companies, private equity . general spalding begins his wonderful book with a story. he puts in that book he wants to write a paper andhe's fresh out of the air force . the grant is turned down. he tells the story in the first few pages. think tank residences ra, we can't fund yourprojects . general spalding looks at the list of members of the board. correct me if i'm wrong. billionaires, various people who mademoney from china . this is an enormous problem.

where in some sense influenced deeply about capital or china, how are we going to undothat ? it's going to take legislation which leads to my second point about what we do next and where china's growth came from. technology, restricting us capital and investment in china takes legislation. i counted more than 80 examples hill, 80 current examples of bills introduced by congressman or senators. to impose costs on china. including being able to sue china daily for damages for the china virus. generally speaking all of this legislation attracts four or six cosponsors area i was a senate staffer for 10 years. i know how to count. i know when senators cared about something they would tell us that notified me cosponsors.

when i introduced this bill i want 50 cosponsors and if you want to raise nextyear , i want to see cosponsors for my legislation. these 80 bills are being introduced sometimes with zero cosponsors other than one who drafted it and they're going nowhere. there are no hearings, the leadership doesn't put them up for a vote so we're in deep trouble. the senators and commercemen come on television , they still have to come on fox news. they see an audience of 4 million people. the host more and more the host are saying senator, how's your bill doing rid how many cosponsors have you got rid at extremely constructive . that people don't get away with just what sometimes is called virtue signaling. i'd like china, i want to stop them somehow. here's my bill, that's it. wash my hands and work on something else . that's another thing the

chinese are laughing at us, lots of people i meet within china have phd's american universities now advise the chinese government or they're in it. xi jinping's daughter, harvard graduate. they understand our system extremely well . last point really would be how our american influence operations inside china. to our ambassador to china always mandarin fluently. basically it's never happened . there's two or somewhat good but i wouldn't call them television show fluids. neither would day. how about our programs inside china reared their block, their jam. how about our magazine passed out by usia, nor usia, no more magazine so if we made a magazine of here's what china does for influence operations inside the united states and then we said i'd like to do that inside china.

it would be very very difficult not to mention and by the way, some senators have proposed this. what happened to the legislation just like i said, instead goes nowhere. it stays alive on fox news. i got a plan and thennothing happens . so i haven't had time to promote my own book. a your marathon. but basically it's a history. it's a history based on these classified documents of how we got here really how nacve and delusional american presidents and american policymakers including myself got here. and the book has now sold more than 200,000 copies. it's been translated into eight languages, all of china's neighbors. it's a bestseller so this is my challenge for general spalding area i read it to his book has sold 3000 copies so i'm six times more which but that doesn't meanthe

quality of my book is higher , maybe his book is better. not to mention our moderator does deceiving the sky, i don't know the sales figures but i hate to be delivering bad news it seems to me we're in for a kind of cold war with china. this is just the early phases and so far president trumphas turned things around . >> .. if you look at the record, there's the taiwan relations act which was passed basically after the u.s. recognized patient diplomatically. then there's the tiananmen

sanctions which remain in place. also the annual military power report that the pentagon has done. it's important codify these things. we are beginning to see that with the trump administration. let's turn to general spalding for your remarks. >> thank you, bill. it's an interesting thing that michael pillsbury talks about. his book was the first one i read one of a cut to the 2014. 2014. what i would tell people is just go read the concluding chapter actually get an understanding of a synopsis of what he was trying to say, and essentially it was that we had bent over backwards to up the chinese communist party grow into the power that it currently is. when i got to the pentagon in 2014, i was very much, what i would say a pin hugger.

michael pillsbury taught me how to be what he would now say is a super hawk. but i don't feel myself to be hawkish. i really focus on defending the american people and the american way of life, our constitution and, in fact, what you look at in the current national security strategy in addition to being clear, concise and comprehensive, it is about how we turned things around. while it's been noted and lauded, , it has been widely understood. my book "stealth war" is with the background and context behind the national security strategy and what the trump administration is attempting to do. if you want to know about how successful the president's foreign policy has been, i would refer you to the uk decision to reverse its decision with regard to allowing huawei to build its

5g networks. the media would have you believe that that decision was made overnight or maybe over a couple of months during this year as a result of the coronavirus but, in fact, it really demonstrates the power of the diplomatic effort undertaken by the department of state at the national security council, beginning in the first quarter of 2018 after the national security strategy was released. that diplomatic effort is something that we described in the national security council in 2017 as forging a new consensus. and really before you can address any problem or have planned or a strategy you willing to understand the problem. the main problem we were addressing was the inability of the united states to get its

interests promoted within international institutions and this lack of geopolitical power in those institutions. and the primary reason was because most of the nation's in those institutions were beginning to look to china and chinese model, its economic and political and social model, as more beneficial to its furthering their own interests, then being aligned with the american view of the world about democracy, human rights, civil liberties, rule of law and free trade. the fact the united states needed to forge a new consensus similar to the western consensus that sought to really bring democracies together again in aa very tight relationship economically, financially, through trade and information, to match its already strong

military alliances. that decision by the uk is emblematic of how successful that initiative and diplomacy has been. but we have also gotten a glimpse of china's response to that diplomatic initiative through the coronavirus in the aftermath. with regard to the coronavirus, many people talk about what is the origin of the virus. and i say, disregard that. clearly we're not going to help because not many public get investigators into china come into the lab to talk to the researchers that were working there to understand the line of effort of the research come to understand what happened. was there even any relation between the lab and the coronavirus? that's that's something we're going to know, but what we can know with certainty is that the chinese communist party decided

over this -- presided over the spread of the fibers. and it wasn't that they accidentally preside over the spread of the virus, or it's a manifestation or secondary effect of its institution. it was that they directly spread the virus. on january 7, xi jinping himself says he's in charge of wuhan crisis. on the 13th of january there's media reports about human to human transmission that come out in china. and, in fact, on the 14th of january, the world health organization tweets about human to human transmission get was going on during this critical time between the seventh of january when xi jinping was in charge of the crisis in wuhan and 23 23 january when the shun wuhan? what was happening is that not only was chinese communist party putting pressure on the world

health organization not to discuss human to human transmission, it was also locking down that the spread of that information within china. and, in fact, at the same time they were locking down ppe and mask inside china and outside of china through the proxy. over the course of a couple of weeks that began to turn into an import of masked with a previous event a net exporter of ppe en masse. the same time they shut down domestic travel from wuhan but allowed international travel to go forth. now, so this essentially had a net effect of putting them into the lead position with regard to the spread of the pandemic. they knew was going to impact the chinese society. they wanted to make trade sure t impacted of the societies as well and that they had the means to really prop it from and to

have a chance from it. and so what we're seeing today and michael pillsbury talks about it, is the beginning of the second cold war and really the pandemic spread by the chinese communist party is opening shots of the second cold war. interestingly, not only do they uncork this spreading pandemic but they also uncork a new form of diplomatic and informational war. if you go back, and michael pillsbury was a very good historian can talk to you all about how the chinese communist party overthrew the nationalist party, but me as a strategist and as a war fighter can tell you that the way the chinese think about war, the way that mao really imbued within the chinese communist party the thinking about war is that as

opposed to the way we look at it in specifically between the idf peacetime in wartime and that war is politics by other means, in other words, you use warfare to get to a political outcome and, in fact, the chinese communist party thinks the opposite way. that politics is war by other means. in other words, the entire war is about the political war and that, in fact, the chinese, or the coronavirus is the beginning of a political offensive against the free world. how does it manifest itself in the diplomatic and information components, in the diplomatic effort they begin to have this what they call wolf warrior diplomacy and they begin to spread the idea that this coronavirus didn't manifest itself in china but, in fact, it was spread by the united states. the latest thing gets it is it's been spread by spain.

on the informational effort, 40% of the social media post with regard to the coronavirus turn out to be box. this is state centered activity influencing our social media and, in fact, you see the same kind of activity follow the riots and looting -- bots -- that come on the tail of the coronavirus. so you really are beginning to get a glimpse of the manifestation in the 21st century of what the kernels called unrestricted warfare. or in another translation, war without rules. it is that there is no difference between peacetime and wartime. in fact, we are always at war and, in fact, there are no rules and, in fact, everything within the bounds of the conflict. if you think about that in the context of world war ii, the french built the line to prevent the germans from conquering them. in fact, the germans went around

the line and, in fact, conquered the french. in the case of the united states we built this wonderful machine for war, air force, space force now, marines, army, navy that really protects us, the physical manifestation of our world from invasion when, in fact, the way that the chinese communist party seeks to wage war is through information and politics. in other words, they are trying to change the character of our society and our political process through the connections of the internet and globalization. and, in fact, they have been very, very successful. so the second cold war is going to be nothing like the first cold war in where america's strengths aligned very, very well vis-à-vis the soviet union and the first cold war, our strengths have been turned into vulnerabilities in the second cold war. and, in fact, our strengths of

openness actually become a vulnerability as the chinese communist party seeks to use innovation, technology, talent and capital from free societies in an essentially comprehensive battle for hearts and minds of the free world. and they have been very, very successful, not just billionaires in the united states believe that the chinese communist party has a better system, many, many diplomats in the eu and the united nations believe so as well. and, in fact, it is the constitution as i write in my book that has essentially given us a shot. because in the constitution it says rather than the leaders of a country having dominion over the population, in fact, the people have dominion in the united states. and, in fact, they can elect new leaders that think differently about the problem and bring forth new solutions.

i think we're going to see what i would call political warfare at a hyper scale going forward, but it's important to note that here in the united states it need not be, partisan. it's not necessarily between the right and the left. it is, in fact, between this idea of a constitution of democracy versus a more authoritarian system. and, in fact, the more that we understand that, it's not a partisan divide really but it's a divide about how we should govern ourselves and how people should govern the government rather than governments governing people. that will be the center of the site going for. so look forward to the discussion that follows. >> great, thanks so much. general spalding was very instrumental in bringing about an awareness of the 5g issue which of course is really one of

the most important technology confrontations the country is facing right now, and he was really a hero at the white house in alerting the world to that problem. i'd like to spend a few minutes talking about what i call the china threat. was going to show up powerpoint but i won't. it's too complex to be able to do that but i'd like to start out my talk but talking about this matter of the china threat. it brings be back to the late 1990s when as report of the washington times i was doing a story on the pla, the people's liberation army and the defense intelligence agency had agreed to commit background briefing on that. so went to the pentagon and into their secure area and the gaping a fairly vanilla briefing on pla. at the end end of the briefinga colonel came in and said, with a stern look, said the general would like to see you. the general general was the dif the defense intelligence agency,

and so we sat down in a conference room and he said that at the end of the table and you look at me and he said bill, china is not a threat. i was shocked and i said, why do you think that? essentially his response to me was, because they tell us they are not a threat. this really informing that the situation, not just within the u.s. government within the private sector, but when the intelligence community itself and even the subset of intelligence community which is responsible for informing our military leaders in wartime had been deeply influenced by the notion that china posed no threat. it was a short time after that in the early 2000 that it came to be public that one of the top china analysts within the defense intelligence agency turned out to be a chinese spy his name was ron might appear to

turkey was convicted of mishandling classified information. he was not convicted as a spy but the case revealed he had close ties the two military -- chinese military attaches at the chinese embassy in washington and there was a compromise that some serious classified information. so you could see that this issue of the china threat, so i titled my 2000 book the china threat which is a play on what the chinese communist party and government call the china threat three. in other words, as mike knows that chinese diplomatic foreign and intelligence personnel are tasked to study around the world the level of opposition to the communist parties modernization program. they take the actions accordingly. the play on it was the china threat. in my new book which came out 20 years later, "deceiving the sky," i spent a lot of time

looking at chinese communist party geology and i would like to spend my time talking about four recent speeches which a been given by senior trump administration officials. and i've been fortunate enough to actually have traveled with white house national security adviser robert o'brien and just last week secretary of state mike pompeo for the speeches. the first speech was given by robert o'brien in phoenix. it was a landmark speech a high-level speech in the sense that identified communist ideology. for the first time a senior official had really come out and said we are facing not just an economically powerful communist party of china, but i communist party in chinese government which remain marxist-leninist work that is again the marxist-leninist ideology is motivating their actions.

i can remember, actually mike and i many years ago we did a debate in new york on whether china was a threat. we were on the side that that said it was a threat. but a but a businessman on the r side said i've done business in china for 20 is an have never met a calmness. i said you need to go to beijing and visit the museum which us and will do on one of my visits. they have statues of all the communist leaders, marx, engels, lenin, even stalin is still revered in china. in fact, that was one of the key points of the speech was china remained a stalinist state. they have never rejected stalin. we are seeing that more and more with the emergence of xi jinping who has assumed more power in china than any later since mao. the second major speech that was given was more recent was fbi director christopher wray, and

this again was another unprecedented speech. in fact, director wray said the information that he provided in his speech about chinese intelligence and espionage was the most information that the fbi has ever made public on a threat from china. he talked in grand terms about the problem facing the country. and again this had earlier been highlighted by the white house which issued a report called china's economic aggression against the united states. peter navarro was instrumental in that, you heard earlier. and basically this view that the chinese are on the march, they are working nonstop. director wray said on average the fbi opens a brand-new case related to chinese national security every ten hours. of the 5000 cases that the fbi

is investigating, half are related to chinese. this is an amazing story, and it's unfolding on almost a weekly basis. as a reporter who is covered these issues i can remember a decade would go by before and administration would prosecute a chinese spy case under the top administration, chinese spying has taken a massive hit. and just last week as i was flying home from los angeles with secretary of state pompeo, i was able to write a story about a chinese singaporean consultant who was indicted basically for being an unregistered chinese agent. almost on a weekly basis china's agents are being uncovered. in addition to that the fbi is now focused on what it calls chinese malign influence operations. they are beginning to look at

what she's been known in cold war terms back in the days of the soviet union as fellow travelers, those that are assisting chinese in its influence operations. it was like his head a a monumental speech by the director here the third speechs given by attorney general bill barr, and bill barr took on the task of really identifying these people that are supporting china, acting as agents of china. many of them are in the business community, and the way china does it, they do it to coercion. they go to the top officials, bankers, the business people. you want to continue doing business in china? you lobby for us against the top administrations hard-line policy against china. it's a serious problem. it has not been fully rectified yet. they begin to first of all identified these people, beginning to inform them that you could, in fact, be

prosecuted under the foreign agents registration act which makes it a crime to lobby and be representing a foreign governments interest without first registering it. we've seen a few of those cases surface in recent months. last was i think the cap of the four speeches was by secretary of state mike pompeo at the nixon library, a very poignant venue for that. before the speech pompeo was given a two of the nixon library and have separate china exhibit where the show this great opening to china which was is e back in the 1970s under nixon and kissinger. and yet the speech was informative because for the first time secretary of state pompeo was saying that the engagement policy, that is, the

policy of unfettered engagement of the people's republic of china, had failed. the idea behind that engagement policy was that if we trade with china, if we engage in diplomatically, economically and politically, on every level, that this would have a moderating influence and he would lead to a changing of the system, that they would abandon communism and a would see that they should develop a free and open system. it was an utter failure. in fact, what i call in "deceiving the sky" as a for your gamble, this idea that if we just trade with china they will become a moderate nonthreatening power, has failed. so what you're seeing now is the early stages of a brand-new policy, as general spalding said the national security strategy is important first step. it doesn't go far enough, however though, and identifying china as the enemy. the reason for that is china is

engaged in unrestricted warfare against the united states. this is a cold war, but the problem has been that only one side has been fighting it, and that is china. the u.s. has been asleep at the wheel up until the trump administration. and now they're beginning to recognize that we face a foe that is an existential threat. we have many different threats around the world, russia, iran, north korea. but in my view there is one supreme threat, and that is dealing with china. it will take all of our energy as a nation to deal with that threat and counter that threat. i present some ideas and solutions for that. the first step is again to go beyond declaring china ss digit competitor but to clinton as an enemy -- as as a strategic competitor. notches to undermine our system but to literally destroy it. xi jinping's notion of the

chynna greene is really a chinese nightmare -- dream. a supreme role. in order for china to achieve that role they must diminish and ultimate defeat the united states. i would go back, summing appear on intelligence issue, and i focus a chapter on this issue obvious intelligence community has been woefully deficient in understanding the threat from china. this has been a problem that has been going on for years. it has been -- little has been written about it. it's beginning to come to the fore but for many, many years our intelligence agencies were giving us bad information. that problem of analyzing the collected information took a major hit beginning in 2010 and that's when chinese intelligence or counterintelligence was able to begin unraveling the cia's

recruited agent network inside china. as many as 27 of the cia's agents were caught many of them were executed, including one that was brought out into the central square of one of the ministries and executed on the spot in front of a large number of chinese intelligence personnel. the message was unmistakable, that they're going to aggressively pursue in efforts to learn what's going on. this is a problem because without understanding the nature of the chinese threat, without good intelligence we are never going to be able to formulate policies. so to sum up i think the ultimate solution here is that the united states really needs to continue this policy of really confronting china, really making sure that we bring about a different kind of system there. you can call it regime change. i think the terms that pompeo

used was to induce change in china. that is, to use the levers of power, economic, political, military to bring about change. he pointed out the chinese leadership is not united. xi jinping sidley austin power in 2012 has undertaken a massive purge. if you understand the nature of the communist party system in china, it's very much like a mafia system. controlled by powerful families, some of them in shanghai, some of them in beijing, some of them in other parts of the country and they operate on a family level. they have stolen billions and billions of dollars from the chinese people as part of this modernization that is been underway. once again i got to complement the trump administration. i think they're very much following a policy that ronald reagan followed in defeating the

soviet union. and that was going after china's ability, inability to develop technology and innovate. we understood they had been stealing use technology and intellectual property to the tune of 250 billion a year to as much as 600 billion a year. the trump administration is trying to cut that off with the idea let's see if the chinese miracle can survive without stealing american technology. at this point, however, i may have taken so much of our technology that it may be difficult to really cut them off and see if they can survive. at this point we will be, i will conclude there and we will accept any questions that anyone has right now. we have 15 minutes more. >> yes. [inaudible question]

[inaudible question] the the president has the authoy to stop chinese people -- companies that are in some number the pentagon is that more than 20 from doing business in this country. we talked about this before whether it's statutorily authorized explicitly or simply implicitly. under the international emergency economic powers act, he has the authority without

having to get anybody in congress to do anything to shut down those companies. and, frankly, i can't imagine a more powerful signal to the chinese companies -- chinese commies party, think you're right, as -- [inaudible] has come to the conclusion that we are -- and absolute certain they're not going to get any legislation through congress. [inaudible] my question to you is, have you expressed upon he does that have that authority. >> was before we had to let me sum up the question. i'm not sure audience was able

to that. he asked about the president having -- >> the danger from china. >> yes, and he asked about does the president have a current authority to prevent a pla linked company from doing business in the united states? >> i would say frank gaffney is correction of the is correct. the president does have the power to declare emergencies and conduct punishment or cost imposing charges towards china. he did that in the case of the hong kong executive order. a lot of people are astonished because the press did not cover that emergency declaration. its action on the first page of the executive order. so yes, the president can do that. the president's i have known hesitate to get out in front of the congress on controversial issues. so you are right, but to defend

myself i would say the president probably looks at how very few cosponsors there are for all these bills i mentioned. actually it's not 80. it's 120. the white house can see that yes, we have robert spalding was rick book. build great, great book, my comments, bill buckley in 1972 opposing nixon's trip while he was there in beijing with nixon saying these are nazis. with unlimited 50 years of conservative warnings. what president came to look at consensus or the majority view or how much will i be attacked for this. so i think my view is still correct, frank, that legislation, maybe it is not totally necessary but it would certainly help a lot. >> attaway, , you sound like you're a former senate staffer.

[laughing] >> is that correct? >> that is correct. >> any comment on that? >> well, i do believe the president has many authorities and i think the answer that michael crawford is only partially correct because in reality the political consensus was in washington, d.c. -- proffered -- is very much driven by the corporate sector and wall street donates the money. and, in fact, they have all been incentivized by the chinese communist party because of the profits they have earned on behalf of the chinese communist party. it is not just politics. it's also about the money trail. if you follow the money trail you'll find it leads through corporate america and wall street directly to the chinese communist party. so in essence what the party does is essentially curry favor in our political system through

these connections. >> i would just add on the issue decoupling, one of the digestion set up and his we need to decouple our economy from china and that's part of the problem. we're so integrated right now. the figures you mention, trillions of dollars in investment in china. the united states can't just walk away from china right now, but the need to do in a way that's responsible and careful and protects american interests. my view is that president trump is very transactional figure. he's not a career politician. he works through things that happen and does want to foreclose his way of doing a deal with someone. so he's not an ideological person in there for think legislation is really needed on a lot of these issues because all of the best things that have happened, as i mentioned earlier, were related to legislation. despite the hyper partisanship

in washington these days, one area of emerging bipartisanship is the issue of the china threat. i think that needs to be developed and we need to find a way to really build up a bipartisan consensus and then i think we can get some legislation that will fix a lot of these problems. >> there is a challenge here and that is the fundamental misunderstanding of the chinese communist party. there is a belief on behalf of wall street and corporate america that that money is still available to be brought back and, in fact, that money is gone. and none of them want to take a haircut. so there's a famous saying that says if you find yourself at the bottom of a whole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. the problem is that the chinese communist party has convinced wall street and corporate america that they should keep digging, somehow they would get this money back and this is the challenge we face. >> any other questions?

>> somebody should add the role of the committee on president of molecular the vice-chairman here, it's important this committees website, its activities, it's meetings. this is really sending a message that this is not a small minority of people who are worried about china. it's a broader group the net and the membership is growing. >> questions? okay. we have a few minutes left. you want to make a couple final comments. >> was yesterday. i want to say the china threat, that's very important. before that and also in 2005 there were other quite eloquent warnings about china. i just mention to frank the

columns of bill buckley. i listen to a tape recently for my next book in its kissinger talking to nixon, shall we bring bill buckley along with us to beijing? and kissinger says no, he will disrupt everything and cause trouble. nixon says welcome we need him because he's the most famous conservative of the time. another example is constantine mingus. in the book i think you wrote a forward to. constantine mingus wrote very, very long seven-page so gathering storm about the china threat. specific ideas. the u.s. should sponsor and fund a chinese government or parliament in exile that meets annually and talks about ideas to induce change in china. nothing happen. but the idea still creeps around and then hundred your marathon i tracked on how much money do we spend as the federal government

on democracy rule of law, information operations come inside china. i would say it's utmost $50 million a year. department of justice has a program, state, usaid, most of our departments actually have programs inside china. t million dollars is nothing. this is a 14, 15 trillion economy. they will surpass us if we don't do the right thing. we can't afford more than $50 million, democracy and human rights and the rule of law projects in china? is just ridiculous. i don't want to be pessimistic. i know dave brat is an optimist by nature but we have to turn things around before it's too late. >> actually the book was called china, the gathering threat. >> correct. >> it's important to understand the power of silicon valley and are information space today. and the power they have learned

to the chinese communist party, the ability to influence individuals using their own data. this is the chief challenge a a 5g. it's not just about huawei pickets all about alibaba and ten ten since come the chinese version of facebook, amazon and google. that seeks to eventually dominant facebook, amazon and google and dominate the world of data. the chinese strategy for artificial intelligence dominance is to become the saudi arabia of data, and that's really what they're doing today. >> my final comments i would just say i think the model for defeating the communist party of china needs to be adapted from the model that mikhail gorbachev used to bring down the soviet union. that is -- we need to break through the firewall in china and get information into the chinese people. if we do that, the chinese people will get rid of the communist party of china. so thank you all.

[applause] >> i just want to say a special thanks to this panel. i like moderating, but i know when the panel is above my pay grade, and so i asked bill gertz to moderate this panel. and liberty assumes students ae watching out there. we've got a ton of folks streaming two different shows across the country. i just want to let you know who you just heard from. these are the three best book authors in the country by far. all other titles are not exactly rosy sinners. they're not optimist. i'm an optimistic calvinist if there is such a thing. michael pillsbury on 100 your marathon. a war -- 100 your marathon. the general on "stealth war," and bill gertz on "deceiving the sky." so deceptive offense is in the clouds, the defenses under the earth and the emperor doesn't know it's going on. all three of these gentlemen,

please google them, learn from them, look at their bios, see who they are because what they just said to you is profound for the i can put in 30 seconds. but it's an honor to be on the stage with these three gentlemen. i will just personalize it. their books and the message they deliver is risky for them to be out there putting out the truth the way they do it. and so i want to thank them on behalf of the fall kirk center, president falbo, charlie kirk and ryan who helped put this together but let's give them a big one round of liberty applause. thank you, gentlemen. thanks for all you do. [applause]

>> during a virtual event council on foreign relations present richard haass talked about the state of the world and the foreign policy challenges facing the united states. here's a portion of that discussion. >> the pandemic tells us first and foremost of the world matters, and that's perhaps an obvious thing for a member of the council on foreign relations but it's not obvious for everybody. what happens around the world doesn't state of in this case there was a small city in china in wuhan were a virus broke down. at worst altima spread through china and spread to the united states and elsewhere around the world. on 9/11 it was tariffs trained in afghanistan. other various times it was what we've seen with climate change coming from everywhere,

financial condition from this or that other country. what this should tell us is these oceans come the atlantic and the pacific are not modes. there's no drawbridge to pull up their sovereignty, whatever else it is is not the same thing as security. we are affected by what happens in the world. foreign policy is what we do in turn affects the world. there's a loop but the most important message to take care is the world matters and isolationism, the nile, , stickg her head in the sand, whatever else would you call it a symbol not a serious or viable strategy. >> you talk a length about the interconnectedness of the globe and the interdependence. how has the american response to this global crisis reflected some other things that you bring up, the notable absence come for example, of the u.s. in the european convening come to tackle vaccine for covid-19? >> this has not been a good

experience come , shall we say,r demonstration of u.s. connectedness to the world but again it begins with the fact were connected or not. how we respond to it is a choice. globalization itself is a reality. as you say, we chose not to participate in the european led up to pool resource come intellectual and financial to work toward a vaccine. it seems to me that probably reduces the chance that effort will succeed or succeed quickly. that also means that if the were to succeed, we would be very hard pressed to make the argument that we ought to be towards the front of the queue. think a lot of europeans and others would say you were not there when we needed you, now suddenly you need this, why should we favor you over others? that have hurt us. i think moore has hurt us, example we set. it's an important part of what foreign policy is is not to stt what diplomats say or do, it's that what soldiers are to as

important as those things are. it's the example we set. the functioning and vibrancy of our democracy. when we have equality for all americans, our economy grows at a healthy clip or in this case how we respond to a foreign challenge no one around the world gets up at a morning and says i want to do this just like america, i really respect how they are doing it. inconceivable that sentiment is being expressed. >> to watch the rest of this program visit our website booktv.org and search richard haass or the title of his book the world. >> the evening. to two nights virtual program. we will be discussing breaking the truth of the true impact of the atomic bomb. we are honored to host tonight speakers come lesley blume, the author of the new book united states who will be joined in